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Caustic comic Cho wraps film, hits road again By MIKE SZYMANSKI KRT CAMPUS LOS ANGELES — Margaret Cho has finished up filming a movie she’s written and is hitting the road with a radical comedy tour until the end of June, along with her film co-star. “The movie is a bit autobiographical, like everything I do,” Cho said in an interview from her home in Hollywood. “It’s about my wild days in the ’80s and my best buddy.” The comedic coming-of-age film, “Bam Bam and Celeste,” just wrapped and includes Alan Cumming (“Son of the Mask”), Kathy Najimy (“Sister Act”), Jane Lynch (“Best in Show”), John Cho (“Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”) and Bruce Daniels, who co-starred in Cho’s comedy tour film “CHO Revolution.” Daniels plays Bam Bam to her Celeste in the film, and he’s also the opening act for her “Assassin” tour, which criss-crosses America from Anchorage to Indianapolis, Maui to Phoenix, over the next few months as director Lorene Machado finishes editing the movie for release later this year. The very personal film is about her real-life close friendship with a gay man (who has since died of AIDS), and their struggle to leave their hometown. She sees the movie as a hysterical tribute to her friend. In the meantime, Cho is as political as ever on her tour, wearing a beret and posing like Patty Hearst after she was kidnapped and became a terrorist known as Tanya. “I love Patty Hearst. She’s so hot,” said Cho, who hasn’t ever met the heiress who’s now a mom and appears in John Waters films. “That’s when terrorism was cute. It’s a nostalgia thing.” Her take-no-prisoners act picks on Martha Stewart, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the whole Bush family and Condoleezza Rice and her leather boots. “Condi is such a dominatrix, with those spiked heels.” Her political humor “State of Emergency” tour last year sold out at some venues, “I was depressed Bush won,” she said. “I needed to do something, so in this tour we assassinate false idols and negative ideas.” She expects to continue her assassinations with her upcoming film. Students spearhead campus campaign to end homophobia By FELICIA SAILEY FOR THE GAMECOCK USC’s Office for Sexual Health and Violence Prevention and USC’s Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Straight Alliance have set this week aside to focus on homophobia awareness. USC students first observed this event in 2002, but it is not unique to USC. Schools including Virginia Tech and Miami University are introducing similar events. Homophobia Awareness Week began as an effort to educate students about homophobia’s harmful impact on the community. The sponsored event is also concerned with how to confront prejudice in a way that is educational and respectful. Volunteers from sponsoring organizations will distribute information on campus, local and national levels in an effort to reduce homophobia and educate the USC community. A day of reflection took place Monday, the first of the week’s activities. Tuesday’s theme was “Break the Silence,” an event that served as a celebration of diversity. Organization members will hand out free Skittles and Sno Cones 11-2 p.m. today on Greene I Street. The refreshments are accompaniment for a “Gay, Fine By Me” sticker campaign. Interested students can attend Thursday’s campus-wide Safe Zone Ally Training at 7 p.m. Sponsors ask that those attending R.S.V.P. to safezone@gwm.sc.edu. The last day in Homophobia Awareness Week includes activity on the Horseshoe from 1:30-4:30 p.m. Show Up and Break the Silence, S.U.B.S., will have free food and prizes. Organization members said they have noticed students’ receptiveness this week. “I really do think this helps,” said Brian Breitenstein, a BGLSA member and third-year public relations student. “Even if only three people listen, that is still three people. It makes a difference.” Third-year music education and dance education student Matt Archer participated in the week’s activities. “I don’t see myself as being different from anyone else,” Archer said. “(Homophobia) gives people the wrong idea. Being gay isn’t a big deal-to me. It is just being who I am. I don’t really think about it.” Comments on this story ? E-mail gamecockfeatures@gwm.sc. edu ■ BEES Continued from page 9 Fabulich answered the phone and spoke to the pre-recorded voice of Melissa, also known as the “Operator,” one of the central characters of the game. He was prompted to answer a trivia question to show he was familiar with the game and was rewarded with a clue. Players like Fabulich and Bliss became part of online communities, where they worked as a unit to piece together the mystery. They developed software to map the GPS coordinates and to organize teams of players to go out and pick up the calls, which were scattered around 1,400 phone booths. One even braved a hurricane to answer a call. Behind the scenes, the Puppetmasters at 42 Entertainment worked feverishly to keep the game thrilling. They created a special database to handle the pay phone calls and hired actors to play the characters in the game. To pump up the drama, the game’s characters sent personal e-mails to the players and made live calls at all hours of the day. The game was constantly on. The Puppetmasters deliberately planned the next chapter in the narrative only a few weeks in advance so that the players could affect it. “If Moby Dick were an alternate reality game, you would see a whale go by,” said Sean Stewart, a science fiction author who was one of the key designers of “I Love Bees” and “The “Beast.” “Ahab would call you or a harpoon would come out of a television set.” Added Elan Lee, the lead designer of “I Love Bees” and “The Beast”: “The premise that the game offers is it’s an opportunity to live the life of an action adventure hero. It’s an opportunity to make your life bigger than it is. I think no matter who you are, there’s something about that promise that is really appealing and exciting.” But unlike traditional games, “I Love Bees” lasted just three months, leading up to the release of “Halo 2.” The game acted as a prequel for the action in “Halo 2,” as aliens known as the Convenant invade Earth and threaten its existence. Did it work? Absolutely, said Chris Di Cesare, director of global Xbox marketing at Microsoft, who commissioned the project for an undisclosed sum. On its first day, “Halo 2” sold 2.4 million copies, amassing $125 million in sales, and has since sold a total of 6.5 million copies. Granted, “Halo 2” already had an intense following. But the “I Love Bees” campaign broadened that audience, reaching out, for instance, to the science fiction fan base, Di Cesare said. It also generated buzz, so to speak, as word about “I Love Bees” spread. “It was a bit of a gamble, to try something like 'I Love Bees,’” he said. But “the dollars paid off.” The founding members of 42 Entertainment — the name of the company is a nod to the science fiction classic “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” — have also taken a gamble. Founded about a year ago, the company is betting that it can make money by producing alternate reality games as a subtle means of advertising, particularly to target an audience that has become immune to traditional advertising. “Instead of building a larger neon sign, we create subtle and hidden campaigns that they find on their own,” said President Joe DiNunzio. The company estimates that some 10 million unique visitors hit the “I Love Bees” Web site and checked out the game. Of those, 2 million followed its progress from behind the scenes. About 10,000 played the “I Love Bees” game intensely. Word spread, too, as players answering telephone calls in public were forced to explain to perplexed spectators that they were participating in a promotion for “Halo 2.” “The genre is still in its infancy,” Lee said. But since “I Love Bees,” “the demand for more projects like this and to innovate like this has been extreme. We’re really excited.” ■ HEAT Continued from page 9 album. Overall, that might have been a mistake, as “Elevator” sounds nearly as disjointed and purposeless as singer Steve Bays’ copycat-of-a-male-Gwcn Stefani phrasing. Essentially, the new album is driven primarily by bassist Dustin Hawthorne and the Roland-enabled variety of keyboard stylings Bays adds to his ^-1 I inane lyrics. Never quite able to escape the chorus-verse-chorus plague that signifies sugar-coated infective pop, Bays channels Mungo Jerry’s classic “In the Summertime” on the fifth track, “You Owe Me an IOU.” Managing to get past the love-or hate vocals, listeners will find ironically alliterative lyrics that could have artistic weight given another setting. On the aforementioned track, Bays declares that “He was in the habit of taking things for granted/granted, there wasn’t much for him to take.” The song “Pickin’ It Up” could very well be the Ramones song that never was, with a simplified three-chord punk structure that betrays some of the band’s myriad influences. Proving that dance-a-billy is no place for political statements, the band has a go in commenting on what we can only assume is the war in Iraq, singing on “Soldier in a Box” that “I found a soldier in a box/A souvenir that someone lost at such a cost.” The type of “New Wave” that Hot Hot Heat is busy ripping off to sell T-shirts is hardly anything original to merit the word “new,” and in a sense that is the tragedy of “Elevator.” Fans of “Make up the Breakdown” might enjoy the ride, but everyone else will find these 13 tracks take them nowhere fast. Comments on this story? E-mail gamecockfeatures@gtvm.sc. edu Hyperlearning MCAT classes. Comprehensive preparation. Classes start June 5 at USC. Call now to register. 800-2Review | PrincetonReview.com /The / Princeton k—Review 'MCAT is a registered trademark of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMCI The Princeton Review and The Princeton Review logo are trademarks of The Princeton Review, me The Princeton Review. 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