When Margaret Cho proudly proclaims, "I'm really inappropriate," the Majestic Theatre audience roars in recognition.

Squares would be shocked at the stand-up comic's salty riffs, which in the first of two shows Saturday night detailed the gritty realities of sex, dieting and childbearing. Not this crowd. Young, gay and hip – or at least down with all of the above – they know what they're in for. And they approve.

That leaves little room for Ms. Cho to break new ground, even if she were more inclined to. Ironically, her willingness to tackle taboos was what won her a loyal following in the first place.

Still, she goes where her friends sometimes prefer she wouldn't. "I live there. I bought a house there," she says, summarizing her 90-minute set, even if the material on this "Cho Revolution" tour isn't as revolutionary as the work that made her a stand-up diva.

Saturday's early show included rants against the Iraq war, some with no jokes attached. She applauded the Dixie Chicks for their stand, but questioned whether with a name like that they could complain about the backlash.

One of the best routines was her almost real-time recounting of a particularly embarrassing episode in her life – her failure to control her bowels while driving.

"You usually have a chance to look for a Barnes & Noble," she said.

Like almost everything else in her act, the story had a political dimension. But what made it funny was Ms. Cho's uncanny ability to put audience members right in the middle of the situation, as if it were happening all over again right there onstage.

This is her greatest gift as a performer: her talent for channeling, whether she's re-creating the past or doing one of her deft impressions of a family member or Anna Nicole Smith.

Ms. Cho was quite a sight, too, dressed in a sparkling red, white and gold wraparound and orange wig. "Who wants to look like a transsexual hooker?" she asked. "Me."

She started with a few relatively innocent crowd-pleasers about the Spice Girls, Falco, The Dukes of Hazzard, her toenails and President Bush's incorrect pronunciation of "nuclear."

Then, in the night's first extended bit, she laid into her ex-boyfriend and the boredom and bargaining that accompanies sex in a long-term relationship. "I'll lick your ... [expletive] if you open this jar," she said.

But what put the bit over the top were the faces she made, once again transporting the audience close to the action. She adopted a similar strategy in stories about the barkers outside Bangkok sex clubs and her presence at the birth of a friend's baby.

Ms. Cho kept returning to politics and political humor, listing for instance all the stereotypical movie roles she never wants to play: manicurist, liquor-store owner, "exceptionally good student."

And she blended two of her greatest obsessions into jokes about gay men dieting.

What's still refreshing about her is that she says what she thinks and lets the chips fall. "I don't want to be a better person," she explains. "I don't want to rise above."

Very inappropriate.