Mencia's toned up - and toned it down

Stand-up comic Carlos Mencia recently lost weight because of concerns about his health. Stand-up comic Carlos Mencia recently lost weight because of concerns about his health. Photo: Courtesy Carlos Mencia Photo: Courtesy Carlos Mencia Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Mencia's toned up - and toned it down 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

The new, improved Carlos Mencia doesn't deny that the old Carlos Mencia had to make a change.

"I always knew I had to lose weight. I always knew that," stand-up comic Mencia, 44, said.

He's very candid about why he did it. A diabetic friend told Mencia he was going to die.

"It was one of those moments," he said. "Every (expletive) thing in the universe kept telling me I was fat, everywhere I went. I realized, 'I gotta do this.' "

Of course, Mencia being Mencia, getting healthy is an over-the-top obsession. He's shed 70 pounds in the past year. It's quite a shock.

"I am an extremist. And as soon as I started losing weight, I was just like, 'OK, I am going to get fit like a (expletive). I haven't weighed 160 pounds since I was in high school," said Mencia, who's 5-foot-9. "But I'm not going to go Carrot Top buff or anything like that."

That's not the only thing that's changed.

Mencia, a popular, if outrageously politically incorrect and controversial, comedian, arrives at Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club tonight with a new, mellower outlook. He's ditched a lot of the faux anger.

Showtime is 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $27.50.

"What I do now is, I go up onstage, and I talk to people about where I come from in a way that I never did before," Mencia explained. "It's not aggressive anymore."

Mencia, who is promoting an upcoming Comedy Central special, New Territory, which airs Dec. 4, also says he's dropped much of the Latino posturing that was part of his act.

"I just can't do that (expletive) anymore," he said.

Why?

"I've changed on the inside," he said. "All this stuff that went down, the joke-stealing accusations, me not wanting to do Mind of Mencia anymore. All these things made me look inside myself."

Mencia says being a target of ridicule over the past couple of years - from South Park to George Lopez to the Wall Street Journal - for allegedly plagiarizing jokes bothered him more than he let on.

"People that love me, love me. But the people that hate me really hate me," he said. "But I didn't want to just (blow it off). I wanted to really think about it and feel it. And I learned some things about myself."

Mencia says he doesn't have many comedy friends. In his quest to be famous and "not poor and stupid," he didn't nurture any.

"I'm not part of that clique, and therefore I never had a lot friends that were going to defend me," he said.

He also realized he wasn't getting much fun out of his stage act. Showing a rare vulnerability, he admitted he was often motivated by fear.

"I've completely changed. I don't do anything out of negativity anymore," he said. "Now, I go up onstage, and everybody's gonna have fun because I'm gonna have fun.

"My attitude has completely changed. I just can't take that negative point of view. I'm not going to deliver with anger."

Translation: "It's just comedy, bro. Relax. We're not changing the world here, man. We're just having fun."

hsaldana@express-news.net