We’re so excited about this Monsters of Talk episode with Tegan and Sara!

Listen here or on itunes!

The new Monsters of Talk is amazing!! Paul Foot is my favorite!!

It must be incredible to actually complete a marathon. To challenge your body to go that far, like Pheidippides, running on, to what might feel like your last breath, and for a few today, terribly was. I may never do it, but I will always admire and envy the incredible spirit it takes to do such a thing.

I awoke this morning in Melbourne to the tragic events in Boston, and I am sickened and shocked and concerned, yet also moved by all the beautiful Bostonians banding together to help house and comfort those in need. It’s remarkable how human beings, normally closed up unto ourselves in our own private solar systems of need and greed, will suddenly open up homes, sofa beds and kitchens when terror looms large.

I see my old friend Patton Oswalt’s words over the internet, and I remember when he lived a block from me, and I could walk, not run over for drugs or coffee anytime, and here he offers solace once again, from all the way across the sea.

All my love to Boston, to the runners, the watchers, the fans in the stands, and for all of us here in the world, trying to understand.

My incident last week there, which I wrote about here caused quite an uproar.

Lots of people were angry about things, mostly proud of me for speaking up, angry that I had been mistreated (while naked no less), but some mad because they felt I was being ‘full of myself’. I might be full of myself, but I would much rather be full of YOU baby – that’s my misguided attempt at responding to hatred with flirting.

Anyway, anyone who criticized my body last week just hear this – you who are without stretch marks, cast the first stone.

Sometimes I want to respond to people who say, “I read what you wrote and you are disgusting.”

Me: First of all, congratulations! I didn’t know you could read! Well, read this – FUCK YOU

But I don’t do that, at least I try not to.

People who hate my body don’t realize how much I love them, as they are in pain, and direct it at me because they don’t what else to do with their pain, so they want me to feel it. If you hate me, please continue to, and maybe the hate will come out of you enough where you will one day be happy. I will take your misery and turn it into poetry. I am like the Soymilkman of Human Kindness, like my hero Billy Bragg, but I am lactose intolerant.

I bowed so much when I finally arrived at Aroma Spa and Sport, and the whole staff came out to greet me. The sweet manager who had to deal with the tough job of negotiating with some irate Korean women who were terrified of my body and then who had to come to ME and talk to me about it – a bad situation for her and everyone involved – was there to help me. She apologized again, and thanked me profusely for returning to the spa, without hard feelings, without anger, but with lots of clogged pores that needed extractions.

Everyone was so nice to me in the spa, women even coming up and complimenting my tattoos and smiling and friendly. I wondered for a moment if they had closed the spa for the day and hired a bunch of actors to play the parts of Korean women bathers, but I actually recognized some of the faces – some of the same women who had judged me so harshly the previous week, those mean ladies, came up to me, with kindness and curiosity in their eyes. I sat in the sauna and watched golf and wept.

The treatments were remarkable, and although they tried to stop me from giving them any money, but I forced about $50 on them, as I am so Korean, and I can fight over a check until the police and ambulance are called and the golf clubs are out and swinging at heads. Sometimes the fight over the check at Asian restaurants is so intense, one family will leave in the squad car, one will leave in the ambulance, but I know whichever emergency vehicle I wind up in, I am going to be the one to pay. That is the winner. Winners pay.

I thanked them up and down, bowed like 100 times, and we took pictures together to post on the Aroma Facebook and my Twitter. I told them that it’s hard to be a Korean American comedian sometimes, because for me, as I work in an industry where there are not many who look like me and do what I do, and I grew up in this showbiz world, feeling alternately hated then invisible for my inability to fit in, and then I go to a place, where everyone is like me – looks like me that is (ok just in the face, not in the tattooed body) and they seem to hate me, I feel so lonely, as if there is no place for me in the world at all.

Also, the jimjilbang, Aroma Spa in particular, reminds me of the women in my family, especially my beloved Kun Immo (my mom’s Unee, i.e. Big Sis, i.e. The Notorious KIM, RIP  Kun Immo – I am pouring a 40 of makgeolli into the ground for her and all my mom’s dead homies) who would take me to their favorite ones in Korea. They would wash my back and braid my hair and hold my face in their hands and ask me if I had any idea how beautiful I was, and how beautiful a woman I was going to grow up to be.

All I have of them now is their jewelry, willed to me in embarrassingly large amounts and stored in safety boxes all over the West Side, as they couldn’t give me any more days, because they only had so many, and had spent them all loving me and my mom, but in death, they could still give me jade and diamonds, to carry into my days, as the beautiful woman they all knew I would grow up to be. (my mom is slightly pissed off that I have it, but I totally let her borrow it! especially the emeralds. She works an emerald better than joan fucking Collins.)

The women at the Aroma Spa look like my family, who are all gone now, but are maybe watching me from heaven, where there’s probably an Aroma spa with a big screen tv  in the sauna showing what is happening on earth, and I feel like, they are proud of me, because I found some new ladies that might do the same things for me that they did, until I see them once more, in the great jimjilbang in the sky.

I attended Bikram’s Yoga School sometime in the late 90s. It was very far from my home at the time, just beneath the Hollywood sign, and I would sweat and bake in the car, panicking that I would be late for their 4:30 pm class — but, ultimately, I would arrive just in time, to sweat and bake further in the heat of the classroom. The school was much larger than the Bikram studios I had attended previously, as many in attendance were student teachers, eager to be certified so they might one day open schools on their own –- small, hot, smelly rooms that have now popped up all over the world.

Bikram Yoga is rather different from other yoga forms I have attempted. I am only saying I have attempted yoga, but I’ve been attempting it for about 35 years, beginning with watching Lillias on PBS as a child to once even actually filling out a form for a teaching workshop in India (To be a teacher! Seriously! I shit you not!) — and then attempting to not fidget in child’s pose with a serious sadhu at dawn on the rooftop of the Vajra Hotel in Kathmandu.

Usually before big shows, I will hire a yoga teacher to come and work with me on the stage before soundcheck. My touring party and I lay out on borrowed mats and we try to undo the damage of airline seats and hotel beds. Bikram Yoga, with its intense heat and brilliantly curated sequence of poses, is one of my favorite and least favorite forms of the art of yoga.

Bikram Yoga is hard. It can make you sick at first. Then it’s so addictive you’d think there should be a 12-step program for it. The room is heated up to 105 degrees and, boy, do you feel it — and then you smell it. It can make your eyes water and shit. Like it’s every human smell multiplied by pi, and that’s not good, as often the practice rooms are carpeted, soaking up all the human juice for, uh, later. You use a mat and a towel on top, but that doesn’t really begin to absorb all the fluid that comes out of your body. It’s a bummer when the smell of all humanity being wrung out like a towel surrounds you, and you are adding to it, bringing your unique scent to the human stew that is Bikram Yoga.

I took a number of classes with the master himself, Bikram Choudhury, and I found him charming in small doses, but then usually, after 26 poses –- I’d had enough. He was rather prickly — he wanted poses done perfectly, held as long as they should be — and these are qualities we want from a teacher of course. Watch us, tell us what we are doing wrong. Be here with us in class. Don’t play the fucking harmonium, you new age douchebag. If you are a yoga teacher, teach that yoga. He wasn’t like an “OM” dude. He didn’t give a shit about that. He wore a tiny bikini bottom, more of a thong maybe, and lots of gold jewelry, which I wondered how it didn’t heat up to the melting point in class. He sweated along with us. I admired him for that, and for the 26 poses, and for the cult of him.

There seemed to be a huge cult of him, mostly women but some men, all extremely fit and beautiful (I am not counting myself as a member of this cult). Schools were popping up everywhere. His students wanted to spread the word of his yogic genius and the smell of everyone’s sweaty holes all over the goddamned world.

Yeah, I love that yoga, I will even do an eagle or two from time to time, out of sequence and in a cold room, because I am gangsta like that, but after awhile, the master Bikram Choudhury really started to get on my nerves. He made numerous comments on the women’s bodies in class. He got really shitty once all up in my brother Bruce Daniel’s face, because Bruce came to class with me, couldn’t handle the heat or the smell, left and actually vomited outside. Bikram Choudhury loves a dirty joke, as I do, but sometimes his jokes were quite cutting, and inappropriate – which for me is saying a lot. I am the most inappropriate bitch and if I am saying something is inappropriate — you know that shit must be illegal. Sorry, I am saying “shit” too much, but in a way, that is kind of how Bikram Choudhury made me feel: like shit.

The yoga itself — no — not shitty. Bikram Choudhury the man — shitty. There’s some sexual harassment allegations against him right now, and there have been rumors about his behavior towards his female students for years, and I have to say, as a former student and actual fan of his popular form of yoga, I know that all that seems just like the guy I once knew. It doesn’t mean we have to stop doing the poses, but maybe we should just, for once, notice the Poser.

Huff Post Gay Voices: Michelle Shocked Me

Huff Post Gay Voices: Lt. Dan Choi on Trial

XOJane.com: MARGARET CHO TALKS ABOUT HER PRIDE IN BEING CALLED A “QUEER ICON” IN LIGHT OF MICHELLE SHOCKED’S ANTI-GAY RANT

Jezebel: In a Room Full of Naked Koreans, Margaret Cho’s Body Is an Unwelcome Sight

This is a really beautiful Korean spa in Los Angeles. Korean spas are wonderful, and they hold a special place in my heart. I have been going to the jijilbang since I was a little girl in Korea. You can have a bath and a scrub and a sauna and usually a meal and other spa treatments if you like, and aroma is special because there’s a huge swimming pool, a state of the art gym and a golf range on the top floor.

I went this morning, had a gorgeous swim in the pool, then went downstairs to have a soak, scrub and sauna. As soon as I walked into the locker room, I felt uncomfortable. I guess I should mention here, Korean spas are, uh — well, clothing optional is not the right thing to call them. It’s more clothing non-optional, in that everyone is naked.
Perhaps I do get stared at a lot because I am a heavily tattooed woman, but I am also a Korean woman, and I feel I have the right to be naked in the Korean spa with other Korean women. I don’t feel shame that my skin is decorated. My tattoos are my glory. I am happy in my skin and I am not sure what to say when others are not happy with my skin.

I walked around from pool to pool, and I kept getting dirty looks from the ladies there. They would talk about me very negatively in Korean, and I just spoke loudly in Korean –- not back at them, but nicely –- saying “ahhh Jotah!” which means “this feels good” –- really at no one -– but just to show that I could understand what they were saying and they weren’t getting away with anything.

I walked into the huge sauna, naked, and sat there watching golf on tv –- they have a fucking tv in the sauna. How sweet is that? A few seconds later, a fully clothed young woman, I am guessing the manager of Aroma Spa, came into the sauna, looked around and walked back out. Then, I guess she mustered up the courage and came in again and asked me if I would come outside with her, as the sauna was too hot for her as she was fully dressed.

I walked out to next to the pools with her, and she sat me down on the wet bench and tried to tell me, very apologetically that I was making the women there upset with my heavily tattooed body. She was really sorry and embarrassed about it, and I felt bad, but I was actually enraged.

This is something I have never done -– I actually said, in Korean “Do you know who I am? I am MARGARET CHO!” She realized who I was, and she was horrified! She said she did know me, and had seen me and was familiar with my work, and she apologized even more profusely and tried to explain that in Korean culture, tattoos are very taboo and my body was upsetting everyone there. I told her I was aware of that, but that I really wanted to enjoy the spa and my treatments and I was going to pay for them, just like everyone else there (it’s pricey, by the way). She asked if I could please wear something, anything -– a towel or something –- and cover myself so that I wouldn’t frighten anyone with my body.

She brought me a robe and arranged for some nice extras in my treatments, by way of apology, or uh, whatever.

Even after donning a robe, I was still being given heavy duty Korean woman stinkeye as I moved from sauna to hot tub to pool. I would get into the pools, trying to stay as clothed as possible until the last minute, just trying to get my body into the water and all the Korean stinkeye women would all get out.

This was too much to bear, and I knew I had to get out of there before I got all “OLDBOY” on them, as I watch too many Korean gangster movies and can threaten a bitch in Korean harsher than Choi Min Sik on a bad day.

I restrained myself from saying “joo-goo lae?” which loosely translated means, “you want to die?” I didn’t say it. I thought it. but I didn’t say it.

I left the spa, way tenser than when I came in, which is the opposite of what should happen in a spa. I paid at the counter, and the manager and some clerks were there who were extremely sweet and apologetic and I gave like a 40% gratuity or something because I didn’t want them to be upset.

I told them that I really wanted to join, but I felt so weird about how I was treated. I told them that Korean culture is one thing, but this place is in Los Angeles. We are not in Korea right now. This is America. And it’s not like I enjoyed looking at their bodies that much. These were all women of various sizes and shapes and some, like me, bore the marks of a difficult life. My tattoos represent much of the pain and suffering I have endured. They are part of me, just like my scars, my fat, my eternal struggle with gravity. None of our bodies are ‘perfect’. We live in them. They aren’t supposed to be ‘perfect’. We are just us, perceived flaws and all. I am just only myself. I like a good scrub and a sauna, especially when you can watch Tiger Woods while it’s all going down.

Their intolerance viewing my nakedness –- as if it was some kind of an assault on their senses, like my ass was a weapon – made me furious in a way I can’t really even express with words -– and that for me is quite impressive. This bitch always has some shit to say.

I guess it comes down to this -– I deserve better.

I brought the first Korean American family to television. I have influenced a generation of Asian American comedians, artists, musicians, actors, authors -– many, many people to do what they dreamed of doing, not letting their race and the lack of Asian Americans in the media stop them. If anything, I understand Korean culture better than most, because I have had to fight against much of its homophobia, sexism, racism –- all the while trying to maintain my fierce ethnic pride. I struggle with the language so that I can be better understood. I try to communicate my frustrations in Korean so that I can enhance my relationship with my identity, my family, my parents homeland.

I deserve to be naked if I want to.

P.S. I saw a heavily tattooed Korean man in the gym area, and I doubt he was asked to cover up at all.

UPDATE: Aroma has generously offered me a free spa day, with a massage and a facial, as well as apologized for everything that happened. I plan to return this week, and I am really grateful for their willingness to do that for me, and i am so happy to try to make up for any bad feelings there might have been.

It’s not really anyone’s fault there – it’s more that the cultural clash between Koreans and Korean Americans can be fairly intense. What is wonderful is that when we can tell our stories, all sides of them, everyone can benefit.

Choi is an Iraq War veteran. He is an Arabic linguist — the kind of soldier desperately needed there — yet because he is gay and proud and refused to stay silent on the matter of the military’s systematic homophobia, he was unfairly discharged and now has to stand trial. His work as a gay activist led to the eventual demise of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which allowed LGBT folks to serve openly in the military, and in a cruelly ironic twist of fate, is still being asked to pay for the “crime” of being gay.

I always hated DADT. It’s foul and unbelievably disrespectful to the people who serve this country. They give up their lives in the name of freedom and democracy, they die, their bodies brought back in somber flag draped coffins to their grief stricken families, the entire time with DADT never once allowing them to fully be themselves. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Don’t ask anyone who they are, don’t tell anyone who you are — but still die for us, ok?

How is this acceptable? How is this possible? For the people who give so much, how could we return so little?

How is it that now that DADT is repealed, Lt. Dan Choi must still stand trial for it? I am so mad and I am so worried — I’d like to just run away right now with Dan to Jeju Island. We could escape and live on the beach in a hut made of braided palm leaves. I could use all the survival techniques I have learned from watching Man vs Wild. We could get incredibly tan and never wear shoes and squat in front of our hut drinking soju and no one would ever find us because we would fit right in. Two Korean needles in a huge Korean haystack. I would make us money by diving for abalone. We would be just fine.

Please tweet this and support Lt. Dan Choi @ltdanchoi

In doing so, we begin to pay back the enormous debt owed to the LGBT soldiers who serve this country. We owe so much.

How you can help, FROM LT. DAN CHOI:

On Thursday morning, March 28th in Federal Criminal Court, I stand trial for protesting back in 2010 against “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

The federal prosecutor has fiercely pushed this case for three years now, demanding the maximum punishment: 6 months in federal prison. To date, the government lost 5 of 6 protest cases against me, but they refuse to drop this one. Even after the repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” this seldom-used criminal charge against me remains: “Failure to Obey.” My applications to re-enlist in the army were denied solely because of this trial. Whether it is to “teach me a lesson,” or prevent my reinstatement, or bully those who practice free speech, the prosecution will not give up.

Nor will we. I ask you to please stand with me on this final lap, Thursday morning, March 28th.

The government is smart, powerful, intimidating and well resourced. But I stand on the principles learned in Basic Training: Defend freedom. Tell the truth. Never give up. Please join me, my fellow freedom fighters, international LGBT civil rights activists and people from all across the country who are flying in to send a clear message to the government: We will never stop defending our freedom to speak, serve and love.

Please let me know if you’ll be there! I’ll keep you updated about special gatherings and organizing.
Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/events/342518505852589/
Even if you can’t, please spread the word and forward this message, or consider writing a letter to the judge!

USA v. Lt. Daniel Choi
E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse
United States District Court
333 Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20001

8:00 AM on Courthouse Lawn -
Yoga Meditation and Interfaith Prayer
9:00 AM in Courtroom 6, (Second Floor) -
Trial
Love is still worth fighting for.

Sincerely,

Lt. Dan Choi

If anyone here (esp. press) would like to write to the prosecutor and ask her why these criminal charges are still pressed so vigorously (See below) her contact is Angela George <Angela.George@usdoj.gov> at phone number 202-509-5379… she won’t give me a straight up answer on:

(1) why this is so important to her office
(2) why she refuses to address me or any gay veteran by rank, as prescribed by AR670-1,
or (3) how much this has cost, with over 8 highly skilled US Attorney’s on board for interlocutory appeals and writs, against one pro se (Latin for … up-shit-creek!) Defendant [i'm doing this pro se, mostly because it was Dr. Kameny's dying wish for me, and its a personal promise I made to him. I now realize how difficult that promise, and his own monumental legacy is, to uphold.]

AUSA Angela S. George, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia
555 4th Street, N.W., Room 4444
Washington, D.C. 20530

Her Supervisor: Guerrero, Gilberto (USADC):
Gilberto.Guerrero@usdoj.gov
202-509-4313

The DoJ Appelate Team:
Ms. McCord, Mary B., Assistant U.S. Attorney:
mary.mccord@usdoj.gov

Mr. Strand, Stratton Christopher, Assistant U.S. Attorney:
stratton.strand@usdoj.gov
Mr. McLeese, Roy W., III, Assistant U.S. Attorney:
roy.mcleese@usdoj.gov, Lori.Buckler@usdoj.gov, Victoria.Ashton@usdoj.gov

MARGARET CHO TALKS ABOUT HER PRIDE IN BEING CALLED A “QUEER ICON” IN LIGHT OF MICHELLE SHOCKED’S ANTI-GAY RANT
xoJane asked Margaret Cho to shed some positive light on the Michelle Shocked controversy by talking about what an honor and a privilege having a large queer fanbase truly is.

Why is it great to be a queer icon? I would never say myself that I am an “icon,” but I am definitely queer, to the bone. Nothing is going to change that, but because I am part of the queer community and feel loved and cherished here.

OK -– me, little old me –- I am a queer icon! (I am totally blushing right now — OMG!) And I love it.

The main reason I love it is because when I am performing for my mostly queer and awesome straight ally audiences, I feel safe. Safety is something I need because I have never felt safe in my skin, in my mind, in my heart.

Whenever I enter a comedy club, my natural habitat and spiritual home when I am performing becomes suddenly hostile when I am not. There’s always a chance that the comic onstage is going to attack me, or someone like me. As a queer Asian American feminist, I am always at risk, as my existence, or whatever, is perceived to be some kind of fodder for bad jokes from hack comedians.

The homophobia, racism and sexism I hear and feel constantly is taken as trivial. I have been told time and time again, it’s just a joke. Who cares?

Well, I care, and it hurts me. It dehumanizes me and adds to the invisibility I already feel, which also doesn’t make sense. How can being singled out and abused make you feel like you aren’t even there? In the alchemy of bigotry, it does.

Safety is important to people like me, and my shows are where people can truly feel safe and visible and real and I am grateful I can do that. It’s better than magic. It’s relief. The burdens of race, sexuality and gender are lifted. It’s OK to be you and me when we are together.

Once, this beautiful gay boy told me that at his new school he felt bullied and alone and too scared to come out to anyone, fearing he was what everyone already suspected and taunted and teased him for. He put my picture on his binder, and held it in front of him as he walked down the frightening lonely halls and he knew that if anyone commented favorably on my presence there, that he was safe with them.

This way, he found other kids just like him, they became friends, and they felt brave together. I was able to make them safe, by not even being there. He thanked me and I cried.

I cried again when I heard that Michelle Shocked hates gays. I thought I was safe with her. “Anchorage” really got to me, as I took it to be a song about a gay girl and a straight girl who were once in love and then went their own ways (“Hey Chelle, we was wild then…”).

There are girls I dreamed about singing that song to, and now I can’t, and I never will.

Of course I am projecting, and maybe that song is not about that, but she still made me feel safe, and now she doesn’t.

That is a lot to lose. It’s OK. We got Ani Difranco, we got the Indigo Girls, we got Chely Wright!!! Replace your old Chelle Shocked with your new Chel -– Chely Wright!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t know what I am trying to say.

No, actually I do.

Listen, whoever you are, you are still safe with me. You will always be. Xo m