Pocket Express Interview with Margaret Cho

I’m on hold waiting for Margaret Cho to finish another interview. Spanish Flamenco music plays in the background, and while I’m waiting I review a list of what Cho, the recipient of the first ever Best Comedy Performance award at the 2007 Asian Excellence Awards, has been up to.

It’s a long list, and that’s why I’m glad that Cho, who is going to be starring in her own TV series, “The Cho Show,” on VH1 starting August 21 and is also beginning another new tour (Cho tours like most of us drink water) this fall, has time to talk to Red about what’s going on.

Your father wrote joke books, albeit in Korean, which you thought were corny. He, at times according to your comedy routines, thought that your jokes were a little risqué. Now he and your mother are appearing with you on your new TV show. How is that working out?

It’s great. My parents love being on the show and I love having them. And now my father and I both laugh at each other’s jokes. My mother is very funny too.

Can you describe “The Cho Show”?

I think of the show as an amalgam of a reality show and a sitcom, it’s something new in that way. It’s not completely scripted.

You recently appeared on “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List.” I think of you as A list so what gives with that?

I think I’m A list too, but Kathy is one of my best friends and I love her show. It was exactly what I thought it would be and it was a lot of fun.

You’re also going out on your “Beauty Tour” this fall. Can you tell us what it means to you?

So many people don’t feel beautiful because the standards for beauty are so rigid. I wanted to do this because I was asked on a radio show what I would feel like if I were beautiful. It was like, “What? Does that mean I’m not beautiful?” But the question was “If you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful, what would you do? If you were, blonde, blue-eyed, 5 foot 11, and weighed 100 pounds, what would you do? ” And I said I probably couldn’t stand up because I’d be too weak. If that is his only idea of beauty then I feel really sorry for him. But I want everyone to feel beautiful and I want to do it with laughter so this comedy tour is all about celebrating everybody’s beauty. Why shouldn’t we feel good about ourselves?

You’ve also just completed Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors tour. With everything else you have going on, why did you sign up for that?

Cyndi Lauper asked me, and I was thrilled because I’m a huge fan of hers and a huge fan of all of the artists on the tour, so I was really excited to be able to do it.

Last year you made the film “Two Sisters” about belly dancing. What is your interest in that subject?

I’ve been interested in belly dancing for a long time. It’s harder than most people realize but it’s how I stay in shape. I also like directing and hope I get to do more of it.

Margaret Cho, whose humor can outrage, also shows a sensitive side, coming across as both touchingly vulnerable and extremely tough. On stage she has talked about surviving an eating disorder, horrendous adolescent rejection and a myriad of other difficulties in what has been a roller coaster life.

She projects all those emotions in her comedy that for her—and often the audience—is part therapy but all humor. Everyone laughs while at the same time they understand the emotional pain that she’s gone through and that her ability to connect with an audience and make them see the humor in her pain is what has gotten her through. Comedy is, for her, survival. Cho talks to Red about the early influences that hurt but made her funny.

Did being of Korean descent and growing up in American cause you problems?

It had nothing to do with culture or race. It was that I was a natural outsider just by my personality and my way of being. I just was never the kind of person that just fit in. I was never somebody that could do it even if I wanted to. I was like a natural kind of outcast.

You describe yourself as shy growing up, but also taking to the stage in your teens. Was that hard to do?

I didn’t really have anything to lose. It was like I don’t care. It didn’t matter and that was great because I had nothing to fix. I mean the point where I was actually doing comedy; I was very much a reject. I had been rejected by my family because they didn’t approve of what I wanted to do with my life. I was expelled from high school for bad grades. It was horrible. And I don’t know if it was so much determination that put me on stage as it was that I had lost everything, or as much as you can have as a 16 year old. I thought if I don’t have a home to go to and if I don’t have a college to go to, I might as well do this.

Last year you told an interviewer that you love tattoos and that about 15 to 20 percent of your body is covered in them. Are you still adding tattoos to your body?

Yes, I’m going to get another next week by a new artist. I choose tattoos instinctually, I see one that I think will work. I think about 20 to 30 percent of my body is covered with tattoos now.

Does it hurt?

It’s extremely painful but I do it because I don’t want to wear jewelry.

You say you travel about three or four days a week and then spend the rest of the week at your house in Southern California. Do you ever just relax?

When I’m not working, I just watch TV and that’s like work itself. Besides, I get crazy depressed when I’m not working, so it’s just better for me to keep working.

–Interview by Jane Ammeson, RED Editorial Staff.
–Photos courtesy of Austin Young.