Gay Games promise a funny Cho

Margaret Cho didn't need to know the number of strikes in an out or how to score a touchdown to perform at the Gay Games. It's a good thing, too.
"I don't know anything about sports at all," Cho says, laughing.
Even if sex, which she seems to know a thing or two about, were considered a sport, she wouldn't win the gold. "Not the way I do it, 'cause I'm so lazy," she confesses to BTL.
But, football fan or not, gay-folk fancy her because she "adores them," she says. "I talk a lot about these issues that are important for the queer community and it's also a lot about invisibility, which I think a lot of people can relate to."
This will be Cho's first time surrounded by athletic men and women – many scantily clad – competing in everything from bowling to rowing. "I'm excited about going. I think it'll be fun," she says. "I have a great fondness and respect for people who play sports. It's such a tremendous thing to do physically."
Although unclear about her gig's specifics during the Opening Ceremony, Cho might mesh the old outspoken raunch with the new. "It always just kind of comes in last minute," she says.
Cho's known for her sidesplitting, smutty humor that often leaves fans wiping their eyes with their sleeve and reciting her infamous lines ("Are you gayyy?") to their friends. But Cho's not always wired.
"I'm pretty outspoken but I'm not … naturally a very outgoing person," she says. "I have the same sense of humor I think and the same sensibility and the same feelings and same thoughts and everything, but it's just not my style to be that forward."
But sometimes her outspokenness at shows, especially about President Bush, puts her on the bandwagon with the Dixie Chicks. But she doesn't care.
If Cho receives hate mail she doesn't write a nasty letter back. She lets her fans do it. "I generally post it on my Web site and let everybody else respond to it," she says, laughing. "I don't really have anything to say to anybody who sends hate mail."
Like the Dixie Chicks who recently released their No. 1 album as Bush's approval rating sank, Cho feels that the river has calmed and people finally recognize the failures of the administration.
"It's not hard to gloat," she says. "It's just embarrassing how bad it's become. It's kind of a positive time for all the people who did speak out against the war when we did because now it's just like we were so right about it."
There wasn't a question in Cho's mind that Bush's Gay Marriage Amendment would falter in the Senate. "I just think Bush is just trying to again cozy up to his fan base," she says. Although Cho, who hasn't extensively toured since 2004, will cozy up to legions of fans this month, she has plenty to keep her hoppin'.
She's promoting her film "Bam Bam & Celeste," which was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, featuring pal and comedian Bruce Daniels.
"I wanted to write a movie about something very close to my own experience growing up," she says. Although Cho didn't grow up in a small town, she still felt like an outcast. Or, in her own words, "freaky and weird."
"It's really like a fag and fag hag love story. The idea was basically my life and creating a film that would really capture that experience," she says.
In the fall, she'll hit the road with the crew of "Sensuous Woman," a comedy, music and burlesque show. "It's not just me doing comedy," she says. "I'm going on tour with a bunch of other people. I'm hosting it." One venture that's now off Cho's plate: a TV series that would've had her inhabiting the role of her infamous gay-friendly mother.
"I couldn't make it work," she says. "I wanted to do it but I couldn't make it work with the network."
But Cho says mom, who lives in San Diego, is doing well, and she's using her free time to explore the world. "They don't have kids anymore really to live with and to kick around, so my parents are very free," she says.
Cho still lampoons her mother's thick Korean accent and even if mom feels like she's banking on her personality, she likes the spotlight. "She's really funny," Cho says. "She likes being a celebrity."