Cho: Palin, poofs and Pyongyang

Speaking to Margaret Cho two days after New York passed its marriage equality laws, it was clear she needed no prompting to chat about the landmark reform.

Some of the first words out of her mouth were how she was planning to preside over the ceremonies of many of her New York friends, much like she had in San Francisco in the happier days before Proposition 8 took effect.

Cho’s long-running status as a fierce advocate for the GLBTI community is undisputed. The Korean-American stand-up comedian was seemingly born to be our patron saint — in our holiest of cities, San Francisco, no less.

In 2008 she made her pilgrimage to Sydney to be Mardi Gras’ chief of parade, and hung out with fellow queer deities Cyndi Lauper, Kathy Griffin and Olivia Newton-John, who were all a part of that year’s celebrations.

“It was the gayest experience of my life,” she recalled.

“I remember seeing Cyndi Lauper at 7am and the night before the big Mardi Gras weekend there was that big drugs bust, so we had to do it all without drugs, which I thought was a gay-hate crime.”

Cho returns to Australia in September, three years since she brought her Beautiful Tour to our shores.

Since then, it’s television where she’s focused much of her attention.

It’s a medium that’s held mixed success for the 42-year-old. Her first sitcom, All-American Girl, and VH1 reality series, The Cho Show, only lasted single seasons.

But she certainly caught mainstream America’s attention last year when she was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars alongside Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol. It was an unusual experience for Cho, mainly, she said, because she never expects to meet people she’s talked “such incredible shit about”.

“The Palins are so weird to be around because they are so incredibly hated. They were constantly getting hate mail and we had bomb dogs on set. One day someone sent Bristol a package full of mysterious white powder and I was like ‘No, no, that’s my coke, that’s not for you’,” she said.

Things started out well for Cho and the younger Palin at the beginning of the series. The comedian even began calling the teen mum ‘a friend’ and defended her against criticism about her weight — Kathy Griffin started calling her “the white Precious” about this time.

But all that changed when Cho blogged that a source told her Sarah Palin had forced her daughter on to the show.

“Sarah supposedly blames Bristol harshly and openly (in the circles that I heard it from) for not winning the election,” Cho wrote, “and so she told Bristol she ‘owed’ it to her to do DWTS so that ‘America would fall in love with her again’ and make it possible for Sarah Palin to run in 2012 with America behind her all the way.”

It sparked a 655-word retort from Bristol on her own website, and thus, begun the ‘Blog Wars’ had.

Cho said she didn’t know if she’d scored a special mention in Bristol’s recently released memoir Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far — yes, she has a memoir at 20 . But it would be fair to assume the two were no longer friends.

“I haven’t read anything about being in it. To be honest, I didn’t know she could read so I was really excited she was bringing out a book.

“I thought it must have been a colouring book.”

Among her less controversial television appearances in recent years, Cho has been co-starring in the US Lifetime network’s legal comedy Drop Dead Diva, now in its third season.

30 Rock fans will also no doubt have seen her in a hilarious cameo as North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il on the show earlier this year.

“I approached it like Cate Blanchett did with Bob Dylan, I was really just following in her footsteps,” she said.

“Tina [Fey] and I were constantly laughing at how I looked in costume.”

As to 30 Rock star Tracy Jordan’s controversial homophobic rant during a performance in Tennessee last month — which included remarks about him stabbing his son if he ever came home and talked to him in “a gay voice” — Cho said she was most unimpressed.

“Any time violent homophobic imagery is brought up it really hurts me. I’ve lived through so much loss because of homophobia, I’ve lost people I greatly admired and loved.

“I was impressed by his commitment to apologising. He hugged the guy who wrote the original Facebook posting about the show and met with GLAAD [The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation], I thought that was a big step. But I have to say I was really upset by it.”

Not surprisingly, Cho said she’d have a different approach to parenting.

“I’d rather have a gay son. I mean, I wouldn’t stab my son if he were straight, but there would be consequences. I’d be like ‘go to your room right now, or at least redecorate it’,” she said.

info: Margaret Cho’s The Cho Dependent Tour is at the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on September 2 and Melbourne’s The Forum on September 8. Bookings: www.ticketmaster.com.au