How comedy saved Margaret Cho’s life

Sophie Bearman [00:00:02] You're listening to Life in Seven Songs, where some of the world's most fascinating people share how they found their way and the songs that helped them through. From The San Francisco Standard, I'm Sophie Bearman. Our guest this week is the comedian, actress and musician who Rolling Stone called one of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time—Margaret Cho. Margaret was born and raised in San Francisco, broke into the comedy scene as a teenager—she actually opened for Jerry Seinfeld when she was just 18—and since then has had a legendary stand-up career not despite all the trauma she's survived, but she says, because of it. She's known for her biting political and social criticism, especially around race and sexuality. And as a heads up, this episode does contain mention of sexual assault and suicide, so please listen with care. Margaret Cho, welcome to the show.

Margaret Cho [00:01:11] Thank you.

Sophie Bearman [00:01:12] So Margaret is, of course, the name we all know you by, but it's not your given name. Is that right?

Margaret Cho [00:01:17] No. Moran. Cho Moran is my Korean name. Which was like, probably why I was always in trouble. And as a kid, getting in, like, fights and getting, like, bullied and, like, bullying back in a way, because I would always have to fight other kids that my name is not moron.

Sophie Bearman [00:01:35] And you've joked about this. It makes me think of this one clip from 1994. You appeared on HBO's Comedy Half-Hour.

HBO Comedy Half-Hour Clip [00:01:43] I have a Korean name. My Korean name is Moran, which is a pretty name. But you have to understand, I've heard my mother scream it from across the hills. Moran! Moran!

Sophie Bearman [00:01:49] So what does Moran mean?

Margaret Cho [00:02:00] Cho Moran, it's a peony. It's like a flower that blooms no matter what the weather. And so peonies are still my flower. I have a lot of peonies tattooed on my body.

Sophie Bearman [00:02:11] A plant that survives, that blooms even in the harshest winter.

Margaret Cho [00:02:15] Yes. So I negotiated an American name, which a lot of Korean kids my age around that time had already, you know, and they were sort of like going with their anglicized versions of their names. So we settled on Margaret because also old Asian people love the old lady names. There's like such a tradition of old lady names for Asian Americans. So that was a thing. And my dad liked a song about a girl named Maggie, but I don't remember the song, and I don't think he remembers either, so we can't, I mean, there's a million songs about Maggie's. So we could just put it down to whatever one.

Sophie Bearman [00:02:55] So you mentioned that you were always getting in trouble, but do you remember the first time that you made someone laugh?

Margaret Cho [00:03:00] The first joke I ever told was probably when I was 6 or 7 years old, and I was on a vacation with my family in Hawaii, and the tour package was called Pleasant Hawaiian Holiday. But it was cramped and kind of not a great vacation, and it was very uncomfortable. We all got really sunburned, and I, I said, this is a very unpleasant Hawaiian holiday in a very dry manner. And everybody really laughed.

Sophie Bearman [00:03:29] How did it feel? Do you remember being like, oh wait, everyone is paying attention? That was funny.

Margaret Cho [00:03:35] Yeah, I mean, I think it was just the novelty of not being in trouble because usually I would just get yelled at, like, it would just be like, be quiet, shut up. It was always very different to have a reaction where people were not yelling. I really was like into it. Also, I thought people who were funny had friends, which is true.

Sophie Bearman [00:03:57] What song takes you back to this time in your childhood?

Margaret Cho [00:04:00] Well, the first song I think that had the most impact was, it's not a Carpenters song, it's a Burt Bacharach song, but The Carpenters version of Close to You. I was taking piano lessons. I had to play this song in recitals, and it was so terrifying. And I would play it and it was like ice water in my veins. But I love the song.

Margaret Cho [00:04:43] It was the first time that I understood that you could hear a song on the radio, and then go to an instrument and play it and sing it. And that was so pivotal. I think that I, I at a young age, could have access to the idea that songs were able to be created and recreated in one's own, one's own home by your own body, you can make this sound. It's really, like, phenomenal.

Sophie Bearman [00:05:11] And this isn't comedy, but you are on a stage. Was there something really sexy or enticing about performing?

Margaret Cho [00:05:19] Only afterwards, because in the lead-up I would have such incredible stage fright. There was a couple times where I've made mistakes like and what I was really young like. I would have to, like, start over and it was so terrifying, like that kept playing in my mind, the trauma of that. I'd be like, so scared. But then when it was over, I was so grateful and glad and people were always so congratulatory and proud of me. My parents were really proud, and it would be like one of the first times that they would sort of acknowledge that I did a good job at something because, you know, I was getting like behavioral like notes at school, like, she needs to listen, she has like, you know, she has a listening problem, or she has a behavior problem and stuff, which they were really stressed out about. So the recitals were really magical because they would be really excited after.

Sophie Bearman [00:06:09] So tell me a little bit more about growing up in San Francisco. I read that your parents owned a gay bookstore.

Margaret Cho [00:06:16] Well, we'd always aligned ourselves with oppressed minorities because my parents experienced so much racism coming to America in the 1960s that they felt far more comfortable in Black neighborhoods and gay neighborhoods, in enclaves where they felt understood. And so, I think my dad being—he's a writer, he's a thinker, he was just very into having like, a bookstore that was, um, a cultural center as well. So that was his dream. And this bookstore really fit the bill. The bookstore was called Paperback Traffic, which they purchased in 1978. So, you know, this was a really electric time. It was kind of San Francisco at the height of what we sort of think about as like gay chic. So we were greeted by all of these amazing people who were working for Harvey Milk, who were, um, doing drag shows. So that's where I grew up, and that's where I really started to understand that sexuality is a spectrum.

Sophie Bearman [00:07:23] Your comedy involves both of your parents, but a bunch of it also involves sort of emulating your mother, her voice, your relationship with her. Tell me about your mom.

Margaret Cho [00:07:32] Well, she is really amazing. Like, she really is a good guitarist and she's also a great singer. She has a great voice and, she speaks French fluently as well as English. Her English is actually a little bit atrophying because she's using it a lot less these days. But she's just a remarkable person. And, you know, they immigrated to the United States in 1964, and, she and my dad have really forged this quite amazing life. She loves my dog, Lucia. She's, "oh, this is my granddaughter." She's very into her. She wants me to download Tinder. Why can't you do "Timber"? Can you be on Timber? Because she just is very freaked out that I'm not dating anybody. So that's like, her main concern is that I'm not on Timber, but I, I'm not, I don't know.

Sophie Bearman [00:08:29] So you have another song from around age seven, eight that you chose. What is it?

Margaret Cho [00:08:35] This would be Eleanor Rigby. This was like the song that was just so sorrowful, like a dirge and all about lonely people and, you know, grave, and keeping your face in a jar by the door, you know, like, what does that even mean? Like, to me, there was just the complexity. And then, you know, being like a really little kid, sort of grasping that the darkness of that, like, what is that?

Sophie Bearman [00:09:23] Did the lyrics attract you almost like a form of poetry, like they're sort of mysterious and enigmatic? Or were you feeling lonely? I mean, did you relate to what you were hearing?

Margaret Cho [00:09:34] I think probably both. I think that also like I was creating the loneliness because it was attractive, like I was an early goth. I probably identified as goth before—like, this is like the first goth song. I mean, if you like don't count like the Requiem March or whatever. Like, like there's Gothic chants. This is probably the first goth song. I love the minor chords. I still have a love affair with the minor chords. Like when you hear it, you're like, something's wrong. And I love it.

Sophie Bearman [00:10:03] Yeah, that shift to E minor on the lonely people.

Margaret Cho [00:10:07] It's so sad, and it's so mysterious to me that certain chords can make you feel something so complex and complete.

Sophie Bearman [00:10:15] Margaret, you've revealed some painful facts about your childhood. Are you comfortable talking about some of those?

Margaret Cho [00:10:22] Yes, yes.

Sophie Bearman [00:10:24] One thing that is just briefly mentioned in your memoir that came out in 2002, but I know you've expanded on since, is that you were sexually molested by a family friend from ages 5 to 12. When did you start to process that?

Margaret Cho [00:10:39] I think that to sort of unearth that trauma and deal with it actually has been a life's work, like it's your life's work in trying to not only heal it, but also keep preventing it from happening again. And it comes up in other forms, whether that's addiction, whether that is self-harm in a myriad of ways. When you're victimized early on, you really start to keep on re-victimizing yourself. So sometimes you repeat it in very literal ways, like getting into abusive relationships or, or things like that. It requires a lot of active work on my part. You know, you can't just overcome years of abuse with just, you know, a couple sessions of therapy or whatever. Like you have to really go, I have to go at it every day. So I have a very strong meditation practice. I have a very strong self-care regimen that takes a lot of effort because I just want to be better, I want to heal. And so I've had a long lifetime of relearning how to live.

Sophie Bearman [00:11:47] Has comedy saved your life?

Margaret Cho [00:11:49] Yeah, all the time. Every day. Well, no. I tried to kill myself, and I hung myself for my shower curtain rod, and the rod started bending, and I'm like, oh, shit, I'm too fat to kill myself. So I got down. I'm like, okay, I'll try again when I reach my goal weight. That's so horrible. But then I laughed because it was funny and that I laughed because I was so horrible. Like that's so nasty. Which I mean, the thing about that, it is a true story, but I was high on a million drugs, so I don't think it's suicide. To me it's actually, that's like homicide because I wasn't in my right mind. I was not myself. Somebody tried to kill me, but it was me as somebody else. And that was like a really horrifying thing. But the humor of realizing that's what was going on, like that really made me laugh, because it was just so awful. But it really. It really was a saving grace. So that's what humor does. It really does save you.

Sophie Bearman [00:12:49] So making time for the music, what is your third song?

Margaret Cho [00:12:52] Was it Doot-Doot? Oh, I love this song. I just covered this for my new album. This song to me is San Francisco fog coming in over Sutro Tower. You know how the Sutro Tower, like the fog just pokes through, it's like cotton balls like stuck onto a cocktail fork. And it is so San Francisco, even though the song is British, but it reminds me of when, Live 105, which was the indie rock station or like the new wave station in the 80s, they played this song and it was like everything stopped.

Sophie Bearman [00:13:34] And you're how old when you're listening to this?

Margaret Cho [00:13:37] I was probably about 10, 11, 12. Something. Young!

Sophie Bearman [00:13:41] And this is by—I'm actually not sure I know how to pronounce this band.

Margaret Cho [00:13:45] Freur. Yeah. They're so good. You know what it is? It's just music made by machine. Like that, to me, is like so interesting. Like, because I was just all, like, piano, guitar, piano, guitar, piano, guitar. And then this is like, not that. Like, what is this even? And so the idea of synthesizers as this whole new avenue of like expressing yourself and, I just love it so much.

Sophie Bearman [00:14:09] So you're 12, let's say, transitioning into high school. Tell me a little bit about that time for you. I know it wasn't always easy.

Margaret Cho [00:14:18] No, just super awkward. Super like unhappy. Like realizing, oh, I'm probably gay, also. That was the added level of, like, insecurity of like fear, and then having, like, friends that were girls who were like, not understanding why my feelings were so intense. Like if they would  like cancel plans on me, I would just have a total meltdown. Like it just couldn't handle anything. So yeah, things were really tough.

Sophie Bearman [00:14:46] Were you also bullied in high school?

Margaret Cho [00:14:48] Yes, a lot. And, but I also was maybe more able to deal with it because I discovered the theater department and I discovered stand-up comedy, you know, around 14. So that was a saving grace. Like, I had friends in theater. I had friends in comedy. You know, these other kids who were really interested in doing comedy. And we were able to go to like The Other Cafe, which was a comedy club on Carl and Cole in the Haight.

Sophie Bearman [00:15:17] That's the first place that you ever performed, right?

Margaret Cho [00:15:19] Yeah, yeah. So, and it was a club where I just idolized everybody who was on stage there, whether it was Paula Poundstone who is like still my hero, or like Bobcat Goldthwait or Dana Carvey, you know, these incredible people who were doing shows there every night. And so we would do the open mic. And so I felt more at home with comedians, and I felt more like, oh, I don't have to be a kid anymore. That's also what sort of took me out of being interested in school and being interested in anything academic. I just wanted to be a comedian.

Sophie Bearman [00:15:57] It's time for a quick break. When we come back, Margaret talks about the raving 90s and the song that ultimately helped her find sobriety. Stay with us.

Sophie Bearman [00:16:25] And we're back. So you're 14, 15 performing comedy open-mic nights. What are you listening to at that age?

Margaret Cho [00:16:33] The Go-Go's. I absolutely adore the Go-Go's, and I'm friends with them. I still see them on occasion, like they're my heroes. And my first big rock concert was seeing them at the Greek Theater, and it was, hundreds and hundreds—thousands of girls. You know, so, you know, I guess would be kin now to like a Taylor Swift concert, it would have felt like. But that was our Eras Tour, was going to see the Go-Go's back then.

Sophie Bearman [00:17:06] What song in particular?

Margaret Cho [00:17:08] I love Our Lips Are Sealed. It's just a classic. It's just the best.

Margaret Cho [00:17:35] It's so good. I think that they just gave so many girls hope for the future that we could grow up and be rock stars, like they don't need men. We don't need men to make rock and roll. And that's so important. Like that, I think, was so critical that they were doing it. They were writing the songs, they were playing all the instruments that they were just doing it all and going on tour, and they were even jet skiing and everything, like, it's so incredible.

Sophie Bearman [00:18:03] It gave you the confidence you needed to take the stage.

Margaret Cho [00:18:06] Yeah. And the thing about being on stage is that you can't be interrupted. I mean, you can be sometimes, but that, in general, you can't. And that you have the floor. And that if you know what to do with it, that there is a sense of power there. And that's sort of where the outsider goes to have a sense of power and a sense of completion. And that was really a safety. You know, also, if you're on stage, you have witnesses. So like a lot of the things that happened to me, all the crimes against me happened in, in the dark, you know, without witnesses, without anybody knowing. And so when I had audience members, I had witnesses, so that nothing terrible could happen. Nothing—and then sort of, like my early experiences with stage fright kind of turned into more of a strength, like, oh, actually, this energy is going to give me power, and it really helped carry me through. So that's really great.

Sophie Bearman [00:19:05] So we've charted you a little bit through high school, and then the next song you chose is well into your 20s. Looking back at that time, what pops out as what you were going through.

Margaret Cho [00:19:17] Well, I think a lot of it was really just coming into like Hollywood and understanding that this is like a whole new world. And, you know, leaving San Francisco. I was just like so hard at work trying to be an entertainer and trying to be in comedy and trying to be in movies. But it was really hard. And so it was like my attention was really scattered on a million things of just trying to be in showbiz.

Sophie Bearman [00:19:43] What music were you listening to, to either get you through that or distract you?

Margaret Cho [00:19:46] Well, I was a hardcore raver, so I loved Deee-Lite and I love this song Groove Is in the Heart because it's so many different things coming at you sonically. It's really sophisticated and complex. It's so 90s, but in the best way that we were like embracing all these different types of music and mashing it up. But I love it.

Sophie Bearman [00:20:08] Yeah, it's funk and house and it has a lot going on.

Margaret Cho [00:20:12] So good. Whenever I hear that <vocalization> I can taste that part of the song. That is such a synesthesia moment for me.

Sophie Bearman [00:20:37] You said you were a raver.

Margaret Cho [00:20:39] Yeah. It's sort of like when drugs are sort of celebratory, which I think is really fun. Like, you know, the reason people do drugs is not just to escape and not to just to further damage themselves. Sometimes there's people that do drugs for fun, which, I wish that I could do that. There's not an ability there anymore to do that because I've had such a history with it. But if there was a time that sort of encapsulates the celebratory like quality of inebriation, it would be like this song and the era that this song sort of encapsulates, that sort of 90s glee. I wish I still had that, but I don't. But it's nice to revisit and you can revisit it always with music.

Sophie Bearman [00:21:20] Yeah. So you chose another song from the same time period. Which one was that?

Margaret Cho [00:21:24] It is an Oasis song. It's Wonderwall. You know, when this song came out, when this whole album came out, like, I'd just got my first sort of big house in LA, and we would, like, be in the house. And it was me and Janeane Garofalo and David Cross, and we would sing every line of this, and, you know, it just felt like it was so young Hollywood. And we were just so young and so, optimistic and yet pessimistic, which was the 90s way. The 90s were really about pessimism as a kind of a fashion statement and self-hatred as a badge of honor.

Sophie Bearman [00:22:02] Any lyrics that you would belt louder than others?

Margaret Cho [00:22:05] Yeah. You're going to be the one that saves me...

Sophie Bearman [00:22:32] So that song came out mid-90s, I think like 1995. So you're in LA, 28, 29. You're doing a lot because it's not soon after that your stand-up show called "I'm The One That I Want" comes out.

Margaret Cho [00:22:45] Yes. And I'm doing the show off-Broadway and then it becomes a film, you know, and then I'm touring a lot. You know, my career was like, going well. My memoir came out, so, you know, there was a sense of real strength. I was, like, very active in my life. Like to me I was just really living and, like, doing comedy with a message, doing comedy with a sense of hope about, like, overcoming the self, overcoming trauma, overcoming these things that happened. I think that was really the kind of comedian that I always wanted to be and that I'm still trying to get there.

Sophie Bearman [00:23:25] What is your, like, brand, flavor of comedy that does that and helps other people process their own trauma? Like, how do you bring it forward?

Margaret Cho [00:23:33] Well, I do low brow, high brow. So it's like, very like, optimistic and life-affirming and really wholesome. But the the crassness is really kind of the baseline. It's the gravity. So I want to have a really grounded sensibility too. And the crassness comes from just my natural—that's what I laugh at, what I think is funny and what is naturally appealing to me. So that's what I aim for. It's like really high and really low at the same time.

Sophie Bearman [00:24:02] What's a crass joke that you'd give as an example, one that comes to mind?

Margaret Cho [00:24:05] Like it's so dumb, but it's, I think that Asian people can really suck dick because we have been slurping noodles for centuries. The skills transfer over. Like, it dips into this idea of like, oh, let's just get real dumb. But it's also like, let's acknowledge how we've learned so much from Asia. And so it's actually a joke about colonialism. It's so dumb. But it's so profound. To me, it's like really profound.

Sophie Bearman [00:24:33] So you chose one last song. Which one did you bring us?

Margaret Cho [00:24:37] This song is the best song that I have ever heard about alcoholism and drug addiction. And, it's written by Sia, who is a friend, and I admire her so much. But this song, it's the ultimate, you know, man, like the way that I feel like in the depths of my suffering as an addict and as an alcoholic, like the way that it is, like, produced the way that the lyrics are. Her voice with the cracks in it, which is like just awesome beauty. Like she has that kintsugi—it's like the Japanese thing, if you break something, you like put it back together with gold and it's like, even better.

Sophie Bearman [00:25:15] Oh yeah.

Margaret Cho [00:25:16] The breaks in her voice is like the authentic kintsugi of like a human voice, like, this song is like, I think anybody who's struggling with substances and addiction hears themselves in this song, and it is truly remarkable.

Sophie Bearman [00:25:33] Chandelier.

Margaret Cho [00:25:58] I'm going to swing from the chandelier. Like, it's the minor chord that the song is sung in, and it's that heart full of pain that she's going to party even though it's killing her.

Sophie Bearman [00:26:11] And you heard this song and it actually flipped a switch for you, right? I mean, it made you want sobriety.

Margaret Cho [00:26:16] Yeah. I mean, this song really helped me want to get sober and helped me—and also like, we would actually do this song... So after Robin Williams died, I would do this street band, where we called ourselves Be Robin, and we would make all this money on GoFundMe, and then we would buy food and anything that people who are unhoused needed. So it was an amazing, cathartic moment of singing this song in the spirit of Robin Williams. And it was really such an incredible time.

Sophie Bearman [00:26:48] And you knew Robin Williams personally. He was something of a mentor or a friend of yours.

Margaret Cho [00:26:53] As a silent owner, he was part of the Holy City Zoo, which was the comedy club that I lived across the street from when I started comedy on Clement Street. And so he would come in and do sets and I would always have to follow him, which was like a nightmare. But it helped me become a better comedian. And he was the first person I got an autograph from when I was like a really little kid from my dad's bookstore. But, you know, the song always reminds me of him, the time period of kind of trying to mourn his death, but doing something for the unhoused, which was his main cause since Comic Relief in the 80s, which I also did with him, which was really great.

Sophie Bearman [00:27:35] I'm curious, Margaret, looking back at your career, and of course it's still ongoing, but what are you to date most proud of?

Margaret Cho [00:27:43] Oh, surviving. You know, surviving myself, of all things. Because I am the worst. I'm the worst. Like, I'm like a really negative, abusive person to myself. So, like, to survive that is like, such a triumph that every day I survive myself is, like, so incredible. I'm, like, really amazed. But yeah, like, and surviving show business, surviving alcoholism and addiction, surviving depression, surviving abusive relationships, all of it surviving and still really enjoying every moment. You know, like, I have a really good time in my life and it's like taken a long time to fight my way through this. And also now I have a really wonderful generation of young people who have been inspired by my work, who give me jobs like Joel Kim Booster or Bowen Yang. You know, people who I just love endlessly, Sabrina Wu, and all these amazing comedians who I just admire and I'm so lifted up by.

Sophie Bearman [00:28:43] And my last question is, any advice that you would tell your seven year old self

Margaret Cho [00:28:49] Just not to worry so much and it's going to be okay, not to worry. And it's all going to work out just fine.

Sophie Bearman [00:28:57] Margaret Cho, thank you so, so much for joining us.

Margaret Cho [00:28:59] Thank you.

Sophie Bearman [00:29:00] Life in Seven Songs is the production from The San Francisco Standard. This episode was produced by me, Sophie Bearman, and our senior producer Jasmyn Morris. Our executive producers are Griffin Gaffney and Jon Steinberg. Nate Tobey is our creative consultant. This episode was mixed by Michelle Lanz. Booking help from Meaghan Mitchell. Our theme music is by Kate Davis and Zubin Hensler and Clark Miller created our show art. Our music consultant is Sarah Tembeckjian and our studio engineer is Sean McKenna at Pyramind Studios. You can find this guest's full playlist at sf.news/spotify. Thanks for listening and see you next time.