Remember Andrew Dice Clay? No? C'mon! You know, the Dice Man -- he's the Brooklyn Jew who dresses like Mr. T except with the gall to wear sunglasses indoors. He was the only comedian in history to sell out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row! And he's got this really distinctive misogynistic, raunchy sense of humor, which includes reciting dirty nursery rhymes such as: "Hickory dickory dock." Andrew Dice Clay is a cock. Not the rooster, just a loser, whose ego cannot be stopped. You're still drawing a blank? He was the bouncer at Club Cats in Pretty in Pink who told Ducky that love's a bitch. Now you remember!
Great! Because he's coming to the Miami Improv February 23rd-24th. We caught up with Clay and chatted about egos, himself, and why he hates Bill Maher.
New Times: What can audiences expect when they come to see you at the Improv?
Andrew Dice Clay: When you do those kinds of clubs, it's usually the fans that come to see you and mine won't be disappointed. I've really always worked on keeping the same comic voice I always had. There's nothing softer about it, it's just more modern as far as the material goes, or staying updated in the world. It's just hardcore. People always ask me, 'have you mellowed out a little?' You know, I am who I am, so I'm never going to mellow out for anybody. I do what I do on stage and there's always going to be people who love it and others [who] don't.
If you could describe your comedy in one word, what would you use?
Outrageous. I didn't reinvent the wheels when I started doing comedy, all the subjects I hit on, other comics have hit on. I think I really know how to paint an outrageous picture for people when they come see me. It makes it funnier.
Do you consider yourself an outrageous person or is it just an onstage persona?
I live a pretty extreme life.
What's so extreme about your life?
I don't live the normal life at all. It's just extreme. I'm not talking about race cars, I'm talking about the things in my life, it's never just a little thing that I have to take care of, it's always big things.
What do you mean by 'big things'?
Well, a divorce with a normal family there might be some stuff to split up and a few dollars and then everyone goes their separate ways. But when celebrities get divorced everything is big. From the house that you've got to get rid of to all the things in it, to splitting up funds, that kind of thing. Like if bills aren't paid on time, which has been a problem with the recession, it's never just an $80 dollar bill, it's more like an $8,000 bill. So your anxiety and the pressure, the way you live, is triple the energy of a normal guy who's used to a routine.
Speaking of divorces, you've been through a few. Do you think they're harder for a man or a woman?
Women tend to get more miserable when they break up or get broken up with. It doesn't even matter which way it goes. They can be the one to break up with you and they'll still get miserable. But that is something I'd never pretend to try to figure out...because I'm not a girl. Biggest mistake any guy could say is 'I understand women.'
If men don't understand women, do you think women understand men?
I'm talking different levels. A guy can think he knows what a girl is thinking and actually tell it to her, I've done it myself -- going on this whole tangent about how you know they're mad at you but it'll never happen again, this whole thing, and they look at you after five minutes and say 'I'm not thinking that at all, I'm thinking that I'm hungry.'
What is it that you look for in a woman?
Someone who's 100% behind you no matter what you do. That's real important to me. It can't be 80%, it's got to be 100% because a performer lives a very stressed out life. So the person behind that person has to be a pretty strong individual and be able to handle the fact that performers go up and down like a roller coaster depending on what's going on in their career life. I try to stay grounded as a person but I do know the business I'm in. Like, on any given day I can be with my new wife and run into Arnold Schwarzenegger and we try to act normal, because he's also living a very extreme life, but to be able to say, 'hey honey, say hello to Arnold,' and for her to act like he's the guy next door but we all know he's not. I mean, it takes a strong person, because everything's extreme. I'm telling ya.
Speaking on things that are extreme, if you could marry, screw, and kill three different people, who would you choose?
Nah. No. I'm not into answering that kind of stuff. I'm too interesting for that.
What's your take on the situation in Egypt then?
I'm not a political comic...it's a bad situation, I can tell you that. There's nothing good about it. You don't wake up in the morning thinking 'Wow, that's great, people killing each other some more.'
Check out the rest of our interview with the Andrew Dice Clay in Part II soon.
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