Gabriel Iglesias brought his brand of humor to The Coliseum at the University of West Georgia on Jan.7.
He told new jokes and a lot old ones, to the delight of the audience. Some in the audience of said the words along with him as he spoke.
This pleased him, he said, because now he knows his jokes "are classics."
Before taking the stage he accepted a Go West cake and a 5X T-shirt from staffers, talked, signed autographs and posed for pictures.
Iglesias, is known for his story-telling style – riffs on his life, family, friends and people he meets on the road are fodder for his humor.
In a brief interview before the show, he talked about the art of stand-up comedy.
"A lot of people think it's a joke, no pun intended," Iglesias said. "It's not easy. There's a lot of nights where you cry. There's a lot of depressing moments, but it helps build you for down the line....I had a couple of really rough ones....But most of them were pretty good....I got lucky."
Iglesias realized he was funny when he did impressions (Ronald Reagan and Yogi Bear) at a fifth-grade talent show. He told one joke that had them rolling: "Why'd the chicken cross the road? ...To check out the chicks."
But it was wasn’t until 1997 that he took to the stage, as an emcee at a Best Western Hotel. A friend pushed him on stage. There were 20 people in the audience and he talked about a recent heartbreak.
"Some girl really messed me up," he said. "Sometimes you need motivation because that's what it took to get me on stage."
The audience lapped it up.
"That first time, I killed. Everybody was laughing because I'm talking about how messed up this girl was.... From there I got the ball rolling and just kept going and going and going."
In his first year he got on stage more than 200 times.
Since then, he’s been on everything from “Good Morning America” to “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” His trophies include a Kid's Choice Award in 2000 and the Comedy Central & Comcast Cable's Comedy Special of the Year in 2003.
Iglesias was voted into the Top 25 of Comedy Central's Standup Showdown in 2004 and 2005.
A decade after he took to the stage he recorded "Hot & Fluffy," which has sold more than 250,00 copies.
Laid back and down-to-earth, Iglesias said he's only recently begun to realize his success.
"I think recently I started accepting the fact that, hey I think, I'm legit," he said.
"When I saw the tour bus, I was sold....But then I was on the side of the road, getting frisked by the police. So they are keeping it real."
He’s perhaps best known for his levels of fatness: big, healthy, husky, fluffy and "Damn!"
He recently added to that scale "Oh, Hell No!"
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