by Margaret Cho
When my parents closed the bookstore in 1987, all the employees scattered to find other bookstore jobs. I was looking for something different. I saw an ad in the San Francisco Bay Guardian looking for a salesperson at a lesbian SM leather boutique called Stormy Leather. It intrigued me, so I applied. I walked into the little warehouse on Howard Street, in the just-becoming-fashionable South of Market district, and I almost ran smack into a beautiful, tall blonde woman. She had a crew cut and Buddy Holly glasses. She was wearing a black leather harness and jeans. Her breasts were bare under the harness and they looked as perfect as vanilla ice cream. We looked at each other and both turned bright red as she ran back into the dressing room. I felt as if I’d come home.
The retail store was attached to the workshop, which was directly behind a big, leather curtain. Stormy Leather had recently opened the retail store, to supplement its already hugely successful mail-order business. It sold leather lingerie and sex toys to the lesbian-Pat-Califia-leather-babes of San Francisco and the sexually adventurous suburban computer power couples of Silicon Valley. The warehouse smelled pleasantly of hides and rubber dildos, and I sat behind the counter and buzzed customers in.
My sidework included interesting tasks like shining the chrome cock rings until I could see my face, making sure the bamboo canes made an ominous sound as they whipped through the air, dusting latex fetish garments with baby powder, and putting fresh batteries into vibrators. I spent hours creating fabulous displays for butt plugs. I really let the Muse take over.
The Clientele Was very polite, and ever so happy to be spending their money on what they loved to do. SM is a wonderful hobby for many, and those that have the time and the finances to collect the pricey gear are lucky and know it.
Stormy Leather carried an impressive array of leather and fetish equipment, and I learned so much about what people can do in bed. I also got to experience some things firsthand.
I got invited to an SM play party sponsored by a club called Links, which catered to the gay-les-bi-transgender SM community. I’d been working at the store for about a year and had never played myself, outside of beating this guy with a riding crop. The experience for me wasn’t exactly sexual. He got on my nerves, and then he wouldn’t stop calling me! I knew there was enormous power in that kind of sexuality, and I was curious to see what people actually did after they bought all the stuff.
I went with another girl who worked at the store, Jadine, and her boyfriend Ian. It was held at a computer magnate’s house in Bernal Heights, and there was a canned food drive that night, offering money off the price of admission with a donation of canned goods. We saw a mistress walk in with a slave on a leash in one hand, and a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew in the other.
We paid our admission and walked into the party. The house was Sunset-magazine-style-Californian, with lots of redwood decks and Adirondack chairs. Some leather-dykes hovered around a sorry buffet of Granny Goose potato chips and onion dip, laid out on paper plates, with Cragmont soda in two-liter bottles. The smell of hot dogs filled the room, but the mysterious sausages were nowhere in sight. For some reason, the food at the sex parties is always terrible. I suppose this is to encourage the guests to eat each other, rather than the hors d’oeuvres.
Jadine and Ian went off to explore the house. I sat down in the living room and tried to look comfortable in my black vinyl catsuit. A youngish, Filipino woman knelt at my feet. She wore Dickies and a leather cap, which she gallantly pulled off her head while addressing me. She said, “My mistress has given me permission to kiss your hand. May I kiss your hand?”
“Uh. Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”
I was being so uncool.
I excused myself as fast as I could and went downstairs into the dungeon. I ran down and found Jadine and Ian sitting in the corner. Lots of people were milling about, older couples in leather and latex, mean little lesbians in tight, dirty jeans, some drag queens—but nobody was really doing anything. It was just like being at a school dance where nobody wants to dance first, and everybody is acting like they are too bored or too tired, or they don’t have time just yet, but maybe later.
Suddenly, a very fat woman walked out to the center of the party. About five of the mean-looking leather girls tackled her to the floor. Her massive body came crashing down, and they tore off her muumuu and began an intense rape scene, pulling her legs apart and roughly inserting a bright orange dildo that looked like a safety cone into her vagina.
Jadine and Ian ran out of the party. As they went by, I think I heard her mumble a Doppler-effected “Really exhausted, gotta go . . .” but she was moving too fast. I couldn’t move. I immediately thought I should try to help this woman, and I couldn’t understand why nobody was helping her. I thought I should call the police. Then, I remembered where I was.
Almost immediately, everyone around me, all the SM wallflowers, sprung into action. The ice was certainly broken! An older man in a leather codpiece came over and sat by me on the bench. “Don’t you work at Stormy Leather?”
“Yes. I do. Hi. I’m Margaret.”
“Yeah. Do you remember me? You sold me this jockstrap.”
He casually unsnapped the front of his jockstrap to reveal his soft cock and balls, nesting in the fishnet underneath like a bunch of grapes. I tried not to jump up, thinking that the proper etiquette here would be to act calm and interested. “Oh. That’s, uh, that is, just fine.”
“I’m here with my wife. Maybe you’d like to play with us? You could whip me if you’d like.”
“Uh. Thanks. But I’m watching my friend’s purse. I can’t right now.”
In the middle of the party there was an old man, around 80 or so, in leather chaps and gray handlebar mustache like an octogenarian Village Person, strapping a young boy to a table. He was applying a sewing implement, that spiked-wheel thing that resembles a pizza cutter, directly onto the boy’s massive erection. The dangerous-looking wheel left behind tiny drops of blood all along the shaft. Ow ow ow ow ow ow.
It was shocking, the rape, the blood, the violence, the SM theme music (“Whip It,” “Master and Servant”), yet I didn’t leave. I couldn’t leave. It was so fascinating. It wasn’t exactly a turn-on for me, but everybody else was having such a good time, and so involved in what they were doing, the feeling was contagious. I saw that there was so much more to sex than just doing it with the lights off and hoping that you didn’t get pregnant.
A small crowd gathered around a threesome, a woman, a man, and a transvestite. The woman and the transvestite wore matching blue corsets, and the man was in a leather codpiece. The woman was suspended in a leather hammock and she was lying with her back against the man. She leaned her head back and looked deeply into his eyes while being vaginally fisted by the transvestite. The whole picture was quite romantic. There seemed to be so much affection between those three, and even though they were being watched by many, it still seemed intensely private, and completely beautiful. I must be pretty jaded, when seeing something like that makes me go “Awww . . . ,” but it was something that made me understand that love is everywhere, and takes many unexpected forms. Any kind of love is fine, it’s your hate you have to watch.
The party was well under way, and I noticed the woman who had been the victim of the rape scene at the beginning of the evening was now walking around collecting cups and paper plates. Later, she was fast asleep in a dark corner, snoring like she was sawing logs.
I ran into a drag queen acquaintance of mine named Nigel, and he strapped me to one of the crosses and put a scouring pad on my leg, but it was just funny, not sexy.
It’s odd, but I always get recognized at the most inconvenient times. We went into the dungeon area, where there were people in cages, and one girl who was behind bars and tied up hopped over and said, “Hey! Aren’t you Margaret Cho?” I was excited, because it was early enough in my career that being recognized still felt like an accomplishment. But at the same time, it was kind of weird considering where we were. Besides, s
he was hog-tied!
Suddenly it was late, and I was one of the last people to leave the party. I had had a great time and was looking forward to the next one. San Francisco is such a great place for sexual exploration. There are so many things to do, so many closets to come out of. It’s not just a gay-straight-bi question. It really is multiple choice. The attitude is so playful and friendly, more like a sexy theme park than perversion.
I didn’t get another opportunity to go to a sex party for many years. My career started to move and I was scared that these forays into alternative sexuality would somehow catch up with me. That was such a stupid idea, especially because I was talking about it on stage.
Much later in my career, when I was in the middle of All-American Girl, the tabloids went and took a picture of Stormy Leather’s signage and told idiot readers that I had worked in a “steamy sex job,” but they never explained what it was.
After my TV show was over, and I was spending a lot of time drinking and doing drugs and playing comedy clubs, I went to see a friend of mine perform in a production put on by the Til Eugelspiegel Society, New York’s oldest SM organization. The theater wasn’t opened up yet when I got there, so quite a few people were milling about in the lobby. I sat down on a hard bench, and soon an older woman dressed in a leather corset and very high heels teetered over to me and bent over. She got uncomfortably close to me, and I wanted to move, but I didn’t want to be rude. Her lover, a gruff mature man wearing a menacing-looking bullwhip on his hip, snapped a wooden cane over the woman’s rear, just barely missing my face.
I decided to move. Obviously they didn’t care about my feelings, so why should I worry about theirs?
The theater finally opened, and we all filed in. The audience was instructed to stand in a circle and the performers walked into the center. There was a rather large assortment of characters, almost as many as were watching. There were women wearing large head-dresses made of tree branches. A man and a woman, both naked, stood with their long hair woven together so they were hair Siamese twins attached at the braid. There was some chanting, and then some holding of hands and walking in a circle, and then all hell broke loose. The inner circle began to attack the outer circle. A bald man who looked just like Anthony Edwards dressed in a diaper grabbed me and demanded to see my underwear. I was so scared but didn’t want to appear to be, so I remained as calm as I could, even though my period had spontaneously started and the exit sign was nowhere to be found.
I bled and bled and ran away from the ER diaper man. The emcee, a tall, striking-looking man in a top hat and fishnet tights, emerged from the crowd. He started to make loud demands on the inner circle. “I want a cowardly man! Bring unto me a lily-livered coward.” A nerdy guy clutching a Tower Records bag was snatched up by a girl with antlers and brought to the center of the room.
“Bring me a pair of young lovers!” My two friends from the lobby were thrown into the center of the room. I bled and bled, but things started to get fun. It was kind of hilarious, all of this posturing, this pagan ritual with a bunch of art students, career nerds, and bridge-and-tunnel swingers. I pulled away slightly from the circles and leaned against the wall.
Suddenly, the emcee screamed, “Bring me a fat woman! I want a fat woman now!!!!!”
It was as if everything stopped, and the entire room turned to face me.
“Who—me? No no no no!!!”
The ER diaper man grabbed me and dragged me over to the emcee, who was wearing a lipstick smile from ear to ear. I was horrified, and bleeding harder than ever and yelling, “But I’m not fat! Hey!!! I am not fat!!!!!”
The emcee tossed his head back and cackled like a scary witch. “No. She’s not fat. Just a little bit chubby!” With that he grabbed a handful of my stomach and shook it. I would have started crying, but the lights suddenly came up, and all the players vanished, leaving the entire audience breathless and somewhat red in the face. I shook myself off, pulled in my pretty-flat-stomach-considering even further, and tried to leave the premises as quickly as possible. I didn’t care about seeing my friend. I would explain later, having more than enough of an excuse.
Right before I got out the door, the nerdy guy with the Tower Records bag caught my arm and said, “Hey, aren’t you Margaret Cho?”
9
WHY YES, I AM MARGARET
“You came offstage, this was at the Punchline in San Francisco, and I said, ‘Good set.’ And you said ‘Thanks’ and then you goosed me,” Paul said.
I honestly didn’t remember that, but Paul insisted that it was true. He came to the Laugh Factory recently to see me. When I walked into the club, I saw his face and distantly remembered it but I couldn’t place it. I couldn’t imagine ever goosing anyone, but I took his word for it. At that time, I was just learning how to be an outrageous diva, so there were quite a few missteps along the way. Goosing people, pink wigs, and rhinestone bow ties all play a part in my humble beginnings. It took some time to let my own style emerge. I was brain-washed by the female comics of the ’80s, and felt compelled to wear shoulder pads and to be a bawdy, wisecrackin’ broad.
Paul and I were both working the road gigs all over California in the late ’80s. There was a chain of restaurants called the Sweetriver Saloons that had comedy on the weekends, so every Friday, comics would drive to Eureka, Santa Rosa, Pleasanton, and Merced for the shows.
Merced was the worst. Not only was it a three-hour drive, you had to stay at the Happy Inn, which was anything but. It seemed like a lot of suicides happened there. Even so, there was no death quite as painful as the one you would die onstage that night, as the Merced intelligencia would congregate around potato skins and daiquiris and judge your comedy and your city ways.
Ed Marques and I played it once, and we laughed and kept the doors to our Unhappy rooms open because they wouldn’t close all the way anyway. The road could be fun sometimes and the Sweet-rivers were good gigs because we were paid well ($50 per show), and we were given a food ticket worth $12. That could be two meals if you were savvy, and we were in those days.
I did all those one-nighters and stayed in all those crappy motels and drove a million miles and stuffed the loneliness with food and pot and dreams that maybe this would all lead to something.
I don’t reminisce often about the days when I would do my best fifteen minutes for a bunch of drunks in suburbia. It felt good to do it, but it felt better to be done.
Paul reminded me that my success did not happen overnight. It took so many years of working the road, hoping for those occasional TV spots, deals that were made and that never went through and opportunities lost and found to get to where I am today.
The night he came to see me was typical of the legendary Saturday nights on the Sunset Strip, where the “big boys” play. These prime headliner slots at the club on the weekends, when the crowd is pumped and every young comic is champing at the bit to get on, were all I ever dreamed of as I was coming up. I wanted to come to the big city and kill. I knew that it was possible, someday. Now, the day has come, and I appreciate every second of it.
I went onstage and remembered all the sorrowful nights at the Sweetriver Saloons when I couldn’t buy a laugh from the stupid crowd. That night, so many years later at the Laugh Factory, I killed the audience. They were laughing so hard the room was shaking. I got so high from it—this is my life and this is what I do best. I came offstage thinking my best fifteen minutes got so much better after ten years.
When the crowd is with you, the jokes are fresh, your timing is just right, and the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars. You feel like you are exactly where you should be, and there is nothing better. Comedy is a rare gift from the gods, an awesome invention. It propels you right into the heart of the universe.
No wonder all the great comedians had such destructive private lives. Lenny Bruce had to shoot up, Richard Pryor had to freebase. Sam Kinison was just as abusive towards himself as he was to the crowd. After you get the audience into t
hat kind of frenzy, and you are being worshiped like the false idol you are, how do you leave the stage and transition back into real life? How can you just come down? How can you ease back into mortality? What will you do for an encore? What is there left to do but set yourself on fire?
I went home. I left my old acquaintance Paul and thought about what a little girl I used to be onstage, and how I grew up there. I remembered how I wore long black gloves with little red bows on them. I remembered the times I tried and failed and bombed so very bad. I remembered how I tried to sleep in the barren and desolate motel rooms after. I remembered how my face would burn when I was up onstage, working hard but hardly working. I remembered what I wanted to be when I grew up, and realized I had become just that.
Most comedians say that the best thing that you can hope for as a comic is to have your own sitcom. This is the top. This means you have “made it.” It is supposedly what we all aspire to. I guess this was what I wanted, too, but I never really thought about the work that it would entail. I believed being rich and famous would somehow take care of all that for me.
I thought that I would innately know what to do, and even if I didn’t, I’d have many shrewd advisers. I pictured myself sitting on the set, in a crisp white shirt and a black leotard, straddling my folding chair, and barking out orders to yes-men as I dragged deeply on a Chesterfield. I’d spend my nights getting to parties late, and drag my faux fur across the floors of crowded rooms. I’d throw my head back when I laughed, have orgasms from intercourse, win Emmys and deliver acceptance speeches while prettily holding back tears. I’d receive diamond necklaces from millionaire suitors and give them to my friends, like Madonna in that video. I’d enjoy being a girl and ultimately become the beautiful swan I knew I was inside.