With Memories of a Comic Comrade, Margaret Cho Helps the Homeless
SAN
FRANCISCO — The comedian Margaret Cho has been busking around her
hometown, singing, plinking on her guitar and nearly stripping to raise
money for the homeless. San Francisco has pop-up restaurants, art
galleries and shops, but Ms. Cho’s may be the first pop-up charity.
Through
social media, she has notified fans, who brought coats, pants, shirts,
shoes, blankets and lots of socks as well as cash, which she gave away
at each event. Her ninth and final performance was on Tuesday.
The inspiration, Ms. Cho said, was her friend Robin Williams, who committed suicide in August
at age 63. When she could not shake her sadness, another comedian
friend said, “Don’t mourn Robin — be Robin.” Mr. Williams, who lived in
the Bay Area, raised millions for the homeless. So Ms. Cho began what
she calls “my mini-baby-weirdo version” of Mr. Williams’s charity
routines.
She
also did it because, she said pointedly, this city has become
Dickensian, with the rich getting richer as they till the digital fields
of Google and Facebook and the poor getting poorer and priced out of
their apartments. Ms. Cho knows that she cannot change the economy, but
she can lift spirits by doing what she knows best.
“San
Francisco used to be a city of street performers,” Ms. Cho said at her
final event. “Robin was a street performer — this is part of bringing
that back.”
She
has performed at Madison Square Garden and Carnegie Hall, and much of
her comedy is so profanely unprintable that any attempt at paraphrasing
would not do it justice. Starting in January, Ms. Cho will be a host of a show on the TLC channel called “All About Sex,” a title that conveys some of her brand of humor.
During
her monthlong string of pop-ups, she took her act to a youth shelter
and to neighborhoods where homeless people congregate. Ms. Cho said she
had raised about $2,000 at most of the shows. She finished with an
evening performance at SF Eagle, a gay bar with synthetic snowflakes and a mirrored ball twinkling from the ceiling.
Outside,
drivers pulled up with armfuls of new sweaters, vests, jackets, pants,
dental floss, soap and socks, stacking the donations on tables on the
sidewalk. Homeless men and women, often unnoticed during the day, walked
or biked to the tables and chose what they liked. Late into the night,
the hills of clothing were replenished and the homeless kept coming.
Michael
Austin, “eight years on the street,” rode his clunky gray bicycle from
under a nearby freeway overpass, where he lives. “This is exciting,” he
said, stuffing so much clothing into drooping plastic bags, marked
“Personal Belongings Bag,” that when he pedaled away the bike tipped
over. After being helped up, he said, “I’m coming back with my friends.”
There
are more than a half-million homeless people in the United States, and
6,500 live in San Francisco. Many sleep on the sidewalks and under
building overhangs.
The
people who came for free clothing were mostly older. The donors were of
all ages. “When prompted,” Ms. Cho said, “people are so generous.” And
she excels at prompting: As she sang, she beckoned audience members to
sail dollars into a bucket she held in her outstretched arm. Few could
resist.
At
her shows, she charges $5 for a cellphone picture taken with her — and
$100 for a nude shot — with the money going to the homeless. Ms. Cho
also is raising money at the website GoFundMe.
Whenever she has enough cash, Ms. Cho goes to the bank, breaks $100
bills into singles and gives them away.
“There is nothing better than
making it rain dollar bills on a homeless man," she said. “It’s a
beautiful thing, and why not?”
On
stage she engaged her fans. “Is Kelly Clarkson going to hug a homeless
person?” she joked. “I don’t think so.” Then she sang one of her gritty
songs, with lyrics that included: “No more hugs till you give up drugs.”
Ms.
Cho knew she was not solving the problem, but she said, “Maybe someone
will get to sleep in a hotel room or maybe get a sleeping bag.”
She
was trying to break through apathy about the homeless, an attitude that
she admits she once shared. But Ms. Cho, 46, said her recent
experiences had touched her heart. “I hugged a man who told me, ‘Don’t
you know, I haven’t been touched in a year?’ ” she said.
When
it rained and Ms. Cho could not perform, she went to a park and
distributed waterproof ponchos. She has arranged for hairdressers and
manicurists to tend to the homeless. Her constant inspiration, she said,
is Mr. Williams, who raised millions through Comic Relief and also quietly looked after Bay Area comedians who struggled financially. On Twitter, Ms. Cho uses the hashtag #BeRobin when discussing charitable efforts.
“You’d
go to him if you needed money,” Ms. Cho said. “If there was a
foreclosure on your house, you asked Robin for help. He was the security
blanket we all had.”
She
said she could relate to the people she was helping in other ways. “I
have issues with drugs and alcohol,” Ms. Cho said, “I’m not that far
away from where they are.” If they spend the money she gives them on
drugs and drink, she does not judge them. “Why not give people a party?”
Ms. Cho said, “That’s what’s missing from the streets.”
Later
in the evening, Mr. Austin, whose haul of clothing had tipped over his
bicycle, returned as promised with friends. He found a new Patagonia
jacket and tangerine-colored Banana Republic shirt, which will go well
with his new black corduroy pants. “This is wonderful, " Mr. Austin
said. He has been given free clothes before, he said, “but not of this
magnitude or quality.”
“It’s like Christmas,” he said, before pedaling back to his home under the freeway.
The pink font for references to the very sensitive late comedian Robin Williams, is my way of honoring the Love and Laughter that his Life brought us.
The pink font for references to the very sensitive late comedian Robin Williams, is my way of honoring the Love and Laughter that his Life brought us.
No comments:
Post a Comment