Margaret Cho is returning with a fresh batch of spurned-lover bile, body-part jokes and scorching race, sex and-politics humor that made her the darling of super-smart misfit crowds.
But this time, her gags are delivered as profane little folk songs, strummed on the acoustic guitar she just learned to play.
When she performs in Durham tonight, Cho will sprinkle in tunes from her full-length album "Cho Dependent," a collection of ditties she performs with the likes of alt-rock heroes Brendan Benson, Ani DiFranco Grant-Lee Phillips and ... uh ... Tommy Chong.
"I'm kind of oddly expert at learning," says Cho. "Each person I worked with taught me a chord. That's how I got the crazy B7s."
In larger cities on this year's tour - Washington, San Diego and Portland - Cho has shared the stage with the local tuxedo-clad gay men's choirs, which she leads like a spastic conductor through unprintable lyrics.
Expect mostly stand-up from Cho, and no gay men's choir as of press time, but enjoy the spectacle of her jumping flamboyantly into another genre.
"I never sang before," she confesses in a phone interview. "My mother is very good singer. It's different. It's demanding. I am a good lyricist, which is all I'm concerned about."
Raised in San Francisco, the daughter of Korean parents who frequently turn up in her act, Cho rose to stardom as the guest of hosts as diverse as Arsenio Hall and Bob Hope. Her candid, relentlessly potty-mouthed humor sold out Carnegie Hall in 2001 for her Notorious C.H.O. tour.
This year has seen Cho, 41, vault onto many new stages: her character on the Lifetime show "Drop Dead Diva," her participation in the "It Gets Better" project aimed at ending gay bullying, and her ferocious, feather-hat samba on "Dancing with the Stars."
Her stint on the dancing competition show, which ended after a judge told her, "You had too many drinks, my darling. The footwork ... you went wrong so many times," still stings, particularly because Bristol Palin is still there shaking her celebrated Alaskan hips.
"It's because Republicans vote," says Cho. "I'm a much better dancer than any of the people on there."
But she sees a bright spot in having lost to the daughter of Sarah Palin, the tea-party pundit Cho once jokingly confessed to finding sexually attractive, if not exactly in line with her political stripe. She encourages the family to further its interest in reality television.
"I really encourage the Palins to be on 'Dancing With the Stars' because then they're not in politics," she says. "I urge people to vote for them, but not for real. Only on the dancing. If they stay in that arena, I'm very supportive."
