Memo to God: Please don't let Jimmy Shubert have a coronary onstage.

        The hilarious, ranting "tough love" stand-up comedian delivered laugh after laugh at the new Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club on New Year's Eve.

        That he did so with such red-faced seething intensity can only be described as a la Lewis Black or a la Chris Farley, out of breath and on the verge of a heart attack.

        Flustered with frustration over the lack of common sense these days, or despairing the insanity of politics, Shubert is every bit as satisfying as Black at his best.

        When he's teetering on collapse onstage, Shubert recalls Farley's "Saturday Night LIve" character, the motivational speaker Matt Foley who lived in a van down by the river.

        The thing is, the edgy Philly-born comic, a member of Sam Kinison's "Outlaws of Comedy," predates both those comics, and his veteran's skill shows.

        Shubert closes out his three-night stand at Laugh Out Loud with two shows tonight.

        Taking a cue from the late George Carlin's personal water bottle bit (When did we get so thirsty in America?"), Shubert went after Starbucks' ubiquity. "How much coffee are you people drinking?" he asked.

        Funny riffs on Generation XXL ("Two out of three people have now become four out of five people") and a man's closet space after marriage ("he's got one drawer and everything he can fit in the visor above the steering column") absolutely killed.

        Featured comic Mike MacRae is definately worth an early arrival. His laid-back demeanor recalls Carlin's early Hippy-Dippy Weatherman period.

        But it's MacRae's impressions of actors Harrison Ford (note-perfect), Morgan Freeman and Vince Vaughn, singer Ozzy Osbourne and President Barack Obama that will knock you out.

        Opening act and host Jade Esteban Estrada's butterfly 'n' boas act held things together nicely, too. 

©2010 San Antonio Express-News