PUBLISHED ON June 20, 2008
Yakima Herald-Republic
ON
Magazine
by JOSEPH TREVINO YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC
To Gabriel Iglesias it's real simple: You keep your comedy fresh, you talk about yourself and above all, you stay clean.
No cussing.
Sounds like a ticket to boredom? Not at all, says the 31-year-old Iglesias, a stand-up comedian who this Saturday will headline his Hot and Fluffy show at Yakima's Capitol Theatre.
In fact, Iglesias' brand of comedy is on such a hot streak that last Monday he appeared on Jay Leno's "Tonight Show." During July, the San Diego-born, Long Beach, Calif., resident is scheduled to tour England.
Iglesias is no prude, he says. He's just sensible.
"When you work clean, more people want to work with you. If you work dirty, you can't go on radio, you can't go on TV. You're just cutting yourself out of the big picture," says Iglesias during a phone interview from San Antonio last week. "I don't have to audition for the "Tonight Show." They just call and say 'be ready by Monday.'"
And Iglesias says he is also ready for Yakima, where he is bringing his two-hour show. He adds that his warm-up acts may not be as clean as he is.
Growing up in Long Beach, Calif., with a single mother as the head of a family of six children, Iglesias says he showed few signs of turning into a comic in elementary school. He says he was the shy, silent type.
"Believe it or not, I was probably the quietest kid in school. That's pretty much the way that I am. Offstage I'm pretty quiet," Iglesias says. "All the other guys around me are way funnier offstage. But that's because I'm not trying to be funny; I'm just trying to have a good time, hang out and get material, which is how things happen."
Iglesias says that it's ironic that the now "clean" stand-up knew he wanted to be a comic when as a fifth-grader his mother rented him a video of Eddie Murphy's brilliant but swearing-filled tour de force, "Raw." He was hooked.
