Margaret Cho will wrap up her North American tour in Ottawa, performing stand-up and songs off her Grammy-nominated comedy album, Cho Dependent, at the National Arts Centre Jan. 22.

“Eat Sh*t and Die” and “Captain Cameltoe” are titles off the album written by Cho, with music composed by Cho’s famous friends, like Tegan and Sara and Ani DiFranco.

The popular stand-up comedian and queer rights activist postponed her Ottawa appearance, scheduled for October, when she joined Fox’s Dancing With the Stars.

Cho wore a rainbow dress for gay pride in her last dance. Her professional dance partner, Louis Van Amstel, said they were eliminated because of their outfits; he said they were too gay.

With Cho’s North American tour wrapping up, she said she’ll go back to shooting episodes of Drop Dead Diva then go on tour in Australia.

The 42-year-old Korean-American grew up in what she calls “the gay Mecca” of  Polk Street in San Francisco. There, she honed her comedic skills, breaking out in the early 90s; opening for Jerry Seinfeld, dating Quentin Tarantino and starring in her own sitcom, All American Girl.

Cho looked to be taking Hollywood by storm until her stardom took a toll on her health.       

Her television network, ABC, pressured Cho hard and she lost 30 pounds in two weeks, she said.

Her kidneys collapsed while on set, and she started urinating blood. Her sitcom was cancelled shortly afterward.
Cho said she then fell into alcoholism and drugs, and developed a weight problem.

“When the show was over, I fell apart. I didn’t know who I was at all. All I knew was that I had failed. . . . It was painful. And I did what’s really hard for an Asian to do, I became an alcoholic,” she said in I’m the One that I Want.

Not until I’m the One that I Want, her 2000 one-woman stand-up comedy tour, did Cho re-emerge from the substance abuse.

Since 2000, she’s toured nine times, authored a book, acted in Lifetime’s Drop Dead Diva, continued her queer-rights activism and became a recording artist.

She joked, dance and sang in Sensuous Woman, a 2007 burlesque show. She said she loved singing in Sensuous Woman, and slowly incorporated it into her stand-up.

Alex Sullivan, a.k.a. Kelly of YouTube Shoes fame, opened Cho’s 2008 Beautiful show in Ottawa, and Cho joined Sullivan in singing occasionally. Fast forward three years and Cho has a comedy album.
Cho said she wrote the lyrics for her album while her famous musical friends composed the music.        

“Joke writing still has timing, so the difficulties are the same,” Cho said about writing lyrics.

Writing comedy is Cho’s bread-and-butter, but she said she doesn’t plan to do her own music anytime soon.

Her musical friends will remain the composers on Cho’s music. “I’m gonna continue collaborating; I don’t wanna do it on my own,” she said.

Ani DiFranco wrote the music for “Captain Cameltoe.”
Canadian lesbian twins and musical duo Tegan and Sara helped on “Intervention,” the album’s first song.

“Intevention” deals with substance abuse: “No more hugs / ‘Till you give up drugs” go the song’s catchy, repeated lines. Cho diffuses alcoholism, love and bad relationships with her lewd humor.

“I’ve never had an intervention, but I’m a fan,” Cho said about why she wrote “Intervention.”

Cho’s album features 14 songs, all composed by her musical friends. It competes with Robin Williams, Flight of the Concords, Kathy Griffin and Lewis Black for comedy album of the year at the Grammys.

On Jan. 22 at the NAC, Cho will perform stand-up comedy with music interspersed, a formula she wants to continue in the future, she said.

Cho is writing another album tentatively called The Yellow Album. It will be somewhat more political than Cho Dependent, she said.

Cho’s politics are muffled on Cho Dependent, though her current songs deal with lesbianism, marijuana and her Asian roots. The muffling is unusual considering the brash commentary Cho so regularly uses in stand-up.

“I have political songs, but for the first album this worked together well,” she said.

Like a stand-up show, an album has to flow properly, Cho said. The political songs didn’t fit in.