Q+A: Andrew Dice Clay

By Jerry Fink

Wednesday, May 23, 2007 | 7:06 a.m.

Who: Andrew Dice Clay

When: 10:45 p.m., Friday-Sunday

Where: Steve Wyrick Theatre at Planet Hollywood

Tickets: $60-$150; 785-5555

So much for the showroom with the squeaky-clean marquee. The new 500-seat Steve Wyrick Theatre at Planet Hollywood has a wholesome line up of performers suitable for all ages - Wyrick doing magic, vocalist Martin Nievera and ventriloquist Ronn Lucas. Say hello to the Diceman. Andrew Dice Clay and his cast of four-letter words will sully the stage with his irreverent brand of angry humor this Memorial Day weekend. While Clay has been down in recent years, he hasn't been out. He's merely keeping a low profile - whether self-imposed or thrust on him is a matter of conjecture. During a cell-phone interview from Los Angeles he talked about his absence from the public consciousness and other topics. Clay's off-stage banter was not so scatological or vulgar; there were no adult versions of nursery rhymes, which helped catapult him to superstar status in the 1980s. He discussed his series "Dice Undisputed" (10 p.m. Sundays, VH1), a reality show that chronicles Clay's day-to-day life and his effort to reclaim the glory that made him rich and famous and able to fill large stadiums such as Madison Square Garden.

Q: This will be your first time in Las Vegas in a while?

Yeah. I'm looking forward to it, performing in the Wyrick Theatre. It's not that big, but it's sort of brand-new. I haven't seen it yet, but they tell me it's great. I've been looking for that kind of a set up for years.

Are you interested in a long-term engagement in Vegas?

For right now I'm just going to come in for the Memorial Day weekend to sort of check the theater out, see how it feels. You know what I mean? I'm doing like two different kinds of tours now. One is called Club Dice - that kind of set up that's at the Wyrick Theatre. The other's like big theaters. You know what I mean?

How do the two performances differ?

To be honest, no matter what size the room I'll put out the same kind of energy, whether I'm in front of 400 or 4,000.

Has your humor changed at all over the years or are you still the Diceman?

Oh no. It's 100 percent. It's what I do. You know? It's hard-core. It's to the point. My comedy - through the years, you know, the world's changed so of course there's newer material , but when I do my take on the computer world, for example, there's not a comic that has my take or can do it the way I do it. I let people know what (expletive deleted) they really are. You know?

Describe your comedy, for the few who don't know you.

My comedy is like, it's what I watch all day long. For example today you can't even have a conversation with a friend without him picking up his phone three times and putting his hand up to you like, "Give me a minute." You know? It's like the rudest thing in the world and I do it right back to them. I'm actually sitting here right now with a friend while I'm making this call and I don't give a (expletive deleted) what he does now or where he goes. What do I care? I have somebody to talk to on the phone, and it seems to be that's all people care about today. As long as they're talking on the phone, they're happy.

Do you really hate the new technology?

A lot of people say they hate it, but I really have a hatred for it because it really does just interrupt life constantly. I mean I've seriously been in bed with my chick - I'm not even making a routine up here, like I won't even get filthy about it - but like in the middle of whatever we're doing and you forget that the cell phone's on and you hear that stupid ring that you have on it. From your waist down just goes limp.

There's a lot to be angry about these days.

That's why you need a comic like me and that's why Vegas is a perfect place and always has been for the what, the past 18, 19 years? People come to Vegas from like Nebraska (who) might not come see me in Nebraska but might want to get a little wild because they're in Vegas and it's like, "Nobody's lookin'. We could go see a guy like Dice."

How long has it been since you played Vegas?

I haven't come there in a while. I was doing the VH1 show. Since that took off, so did my career as a live performer again, which in a lot of ways was what it was supposed to do. It was, like, Dice sort of now coming out of retirement to really start performing again.

Why were you out of the limelight?

I went through a lousy marriage and even lousier divorce. As a father, I found it more important to take five years off to really take care of my two sons, Max and Dillon, and make sure their heads are together, and now I'm really goal - orientated again. Now I really want to grab the brass ring as a stand-up again.

MySpace seems to have helped resurrect your career.

It's a big deal. I've never been into computers and I make fun of computers, but if I do something I do it at a level no one else has gone. My blogs on MySpace are really about what's going on in my life. It's what VH1 was afraid to show. Like, at the time I was doing the VH1 show I was engaged but I happened to have a girlfriend. I got engaged when I was still married even. They didn't want to talk about that. Then when the relationship to the engaged girl was falling apart I wound up having a girlfriend. In blog form, that girl is now gone and there's a new girlfriend and people are keeping up with that. My blogs have become like - a few weeks ago I had the top three of the top 25 blogs in the world. I had a meeting with MySpace people last week because they can't believe the effect my site has had on people. It's like the first real soap opera ever on MySpace, but its not even a soap opera because it's a real celebrity life going on.

It's like a diary?

Yeah. I tell them about gigs. If something's falling apart in my life they read about it. It's bits and pieces of what's going on. My kids did a music video and within a couple of days it had nearly 25,000 hits.

Do you make money off the blog?

Not a dime.

But it sounds like a great marketing tool.

Definitely. My audience, a lot of who go to MySpace, are like 20-year-old kids. More than half the audience for my shows is 20-year-old kids. The mania I went through in the early '90s has definitely resurfaced. It's been absolutely Dice Mania again.

Did you not work for five years?

It wasn't that I didn't go and do gigs. I'd do gigs. I even did Vegas. But I didn't have management. I didn't have agents or publicists. I wasn't striving for everything. Everything was like just clocking in and going to work. Now I'm focused again. But through the down time I did work on material. I wrote a book. I did an album. I worked on it all the way through. I just didn't put myself out in the country. I didn't have the mind-set to take on the world.

When did you decide to step back into the arena?

Actually a couple of years ago. It took a little time to sell the VH1 show because of the concept. To be honest they didn't even do the concept fully.

Your relationships seem to be a focal point of the series.

Since I broke up with my fiancee I've gone through two full-blown relationships. I mean, one of them I'm still in - a part-time fiancee and I don't even know what's going on there. I just can't do full-time fiancee stuff 'cause there's a lot of girls I want to go out with. It's what I want to do right now. She goes, "How can you go with other girls if I'm your fiancee?" and I go, "Well, let's just not do that for a while. We'll just go out again or something." I don't know how to handle that stuff.

You don't want any commitments right now?

Yeah. I don't want to get married. I'm fightin' with both of them now - my fiancee and my girlfriend - because they're both bustin' my chops that they want to come to Vegas with me. They're both great, you know, but I want to be alone in Vegas. I want to have some fun without them. They're like "You're going to go there. There's going to be more girls." "Yeah. That's the whole point."