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Archive for December, 2011

New Years Rockin’ Eve

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

In 1994, I co-hosted Dick Clark New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, and we filmed that shit nowhere near New Years. It was like in July or something really early like that. The show was shot in different locations and put together in post like a quilt, but I remember my patch was done at a big megastudio in Orlando, florida, probably MGM or Disneyworld. I am not sure which theme park it was, but I remember at the airport I had to take a tram so it must have been Orlando.

They paid a lot for me at the time, and since I was technically an employee of Disney, whenever I was at Disneyland or Disneyworld, I never had to wait in line for rides or pay one thin dime for food or souvenirs, which basically ruined the theme park game for me. Now when I go to any kind of amusement park, I expect that kind of treatment. I get in through the gates and I feel like a deposed king, no longer in power yet unable to blend back into ordinary life, the memory of riches and entitlements now just a bitter taste in my mouth.

But in the early 90s, I could ride the Matterhorn as many times in a row as I pleased. If I wanted to I could just stay on the ride and go again and again and again and again and I did it so much I didn’t enjoy it at all anymore. It just rattled my brain and racked my nerves. I preferred the weirdly retro science rides at Disneyworld, the ones hardly ridden by anyone and set to close down forever, which now would be categorized as ‘steampunk’ and be kept running by hipsters high on mushrooms.

Whenever you went to Disneyworld you would get a young person who would be your fixer, and they would usually be a good looking, somewhat androgynous and extremely ambitious type. Their jobs had a specific name but I can’t remember what it is, or what their individual names were. They would do anything for you, and I even think once I asked them for drugs and they just laughed. They wore plaid vests and were uniformly beautiful and resourceful and trained to please you in all ways that were legal and possible. I guess it is like hiring a geisha, as these vested and happy helpers made a point to flatter you and make good conversation, so they were geisha without kimono. Like Doctors Without Borders. Nice kids.

They drove me to the set in golf carts and complimented my fancy gown, a Gregory Parkinson original, fitted to my body in the workroom of his old store on Beverly Blvd. Gregory slit the back open and pinned the silver sequin masterpiece so it hung perfectly, and after the special was filmed he hand dyed it so I could wear it again without anyone suspecting it wasn’t new. It was my first real designer dress and I wish I still had the thing. I can’t remember where it is at all anymore.

Dick Clark was there and he looked supernaturally young, which has been the joke with him forever, and he has always been fond of me and relied on me and gave me jobs way before other people did. Once he brought me in specially to shoot an episode of the Donny and Marie talk show. The famous siblings fought throughout my segment, and Dick apologized for their constant conflict. I was merely honored to be there, and probably as starstruck as I have ever been. I remember the Barbie style dolls of Donny and Marie I had as a child, in their purple ice skating outfits, the shredded amethyst and lavender chiffon cut into tiny triangles to give the illusion of movement. I don’t know why they don’t have tv shows filmed on ice anymore. This was a smashingly good idea.

Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve wasn’t filmed on ice, and I shared co-hosting duties with Steve Harvey, who I saw often in those days, as we both had big deals with Disney. He was always hilarious and made fun of the executives and whenever he was there it was a relief because I didn’t have to do all the joking. Salt-n-Pepa performed and they wore knee pads and danced impressively and sang their hit ‘What a Man’ and it was thrilling even though they had to repeat the song a number of times so that the cameras could move and shoot them from different angles. Every time they did the song I still got just as excited as the first time. I love Salt-n-Pepa. Spinderella was there too.

We all stood together at the end and cheered in the new year – I think Hootie and the Blowfish were in attendance as well but my memory doesn’t include them and I am not sure why. I saw Darius Rucker multiple times during that period. For some reason we were always in the same hotels. I was always coming when he was going. Different cities, different days, but we always passed each other in the same direction. He’s nice too. He’ll hold an elevator for you even when its awkward and inconvenient.

When the old year was counted out and the new year was ushered in I got scared because it wasn’t New Years. It wasn’t even close to New Years. I had been watching this show since I was a child and I had always assumed it was live and now to be a part of it, a big part of it and know what a lie it was felt strangely shattering and sickening. I think it was the very beginning of my nervous breakdown of the mid-90s and one of the reasons I never celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Tags: 90's, New Year's Eve, TV & Film
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Margaret Cho on The Mortified Sessions – Monday Jan. 2nd on Sundance!

Friday, December 30th, 2011

Margaret will be on The Mortified Sessions on Sundance on Monday, January 2nd – 8pm!

From Huffington Post TV: On Sundance Channel’s “Mortified Sessions,” celebrities reveal their dirty laundry. From how they learned about sex to childhood crushes, they’re not holding anything back. On the upcoming new episode, “Suburgatory” star Cheryl Hines and comedienne Margaret Cho are next to spill their secrets.

For Cho, realizing she wasn’t white was a shock.

“When I was maybe six, I was really angry that I was not white. When I realized I wasn’t white I was so furious … I still have deep fantasies about being white — it must be so relaxing to be white. I wish I could go to the spa and just be white for an hour,” she said.

Tags: Childhood, PRESS, The Mortified Sessions
Posted in NEWS, PRESS | No Comments »

Kim Jong Il’s Funeral

Friday, December 30th, 2011

The photos from Kim Jong Il’s funeral look surreal and way old-timey. That this happened in our world in modern times is totally weird.

In the photos, the people are crying, and it is snowing, and no one seems to be wearing hats or gloves except for members of the military, who also look a little off.

The uniforms are slightly ill-fitting, collars pulling off the neck. You need to take the shoulders in and lift the whole silhouette up or you look like a clothes hanger. I see their loose outfits and immediately imagine pinning the back and folding up sleeves, doing the alterations in my mind. I am a seamstress to the fucking core.

There’s a costume quality to their officials, like they are just pretending, like weekend military reenactors, or like extras from a straight-to-DVD action film, but they are real. I guess the fact that they don’t look real makes them more real.

Everyone is really upset. I would be crying from the cold alone. I can’t stand the snow, and my ears want to break off just looking at their bare heads and wet eyes. I don’t get that kind of dictator worship. I don’t believe I have ever cried over the death of a political figure, with the exception of Harvey milk. And if anyone was deserving of this kind of grandeur, he was, but not Kim Jong Il, I don’t think. I would have been upset about JFK and Lincoln, but I wasn’t born yet.

The big photo of Kim Jong Il reminds me of the Chinese funeral processions I witnessed as a child, weaving slowly down Powell Street. There would be a fancy hearse carrying the recently deceased, usually a very old person, but creepily sometimes someone pretty young, and the blown-up portrait would be propped on top of the car, with white ribbons crossed at the bottom, symbolizing death, as if the coffin inside weren’t enough to tip you off.

I always tried to sneak looks through the windows of the hearse to see the coffin, which was shiny and big and scary and ominous and draped in white lace, with white flowers surrounding it. For Asians the color of death is white. If I put a white flower in my hair, my mom would freak the fuck out. White is death, not innocence, not purity, not cleanliness, not brides. It’s straight-up death. Black, however, is slimming and sophisticated.

A long line of cars rolling single-file to the cemetery in front and behind the hearse would be preceded by a fairly large brass band, their sheet music on small cards stuck to their horns, squealing out a mournful requiem march that filled the joss-stick smoky air with solemnity and minor chords.

I saw these processions so often that I started to understand that some people spent more on their funerals than others. The bands were bigger or smaller, or sometimes there was no band at all, and then the only sound you would hear were the idling engines and some soft sniffling and crying, unless the dead person was a baby. That was the worst. They wouldn’t have a band, and people would be screaming with grief, I mean howling at the top of their lungs in the deepest, sickest sadness that can be felt. I only saw that one time. I’ll never forget that. Tiny coffin in a big, huge hearse. Terrible.

Usually folks skimped on the flower arrangements, and every once in a while I would just see a plain, pine box in the hearse. No frills, no chills, no daffodils. That’s cool. It looks better that way, in my opinion.

It looks like Kim Jong Il’s ceremony was expensive, and that’s wrong. It’s money ill spent. It should have gone to buy hats and gloves for the cold mourners. That money should have been used to feed and educate the people and introduce them to rest of the world.

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Bread

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

There is bread I am not fond of. The ryes, the pumpernickels, some sourdoughs – they leave me feeling despondent and disappointed. Especially that one weird rye/pumpernickel hybrid that is swirled like its some kind of delicious marbled bundt cake or something. That is real false advertising. Its not sweet at all and there’s a malt back taste and a bitterness overall that I feel is not appropriate for bread.

I know that these loaves are usually served as a background for lovely corned beef and other fine salty deli meats that overcome the beery anise flavor that the rye imparts, but why not just eat the meat itself and avoid the little seeds in your teeth that drive you crazy all day unless you are smart and thrifty like me and squirrel/ferret away old toothpicks in your car and purse for years at a time?

Challah I love, I am not coming after all the deli breads. Challah I absolutely love. Don’t talk shit about challah. And bagels – well, that is a bread I could eat solely forever and ever. The bagel is the staff of life. I love bagels and I would choose a bagel over a donut, caviar – maybe even chocolate – yes that is my love for bagels. But not blueberry bagels. They have always had a fearsome resemblance to blueberry poptarts, which are not good (although strawberry poptarts are very very very good).

The bread that I love, that I worship, that I give as gifts not only to myself and those I admire, is banana bread. I am not wild about bananas as a fruit. They’re ok I guess, starchy and sweet and bland. They are edible, but they aren’t my favorite. But you mix them into a batter and bake them with nuts – they become something totally different.

The banana bread I love most comes from a lovely café about a mile from my home, and in order for me allow myself to eat it, I must walk the distance there. Of course I never do this, but I tell myself that this is going to happen sometime. I will allow myself that indulgence if I walk there as an aerobic absolution.

The banana bread is baked on site in the silent early morning hours of the baker/pastry chef. They always struck me as the ascetics of the food/wine world. Chefs and bartenders and waitstaff seem to lead the same lives as comedians and musicians. We are night workers. When the rest of the world gets off work, we are just starting so we can serve them. We deal in pleasure, the pleasure of others, and hopefully we take prodigious pleasure in ourselves from our professions.

But the bakers, the pastry chefs, the ones with the exact measurements and the icy hands, they have to get up early and get it going and get the dough rising before the world is rising. They are of the monastic stock that have no part in me, but its ironic because what they bring forth is the most decadent thing I can eat. Bread. I say it and I feel weak. Bread. I eat it and I am immediately guilty. Banana bread, I love you. Bakers and pastry chefs, I salute you. I am going to walk to that café now.

Ps. Pumpkin bread is fucking good shit too.

Tags: Bread, General
Posted in BLOG | 10 Comments »

Don’t Worry

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

Whenever I start worrying about money, I know that means I am getting my period. The rest of the month, I am ok with cash. There are many things I want, and I’m the first to admit I have some expensive taste going on, but I try to check myself before I wreck myself.

My life is dotted with lots of used and re-used objects – lip and eye pencils worn down to nubs, eyeshadow from the 70s, 2 toothpicks in my car that have been there for about 3 years and going strong, old ass but not necessarily ‘vintage’ jewelry – meaning a necklace that my father gave me when I was 14 still gets lots of prime time around my neck and it’s made of aluminum.

I am frugal to the point of maybe an entry level hoarder, but I manage it, until PMS hits me and then I get real nervous. It’s like when I was a kid and I would lay at wake at night and worry about whether the world was going to run out of water. I could hear the leaky shower head in the bathroom next to my bedroom and in each drop that fell, I felt the planet get more and more thirsty. I’d go to school unslept and unhinged and later my imaginings would link with the greater conscience of the earth and become what we know of as “green”.

But then it was just kind of crazy and probably an early emergence of depression. It was less about saving the world than it was about worrying about it. And it’s the same with money with me. It’s less about saving it and more about worrying about it. I could cut some corners but i just don’t because then if i did there would be nothing to concern me. If I decided to never buy shoes again, I would still have at least a good hundred pairs left unworn to choose from when the heels are slit to slide my motionless feet into. That is assuming I make it to 100, which for me seems likely. I am always last to leave.

I love worry like I love nothing else. I must or else I wouldn’t do it so much. It’s vexing and troubling and dumb as I have had a run of incredible luck in my so far pretty amazing life and not one thing I have obsessively worried about has happened. It’s the things I don’t worry about that happen and then I start to worry about what I am not worrying about.

Tags: General, Periods
Posted in BLOG | 8 Comments »

I Have A Motorcycle License

Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

The second I swung my leg over the bike I knew it was right. Maybe it’s what people mean when they say they fell in love at first sight. I am not so sure if that has happened to me ever. Maybe it has and in cynical retrospect my memory has merely adjusted to match the outcome of the at-first-sighted-and-believed-then-it-was-love-but-now-i-know-it-was-actually-hate-relationship. my memory can’t help but be colored by the big box of crayons called the truth.

But the motorcycle hasn’t disappointed me yet. Those beautiful two wheels haven’t lied or hurt me purposefully or tried to shame me or control me. They’ve only propelled me forward, cooling my hot neck with the joyous feeling of flight, wind rushing through my DOT approved Arai helmet (yes that’s an endorsement – the arais are expensive but really, how much is your head worth?).

Of course there was a lot of lurching forward abruptly when I released the clutch too quickly, and I was thrown off a lot, and then that sickening feeling of not being able to balance the bike, 500 lbs of metal and rubber and plastic and glass and gas giving way to gravity underneath your ass as it falls over and crashes to the ground, bending back the handlebars into a beginner’s grotesque, marking up the neon yellow paint job with the evidence of your inexperience. but it’s all ok.

I spent the last 5 days in class and on the range with 8 other prospective bikers in the fantastic Rider’s Edge program, which is about 25 hours of intense education on how to ride safely, and this morning, after a night of fitful pre-test tossing and turning, I went to the downtown LA DMV and got my M1 license, which gives me the right and privilege to operate a two-wheeled vehicle. The motorcycle license never expires in California, and so I have the whole of my life to learn.

I haven’t been to the good old DMV in about 20 years. I am happy to say it’s exactly the same as I remembered it. I was there before 8am, and there was a line snaking around the block of people breathing thick clouds of mist into the cold air as they held different configurations of partial and complete filled out forms in their hands.

The cold in Los Angeles is unbearable to me, most of all in the morning, and especially when I have to pee really bad. We stamped our feet and shook and some suckled dunkin donuts coffee sippy cups as others looked on with blank midmorning stranger faces.

Finally at 8:01, a security guard opened the inoperative automatic doors in a painfully slow reveal, like he was Gypsy Rose Lee, first slipping one coy leg out of the doors, then the other, then his whole body – a government office seduction, his arms spreading the edges of the fingerprinty glass doors like he was singlehandedly holding back the inner sanctum of desks and partial barricades and tired underpaid and underlaid workers – a fluorescent light tsunami of boredom and endless queues and jaded and frustrated people who wield a seemingly small yet actually pretty significant amount of power over the general population – to tantalize and tease us, the horny would be drivers with paper in our fingers.

I was concerned about the eye test (I don’t know why, I have excellent vision, but it’s a trial whenever your body is tested), but that didn’t turn out to be a problem. I had to take the written motorcycle test twice, along with an extra driver’s test thrown in for good measure. I failed both and thought momentarily I would get my driver’s license revoked as well, but then there was another chance thrown at me, and I suddenly passed and before I could say “unflattering picture” I had an M1 license in my still freezing cold hands.

When I tell people I am going to ride a motorcycle, I get squints of concern. It’s a fearsome and dangerous hobby I know, but I am so Mary Poppins/Miss Jane Hathaway about the whole thing. I don’t know why anyone imagines that I would ever go faster than 8 or 10 mph in an abandoned parking lot. Frankly I could just do that and it would be enough. I am no daredevil by any means, but there are certain things that are thrilling. Tattoos, guitars and motorcycles – they seem to all make sense together. You rarely see one without the other and then the third creates a harmony that makes everything music. The sum is worth more than its parts. The sum is a life well lived.

Me with my motorcycle certificate and hot instructors!!

Tags: Motorcycles
Posted in BLOG | 9 Comments »

Margaret’s Blog Now Available on Kindle

Monday, December 26th, 2011

Margaret is now blogging daily and you’ll never miss a blog when you subscribe in the Kindle Store!

Kindle blogs are fully downloaded onto your Kindle so you can read them even when you’re not wirelessly connected. And unlike RSS readers which often only provide headlines, blogs on Kindle give you full text content and images, and are updated wirelessly throughout the day.

Get Margaret’s blog HERE.