#1989 - Andrew Dice Clay

Yeah, number one, it's great to see you.

You got special ones.

You did the day the laughter died in the height of your success. You were selling out arenas all over the fucking place and you decided to do dangerfields when no one was in there with no material. And just fuck around. And it's amazing.

All right, I got a little beef with you. Nothing, that's not. It's not going to get violent, okay?

None of that.

A And, trust me, you were alternative the minute I walked in alternative.

That's how you did it. So I come walking into the original room, I come in through the back, I always do the same thing, I go in through the kitchen.

Club Soda, red straw, five dollar tip into the original room. Because I'm hearing something.

Somebody I don't know, okay, and I look in there and it's you full force.

I mean, screaming at the crowd. And what made it even better? Number one, you were doing time and you were just going ballistic. I thought you were going to start breaking the stool. I mean, you just, you know, you were also just finding your legs.

We're talking about 25, maybe even closer to 30 years ago, when you first came out there. And you're screaming your head off and you get in a heckle fight with a guy. Now, I will admit that the heckle fights I've had end in the club.

Okay, it just ends, not you. This went outside where there's, I don't know, 20 people, 20-something people between the two of you.

And I'm going, he's going to kill this guy for what? The guy yelled out during his set, but you were right because the guy didn't stop and he was one of those.

He was just being a piece of shit.

And I'm watching this and I'm like, Oh, please, why am I even here? I wasn't even going to come out tonight. And it's getting heated and he has a bad temper, so he takes one of the big glasses. Oh yeah.

And he just breaks it, so it's a jagged edge and I'm like, Joey, what are you doing? Put the glass down, It's like, I see that he's seeing red.

Yeah, put the glass down and he's looking at me and he's like, Yeah, you're right, he's not worth it, I'm worth it.

This is a comedy club. What goes on here, you know, Rogan's chasing people outside to continue to fight. You're ready to cut some guy's throat?

And we're howling, laughing. She was crying, she was just going, ah, she just kept like slapping her arms. And I just remember thinking, this is before I even thought about doing an open mic.

I just kept thinking, How the fuck is someone so funny? I remember listening to that cassette. It was so good, it was so fun. It's so silly.

And just me as a kid, as a 19-year-old kid, trying to find my way in life. It's just like, So, just for me being around. When I came to the store, I used to be like, Holy shit, that's dice clay, it was weird.

I think I sent the clip of me just standing on stage at the garden, not even talking.

And so what happened is I'm back because I would book 20 cities at a clip. And honestly, we all know this is before any kind of social media. This is 35 years ago.

This is the first time we talk, really, and I come over to you. You're just in the back parking lot, the same area where Diaz was going to cut someone's throat weeks earlier, all right?

And you're just hanging out, you know? And I said, How are you doing? I introduced myself and you were really respectful, really nice you still are, and I said, Well, what are you doing here?

And you said, What do you mean? I'm a comic, I'm going to do a set. I go, No, what are you doing here, you know, at the store, you know, for $25??

I go, you're on, in my opinion, a hit show, a hit sitcom, I go. You could be out there making tens of thousands of dollars on the road. And I'm thinking, who's his manager? like, I wanted to call the manager, go. Why do you have your client at the store when he's on a hit show? When in three days he could go make himself $15,000, $20,000 in a minute? And you were looking at me going, really, yeah, that's what it's about.

And I just was happy to just still be doing stand-up. So I'd go to the store. I didn't have any friends, I just moved there, so I'd go to the store after. I did my work all day and I could do a set.

That's sort of why I did it.

But let me tell you something, I'm the first guy to do what I did.

But I got the backlash.

Dice does the fucking in the past, the present, the future, and today, Dice ultimately does the fucking. That's it in the multiverse, in the multiverse.

So I come for the rehearsal and my whole job was to hit my mark. And ladies and gentlemen, I remember it, the last Puritan Cher and I make that move with my hand, right? Okay?

So I'm getting ready. And they already had a couple comics on. That just tanked Paul Reiser and I think he's great. But tough crowds. You don't come out on the MTV Awards at the Universal Amphitheater and talk about the Hatch Sinatra Award.

I'm looking at my friend, going, look at the crowd. It's like he's not even in the room, My friend says to me. He goes well. You could go out there and you could either be a teardrop or you could be a tidal wave. You know, you, okay?

So.

I don't really want to go nuts, I'm trying to do the right thing. I got the biggest manager ever, Sandy Gallen, who had everybody from Whoopi to Stallone to Dolly Parton, I mean, I'm sure you know the name Sandy Gallen, okay?

So biggest manager in Hollywood. So I'm trying to do the right thing and so now I don't know a minute before I go out. Arsenio's the host. Here comes Dick Clark, who? wow, Dick Clark.

You know, you grow up watching this man and he comes over just to hear him call me, dice was hilarious.

And he goes, Look, dice, if you got a stretch, Arsenio will come over to you and you'll play around and I go, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What do you mean? stretch, stretch, what?

You know, what? am I stretching my dick? What are you talking about? No, I'm not even kidding. He goes, No, you know, because Cher might not be ready.

I go, No, no, no, we don't work anything out. Arsenio, and I had no problem with Arsenio. But you know, this is a standalone spot, you know? And he goes well. This is the way things go. I go, don't fucking tell me how things go, okay?

You're not my boss, you know? And as I'm getting angry at him, which in my mind, I'm going, Are you really getting angry at Dick Clark? They start introducing me. Well, I come out there now, I'm angry.

Now everybody's going to pay, now, everybody will be disappointed. And I don't know how I did the set, but I went into the poems. Now, you got to understand, this is not HBO or Showtime, this is MTV.

This is everybody gets this, it's free, you know? I go into the poems, and, uh, what was the poem? Oh, that got me banned.

I go, Georgie Porgie pudding and pie jerked off in his girlfriend's eye whenever I was dry and shut, Georgie, fuck that one-eyed slut. Oh, and the crowd's going fucking crazy. So I figured go into my fat girl stuff. And that ended with you don't know where the tits begin and the belly ends.

It's like one big glop of shit, right? And I go now, I go because they gave me a signal. Ladies and gentlemen, the last Puritan chair.

And she comes out singing if I could turn back time, which is what everybody was thinking in the room, if we could turn back time, about eight minutes. But in the meantime, while I'm doing the act, Dick Clark goes to charge me and Arsenio jumps on his back and tackles him.

Jamie, Listen, Jamie.

He goes I was praying that what I was watching on TV was only coming through my television.

Then I get a call, you know, from a club owner. Remember Rascals and West Orange? The owner, Mark Magnuson? Yeah, greatest guy.

So Cannison was there who I always say he was having a rivalry with me. I was happy for him when his career took off, I was thrilled for him. He had no problem with me because I was on the show Crime Story at the time. But and he was doing, I don't know, four or five thousand seats a night.

He was the guy before I took off, When my career took off, it went straight to arenas. I was doing 80 to 100 thousand people a week and he just couldn't handle it for whatever reason, but he goes, so Cannison's watching this.

That's it, he's done, he's finished. In the meantime, the reality was I went from doing one arena show, let's say at the Spectrum in Philly, to two arena shows or three arena shows. Where Bill Burr saw me in Boston.

Whatever arena I did there, I had one show that went to three shows. It just got bigger and bigger and bigger. Nothing was hurting. And so the next day, there's this big meeting at MTV, and Rick Rubin was there.

And my people that I worked with, Sandy got all these, but it was the presidents that banning me for life, which is hilarious. I'm not even a singer.

And I'm like, So I'm banned, what do I give a shit? Look at the numbers. But Dick Clark, this is why Dick Clark became Dick Clark.

Because the guy that was trying to tackle and beat me to a pulp for what I was doing is standing there. His hair is now fixed the next day. And he says to a room full of executors when they're banning me for life, he goes. Are you sure you want to do that? because Rick Rubin told me he goes. This guy is the biggest thing in the world right now.

And you're banning him for life. It was just one of the crazy moments of the backlash of my career. And like I said, this is 1990, this is years before the arena comedy today, which you do and Bill does. I didn't even know I was setting that off.

I mean, it was a goal of mine. Because, honestly, if I was just being honest, I never gave a fuck about stand up. It's not why I do it, you know, I came into stand up because I just figured, instead of going to an acting school once a week.

Why not get on a stage and develop your own method of acting? And I could be on a stage every single night. And I'd be at the comedy store and I'd see all these comics there and they would stand. See, that was great about you.

You didn't stand there like a stick figure, you were all over the stage, you were performing. But when I came to the comedy store, even at Leno, Great Comics, Seinfeld, all great comics.

But they'd stand there like they were an assembly class, and after five, six minutes, I'd get bored and walk out of the room. And when I would go back to Brooklyn, my mother, who was the one who had the look and the personality. It's where I get that balls bigger than brass ball thing.

And I would tell her about the comics and I'd go about. The only one that would move is Richard Lewis, because his whole act was about, It's all a nightmare.

And he would pace, and he would just make me laugh my ass off and I would tell her about all these comics. But I come from music, I come from drumming, singing, dancing, and my mother would say to me, Well, what are you going to do?

I go, you know what, Ma, I'll just become the Elvis of comedy. I go, that's who I love. That's my confidence, That was my true belief, my true statement. I said, These guys, they're all okay.

But I go, Ma. You know that comics would always just be opening acts for singers, and I didn't put much into that, I didn't care about that. So if I'm going to do this, if I'm going to work on this at the same time, I'm working on acting. Chops just become the biggest the world has ever seen. That's how I looked at it.

It was that simple of a thought to me, and that's how it all began.

And you're a guest. You have everything from maniacs like me to scientists to doctors. I love that about you. You thirst for knowledge. But just the fact you know about nerve damage in the feet is impressive to me.

But it wasn't the nerve damage, and he explained what it was under my toes. And now he goes, your toes have been inflamed for eight years, He goes, that's the problem, he goes, this other idiot you went to.

That's telling you to stretch your toes. Did it work?

So Politano, and I love that. He's from Brooklyn, he's from Bensonhurst, everybody in the office is from Brooklyn and they're in New York. So that's why there was even a conversation, because I was there twice last week and I said, Yeah, I'm going to do Joe Rogan.

And he goes, I gave him my book, Street Smart, because he also wrote a book on Joe Dimaggio. He lived with him for ten years. Oh wow, he does sports.

You know, that's what he's known for.

So this guy is really helping me. And like, you know, it's funny, I'm in bed with my sugar plum that you met outside. And you know, I should be thinking about having action and I'm going look how I can wiggle my toes.

Look at that, you know? But she gets it because she's gone through a lot with me since we've been together and that's just one of the problems. But yeah, I love, you know, your thirst for knowledge, and I'm not looking to get away from the day-to-day.

I'll do something special with that. But remember, I said about a little beef with, you know?

So before I'm getting dressed today, I can't even figure out, do I give him daytime dice? do I give him nighttime dice? Do I do a Brooklyn sweatshirt?

All the clothes I brought for this.

I got her, you know, at the airport and I'll get into that later. But the point is it's the only girl since I'm 17 that I've ever lived with. We haven't had an argument in nearly four years and that has not been my life, as you know.

So the point I was making, I brought you up and I said, You know, I'm going to have to do this podcast, right? I got to tell Joe my feelings about the thing we were talking about last night. And I don't want him mad because I've always said the one person I've told this to so many comics.

I go, the one person you never want to fuck with and get angry is Rogan, that includes me, you know, I go, you can fuck with any comic. They're all insecure, they get scared if they see a fly.

I go, don't fuck with Rogan because you're another guy that does the fucking and she goes, well. Are you going to tell him this? I go, you know what, I owe it to myself.

Because if I don't tell him this, then I'm not the man I say I am, you know?

The lion isn't the king, it's the tiger.

But with cats, tigers are more solitary. They have a totally different kind of relationship.

They kill all the babies, all of his babies, all his boys.

They don't have the same nobility. When a lion's sitting there over his pride and the females are all out hunting, that's an amazing creature.

And I go, I got to admit, and you even probably know this. You're never going to find two Dice fans that are arguing over what college you think Dice went to. You're never going to find those fans. One of them might say something like, Well, I heard he lived near a college.

Just on that.

There's like a lot of mathematics, but this is all like Randall Carlson stuff.

They don't know how they moved them there.

There's all these corings where it seems like like the stones been cored by these super sophisticated machinery that we don't understand today. We don't know what they used, we don't know where they got it, we don't know where it is now, we don't know what happened.

I think Randall Carlson's explanation and Graham Hancock's explanations are the best and those. What they talk about is that there was a verified 100 percent impact on Earth somewhere 11,800 years ago. And not just here, not just like in North America, but all over Europe. They find nano diamonds and they find evidence of iridium, which is very common in space and very rare on Earth.

So they think that civilization got wiped out, so that's what I think the pyramids are. I think the pyramids are the best evidence of that insanely advanced civilization that existed 20,000 years ago, maybe even more. I think our timeline is fucked up. And Graham Hancock says it best.

He said that we're a civilization with amnesia, that's what I think, but maybe aliens too.

It really is, but that's what I love about you, that I actually feel like. It's your thirst for learning and everything that has brought you to this level, where you are today.

That's why you're sitting where you are right now, and I'm just giving you kudos.

I used to give away just, I mean, bums would get $5,000.

I always at that time just carried, and if you're missing a limb, it was $10,000. I'm not even kidding. And I remember being outside the comedy store. And there's a lady you might have even seen her back then, she had two kids and the shopping cart from Ralph's, whatever.

And I'm just feeling bad going. This woman doesn't even have a place to live and I just take out $5,000 cash. I go here, go get yourself a place to live.

Don't you think she was back the next night for another $5,000?

And this isn't to say how good I am because people go. What charities are you involved? I give money when I see people that need money. I'm not saying I never gave to a charity. But I'm saying I don't need the bullshit of going, Oh, what a good person he's involved in this.

It's just not who I am.

He realized what I put in his cup and he came, I go just take it, brother, it's good, just let it be good for you. That's beautiful.

That's the way I like to do things, but I would get hit up by every comic, I'd get calls for cards. My wife's a little sick, can you see?

I just need three grand, they'd ask for thousands, like it was nothing. So when you took off, I was like, just tell this guy, take care of your family, that's it. I'm not saying never take care of a buddy if he's in dire straits.

But I'm just saying, everybody comes out of the woodwork and the level you went to and the press you got about it. I would tell my girlfriend and my sons, I go. This guy's going to be hit from all angles. I want to see what this does to him. And you've kept it together, incredible. thank you.

Another thing I'm looking forward to is I'll talk about the comedy store. But the mothership I hear, it's just the greatest.

You have just been great about me. I see all the episodes with Tarantino. With any comic that comes, I can even see the comics get aggravated because they want to talk about their own career. And I'm not going to say names, but I see them and you're going, No. But when Dice did it, it was a fucking explosion.

He goes, Yeah, and you'll say it, you'll go. A lot of the comics today, they do arenas, but if Dice didn't do it, we wouldn't be doing it and it was an explosion.

And that's why I even gave him that clip of the garden, which was filmed for a movie.

But yeah, coming up at the store with –.

Ari, you know, Bobby Lee, Maz Jabrani, Steve Rannazzisi, all these new comics that would, you know like, I'm holding court, you know, because they can't believe I'm over there. So I've been filming myself since I made it all right, so I'm filming at the store every night, calling it the show.

Like, I'd be kicking waitresses out of the kitchen. I'd change the lighting in the kitchen, I'd put like red and blue bulbs, so the lighting wasn't harsh. You know, and a waitress could be in there getting an order, you know, and I'd go, you're in my shot.

You've got to leave the kitchen. And it's amazing how I just filmed and filmed and filmed. And one night you're looking and you've got this puzzled look. And I'm like, you know, and you come over to me and go, can I just ask you something?

What's with the camera? I see you every night filming like, I'm in it, like I'm being my own Tarantino, right?

And I go, No, I film everything, I've always filmed everything, and I don't know. It couldn't have been more than a few weeks. You had a guy with, you see, that's why you've made it in the business, because you took it and go, Yeah, why shouldn't I film what I'm doing in my life?

I go, it's my show, it's a reality show with all the guys. Hysterical. I put clips up on my phone all the time.

Now I can't let you keep this, but I could let you wear it for a little because you are wearing it. This is the hat I wore and there's even pictures I sent traps last night.

There we are, okay.

Come on.

Because when I would go on sale, we'd put 20 shows on sale. Let's say it's we go on sale Friday morning, 10 o'clock Monday. Tickets are gone. Okay, half a million tickets gone.

And then I go do the tours, but what I like, like you said, how I like to hang at the store. Even after I did the L..A. forum, Okay, now at the forum, you had, you know, number one. At the end of my shows, this is the stuff people never really realize unless they've come to a dice concert.

The last 20 minutes to a half hour is all music, you know, and I'm not. I would do, I would do. From Luther Vandross Love Won't Let Me Wait. And you would think that's what I came there to see because I didn't send a clip of that. But the audience would explode when I would get to the bridge of the song.

And but I would do the Elvis stuff, you know, but I'd really do it, I think I sent them Elvis.

We don't get to hear it.

That's a pretty fucking good Elvis impression.

But when I did, and I would also close with a giant drum solo to the Santana song Soul Sacrifice. And when I did the forum besides my band, which were all Brooklyn guys who's on stage with me doing Elvis and the Soul Sacrifice. Duff McKagan from Guns and Roses and Slash. They came to rehearse, we did it, people went berserk.

They're in my dressing room with Sly Stallone with Cher. I think we got picked. Is that a drum line?

You've got to see the dance.

Did you like doing this more than the stand-up 100%?

Yeah, watch it, look at you go.

My father went from having a toy store to being a big builder in Staten Island. He was the first builder to go into Staten Island and build the newer homes. And we lived there from I was 7 until I was 12. And we basically got chased out of there. Well, he got chased out of there.

He knew he had to leave because he wasn't a gangster, and the gangsters were taking over Staten Island. They would build houses across the freeway. There was no zoning laws. So we went to Florida for like six months and then back to Brooklyn from 13 to 21..

And then I was out in L.

A doing the Travolta act, that's how it started me doing Travolta, which I gave you pictures, even me holding up how closely. We looked the same. You know, it was a whole Travolta act. And even the way that started, you know, was, you know, I was always able to do.

That's pretty close. Wait, show the other one, where I'm greased up. Is there another one?

Yeah, I'm doing my first interview, so I'm working for my father on Court Street. Now he has a process serving agency. And that's how I would walk around, because once I got into it, I became it.

So I'm picking up summonses from attorneys, walking in as that guy, and I'm doing Travolta, I'm going, Yeah, you have some summonses for royal process serving, you know, I'm doing Vinnie Barbato. Listen to this.

You're going to die, sweetie, you're going to crack up, right?

But what am I going to do with it other than entertaining high school kids? Now he comes out with fever and he dances great. But the night I saw Grease was the night my life changed and there was no videos back then.

You understand? So I'm coming home and I'm like, if I could turn from an impression I'm doing since I'm a kid, seven years old. Jerry Lewis, the nutty professor who would turn into Buddy Love? But if I could turn into Travolta from Professor Kelp, it would just kill as an act only. I never do anything fake, so I had to be able to sing as Travolta doing Grease Lightning, as you saw live. So I go to a studio in Brooklyn because that's what I would do.

I would drum, sing, so I knew about where bands would go to record albums. So I went to a studio on Kings Highway in Brooklyn called Fly Studios. And I bring the Fever album, and I bring Grease, and I ask these guys, can you get the lead vocal out of Grease Lightning? Because I'm not going to do it fake.

If I can't sound like him, I'm not doing the act. They got it out. I rehearsed for three weeks doing this act with these two guys and I know it sounds like one of my old jokes. What are your names, Neil and Bob?

Was that, like, what you'd do? That was a heck of a line. But the guys that own the studios names were Neil and Bob. Okay, so these guys are watching me. I'm in the part where you could record and they're working the whole board.

And I come out of the bathroom looking like Jerry Lewis, the nutty professor, talking to the mirror.

Actually, I'm a pity, ladies and gentlemen. And I have my magic formula and I take the formula. And I'd say, okay, hit the music. There was an intro and I'd be in the dark, rip off the Jerry Lewis stuff. And now I'm Travolta from Grease. And I did that act at PIPs in Brooklyn, which I think you got a picture of. The owner with Rodney Dangerfield outside the club.

So I go to Pips on audition night and I come up as Jerry Lewis. And I got my whole family there, my mother, my father, my sister, because I'm telling them, don't forget, come to Pips. But what was amazing when I put the act together? I had to sit in the theater all day and watch Grease with a pad like this. And write down names for the moves Travolta was doing. Or else, I'd forget when I would rehearse the act that you were seeing.

The guy in the middle, his name, is George Shultz, and Pips was the first real comedy club in America, really, and it spawned Rodney.

At least, yeah, and he helped different guys, David Brenner, every time he was going to do.

It was a sushi place, mambo sushi. Look at that.

So I show up there. My parents are there now, picture your parents now, your own parents. Watching Joe go on stage, doing an impression he was doing at five, going, really. This is why we're here.

And I'm on stage, I'm still 20 years old, doing the Jerry Lewis actually ladies, and it's a Brooklyn crowd just booing the fuck, get the fuck off, you fucking suck.

And I'm just committed, I go. I have put together a formula like.

Okay.

I take the formula.

Seth Schultz knows. Shut the lights, I turn my back to the crowd, they're screaming, you got 100 people, 99 people screaming to get off the stage.

Slicking my hair back, I'm staying calm. Music starts, it's from Fever Ladies and Gentlemen to Disco Inferno Ladies and Gentlemen, Somebody New, Somebody, Exciting Ladies and Gentlemen. Andrew Clay.

And I turn around with that. When you saw me in the leather jacket, that look and I just pose. And I start like a fake walk. Like Travolta in fever. And they're starting to scream. Now it's turning. I wait, because I always wait.

Even to this day, when I'm on stage, I just wait, and so I wait until it quiets down. I come up to the mic and I'm like, So you thought it couldn't be done right? The place went nuts. Now I talk about the car.

Here comes grease lightning. When I did grease lightning, you're talking about Brooklyn animals, and I know, you know about that stuff, because you're from Boston. You know what kind of East Coast people they were throwing tables over? They're going fucking berserk.

I don't even know what just happened, and as I'm leaving with my family here, come the two sons going. Wait a minute, where are you going? who are you? What is that? They go? You got a manager.

And I just look at my father and I go, Yeah, he's right here. And my family is stunned from what they just witnessed. And they go. We want to book your son to headline this coming weekend. What? And I go?

And I said, what you saw tonight, that's the whole act, they go, just do what you did tonight, just do that, and they go. It's not a lot of money, it's $50..

I go, you think I care? We don't care about the money. Like, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. And then we went to a diner in Sheepshead Bay and nobody could even talk for like, 10 minutes. And then my mother's like, Andrew, when did you think of this?

You know, it was so great and then everybody starts talking about what just happened. I was shell shocked because I'm not thinking they're going to go nuts. I thought it was a clever idea, you know?

And it built from there. And within six months, I'm doing my own shows where my father's selling tickets at Dangerfield.

The first time on stage was September 13, 1978..

Anyway, we're getting coffee. And here comes this guy, you know, Rick Rubin with the beard, the whole look, and he's with this little like heavyset guy. Oh man, here comes some asshole, you know? And he goes, Yeah, can I?

You know, he's soft-spoken, Can I speak with you a minute?

And I do have a Brooklyn attitude, I'll admit it, and I go, Yeah, what can I do for you, pal? I've got to do another show and then the guy, Mark that's with me, goes, Aren't you Rick Rubin?

And I'm looking at him, I'm going, Who's Rick? He goes? he basically created rap, and Rick goes. Yeah, I want to do an album with you, and I don't want to bother you. I'm going to go next door and watch the second show.

You know, because I had to do another show and that's how me and Rick met, and we wound up doing five albums together. Hmm, you know, and we were a great team together. I mean, you know, he's Rick Rubin.

And I mean, sometimes we would disagree, but you can't get Rick mad.

And I'm looking at him, I go, you're the boss, don't you know? Well, I told him to put it up.

Like, you can't get. Even if he didn't like something on an album. And you know, I could get heated. You know, I'm that kind of personality. I'm like, I don't give a fuck, it's not your fucking album. Well, then I suppose you'll do what you like.

I'm like, Don't you ever get mad? didn't you ever have a fight? And he goes, Actually, I never had a fight. I go, you never got a punch in the face? He goes, No.

I go, well, you're about to, if you don't just get mad at me, at least like, yell at me. But great guy. And we had great experience. So when it came to the day, the laughter died. So me and Rick put out hit albums and this is right, like, I think, after dice rules.

These are high-powered comedy albums to sell millions of copies.

So this you'll like, Mitzi's involved in it. This is great.

So me and Rick are talking and I go. You know, you know how much I love going on late at night and just, you know, no reaction. Because that's how my career got made. I was always like one of the last few acts at night at the comedy store, you know, because of the kind of stuff I did. So there's, you know, people sitting quiet.

You got a drunk in the front with his head on the table, and you got four people that are just too tired to leave. You've had those.

It was like the Lady Gaga of stand-up comedy, you know? And now I just want to go up in front of a few people with no notes, with no idea of what the album's going to be. And we do three nights at Dangerfield and it winds up the double CD, The Day, The Laugh, the Die, okay?

And I'm just loving it, you know, the silence, the smoke you could hear me smoke, you know?

People walking out and we didn't cut any of it, you know, like I said, keep it in there, you know, it's great, you know?

I really got angry, you know, at this family that came in. See, this will lead to could set me up for Saturday night live to tell you stuff. So this family comes in these real fucking out-of-towners from, I don't know, Midwest Bible Belt. You know, whatever they were, but they were all wearing the same coat and the same hat with the ball on top.

Two daughters, mother, father, and they're sitting in the front, and the more I got into them, the more the father laughed. And I got angry at that. Because I'm going this guy. I would imagine in my mind that this guy really looks the fuck around with his daughters. They were old enough, you know?

They were like, I don't remember the ages, but I don't know, young, 20s, late teens. And I'm going, why is this motherfucker laughing when I'm doing this? Instead of going, like, cut it out? Because I know if I was sitting there with my two daughters. And some comic, some asshole on stage is going. So you like to have her on your lap, or whatever? I said on the album, you know, I'd look at the guy and go walk away from me and my family.

Or there's a problem, you know, that's how I would get this guy's laughing, and I'm angry about it, you know? So the more he would laugh, the more I would go after this motherfucker. But there's also no laughs.

That's the part I did enjoy. The actual silence of the room was somebody walking out and yelling, What's that? There's a famous one line on that.

He goes, Sometimes you say things you forgot, what you said, like, sometimes you said it in a different way, and it's much better. You gotta listen to your recordings. Mike Donovan got a hold of your CD, and he was in the back room of the fucking comedy connection.

Howling, laughing at you, doing knicks, I'll do knicks, it in that ass. And that to him was like one of the funniest fucking things. This guy was laughing so hard, he was like, he's a fucking psycho.

He's out there bombing, he doesn't give a fuck, there's no laughs, and it's hilarious. It's so ridiculous.

This guy loved it and I went out and got it. And I remember, you know, at the time, I was really young in comedy. And for me, the idea of wanting this out there didn't even make any sense. Like, why would he do this?

It was crazy, it became a different thing. I go, you have to understand he cracked a code. This rhyme thing. What you did was it was comedy, plus like it was another level of enjoyment.

That's where I had my movie deal. So I get called into David Geffen's office and he goes and I'm with Rick, and he's like, Okay, can you explain this to me? And I go, what needs to be said? He goes, There's no people.

There's nothing, it's terrible, and I go, Yeah, and Rick is laughing, because Rick does have a great sense of humor.

When I think back to my idols like Elvis Presley now, everybody's into Elvis all these years later, and Elvis fans from way back are always Elvis fans. But when I saw the 68 Comeback special at 12, once again, I'm there with my mother going. I can be that now. I wasn't thinking singer or comic, just the whole image. And as I grew up, she bought me a leather the next day, a fake leather that was five times too big at JCPenney for $20..

Because I begged her for it, but she would encourage. So now I'm on the couch doing Elvis, not even knowing how to play the guitar. I had. So his image was so bigger than life, and I took it in a lot different than other people.

Because in comedy, because of the drums and the singing, I go just become the Elvis of comedy. Comedy is self-deprecating, which today, at 65 years old, I am self-deprecating on stage and I got a lot to be self-deprecating about. But when I was 25, 30 years old, there was no self-deprecation. You know, that was the difference between Dice and the other comics.

And Mitzi herself told me, When I stopped doing the Travolta Act and started doing dice, she said, It's never going to work. And I go, Yeah, why is that? And she goes number one. It's too tough and it's not self-deprecating. I go just leave me at the Westwood Comedy store, let me worry about it.

And Mitzi loved me from the first day she met me. When I came down what I call the runway walk from Westwood, she called. I auditioned at the store, did a 28-minute audition, and this Emcee starts screaming at me when I come off the stage. I didn't know who he was.

And he goes, You're never going to play this fucking club again. I go, Are you the owner? Because I'm 21, so I'm a 21-year-old Brooklynite who doesn't give a fuck. If you're in my way, I'm going to get you out of my way.

So I said, Are you the owner of the club? and he goes, No, I go well, I didn't come 3,000 miles to do three minutes, so get out of my way. I get a call from the comedy store.

I was staying with a friend. You're playing Westwood tonight, you've got to come sign papers at the comedy store, so I go to Westwood. There was a lady from Brooklyn, Adele.

After my set, she goes, Mitzi wants to meet you. So I got signed as a regular first night because I did that whole Travolta act and by then Stallone, I'm doing sly as rocky in it.

So I come to the store and she's standing with August and Ollie, Joe and Alan Stevens, who I'm great friends with today. You know, just all. BIFf Maynard I don't even think you met some of these guys by the time.

He did all that, you know, great comic, you know, on top of great producer and writer.

So Mitzi's with all these guys, you know, I didn't know I'm in comedy for I don't know, eight months. I started September 13th, 78, I'm in L..A.

February of 79.

Why? Because this one comic, who, you know, Mitchell Walters, came back to Brooklyn. That's where he was from, and he happened to come in on a weekend.

I was headlining and he's asking, who the fuck is this guy doing the Travolta? And the owner's told him. So he talks to my father. He keeps calling my father in the office who I was working for, you know, because there was no job I could have.

I was at clubs every night, from the first night I got on stage, that was it. I'm performing every night everywhere, and I just dedicated my life to it. And that's what it takes, as you know.

You know, I love when pitbull says, How did I get lucky? Hard work got me lucky, that's all it's about.

Hard work and belief, and knowing what you have inside to give.

When a guy who comes along like you is very confident, you're a big guy. You didn't come from a theater background and you have this new approach to it, and even Mitzi missed it, like, sometimes people.

It's hilarious, it's really funny. If you get the chance to see Harlan. Harlan Williams is the fucking man, but the people out there listening, go see that guy, he's amazing.

But he had to become that guy, he had to figure that out.

Who's Andrew? who's? I'm all of it, you know, but you know, I'm not walking around in the street, going, Yeah, you know, when you see those videos and go, Yeah, how you doing, that's a put on.

That's a joke. If I'm really going to say hello to a girl, which I haven't in four years, obviously, you know, I'm going to go, yeah, how you doing right, not how you doing.