Ned Holness: The First Trajedian

((Note: "Ned Holness" is Carlos Mencia's real birth name.)

Many great comedians have risen in US America…when we allowed them. Sam Kinison, Bill Hicks, Ellen DeGeneres, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Dave Chapelle, Paula Poundstone, Janeane Garofalo. You may disagree that any of those are great, but that’s really because you have BAD TASTE.

It’s always been my opinion that spoken comedy is an art form. Norm McDonald says the point of telling a joke is to make someone do something involuntarily. On a Freudian level, all humans feel they have power over others if they can make someone laugh or resist being made to laugh. It is a reflex but triggered by an idea. This behavior may have evolved in our ancestors as a way of showing submission. With most other psychic reflexes, emotion is involved such as crying, screaming, blushing…but laughter is not entirely an expression of Joy. It can sometimes be spurred by something very tragic. Further evidence that it has less to do with elation and more to do with submission.

There are some conventions to joke telling or comedy routines that are difficult to deviate from. Misdirection, observation, miming, juxtaposition, irony, sarcasm…just to name a few. Some comics use a range of these, some specialize in a narrow methodology, but ultimately, like an art form, it comes from what that individual is inspired by. The best art comes purely from the artist’s most private area of thoughts. Everyone can identify, on some level, with everyone else…but if you can’t connect at a very intimate level, if you can’t make people follow your thoughts without having to communicate too much information, then you are lost. This is also why the best jokes have an element of brevity.

A lot of communication is non-verbal. Humans communicate with gestures, inflections, and facial expressions as well as words. Words themselves ultimately have no absolute meaning because every word used to describe that word is really only related to memories associated with those words. No one can ever truly understand what the word “love” or “hate” or “funny” means in an absolute sense. The comedian’s job, for this reason, is very difficult. The routine is really a gamble and the entire time, he is hoping that the audience can understand what he is saying, not just on a linguistic level, but a human level.

Before I move on to why Ned Holness is a failure as a comedian for the reasons I’ve already given, I want to talk about the lack of artistic and intellectual integrity in the US. Larry the Cable Guy, Carrot Top, Dane Cook, and Tim Allen. The US has contributed some of the funniest minds of all time, yet at the same time, some of the worst comedians in the world can also become multi millionaires.

If you like Dane Cook or Tim Allen, I have a news flash for you, you have horrible taste in comedy.

If you’ve already began to regurgitate the argument “well if they are so horrible why are they so popular?” then I have another news flash for you…the value of art is not determined by how many dollars it’s worth.

Just because someone makes a million dollars does not mean they are talented or smart. It just means the majority of people in this country willing to spend their money are IDIOTS.

There is the reason why Larry the Cable Guy, Carrot Top, Dane Cook, and Tim Allen are so popular…because the vast majority of Americans have horrible taste. The vast majority of Americans are afraid of being intellectual. The vast majority of Americans are culturally retarded. No, not retarded as in “dee dee dee”, I mean “retarded” as in: impeded or held back.

For Fuck’s sake, American Gladiators is back on television.

Most people turn their TV on to be entertained. They don’t want to think. They want to be told what funny is so they can acquire what is the accepted definition of funny among their peers without any thought. Most people who watch star trek, if asked to name 10 things that don’t make sense according to the laws of physics, couldn’t make it past 2.

Television isn’t supposed to show you things that are artistically rich, created by talented people, or have intellectual merit, television is supposed to sedate you and condition you to be a good consumer. Open your fucking eyes.


Ned Holness is a thief. It’s boggles my mind how people rationalize how he’s NOT a thief so they themselves don’t have to accept they are DIM WITTED for having been tricked.

I’ll be the first to admit that I used to think Dane Cook and Tim Allen were hilarious. Now I know better and I recognize how terrible my taste in comedy used to be. Some people though…you really cannot get them to ever admit they might have laughed at something that was really lame. It’s really your ego, and not his jokes, that makes you think Ned Holness is funny.

Ned Holness always forces this idea that he is edgy and controversial, as if he is talking about things no one else wants to talk about. This is patently dishonest. Or maybe it’s just plain delusional. The fact is, from the moment I first heard his material, I laughed AT HIM for how tame and uncontroversial his material was. I also laughed because I know for a fact he plagiarized a joke from a female comedian named Elvira Kurt. (The joke was about how back in the day playgrounds used to be torture devices as opposed to present day when everything is rubber matted and safe). It was astounding to me because of how he almost told the bit exactly how she told it without even flinching.

Some comedians struggle for years before they create a 30 minute bit that is decent. I know Elvira Kurt is not as well known as she should be and has probably been struggling for years at her craft. Imagine how difficult it is to make a crowd, who has paid a large sum of money, to acknowledge they are getting their money’s worth by making them involuntarily laugh. It takes a very honed skill and natural talent to be able to control people’s body in that way, especially when they are all intent on not laughing, consciously or unconsciously. For someone to just take one of her best bits and claim it as their own only to become a household name, is to me, the definition of a sociopath.

I would argue that perhaps Ned Holness truly believes he does not steal material. Watching and listening to him offstage reminds me of someone I knew in real life who is a pathological liar. He lives in this augmented reality like a borderline schizophrenic. He cannot completely differentiate between what is fantasy and what is reality. This may be compounded by the fact that club owners and tv producers do not particularly care that he steals and simply want to target the Latino portion of the audience. This validation, because of its authoritative source, makes it incredibly difficult for someone to think objectively about whatever delusion they might possess. It’s similar to how cult leaders develop a messianic complex, like L Ron Hubbard or Charles Manson.

Perhaps, though, he knows he is stealing and simply doesn’t care. He feels no sense of shame that would naturally come to a normal person and does a great job of lying through his teeth about how he doesn’t steal.

Whatever the case may be, Ned is a failure as a comedian regardless of whether he steals or not (and he does steal). His routines are one dimensional, his stage presence is melancholic, the subjects are sophomoric and stale. It’s not a controversial topic if every late night talk show host has already done a monolog or segment about it. Ned Holness is the first Trajedian.

You can rationalize the evidence of his thievery. You can tell yourself that I’m just jealous or racist. I’ve made my arguments clear. All I ask is you think objectively and think for yourself.