UR Here

So part of the reason I've been largely absent from the blogging scene recently is due to the unexpected rush of assignments for Chicago magazine UR Chicago. In their February issue out now, I have a mini-review of my local coffeeshop/restaurant Cafénéo, a q&a-style interview with one of my favorite comediennes, Margaret Cho, and the cover featre on the Scissor Sisters. So it's all very exciting as I've been published before but never in a cool, glossy magazine like this one. And I got paid!

For some reason the Margaret Cho interview isn't online, but it's about her new career path into bellydancing and burlesque. She was in Chicago last month to perform in Gurlesque Burlesque, a fundraiser for the Sissy Butch Brothers' documentary about the history of burlesque and Exotic World, the burlesque museum of Las Vegas and the only archive in the world of bulesque-esque materials.

I went to the show so I could, you know, know what I was talking about when writing the article. I've never seen any burlesque before so this was quite the plunge into feminist, political debauchery. How could I not love it? "George and Dick" performed an act in which they dressed up as, well, our good friends and national leaders George and Dick, complete with plastic masks and and business suits. They stripped each other, ending up as George and Dick's creepy, smiling faces on top of two topless, bikini-clad women's bodies. They stepped into a kiddie pool and poured oil over each other and wrestled, finishing by draping an American flag over themselves.

Sassbox was a trio of women singing an a capella bluegrass lullaby while being washed down by an admiring fan. The Boyz, a group of drag kings, dressed as sperm trying to impregnate an egg to Eminem's "Lose Yourself" ("You've only got one shot/Do not miss your chance to blow!"). And Julie Atlas Muz, a well-known dancer and one of Cho's inspirations, performed two fantastic acts, one of which included a life-sized balloon that, by the end, she had completely crawled into and danced with a spotlight behind her, illuminating her sillouette as she writhed around inside.

Cho was equally awesome. For her first act, she emerged dressed completely in Aztec warrior garb, complete with helmet with a huge, sprouting mohawk, breastplate, shield and spear. She stripped and strutted around the stage, slowly losing each piece of her costume. Then, when it looks like she's about to rip off her black warrior skirt, she instead rips it in half. The waistband was actually two flexible batons with transparent black flags attached, draping all the way down to her feet and back up behind her, attaching at the back of her neck. She whipped those suckers around like some kind of warrior butterfly. She finished on the floor, topless. Oh, yeah, all this was done to Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun."

For her second act, she slowly stripped off a nightgown while also flinging around two giant, pink-feathered fans that would throw Karl Lagerfeld into a jealous hissy-fit. She finally used them to reveal a twist ending worthy of David Lynch. I'll use a condensed excerpt from my interview to explain:

Me: Some of your burlesque is described as involving "gender swapping" and "gender play." What does that mean?

Cho: I have a very, very realistic false penis that will sometimes appear during dance routines. It's very shocking. It's very big.

Me: How big?

Cho: I don't know, but he's very big. Well, that's what people tell me - that he's very shockingly big.

So there you have it. I was paid to see Margaret Cho almost naked with a very shockingly big (and very dark) dick - with equally big, dark balls - dangling between her legs. Yeah. Awesome.