I'm the One That I Want by Margaret Cho

Author:Margaret Cho [Cho, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humor, General, Biography & Autobiography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Topic, Relationships
ISBN: 9780307415608
Google: 4pNaRbPB6JwC
Amazon: 0345440145
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2002-04-29T07:00:00+00:00

12

FAME! I WANT TO LIVE FOREVER. . . .

The Carnegie Hall affair for ABC’s official fall schedule announcement was surreal. Stars were everywhere. Ellen Degeneres and Brett Butler were already acquaintances; I met Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher from Lois and Clark. I flirted with The Commish for most of the day. But the stars who really blew my mind were the news people, Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs. They were the most unreal. I grew up watching 20/20 like it was part of my religion, so they were my own personal icons.

After a brief meet-and-greet backstage, we were all seated in the house. There was a presentation from the president of the network and then the chairman of the network and then the Lord of the network. They were identical Brylcreem triplets. Well-preserved white men in suits and slick dick hair. They talked about “pushing the envelope,” “family programming,” and then—“diversity.”

They showed a clip of All-American Girl. My image flashed on the big screen. “The first Asian-American family on television” in a booming voice-over. B. D. Wong and I looked at each other, and I could see he was crying and that just made me lose it.

It was astounding because I had never dreamed my life would take me here, so many miles from home, in the middle of show business itself, surrounded by stars and starmakers, all looking at me up there on the screen.

The way the trailer was edited made the show look a lot better than it actually was, so even though it really wasn’t great, it felt like the beginning of something big.

I’d always felt strange and special, that somehow I was destined to be a star. Since I grew up without role models or even people in the media who looked like me and were doing what I thought I wanted to do, I knew that I would need a miracle.

Now, my miracle was unfolding before me, on the stage at Carnegie Hall. Everything I had ever dreamed about was happening, happening, happening. Plus, I was so emotional about every little thing because I never ate and I exercised constantly and I was so hungry and weak that I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown all the time.

I walked into the bathroom and Teri Hatcher and Brett Butler were there smoking, like the bad girls in my high school. I wanted to smoke, too, but I decided instead to go into a stall and shit a brick.

There was a big network party afterward at Tavern on the Green, a tense affair with many people standing in line to take pictures with their favorite stars. Nobody wanted to take a picture with me, so I got in line to take pictures with Dean Cain and that other guy from Home Improvement .

The stars of the new shows—me, Steve Harvey, and Ralph Harris— were more reserved than everyone else. We were the new kids on the block, not sure of our status. I kept wondering if we were going to get hazed.

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