Our friend, comedian Emo Philips, performs his act every third Monday of the month, as regularly as a menstrual cycle, at The Steve Allen Theater, on Hollywood Boulevard. But this Monday, his show will be a little different, a little more… aggressive. He’s calling it “The Shredder.” He explains in this email:

What is “The Shredder?” Well, as you are of no doubt aware, I have written quite a few jokes. The ones I perform in my act, or have recorded onto CDs, are but the tip of the iceberg. I have many, many more jokes, the collective equivalent of the monstrous relative in the attic that no one ever sees. Some of these jokes have never gone over, despite my most patient efforts to hone them. Some of them got nice laughs at first, but then – mysteriously – stopped getting laughs. And some still get nice laughs, but only every now and then, and as a professional comedian I cannot afford the luxury of keeping them in my act, any more than a soldier can afford the luxury of carrying a rifle that only fires some of the time.

Anyway, after 32 years, I have hundreds and hundreds of these “iffy” jokes, each on its own index card, and at this point their potential for someday going over is beginning to be outweighed by their danger as a fire hazard. So this Monday I’m taking a big bunch of these joke cards onto the stage with me, and I’ll give each gag my absolute best shot… but if it fails, it will immediately be fed it into an on-stage paper shredder, never to be performed again.

Place: The Steve Allen Theater.

Location: Hollywood Blvd, 2 blocks west of Vermont.

Date: Monday, August 27, 2007.

Time: 8PM

Ticket price: $10.