Margaret Cho

I went with Filthy Assistant to see Margaret Cho perform last night at the Calvin Theater. She was what I would like to be: funny, fearless, open about her life and its wonder and embarassment. I was also struck by how physical her act is, how much and how well she moves.

The piece de resistance was a short bit she created for a performance in Tennessee, because of a theologian there who taught his students that homosexuality was inherently evil and that gay men could only express their love through fisting.

She assumed the character of one of the men, who then proceeded to lament a life misspent: "I had a reputation as a player--I never played anyone, but I had the reputation--and I never stayed in a relationship, because I believed that if I ever let anyone get to know me, the real me, then they wouldn't be able to love me and they'd leave me, so I would always leave first so I wouldn't get left behind. I could never say the words to anyone. I'm 39 years old and I've only ever said them to my momma. I had given up hope of there ever being anyone who could love me. And then I met you. And now, I don't want to leave, because when I'm with you I'm home. And I like being at home. (pause) I love you."

Then, she pantomimed two men fist-fucking.

The genius of it, though, was that throughout the deeply affecting monologue that I've tried to capture above, which she played totally straight, with a light accent, which I felt truly captured the wonder and joy of really loving someone else (it evoked my feelings for Millari very powerfully, and I wished that she was with me in that moment) and expressed perfectly my own deepest fears about any relationship, throughout this monologue the audience was chortling and giggling the whole time (and I was too, even though I was very caught up in identifying with the sentiments which she was actually expressing)because we knew that a punchline was coming. I am deeply impressed at Ms. Cho's ability to evoke and blend conflicting emotions. Even were I to take to the stage and be as fearless as she (my secret wish), I doubt I should ever be so good in the execution.

I wonder how she writes her material?

This made me smile.

Stephen Notley is a lunatic up in Canada who does the Bob the Angry Flower comic. (http://www.angryflower.com) He also does film reviews. He recently reviewed School of Rock, and it sounds great. In that review, he wrote the following paragraph, which I just had to share with my copious readership. :)(http://www.angryflower.com/rock.html)

"And, of course, there's Joan Cusack. I just want to thank director Richard Linklater for putting Joan Cusack in a movie and giving her a great character to play. John Cusack's older sister, Joan is one of the funniest character actresses in movies today. Filled with idiosyncrasies and sparks and surprises, she's been criminally, criminally underused by Hollywood; there are alternate dimensions where the 90s are filled with hilarious Joan Cusack comedies, forever unattainable."


BTW, I am really excited that the Red Sox beat the Oakland A's. We're one step closer to the World Series of Doom.