The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 13, 2005, Page 10, Image 10
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
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