Truth makes Mencia offensive

By John Benson

Comedian Carlos Mencia, who brings his “At Close Range” tour to Cleveland tonight and to Pittsburgh on Saturday, admits the reason why he’s known as an offensive comedian simply stems from telling the truth.

“I don’t pull any punches,” said Mencia, calling from Los Angeles. “I’m the guy that’s going to go to the core of the matter whether you like it or not. Like I’m the one who is going to make fun of the people who accepted these [bad] loans. I don’t understand how anybody on the news can actually say ‘bad loan.’ I don’t comprehend that theory. If somebody lends me money, especially if I don’t have money to pay them back but they’re cool enough to let me borrow it because I promise to pay them back, I don’t call that a bad loan. I call that a really nice guy.

“With what we’re all going through right now, the truth of this is we’re in this predicament because stupid people who never ever should have ever gotten a loan and they knew they weren’t going to pay it back, these are the people that screwed it up. So I’m going to make fun of them, and nobody else will. Personally, I don’t care if they come to see my show or not. If you’re dumb, and I can make fun of you, then you’re a dumb and I’m going to make fun of you.”

A Honduran native and Los Angeles resident, Mencia started working amateur nights at Southern California comedy clubs right out of high school. By the mid-’90s, the comedian started touring.

It wasn’t until a decade later that Mencia, who made guest appearances on “The Shield” and “The Bernie Mac Show,” became a household name with his Comedy Central sketch comedy show “Mind of Mencia.” Though the series recently aired its fourth season, Mencia said he’s unsure of its future.

“I don’t know if I can do anther season, to be honest,” Mencia said. “I don’t see any freshness in it. It’s been going great up until now, but I don’t want to be doing a season where I feel like I’ve been there and done that. So I think right now I’m just trying to expand my horizons and do something different.”

So if we do see “Mind of Mencia” return for a fifth season, does that means either the television network backed up a Brinks truck to Mencia’s house or the comedian found some new material?

“It’s not the material part, it’s the conveying of the material,” Mencia said. “I have a lot of material I can do on the show. It’s about finding a different way to convey it. If you see ‘Mind of Mencia’ coming back, know that there is something about the show that is uniquely different from any other season. And I’m not saying I will find that, I’m just saying I haven’t found that and without that, I won’t do it for the Brinks truck.

“I’ve never done this for the money. I grew up poor. I don’t need it. I just need to smile when I wake up and feel like I’m doing something and contributing something to the world and society. I’d rather have that than money.”

Finally, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention just like uber-successful comedians Dane Cook and Larry the Cable Guy, Mencia has plenty of detractors and, well, haters. Though he plays coy with the idea, chalking it up as a price of fame, the funnyman suggests his concern lies not with his current image but ultimately with his legacy.

“In the end, I just want to be known as somebody who laid it on the line, put it out there and did a good job for society when I had the opportunity,” Mencia said. “I’m going to be doing this for a really long time, bro. Unless I die, I’m not going to be judged anytime soon.

“I’m going to be like Milton Berle, doing it out there until I’m 90. I’ll be like Bob Hope, so I got a long way to go before real judging starts.”