Emo Speaks

ATTEMPTING TO understand Emo Philips is like trying to rob Fort Knox--you may not get all of the gold, but even a little goes a long way. This three-time veteran of Late Night with David Letterman is at once a childlike, offbeat comedian and a political commentator, a philosopher and a celebrity.

He approaches comedy through the eyes of a vulnerable, naive persona, an innocent commenting on the world, But the real Emo is almost indistinguishable from his comic persona at first. He slips in a joke wherever possible, ponders each answer as though on another planet, and only then lets a small grain of truth slip in.

"When I was a kid I was always the catcher, which I liked, until one day I saw a game on television and I said, 'Well hold on a second. How come that catcher doesn't have his hands tied to his ankles?"'

"Like Nietzche said, 'That which doesn't destroy me makes me stronger,' although personally I prefer jogging or some other from of aerobics to having my brain eaten out by syphillis. But to each his exercise program."

Emo finds meaning in coleslaw--"The coleslaw symbolizes the cosmos. The chopped cabbage is matter, the mayonnaise is the love of God holding everything together...." Much of his act consists in such grand observations, though he maintains that social comment is "an undercurrent" in his act.

There is, however, another side of Emo, a more pragmatic and genuinely thoughtful one, though it is seldom seen. He speaks seriously of the moral responsibility of a performer to the audience and observes, "You have to be very, very careful...every single word is very powerful when you're in the public eye."

"There's a half-life of celebrity. It's like radiation. Maybe the first week after a Letterman appearance everyone comes up to you, and after two weeks maybe half of those people, and after three weeks, you know, just the mutants."

Emo's recent successes, including his album,EMO2, and a Cinemax special seem to have left him somewhat ambivalent about fame. He says, "It's okay. I don't mind. It's nice. I don't care. I hate it." Oh.

Behind the one-liners, however, is the surprisingly thoughtful voice of a still-devout man, who, though always adapting to the audience, does not sacrifice his intergrity to popular demand. "I've been selling out my shows, but I'm not going to sell out morally," he states.

"I've worked out this deal with some of the Harvard professors and I believe you get credit for anthropology class and the history of medieval hygiene if you come, and I've talked to the Pope, and seeing my show counts as ten thousand years off purgatory...."

Here's Emo the Pragmatist, the one who has "a plan to get Hasenfus out of Nicaragua--trade Daniloff for him." In March, this Renaissance man of comedy can be seen in "HBO On Location," and in April he will be releasing a new album on Epic Records and appearing in the film remake of Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Believe it, he's been there.