How to go
Who: Emo Philips
Where: Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub, 101 Pine St., Dayton
When: 9 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Cost: $15 Friday, $20 Saturday, $10 Sunday
More info: 937-224-JOKE (5653) or www.wileyscomedyclub.com
Artist info: www.emophilips.com
Comedically subversive is a good term for Emo Philips. His page boy haircut, falsetto voice and childlike presence are mere smokescreens for the comedian, providing a veil from which he can set up the audience for a thrill ride of laughs through deft misdirection and clever turns of phrase.
Philips, performing at Wiley’s Comedy Niteclub in Dayton through Sunday, displayed those skills during a recent Q&A. Here are excerpts from that exchange.
Q: If you had a comedy motto, what would it be?
A: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes you far too tired to do a good show at 8 p.m.”
Q: How old were you when you first got a laugh in public and what was the situation?
A: “I was 20 years old, onstage at a comedy club doing my act, about six months into my career. I walked off electrified and couldn’t sleep that night because, even without getting laughs, I loved stand-up, but this took it to a whole new level.”
Q: What is a perfect day off for Emo Philips?
A: “I love playing chess with old men in the park. The problem, though, is finding 32 of them.”
Q: What is one thing most people would be surprised to learn about you?
A: “I’m still alive.”
Q: What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in stand-up during your career, creatively or businesswise?
A: “The biggest change is that I was far bigger in the ’80s, but then so were newspapers, so were video stores, so was the United States Postal Service, so I can’t feel too bad. In fact, if you had gone up to people in the ’80s and wagered, ‘Which of these will still be going in 2014, the Soviet Union or Emo Philips?,’ you would have made a lot of money.”
Q: What modern comedy trend would you like to see go the way of the dodo?
A: “The practice of archiving forever, on the Internet, every newspaper, TV and radio interview. I would love to see that practice clubbed and eaten by 17th century Dutch sailors.”
Q: After more than 30 years on the road, what compels you to keep traveling and performing?
A: “I strongly feel that this is what the Good Lord put me on earth to do, and I’m going to keep doing it either till the day I die or get it right.”
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