Word: emo
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...contrast to a decade ago, when offbeat comics like Martin, Albert Brooks and Andy Kaufman were redefining the stand-up genre, the current crop is relatively traditional. Except for a few intriguing eccentrics, such as Bob Goldthwait and Emo Philips, most of today's comics present themselves as regular folks, directing barbs at familiar subjects, from TV commercials to dating. Their lineage can be traced directly to two influential comics of the 1960s and '70s, George Carlin and Robert Klein. Both rooted their material in the commonplace concerns and shared memories of the baby-boom generation (especially TV) and perfected...
...themselves as normal folks, people like you and me who happen to have funny things to say about dating or television or life in New York City. The new gang appear onstage as determined misfits -- sometimes menacing, sometimes pathetic, always glaringly out of place. One of the quirkiest is Emo Philips, 31, a waiflike creature with a Prince Valiant haircut who floats onto the stage like some fugitive from Mother Goose and talks in a limp, languorous singsong. The star of a recent HBO concert, he shows a fondness for whimsical absurdities ("I'm not as good a swimmer...
...after frolicking happily for awhile, Emo's animals start butchering each other. Emo's song ends with the monkey committing suicide "by screwing his head into the light socket/and the birds picked him clean/and the people thought he was a wiiind chiiime...
...That song," continued Emo, "represents my philosophy of life. Why do people hate people for their race, for their creed, for their religion... when there are so many real reasons to hate them...
...hate Emo Phillips. He's weird, and he's whiny, but he's very funny. Whether his exaggerated appearance and style helps or hinders his material is beside the point--it all works. You'll leave singing the Animal Square Dance, electrocuted monkey-bone wind chimes tinkling in your head...