Margaret Cho (2:40)

She's just very, you know, she's my service companion. She helps me with my anxiety, she helps with my sleep, with my health, overall health in general. She's trained to do all sorts of different things, but mostly she's just with me, you know, just to keep me centered and calm. And she's, you know, very much a fan of comedy. She goes to comedy clubs every Night. And so she knows when my closing jokes are. So she knows to get ready and stretch because we're about to leave. And so she loves comedians, she loves the green room. She also loves being on set and people love her on set as well.

Interviewer (3:21)

You are somebody who's very open, have been throughout the entirety of your career. What is your relationship with anxiety?

Margaret Cho (3:28)

Well, I have kind of a long history of like anxiety and depression and for many years substance abuse and alcoholism. I'm sober now for quite a long time, but. But I definitely need to use little tools like Lucia and also just a strong recovery program, a strong meditation practice. So there's a lot of things that I do to keep my mental health in check. I don't use medicine anymore. I have tried different kinds of medication, but nothing ever really worked out for me. I've been very sort of diligent in trying to see, well, is there a way to do this with pharmaceuticals? I don't think so for me. So I found the right combination of having a suitable amount of exercise, having sort of a spiritual practice, having a service animal, having a lot of support and therapy and friends and a very strong recovery community as well. So there's a lot of things that help.

Interviewer (4:34)

Can you take us through your journey with anxiety? When you talk about like the first times that you're realizing that this, that you need to get some control over your mind, that your mind can be an ally and your mind can be a poison.

Margaret Cho (4:48)

Yes. Well, it can be really poisonous because, you know, you're in your mind, your mind is your body. You know, you're housed within a system that if the alarms are going off all the time, we don't even know when danger is really approaching because it's all self created. So it's a really hazardous place to be when you're born with it. And I always, always had it. And so ever since like my very first memories are love. Laying in bed worrying that the planet was going to run out of water. And I don't know if that was a concern in the late 60s for real.

Interviewer (5:23)

Right? You were worried about it.

Margaret Cho (5:24)

I was worried about it. Just the concept of water and the concept of water rushing by. I think there was a, like, I think there was a commercials about drought and how we needed to save water. And those triggered my anxiety. You know, things about worrying about the whales, all the whales are going to die, like things like that, which a child that young shouldn't be so concerned about those things, you know, of course, maybe now, maybe yes, you know, but I guess I was like kind of a. Like an early Greta Thunberg or something. Like I was really concerned about the planet and in a way that was. I couldn't even speak about it. I was so scared. And then that switch to. I was a classical pianist when I was five, six, seven years old. And I would play these recitals and play these classical pieces. And I was so terrified of making a mistake that. And it happened a couple times where I start the piece and I would have to do it again because I made a mistake. And nobody cares if you're like a little kid and you're doing. But I was. I put so much pressure on myself. And it's so strange because now, 50 years later when I play music, I still have that anxiety, you know, of like if I don't do this right, I'm have to start it over and it's really crushing sometimes.

Interviewer (6:47)

So it's more than a perfectionist streak, right?

Margaret Cho (6:51)

No, it's animal fear of if I don't do this correctly, I'll get eaten. It triggers a very primordial fear. So that's where it becomes a problem. So I think over the years, you know, I learned as an adult, well, you know, what calms this is, you know, some marijuana or what calms this? Well, marijuana is kind of a double edged thing because it calms it at first and then it intensifies the paranoia so you get more scared. And alcohol too. Alcohol would calm it for a little bit. But then when you are hungover, then it makes it a million times worse.

Interviewer (7:33)

Because there's a depression with it too, right? Because it's a depressant.

Margaret Cho (7:37)

And I think what it does is it sort of suppresses reason. You know, it suppresses like really like rational thought. And then your anxiety just gets the best of you. I think that that's probably the worst symptom of a hangover. It's not really the headache and it's not really the dry mouth or the dehydration. It really is the anxiety.

Interviewer (8:03)

Can you take me through where it is? Early in your childhood, you said you had it taken away and you said you also chose to give it away. Can you take us through some of that? If your earliest childhood memory is of anxiety, can you take us through what your formative years were?

Margaret Cho (8:25)

I think yeah, just a very. The way that it would come out is that I would be incredibly non verbal and non communicative with my needs because I was just scared or I would be disruptive, like there was no in between. So it wasn't a matter of trying to draw me out. Because then if you try to draw me out, then I would just be like, crazy, you know, like. So I always remember being in some kind of detention or like some kind of trouble. It was always me and like a bunch of little boys getting in trouble. And so there was no in between. Either that or I just wouldn't speak at all. And that was its own issue. So I think I probably have. There's some element of neurodivergence in there. You know, if I was like a kid today, they would probably have like some assessment and some diagnosis. I mean, I don't know, I haven't done that now, but you know, back then that's what it would kind of come out as. And the same thing would happen with like, education. I'd either have like perfect grades and perfect attendance or I wouldn't go at all. So my schooling was very all over the place because I was in an honors, like honors classes and doing really well and then suddenly drop out, you know, so there was no in betweens ever.

Interviewer (9:55)

It sounds like childhood though, didn't have very much in the way of light or sunshine. It's fear. Don't communicate the fear and then lash out in a way no one understands. And because you're not communicating, you're not explaining to anybody the lash out either. So you're an outsider, nobody's understanding you. Right. And you're lonely. And connection points are where. How do we get to funny from here?

Margaret Cho (10:20)

I don't know. I think my. Well, my family was really distant as well because they were working all the time. And so in the 70s and the 80s, you just didn't see them. Like, I didn't see my parents at all really. So it was kind of like that sort of didn't matter. I don't know. Like, I think I became funny because I was always having this inner monologue that I was talking to myself constantly. And the way one of the signs of it was when I would get in trouble, they would make. There was at this parochial school where they would make us write essays when we were in trouble, like to write about what we did wrong. And I would write in a very sarcastic way about the teachers and what I thought of their direction. And then those would always get me sent to the principal. And they would like, read them and they would be laughing. But then also like, how do you. How do you. How do you talk to us like this? Like, don't you know that the teachers are gonna read this how are, where do you, where do you think you. Where do you get off talking like this, that kind of attitude? And so that's when I realized, oh, this has some power. Like, I remember one time I was in the principal's office and there was the teacher's lounge and one of the teachers was reading out loud one of my like punishment pieces and everybody was laughing, but it was all teachers, like, what is she doing? So that's when I thought, oh, maybe there's something to my imagination that's amusing. And so, you know, in the later, like when I was still pretty young in high school, I had a teacher who we were in a comedy class and she would sign us up for open mics. All the students at a comedy club. And that was my first exposure to being in comedy clubs. And that was when I was about 14.

Interviewer (12:16)

So the recall of this one is interesting though, because you're recalling that you're being seen in some form. You are no longer non communicative person. You may be in trouble for what you've written about the teachers, but it's producing laughter. And now you're no longer alone. There's something you've. This is the first feeling you've had with. I've made something that makes people feel something. Yes, because this is how it happened for me. Like the way my path went toward writing is because people told me that I was good at it and I finally got to be good at something. There was something that they were telling me that I was good at. So that's the path I chose. You, you're getting laughter for the first time. And what age is this that you're thinking of? Because your childhood doesn't feel like childhood.

Margaret Cho (12:59)

No, no. But I think this is probably about 10, 11, 12. That's when I was getting like the most severe trouble and then writing essays about it.

Interviewer (13:12)

So how does one go from non communicative to on stage a few years later, did you want to be doing that improv class?

Margaret Cho (13:20)

Yeah, it made sense to me because that was a way to communicate, that was controlled. Because if you're, you know, in a social situation, there's no rules. Like there. You don't have like with, with comedy or like theater or it's more like, okay, you talk now. Okay, stop talking. Okay, you talk now, Stop talking. Like, it's like there's such a construct that you have to follow when you're in a performance setting that for me feels very safe. Whereas when you're just being social and out and about, it's very lawless. You don't know what's gonna happen, so it's gonna be very dangerous.

Interviewer (14:01)

But the piano, though, you still get the nerves about that. Do you have the same sort of perfectionist about the standup? Does it. Is there any of that there, or is laughter different than music?

Margaret Cho (14:12)

Laughter's different because the classical music, there can't be a mistake, there can't be an error because it's written by somebody else and it's been written in a very specific form and you have to do it in exactly the way that it's written. Whereas comedy, there's no rules, and then I can change course and do whatever. And so the way that I can start and stop something is pretty infinite, you know, whatever is at my disposal, because language is at my disposal. So there is a kind of safety there.

Interviewer (14:50)

14 years old, you're escaping into what. What are you. What is luring you to a stage? And the decision then, this is what I'd like to do. I really like this. Right away?

Margaret Cho (15:02)

Yeah, right away. I mean, I think I knew beforehand that I wanted to do it. Like, I saw it on TV and I was like, that's what I'm doing. You know, I saw Joan Rivers on television. I was like, that's what I do. That's going to be my job. And, you know, I just loved it as soon as I tried it. And then I was striving to get better at it every time I did it.

Interviewer (15:26)

What do you remember about the performance at 14?

Margaret Cho (15:29)

Well, that I was doing, I had a partner who was. Now he's a very famous actor, Sam Rockwell. He is great, of course, but he and I had, like, these sketches that we would do. I don't even remember, but they are on YouTube. We have some stuff out there. So we did a documentary for local television, and so there's footage of us doing our little sketches, and we're just like babies. But it was safe because I was with somebody that I trusted and I knew him, you know, so well, and I felt very close with him, so it wasn't safe, scary to do any of that. And then going and doing it on my own was easy because then it was like, oh, I already kind of know how to do this. I'm going to take what I learned and keep applying it. And I just wanted to be an adult. Like, I wanted to be, you know, all these comedians. They were in their 20s and 30s. You know, they were all just starting out then, and they kind of took care of me, which is great, really Incredible. And so I felt very safe there.

Interviewer (16:36)

You were raised by wolves because that is not generally considered the friendliest of environments. It's competitive. And you found home there. You found community immediately.

Margaret Cho (16:48)

Well, because I think that there was a kind of. They didn't feel threatened by me because I was not really one of their peers. I was literally a child. And also I was not kind of competing with them because I brought such a different energy whenever I would perform. So it was almost like, I don't know, there's a safety. And so a lot of people sort of had their, like, kind of maternal feelings or paternal feelings around me. I didn't feel like a peer exactly, but I did feel supported.

Interviewer (17:18)

The Green Room wouldn't be a great place for a child of that age. But was it better than being at home or was it.

Margaret Cho (17:25)

Well, it was better than being in school. It was better than being. I mean, because I just didn't want to be around other kids. I just didn't like it. I didn't. I didn't have fun. I didn't enjoy their presence. Like, I didn't enjoy those relationships. I had a much better time. Well, I mean, that. Not in theater. Things were great because they. I did have closeness with other theater people, but they're also all freaks, too, so. And there are a couple people from my class, and we were all doing it together. We were all going to the comedy clubs together.

Interviewer (17:54)

But why such a hurry to be an adult?

Margaret Cho (17:57)

I just didn't want to be a child anymore. There was one teacher, too, who I really liked and my friends and I really liked. And he was. He was incredible because he was gay, but Southern, but also had, like a speech impediment. So he talked like a speech impediment and accent. So he taught, like, you know, you could barely understand what he was saying. But he was also gay. And so he was just very flamboyant and very cheeky. And, you know, he was my English teacher. And so I did a lot of writing for him. And he would always, like, give me my paperback. All these, like, wonderful, glowing notes in the margins and saying, you are a comedian. You are just brilliant. You're going to be a writer. All this stuff. So wonderful. And so one day we came to school and he didn't come. And everybody. All of the kids were laughing in the class, and I was listening to them, and they said that that faggot got murdered. And so their teacher, who. He had gotten murdered by another man. They never. Nobody knows what happened. It was like a Very shady, scary thing. And this is in the 70s in San Francisco. But the way they were talking about it, it was like so, like dehumanizing and so horrible. And. And like my friends, one really good friend and I, Jerry, she and I were like talking about it like what their animal, like what they're talking about him, and he's our teacher, but then he's dead. And this is like a couple of hours after he had died. Like it was like a horrible thing. And then so she and I made a pact that said we're just like, we're never coming back to this school. And we got up and we walked out of the class and we both never went back. And that's sad, you know. Cause we just gave up our education for the homophobia of stupid kids that, you know, who care. Like, who cares about these kids. Like awful. But it was like this point of pride. Like we can't be around these people anymore. Like they're poisoning us from the inside out. Like we need to be free, you know. And so she and I left the school and she was like my really good friend, she's a comedian also. And she and I got jobs as phone sex operators, which is also really weird. I always had these friends who were like, let's do this. They would be the most bad influence. She was the worst though. She was such a bad influence, but also a great influence. So we got these phone sex drops.

Interviewer (20:35)

And then you were 15 years old.

Margaret Cho (20:37)

Yeah, 15 years old. But we couldn't really do them, so we just sounded too stupid and young. And we didn't know how to keep the people on phone. So they moved us to the end of the office. And at the end of the office there was a recording booth where we could read pre prepared phone sex messages to people who were learning English. So it was this program called Hot Girls usa. So we'd read these very simple English texts to people who wanted to learn English but also jerk off. And so we actually made more money doing that. So we did that. And also she got us jobs at the FAO Schwartz. So she was the court jester and I was the Raggedy Ann. And then I later got promoted to be the hello Kitty.

Interviewer (21:22)

Okay, hold on, you're rushing ahead. We will get to all of these things. But the principals stand at 14 to leave school. Whether you look back on it and say, well, they shouldn't have been allowed to win, or at 14, I was an adult already.

Margaret Cho (21:37)

Yes.

Interviewer (21:38)

And I didn't want to be with children anymore.

Margaret Cho (21:40)

Yes. It was Beneath me. Like, this is beneath me. I want to go and do. And, you know, my parents didn't really understand, but it sort of didn't matter. I didn't really care what they thought. And I also had the ability to go and do standup comedy. I was kind of semi run away from home. Like, I was staying with, like, other kids. Like, you know, kind of staying with people. And then I'd go back to my parents for a while. Like, there was a kind of, like, transients around there and.

Interviewer (22:12)

Are you not being accepted at home? They're just working a lot.

Margaret Cho (22:15)

They're working a lot and also just don't know how to accept. They accepted me as a very good student. They accepted me as a classical pianist. They do not understand what's happening with this crazy kid. Like, they accepted all of the academic excellence. They accepted all of the accolades and applause that I would get playing this classical music. They accepted the child prodigy. They do not accept the weird, crazy, neurodivergent freak.

Interviewer (22:44)

So they were accepting the things you weren't and weren't accepting the things you were. And so you're realizing that early, and you're like, okay, I'm out of here. I want to be an adult. I will not be understood here. You're realizing in your formative early teens, these are not surroundings where I will be understood.

Margaret Cho (23:06)

Nothing about this feels safe, and nothing about this feels nurturing, you know, and so I wanted to go where I did feel nurtured. And then my parents did sort of open up different areas for me that were important. You know, my parents owned a gay bookstore. And so I would go there and I would actually work. And so that was another job of mine. So I was around my family and around the sort of extended family of, you know, my parents, employees, who are all gay men, who very much nurtured me and encouraged me. And so that was a kind of home, you know, so it wasn't totally devoid of guidance, you know, Warmth. A lot of warmth, yeah.

Interviewer (23:52)

Communication.

Margaret Cho (23:53)

Yeah. Yeah.

Interviewer (23:54)

Okay, so you're. So you're just making an adult decision at 14? I'm gonna go out on my own.

Margaret Cho (23:58)

Yeah.

Interviewer (23:59)

And how does that go? Like, how scary is all of that?

Margaret Cho (24:03)

It was pretty okay. Like, it was kind of okay. Cause I was able to work. I was able to do shows. I was out really late at night with, like, comedians, you know? And this is like, 15, 16, 17, 18, like, going out and then going on the road and doing standup comedy, going and touring with comedians, like, hitching on the Backside of like comedians. Like Brett Butler was one where I would like go and I would open for her or you know, different. All sorts of different people. But so you're taking.

Interviewer (24:38)

Basically you feel like you're in college, you're interning, you've got a head start on everybody, you know what you want and this is what you're gonna chase.

Margaret Cho (24:45)

Yeah. And then I was also doing college comedy shows, booked on college shows. Cause I was young so it was appropriate for me to be playing there.

Interviewer (24:58)

And you're killing it as well, right? You're like winning all. You're polished for your age or any age.

Margaret Cho (25:05)

Yeah, very polished. And doing television. I was on television by the time I was 19, you know, pretty regularly. There was a lot of shows like Evening at The Improv and MTV's Half Hour Comedy Hour and there was a billion things.

Interviewer (25:20)

Your dreams are coming true.

Margaret Cho (25:21)

Yeah, yeah. The Bob Hope comedy special. Like Bob Hope had a young comedian special every year. So I did it two years in a row. It was quite a big deal, you know, so I was doing well before I was 20. I was making a pretty good living.

Interviewer (25:36)

So you're always capable of prodigy when you go into the arts.

Margaret Cho (25:41)

Yes.

Interviewer (25:42)

But you chose this one which was met at home with what?

Margaret Cho (25:48)

Confusion. Like confusion. Until they saw me on tv, which they saw me on TV so young that it was like I didn't have much to prove. And I was able to be independent of everything around my family financially early.

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Interviewer (28:29)

Do you feel like you would have been good at just about anything that you tried to pour yourself into with maximum will and dexterity?

Margaret Cho (28:38)

Probably, but I don't know. Also, because I have to love it. Like, I love comedy and I still, like, do shows every day, you know, and it's been like the 43 years of, like, really working on it all the time. Even in times of really, like, terrible situations, like personally, like when I'm really in the depths of addiction or alcoholism, like, I'd still really work on my comedy. So one thing that I always did.

Interviewer (29:11)

It is a blanket. It's.

Margaret Cho (29:14)

Yeah, it's an unreachable summit. I gotta keep on going because I can't get there. Like, I can't. I'm not there yet, and I can't seem to get there. Like, I keep trying to climb it. It's like an. It's like Everest. It's like you're. And then you see all the dead bodies, like, people of comics that didn't. Because there's a lot of people who are so funny that never made it because they get sick of it. They gave up because they just like, fuck this. Like, this is not well.

Interviewer (29:50)

Because it takes a certain mindset to be perpetually sculpting a sentence in your head. It takes an obsessive compulsiveness, a puzzle SOL that you are endlessly curious about for 43 years and always thinking that there's a better out there and always chasing that you'll never be perfect. You'll just do. It's an endless quest that doesn't end your love for it, clearly, if it's something that you still want to tour because you want to perfect the craft.

Margaret Cho (30:22)

Yeah. And there's all these other people, too, that are doing it, that are so good that I'm like, oh, I'm trying to catch up to the excellence of that.

Interviewer (30:31)

Oh. But you also realize, though, that you are for many what Joan Rivers was for you.

Margaret Cho (30:35)

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Which is really. That's really amazing, you know, And I try to be really aware of that. Like, I'm super excited about that. Like, I think that's really just fantastic, you know, because I want to encourage people to do it.

Interviewer (30:53)

So when you take us back to you're leaving school, and you're leaving school outraged. Right then. Right. Cause you do a lot of political comedy now, and you're outraged by the animalistic reaction to homophobia, and you're not old enough to really process what all of that is. How much better has any of that gotten in the 40 years since? How much are you able to dilute the daily outrage given where we are as we sit here today?

Margaret Cho (31:23)

Oh, it's worse. It's worse. Like, it's, like, not better. It's, like, worse. To come to a time now where the cruelty is the point. That's, like, the thing that we're dealing with every day with just something like as disgusting as this government now defunding all of the gay teen suicide hotlines. Like, what a terrible thing. And to save what kind of money? Like, what. What is that? Like, it's just so inhumane and disgusting. Like, the gesture of that. Like, we would rather you didn't save your lives. Like, we would rather you didn't try to save your life. We would rather to be shown not to care about your suffering in that way. Like, just That's a small example of, like, how disgusting the current environment is. So in a lot of ways, it's worse.

Interviewer (32:21)

Among the difficulties that were obstacles in your path, I don't know how these get ranked in terms of gay woman, foreign. Which of those was the most difficult.

Margaret Cho (32:35)

I don't know, because I don't know what it's like to be anything else. But I do think that if I was white and if I was straight, I would have had it easier. But especially if I was a man, I would have had it easier. All those things make me think maybe it would have been easier, but maybe not. Because all of those things, when you're a comedian, the things that make you different are currency. So you're actually rich in identity. That's where we, you know, sell our wares. We were talking about this identity as I'm really rich in those different things that I am. And so those things bought me a lot of attention. They bought me a lot of time where people were interested to hear what I have to say. And because of that, I was able to forge a whole industry of queer Asian American comedians to come behind me, which is so phenomenal. So I don't know. I don't know.

Interviewer (33:39)

It's interesting. I guess I framed the question wrong because you're saying no. Don't you understand? These are the things that were different around me and about me. Different was what wasn't accepted. It's why I fled here. Different was currency. It's literally something I can make my career out of. So all of the difficulties were things that I was meant to have formed into art by the creator in me, who likes to also be an essayist.

Margaret Cho (34:06)

Yeah. So I think that's. It's hard to say, but I do look at, you know, some of my peers who have tremendous success, who are straight, white, male, and I'm like, well, maybe I would have done better, but I don't know. I don't know if the ability is what gets you. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure.

Interviewer (34:29)

Were you in any way equipped for success at 18, 19, 20 years old?

Margaret Cho (34:35)

Kind of. Because I took it for granted. Like, I believed in it. Like, to a certain extent. I, like, really thought, well, this is. Right. This is how it should be.

Interviewer (34:45)

You knew you were gonna be successful?

Margaret Cho (34:46)

Yeah, I was gonna be happy.

Interviewer (34:46)

You didn't have a lot of doubt?

Margaret Cho (34:48)

No. Cause I was also happy with such so little that I was just kinda like, oh, well, you know what? It's all great. I Didn't really know, but I was happy. With $50 a night, I get to do this.

Interviewer (35:01)

They're paying me for it. Can you believe they pay me to do this? Because this is what I want to be doing.

Margaret Cho (35:05)

Anyway, that was enough, you know, and then beyond that, like, it was like, oh, great, you know, oh, great, we're gonna, you know, get more. Get more like working in television. And then like when that was falling apart, it was like, okay, well maybe I can just go to stand up, because I still really love that. And then that becoming really successful. So, you know, there was a lot of things that I just. A lot of it I kind of took not for granted, but I kind.

Interviewer (35:38)

Of expected was the lifestyle contributing to addiction. What happens in here with success that leads to self medicating? I'm assuming at some point. I assume you're searching for ways to quiet your mind before spirituality. You just want your mind to be quiet and not have. You have dark thoughts all the time or perpetually be unspooling.

Margaret Cho (36:05)

Yeah. But then also the lifestyle is. It's kind of geared for it, but at the same time, the lifestyle is what you make of it. Like, really, like, I'm just inclined to enjoy substances. I'm inclined to want to play with consciousness. Like, that's just my normal everyday self. Like, I want to see, oh, what happens when I take this. Like, I want to do that Alice in Wonderland experience with, like, my psyche. To me, that's like, I'm such a psychonaut. Like, that's kind of fun.

Interviewer (36:39)

But this, in your house, like in San Francisco, this was common in your surroundings. But at home, at home, this. None of this. Like, where is this coming from?

Margaret Cho (36:48)

It's. I don't know. Like, my family are not. They do not drink alcohol. Like, they've had the same bar set up for my entire childhood. Like, they didn't ever drain a bottle. They never, they.

Interviewer (37:00)

So from early on though, you're like, I want to escape this. I want to escape this reality. I want to try substances. Give me alternate realities.

Margaret Cho (37:07)

Yeah, I've always been inclined. And then I think being around comedy, well, comedians love marijuana. That's like the main drug of choice for comics. So that was always available. That was always happening. Also, when you're sleeping in a different place every night, pot helps you go to sleep. So that's something to think about, because then you become reliant on it, because then you can't fall asleep. You can't do sort of like normal life things like eat or sleep because you get conditioned to doing the drug.

Interviewer (37:40)

Before, but you're sleeping on couches. Like, what do you mean? Sleeping someplace different every night? How long is this happening?

Margaret Cho (37:46)

Hotels, couches, people's houses, flop houses.

Interviewer (37:50)

All right, but you're a nomad. You're chasing this career. You're generally happy because you get to chase the career. You're out of your previous situation, but you're living couch to couch.

Margaret Cho (38:00)

Yeah. And, you know, like in the 80s, that was kind of totally doable. Like, totally not weird and not scary. And like kind of punk rock houses, like flop houses existed like squats. There wasn't the seediness that sort of happened a little later in the 90s and the 2000s. It was a little bit safer, I think.

Interviewer (38:24)

But you're acknowledging the nomadicness of it, the lack of structure. You're a bit untethered at an age that is freeing. But also, you could use some tethers, probably, for sure. And what happens. How do you get the break that you need for television? Is the biggest of the breaks. All American Girl?

Margaret Cho (38:43)

Yeah, that was one of them. But I think in general, moving to Los Angeles and actually having an apartment, having a car and having space to go to, like, meetings at studios and showcases at comedy clubs where they were seeing me, you know, and all these people were being interested about what I was doing. So that's what gave me a kind of tether that was like the first base. So this is like 19, 20 years.

Interviewer (39:14)

Old, coming to LA and what happens next?

Margaret Cho (39:18)

Then I was in that influx of, like, comedians who were getting TV shows, you know. And so I got All American Girl from that, and I got this big deal. And it was at abc, and then I was kind of, like, really unaware of how these shows get made, because I'm like, I don't even know, like, I know how to do standup comedy, but I don't know how to do this. This kind of stuff is weird to me because it was also. They were trying. Cause I was so young, they wanted it to be like, somehow a family show, I think, like Blossom, which was very popular then, but I was a little old for that. And Friends hadn't come out yet. So we were actually the same season as Friends premiering. So you didn't have this, like, idea of, like, early 20s or 20s people being viable on television. You had, like, young kids, you had families, and then where do we go? So I was sort of stuck in that. And they. At the network, they were trying to do an Asian family show, but they also had never done it before, so they didn't know what that meant. You know, do we need to get people from UCLA to show us how to be really Korean? Like, do we need language experts? Do we need everybody to know what we're doing? Like it was a weird, like technical experts. We needed like consultants. We didn't, but that was the thought that we did.

Interviewer (40:54)

And you enjoyed doing that or there were too many boxes, too many restrictions.

Margaret Cho (41:00)

I was distracted because I was also too fat to be in the show. Like, I'm like, I don't know where that also happened too. But I think along the way the network started panicking cause I was so fat and I wasn't. But that was their idea of like women in the 90s, you know, we've all got to be super thin. And I was on a diet and I was exercising constantly with a trainer, which is so terrifying. Like really bad. I think it was such a depleting, exhausting time where you're just eating food out of little boxes and going and running up stairs all the time. Like, I was just so tired, I didn't know what was happening.

Interviewer (41:46)

I just asked you whether you enjoyed what would amount to, to your greatest success at the time and you're running upstairs eating body dysmorphia.

Margaret Cho (41:55)

Yeah.

Interviewer (41:56)

So there's not a lot of success. Doesn't feel like success.

Margaret Cho (41:59)

No, it just feels like exhaustion.

Interviewer (42:02)

And is this where addiction grabs you?

Margaret Cho (42:06)

Because, well, I mean, it's just another part of it. Like it's another, it's another layer to it. Addiction had always been there. This is just another aspect of it. And this is where sort of like I needed some relief. It was like I was just depleting, depleting, depleting. And I needed some relief. That's where the addiction didn't really super kick in until after the show was over. And then I was kind of like, I don't even know what to do, you know, and then I was just going, working on my stand up comedy and touring and then drinking a lot with like people because I could finally drink because I was able to gain weight. And so that really took hold. Like, and that was my first understanding that I had to clean up my life. And so I got sober in the 90s then and became totally sober and became very devoted to my standup comedy. And that's all I was thinking about, all that I was doing. And you know, I wrote a show about my experience doing television which did really well. And I was so interested in making my life like better from all of the failures that I had with the television show that I was just focused on comedy and focused on my sobriety. And I was trying to make my life so good that it became crazy. Cause I became a raw vegan chef. It was horrible. It was horrible.

Interviewer (43:54)

You weren't very good at the beginning at making raw vegan food while you became addicted to being healthy. You became.

Margaret Cho (44:01)

It was horrible. I felt so bad. Like, I felt sick all the time. Like, it was awful. I mean, I know that people do it the right way, but I was like, I went the other way into like wellness so hard that I became deeply unwell.

Interviewer (44:17)

Success didn't feel like success. It's all bad. Like when I go back and obviously the money's not bad, the influence isn't bad, but when you think of it as an experience, you think of pressure, you think of body issues, you think of societal bullshit. It's all something that's conjured, that's unpleasant.

Margaret Cho (44:35)

Yeah, yeah. Both sides of it. Like, whether you're, you know, like, for me, like whether it's like super unhealthy, kind of like trying to make weight. And on this TV show that's failing. And then the other side, where I'm doing really well in my comedy, but also trying to manage my, like, new sobriety with a kind of addiction to raw food and veganism. And it was just really. It was really unstable.

Interviewer (45:09)

Did you need sort of the rules and work and stress and schedule and things in order to keep you from the roaming freedom? You said you came to addiction after all of that. Is it because in the work and the anxiety, you're feeding off of different kinds of poisons and don't need that one necessarily.

Margaret Cho (45:32)

So it was always, there are different kinds of self harm that's sort of disguised as like health and disguised as wellness. And so I took the other path of self harm, which was extreme. What asceticism, like is sort of monastic life, which is another kind of like self flagellation. So it was just super extreme and that I couldn't handle. Like, and I. I got so addicted to perfection and that was a mess as well.

Interviewer (45:59)

What was happening in your life patterns to that point that would make you predisposed to self flagellation?

Margaret Cho (46:06)

I don't know. Because there was a lot of success in other ways. Like, I was doing really well in my career. I had bought a house, which is the same house I live in now, which is great. I got married, which was great. And all of these things were like super positive. But at the same time. Like trying to maintain this diet and trying to, you know, like live healthfully and do my program and all this stuff. It just was too much.

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Interviewer (48:32)

You said you came to understand that the addiction was a problem at some point after the show. How did you come to understand that?

Margaret Cho (48:41)

I was just super sick all the time. Like I was super hungover. Like I was super. Like your body just feels so wrecked. And the thing is, is that I did understand addiction, but nowhere near how bad it became later. Like the way that I was drinking and stuff in the 90s was like, bad. But it's nowhere near the bad that it became much later. Like, addiction is like a Alcoholism is a progressive disease. So you think it's bad. It's never. You don't. You don't know. It can get so much worse. Like I thought it was bad, but I didn't even know. I didn't realize, you know, because I'd been sober for a long time and then I, I got too sober and that I was like this raw vegan chef thing. And then I snapped and I went out to a party and somebody handed me this Jamba Juice filled with psilocybin mushrooms and I drank the whole thing like after seven years of totally sober. And it was super weird. It was super weird cause I just snapped. Like I'm like, you can't tell me what to do anymore. And then I just. So that was another example of like totally non verbal and then totally like lashing out. Like that's, you know, the child self again appearing in like the adult. It was so insane.

Interviewer (50:09)

Have you examined what it is in your upbringing or is it brain chemistry that would make you gravitate toward the extremes?

Margaret Cho (50:19)

I think it's like a kind of a kamikaze, like it's a kamikaze mentality. It's like a totally like screaming into the abyss of like death. It's a suicidal nature of that. It's basically suicidal. Like it's like all. I can only characterize it as, oh, it's kamikaze. Like that's what it's giving. It's very kamikaze.

Interviewer (50:44)

Culturally. Like where is it coming from? Like I'm trying to understand the roots of no, I'm going to go in and if I die, that's the consequence. I'm going to be fearless about it or try to conquer my fear.

Margaret Cho (51:00)

There's a glory to it. There's a kind of. I mean culturally it doesn't really make sense because it's not in my culture. Like there is quite a lot of mental illness in my family and quite a lot of depression. But they've never dealt with it in any way that makes sense. Like nobody's ever got sought treatment. I'm like the only person who has ever sought treatment in all of the generations of like terrible alcoholism and terrible like you know, mental illness and suicide and stuff. So I don't know. I don't know. But there is a kind of drama to it, I guess.

Interviewer (51:35)

Nobody was talking about it though. You said there were a lot of gay men and they were nurturing, but this was not being spoken about openly.

Margaret Cho (51:42)

No, no, no, it was very. And also it sort of skips a generation too because my parents were not affected. But my parents, my mother's father was a terrible alcoholic and he died in his early 50s. Most of my family either die before or right at 50 or in their hundreds. There's no in between because they're so extreme. So, yeah, they either die super young or really live a long time.

Interviewer (52:13)

But you've examined somewhere in here your perfectionism or whatever the need is that would make you very willful and very good about the things that you're very good at. That this is all. The roots of it are all in here somewhere. Right. Like, this is inside of your family, including the repressions you're talking about. No one's communicating about anything. There's not.

Margaret Cho (52:35)

No, no, nobody's talking about it. I mean, the way that I've come to it really, is through, like, years of therapy. Therapy with my parents, which they hate. They hate it so much. Or therapy with, like, talk therapy. Also emdr, where they do stuff with lights and pedals and help.

Interviewer (52:55)

I've done some of that recently. I don't understand it at all, but the neurotransmitters and the vibrations and an assortment of things that are meant to release from fashion tissue whatever emotions and memories you're holding in there.

Margaret Cho (53:09)

Yeah, it's interesting. Interesting. All that kind of stuff. It helps. It helps. I feel like in a good space around it now. I've just done so much work on it.

Interviewer (53:19)

Well, it sounds, though, like your act is therapy as well, right? Like, to go from the person who did not speak, and surely you've noticed that you're an outsider in almost all circumstances. Perhaps comedy provided the sense of community. It doesn't sound like there were a whole lot of other places where you were getting a sense of community. Television writing didn't do it. Right. The producing of a television show. What other than comedy has given you a sense of community where you don't feel like a total outsider for yourself? Your weirdness.

Margaret Cho (53:48)

It's the place. It's the. There's a lot of therapy there. There's a lot of community there. Also with other comedians. There's a lot of comfort there. So, yeah, it's like a very much a therapeutic kind of a thing, but it's also. It's just, you know, really special. It's a really important world.

Interviewer (54:08)

It's also the most you. Right. Where you would actually get the understanding that you were craving that made you run away in childhood. Like, there's no misunderstanding when you know your, you know, the rhythmic tones of where the laughs are coming. Cause you've written music.

Margaret Cho (54:24)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Interviewer (54:26)

And you feel most seen there.

Margaret Cho (54:28)

Yes, for sure. For sure.

Interviewer (54:30)

And what Would you say is the work that's most gratifying for you there? When you think of, like, I know the mentorship to others and the pioneering means something to you, but when you think of work that you've made that expresses the essence of who you are to others in a way that gives you the satisfaction of understanding what is the seminal work.

Margaret Cho (54:52)

I think it's like, if you can put something into a way that people understand, and there's like a laughter of recognition, of recognition of, oh, sorrow and pain. Like, understand that pain. It's a great feeling. It's a great sense of relief. And so, you know, we can take something that's just like, very intimate and unpleasant and then really blow it up for an audience to see. And they're laughing. There's such a. There's such grace there because it's like, we all feel this. Like, I was able to take this pain and show you, and we all feel this, and that's so special.

Interviewer (55:32)

Does the family understand now? Does the family. I know they. They like that you're on television and you're successful, but do they like the things you're talking about?

Margaret Cho (55:41)

I mean, I don't think they get it. I don't think they care because they're so blinded by the success and so excited about what I've made my life to be, you know, that that's just so important to them. So I don't really know, but they're very happy about it.

Interviewer (56:00)

It's such a bummer, though, that I want to sort of like, say, still not understanding. Like, they're still not giving you. But I guess you figured out my wife makes fun of me because I'll still fall in the same trap hole parents at 50 years old that things you've learned at 14, where you're like, no, these people are never gonna understand me. So I'm gonna, like, I'm gonna accept that and I'm gonna choose something different.

Margaret Cho (56:22)

Yeah, they're very. They're very just set in a way. Like, they can't really. I don't think they want to really understand. There's not a need to, though. It's okay.

Interviewer (56:34)

You say that with forgiveness, but I would think that it would be hard to respect the fact that they. Oh, they like that you're on television and that you're getting money, but anybody can like that. That's not really understand. That's not understanding the artist or the art.

Margaret Cho (56:51)

Right. That's true, but they're not equipped to because they never. I mean, they've never been asked to examine their own lives in that same. Under that lens, like the harsh lens that I put on mine. So I can't expect them to do the same thing.

Interviewer (57:09)

Have you gotten any better at being easier on yourself?

Margaret Cho (57:13)

I think so. I am very conscious of that. So now I'm kind of like very easy going around certain things like that I allow myself to do things that I. I would have to. Would only be able to do if I was under the influence. So now if I need to, I'll go on a bender, which means I'll disappear for a couple of days as if I was having a lost weekend in a hotel. Like if I was drunk or high the whole time. But I'm not. Like, I just X out for a bit when that means no phone, no communication with anybody, no nothing, no, you know, no performances, no whatever. Like, it. It helps me to just go on a bender because I needed that when I was drinking to get over things like hangovers and stuff. But now I need it. Sometimes I'll get emotionally hungover and I'll need to separate myself from society. And so I know now how to do that, which is really hugely important. So for me, going on like a sober bender, like, it's really, it's. It's a unique kind of coping mechanism to take all of these things that I learned as an active alcoholic and drug user to actually use the things that help me during that time.

Interviewer (58:43)

I've never heard of what you're describing, which is basically correct me if I'm translating incorrectly, you're going to be maximum conscious and present without any distractions to be alone with yourself and all of the discomforts and comforts that that provides so that you could be at harmony with something closer to self love than you've been the entirety of your life.

Margaret Cho (59:12)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like X out everything. It's just me and my dog and my cats and that's enough. And that really helps, actually choosing to.

Interviewer (59:25)

Just take care of you to be okay with being the alone outsider because you've got the comfort of yourself in adulthood, right? You've learned the things that you need in order to settle your mind because you view your mind. I have over the years talked about the illusion of control that my mind has given me and the unhappiness of living in the mind as opposed to some of the stuff perhaps you found in spirituality that helps you be more consciously present. But I have. My mind is blessing and curse. It provides for me some of the things that I think I want, but it also provides the illusion of control when I need to let things go. And I have trouble letting them go. I spoke at you a little bit, but I don't know where it is that you're going when you go to be by yourself. I don't know what, what the replenishing is. And I don't know how you come back rejuvenated or wanting to attack. You know, inspiration.

Margaret Cho (60:24)

Yeah, well, rejuvenation, it's. For me, it's like silence. It's like meditation, which is like a practice that I do every day, but it takes practice because I can't. It's really hard for me to quiet what's happening. So that's why it's a practice. You have to keep trying. You have to keep trying to do that. And we can only do it. Like, I can sometimes only do it for a fraction of a second, but that's really the gist of it. It's like these long form meditations where you're just quiet.

Interviewer (60:55)

And so what is your relationship now with anxiety versus what your relationship was in your early 20s with it?

Margaret Cho (61:04)

It's a lot better. But it's also, you know, it's there. But at the same time, like, I can ask it to go away. I can ask. It can come back another time or like, I can keep on trying to focus on quiet and not focusing on that. So it's always going to be there. But it's about, do I turn away or do I turn into it?

Interviewer (61:33)

I should have told people. I have not yet. That if you want tickets and dates, you go to margaretcho.com tour and Choligarch is now the tour name. And what is in the tour at this time in America that brings three decades of four decades of standup experience to this political moment when I would imagine you're storming around pretty daily pissed.

Margaret Cho (62:02)

So pissed. But also so grateful for so many things as well. Like, I can see the resilience of people and being from an immigrant family, like, how beautiful that is and how many people are standing up for so many immigrants out there who are getting attacked, getting kidnapped, and it's so scary. So talking a lot about that, talking a lot about the sexism that we're seeing, like, daily. Like how it plays out with the Diddy trial, how it plays out with this Epstein file, all this stuff. Like, to me, there's a lot to discuss. So, you know, this show is really about taking everything that I've learned as a comic all this time and applying it to. I Think the biggest battle that we have and a lot of the way we got into this is through comedy. Like, a lot of this was, like, actually done by the permission of a bunch of comics who sort of co signed it and, like, said it was okay. So now it's like, comics gotta try to stop it.

Interviewer (63:07)

You don't dare name them. Right. Because this faction of comics have gotten a power that I have seen. As I've talked to the older comics that are, like. It feels grifty to them, but also it's such a. It's an economy. And young men are now leaning countrywide to the right. I don't know that daily it can feel like you and me are winning in the things that we care about.

Margaret Cho (63:40)

Yeah, but those comics are also my friends. Like, we're also, like, we're all. We all do this. We've all been doing this together for, like, 40 some years. Like, I know them all really well. Like, we're all tight. Like, so it's weird to see so much of a shift. But at the same time, it's like, well, I have an opinion about this too, so I want to weigh in. And. And it's valid and it's important. So, you know, I think that the more comic, the more comics we have, the better off we are, no matter what side they're on. Whatever happened, I appreciate all comic voices.

Interviewer (64:15)

Who do you feel is doing it best these days? Navigating the slalom course? That is political humor. Because you don't want to be a scold. You don't want to be.

Margaret Cho (64:24)

No, you have to be funny. You have to be funny. That's, like, such a essential part of it. My favorites right now. Hari Kondabalu, he's so great. You know, Marc Maron. Marc Maron is a good friend also. Just incredible. And he and I were both talking about the genius of Maria Bamford, who is the best. I mean, if there's anybody in comedy, she is undefeated. Like, I think, because the strength and power of a comedian is measured by the vulnerability. And she has so much, you know, coming from her background and all of the mental stuff that she's been through and everything. She really, really blows my mind with everything. So I think that she is truly the best.

Interviewer (65:19)

When did you learn that? Josh Johnson. I'd put in that group to. Right now. Yes. Just because of the way that he's able to do it day of.

Margaret Cho (65:27)

And so thoughtful. And it's like, it's somebody that did learn from, like, Chappelle. Like, he learned that kind of the trust in one's own observation. That's very Chappelle to me. But Chappelle's sort of in a different space now. And Josh is like, yeah, Like, I really am so much awe of him. Like, how well he can turn it, like, just day by day, what's going on. I really actually have come to rely on him in, like, YouTube. It's powerful. He's great.

Interviewer (66:14)

I found it disappointing that the Daily show put him in a suit and made him do the job the way Jon Stewart would do the job, as opposed to just allowing him to be himself, Maximum himself. Different. Because different works sometimes, if you allow. If you encourage different to be different. But you were saying that you. That vulnerability demands vulnerability. When did you learn that in order to be the best comic, you had to expose all of yourself?

Margaret Cho (66:44)

It's really. It's. I don't know when I learned it, but I relearn it all the time. Like, I relearn it and it's reaffirmed all the time. But, yeah, Josh, I would definitely prefer in the hoodie, you know, the gray hoodie that he does, you know, and, like, kind of just at the Comedy.

Interviewer (67:04)

Cellar or whatever, but just let him be him. Right? Just let's. The greatest of the strengths to allow the people who are different.

Margaret Cho (67:12)

You.

Interviewer (67:13)

You couldn't have been a pioneer if you weren't different. You couldn't have been a pioneer if people didn't appreciate how much you gave them strength to embrace those differences. Right? That's true. That's the only part I didn't mean to explain to you what the Daily Show, a great comedy show, shouldn't have done with Josh Johnson. But I just remember in my small world, when two black, very strong journalists became the SportsCenter anchors, their commercials started with dancing and stuff, because you have to sort of try and make palatable to the white customer whatever the white executive's idea is of what it is that you're doing on television. You don't speak to those things as if they were an obstacle to you because you benefited so much from the fact that they existed. Thank you for sharing so much of your story with us. I will tell the folks again if there's anything that you want them to know about your present tour, how many cities, how many dates that you're in the middle of right now. We were talking beforehand that you were saying these things go from a year to three years. So you're about to get in the middle of it.

Margaret Cho (68:20)

Yeah, absolutely. And, yes, it's about to start. And it'll go for a while, so people should come out anywhere.

Interviewer (68:26)

Margaretshow.com tours where you go. Thank you. Oh, she's done. She wants to go now.

Margaret Cho (68:32)

She knows she's ready.

Interviewer (68:33)

She's done. Enough talking. Enough of this gas bag. Mommy, let's get out of here.

Margaret Cho (68:50)

Listen.

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