"Carlos" Mencia is a no-talent impostor

Cam's most recent post has re-ignited my hatred of Carlos Mencia. I just have to expand on the comments I left at his blog, and add some of my own fuel to his fire. First of all, it was obvious that this guy only got his own show because Comedy Central execs wanted a Chappelle's Show substitute. If I recall correctly, it was thrown together a few weeks after Dave went AWOL. That they think Mind of Mencia is even in the same orbit as CS is an insult not only to Dave Chappelle, but to all of us who watch their network.

Apparently we're not alone in our hatred, Cam. Joe Rogan hates Carlos Mencia with a passion, as demonstrated in this video, where he reveals that Mencia isn't even really Mexican at all! He's half Honduran and half German, and his real name is Ned, not Carlos. I don't think Ari Shaffir is too fond of him either, after Mencia stole a bunch of his jokes. Personally, Mencia's jokes are so unfunny I'd be ashamed to admit he stole them from me.

Here's a typical Mind of Mencia sketch: It's a song parody, first of all, which automatically places it pretty low on the comedy scale. Weird Al Yankovich is so elementary school. One thing it has going for it is that it's trying to poke fun at a larger-than-life celebrity. Chappelle scored major laughs with his R. Kelly "Piss on You" video, so why couldn't the same thing work for Mencia? Right? Wrong. Mencia made at least three major miscalculations here: 1) Kanye West hasn't done anything lately to deserve ridicule, unlike R. Kelly's widely publicized golden shower video. 2) Kanye West is extremely popular. People don't think it's funny when you make fun of someone they like. 3) Dave Chappelle has a talent for rhyming. "Your body is a porta-potty" is just plain brilliant. I doubt Carlos Mencia has even heard the song he's parodying. He says "Calm down, Kanye, settle down" at about half the speed of the original line "go 'head girl, go 'head get down," which kind of defeats the purpose of making a parody. Oh yeah, and there don't appear to be any jokes in the song.

That may be a good thing, considering the nature of "Carlos'" jokes (I know, it's a painful seven minutes, but it'll help you hate him even more). Instead of using race as a comedic tool, he makes racist stereotypes his punchlines. Yes, political correctness does sometimes go too far, but "Carlos" overcompensates by trying to be as offensive as possible and passing it off as honesty. Of course, the idea that Asians are bad drivers is no more honest than it is funny. And in case "You're not gonna think Kwang Pau is so cute when he's totalled five of your cars" is too subtle, he delivers every joke as if he had already told you the punchline and you didn't get it the first time.

Luckily for us, the video does contain his trademark "da-dada" not once, but twice. "Carlos" has repeatedly defended the sound, saying it isn't making fun of mentally retarded people, but is instead aimed at stupid people. I'm not sure how he would explain what happens about 1/3 of the way through the video above, when the girl in his video [i]clearly[/i] mocks the mentally disabled, accompanied by Mencia's trademark "da-dada." Finally. A comedian brave enough to openly mock handicapped people.

I'm baaaaaaaack

I know I haven't posted here in a long time, but I just watched Hannity & Colmes and there are a bunch of things going on in the world now that I want to weigh in on. Fox News is ridiculous and getting ridiculouser (that's right).

1) Immigration. Republicans call anything other than deporting 11 million people "amnesty." In their view, the issue is this simple: we have laws, illegal immigrants broke those laws, therefore they should be punished accordingly. With all the indictments, I'm amazed there are any Republicans left to pretend their party cares about the law. If they do care about the law (haha), it's clear they don't care about actually fixing the problem. During Bush's recent trip to Mexico, all he had to say to Vincente Fox, the economically incompetent Mexican President, was "We don't want people sneaking into our country who are going to do jobs Americans don't want. We want them coming in an orderly way."

First, there's no such thing as a job Americans don't want. If the pay is high enough, Americans will do any job that Mexicans will do. Americans will haul trash because garbage men get paid a living wage. Americans will not pick tomatoes for $2.50 an hour. Second, let's help Mexico fix their economy so that people don't flock across the border to find jobs. They were recently one of the top ten largest economies in the world, but are rapidly slipping to fourteenth. Those criticisms aside, I have to admit that at least Bush shows more compassion toward the poor than most of his fellow Christians (i.e., Republicans). Most of them simply don't care. "They should have thought about the consequences before breaking the law" is Sean Hannity's mantra.

Yes, let's secure our borders. But let's also reform our immigration legislation, offer ways for those already in the U.S. a path to naturalization, and help Mexico get their economy in order.


2) Duke Lacrosse team rape case. It's pretty disgusting hearing the Fox News talking heads practically gloating about the recent DNA tests that showed none of the team's genetic tissue was on the victim. Maybe the team didn't rape the woman. Maybe they used condoms. But the fact remains that a woman was raped!

Sean Hannity says the team was "smeared" and that they should sue the woman who accused them. Huh? She was hired to strip at a party hosted by the lacrosse team and was raped. She (logically) assumed it was the team members who did it. True, it could have been some other men at the party. Does that make her accusation a malicious attempt to destroy the team's reputation? Of course not!

As if that wasn't bad enough, the show after S&C suggested that the woman faked the whole incident. Apparently she had some visible scrapes and bruises in pictures taken before the rape occurred. Does that explain the fact that she left the house in a panic, leaving behind her purse and the money she had earned by stripping? Strippers do not leave parties without their money. Or what about the medical exam that confirms her injuries are concurrent with those of a rape victim? Not visible scrapes and bruises, but significant vaginal and anal tissue damage.

Why is the lacrosse team the focus of this case? The DNA evidence may or may not exonerate them. Time will tell. But why would anyone try to discredit the victim? I understand it must be terrible to be falsely accused of something serious like rape. But is that even remotely comparable to the horror of being gang-raped?

3) Natalee Holloway. Who the hell cares? Fox News is still talking about this! Yes, it's tragic that a young girl is missing (and in all probability, dead). I feel sorry for her family. But every day thousands of people die all over the world, and they are no less important.

4) Tom DeLay resignation. Two words: good riddance. Not only was he one of the most corrupt of corrupt poloticians, but he was a first-class asshole. Here are my five favorite quotes by this pillar of the community:

• [to Katrina refugees in the Superdome] "Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?"
• "Emotional appeals about working families trying to get by on $4.25 an hour are hard to resist. Fortunately, such families do not exist."
• [on why he did not fight in Vietnam] "So many minority youths had volunteered...that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself."
• "The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills."
• [referring to Hillary Clinton] "Nothing's worse than a woman know-it-all."
  

Check out his WikiQuotes page for further examples.

5) French youth riots. In another display of idiocy by Fox News, Bill O'Reilly reported that the purpose of the new law was to make it easier to fire young workers "when they screw up." Can't they already fire employees who screw up? Of course they can. This law allows employers to fire young workers for no reason. The underlying purpose of the law is to make it easier to swap out unskilled workers after they've worked long enough to be entitled to raises and benefits.