Free Joe Rogan

Q: What does Carlos Mencia get for his birthday?

A: Ari Shaffir's intellectual property and Joe Rogan's career.

Ha!

No but really, last week, Joe Rogan and Carlos Mencia had it out over the fact that Mencia has been known to steal other comedians' material and pass it off as his own. Rogan was finishing up a set at the legendary comedy club the Comedy Store in LA when he mentioned that the kid coming on after him works for Carlos Menstealia, Carlos Mencia's pet name in the industry. Mencia just so happened to be in the audience and rushed the stage as if he was KRS-One or somebody.

Joe Rogan, who was taping some sort of reality show, got the whole thing on tape. If you missed it last week, feel free to stream it from my Vox blog. It had been up on YouTube, but Carlos Mencia had it taken down, citing a copyright violation,  In the video, Rogan runs down a list of instances in which Mencia "borrowed" material from other comics, and also aired out the fact that he's not really Mexican. In fact, "Carlos Mencia" is really a half-German whose real name is Ned Holness.

The video hit the Internets a week ago today. The next day, Joe Rogan was informed that he was no longer allowed to perform at the Comedy Store, supposedly because he had been warned him before about filming his reality series there. Then, the day after, Rogan's agent, who also reprensets Carlos Mencia, called Rogan and told him he either had to apologize to Carlos Mencia over the phone or else he'd be dropped from the agency. Of course Joe Rogan wasn't about to apologize.

In this audio interview, Mencia tries to make it seem as if he didn't have anything to do with Rogan being banned from the Comedy Store. But I think it's pretty obvious what's going on here: Joe Rogan exposed Carlos Mencia, so now Carlos Mencia is trying to have Joe Rogan blackballed. In fact, I can't help but be reminded of the incident last year in which it was revealed that Dane Cook "borrowed" material from a Louis CK album, and then "Lucky Louie" was cancelled all of a sudden.

Coincidence?