The word 'epiphany' gets thrown around, but truly, the first time I stepped on stage, I had that moment of clarity. I realized God gave me a gift, and this gift is to make people laugh, and this gift should not be wasted on trying to configure some electrical components.
— Carlos Mencia
I grew up Mexican.
When I'm performing for 4,000, 5,000 people, it's a show. It's a rock n' roll concert.
I'm not good looking, but I'm not bad looking.
You can take my dirtiest, craziest joke, and I can break down in my head why there's a good, honest, honorable reason for telling it.
When I'm onstage, I'm on, but a different part of me is on: the part of me that absorbs life, sees everything occurring, and touches on everything around me.
I was only 20, 21. I was basically going to college to get me out of the ghetto. A friend suggested I try stand-up.
Here's the problem: People have completely and utterly forgotten one thing when it comes to communication - intent.
Nobody calls me a racist when I do redneck jokes. Jeff Foxworthy can do as many 'You might be a redneck jokes' as he wants, but I'm telling you as soon as a guy like that does a black joke or something - 'How dare you!' I totally think it's unfair.
When I tell a joke, I immediately know whether it's funny or not.
Acting is reacting. That's when acting is great - when you say something, somebody said something, they make a face, they pose, they use something physical, then you react to that, then they react to you.
I was a very cocky and unlikable young comic. But I came from the hood, and that's what I learned.
When you have a TV show, and you're selling out 10,000 seats or whatever the hell it is, it's not that it becomes easy. It's just that's what your life is like.
When I was a kid, I was in love with one of the 'Charlie's Angels.' I told my dad, 'I'm going to marry somebody like Cheryl Ladd.' My dad said, 'You're not that good-looking, mijo. You're going to have to make a lot of money if that's what you want.' I went, 'Well, I want that, so I'm going to make money.'
You know what, I stopped doing 'Mind of Mencia' because it got hard, and there was a lot of fighting, and it was just time to move on.
When I was young and didn't have money, I liked gambling because winning and losing was fun for the rush of it.
When the comedy community turned on me, I had a lot of reflecting to do.
My choices are made out of love. When I go on stage now, I want to make people happy. I mean, when I get hecklers now, I'm nice to them!
I don't think Latino; I think like me. If that happens to be Latino, then I guess that's me. But it doesn't affect my comedy in any way.
I don't think I push boundaries. I find that other people feel that way. To me, it's just about going up there and speaking the truth, whatever that is.
If you've never seen me perform live, I'm a must-see. I'm very funny. I have a different perspective sometimes on a lot of what I do and the world itself, especially America.
What I do is that I really, really try hard to make sure the things that I do comes from a pure place in my heart and my intent is a pure one.
I worked as a comedian for 23 years, 51 weeks a year.
I had one guy say, 'I watched your show and didn't agree with what you said.' And I'm like, 'It's a joke. How could you not agree? I can understand you saying it's not funny.' But it's like my going onstage and doing a knock-knock and somebody going, 'I disagree. There's no door here.'
If I've got a black joke, and I can't tell it in Oakland, then I shouldn't tell the joke anywhere else.
I grew up being very patriotic. My parents really love this country. A big part of what they love is freedom of speech... I'm fearless because aren't we supposed to be able to speak our mind?
I get really nervous at auditions. I know how to make people laugh, but auditions just really make me nervous.
I am a sponge. I don't write things down.
Ten comics can say the same joke, and I'm the one who gets called a thief.
At the end of the day, my career is not going to be judged by one or two or three moments in time. It'll be judged by the longevity of it.
I am living in a world where I am happy and doing what I love and making others happy.
I'm a spiritual person: I believe that if you read the Bible, you get what you want from it. But, when you actually read it, you see the beauty, spirituality, the joy and love, and what makes us godly.
We don't grow as human beings from good things happening. We grow from failures.
The beauty of comedy is, when people come to a comedy club, there is a certain veil of reality suspended.
I'm afraid of being poor; I'm afraid of living in the projects... I'm afraid of being thought as unsuccessful.
Chicago is pretty much my favorite city to perform in. For some reason, people from the Chicago area have an amazing attitude.
On stage, I'm really, really tall. I'm five-foot-9, but on stage, I'm, like, six-foot-5.
In this pessimistic world, especially in America, a positive outlook is very necessary.
The really funny thing is that most all of my friends who are priests have seen me perform, and they say, 'I wish I could talk the way you do on stage. I wish I could reveal truth to my congregation the way you do.'
Before I got into stand-up, I was a really quiet guy who had all these thoughts, all these things I wanted to say, but there was never anyplace for me to say them because my mom would look at me and go, 'You better not say what you're thinking. You better not.'
Is it my fault that there is a stereotype that black people are not good swimmers? I know that's a joke, but somebody will say, 'I can't believe you would say that.' Well, first of all it's just a joke, and second of all if you watch the Olympics, black people win medals in jumping, running. They don't win any in swimming.
I'm like most people in America. I'm conservative on some things, and I'm liberal on other things.
The beauty of not growing up middle class is that you don't think like the middle class. You don't have anything to protect, you know what I mean?
Well, the hard part about doing auditions is that the person reading you the lines, they're not really into it. They're just going, 'Oh really, so why do you think that?' And they're just looking at a piece of paper.
I believe that my part to play in this world is stand-up.
When somebody says that a comic steals jokes, it's the ultimate betrayal of comedy.
I have been recording every single one of my shows since 1994. Every single joke I've ever done is on a hard drive. I can tell you when I wrote every joke I wrote. I can tell you the first time I said it, when I made it different, when I made it better.
The United States of America on our worst day is better than any other country on their best day. Period. End of story.
Here's my questions to anybody when they talk about comedy. When you are with your friends, who don't judge you, what do you say? And if that's appropriate to say with your friends, why is it not appropriate anywhere else. Like, I hate those people who judge me and are hypocrites.
The fact that so many comics were waiting to jump on the bandwagon of hate toward me - what is it about me that engages this kind of behavior? I began to see it: My cockiness, my lack of hanging out with other comics. A lot of that wasn't my fault.
