Fitzdog Radio: Margaret Cho

Mike Gibbons: Every comic I could name – I know has damage. So that’s why I’m asking you guys… The Regan Brothers? What about those fucking guys? They’re so funny.

Greg Fitzsimmons: Well, they have seven brothers. It’s like the Brennans (Neal). When You have that many siblings you can’t not feel cheated of attention, at some point.

Margaret Cho: Yeah, everybody’s got something… like the people that I know, the people that I’m closest with are more – they’re issues are like, not necessarily familial but what they’re own experience is like… My best friend, Celeny Luna is 3-foot-10. So all of her comedy is about being a little person. And so its not necessarily about like child damage, but being the eternal childhood of being in this body. So that is (where) an amazing comedy comes from: not necessarily from her family so, I don’t know, those are the comics I relate to… that are using their body and they’re experience in their body and illuminating that. But about damage, I think we’re all fucked up.

GF: Well, I think damage is actually a bad word because I think that, and again this is an ‘inside comic studio’, but I think that comedians are people that have been made to feel ‘other’. ‘Otherly’. And have fought back against it. Whether by directly by talking about being a little person or by virtue of standing on a stage when they were made to feel that they weren’t worth listening to. It’s a fighting back. That’s where the voice comes from.

MC: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

GF: So I wouldn’t say damage in that we didn’t get damaged. We avoided the damage by taking it on, on some level. And I think any artist you can say that about.

MG: And I guess the reason I use damage is just because, you’re right, its maybe the wrong word. But I think you develop. Like even in… I’m not a comic nor do I have crazy damage but the sense of humor develops from deflecting and from trying to make light and trying to you know, cope and manage, and you’re injecting humor to what could, the flip… like your book (Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons: Tales of Redemption from an Irish Mailbox) the other side of it is crying. Clearly.

Fitzdog Radio: Margaret Cho / aprox 00:49:00