Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

On Saturday night, The Gryphon and I saw Margaret Cho perform at the Tower Theater. It was my second time to see her perform. The first time was at the Laugh Factory in Baltimore. She's always a lot of fun live.

The audience in Philly seemed more like her typical audience then those who went to see her in Baltimore. I remember thinking there were far too many heterosexual couple wearing conservative clothes.

The Philly audience was a lot more diverse, and a lot of them, men and women alike, were wearing great clothes. Always a sign more gays are present. Or, nowadays, at least metrosexuals.

I'd chosen to wear a full-length psychedelic skirt with a matching lime green shirt and my black blazer with the white stitching, with my black half boots.

We had great seats, about five rows back and a little off to the left. We knew exactly how good they were when the opening act, Bruce Daniels, came out on stage. He's improved a little since I saw him in Baltimore. Back then, he stuck to very predictable jokes about being a homosexual, but now he told more stories, which were interesting, and got into some political stuff, too. Much better than the first time I saw him. He must be learning from Margaret.

I thought there would be an intermission between the two acts, like there had been for Lewis Black, so I was a little surprised when he introduced Margaret Cho, especially since I'd just had a black and tan, and I would have hit the ladies' room again. But I had to wait until the end of the show, because I didn't want to miss one word.

She looked fabulous, wearing a little pink camisole with ruby red flower appliques and a knee-length rose sweater that had an edging that matched the flowers, over a pair of distressed jeans. She always looks great.

This was funny because one of the bits was her talking about how she always thinks the people who get voted worst dressed at awards shows are the ones who are the most creative and therefore most worthy of praise. She'd loved Bjork's dress at the Oscars several years ago, designed to look like a swan and accessoried with an egg. Later in the show, she did a dead on imitation of Bjork that was hilarious.

She also recalled one of her favorite Cher Oscar dresses, where she wore a black feather headdress. So she swore that if she ever went to an awards show she would have to dress like a bird. Fulfilling this prophecy, she was nominated for a Grammy and wore a dress covered with peacock feathers. She was proud to announce she'd been voted worst dressed.

This time, she did some great topical stuff. At the top of the show, she personalized it to our area and talked about how it's time for Senator Rick Santorum to go. So many people dislike him, she said, that they've decided his name should mean a really rude thing. If you don't believe me, type his name into a search engine and see what comes up.

At one point, she talked about how her political activism has recently put her on the wrong side of conservative activists. During the elections, she was the victim of an angry letter writing campaign for some things she'd said. So she'd posted these e-mails on her web site and inadvertently triggered "al Gayda." Within a short period of time, she said she received a lot of apology e-mails: "I'm sorry I called you a fat dyke. You have a right to your opinions. Now please call off the gays!"

Within her political humor, she talked about Bush's policies and how she thinks he's afraid of female sexuality. She characterized this as a huge cyclone, making circular movements with her arms and a huge sucking sound. She then went on to explain that the women in Afghanistan had to wear burkas because of the same fear.

She mentioned that her mother had had a heart attack this year, which surprised me. I hadn't heard anything about this, and I'm on her mailing list. She told a story about how her mom knew she was in trouble. Apparently, she astro-projects, and her usual cruising altitude is 50,000 feet. When she realized she was only cruising at 8,000 feet, she came back to her body and called 911!

Although Margaret says she wanted to stay home to take care of her mom, her mom insisted that she go on tour. "If you cancel show, Mommy die!" I always love her stories about her mother. They're always so tender, in a way.

As always, she talked a lot about gay culture. In particular, she talked about how the word "girl" has a lot of different meanings. For example, it can mean, "Your dress is so fabulous my head just exploded" or it can mean, "Your rhinoplasty did not work out right."

So at the end of the show, after establishing this, she was talking about how the pope had recently made some comments about how he felt the mass media glorifies gay lifestyles. She said that you shouldn't laugh at "Will & Grace" and then deny people their fundamental legal rights. Besides, she said, the pope's got some room to talk: he wears a floor-length gold dress, has a matching gold hat, is surrounded by 500 men and by the world's finest antiques. She sunk her head in her hands, shook her head sadly and said, "Girl." And that was the end!

Everyone jumped to their feet to applaud, but soon the lights came back up and we filed out. I had a lot of fun listening to the people around me talking about the show. One of the two sailors who had been sitting a couple rows in front of us, laughing along with all the gay jokes, said to the other, "Do you think she'd go out with you?"

In the ladies' room I was behind about three women in their 20's, one of whom couldn't stop talking about the show. She said that she just knew that Margaret Cho was supposed to be funny but that she'd agreed with everything she said and she'd loved it. She grew up in a Catholic school where she couldn't express any of those thoughts, and I think she found it, well, revolutionary. Yet another young mind turned to the light, courtesy of Margaret.

For once, I didn't buy a T-shirt, because I already had the one they were selling. While it's getting big on me, I haven't yet reached my goal weight. If I were going to buy another one, I think I ought to wait until I reach my goal.

The Gryphon had enjoyed himself, too. We grabbed a cab home and chatted all the way about the show.

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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