
Hi! It's Cristela again. There's a field piece for the show (field piece meaning out in the "real world") that was taped last week near the studio that featured someone I wanted to write about. A comedian named Robert Schimmel. For those of you that aren't familiar with him, you should be. He's a great comedian that I love to watch over and over.
We have been lucky to have had great people making appearances on the show in the past. Dave Attell (who actually toured with Mencia years ago on the Take a Joke America Tour if I'm not mistaken), Alonzo Bodden, Robin Williams, Billy Dee Williams, Jimmy Walker, Pauley Shore, Mario Lopez, Peter Boyle, the list goes on (I apologize to anyone I may have forgotten about-I didn't mean to).
Robert Schimmel holds a special place for me because not only am I a fan of his, but he hosted the Live at Gotham episode I taped for Comedy Central last year. I have to say that if you're not easily offended, you HAVE to check him out. If you go to his website, there's an absolutely hilarious section called R U Curious? that cracks me up. I think he's got 5 cd's out and he just wrote a book called "Cancer on $5 Dollars a Day". That's right, he overcame cancer.
Really, me being a comedy nerd, have to say that Robert Schimmel is what people consider a "blue comic" meaning off-color, but really, his ideas, his story, his point of view is so specific, so true, that really you don't think about him being "offensive". I believe that stand-up comedy is an arena where you have liberty to say and do whatever you want in order to make your ideas come across. Don't get me wrong though, there are people that don't need to do that (Steven Wright, Mitch Hedberg, etc). What I'm saying is that in stand-up comedy you have the option of doing it if you want. And Schimmel does it and he's brilliant with it.
Like I said, he taped a segment for the show. I don't want to get into detail about it, you'll just have to watch the show to see him-trust me, it's worth it. Remember, Mind of Mencia, on Wednesday nights.












