By Rebecca Bowe

On Monday afternoon, comedian and San Francisco native Margaret Cho showed up at the corner of Haight and Ashbury with a guitar and started busking. She set up a guitar case and a few cardboard boxes, encouraging people to give donations for homeless people, while insisting that the folks living on the street take the money, blankets, food and other donated goods that they needed.

“We have a small amplification system and big hearts," Cho wrote on her Facebook page, where she announced the event. "The homeless problem in SF is out of control and this is the least we can do.”



Joined by Gerri Lee Lawlor (who is, as Hoodline notes, an "SF improv instructor, creator of Simlish and partner in crime for Cho's comedy/philanthropy tour") , Cho attracted a small crowd to Haight and Ashbury, including a girl with green hair who described herself as a homeless kid and played a song of her own, about “birds who find marijuana and stuff on the street.”

According to Steve Rhodes, Cho will be will doing this for the next two months "whenever she can, in memory of Robin Williams, who co-founded Comic Relief to raise money for the homeless."

Several weeks ago, Cho made a surprise appearance doing a comedy set one Tuesday night at Harvey's in the Castro, and in it she talked about some recent deaths in her family, a divorce, sending her ex-husband off to rehab, her own pill addiction, and returning to San Francisco to ground herself.

Cho plans to busk at Castro and Market at noon on Tuesday, and, as you can see from the tweet above, she's looking for collaborators.

Can't make it today? According to NBC Bay Area, she's expecting to do this every day. She'll be announcing the next times and locations on Twitter.

Update: Here she is in the Castro on Tuesday getting emotional as she talks about her tribute to Williams. "He gave, and gave, and gave. And I think the problem is we never taught him how to receive."