By Noma Faingold

Trailblazing comedian Margaret Cho has always made sure her brazen stand-up material aligns with her feminist, politically progressive and all-inclusive views on sexuality. What is radically different about the 57-year-old San Francisco native is that her once chaotic, dangerous life has gradually evolved into that of a serene homebody, who surrounds herself with animal and plant life.

Her whimsical San Fernando Valley home is colorfully decorated to impress her three cats and Lucia, her half-Chihuahua/half-Dalmatian. To describe them as joined-at-the-hip is an understatement. Cho, who has had the diminutive rescue since she was eight weeks old, takes her everywhere and gives Lucia reassuring kisses often while cradling her to her chest. It’s as if Cho is the one being nurtured by the affectionate nuzzling.

“Whenever we’re anywhere, she’s always on me,” Cho said.

Cho has owned the Glendale house for 25 years but said she never really treated it as a home until the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s very surprising because I never thought I would settle anywhere. I used to be a real nomad and traveled all the time,” she said. “I had this house. It’s just that I never fully moved in. All the drawers and the closets were kind of empty. It seemed temporary, like an Airbnb. Finally, it’s actually moved in and lived in.”

She has pretty much designed a cat sanctuary, complete with a “catio” that wraps around the entire house with several multi-level structures featuring enclosed tunnels, climbing posts, perches and water stations, for her two Sphynx cats, Sacre Coeur and Sarang (love in Korean) and large male cat, Uju.

“It’s just an environment for animals. I have 27 bird feeders. The cats can watch birds come and feed all the time. I’m sustaining a lot of life here,” Cho said. “I have hundreds of plants. Some are dead, but most of them are alive and doing okay. It’s a very vibrant place to live. I’ve always wanted cats and never thought to have one because I was gone so much. The pandemic gave me an opportunity to really open my house up to these beautiful creatures. Then I realized how much I love being at home.”

She still travels for work. Right now, she is in the middle of her latest tour titled, “Choligarchy,” which takes aim at President Donald Trump and his wartime regime. The show stops in San Francisco for two performances on May 29 at the Palace of Fine Arts. The early show is sold out.

“I hate Donald Trump,” she said. “I hate how stupid he is. I hate how stupid we made the most important job in the world, which is the presidency.We allow for this idiotic, incompetent, incoherent, incontinent narcissist to decide every day whether we should live or die. It’s a nightmare.”

Expect Cho to confront the hypocrisy, absurdity and corruption of the administration with her signature savage humor.

“We, as a world, are forced to be led by this monstrosity. It’s really funny to me. Also, it’s really horrendous,” she said. “The gist of the show is we got to get out of this relationship. My greatest hope is that he’s impeached, removed and then imprisoned. I do see a way of that happening.”

Cho and her younger brother, Hahn Cho, grew up in the Inner Sunset District, raised by her Korean immigrant parents. Her opinionated mother, Young-Hie Chun, provided some of Cho’s most hilarious material for years. She imitated her bewildered, yet judgmental mother with anecdotes and arresting one-liners.

In the 1970s and 1980s, her parents owned a gay bookstore in the heart of Polk Street’s hardcore scene. In 1989, at age 14, Cho began doing stand-up comedy open mics at the Rose & Thistle performance space above the bookstore. By 17, she was headlining local comedy clubs. However, she admits it took about five years before she could identify who she was as a comic.

“Comedy in the ’80s, there were no Asian comedians. I wasn’t sure where I should go,” Cho said.

She didn’t develop a cheap gimmick or copy those who came before her, like Robin Williams or Eddie Murphy. She did not even try to emulate Joan Rivers, who she viewed as a role model. Instead, Cho embraced what she brought to the art form, which was booming at the time.

“I lived across the street from the Holy City Zoo (a small, clubhouse-like comedy club), right next to Toy Boat (a retro ice cream parlor on Clement Street),” Cho said. “We would always end our nights there. I was there all the time. It was like a second home.”

What seemed the most authentic stage persona was for Cho to cultivate how she saw herself.

“I am an outsider,” she said. “When you think of a comedian, you think of a straight, white man, who is talking about the way he wants the world to be. I’m an outsider of that. I’m an Asian American woman. I’m queer. I was very young when I started. I was all these things that were not what you thought of as a comedian. But I was still going to do it. I was like an outsider who made it inside. I’m still an outsider.”

Activist Cho stands up for those in the LGBTQ+, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and houseless communities on and off stage. She also uses her platform to be an advocate for animals.

Cho has been doing stand-up for more than 40 years, including numerous specials. “Choligarchy” will be her latest show to be filmed for streaming. She is ubiquitous on social media and has hosted podcasts. She also has plenty of acting credits, including her breakthrough, “All-American Girl” (1994-1995), a short-lived network series centered around her (or at least a watered-down version of her).

She had a supporting role in the feel-good legal comedy series, “Drop Dead Diva,” appearing in 78 episodes and the lead in the notable 2024 gentle family drama, “All That We Love.” Her newest film, being released in July, is directed by Gregg Araki and stars Olivia Wilde and Daveed Diggs.

Stand-up remains her most satisfying creative outlet. She has mastered the craft of making people laugh look effortless.

“I love standup the most. It’s the one I always return to,” she said. “It’s the one thing I’m best at that I really work on consistently.”

She takes mentoring younger comedians seriously. She’s friends with Atsuko Okatsuka, who describes Cho as an icon.

“I also love Ali Wong, another San Francisco native and such a hero. An amazing person,” Cho said.

She has also championed Chris Fleming, who challenges social norms.

“I would force him to go to shows with me in 2011 and put him in front of audiences because he’s so funny. Finally, the world has caught on. I adore him. He is very strange, but what he does makes so much sense.”

Despite all her success as a writer, live performer, actress, producer and even in music as a singer/songwriter, Cho said she could write a book tackling the disastrous missteps in her life. In fact, she has finished the first draft of a memoir, which she describes as a “painful look back.”

Wildly adventurous (but not always comfortable) sexual encounters, muddling through drug addiction, followed by seven years of pursuing an unsustainable wellness lifestyle (in addition to living sober), which led to a devastating 13-year relapse, is rich fodder for juicy prose.

“If you’re a comedian, the lifestyle is really set up for addiction because you only really work for an hour a day. Then you have the rest of the time to kind do whatever you want, and that’s pretty destructive,” she said. “It took every part of me to make sure that I could still do comedy and still be up there performing. It was tough.”

After an intervention and a one-year, nine-month stay in rehab, Cho is grateful to have maintained her sobriety for 10 years.

“It was intolerable at the time. I was really angry with all of the people who were at the intervention. I really didn’t want to be interrupted, but it saved my life,” Cho said. “I didn’t know how bad it had become because I was so unaware. I didn’t know what it looked like from the outside. I couldn’t judge how destructive I was being. Now I see that I really didn’t have a lot of time left. I would have died if I didn’t have the intervention.”

Now that she has some distance, Cho has more clarity about the motivation behind some of her sexual exploits, including her 12-year polyamorous marriage to Al Ridemour. She said she spent a lot of years in relationships projecting a myth.

“I wanted to be seen as an expert on sexuality, the cool girl. Down with whatever,” she said. “I had a lot of sex that didn’t make sense. Sex that I really didn’t enjoy or understand.”

These days, Cho is single. She does date, but she is not exactly looking for a partner.

“It’s so weird to date at this age. It’s very low stakes,” she said. “Maybe I want to share my time with somebody. It’s become way less urgent. I love my single life. I love my animals. They’re everything.”

“Choligarchy,” stops in San Francisco for two shows on May 29 at the Palace of Fine Arts. The early show is sold out. For ticket information on the 9:30 p.m. show, visit margaretcho.com.