The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - South Beach Sessions - Margaret Cho

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Margaret Cho is a comedy legend. She’s worn her heart on her sleeve since the start of her career, and now she’s bearing it on South Beach Sessions. Together, Dan and Margaret explore her past: her unusual upbringing, her record and boundary-breaking impact on comedy, and her personal struggles with deep depression and anxiety. Margaret tells Dan about her childhood in the Bay Area, including her early start in comedy and performance, which emerged from a deep feeling of loneliness and being unseen. She ties her queer identity to her growth and development as an artist, but also to her isolation. And, as Margaret embarks on a new tour, they discuss the state of comedy today… including what it means to wholeheartedly push back against an administration that was supported by mainstream comics. Go see Margaret live on her “Choligarchy” tour, dates and tickets are available at margaretcho.com/tour Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Oof. Earn points so fast, it'll seem too good to be true. Plus, join Tim's Rewards today and get enough points for a free donut, drink, or timbits. With 800 points after registration, activation, and first purchase of a dollar or more, see the Tim's app for details at participating in restaurants in Canada for a limited time. Welcome to South Beach sessions again, West Coast style, not very near, South Beach. We've got a comedy pioneer, a trailblazer, Margaret Cho, with us, and a real legend, Lucia. That's right.

What can you tell us about your relationship? with Lucia here? Lucia is my dog. She is six years old. She is a beautiful chihuahua. She's a rescue dog. She's my companion. She helps me a lot. And, you know, she's just an incredible girl. Her full name is Lucia Caterina. And she's just really loves people. She really loves to hang out. And she's a really good girl. When you say she helps you a lot, how does she help you a lot? She's just very, you know, she's my service companion. She helps me with my anxiety. She helps with my sleep, with my health, overall health in general. She's trying to do all sorts of different things, but mostly she's just with me, you know, just to keep me centered and calm. And she's, you know, very much a ban

of comedy. She goes to comedy clubs every night. And so she knows when my closing jokes are, so she knows to get ready and stretch, because we're about to. to leave. And so she loves comedians. She loves the green room. She also loves being on set. And people love her on set as well. You are somebody who's very open, have been throughout the entirety of your career. What is your relationship with anxiety? Well, I have a kind of a long history of like anxiety and depression and for many years, substance abuse and alcoholism. I'm sober now for quite a long time, but I definitely need to use, like, little tools like Lucia and also just a strong recovery program, a strong meditation practice.

So there's a lot of things that I do to keep my mental health in check. I don't use medicine anymore. I have been kind of tried different kinds of medication, but nothing ever really worked out for me. I've been very sort of diligent in trying to see, well, if there are a way to do this, with pharmaceuticals? I don't think so for me. So I found the right combination of having a suitable amount of exercise, having sort of a spiritual practice, having a service animal, having a lot of support and therapy and friends and a very strong recovery community as well. So there's a lot of things that help. Can you take us through your journey with anxiety when you talk about like the

first times that you're realizing that this that you need to get some control over your mind that your mind can be an ally and your mind can be a poison yes well it can be really poisonous because you know you're in your mind your mind is your body you know you're housed within um a system that if the alarms are going off all the time we don't even know when danger is really approaching because it's all self-created so it's a really hazardous place to be when you're born with it and I always had it and so ever since like my very first memories are love laying in bed worrying that the planet was going to run out of water and I don't know if that was a concern in the late 60s for real right but I was worried about it just the concept of water and the

concept of water rushing by I think there was a like I think there was a commercials about drought and how we needed to save water and those triggered my anxiety you know things about worrying about the whales all the whales are going to die you're like things like that which a child that young shouldn't be so concerned about those things you know this of course maybe now maybe yes you know and but I guess I was like kind of a like an early Gretta Tunberg or something like I was really concerned about the planet and in a way that was I couldn't even speak about it I was so scared and then that switched to I was a classical pianist when I was five, six, seven years old

and I would play these recitals and play these classical pieces and I was so terrified of making a mistake that, and it happened a couple times where I start the piece and I would have to do it again because I made a mistake. And nobody cares if you're like a little kid

and you're a dude, but I put so much pressure on myself. And it's so strange because now 50 years later when I play music, I still have that anxiety. you know, of like, if I don't do this right, I'm going to have to start it over. And it's really crushing sometimes. So. It's more than a perfectionist streak, right?

No, it's animal fear of, if I don't do this correctly, I'll get eaten. Like, it triggers a very primordial fear. So that's where it becomes a problem. So I think over the years, you know, I learned as in a day, well, you know what calms this is, you know, some marijuana or what calms this. Well, marijuana is kind of a double-edged thing because it calms it at first and then it intensifies the paranoia. So you get more scared. And alcohol, too. Alcohol would calm it for a little bit, but then when you are hung over, then it makes it a million times worse. So. Because it's, there's a depression

with it too, right? Because it's a depressant. And I think what it does is what it sort of suppresses the reason. You know, it suppresses like really like rational thought and then your anxiety just gets the best of you. I think that that's probably the worst sceptive of a hangover. It's not really the headache and it's not really the dry mouth or the dehydration. It really is the anxiety. can you take me through where it is early in your childhood you said you had it taken away and you said you also chose to give it away can you can you take us through some of that if your earliest childhood memory is of anxiety can you take us through what your formative years

were like where the imprints are i think um yeah just a very uh the way that it would come out is that I would be incredibly non-verbal and non-communicative with my needs because I was just scared or I would be disruptive. Like there was no in between. So it wasn't a matter of trying to draw me out because then if you try to draw me out, then I would just be like crazy. So I always remember being in some kind of detention or like some kind of trouble. It was always me and like a bunch of little boys getting in trouble.

And so there was no in between either that or I just wouldn't speak at all. And that was its own issue. So I think I probably have, there's some element of neurodivergence in there. You know, if I was like a kid today, they would probably have like some assessment and some diagnosis. I mean, I don't know. I haven't done that now. But, you know, back then that's what it would kind of come out as. And the same thing would happen with like education.

I'd either have like perfect grades and perfect tendons or I wouldn't go at all. So my schooling was very all over the place because I was in an honors, like honors classes and doing really well. And then suddenly drop out, you know, so there was no in-betweens ever. It sounds like childhood, though, didn't have very much in the way. of light or sunshine. It's fear. Don't communicate the fear and then lash out in a way no one understands. And because you're not communicating, you're not explaining to anybody the lash out either. So you're an outsider. Nobody's understanding you, right? And you're lonely? And connection points are where? How do we get to funny from here? I don't know. I think my,

well, my family was really distant as well because they were working all the time. And so and the 70s and the 80s, like, you just didn't see them. Like, I didn't see my parents at all, really. So it was kind of like, that sort of didn't matter. I don't know. Like, I think I became funny because I was always having this inner monologue that I was talking to myself constantly. And one of the signs of it was when I would get in trouble, they would.

make, it was at this parochial school where they would make us write essays when we were in trouble, like to write about what we did wrong. And I would write in a very sarcastic way about the teachers and what I thought of their direction. And then those would always get me sent to the principal. And they would like read them and they would be laughing, but then also, like, how do you, how do you, how do you talk to us like this? Like, don't you know that the teachers are going to read this? How do you, where do you think you, where do you get off talking like this, that kind of attitude. And so that's when I realized, oh, this has some power. Like I remember one time I was in the principal's office and there was the teacher's lounge and one of the teachers

was reading out loud one of my like punishment pieces and everybody was laughing, but it was all teachers. Like what is she doing? So that's when I thought, oh, maybe there's something to my imagination, that's amusing. And so, you know, in the later, like when I was still pretty young in high school, I had a teacher who we were in a comedy class and she would sign us up for open mics, all the students at a comedy club. And that was my first exposure to being in comedy clubs. And that was when I was about 14. So the recall of this one is interesting, though, because you're recalling that you're being seen in some form, you are no longer non-communicative person. You may be in trouble for what you've written about the teachers, but it's producing laughter,

and now you're no longer alone. There's something you've, this is the first feeling you've had with, I've made something that makes people feel something. Yes. Because this is how it happened for me. Like the way my path went toward writing is because people told me that I was good at and I finally got to be good at something. There was something that they were telling me that I was good at.

So that's the path I chose. You're getting laughter for the first time. And what age is this that you're thinking of? Because your childhood doesn't feel like childhood. No. No. But I think this is probably about 10, 11, 12. That's what I was getting like the most severe trouble and then writing essays about it.

So how does one go from non-communicative to on stage a few years later? Did you want to be doing that improv class? Yeah, it made sense to me because that was a way to communicate that was controlled. Because if you're, you know, in a social situation, there's no rules. Like you don't have like with comedy or like theater or it's more like, okay, you talk now. Okay, stop talking. Okay, you talk now. Stop talking.

It's like there's such a construct that you have to follow when you're in a, performance setting that for me feels very safe. Whereas when you're just being social and out and about, it's very lawless. You don't know what's going to happen. So it's going to be very dangerous. But the piano, though, you still get the nerves about that. Do you have the same sort of perfectionist about the stand-up? Is there any of that there? Or is laughter different than music? Laughter's different because the classical music, it cannot, there can't be in a mistake. There can't be an error because it's written by somebody else and it's been written in a very

specific form and you have to do it in exactly the way that it's written. Whereas comedy, there's no rules. And then I can change course and do whatever. And so the way that I can start and stop something is pretty infinite, you know, whatever is at my disposal because language is at my disposal. So there is a kind of safety there. 14 years old, you're escaping into what? What are you, what is luring you to a stage and the decision then? This is what I'd like to do. I really like this right away. Yeah, right away. I mean, I think I knew beforehand that I wanted to do it. Like, I saw it on TV and I was like, that's what I'm doing. You know,

I saw Joan Rivers on television. I was like, that's what I do. That's going to be my job. And, you know, I just loved it as soon as I tried it. And then I was striving to get better at it every time I did it. What do you remember about the performance at 14? Well, that I was doing. I had a partner who was, now he's a very famous actor, Sam Rockwell.

He is great, of course. but he and I had like these sketches that we would do I don't even remember but they are on YouTube we have some stuff out there so we did a documentary for local television and so there's footage of us doing our little sketches and we're just like babies but it was safe because I was with somebody that I trusted

and I knew him so well and I felt very close with him so it wasn't scary to do any of that and then going and doing it on my own was easy because then it was like, oh, I already kind of know how to do this. I'm going to take what I learned and keep applying it. And I just wanted to be an adult. Like I wanted to be, you know, and all these comedians, they were in their 20s and 30s.

You know, they were all just starting out then. And they kind of took care of me, which is great. Really incredible. And so I felt very safe there. You were raised by wolves. Because it's, that is not generally considered the friendliest of environment. It's competitive. Yeah.

And you found home there. You found community immediately? Well, because I think that there was a kind of, they didn't feel threatened by me because I was not really one of their peers. I was literally a child. And also, I was not kind of competing with them because I brought such a different energy whenever I would perform. So it was almost like, I don't know, there's a safety. So a lot of people sort of had their like kind of maternal feelings or paternal feelings around me. I didn't feel like a peer exactly, but I did feel supported.

The green room wouldn't be a great place for a child of that age, but was it better than being at home? Yeah. Well, it was better than being in school. It was better than being, I mean, because I just didn't want to be around other kids. I just didn't like it. I didn't have fun. I didn't enjoy their presence. I didn't enjoy those relationships.

I had a much better time. Well, I mean, in theater, things were great because I did have closeness with other theater people, but they're also all freaks too. And there were a couple people from my class, and we were all doing it together. We were all going to the comedy clubs together. But why such a hurry to be an adult?

I just didn't want to be a child anymore. There was one teacher, too, who I really liked, and my friends and I really liked, and he was incredible. because he was gay but southern but also had like a speech impediment. So he talked like a speech impediment and an accent. So he taught like, you know, you can barely understand what he was saying, but he was also gay.

And so he was just very flamboyant and very cheeky. And, you know, he was my English teacher. And so I did a lot of writing for him. and he would always, like, give me my paper back of all these, like, wonderful glowing notes in the margins and saying, you are a comedian, you're just brilliant, you're going to be a writer, all this stuff, so wonderful. And so one day we came to school and he didn't come,

and everybody, all of the kids were laughing in the class, and I was listening to them, and they said that that faggot got murdered. And so their teacher, who he had gotten murdered by, another man they never nobody knows what happened it was like a very shady scary thing and this is in the 70s in San Francisco and but the way they were talking about it was like so like dehumanizing and so horrible and like my friends my one really good friend and I Jerry she and I were like talking about it like what these they're animal like what they're talking about him and he's our teacher but then he's dead and this is like a couple of hours after he had died like it was like a horrible thing

And then so she and I made a pact that's a world just like, we're never coming back to the school. And we got up and we walked out of the class and we both never went back. And that's sad, you know, because we just gave up our education for the homophobia of stupid kids that, you know, who cares, like, who cares about these kids? Like, awful. But it was like this point of pride, like, we can't be around these people anymore. like they're poisoning us from the inside out like we need to be free you know and um so she and i left the school and she was like my really good friend she's a comedian also and uh she um and i got jobs as phone sex operators which is also really weird like i always had these

friends who were like let's do that like they would be like the most bad influence she was the worse though she was such a bad influence but also a great influence so we got these phone sex traps and then you were 15 years old yeah 15 years old but we couldn't really do them so we just downed too stupid and young so and we wouldn't we didn't know how to keep the people on phone so they moved us to the end of the office like and at the end of the office there was a recording booth where we could read pre-prepared phone sex messages to people who were learning English so it was this program called Hot Girls USA. So we'd read these very simple English text to people who wanted to learn English, but also jerk off. And so we actually made more money doing that. So

we did that and also she got us jobs at the FAO Schwartz. So she was the court jester and I was the Raggedy Ann. And then I later got promoted to be the Hello Kitty. Okay, hold on. You're rushing ahead. We will get to all of these things. But I, the principled stand at 14 to leave school whether you look back on it and say well they shouldn't have been allowed to win or at 14 i was an adult already yes and i didn't want to be with children anymore yes yes it was beneath me like this is beneath me i want to go and do and you know um my parents didn't really understand but it sort of didn't matter i didn't really care what they thought and i also had the ability to go and do stand-up comedy. I was kind of semi-run away from home. Like I was staying with like

other kids like, you know, kind of staying with people and then I'd go back to my parents for a while. Like there was a kind of like transience around there. And, um, are you not being accepted at home? They're just working a lot. They're working a lot and also just don't know how to accept. They accepted me as a very good student. They accepted me as a classical pianist. They do not understand what's happening with this crazy kid. Like, they accepted all of the academic excellence. They accepted all of the accolades and applause so that it would get, you know, playing this classical music.

They accepted the child prodigy. They do not accept the weird, crazy neurodivergent freak. So they were accepting the things you weren't and weren't accepting the things you were. Like that's, and so you're realizing that early and you're like, okay, I'm out of here. I want to be an adult. This, I will not be understood here. You're realizing in your formative early teens, this is not a, these are not surroundings where I will be understood.

Right. Nothing about this feels safe and nothing about this feels nurturing, you know. And so I wanted to go where I did feel nurtured. And then my parents did sort of open up different areas for me that were important. And, you know, my parents owned a gay bookstore, and so I would go there and I would actually work. And so that was another job of mine. So I was around my family and around the sort of extended family of, you know, my parents' employees who were all gay men, who very much nurtured me and encouraged me. And so that was a kind of home, you know, so it wasn't totally devoid of guidance, you know.

Warmth? A lot of warmth. Yeah. Communication? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you're, so you're just making an adult decision at 14. I'm going to go out on my own. Yeah. And how does that go? Like how, how scary is all of that? It was pretty okay. Like, it was kind of okay. Like, because I was able to work. I was able to do shows. I was out really late at night with like comedians, you know? And this is like 15, 16, 17, 18, like going out and then going on the road and doing stand. of comedy going and touring with comedians like hitching on the backside of like comedians like Brett Butler was one where I would like go and I would open for her or you know different all sorts different people but so you're taking basically you feel like you're in college you're interning your you've got a head start on everybody on you know what you want and this is what you're going to

chase yeah and then I was also doing college college comedy shows booked on college college because I was young, so it was appropriate for me to be playing there. And you're killing it as well, right? You're like winning all. You're polished for your age or any age. Yeah, very polished and doing television. I was on television by the time I was 19, you know, pretty regularly. There was a lot of shows like evening at the improv and MTV's, half-hour comedy hour.

And there was a billion things. Your dreams are coming true. Yeah, the Bob Hope comedy special. Like, Bob Hope had a young comedian special every year. So I did it two years in a row. It was quite a big deal, you know, so I was doing well. Before I was 20, I was making a pretty good living. So you're always capable of prodigy when you go into the arts.

Yeah. And, but you chose this one, which was met at home with what? Confucian, like confusion until they saw me on TV which they saw me on TV so young that it was like I didn't have much to prove and I was able to be independent

of everything around my family financially early oh my god he knows we're going to talk here about Miller Light football's back Jeremy and that means Miller Light is in my belly it's in your it's in your belly

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at shopify.com slash batard. Go to shopify.com slash batard. Shopify.com slash batard. Do you feel like you would have been good at just about anything that you tried to pour yourself into with maximum will and dexterity? Probably, but I don't know also because I have to love it. Like I love comedy and I still like do show. every day you know and um it's been like the 43 years of like really working on it all the time even in times of really like terrible situations like personally like when I'm really in the

depths of addiction or alcoholism like I'd still really work on my comedy so one thing that I always did it is a blanket it's yeah it's um it's an unreachable summit I got to keep on going because I can't get there. Like I'm not there yet and I can't seem to get there. Like I keep trying to climb it. It's like Everest. It's like you're and then you see all the dead bodies like people of comics that didn't. Because there's a lot of people who are so funny that never made it because they got sick of it.

They gave up because they just like, fuck this. Like, this is not. Well, because it takes a certain mindset to be perpetually sculpting a sentence in your head. It takes an obsessive compulsiveness, a puzzle solving that you are endlessly curious about for 43 years and always thinking that there's a better out there and always chasing that you'll never be perfect. You'll just do it. It's an endless quest that doesn't end your love for it, clearly. if it's something that you still want to tour

because you want to perfect the craft. Yeah. And there's all these other people, too, they're doing it that are so good that I'm like, oh, I'm trying to catch up to the excellence of that. Oh, but you also realize, though, that you are for many what Joan Rivers was for you, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, which is really, that's really amazing, you know, and I try to be really aware of that. Like, I'm super excited about that. I think that's really just fantastic, you know, because I want to encourage people to do it. So when you take us back to your leaving school and you're leaving school outraged right then, right? Because you do a lot of political comedy now and you're outraged by the animalistic reaction to homophobia and you're not old enough to really process what all of that is. how much better has any of that gotten in the 40 years since?

How much are you able to dilute the daily outrage, given where we are as we sit here today? Oh, it's worse. It's worse. Like, it's like not better. It's like worse. Like to come to a time now where the cruelty is the point. Like that's like the thing that we're dealing with every day,

you know, with just like something like as disgusting as this government now defunding all of the gay teen suicide hotlines like what a terrible thing and to save what kind of money like what what is that like it's just so inhumane and disgusting like the gesture of that like we would rather you didn't save your lives like we would rather you didn't try to save your life we would rather to be shown not to care about your suffering in that way like just that's a small of like how disgusting the current environment is. So in a lot of ways it's worse. Among the difficulties that were obstacles in your path,

I don't know how these get ranked in terms of gay, woman, foreign, which of those was the most difficult? I don't know because I don't know what it's like to be anything else, but I do think that if, that if I was white and if I was straight, I would have it had it easier, but especially if I was a man, I would have had it easier. All those things made me think maybe it would have been easier, but maybe not because all of those things,

when you're a comedian, the things that make you different are currency. So you're actually rich in identity. That's where we, you know, sell our wares. We were talking about this identity and so I'm really rich in those different things that I am. And so those things bought me a lot of attention. They bought me a lot of time where people were interested to hear what I have to say. So and because of that, I was able to forge a whole industry of queer Asian American comedians to come behind me, which is so phenomenal. So I don't know. I don't know. It's interesting. I guess I frame the question wrong because you're saying,

no, don't you understand, these are the things that were different around me and about me. Different was what wasn't accepted. It's why I fled. Here, different was currency. It's literally something I can make my career out of. So all of the difficulties were things that I was meant to have formed into art by the creator in me who likes to also be an essayist. Yeah. So I think that's it's hard to say but I do look at you know some of my peers who have tremendous success who are straight white male and I'm like well maybe I would have done better but I don't know I don't know if the ability is what gets I don't know I don't know I'm not sure were you in any way equipped for success at 18 19 20 years old kind of because I

took it for granted like I believed in it like to a certain extent I like really thought well this is right this is how it should be you knew you were going to be successful you didn't have a lot of doubt no because I was also happy with such so little that I was just kind of like oh well you know what it's all great like I didn't really know but I was happy with

$50 a night I get to do this they're paying me for it can you believe they pay me to do this because this is what I want to be doing it was enough you know and then beyond that like it was like oh great you know oh great we're going to you know get more get more like working in television um and then like when that was falling apart it was like okay well maybe i can just go to stand-up because i still really love that and then that becoming really successful so you know there was a lot of things that um i just a lot of it i kind of took not for granted but I kind of expect it was the lifestyle contributing to addiction what happens

in here with success that leads to self-medicating I'm assuming at some point I assume you're searching for ways to quiet your mind before spirituality you're just you want your mind to be quiet and not have you have dark thoughts all the time or perpetually be unspooling yeah but then also So, like, the lifestyle is, it's kind of geared for it, but at the same time, the lifestyle is what you make of it, like, really, like, I'm just inclined to enjoy substances. I'm inclined to want to play with consciousness. Like, that's just my normal everyday self. Like, I want to see, oh, what happens when I take this?

Like, I want to do that Alice in Wonderland experience with, like, my psyche. to me that's like I'm such a psychonaut like that's kind of fun but this in your house like in San Francisco this was common in your surroundings but at home at home this none of this like where is this coming from it's I don't know like my family are not they do not drink alcohol like they've had the same bar set up for my entire childhood like they didn't ever drain a bottle they never they so from early on though you're like I want to escape this I want to escape this reality I want to try substances, give me alternate realities. Yeah, I've always been inclined.

And then I think being around comedy, well, comedians love marijuana. That's like the main drug of choice for comics. So that was always available. That was always happening. Also, when you're sleeping in a different place every night, pot helps you go to sleep. So that's something to think about. And then you become reliant on it because then you can't fall asleep. You can't do sort of like normal life things, like eat or sleep because you get conditioned to doing the drug before.

But you're sleeping on couches? Like, what do you mean sleeping someplace different every night? How long is this happening? Hotels, couches, people's houses, flop houses. All right, but you're a nomad. You're chasing this career. You're generally happy because you get to chase the career. You're out of your previous situation.

Yeah. But you're living couch to couch. Yeah. And, you know, like, in the 80s, that was kind of totally doable, like totally not weird and not scary. And like kind of punk rock houses, like flop houses existed, like squats, like squats. There wasn't the seediness that sort of happened a little later in the 90s and the 2000s. It was a little bit safer, I think. But you're acknowledging the nomadicness of it, the lack of structure.

You're a bit untethered at an age. that is freeing, but also you could use some tethers, probably. Yeah, for sure. And what happens? How do you get the break that you need for television is the biggest of the breaks, All-American Girl? Yeah, that was one of them. But I think in general, moving to Los Angeles and actually having an apartment,

having a car, and having space to go to, like, meetings at studios and showcases at comedy clubs where they were seeing me, you know, and all these people were being interested about what I was doing. So that's what gave me a kind of tether. That was like the first base. So this is like 19, 20 years old coming to L.A. And what happens next? Then I was in that influxive like comedians who were getting TV shows, you know, and so I got, um, All-American Girl from that. And I got this big deal, and it was at ABC. And then I was kind of like really unaware of how these shows get made.

Because I'm like, I don't even know. Like I know how to do stand-up comedy. I don't know how to do this. This kind of stuff is weird to me. Because it was also they were trying, because I was so young, they wanted it to be like somehow a family show. I think like Blossom, which was very popular then. But I was a little old for that.

And friends hadn't come out yet. So we were actually the same season as Friends premiering. So you didn't have this idea of like early 20s or 20s people being viable on television. You had like young kids. You had families. And then where do we go? So I was sort of stuck in that. And they at the network, they were trying to do.

an Asian family show, but they also had never done it before. So they didn't know what that meant. You know, do we need to get people from UCLA to show us how to be really Korean? Like, do we need language experts? Do we need everybody to know what we're doing? Like, it was weird, like, technical experts. We needed, like, consultants. We didn't, but that was the thought that that we did. And you enjoyed doing that? Or there were too many people. boxes, too many restrictions. I was distracted because I was also too fat to be in the show.

Like, I'm like, I don't know where that also happened too. Like, but I think along the way, the network started panicking because I was so fat. And I wasn't, but that was their idea of like women in the 90s. You know, we've all got to be super thin. And I was on a diet and I was exercising. constantly with a trainer, which was so terrifying, like really bad. I think it was such a depleting, exhausting time where you're just eating food out of little boxes and going and running

upstairs all the time. I was just so tired. I didn't know what was happening. I just asked you whether you enjoyed what would amount to your greatest success at the time and you're running upstairs, eating body dysmorphia. So there's not a lot of pot. Success doesn't feel like success? No, it just feels like exhaustion. And, and is this where addiction grabs you? Because Well, I mean, it's just another part of it. Like, it's another, it's another layer to it. Addiction had always been there. This is just another aspect of it. And this is where sort of, like, I needed some relief. It was like I was just depleting, depleting, depleting, and I needed some relief. That's where the addiction didn't really super kick in until after the show was over.

And then I was kind of like, I don't even know what to do. You know, and then I was just working on my stand-up comedy and touring and then drinking a lot with like people because I could finally drink because I was able to gain weight. And so that really took hold. Like, and that was my first understanding that I had to clean up my life. And so I got sober in the 90s then and became totally sober and became very devoted to my stand-up comedy. And that's all I was thinking about, all that I was doing. And, you know, I wrote a show about my experience doing television, which did, really well and I was so interested in making my life like better from all of the failures

that I had with the television show that I was just focused on comedy. I focused on my sobriety and I was trying to make my life so good that it became crazy because I became a raw vegan chef. It was horrible. It was horrible. You weren't very good at the beginning at making raw vegan food while you became addicted to being healthy. Yeah. It was horrible. I felt so bad.

Like, I felt sick all the time. Like, it was awful. I mean, I know that people do it the right way, but I was like, I went the other way into, like, wellness so hard that I became deeply unwell. Success didn't feel like success. It's all bad. Like, when I go back, and obviously the money's not bad, the influence isn't. bad but when you think of it as an experience you think of pressure you think of body issues you

think of societal bullshit it's it's all something that's conjured that's unpleasant yeah yeah both sides of it like whether you're you know like for me like whether it's like super unhealthy kind of like trying to make make weight and on this TV show that's failing and then the other where I'm doing really well in my comedy, but also trying to manage my, like, new sobriety with a kind of addiction to raw food and veganism, and it was just really, it was really unstable. Did you need sort of the rules and work and stress and schedule and things in order to keep you from the roaming freedom. You said you came to addiction after all of that. Is it because in the work and the anxiety you're feeding off of different kinds of poisons and don't need that one necessarily? So it was

always, there are different kinds of self-harm that's sort of disguised as like health and disguised as wellness. And so I took the other path of self-harm, which was extreme, what asceticism like is a sort of monastic life, which is another kind of like self-flagellation. So it was just super extreme. And that I couldn't handle. Like, and I got so addicted to perfection. And that was a mess as well. What was happening in your life patterns to that point that would make you predisposed to self-flagellation? I don't know, because there was a lot of success in other ways.

Like, I was doing really well in my career. I had bought a house, which is the same house I live in now, which is great. I got married, which was great. and all of these things were like super positive. But at the same time, like trying to maintain this diet and trying to, you know, like live healthfully and do my program and all the stuff, it just was too much. There goes my hero.

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This fall get double points on every qualified stay. Life's the trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. visit bestwestern.com for complete terms and conditions you said you came to understand that the addiction was a problem at some point after the show how did you come to understand that i was just super sick all the time like i was super hungover like i was super like your body just feels so wrecked and the thing is is that i did understand addiction, but nowhere near how bad it became later. Like, the way that I was drinking and stuff in the 90s was like bad, but it's nowhere near the bad that it became much later. Like addiction is like alcoholism is a progressive disease. So you think it's bad. It's never, you don't,

you don't know. It can get so much worse. Like I thought it was bad, but I didn't even know, I didn't realize, you know, because I'd been sober for a long time. And then I, I, I got too sober and that I was like, this is raw vegan chef thing. And then I snapped and I went out to a party and somebody handed me this jamba juice filled with psilocybin mushrooms and I drank the whole thing. Like after seven years of totally sober and it was super weird. It was super weird because I just snapped. Like I'm like, you can't tell me what to do anymore.

And then I just, so that was another example of like totally nonverbalt. and then totally like lashing out like that's you know the child self again appearing in like the adult it was so insane have you examined uh what it is in your upbringing or is it brain chemistry that would make you gravitate toward the extremes i think it's like a kind of a kamikaze like it's a kamikaze mentality it's like a totally like screaming into the abyss of like death that it's it's it's a suicidal nature of that it's it's basically suicidal like it's like all I can only characterize it as oh it's kamikaze like that's what it's giving it's very kamikaze culturally like where where is it coming from like I'm I'm trying to understand the roots of

no I'm going to go in and if I die that's the consequence I'm going to be fearless about it or try to conquer my fear. There's a glory to it. There's a kind of, I mean, culturally, it doesn't really make sense because it's not in my culture. Like, there is quite a lot of, like, mental illness in my family and quite a lot of depression, but they've never dealt with it in any way that makes sense. Like, nobody's ever got sought treatment. I'm, like, the only person who has ever sought treatment in all of the generations of, like,

terrible alcoholism and terrible, like, you know, mental illness and suicide and stuff. So I don't know. I don't know. But there is a kind of drama to it, I guess. Nobody was talking about it, though. You said there were a lot of gay men and they were nurturing, but this was not being spoken about openly. No.

No. No. It was very, and also it sort of skips a generation, too, because my parents were not affected, but my, like, my mother's father was like a third. terrible alcoholic and he died in his early 50s. Most of my family either die before or right at 50 or in their hundreds. There's no in between because they're so extreme. So yeah, they either die super young or really like live a long time. But you've examined somewhere in here your perfectionism or whatever the need is that would make you very willful and very good

about the things that you're very good at that this is all the roots of it are all in here somewhere right like this is this is inside of your family including the repressions you're talking about no one's communicating about anything there's not no nobody's talking about it I mean the way that I've come to it really is through like years of therapy therapy with my parents which they hate um they hate it so much um or therapy with like talk therapy also EMDR where they do stuff with lights and paddles and help. I've done some of that recently. I don't understand it at all, but the neurotransmitters and the vibrations and an assortment

of things that are meant to release from fashion tissue, whatever emotions and memories you're holding in there. Yeah. It's interesting. Interesting. All that kind of stuff, it helps. It helps. I feel like in a good space around it now.

I've just done so much of work on it. Well, it sounds, though, like your act is therapy as well, right? Like to go from the person who did not speak, and surely you've noticed that you're an outsider in almost all circumstances. Perhaps comedy provided the sense of community. It doesn't sound like there were a whole lot of other places where you were getting a sense of community. Television writing didn't do it, right?

The producing of a television show, what other than comedy has given you a sense of community where you don't feel like a total outsider for your weirdness? It's the place. There's a lot of therapy there. There's a lot of community there. Also with other comedians. There's a lot of comfort there. So, yeah, it's like a very much a therapeutic kind of a thing. But it's also, it's just, you know, really special. It's a really important world. It's also the most you, right, where you would actually get the understanding that you were craving, that made you run away in childhood. Like there's no misunderstanding. when you know your, you know the rhythmic tones of where the laughs are coming because you've written music. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you feel most seen there? Yes, for sure. For sure. And what would you say is the work that's most gratifying for you there when you think of like I know the mentorship to others and the pioneering means something to you. But when you think of work that you've made that expresses the essence of who you are to others in a way that gives you the satisfaction of us. understanding. What is the seminal work? I think it's like if you can put something into a way

that people understand and there's like a laughter of recognition, a recognition of oh sorrow and pain, like I understand that pain. It's a great feeling. It's a great sense of relief. And so you know, we can take something that's just like very intimate and unpleasant and then really blow it up for an audience to see and they're laughing there's such uh there's such grace there because it's like we all feel this like i was able to take this pain and show you and we all feel this and that's so special does the family understand now does the i know they they like that you're on television and you're successful but do they like the things you're talking about I mean, I don't think they get it.

I don't think they care because they're so blinded by the success and so excited about what I've made my life to be. You know, that that's just so important to them. So I don't really know, but they're very happy about it. It's such a bummer, though, that I want to sort of like say still not understanding. Like, they're still not giving you. But I guess you figured out, my wife makes fun of me, because also, still fall in the same trap hole with my parents at 50 years old that things you've learned at 14 where you're like no these people are never going to understand me so I'm going to like I'm going

to accept that and I'm going to choose something different yeah they're very they're very just set in a way like they can't really I don't think they want to really understand there's not a need to though it's okay you say that with forgiveness but I would think that it would be hard to respect the fact that Oh, they like that you're on television and that you're getting money. But anybody can like that. That's not really understanding. That's not understanding the artist or the art. Right.

That's true. But they're not equipped to because they never, I mean, they've never been asked to examine their own lives under that lens, like the harsh lens that I put on mine. So I can't expect them to do the same thing. have you gotten any better at being easier on yourself i think so i am very conscious of that so now i'm kind of like very easy going around um certain things like that i allow myself to do things that you know like i would have to only be able to do if um i was under the influence

So now if I need to, I'll take up, I'll go on a bender, which means I'll disappear for a couple of days as if I was having a lost weekend in a hotel. Like if I was drunk or high the whole time, but I'm not. Like I just X out for a bit. And that means no phone, no communication with anybody, no nothing, no, you know, no performances, no whatever. Like it helps me. to just go on a bender because I needed that when I was drinking to get over things like hangovers and stuff but now I need it sometimes I'll get emotionally hungover and I'll need to separate myself from society and so I know now how to do that which is really hugely important so for me going on like a sober bender like it's really it's um it's a unique kind of coping mechanism to take all of these things that I learned as an active alcoholic and drug user to actually use the things that helped me during that time. I've never heard of what you're describing, which is

basically, correct me if I'm translating incorrectly, you're going to be maximum conscious and present without any distractions to be alone with yourself and all of the discomforts and comforts that that provides so that you could be at harmony with something closer to self-love than you've been the entirety of your life? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just like X out everything. It's just me and my dog and my cats and that's enough. And that really helps actually. Choosing to just take care of you to be okay with being the alone outsider because you've got the comfort of yourself in adulthood, you've learned the things that you need in order to settle your mind because because you view your mind I have over the years talked about the illusion of control that my mind has given me

and the unhappiness of living in the mind as opposed to some of the stuff perhaps you've found in spirituality that helps you be more consciously present but I have my mind is blessing and curse It provides for me some of the things that I think I want, but it also provides the illusion of control when I need to let things go, and I have trouble letting them go. I spoke at you a little bit, but I don't know where it is that you're going when you go to be by yourself. I don't know what the replenishing is, and I don't know how you come back rejuvenated or wanting to attack, you know, inspiration. Yeah. Well, rejuvenation, for me, it's like silence. It's like meditation, which is like a practice.

that I do every day, but it takes practice because I can't, it's really hard for me to quiet what's happening. So it's why it's a practice. You have to keep trying. You have to keep trying to do that. And we can only do it, like I can sometimes only do it for a fraction of a second. But that's really the gist of it. It's like these long form meditations where you're just quiet. And so what is your relationship now with anxiety versus what your relationship was, in your early 20s with it? It's a lot better, but it's also, you know, it's there. But at the same time, like, I can ask it to go away.

I can ask you can come back another time or like I can keep on trying to focus on quiet and not focusing on that. So it's always going to be there, but it's about do I turn away or do I turn into it? I should have told people I have not yet that if you want tickets and dates, you go to margaretchow.com slash tour

and choligarchy is now the tour name and what is in the tour at this time in America that brings three decades of four decades of stand-up experience to this political moment when I would imagine you're storming around pretty daily pissed. So pissed, but also so grateful for so many things as well. Like I can see the resilience of people and being from an immigrant family, like how beautiful that is and how many people are standing up for so many immigrants out there

who are getting attacked, getting kidnapped, and it's so scary. So talking a lot about that, talking a lot about the sexism that we're seeing daily, like how it plays out with the ditty trial, how it plays out with this Epstein file, all this stuff. Like to me, there's a lot to discuss. So, you know, this show is really about taking everything that I've learned as a comic all this time and applying it to, I think, the biggest battle that we have.

And a lot of the way we got into this is through comedy. Like a lot of this was actually done by the, permission of a bunch of comics who sort of co-signed it and like said it was okay so now it's like comics got to try to stop it you don't dare name them right because uh this faction of comics have gotten a power that i have seen as i've talked to the older comics that are like uh it it feels grifty to them but also it's such a it's an economy and and young men are now leaning countrywide to the right I don't know that on that daily it can feel like you and me are winning in the things that we care about yeah but those comics are also my friends like we're also like we're

all we all do this we've all been doing this together for like 40 some years like I know them all really well. Like, we're all tight. Like, so it's weird to see so much of a shift. But at the same time, it's like, well, I have an opinion about this, too, so I want to weigh in. And it's valid and it's important. So, you know, I think that the more comic, the more comics we have, the better off we are, no matter what side they're on, whatever, whatever happened, I, I appreciate all comic voices. Who do you feel is doing it best these days, navigating the slalom course that is political humor? Because you don't want to be a scold. You don't.

No, you have to be funny. You have to be funny. That's like such a essential part of it. My favorites right now, Hari Kandabalu, he's so great. You know, Mark Marin. Mark Marion is a good friend, also just incredible. And he and I were about talking about. the genius of Maria Bamford, who is the best.

I mean, if there's anybody in comedy, she is undefeated, like, I think because the strength and power of a comedian is measured by the vulnerability, and she has so much, you know, coming from her background and all of the mental stuff that she's been through and everything, she really really blows my mind. mind with everything. So I think that she is truly the best. When did you learn that? Josh Johnson I'd put in that group too right now. Yes, just because of the way that he's able to do it day of. And so thoughtful and it's like it it's somebody that did learn from like Chappelle. Like he learned

that that that kind of the trust in one's own observation that's very Chappelle to me but Chappelle's sort of in a different space now and Josh is like yeah like I I really am and and so much awe of him like how well he can turn it like just day by day what's going on I really actually have come to rely on him and like YouTube it's powerful he's great I found it this disappointing that the Daily Show put him in a suit and made him do the job the way John Stewart would do the job as opposed to just allowing him to be himself, maximum himself, different because different works sometimes if you allow, if you encourage different to be

different. But you were saying that you, that vulnerability, it demands vulnerability. When did you learn that? That, that in order to be the best comic, you had to expose all of yourself. It's really I don't know when I learned it, but I re-learned it all the time. Like I relearn it and it's reaffirmed all the time. And but yeah, Josh, I would definitely prefer in the hoodie, you know, the gray hoodie that he, you know, and like kind of just at the comedy seller or whatever. Well, just let him be him, right? Yeah.

It's the greatest of the strengths to allow the people who are different. You couldn't have been a pioneer if you weren't. weren't different. You couldn't have been a pioneer if people didn't appreciate how much you gave them strength to embrace those differences, right? So that's the only part. I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to explain to you what The Daily Show, a great comedy show, shouldn't have done with Josh Johnson, but I just remember in my small world when two black, very strong journalists became the sports center anchors. Their commercials started with dancing and stuff because you have to sort of try and make palatable to the white customer, whatever the white

executive's idea is of what it is that you're doing on television. You don't speak to those things as if they were an obstacle to you because you benefited so much from the fact that they existed. Thank you for sharing so much of your story with us. I will tell the folks again, if there's anything that you want them to know about your present tour, how many cities, how many dates that you're in the middle of right now. We were talking beforehand that you were saying these things go from a year to three years. So you're about to get in the middle of it. Yeah, absolutely. And yes, it's about to start and it'll go for a while. So people should come out anywhere. Margaretshow.com slash tour is where you go. Thank you. Oh, she's done. She wants to go now.

She knows she's ready. Enough talking. Enough of this gas bag, mommy. Let's get out of here. I don't know. To be it's a minute.