My Friend Ned

I really didn't want to talk about this because it's some junior high bullshit, but people have been emailing me and I've been hearing about it all week and it's all been building up so I felt like I had to let it out.

Here's what happened:

Last Saturday Joe Rogan was at his "home", The Comedy Store in LA, and he was introducing a comedian who works on my show (cause Rogan isn't good enough to close), and he introduced the guy by saying he works for Carlos Mencia "who steals people's jokes". The guy who works for my show was supposed to come out, do 15 minutes, and then introduce Carlos. But Carlos heard what Joe said and came out and said basically "hey man, you've been talking this shit about me for years, why don't you say it to my face?"

So Joe comes out on stage and just starts yelling. Carlos yelled back. This went on for 15 minutes - I feel bad for the tourists out from Orlando who actually wanted to see a comedy show.

Anyway, Joe Rogan can't get a show on the air that doesn't involve Thai fighting or eating elephant's dick, so he has a camera following him around at all times for his reality show that airs...on his blog (he's big time). And even though it's against the rules to tape inside a standup comedy place, his guy had the camera rolling for this confrontation.

But Joe couldn't just show the footage and let people judge for himself. No. He had to take 3 days on his final cut pro to mix together the new footage with old footage, mixing and matching stuff, to make a new fictional movie. He then posted it on his website, youtube, and anywhere else he could find. He didn't have the balls to just show what happened Saturday, instead he had to piece some propaganda together like Leni Riefenstahl.

It makes Carlos look bad. Of course it does. It was created by the guy who is the most jealous of him. Let's talk about where this all comes from.

15 years ago Taco Bell came out with a product that they gave a cute Spanish name to, a name that in Spanish was actually slang for "little dick". Well, how long do you think it took every beaner comedian to do a joke about it? Not long. But for some reason, George Lopez claims he was first (he wasn't, I know a guy who says George stole it from HIM - I don't believe him either though). It turns out, Carlos Mencia was doing a joke about that product too - and a feud was born.

This has to go down as one of the history's dumbest feuds - two beaners fighting over a Taco Bell joke? That's like two jewish comedians fighting over a circumcision bit. It's really stupid because there were 5 other comedians talking about this Taco Bell thing, but Lopez and Mencia were the most famous and George was so enraged by it, that it became a thing.

Now comes "fencegate". Remember when the news came out that the government was going to build a fence along the US/Mexico border? Okay, how long do you think it took for every comedian on the planet to come up with "who's gonna build that fence? The Mexicans!" Not exactly a stretch to go there. In fact, I've heard 5 different comedians do it. Carlos Mencia is one of them (which shouldn't be a surprise, he does a lot of fence jokes). DL Hughley is another. And some asshole named Ari Shaffir is another (I have some personal animosity towards the guy even though I don't know him - he has gotten into fist fights with 2 of my friends, both of whom are a foot shorter than him).

So part of the video that Joe cut together features Ari doing that fence joke and then Carlos doing a similar joke two years later. What does this prove? I don't know. I guess you could say then that DL and the other comedians I've seen do the joke are thieves as well, but I don't believe that. What I do believe is that in the world of ideas, a lot of people have similar ones. Do you know how many times I've written down an idea and years later I saw someone else do it as a movie? Did they steal it from me? Of course not! A lot of people have a lot of the same ideas, especially when they're trying to be funny (In the example of the fence joke, the proof that it wasn't stolen is here).

(EDITED: There used to be a different example here, but I'm changing it for a better one) In fact, an incident that is very similar to this Ari thing happened to me, personally, last week.

We did a field piece last year about the "n" word, and Carlos went around and talked to regular people about it. One of the bits we had was a "chart of blackness", with a light skinned black celebrity on one end and a dark skinned black celebrity (Yaphet Kotto) on the other, with a bunch in between.

So last week I'm watching Saturday Night Live and on Weekend Update, they do a bit with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson talking about Barack Obama. And what do they have to demonstrate with? A chart of blackness! It was similar to the one we made.

So what did I do? Did I cry about it to my friends? Did I make a video about it and post it on Perezhilton? No. I laughed it off. SNL did not steal that bit from us. And if they did, well, good luck to them. But I highly doubt it, it's not like it's impossible for two different people to come up with that shit.

This happens all the time. Writers pitch stuff that's been pitched by other writers constantly. That's what happens when you all have access to the same news and information, and are working to say something funny about it. It's not stealing, it's just parrallel thought.

The other big thing in the video is that "his name's not even Carlos"! Yeah, no kidding. Carlos has talked about this many times. It's a stage name given to him by the owner of the Comedy Store. I know it's hard to believe that someone in show business might have a stage name, but it's been known to happen. And Carlos doesn't hide this. In fact, I don't know the guy as Carlos. I know him as Ned. As does everyone who knows him personally. He makes people call him that, cause that's his name. Maybe Pam Anderson should make a youtube video calling out Carmen Electra for not really being an Electra, or maybe it's not a big deal.

So anyway, yeah, of course I'm saying this, Ned is my friend. But I've seen him do standup more than I've seen anyone else in the world. And he has a reputation for something other than this bullshit, he has a rep for going on stage FOREVER. I've seen him drive over to the Improv after a 12 hour working day, I'm exhausted, and he'll just go up and do 2 hours. 2 hours! Do you know how hard that is? It wasn't even a planned thing, he just went up and talked for 2 hours and killed. He does this regularly, and not cause he has to (like Rogan does) but because he loves to. It's who he is. And you're telling me that in that 2 hours (of the multiple hours of comedy he has done), there is one line someone else has done before? Come on, guys.

Okay, that's enough of that. Let's move on to matters of true importance and significance. Things that are vital to this great nation. Things like this: