Margaret Cho comes to town

A case of head lice doesn’t slow Margaret Cho down. Like most everything else in her life, she found a way to incorporate the experience into her new comedy/music tour, “Cho Dependent,” coming to Atlanta tonight.

“It’s one of my favorite songs. I love it,” she says in a phone interview from her home in Los Angeles of the song she co-wrote entitled “Lice.”

“You went on vacation / to an impoverished nation / you laid to your head to rest and it became some kind of conquest … think you have a case of head lice,” the song goes, “…Just think of them as friends eating your split ends…”

Margaret Cho: ‘Cho Dependent’
tonight, 8 p.m.
The Tabernacle
152 Luckie St., Atlanta, GA  30303
This concert will be filmed for DVD
www.margaretcho.com
www.tabernacleatl.com

This is a true story, Cho says, of a trip last year to Fez, Morocco, where she indeed did get head lice. But that won’t keep her from visiting Morocco again over the holidays in a few weeks where she plans to unplug, do nothing and relax.

On that first trip, Cho was dealing with the lice, and stomach parasites, and recording another song for her album with lesbian twin sisters and dynamo music duo Tegan & Sara.

That song’s title? “Intervention,” about, you guessed it, an intervention.

“I’m a huge fan and love everything about them,” Cho says of Tegan & Sara. “They are such neat artists and this song is very much a Tegan & Sara song … but lyrically it’s what I do.”

As in, “No more hugs til you give up drugs … Welcome to your intervention.”

Touring for “Cho Dependent” has kept her very busy, but performing on “Dancing with the Stars” was also demanding.

Cho, who is married to a man but identifies as queer, believes she was eliminated because of her “Gay Pride” number, which she performed in the wake of the recent suicides of bullied gay teens.

“And I’m really resentful of that,” she acknowledges. “But I also think I should’ve danced better. I am a spectacular dancer. I just got so self-conscious.”

And the fact that Bristol Palin, daughter of Sarah Palin, has made it to the finals? Cho says it could be the best thing for our country.

“I think it’s great,” she says. “The longer she’s in the competition the further they are from the White House. I’d rather see them [the Palins] on reality TV shows than as politicians.”

Atlanta audiences should feel a special connection to “Cho Dependent” because it was all written while Cho was living in Peachtree City filming the Lifetime series, “Drop Dead Diva,” now picked up for its third season.

“There’s a very strong Atlanta feel,” says Cho, who now lives in Midtown when filming “Drop Dead Diva.” Peachtree City is a bit too conservative, she says.

Cho looks forward to returning to her “second home” in Atlanta and her show at the Tabernacle will be recorded for a DVD.

There will be plenty of OTP jokes, several songs, gossip about DWTS and other good gossip that makes up the show, Cho says. And, of course, a great deal about the fight for equality for LGBT people.

She says she regularly attends DWTS filming with her good friend Florence Henderson (“We’re super into it”) and is planning on bringing back her “Gay Pride” dance number for the finale.

“Bristol’s platform is teen abstinence and mine is about stopping the bullying of gay kids — mine is infinitely much more important than hers,” Cho says.

 

Top photo: Comedian and singer Margaret Cho brings her ‘Cho Dependent’ tour to Atlanta on Dec. 12 where it will also be filmed for a DVD. (by PixieVisionProductions)