Last week Carlos Mencia, the mouth-breathing, barely human embodiment of the word "ugh," received the worst rejection of his career, and possibly of his life. It is so wonderful.
From the AP:
Comedian Carlos Mencia was yanked Thursday from a Mardi Gras parade's list of celebrity riders for jokes made about Hurricane Katrina.
That's according to Krewe of Orpheus officials who on Wednesday announced Mencia as one of about a dozen celebrity guests slated to ride in this year's parade, which rolls through New Orleans on Feb. 23, the night before Mardi Gras.
But Orpheus Captain Sonny Borey said in a statement Thursday that the club became aware of "certain remarks Mr. Carlos Mencia has made in regards to New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina."
Borey said Mencia would not be riding because "our krewe is very sensitive to the feelings of our community and the way our city is viewed."
(If you want to see some of Mencia's horribly unfunny, offensive-to-comedians-due-to-sheer-lack-of-humor Katrina jokes, click here.)
I'm not being facetious when I say that being unceremoniously cast off by the Krewe Of Orpheus two weeks before their parade is the worst rejection of Carlos Mencia's career. Why is this such a stinging rejection? Because I'm pretty sure that Orpheus has never pulled anyone even marginally famous from their parade. Like most Mardi Gras super-krewes that feature celebrities, Orpheus takes who they can get. That's not to say that they don't sometimes get amazing, fun celebrity monarchs—the entire cast of Reno 911 is in this year's parade—but more often than not it's a strange menagerie of the slightly famous, the once famous, and the unrecognizable. (Which, of course, is part of its charm: there's nothing like squinting at a float in the distance, wondering who that person could be, then when the float passes by thinking, "Oh, that's what happened to Kevin Meaney." Or standing in a large crowd of people who are all yelling, "George!" at Jason Alexander.)
For example, here's a sample of Orpheus's celebrity line-up this year:
—Jim Belushi (who is probably only appearing because it's a gig for his terrible band)
—"Dr. Jake Martin of ABC's All My Children, and veteran of soaps Another World and Guiding Light, Ricky Paull Goldin"
—"The boys of MTV's Real World/Road Rules"
Ah, to be dropped by the same organization that will proudly advertise that they've snagged various and sundry unnamed male Real World/Road Rules cast members—that has to hurt Carlos Mencia. (And every time Carlos Mencia hurts an angel gets his wings.) The only way that this could be better is if they had never asked him in the first place.