GR: What is your latest comedy show about?
MC: My latest show is about when I had my television show, “All-American Girl,” how I got it, what happened during it, and how horrible the entire experience was. It set me into a four-year depression which I finally have been able to come out of.

GR: Aren’t you sick of talking about your old TV show?
MC: I don’t know, because it was such a big part of my life, I’m not really sick of talking about it. It sucked to be associated with it for so long and now I’m just finally able to be honest with it which feels so much better. Plus, that’s all people know about-that I had that TV show. 

GR: The show was from so long ago, but five years later it seems bigger than ever.
MC: It is way bigger now. Honestly, after it happened. I was just like, “I’ll get over it, it’s no big deal,” but I think because it was the first Asian-American show on TV, there was so much political   and social importance on It. You can’t discount it; there hasn’t been anything like that since. Also, it affected my behavior and my life for so long in such a negative way because I didn’t feel good after it. But now I could just tell the truth about what happened and I’m okay with it...
 

ALL-AMERICAN BACKLASH

GR: What was the worst type of backlash that happened when the TV show was over?
MC: First was the weight issue. They didn’t think I looked right for the part, and they wanted me to lose weight for it, so I lost an incredible amount of weight really fast and wound up in the hospital. And the weight comments didn’t stop. In the critical assessments of the show, there were constant reminders of what a television star should look like. I think it was kind of an anti-Korean thing because the note that came to me mostly was that the network had a problem with the fullness of my face. Korean people have round faces traditionally; it’s just like a cultural trait. They were like “Can’t you look a little bit white?”or “Can’t you at least try?” They wanted to give me more “television” features. I’m not even sure what that means! So I think it was racial.

Second, I was so distracted by trying to have to lose weight that I couldn’t focus on the show being funny. And it was not funny, and it totally got away from me. And I don’t think that the show was stereotypical or racist in any way. I didn’t think it was offensive. I just thought it was mediocre and middle-of-the-road. So people were really critical of me and hated the show because it just wasn’t funny. 

And then there was the third backlash, which was the hardest to deal with: the Asian-American backlash. Asian-American people, for the most part, were really offended by it, and thought it was stereotypical. That was really hard to take. In the newspaper, they printed a letter in the editorial section about a little Korean girl from Simi Valley who was 12 years old. She wrote in and said, “When I see Margaret Cho on television, I feel deep shame.” It was so mean. There’s stuff like that all the time. And this Korean media action leader said in an article about the show that he had been monitoring my activities, and he would protest at the first opportunity. That was so crazy. So I called him up and I started screaming at him that he was a fucking cock and stuff. They were just so critical and that really hurt me. I had to fight the network to be here, I’m totally anorexic trying to please them, then I’m rejected by my own community who aren’t seeing the importance of what I’m doing and aren’t supportive of me at all! I felt like my existence was pointless.
 

THE REPERCUSSIONS

GR: So what happened?
MC: By the time the show was cancelled, I was devastated. I felt really bad about the show, and of course I could have done a better job, but I wasn’t able to because of the way the network was. It was really hard.

GR: What channel was it on?
MC: It was on ABC.

GR: Who wrote “All-American Girl”? Is he busted? What does he do now?
MC: A guy named Gary Jacobs. I think he’s successful. I mean, a lot of writers from the show went on to be very successful. I mean, really, they didn’t take the fall for it, I did. I took all the blame for everything even though I didn’t write anything on it. And that makes sense because I wasn’t aware of what I was getting into when I started doing it. All I did successfully on that show was diet.

TV GUIDE

GR: Would you do another all-Asian-American TV show again or would you do something totally different?
MC: Yeah, I would totally do TV. As long as we’re able to do it on our own terms and have control over it, it could absolutely work. Then it could be a good over-rice kind of show. It would so be on-hot-rice ... A squid-and-peanuts show. There were a couple of things on the show that were really great for me. Sometimes we would have breakfast and the set designer would makes eggs and Spam and kimchee and rice. And it was so beautiful. Little things like that, here and there, were really nice.

GR: Before the TV show, it seemed like your audience wasn't mainly Asian...
MC: You know, I’ve always felt that I was really supported by the Asian community before. I think that the audience hasn’t really changed. There were a lot of Asian people in my audiences before, and I got a lot of support from the Asian American press. And then two years after they were asking me favors, but it wasn’t that I was resentful. But two years after the show, I couldn’t do anything. I was taking so many drugs and drinking so much that I couldn’t do anything. I could barely work. I was just really fucked up, confused, didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I was just fed up. I wouldn’t let anybody help anybody.

GR: You’ve reinvented yourself since then?
MC: I haven’t really reinvented myself. I’m sober. I’m happy. It’s pretty unusual because I never was. Finally, I’m satisfied with my life and peaceful.

SID AND NANCY

GR: So were you shut in here before?
MC: I was a shut-in. Also, I would go on the road a lot and be fucked up. It was horrible. I’d wake up covered in vomit. I’d be dragged out of bars and carried out of places. I just felt so hopeless that I was trying to focus all my energy on being this kind of gorgeous disaster. I wanted to be this horrible, tortured, creative individual. I thought there was a brilliance there that I could glean from, but really it was just disgusting.

GR: What about your movie script?
MC: It was kind of a high point there. The whole deal was I got financing, but the financier turned around and wanted to have sex with me. I didn’t know how to react to that. I was really confused and I lost the financing because I wouldn’t have sex with the guy. It was really awful and I was really devastated by that. It was like, am I not talented enough to write my own feature and have it made on its own merit? Do I have to do something like that to get something done?

GR: What turned it around?
MC: I was really upset and that really changed the course of my drinking and drug use. It became much more focused and I cancelled all of my work. I stayed here. I had a boyfriend who was the worst alcoholic, and so he and I would just stay here and just egg each other on; it was really Sid-and-Nancy. We just got to a point where we just couldn’t do anything. We got sober. About six months after, I realized that I hated him really bad. He had tried to convince me that my hatred of him was a fear of intimacy, but it wasn’t. I needed out. We’ve been apart for almost a year and that’s such a good feeling.

GR: Back when you were traveling drunk and stuff, could you perform?
MC: Yeah. I can perform while I’m OD’ing. I can perform when I’m hanging onto life by a thread. I have done concerts where I can’t even remember what happened, but I knew that I did a good job. It was really amazing that I could do it. I had a career even though I was fucked up. It’s crazy. It’s amazing what you can do when you set your mind to it!

NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES

GR: A year ago, you e-mailed me, “I almost died, but I feel good now.” What happened?
MC: This was from my drinking and stuff. I would just get fucked up and drive. One time I hit this gangbanger’s car. It was like a clown car; all these huge gangsters got out. And then I was fucking screaming at them, “Why’d you hit my car?” And I hit them. They were like, “You’re fucking crazy! Get yourself home! You’re fucking nuts!” Stuff like that, all the time. I would take all these weird drugs and OD, on and on.. Every day it was something. A lot of ecstasy and cocaine. A lot of prescription drugs. And I still took a lot of diet pills from when I was on the TV show; they got me hooked on diet pills. I had a prescription for Xanex and lot of Valium.

GR: What do diet pills feel like?
MC: It’s like speed. It’s like amphetamines, so you can’t eat. I would take diet pills and exercise. I’m so amazed I didn’t have a heart attack because that’s what happens.

GR: How many times have you almost died? How many lives have you used?
MC: I think I’ve used quite a few. But for some reason, I would wake up. There were all these near-misses, so I’m supposed to live for something.

GR: What is that?
MC: I want more people to see my show and get the message. My show is really life-affirming and really positive and really self-reliant. I think the reaction when I perform and talk to people after is so wonderful, especially from younger Asian American kids who want to be in show business so bad. They look at me as freedom, like I represent this idea that you don’t have to do what your parents want you to do. I didn’t spend any fucking time at all on my parents—except for the jokes. I knew I had to make myself happy.
 

BEING FAMOUS

GR: I’ve read some fucked-up things about you.
MC: You know, when people are fucked up to you, that means you’ve really made it. When people are mean or rude, that’s a good thing. Think about how fucked up people are to Madonna. They’re really mean to her. Or the President or anybody who’s really famous. People are mean to them just because they’re famous.

GR: For a while it seemed like you were dating famous people. Was this set up by an agent, or was this natural?
MC: It’s natural. You just meet them.... It’s just like anything else, but they happen to be famous; I don’t have anything against that. It’s sometimes easier to be with someone in show business because they know what it’s all about.

GR: Is it cool with guys when you talk about them in your comedy shows? Or do they get bummed?
MC: It’s fine. Like Chris Isaak got really pissed off. He just didn’t like to be talked about, which is rational and smart. That’s fine. I’m selfish for wanting to talk about other people. I think if I want to tell the truth about something that it’s fine, but it’s really not. Because usually my truth includes the truth of others. And that’s hard to take for some people.

GR: And he’s now known as the man with the big penis.
MC: Huge. I think he already had that title before, so I don’t think I added to his renown in that capacity.
 

POO STORIES

GR: What’s up with the balloon accident? What were you doing in a balloon?
MC: I won a comedy contest and won a balloon ride in Napa Valley. We went up and there was a windstorm. I was in a balloon with like eight other people and my date. The balloon landed in a cow field. I had my face covered with cow shit; it was in my mouth, my nose, my eyes... But I didn’t really get injured from that. That was like in 1989.

GR: You still like to talk a lot about shit and poo?
MC: I still like it, but I think I’m over it. You go through these phases. You like things that are really horrible and scary. Now I’m just into nice things. Plus, I see so many varieties of shit cleaning up after my dog. He’s capable of so many different kinds. Although for my birthday, somebody gave me a German porno. It’s the most disgusting shifting video ever. It’s so ugly I can’t even look at it. I can’t believe there’s people like that.

GR: There are tapes from japan.
MC: I saw one of those, but you know what’s weird? In the Japanese one, the girl shits. They pixelated the shit, but not her doing it, so it looked like she was taking the most blurry shit. It’s such a weird sexual thing. I don’t really get it. It’s just really horrifying.
 

NEW, IMPROVED MARGARET

GR: Back In the days of the TV show, people were always suggesting that you get a trainer and lose weight... does all that matter now?
MC: No. It was just that I was so scared to not be what they wanted me to be. I was so terrified of not fitting this image that they had. I feel now much more attractive, much more beautiful now, just because I feel good about myself. It was really sick what I was doing. Even when the show was over, the weight thing affected me for many years; I was really anorexic for a long time. When I was working on this movie, I hadn’t eaten for such a long time, I was drinking a lot, and I was taking diet pills and laxatives and stuff. The make-up artist or the hairdresser put her comb through my head and all my hair came out. It was disgusting. And I still didn’t stop dieting or taking pills. I started massaging my head and taking hair vitamins. I was not willing to not be super thin. I was ugly. Now I feel better.

GR: Are you satisfied doing comedy?
MC: I think comedy’s enough. It’s such a big job. To tour is really expensive. And I’m writing a book right now, also. It’s kind of like the show, but it’s extended. I get to tell stories I don’t tell in the show. And then there’s the movie, which is a lot of work, too. It’s like a concert film of the show. That’s for theatrical release. We’ll be done with it in February, so we’ll go out on the festival circuit hopefully.

GR: Don’t you ever get burned out? What do you do to get out of it?
MC: Yeah. I just come home and I rest. I regroup, read, write, and then I’m fine. I just get tired, basically exhausted from all that traveling. That’s what happens, that’s what hurts. But I don’t want to be burned out from shows. That’s my job. I love my job.