October 17, 2024 • 19 mins
Carlos Mencia joins Ryan to preview his upcoming shows at Comedy Works South this weekend, reflecting on his career in comedy and his landmark Comedy Central show 'Mind of Mencia.'
Carlos Mencia | Live in Denver | Comedy Works
Comedian Carlos Mencia is best known for his raw and unfiltered style of comedy, which he has showcased to great success on comedy stages, and in TV shows and movies. He has recently gone back to his comedic roots on his No Hate No Fear comedy tour, sharing his newest material with smaller, more intimate audiences. As a comedian who finds the hilarious irony in both the day-to-day and the newsworthy events, Carlos is never lacking in material. Carlos plays the role of Felix Boulevardez in Disney+'s The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, the revival of the groundbreaking animated series The Proud Family.After he found success on the Los Angeles comedy circuit, Mencia was named International Comedy Grand Champion from Buscando Estrellas (the Latin version of Star Search), eventually landing on shows such as In Living Color, The Arsenio Hall Show, and An Evening at the Improv.Mencia received a CableACE Award nomination for Best Stand-Up Comedy Special for his HBO special. Comedy Central soon took notice and the show Mind of Mencia started. The show was an instant hit, and propelled Mencia to the comedy elite. Comedy Central signed Mencia back for an original stand-up special, Carlos Mencia: No Strings Attached, the first Comedy Central Stand-up Special DVD to achieve Platinum sales status.Later, Mencia went on to star on the big screen. He starred opposite Ben Stiller and Michelle Monaghan in The Heartbreak Kid, and in the family-comedy Our Family Wedding, alongside America Ferrara and Forrest Whitaker.
Carlos Mencia | Live in Denver | Comedy Works
Comedian Carlos Mencia is best known for his raw and unfiltered style of comedy, which he has showcased to great success on comedy stages, and in TV shows and movies. He has recently gone back to his comedic roots on his No Hate No Fear comedy tour, sharing his newest material with smaller, more intimate audiences. As a comedian who finds the hilarious irony in both the day-to-day and the newsworthy events, Carlos is never lacking in material. Carlos plays the role of Felix Boulevardez in Disney+'s The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder, the revival of the groundbreaking animated series The Proud Family.After he found success on the Los Angeles comedy circuit, Mencia was named International Comedy Grand Champion from Buscando Estrellas (the Latin version of Star Search), eventually landing on shows such as In Living Color, The Arsenio Hall Show, and An Evening at the Improv.Mencia received a CableACE Award nomination for Best Stand-Up Comedy Special for his HBO special. Comedy Central soon took notice and the show Mind of Mencia started. The show was an instant hit, and propelled Mencia to the comedy elite. Comedy Central signed Mencia back for an original stand-up special, Carlos Mencia: No Strings Attached, the first Comedy Central Stand-up Special DVD to achieve Platinum sales status.Later, Mencia went on to star on the big screen. He starred opposite Ben Stiller and Michelle Monaghan in The Heartbreak Kid, and in the family-comedy Our Family Wedding, alongside America Ferrara and Forrest Whitaker.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The first time I met one I got off the planet.
I was performing in a place called Hoover, Alabama.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hoover, Alabama.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Back in the day when I first started going, there
had zero Latinos.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Okay, I would perform and no Latinos would come out
because they weren't even there.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Now so many Mexicanos now Mexicans, Mexicanos liv in Hoover, Alabama.
I swear to God, these rednecks renamed it Guada la Hoover.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I can't even make that shit up.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
God damn Guadalala Hoover.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
And you can't get mad, That's what.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
And even the balla are like no, I like it.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I like it. Guada la Hoover. What a la Hoover.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Now, back on Ryan Shuling Live, I play that clip
in particular because our next guest that kind of overlaps
his Alabama story with the last comedian. I spoke with
Derek Stroup, who was coming to Denver and he's from Harvest,
Alabama and coming to Denver, Colorado by way of Greenwood
Village is Carlos Mencia. And of course you know the name.
He is one of the legends of comedy and he's
(01:00):
in the Comedy Works South Carlos, thank you so much
for your time today.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Oh thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Brother.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Now, geographically speaking, you just mentioned Alabama. You've played all
over the country and how different it must be to
have to present your act tailor it to an audience
and audiences that may never have seen you before a
story like that about Alabama. Are there other locales in
America that really stand out to you like that?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That one was? It is a big one just because
it's Alabama. It's it's Hoover is like one of the
suburbs of Birmingham. Yeah, and so it's kind of one
of those places that you know back in the day,
at least for anybody old en us, it's touched in
your mind, the dogs, the water hoses, the whole thing
with you know, racism. And so when a place like Hoover,
(01:48):
Alabama embraces, you know, a whole thing of Mexican restaurants
and you know fanat that he has and Conan he
said he has, it's a really interesting it's a really
interesting thing to look at how it's evolved from one
to the other. Are there places like that? I'm sure,
but not not not like that, you know what I mean,
(02:11):
it's very unique into itself, that whole city. Rewarding actually
to make people laugh, yeah, because they're because they're you know,
they're they feel like they're different. So getting a room
in Alabama, just imagine, which is about thirty percent look,
you know, thirty percent white and thirty percent black, and
(02:31):
talking about racial issues, injecting that kind of stuff in there,
that is very rewarding. To have that moment where I'm
in it and they're in it, and they're all laughing
at the exact same seat, feeling the exact same thing
is existing in the exact same moment. That's really rewarding.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Carlos Mencia joining us, and it kind of dovetails into
the title of his entire tour, No Hate, No Fear,
and he's coming to Comedy Work South. That starts tonight
seven thirty pm show and then two shows each Friday
and Saturday nights. The early ones will be at seven
point fifteen on Friday and Saturday, and.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
The late ones.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
I'll be going to the late one on Friday at
nine forty five. So, Carlos, you mentioned the racial diversity
of your audiences. You have fans all across the spectrum
when it comes to that, and then over the years,
how we've evolved on that front, and how we respond
to comedy, and maybe how your comedy has either stayed
the same or changed with it. How would you describe
(03:25):
the evolution of your comedy over all these years.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
So at first I was I've always been honest about
what I think and feel and see on stage. What
changed was in the beginning of my career. I assume
that everybody understood that I'm a comedian, that as a comedian,
I want to make you laugh. I don't want to
hurt your feelings. I don't want to you know, when
(03:49):
people say edgy comedy, that's other people. We write jokes,
we write truths that are funny. That's where we live.
So my job was to make people laugh, and I
assume that they understood that that it's coming from a
good place. I think that now I realize that it's
especially in comedy and especially forgive me right now, comedians
(04:13):
have been turned into these cool people that's say things.
So once you take a joke out of the realm
of the comedy of it, sure it can be a
cerbic and it can be cool and it can sound bad,
but that's never its intent. And so now I make
a point like to tell people like now, if you're
easily offended or have sacred cows, I am not the
(04:36):
comedian for you. Come back and see somebody who's led
up a really nice, middle class life doesn't have a
lot of angst. You know, who led a life like
Jerry Seinfeld and will write jokes like Jerry Seinfeld because
that's what they grew up with, Right, I'm curious blah
blah blah blah. You know, those little things didn't mean
(04:57):
anything to me growing up. I was poor, you know,
some of my family were illegals, some of my family
were not. So just saying, hey, we're going to go
to a party, who are we going to put you know,
am I going to take responsible if you get pulled over?
Like little things like that became huge. Hey we are
you know, we want to go to San Diego. Well
they can't go to San Diego because then there's a
checkpoint on the way up. And those guys, you know,
(05:18):
like those things to us were one of the little
things that we had to go through. So I'm a
guy who's been shot at more times than I can
count because I grew up actually, you know, got shot
with a bullet in my leg when I was when
I was younger, been stabbed three times twice, my family
members with forks. When you live that kind of life
(05:42):
is what is funny. What I have to make funny
right is way different than what somebody who grew up
in Aurora has to make funny. I have to make
funny the fact that my parents had a lot of
kids and my parents did us, that my parents weren't
always communicative, the fact that they didn't always know how
to say I love you. Yet I didn't realize I
was born to that older because we always had something
(06:02):
to eat. You know, those are the things that are
important and relevant for me to talk about. And what
I've realized is, when done right today, comedy takes pretty
much two kinds of people. The people that when you
talk about them, go oh God, I don't want to
hear any of this. I don't want this reflection of
(06:22):
who I am in front of my face. I don't
want to see any flaws or any comedic imperfections. And
the other people who say, hey, I heard that you
do jokes about these people. I'm those people, I'm here,
Please tell the joke. You know I'm a blank, Please
tell that joke. I've been getting into talking about my aunt,
(06:42):
who's my godmother, who has terrible palsy, and so I've
had a lot of people recently, a lot come to
shows with palsy, and they make sure to tell me
before the show we're here. Please don't ignore us, like,
please talk about us, Please talk about your experiences with us.
And I think that what they're doing is they're trusting
that I'm not just gonna make fun of them, you
(07:05):
know what I mean, That I'm not gonna be cool
or angry or mean that they're gonna be stories about
my humanity, their humanity. Sometimes in stories, I'm the bad guy.
Sometimes in story they're the bad guy. But that's what
they want to see, do you know what I mean.
They don't want to be depicted as these perfect themes
that do nothing wrong. They want to depict that it's human.
(07:28):
And so what's changed for me specifically is I now
tell people like in the beginning of my shows, hey,
if you're easily offended, please leave. And it's because I care.
I care about your time, I care about you, I
care enough to know that I'm not for you. This
is who I am, this is what I represent. But
once you buy into that, it's such a beautiful, cathartic
(07:51):
saying to watch everybody just give in to the laughter
and begin to see the difference between comedy and anger,
racial and racist, between anger and an elevated aggressiveness. You know,
all of this stuff becomes comedic spudder. And I think
that's where I'm living right now, and I think people
(08:12):
need that. People need to be told you're not a
bad person because you laughed. It's a mechanism that we use.
You know, I was abused as a child, and I
do jokes about it on stage, and there are people
that come up to me and say, hey, I can't
believe that.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
You would minimize that and talk about it on stage
as if it's a joke. And then I say to them, well,
what would you rather have me do? Do what I
just did and laugh about it, or internalize the pain
and realize that the vast majority is not the majority.
It's not all of abusers were abused. So I don't
(08:47):
want to become an abuser because.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I was abused. I'd rather to be a comedian and
do jokes about it. That's the way I heal myself.
That's how I heal. And if you heal that way,
come and see me. If you don't heal that way,
I'm not the guy for you. And that's okay. But
that's what's changed today that I'm not selling it the
way I used to and I'm just in the moment
and it's like, look, if you're here, we're going to
(09:10):
have the best time ever. If you're not, move on
and don't get in the way of us having a
good time.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Stay tuned for your chance to win tickets to see
Carlos Mencia, who you're hearing from there either late show
Friday or Saturday nights of the nine and forty fives.
Those will be your chance to win. Kelly's going to
come up with a question as we go to break
after our conversation here with Carlos. You remember him from
Mind of Mencia that was on Comedy Central, great show
in and of its own right. He made his debuts
(09:35):
on in Living Color, a classic all time show. There,
the Arsenio Hall Show and Evening at the Improv. So Carlos,
you really have you seen? You've done it all? And
the final question I have for you kind of follows
up on what you just mentioned, and that's the state
of comedy on the whole, and how important I feel
that it is, and how important I feel comedians like
you are that.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Have been through all the wars, all the battles, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
And I want to go to the example of day
Ve Chappelle and he faced the controversy about making jokes,
let's say, about trans people, and his argument was, it was,
to your point, including them and putting them on a
level playing field and humanizing them to a large degree.
Like you said, you're not punching down at them. You're
bringing them into the conversation the arena and including them.
(10:19):
And I think that's so important, don't you.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Not only that, but think about the word itself, the
phrase itself punching down. The phrase itself punching down assumes
or presumes that you either placed me above those people
or I do yep, And I don't. I don't understand
punching down. I don't get it. I don't understand what
(10:43):
that means. When I do jokes about me and my family,
it's okay. Self deprecating humor is okay self deprecating humor
can be just as artful sometimes as anything else. And
yet you know, I can go up there and talk
about how I'm overweight and blah blah blah. But the
minute I talk about how you or overweight, that's when
the line gets crossed. And that's a hypocrisy. And I
(11:04):
think that right now, what's happening in comedy is we're
going we're referring to shows for those people. So now
they have LGBTQ shows. Now they have urban shows, Now
they have Latino shows. Now they have the Asian invasion,
now they have you know, the grind from India. And
so now all of a sudden, instead of hey, come
(11:25):
and see funny stuff, it's are you this? Then come
and see vishow because this show is for you. And
you go to those shows and they do all the
jokes about themselves, about their groups, about lg You go
to an LGBTQ show and you will hear the F
word more than you will at any hetero or whatever
non LGBTQ show. And then I see that and I say, no, no, no, no,
(11:50):
that's not what we've been fighting for. We haven't been
fighting so that we could go toward corners, and I
can do Latino shows and say, oh god, I don't
want to perform with the Landmark that's far from all
the Latinos on colfax down not. Let me just want
a Larmer because that's closer to the people that speak
Spanish and Nick Talker's and burritos, and those are my people,
and that's what I want to perform to. I think
(12:12):
that we're diverting now and it's bad, and we the
truth tellers, are needed, but we're also the valves. We're
also the valve for people that are angry, that are
taking life a little too serious. And then we go
and we do a joke about that, whether it's about
somebody who's has to a new president. Thank god, we
(12:33):
could do a joke about it because he's not dead,
so that's a good thing. Right, we can say whatever.
You know, those things are necessary for some of us,
not for everybody, but for those that need it. Yeah,
this comedy is necessary. And we're not supposed to go
to our own corners. We're supposed to get together and
(12:55):
like laugh at ourselves and each other so that we
can grow past that stupidity of if you're this, you
can do that joke. Like I jokingly told my wife,
I said, you know, I'm gonna have to get some
side girls. I hope you don't get offended. And she's like,
what did you say. I'm like, well, the new comedy
rules are I can only do jokes about people that
I'm with for people that I am. So I'm a Latino,
(13:17):
I can do Latino jokes. You're wide of Europeing descent.
I could do those jokes, but that's it. I said.
So if I want to do black jokes and Asian
jokes and at least your jokes and Indian jokes, I
gotta get some side girls that I could say, oh no, no, no,
my side growth no no, no, she's Hindu. I can
do these jokes, I promise you could. Let it becomes
so stupid and it's soap and time, you know, I
(13:39):
tell people right now. When I started doing stand up,
I did jokes or themes that I don't do anymore
because of America changed. Back when I started doing stand
up in the eighties and nineties, one of my biggest
themes was what happens to Latinos in the future, because
every movie about the future within those two decades had
no Latinos in it. Star Wars Star Trek had no
(14:01):
Latinos the series or the movies. Star Wars Episode four, five,
and six no latinos. And Star Wars did something really interesting.
They made me as a Latino feel as did there
was a Latino under subliminately without telling me. He was brown,
he was a mechanic, he rolled his r's and his
(14:23):
name was Chewing. But seriously, Chewius has suous and if
you like even think about it, Chuie had that that
thing across his chest like the Mexican bandoleros used to
have with the bullets going across it is literally no,
(14:45):
I can't tell you that they did that conscious year subconsciously,
but I can tell you that my subconscious cut it
really quickly. But we didn't go from that to exis
to day. I can't tell those jokes because Mandalorian is
a Latino actor, Ahsoka is a Latino actor, Moonnight is
a Latino actor. So now things have changed and we
(15:07):
are the most integrated country in the world. We are
the most mixed country in the world, the least racist
country on the world, you know, but nobody wants to
talk about that because everybody wants to talk about the
little moments they had or whatever. You know, it's the
victim of America and the legal alien took my job.
And I'm like, how bad was your interview? For a second?
(15:30):
You lost yours down to somebody to chance to be
English in Oklahoma, and you want me to feel sorry
for you. I literally want to know what you said
in English that was so horrible that human resource in
Tulsa literally said, do we have a number to that
one guy that answered none of our questions? And that's
who took your job. Like, we have to begin to
(15:51):
humanize all of these people, and a big part of
it is doing it through comedy, because nobody else can
do it, and he can. Casters can't do it. Philosophers can,
But who reads those books? I would venture to say
that that Richard pryor George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, that Chris Rock,
they suppel. Those guys have done more in that realm
(16:16):
than Kerouac and Nietzsche have done in our recent And
if you go back to you know, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates,
those guys who mirrored and mimic society and showed people
who we were. Who does that today? Better than comedians.
Nobody does, because through the joke, through the veil of
the joke, we can still tell truths, We can still
(16:37):
be honest. It's just gotta be funny, you know. It's
got to have a thing to it. Like the other day,
I was on stage and some young kids said, you
don't understand, and I said, no, you don't understand. Look,
I know that everybody wants to feel like they had
it bad. You know. It's kind of one of those
things where if you go to a party and you
tell a story about how something happened to you that
(16:59):
was bad, just walk away and come back, and every
single story will get worse and worse. So you'll say, like,
oh my god, one time my friend ran over my foot,
you know, with his car when we were trying to
fix this standing and oh bl blah blah blah blah.
All of a sudden, you walk away and come back
twenty minutes later, and somebody's like, man, they almost chop
my arm off. Everybody wants to one up each other
(17:21):
in these stories, and that's that's how they get big.
And it's up to us to kind of make make
those things funny and palatable and bring them back to reality.
So this kid says to me, you know, hey, we
have it bad. I go, are you kidding me? You
have some one thing that as a kid, every kid
(17:43):
that I grew up with who was kind and smart,
wish we had Google. Do you have any idea of
what it's like for your parents to tell you some
stuff they don't know it's wrong, but you can't prove it.
Where us today, every child can go. My seven year
old the other day, seven years old, he asked me
(18:03):
something about a car. And I know a little bit
about cars, So I go, no, son, that's not the
this class, that's that class, and that one only has
four hundred and three horse powers. Nope, debt, it has
five hundred and four. Okay, it doesn't. Okay. He runs Alexa, Alexa.
He asks Electa the questions, and I'm sitting there going,
(18:25):
thank God, I'm an intelligent dad who actually knows the
answer to somebody's questions.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Carlos Bencia, you can see, no hate, no fear.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
You can get your free passes for the nine to
forty five shows Friday and Saturday nights. Well, the Kelly
question as we go to break in the end of
the show, here Carlos, it's truly been an hour and
out of privilege.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
I look forward to seeing you tomorrow night.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I can't wait, my friend. It's going to be an
amazing show man. It's going to be incredible.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Looking forward to that, and you can find out more
at comedyworks dot com. We're gonna end the show on
that note, Kelly, and need you to have a question
for the listeners as we go to break here about
Carlos that they can win it. We'll need your name,
first and last, your cell phone number, and whether you
want to go to Friday or Saturday night's late shows
at nine forty five.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
If you had the correct answer to.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
This, what Star Wars character did Carlos compare to Mexico?
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yes, that's it.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Give us an answer five seven, seven thirty nine. Pick
the show you want to go to nine forty five,
either Friday or Saturday night, first and last name, with
your cell phone number.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I'll get you on the winners list.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
That'll do it for us from here for now, Ryan
Schuling live back with you tomorrow here on six thirty
K How
The first time I met one I got off the planet.
I was performing in a place called Hoover, Alabama.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hoover, Alabama.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Back in the day when I first started going, there
had zero Latinos.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Okay, I would perform and no Latinos would come out
because they weren't even there.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Now so many Mexicanos now Mexicans, Mexicanos liv in Hoover, Alabama.
I swear to God, these rednecks renamed it Guada la Hoover.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I can't even make that shit up.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
God damn Guadalala Hoover.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
And you can't get mad, That's what.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
And even the balla are like no, I like it.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I like it. Guada la Hoover. What a la Hoover.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Now, back on Ryan Shuling Live, I play that clip
in particular because our next guest that kind of overlaps
his Alabama story with the last comedian. I spoke with
Derek Stroup, who was coming to Denver and he's from Harvest,
Alabama and coming to Denver, Colorado by way of Greenwood
Village is Carlos Mencia. And of course you know the name.
He is one of the legends of comedy and he's
(01:00):
in the Comedy Works South Carlos, thank you so much
for your time today.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Oh thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Brother.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Now, geographically speaking, you just mentioned Alabama. You've played all
over the country and how different it must be to
have to present your act tailor it to an audience
and audiences that may never have seen you before a
story like that about Alabama. Are there other locales in
America that really stand out to you like that?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That one was? It is a big one just because
it's Alabama. It's it's Hoover is like one of the
suburbs of Birmingham. Yeah, and so it's kind of one
of those places that you know back in the day,
at least for anybody old en us, it's touched in
your mind, the dogs, the water hoses, the whole thing
with you know, racism. And so when a place like Hoover,
(01:48):
Alabama embraces, you know, a whole thing of Mexican restaurants
and you know fanat that he has and Conan he
said he has, it's a really interesting it's a really
interesting thing to look at how it's evolved from one
to the other. Are there places like that? I'm sure,
but not not not like that, you know what I mean,
(02:11):
it's very unique into itself, that whole city. Rewarding actually
to make people laugh, yeah, because they're because they're you know,
they're they feel like they're different. So getting a room
in Alabama, just imagine, which is about thirty percent look,
you know, thirty percent white and thirty percent black, and
(02:31):
talking about racial issues, injecting that kind of stuff in there,
that is very rewarding. To have that moment where I'm
in it and they're in it, and they're all laughing
at the exact same seat, feeling the exact same thing
is existing in the exact same moment. That's really rewarding.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Carlos Mencia joining us, and it kind of dovetails into
the title of his entire tour, No Hate, No Fear,
and he's coming to Comedy Work South. That starts tonight
seven thirty pm show and then two shows each Friday
and Saturday nights. The early ones will be at seven
point fifteen on Friday and Saturday, and.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
The late ones.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
I'll be going to the late one on Friday at
nine forty five. So, Carlos, you mentioned the racial diversity
of your audiences. You have fans all across the spectrum
when it comes to that, and then over the years,
how we've evolved on that front, and how we respond
to comedy, and maybe how your comedy has either stayed
the same or changed with it. How would you describe
(03:25):
the evolution of your comedy over all these years.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
So at first I was I've always been honest about
what I think and feel and see on stage. What
changed was in the beginning of my career. I assume
that everybody understood that I'm a comedian, that as a comedian,
I want to make you laugh. I don't want to
hurt your feelings. I don't want to you know, when
(03:49):
people say edgy comedy, that's other people. We write jokes,
we write truths that are funny. That's where we live.
So my job was to make people laugh, and I
assume that they understood that that it's coming from a
good place. I think that now I realize that it's
especially in comedy and especially forgive me right now, comedians
(04:13):
have been turned into these cool people that's say things.
So once you take a joke out of the realm
of the comedy of it, sure it can be a
cerbic and it can be cool and it can sound bad,
but that's never its intent. And so now I make
a point like to tell people like now, if you're
easily offended or have sacred cows, I am not the
(04:36):
comedian for you. Come back and see somebody who's led
up a really nice, middle class life doesn't have a
lot of angst. You know, who led a life like
Jerry Seinfeld and will write jokes like Jerry Seinfeld because
that's what they grew up with, Right, I'm curious blah
blah blah blah. You know, those little things didn't mean
(04:57):
anything to me growing up. I was poor, you know,
some of my family were illegals, some of my family
were not. So just saying, hey, we're going to go
to a party, who are we going to put you know,
am I going to take responsible if you get pulled over?
Like little things like that became huge. Hey we are
you know, we want to go to San Diego. Well
they can't go to San Diego because then there's a
checkpoint on the way up. And those guys, you know,
(05:18):
like those things to us were one of the little
things that we had to go through. So I'm a
guy who's been shot at more times than I can
count because I grew up actually, you know, got shot
with a bullet in my leg when I was when
I was younger, been stabbed three times twice, my family
members with forks. When you live that kind of life
(05:42):
is what is funny. What I have to make funny
right is way different than what somebody who grew up
in Aurora has to make funny. I have to make
funny the fact that my parents had a lot of
kids and my parents did us, that my parents weren't
always communicative, the fact that they didn't always know how
to say I love you. Yet I didn't realize I
was born to that older because we always had something
(06:02):
to eat. You know, those are the things that are
important and relevant for me to talk about. And what
I've realized is, when done right today, comedy takes pretty
much two kinds of people. The people that when you
talk about them, go oh God, I don't want to
hear any of this. I don't want this reflection of
(06:22):
who I am in front of my face. I don't
want to see any flaws or any comedic imperfections. And
the other people who say, hey, I heard that you
do jokes about these people. I'm those people, I'm here,
Please tell the joke. You know I'm a blank, Please
tell that joke. I've been getting into talking about my aunt,
(06:42):
who's my godmother, who has terrible palsy, and so I've
had a lot of people recently, a lot come to
shows with palsy, and they make sure to tell me
before the show we're here. Please don't ignore us, like,
please talk about us, Please talk about your experiences with us.
And I think that what they're doing is they're trusting
that I'm not just gonna make fun of them, you
(07:05):
know what I mean, That I'm not gonna be cool
or angry or mean that they're gonna be stories about
my humanity, their humanity. Sometimes in stories, I'm the bad guy.
Sometimes in story they're the bad guy. But that's what
they want to see, do you know what I mean.
They don't want to be depicted as these perfect themes
that do nothing wrong. They want to depict that it's human.
(07:28):
And so what's changed for me specifically is I now
tell people like in the beginning of my shows, hey,
if you're easily offended, please leave. And it's because I care.
I care about your time, I care about you, I
care enough to know that I'm not for you. This
is who I am, this is what I represent. But
once you buy into that, it's such a beautiful, cathartic
(07:51):
saying to watch everybody just give in to the laughter
and begin to see the difference between comedy and anger,
racial and racist, between anger and an elevated aggressiveness. You know,
all of this stuff becomes comedic spudder. And I think
that's where I'm living right now, and I think people
(08:12):
need that. People need to be told you're not a
bad person because you laughed. It's a mechanism that we use.
You know, I was abused as a child, and I
do jokes about it on stage, and there are people
that come up to me and say, hey, I can't
believe that.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
You would minimize that and talk about it on stage
as if it's a joke. And then I say to them, well,
what would you rather have me do? Do what I
just did and laugh about it, or internalize the pain
and realize that the vast majority is not the majority.
It's not all of abusers were abused. So I don't
(08:47):
want to become an abuser because.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I was abused. I'd rather to be a comedian and
do jokes about it. That's the way I heal myself.
That's how I heal. And if you heal that way,
come and see me. If you don't heal that way,
I'm not the guy for you. And that's okay. But
that's what's changed today that I'm not selling it the
way I used to and I'm just in the moment
and it's like, look, if you're here, we're going to
(09:10):
have the best time ever. If you're not, move on
and don't get in the way of us having a
good time.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Stay tuned for your chance to win tickets to see
Carlos Mencia, who you're hearing from there either late show
Friday or Saturday nights of the nine and forty fives.
Those will be your chance to win. Kelly's going to
come up with a question as we go to break
after our conversation here with Carlos. You remember him from
Mind of Mencia that was on Comedy Central, great show
in and of its own right. He made his debuts
(09:35):
on in Living Color, a classic all time show. There,
the Arsenio Hall Show and Evening at the Improv. So Carlos,
you really have you seen? You've done it all? And
the final question I have for you kind of follows
up on what you just mentioned, and that's the state
of comedy on the whole, and how important I feel
that it is, and how important I feel comedians like
you are that.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Have been through all the wars, all the battles, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
And I want to go to the example of day
Ve Chappelle and he faced the controversy about making jokes,
let's say, about trans people, and his argument was, it was,
to your point, including them and putting them on a
level playing field and humanizing them to a large degree.
Like you said, you're not punching down at them. You're
bringing them into the conversation the arena and including them.
(10:19):
And I think that's so important, don't you.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Not only that, but think about the word itself, the
phrase itself punching down. The phrase itself punching down assumes
or presumes that you either placed me above those people
or I do yep, And I don't. I don't understand
punching down. I don't get it. I don't understand what
(10:43):
that means. When I do jokes about me and my family,
it's okay. Self deprecating humor is okay self deprecating humor
can be just as artful sometimes as anything else. And
yet you know, I can go up there and talk
about how I'm overweight and blah blah blah. But the
minute I talk about how you or overweight, that's when
the line gets crossed. And that's a hypocrisy. And I
(11:04):
think that right now, what's happening in comedy is we're
going we're referring to shows for those people. So now
they have LGBTQ shows. Now they have urban shows, Now
they have Latino shows. Now they have the Asian invasion,
now they have you know, the grind from India. And
so now all of a sudden, instead of hey, come
(11:25):
and see funny stuff, it's are you this? Then come
and see vishow because this show is for you. And
you go to those shows and they do all the
jokes about themselves, about their groups, about lg You go
to an LGBTQ show and you will hear the F
word more than you will at any hetero or whatever
non LGBTQ show. And then I see that and I say, no, no, no, no,
(11:50):
that's not what we've been fighting for. We haven't been
fighting so that we could go toward corners, and I
can do Latino shows and say, oh god, I don't
want to perform with the Landmark that's far from all
the Latinos on colfax down not. Let me just want
a Larmer because that's closer to the people that speak
Spanish and Nick Talker's and burritos, and those are my people,
and that's what I want to perform to. I think
(12:12):
that we're diverting now and it's bad, and we the
truth tellers, are needed, but we're also the valves. We're
also the valve for people that are angry, that are
taking life a little too serious. And then we go
and we do a joke about that, whether it's about
somebody who's has to a new president. Thank god, we
(12:33):
could do a joke about it because he's not dead,
so that's a good thing. Right, we can say whatever.
You know, those things are necessary for some of us,
not for everybody, but for those that need it. Yeah,
this comedy is necessary. And we're not supposed to go
to our own corners. We're supposed to get together and
(12:55):
like laugh at ourselves and each other so that we
can grow past that stupidity of if you're this, you
can do that joke. Like I jokingly told my wife,
I said, you know, I'm gonna have to get some
side girls. I hope you don't get offended. And she's like,
what did you say. I'm like, well, the new comedy
rules are I can only do jokes about people that
I'm with for people that I am. So I'm a Latino,
(13:17):
I can do Latino jokes. You're wide of Europeing descent.
I could do those jokes, but that's it. I said.
So if I want to do black jokes and Asian
jokes and at least your jokes and Indian jokes, I
gotta get some side girls that I could say, oh no, no, no,
my side growth no no, no, she's Hindu. I can
do these jokes, I promise you could. Let it becomes
so stupid and it's soap and time, you know, I
(13:39):
tell people right now. When I started doing stand up,
I did jokes or themes that I don't do anymore
because of America changed. Back when I started doing stand
up in the eighties and nineties, one of my biggest
themes was what happens to Latinos in the future, because
every movie about the future within those two decades had
no Latinos in it. Star Wars Star Trek had no
(14:01):
Latinos the series or the movies. Star Wars Episode four, five,
and six no latinos. And Star Wars did something really interesting.
They made me as a Latino feel as did there
was a Latino under subliminately without telling me. He was brown,
he was a mechanic, he rolled his r's and his
(14:23):
name was Chewing. But seriously, Chewius has suous and if
you like even think about it, Chuie had that that
thing across his chest like the Mexican bandoleros used to
have with the bullets going across it is literally no,
(14:45):
I can't tell you that they did that conscious year subconsciously,
but I can tell you that my subconscious cut it
really quickly. But we didn't go from that to exis
to day. I can't tell those jokes because Mandalorian is
a Latino actor, Ahsoka is a Latino actor, Moonnight is
a Latino actor. So now things have changed and we
(15:07):
are the most integrated country in the world. We are
the most mixed country in the world, the least racist
country on the world, you know, but nobody wants to
talk about that because everybody wants to talk about the
little moments they had or whatever. You know, it's the
victim of America and the legal alien took my job.
And I'm like, how bad was your interview? For a second?
(15:30):
You lost yours down to somebody to chance to be
English in Oklahoma, and you want me to feel sorry
for you. I literally want to know what you said
in English that was so horrible that human resource in
Tulsa literally said, do we have a number to that
one guy that answered none of our questions? And that's
who took your job. Like, we have to begin to
(15:51):
humanize all of these people, and a big part of
it is doing it through comedy, because nobody else can
do it, and he can. Casters can't do it. Philosophers can,
But who reads those books? I would venture to say
that that Richard pryor George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, that Chris Rock,
they suppel. Those guys have done more in that realm
(16:16):
than Kerouac and Nietzsche have done in our recent And
if you go back to you know, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates,
those guys who mirrored and mimic society and showed people
who we were. Who does that today? Better than comedians.
Nobody does, because through the joke, through the veil of
the joke, we can still tell truths, We can still
(16:37):
be honest. It's just gotta be funny, you know. It's
got to have a thing to it. Like the other day,
I was on stage and some young kids said, you
don't understand, and I said, no, you don't understand. Look,
I know that everybody wants to feel like they had
it bad. You know. It's kind of one of those
things where if you go to a party and you
tell a story about how something happened to you that
(16:59):
was bad, just walk away and come back, and every
single story will get worse and worse. So you'll say, like,
oh my god, one time my friend ran over my foot,
you know, with his car when we were trying to
fix this standing and oh bl blah blah blah blah.
All of a sudden, you walk away and come back
twenty minutes later, and somebody's like, man, they almost chop
my arm off. Everybody wants to one up each other
(17:21):
in these stories, and that's that's how they get big.
And it's up to us to kind of make make
those things funny and palatable and bring them back to reality.
So this kid says to me, you know, hey, we
have it bad. I go, are you kidding me? You
have some one thing that as a kid, every kid
(17:43):
that I grew up with who was kind and smart,
wish we had Google. Do you have any idea of
what it's like for your parents to tell you some
stuff they don't know it's wrong, but you can't prove it.
Where us today, every child can go. My seven year
old the other day, seven years old, he asked me
(18:03):
something about a car. And I know a little bit
about cars, So I go, no, son, that's not the
this class, that's that class, and that one only has
four hundred and three horse powers. Nope, debt, it has
five hundred and four. Okay, it doesn't. Okay. He runs Alexa, Alexa.
He asks Electa the questions, and I'm sitting there going,
(18:25):
thank God, I'm an intelligent dad who actually knows the
answer to somebody's questions.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Carlos Bencia, you can see, no hate, no fear.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
You can get your free passes for the nine to
forty five shows Friday and Saturday nights. Well, the Kelly
question as we go to break in the end of
the show, here Carlos, it's truly been an hour and
out of privilege.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
I look forward to seeing you tomorrow night.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I can't wait, my friend. It's going to be an
amazing show man. It's going to be incredible.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Looking forward to that, and you can find out more
at comedyworks dot com. We're gonna end the show on
that note, Kelly, and need you to have a question
for the listeners as we go to break here about
Carlos that they can win it. We'll need your name,
first and last, your cell phone number, and whether you
want to go to Friday or Saturday night's late shows
at nine forty five.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
If you had the correct answer to.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
This, what Star Wars character did Carlos compare to Mexico?
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yes, that's it.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Give us an answer five seven, seven thirty nine. Pick
the show you want to go to nine forty five,
either Friday or Saturday night, first and last name, with
your cell phone number.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I'll get you on the winners list.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
That'll do it for us from here for now, Ryan
Schuling live back with you tomorrow here on six thirty
K How
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.