Fifteen years ago, in her old, beat-up car complete with a hole in the bottom, Marilyn Martinez sped from her home in Denver, Co., and never looked back. Determined to follow her dream of becoming a successful comedian, she floored it all the way to Los Angeles. Now a regular at the Comedy Store in Hollywood, Martinez is realizing her dream and working as a full-time comedian.

It wasn’t always that way though. She took odd jobs at the beginning of her career to support herself, for example, working as a phone sex operator, which lends to Martinez’s gift for dirty talk. Her no-holds-bar, over-the-top, uncensored comedy has certainly set her apart from other comedians.

Martinez has been in a handful of independent films and is currently filming The Latin Divas of Comedy for Paramount Pictures. In addition, she is starring in the Si TV network reality show “Urban Jungle” where she plays the godmother to a house full of kids in the barrio of Los Angeles. She headlines “The Raunch Show” on Oct. 2 at the Caliph at 9:00 p.m. We recently caught up with Martinez from her Los Angeles home.

Marilyn Martinez: I did theater and I was in a really bad play. I broke character and started talking to the audience, making fun of the play. After that, I met this gal and we were partners for a while. We used to do sketches and realized I could do it myself. I started doing the few open mics that they had there [in Denver]. Then I knew I had to just get out of there because there wasn’t anything happening. There still isn’t.

MM: I knew that I didn’t want to freeze if I had to sleep in my car.

MM: My main job out here was working for an ambulance company in dispatch ... Then I got a job doing phone sex, which was the best. It was hysterical. It was first when it was booming. I saw the ad and it said “PBX Operator” and I thought that was just answering the phone. I went in and it was a phone sex place. I learned how to do the calls by listening to the girls. It was a lot of shit I didn’t know. I didn’t know what real dominance was.

GLT: Where did you get your personality?

MM: Torture. No, I’m just kidding. I went to Catholic school. My father encouraged me a lot actually. I used to make fun of the relatives. He used to encourage me to do that. He’d make me get up on the coffee table and put a lamp next to me and say, “Do your Uncle Joe or do your Aunt Jenny.” My mother would get really pissed, but he used to think it was really funny. Of course it was always my mother’s side of the family that I would make fun of because they were weird.

Just being in Catholic school, I was so uptight. I had nothing else to do but to try to have a good time with myself. I was always in trouble for acting silly. … Also, because I was different – I was a little Mexican and [the other students] were all white.

In the fourth grade they made the mistake of turning my desk around to face the class. So that was it, I was in heaven. They put my desk right next to the teacher’s desk.

MM: That was it for me. What else could I do but really make faces and carry on, of course. They were always calling my parents and telling them I did this or that.

MM: I’m just silly. I’m not an observational comic. I don’t do impressions. I just talk shit. I’m like the dirty kid in the playground. I guess some things I say can be judged as semi-political but not really.

MM: I can’t stand Bush; come on. You have to be a moron to like Bush.

MM: When I was recently in Denver, I was surprised that I did do that. You know what happened was that I got emotional. The whole thing, the war and how horrible he [Bush] is. I was in a theater and it was weird for me. I really don’t like to get that way. When you really think about it, it’s very scary shit …

MM: For me it was becoming a regular at the Comedy Store in Hollywood. That was a big deal for me because I had been trying to get there for years. Every comic wants to be a regular and have a club of their own. The world famous Comedy Store has always been the same. I used to drive down the strip and say, “Oh my God, maybe someday.” Finally it happened. Even though when I got in there I didn’t realize I was, like, starting all over again.

MM: Yeah and the thing of it is that there are not a lot of women in the comedy store either.

MM: Richard Prior. I thought he was so funny because he was so brutally honest. That’s what makes comedy good. For me, when I see people expose themselves then I think people are funny even if it’s really crazy. The crazier the better for me.

MM: Oh no, I was always afraid. I am still afraid. Are you kidding me? If you’re not afraid or nervous then it’s not special. It’s still a big deal to me. I have never been nonchalant about it ever. If you get to that point then you might as well forget it.

I used to open for Paul Rodriguez so I was around some really huge venues. Man, I used to just shake. I got over that which was good. That was the really frightening thing. I did a gig in Sacramento and there were 18,000 people there and that was like, “Oh my god!” Sometimes at the Comedy Store there would be four people in the audience and I would still get nervous. I don’t know if I will ever lose that.

MM: Oh, the donkey, I’m going to bring him in the cart. I always tell people I don’t mean to offend you, but if I do then too fucking bad. It’s just a silly joke. A lot of people do get offended, but actually there’s some sick part of me where I like that. Just now when I was in Denver this man walked out. I always loved that when they do that because I figure “Oh fuck you.” It’s not even that big of a deal – to me it’s not, to talk about cock sucking or whatever. So what.

They tell me, “Oh Marilyn, you got to keep it clean and behave yourself”. Don’t tell me that because that’s when I do the opposite. Not that I don’t do that. If I do a gig where I’m making money and there are kids in the audience, then I’m not going to be a fool and get up there and say “Are you waiting for your first cock to suck?” I’m not going to do that even though I’d like to …