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Joe Rogan confronts Carlos Mencia at Comedy Store

By Stone Martindale Feb 19, 2007, 1:27 GMT

Carlos Mencia - © Glenn Harris / Photorazzi

Nothing works a stand-up's nerves more than having their routine stolen out from under them by another.  Certain comics are notorious for this intellectual crime, and Joe Rogan is one stand up who isn't letting it slide anymore.

The Comedy Store on Sunset is owned by Mitzi and Pauly Shore, and features the lovely Eva Longoria's fun "Hot Tamales" comedy review hosted by Kiki Menendez, as well as some of the finest comics alive.  Dom Irrera, Jeff Altman, Marilyn Martinez, Tammy Pescatelli, Damon Wayans, John Caparullo, Monique Marvez, Chris Tucker and on and on.

The best thing about this historic landmark, a place where the late, great Sam Kinison use to perform, is the unexpected tends to happen onstage, and when it goes down, people do record the auspicious events on video cell phones and discreet camcorders.

The Comedy Store recently was a quasi-celebrity smackdown location for Carlos Mencia, aka Ned Holness, who contrary to common belief is not Mexican, but half Honduran and half German.

Allegedly, Mencia has a reputation for "borrowing" fellow comedians jokes, re-writing them as his own material, and makes boatloads of money doing so.

Enter the intrepid comic Joe Rogan, who has always been upset regarding "joke" theft. According to Rogan, perhaps it is prevalent because a high percentage of comedians either don't have the ability to engage in a legal fight, don't know it's occuring, or they don't care enough to make a public stink.

Rogan went on stage February 10th and confronted Carlos about material Rogan claimed Mencia had lifted from other comics.

Today, Rogan has posted on his official website that he was being told by his Gersh agency representative that Gersh, who also represents Mencia, that they were "put in the middle of this thing, and forced to make a choice." 

The agent said that "Carlos wanted to get on the phone with Rogan and end this once and for all, and get this... wanted an apology. If I didn't do this, he wanted the Gersh agency to either drop me, or he would leave them."

An attendee to the Saturday night performance of Mencia's taped the "smoking  gun" video to reveal the showdown between Joe Rogan and an angry Carlos Mencia, who grabbed the microphone from the next comic and asked for Joe to come back for a comedy battle with an interesting finish:
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