Andrew Dice Clay’s unfiltered, truth-telling comedy—inspired by Elvis and Muhammad Ali—began with a Grease-style John Travolta act and skyrocketed after MTV banned him for a Nixon poem. His gold album The Day the Laughter Died thrived in hostile venues, while Ford Fairlane faced gay community threats but succeeded internationally. Clay’s disciplined, Rocky-like stage presence shaped Chris Rock’s career, and his feud with Jay Moore over a Jewish bit nearly escalated to police intervention. Rejecting modern tech, he warns about internet porn’s impact on youth, contrasting his era’s raw energy with today’s legal risks—like Washington State’s zoophilia case—proving his legacy as comedy’s most provocative force. [Automatically generated summary]
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And Andrew, when I was a kid, man, when I was like 19 years old, I had this girlfriend, this hot, dirty little Latino girl that I dated for a while, and she fucking loved your comedy.
We would sit in my car and we would play your cassette and this chick would fucking howl.
She would cry and curl up in a ball.
And I remember being a teenager, a kid.
You know, sitting there listening to how fucking funny this stuff was and how dirty and different than anything there was ever...
You had broken a total new barrier for comedy to me when I was a kid.
There was never a comedian like you before that had this sort of really aggressive sort of attitude about it, and it was fun, and it was like you could repeat the shit with you.
It was a weird phenomenon, man.
So for me, to go from listening to your stuff, before I even got into an open mic, and then being able to hang out with you at the store and getting advice from you at the store, you were the first guy that ever told me to go on the road.
And because even though, you know, I love what I do, I also think business-wise, and when I started out and when I saw How, you know, to me, how boring comics were.
You're not one of them, obviously.
You know, but no matter how funny they were, I would also get, like, bored with them after, like, five or six minutes because they knew nothing about performance.
And that's even how the whole dice thing started because I decided if I'm going to stay in comedy, my aim was never even comedy.
I couldn't give a fuck about comics or comedy.
I used the comedy stage because I wanted to get into acting.
And when I decided, okay, I'm going to do this, because I had a different act way before you knew me.
Yeah, no, what happened is my initial act was coming on stage as Jerry Lewis's nutty professor, you know, with the glasses and actually, ladies and gentlemen, and doing all that shit.
And I would take my magic potion and I would turn into John Travolta from Grease.
Because Travolta, at the time I started my act, was the biggest thing in the world.
Because he had Saturday Night Fever and he did Grease.
And when I saw Grease, me and Travolta could have been brothers back then when I was like 17. So when I saw Grease, I was like, if I could sing and dance like this guy, I could put together this act that just won't miss.
And so I went to a studio in Brooklyn, took the album from Grease, they took the lead vocal out of Grease Lightning, and I started doing this act.
I mean, the first time I went up in Pips in Brooklyn on audition night, you know, I came up as Jerry Lewis and it's a Brooklyn crowd.
You know, and I'm up there with a giant tuxedo shirt covering the leather and my pants are rolled up under the tuxedo shirt.
And I'm on stage going, actually, I'm a human pity, ladies and gentlemen.
And, you know, it's a Brooklyn audience and my whole family is there, you know.
And everybody's yelling, get the fuck off!
You fucking suck!
Fuck you!
Scumbag!
And now I take the magic potion and they shut the lights.
And they turn, like you did, the music on, which was my intro.
And I turn around as Travolta from Grease.
And the place went fucking insane.
And now I come up to the mic because it was like the potion could turn you into that kind of...
As Jerry Lewis, I would go, this potion, ladies and gentlemen, as they're throwing shit at me, can turn you into that kind of macho man or foxy woman or both.
You know, so I take the potion and I turn into Travolta.
They go nuts.
I come up to the mic and I go, so you thought it couldn't be done, right?
Yeah, the whole Grease number with a dance in the middle that I had cut in between Fever and Grease.
And the place goes nuts.
And on the way out, the two owners, Marty and Seth Schultz, go, wait a minute, where are you going?
Because they wrecked the club.
They started throwing tables over.
Because I'm doing jokes as Travolta, like, so Mr. Carter says to me, he goes, Vinny, did you do your homework?
What?
You know, I was doing that whole Barbarino thing, you know.
So, he was so hot at the time, Travolta, and there was such a resemblance, and the impression was so dead on, they go, we want you to headline this weekend.
And they go, who's your manager?
And I go, and I look at my dad, I go, he is.
And they're going, well, it's only $50, but, you know, he gets the headline.
And I'm like, great!
We couldn't even fucking believe what happened.
So, when I came out to the comedy store, you know Mitchell Walters?
And so I stayed at Westwood and I developed the character.
And, you know, the rest became history because what I was trying...
I'm going the long way, but when I would see the comics, that was my whole point, on stage, whether it was Leno or Richard Lewis, these were the cleaner guys, but they would bore me after five or six minutes.
Well, I decided I'm going to become the most exciting stand-up ever in history.
If I'm going to do this, I want to give people something they never saw with a comedian.
And growing up, like I said, I didn't really study comics.
I studied big personalities, whether it be Elvis, whether it was Muhammad Ali.
In movies, it was everybody from Stallone to Travolta.
To when I was a kid, James Dean and Brando.
And I said, give him that.
I'm from Brooklyn.
Give him that because producers will buy that for films.
And that's how the acting stuff started.
Wow.
And through the years, I developed it.
And then when the career took off, that's where the jackets became more elaborate.
From everything I learned from Elvis growing up, his performance, his style.
And I said, well, I don't want to be Elvis, but I want to give people the Elvis of comedy.
You know, and that's how the whole thing happened.
You know, and then when Rodney gave me the shot on his special, that was the best because I would watch all these fucking bozo comics at the store not working their ass off for that special.
And they know who they are, you know what I mean?
But I'm saying like on those nights where you got three people in the audience, they're going up and fucking around and they were going to be on the same special with me.
And I'm going, I don't give a fuck if the room is empty.
I just need to rehearse what I'm going to do.
Because I knew when I'd be in front of the cameras how nerve-wracking it is.
And I didn't want to have to think about material.
I just wanted to think about perform for the country.
Let them see what you've been working on all these years.
And, you know, three months later I'm in, you know, Nassau Coliseum.
We're working on the special now, and even Max, even though he's a lot greener in the business, he knows a lot about it, and he goes, Dad, you've got to pull the hits.
He goes, you got all this great new stuff, but you got to give him some of those hits because I made it 25 years ago.
It just became this gigantic thing that, you know, even now since Entourage, that was the resurgence that I did a Southern tour recently.
And I didn't know it was going to go on, you know, because I haven't really been out there in a decade.
And I was with Don Jameson and Jim Florentine from that metal show.
And they've opened for me for years before they got the metal show.
And they would come over to me and they go, it's just happening all over again.
Because the mania of the crowds now, it might as well be 1988. And I didn't see that coming.
I just didn't see it coming again.
But I'm also that type, and I think you got that in you, that fighter instinct, that belief in yourself that you can overcome anything.
And it was like, you know what?
To do this special, I'm going to give them something once again where they think they can't be shocked anymore, where they think it's all been done, and it's not.
Because I don't care...
What anybody does on stage, I take my thoughts and I create these fucking pictures in their head that are like cartoons.
Because I'm not a political comic.
I talk about, you know, if I'm talking about technology, I'm basically talking about, you know, even if you get on your computer to make believe you're going to your email, we know you're headed for the porn sites.
We know where people are going.
That's what it's all about.
Even this new generation of women, it's like they grew up on porn.
I didn't come on here to do my material, but that's what it is.
I've had a friend come to me and go, yeah, I went out with this chick, I really liked her, and I wound up doing everything with her the first night.
You know, and so I'm not going to call her again because she's a real pig.
And I go, you know, I go, but she did what you wanted her to do.
And maybe you're the only fucking guy she ever did that with.
Did you ever think of that?
You know, maybe she doesn't do that with every fucking guy and she liked you enough to do it.
And the guy wound up marrying her.
But I'm saying, I always loved sex.
The reason I even got out to the women's stuff with what I do on stage is because when I grew up in Brooklyn, I always had a girlfriend, but I always treated them with a lot of respect.
I wouldn't even think of touching that tit for the first couple months.
I just wouldn't do it unless they pushed the issue.
But when I moved to LA in 80...
It wasn't even 89 yet.
No, it wasn't even 79 yet.
It was a whole different set of fucking rules out here.
Like, I would try...
Like, if I met a girl, why don't we go over to Ben Frank's?
Well, where do you live?
I go, no, we'll go for a bite.
Well, we could just go up to your house and hang out.
And then it was just one after the other.
And that's where the material would come from.
Because girls that another guy would be writing a love letter to, you know, is now, you know, licking my balls like she's the house dog.
You know, and I was like, this is the subject matter right here.
You know, that's where lines like, treat me like the pig that I am, because that's how they wanted to be treated.
But back then, when my career took off in 88, and I did my special, and I would do, you know, they're wearing the heels and the hair, with that attitude, like, treat me like the pig that I am.
And women would get insulted from that back then.
They knew what fucking slobs they were.
They just wouldn't admit it.
Today, they're the most aggressive fucking generation I've ever come to know.
You know, so I do a bit on, you know, the sex in the city with Sarah Jessica.
Got a face that looks like it did fucking prison time.
You know what I mean?
But the one that always got me was Myrna, the short red hair, whatever the fucking name is.
And there was an episode where she was talking about, you know, licking a guy's ass, calling it in a cute way, tushilingus.
And I'm watching this going, even if a girl wanted to do that to me now, I wouldn't want it because I'm going to picture this little pigeon face coming out of my ass with a face full of shit.
But it was a smart show because women in America, you know, that weren't that great looking could look at that show and go, well, if they could get all that cock, so can I. You went through a period of time in your career where there was so much pushback against your material and against what they were calling misogynist comedy that you kind of cleaned it up a little bit for a while, right?
What I did when I did a series for CBS called Bless This House, they wanted me...
That's the fucked up thing with doing a network show.
They wanted to...
Like on that show, they won't even put the credit as Andrew Dice Clay.
It was Andrew Clay.
And I'll never forget my booking agent going, what do they think?
People aren't going to know who it is?
You know what I mean?
And...
And that's what...
It didn't tone me down because, thank God, the show got canceled when it did.
Because I was so fucking bored every day.
I put on like 40 pounds in three months playing a postman.
And, you know, when...
And when the show got cancelled, Max loves this.
The day the show got cancelled, I was the happiest guy in the world.
I came home and I ran three miles.
My wife goes, what's the matter?
Why are you home early?
I go, the show got cancelled.
I go, I'm going running.
I got to get ready for the special because I booked the special with HBO for three months down the road and I had to get in shape to do the special.
You know, and the next day after the show was canceled, I went to Cannon Drive in Beverly Hills where Kathy Moriarty, who starred with me in the show, owned a pizza place.
And the whole cast is sitting around this table outside, like, with their head in their hands, like, how's everybody doing?
I get out of the truck because I'm coming to get dinner for, you know, my family.
Oh, well, you know, I go, yeah, I know.
I got to grab a pizza.
I got to get out of here.
I was just thrilled as, you know...
Thrilled to death that I didn't have to show up at that studio anymore.
Yeah, I'm going, you know, like people don't know what you're saying.
Just write something else.
He goes, well, we're not a joke story.
I go, then just send me the fuck home.
You know, one time I did a line on that show.
He had this director.
The guy that did the pilot got the job directing the season.
And, um...
You know, it was the opening of an episode, and I walk in, and the kids are watching TV, and I come in, and I go, Daddy made it through another day, and I look at the TV, I go, by the way, they never get off the island, and you shut the TV, right?
So I come in, and it's a full audience, you know, studio audience, you know about it, and...
You know, so I go, you know, they never get off the island, and before I click the thing, I go, but I'll tell you, that ginger keeps getting better looking.
And the director comes over, he goes, what are you playing to, a bunch of fucking skinheads?
And I look at this guy, and I go, you know what?
You play my part.
I'm going home.
And I leave the studio, and at that time, I was with Michael Rotenberg, who was my manager, but he was also producer of that show.
And I get a call from him, and he goes, where are you?
And I go, I'm going home.
He goes, you can't go home.
There's 300 people here.
What do you mean you're going home?
I go, the guy fucking said this, and I don't want to work with him anymore.
I don't want to do the show.
And he goes, you got to come back.
Please come back.
We'll straighten it out tomorrow.
And I go to the guy, because I'm like a five-year-old, can I stop and get a Slurpee first?
He goes, get the fucking Slurpee and get back here.
You know, and then they fired the director the next day, and then they canceled the show like four weeks later, and I was really happy about it.
You know, and then I'm watching Chris Brown, who beat a girl to a pulp, you know, flying through the air.
So, in other words...
You know, I can't say, you know, a couple little, you know, rhymes, because the poem that got me banned was the Jack, oh no, Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean, so Jack ignored her flabby tits and licked her asshole clean.
And the reason I even did that material on the awards is because before I came out, You know, Arsenio was hosting it, and Dick Clark, I'm supposed to bring on Cher, that was my job.
And Dick Clark comes over to me, he goes, look, if you've got a stretch, if Cher's not ready, you know, Arsenio will come over.
And I go, how can't she be ready?
She's putting on a thong.
What won't she be ready for, you know?
I go, don't send Arsenio over, we didn't prepare anything here.
And as he's doing this, he's going, no, you'll stress.
I go, please, don't tell me what to fucking do when I'm out there.
And I'm thinking, this is Dick Clark, and I love the guy.
But now they introduced me, and I came out angry.
And there were a couple other comics that were on that night.
Paul Reiser came out there.
As a comic, he's a good comic, but he's talking about the hats that Frank Sinatra wore.
And I'm sitting in the crowd going, nobody's paying attention.
Well, you also got to understand that was when the gays were coming out of the closet when I hit and I would do all the jokes like, you know, bisexual.
And I'm like, what do you mean?
You either suck dick or you don't suck dick.
And it wasn't hateful jokes.
It was just on the money.
You know, and then the rest of the joke was, what do you do?
Wake up in the world, flip a coin to decide you know the joke.
It's the funniest shit, and it's proof positive that despite the fact that, look, they could never put any of your stuff that you did, they could never put it on The Tonight Show, they could never put it on, you know, any sort of mainstream show, but yet...
You sold out arena after arena like no other comic.
But even with the talk shows, I used to look at them like, you know, you got a guy here selling 80,000 seats a weekend, you know, and guys like Letterman and Leno, that wasn't good enough for them, you know what I mean?
How great would a documentary just Travolta sitting in a room just on a chair by himself talking about how many different masseuses he's got to suck his dick?
You know, I'm glad you're friends with him, but when you got a face that looks like a squeeze doll that your eyes, nose, and tongue could pop out, you should shut your fucking mouth when somebody's telling a story.
My first wife, when I married her, you know, we come back to LA and she had an apartment, like off a fountain somewhere, so we take a cab to her apartment.
We come back from New York and she goes, okay, tomorrow we'll go, we'll pack all your stuff up and, you know, you'll move in here.
And I'm standing there and I go, I'm not moving out.
She goes, what do you mean you're not moving out?
I go, I gotta stay in Cresthill till I make it.
I go, I'm not going to live with you.
She goes, you married me.
I go, yeah, but it's not like I won't see you.
You know, I'll come over a lot.
You know, she actually used to come by my house 7 o'clock in the morning on her way to work because I was like in the maid's room in Crestal and I'd sleep with the windows open.
It had those, you know, it's a Spanish house with the bars.
And she'd be like, Andrew.
I go, yeah.
And she goes, no, I just wanted to stop by.
I'm going to work.
I go, yeah, I'll call you later.
We'll go out tonight.
You know, because, you know, it was like an emergency wedding, and because she thought she was pregnant at the time, whatever, and I wouldn't move in with her, so she moved into, so she winds up moving into Cresthill, you know, she moves into Cresthill, and I said, don't tell anybody we're married.
Nobody can know we're married.
And she goes, why not?
I go, well, your parents can know, but I go, I'm building a certain image.
You know, I was like 26, you know.
I go, you know, and I married you for you, you know, not really for me.
You know, so, you know, when you have this baby, you know, it'll be legitimate, whatever.
And she goes, so nobody could even know we're married?
But when she couldn't figure it out, I go, it's never been seen.
And that's why I knew it would work.
It was almost like taking the kind of characters you would see, like Travolta doing movies, like Tony Manero, those kind of, and putting them on a comedy stage.
Well, you know, I was looking on the second on the second day to laugh that died, you know, because there's no beginning, middle or end.
I'm looking, how am I going to end this?
And these like two couples come in and they're drunk.
And I forgot what they were even saying.
But I get into it with the guy.
And then I dropped the mic to go after him.
And the album goes to nothing.
That's how the album ends because at that time, Club Soda Kenny, who was my bodyguard, he jumped on me as I was running to jump on the guy because he didn't want me to have a multi-million dollar lawsuit, you know.
Yeah, but stuff like that would always go on, but this was recorded.
That's why it was so great.
And then those people were still there when I was done recording, and I went over to thank the guy for getting me angry and explained to the guy because I had no end for the album, and now I do, so I bought the guy a drink.
Because the guy thought I'm coming over now to fight him because he's out like me at a bar.
And I'm like, no, I don't want to fight you.
That was great inside.
You made the album happen.
I now have a great ending.
Nobody's going to know what happened once I dropped the mic.
You don't need that pressure in the crowd of me watching you.
But in Vegas, I would make mental notes, and we'd talk about...
Like, he'll come home, like, 2 in the morning, and I'll be out, like, on the curb, like I'm in Brooklyn, smoking cigarettes, and we'll first talk comedy until 4 o'clock.
Does it give you an extra, like, an extra push, seeing your son going through the whole beginning stages, you know, and seeing him, you know, putting together an act?
Does it, like, charge you up for it?
Like, make you more creative or more excited about it?
But I always taught them by example and by me doing this, by me training physically and mentally and being on stage every night, shows him that even after all these years of comedy, I'm not taking this special and going, all right, I'll do the little special and see what happens.
I'm making sure that every comic watching this thing, especially the haters, sit there and go, fuck.
Why?
Why does he still have that fucking thing?
You know what I mean?
Because, you know, I'll be honest, right before I got Entourage, I was about a 42 waist, okay?
And then I got Entourage, and I'm like, alright, I can't be the fat guy in the Entourage.
So I started training, and I got in good enough shape to do the show.
And then I kept going because I don't just think of, well, let's see what happens from Entourage.
I didn't wait for the phone to ring.
I'm 10 steps ahead thinking, okay, start touring, build up, do the specials.
special then do a major tour I was with David Ritz last night he's gonna do my autobiography he's done people he did Don Rickles as far as comics he's done Marvin Gaye he did Wow what's the movie Jamie Fox started Ray Charles.
Ray Charles.
He wrote that book.
He's written a ton of books and now he wants to do mine.
And I met with Franco about two and a half years ago to discuss the movie, because he would have that look of me like in the 30s, like when I was in my 30s.
I had, when I was first starting out, I was dirty, you know, and open mic guys, the open mic hosts would always tell you, oh, you got to clean it up, you got to clean it up.
So now the show happens and now it's a live crowd.
So, of course, I just go into, you know, all my gay material and, you know, I'm doing what I have to do to kill the crowd because I'm closing the show.
When I met Dane Cook and he was doing The Bigger Places, you know...
I actually met him the day his father passed away, and I met him in Beverly Hills, and he was telling me how I influenced him, and I felt good that I'd been sticking up for the guy, because I never knew who the guy was until he took off.
And you know, just like all these scumbag comics, that's why I hate these guys, they all stab you, you know how they are.
And they're all in the back of the comedy store.
They're not even on that night.
You know, they're making nothing.
Going, ah, he's a fucking thief.
He's this, he's that.
He took my bit.
I go, well, why didn't you go over and smack him in the face five years ago for taking your bit?
But now that the guy's doing great, he's not funny.
He's no good.
In the meantime, he's drawing 10, 15,000 people a night.
So, yeah, I would always back, you know, when Eminem took off, how people would come down on him.
And I became friends with him over that.
Actually Eminem was going to do seven albums with me.
He gave me a deal for seven CDs that he was going to produce and at that time I had no heat on me and he was with I think EMI and they said we're not giving him the deal because there's no heat right now.
But that's how I became, you know, friendly with Eminem.
And it was all of a sudden, Max had the story with Eminem.
Well, what happened is, obviously, I went through divorce.
And it was, you know, my personal life's always been more important to me than, you know, a career life.
So, yeah, I would do the road and I would do my gigs, but I didn't have the management.
I didn't have the publicists out there.
All I really cared about was, when I left, my boys was 7 and 11 years old.
So it was more important for me to be around and raise them the right way.
And they both live with me.
But I prepared through this whole past decade, as bad as it was, I would work on the new material and say, at the right time, I'm going to hit them again.
Because if you walk around telling people you're the undisputed comedy king, well, if you do another special, you better prove that.
Yeah, the guy that actually trained Stallone for Rocky, when I was getting ready to do Ford Fairlane, I became friends with Stallone, and he introduced me to his trainer.
The guy's name is George Pippasek.
And the guy was from Czechoslovakia and he was Mr. Czechoslovakia four years in a row.
And then when steroids came into the business, he quit and moved to America and he built, he didn't just open a private gym, he built every, he was also a machinist and built every machine in that gym.
And this guy really taught me how to change my body when I have to change it, how to amplify any muscle, you know?
So with this special, you know, I am.
I'm 54 years old.
And when I walk out there, it's almost like when I see certain guys in the crowd that are my age or old, and I ask how old they are, and they go, you know, I'm 55 years old.
And I'm looking at the guy like he's 75. So it's like I almost want to be hopeful to those people because even as you get older, one of the other things I would call myself is like the Rocky of comedy.
Like I'll watch Rocky 6 and go, that's where I am and that's who I am.
And his messages in those movies about taking your life and reaching your potential is what I always use.
So yeah, I could just throw on a leather and walk out there and have a belly sticking out the gear.
But it's like, why do that when I'm more than capable of completely restructuring my body and giving the fans exactly what they want from me?
I go up the mountains, I go to the gym, and Max had the funniest line.
There was this producer in the gym the other day that...
I'm going to get on the treadmill.
And he got on one of these bouncing things.
And I go, why don't you do the workout with me?
And he goes, why am I going to work out with you?
And Max is standing there, but this other guy comes over that works in golds.
His name's Travis.
And he goes, because he knows what he's doing.
And this guy, Travis, is what, like 30 years old?
And he's completely ripped.
He's like 6'2".
And he goes, when I train with Dice...
I shake when I'm writing the next day.
He goes, that's how hard he trains and what he does to each muscle.
So when Max gets me alone, he goes, you know, because in the gym, like you could be in a tank top, you're in different clothing.
And Max goes, why would this producer even question you?
You have worked out.
It's on you.
And it just cracked me up because people look to...
Instead of building you up, they always look to knock you down.
And I always use those negatives to propel myself.
See, before I walk out on stage, I gave Chris Rock the same advice before he did.
Bring the pain.
And it's actually a funny story because I came into the comedy store...
And Chris was on stage rehearsing his material, and he came to the back, and me and Chris, our bondingers were both from Brooklyn, went to the same high school.
I'm like 10 years older than them, but we always had that bond.
So I said to Chris, I go, you know, what's going on with your life?
He goes, well, you know, I'm getting ready to do this special for HBO. You know, how many are they going to give me?
And I look at him and I go, let me ask you something.
I go, we're friends, right?
And he goes, yeah.
I go, does it bother you at all that when you leave this club, every comic looks at you like a fucking zero?
And he's looking at me going, why would you say that?
I go, because that's how they look at you.
You're a fucking zero in their eyes.
You've done nothing other than what Eddie Murphy did for you.
How does that sound?
That's what they think of you.
He goes, why would you say that?
I go, because you're standing and talking about a special like it's just another special.
I go, when a network like HBO or Showtime, they give you a special, they're giving it to you because that's what they think you are.
And if you treat it with the attitude you just said it to me with, that's what's going to happen.
Nothing.
I go, when you are behind the stage and you're thinking you're going out there in two minutes, think of every comic watching going, he's a fucking zero.
And you know what the other side of your brain should be thinking about?
The family that's been backing your ass.
All these years and they're praying for you.
And you use both those things and start moving around on stage a little because you stand there like a fucking soldier and as good as your material is, people are going to fall asleep watching you.
And that's when he developed that crazy walk back and forth.
But she's the only girl, you know, number one, my wife, you know, knows more about me than me, and she's a lot younger than me, and she has studied it now.
Her friend, when I met her, her friend knew everything about me, but she didn't even know who I was.
So once we started going out, she started on the internet and studying it, and she watches every show I do, and she's the one that got me into the social media with the fucking Twitter shit.
You know, years ago when people would go, Dice, do you tweet?
I go, you know what?
I eat pussy.
That's as far as I take it.
You know, but she got me into all that stuff and, you know, she's good with the material.
I never listened to anybody about material, you know, in my whole life.
Any woman I went with, any friend.
But she actually knows.
She gets it and she'll give me like little things to say and it kills.
You know, she really just gets what I do and really studies it.
Flexibility is one of the most important things, as you get older especially.
It's something you have to do like brushing your teeth.
If you don't brush your teeth, you can go to bed and not brush your teeth for a few fucking months and nothing really will happen, except you get bad breath.
You've got to think about stretching like that.
It's an important piece of body maintenance, especially as you get older.
Even as you're younger, especially if you're younger and you're lifting weights, there's a lot of people that fuck their body up because they lift weights and they don't stretch out.
You've got to make sure you get a full range of motion.
The people that come to the shows are so fucking friendly.
I have no problems.
Everyone's so nice, man.
We have a friendly podcast.
It's a fun podcast, you know, and I do martial arts and I've started doing martial arts because For two reasons.
One, because I was picked on when I was younger, and I didn't like it.
And I didn't have an older brother, and my stepfather was hardly ever around.
So I had a fight.
And I didn't like it.
I didn't like people fucking with me.
So I learned how to fight.
It was really that simple.
Then once I got really good at it, I did it because I think martial arts is the most dangerous, challenging, and character-building path for human development.
I think, to really know about yourself, there's two ways.
You could go to war, you could find out about yourself shooting people overseas, fighting hand-to-hand combat in a fucking ditch, and stab a guy with a knife.
You could find out a lot about yourself in that situation, or you could travel around the country and fight in martial arts tournaments.
You can do that, and you can find out an incredible amount about Your tolerance to pain.
And if they miss it, they can download it on iTunes.
And one of the things I was thinking that you should do, because I know that Ford Fairlane doesn't have a DVD commentary, and it would be really funny if you just did a podcast watching Ford Fairlane so people at home could hit start at the same time, and you're just talking about the movie.
unidentified
And I think that would be one of the best things ever.
Yeah, at that time, you got to understand, this thing came out in 1990. So, you know, an opening weekend for that movie today would be like, you know, $45 million.
You know, back then, it was like an $18 million opening weekend because, you know, the price it cost to go into a movie theater.
And it got this big hit even though they didn't do the premiere.
And then they pulled it in a week.
And what happened with that movie is then they added all around the world.
So they made a ton of money with it.
Then at that time there were no DVDs.
It was just tapes.
It was just videotapes.
And the month that it came out...
You know how years ago it was like $2 to rent the tape?
In high school, that was my favorite movie ever, and I had your poster for the movie above my bed because I used to work at a movie theater, and one of my favorite shit was just the ridiculousness of it.
When you fell off the building, you're like, my hair, my hair.
And as they're shooting these ideas, even my kids were like, what are they doing?
And they came over with this episode, a rough cut of what they called the image episode.
And, you know, they put like a grill in my mouth and dressed me like a rapper.
And I hated it.
You know, I hated it.
And I forgot if it was either Max or Dylan that looked at the producers and said, if you were doing a show with Axl Rose, wouldn't you just let him be Axl?
Well, what happened was I was at the comedy store one night and he walks over to me and he goes, I'm going to open for you one day.
And, you know, we talked for two minutes and then a couple weeks later I was getting ready to go on tour and I already had opening acts.
And Eddie was on stage and he had like, you know, 2% material.
But what he had, he was exciting to watch.
You know what I mean?
So he came on stage and I said, you know, come over here, you know.
I said, you know what, I saw you on stage tonight.
And I said, you really do have that potential.
You're going to be great.
I said, so why don't you go pack your bags and we leave in the morning.
It was the Dice Rules Tour.
And the next thing you know, we're in Philadelphia.
I was going to do, I think, two nights at the Spectrum.
And I see Eddie doesn't have a coat, no socks, and there's snow on the ground.
I go, where's all your stuff?
He goes, I don't have anything.
So, next thing you know, we're on a shopping spree, and he gives me the nickname Uncle Dice to this day, you know, because I just saw him in Vegas last week.
And, you know, at that time, he'd come on stage twirling a baton with a big top hat, you know, making the crowd going, hey, motherfucker, hey, motherfucker, hey.
And then he didn't know what he was going to do once the music stopped.
Tell him I was playing this set for him because like I said, I'm going around the country testing everything and I was playing this set for him.
I just did the Bergen Center in Jersey and so we sat down late at night to listen to the set for a few minutes and we shut it off and Max goes, now I know why the government and everybody else had a problem with you.
He goes, it sounds like this angry mob cheering you on.
unidentified
And it would be scary to government, you know, because of what he's saying and the way they're reacting to it.
That's why government officials could be like, I don't know with this.
I mean, some of it, there is no thought that goes into it.
As far as, you know, certain bits, like I don't do my homework.
I just want to do the bit in the funniest way I can.
I don't care if it's got any kind of truth to it sometimes.
You know, it's just got to be...
There are certain bits that are truthful, but certain bits I'm doing just to affect them and make them laugh their balls off, that when I see a guy banging his fists on the stage and his head's laying on the stage that he can't laugh anymore...
I know I'm doing my job.
That's how I look at that.
And I come off and I go, did you see them?
And as great as the crowds might be in Vegas, it's the road crowds that are really insane because Vegas, there's a lot of things that come into it from gambling to drinking to fighting with your wife over losing the money.
You know, it's just the most ridiculous stuff, you know, and it's just so enjoyable for me because I go, they've gotten to leave their life for an hour, you know, because, you know, I might say, you know, I hate going up there some nights, but once I'm out there, I just, that's my freedom to just go nuts, you You know, I'll even tell the crowd, like, you know why I'm up here right now?
Because sometimes I get into a fight with Eleanor on the stage.
I go, because she just went to tell my wife what happened here.
And when I come off this stage, they're both going to let me fucking have it.
So I'm just going to hang out here with you for a little more.
One of my favorite things you did, I don't know if you want to talk about this, but one of my favorite things you did is you started taking less and less shirts with you when you would go to shows.
So, you know, since my kids were born, I always thought about, like, how do I explain what I do as their father?
You know, and plus, they can't really see it.
You know, so from an early age, like, I groomed them into the business, like, understanding, you know, what I do and sort of how big it was, but it's not that big of a deal to me because I'm daddy.
But you gotta understand, you know, I was put in the hospital a bunch of times when I was a kid.
I've had my nose busted, my head split open, my face split open.
You know, so I know what it is to lose.
Like, when you lost your first fight, you weren't afraid to fight again because you know what it is to get hit.
You know what I mean?
So the last person on earth that's going to frighten me is a guy with a beige sweater and his sleeves rolled up, Jay Moore.
It doesn't scare me at all.
But if you're going to tell me in front of millions of people you're not afraid of me, well now you've got a problem you're not going to be able to fucking handle.
So, I told him over the air, remember you telling me this, because now when you get back to LA, you better come to find me at the Comedy Store, because if I gotta come and look for you, it's gonna be even fucking worse.
I'm warning you.
So, what happens is, after I get off the air, Ralph E. May calls me, because he had my phone number.
And he goes, you know, Jay was just fucking around.
I go, you're not involved in this.
I go, the guy opened his mouth.
He didn't fucking apologize to me.
I go, and now, you know, he's going to have a problem.
If he don't come look for me, I'll look for him.
It's that simple.
That his wife even called me.
All of a sudden, I get a call from a detective.
I thought it was a joke.
It was at night.
Is this Andrew Clay, this and that?
And I go, yeah.
He goes, well, uh...
I'm actually a fan of yours.
I can't believe I'm calling you, but we had a complaint.
And he went to the police station with his wife at the time.
And the cop was even telling me, it felt more like a domestic dispute than anything else.
So I decided that instead of telling my kids about my history, I want to show them one.
I want to do an arena that I knew they were young, but at least they would have that picture in their head.
Something in years to come, that's how I really looked at it, would click in their minds that they didn't just hear about their father, they got to see it, you know, in that big of a place.
So I decided to do an album.
I put the album out.
The first day it's out, my agent calls me up and he goes, what do you think the move is?
And I go, I say, you should book the garden.
And he goes, book the garden?
He goes, last time you did Westbury, you did half a house.
Now I'll explain to the people listening the difference.
Westbury sold out is about 3,000 seats.
So if I did half a house, 1,500 seats.
So why would I be thinking I could be at Madison Square Garden now?
You know what I mean?
Because I hadn't done arenas in a bunch of years.
So I go, I'm telling you, Dennis, I've been doing this radio show, you know, in New York, Opie and Anthony.
He goes, so based off a radio show you're doing, you think you're selling the garden?
He goes, why don't we do the Beacon Theater?
I go, I'll sell the Beacon in 20 minutes, which the Beacon's like 3,500 seats.
He goes, well, if you sell it in 20 minutes, we could always move it to the garden.
He didn't think in any way possible that I'm going to sell the beacon in 20 minutes.
Bottom line, I'm telling you the story short.
I sell the beacon out in 35 minutes.
So my agent calls me up and he goes, I don't get it.
But obviously that's something you know and I don't.
So Ron Delzner, who did my first arena with me, he's a very famous promoter.
He works under the umbrella now of Live Nation.
He said the same thing to my agent.
He goes, obviously Dice knows something we don't.
So they put 10,000 seats on sale at The Garden.
Okay, the first day we do 7,000 seats, which, if I didn't have to do the beacon, the beacon was on the 20th of October, 2000, and the garden was now going to be on the 26th, not even a week later.
So I sell 7,000 seats, and now the ticket sales slow down because the Subway Series was announced, the Yankees and the Mets.
So ticket sales slow down, but the bottom line of what happened is the day of the garden, I get a call.
The reason I even stopped doing arenas, I would get claustrophobic from the whole thing being sold and people around me, so I couldn't take anymore.
So I get a call from my agent knowing if Delsner could open up the back.
Which was incredible because it was going to be the last night of the World Series, the Yankees playing the Mets.
And we did 13,000 people at the Garden that night.
Max was allowed to watch as much of the show as he knew when I would start getting too filthy, leave that part of the arena, and then come back in when it's not that bad.
What was the feeling that you had when you watched your dad go up there in front of 13,000 screaming animals?
What was that like?
When you realized...
I mean, what was the realization?
unidentified
Well, I guess the way I thought about it at that time...
I just thought it was really cool.
You know, I was just 10 years old and the language didn't really faze me because even at that age I knew it was just a joke because my dad was never like that with me when he was offstage.
I just knew, alright, when my dad goes onstage he's like that.
Yeah, and my whole thing was, like I told you, I always teach my kids by example.
I wanted to show them that with hard work and with belief and with that drive that's built into you, that you could accomplish anything you want to accomplish.
That's always been what, you know, when I do certain things and people talk to me like, you made all these millions and then you lost it and went through a divorce and you gambled and you bought shit.
I go, it's never been about money to me.
I go, I could always make, yeah, I'm making money again now.
But the point is that, you know, it's what you do with your life, what you could accomplish with your life.
And I didn't really know starting out what it would become when I made it.
You know, you're never prepared for what fame brings.
But I knew, like even when I saw Rocky 1 with my father in Brooklyn, when I left that theater, I told my father, I was 16 years old, I said, I'm going to do that with my life.
And my father goes, what, you're going to become a boxer?
And I go, no, I have that thing in me where I could really accomplish with my own life.
I'm just not sure how I'm going to go about it yet.
And that's what it's always been for me.
It's always been like, reach your highest potential in what you do.
Give the very best and show people what you got to offer them and I always think of myself and I know my history you know and I know you know that that I mean I don't know who the guy will come around that you know I did the Rose Bowl with Guns N' Roses you know I did things like that you know it takes a certain person in my mind that God puts here at a certain time to do these different things And I always felt like I
was born when I was born to do exactly what I'm doing now.
When I used to come off at the Comedy Store at 2 in the morning, you know, when there's four people, and, you know, the asshole comic, whoever it would be, went, oh, it didn't go too good.
I'd look at that guy and go, I'm the biggest in the world.
They just don't know it yet.
And this is when I was a struggling comic, and that's what comics can handle with me.
It was the real part of who I am.
Forget about onstage, the jokes, everything, was this unbelievable confidence that I was given.
You know, and it's always been inside me.
Like, just a complete belief in I could conquer whatever I have to conquer.
First thing I would do when I'd go to a party years ago, when I was like 17, 18, you'd spot the ugly girl in the corner going, alright, if that don't work out, she'll still be there.
And, you know, it just happened as a fluke because I was going to use...
Which song are we going to play?
Rottencore or Junkyard?
Junkyard.
Alright.
When we went into the studio, they were just going to lay the music down for my album that I still never put out.
And Dylan asked, can I sing it?
This is the night before.
And I go, well, yeah, sure you could sing it.
I didn't know you could sing.
I go, but you know I would never put anything on an album that would embarrass you.
So if it doesn't sound right, we'll just use the music.
So they go in, they lay the music track down in one take, then Dylan did the bass line in one take, and then the engineer goes, you know, if you want, because he's a little kid, he goes, you could come back tomorrow and do the vocal, and he goes, rock and roll happens at night, okay?
That's why I initially started off trying to be a really clean comic, and it just has not really gone that way, because it's really hard to just be clean now.
That's the age where, like, you know, you could see a thing like, you know, some chick blowing a horse and think, oh, that's what you're supposed to do?
Because they won't let in any American douchebags.
I mean, there's a fucking smart thing to that.
You can really think about what you do.
You live in Canada.
You're like a bunch of nice people in this frozen country that's connected to the craziest fucking savages that have ever existed on the face of the planet.
There's no crazier country, if you look at total impact on the world, than America.
Fuck Rome.
Rome can suck our dick.
We're in 140 different countries with fucking nuclear arms.
We got bombs and tanks and jets and drones.
Everybody sit the fuck down.
So Canada's like above us and every now and then one of us is running from the law and they try to get into Canada.
So of course they have to have like really fucking strict laws.
Thanks again for, back in the day, giving me advice.
And you really did.
You were the reason why I decided to go on the road.
I listened to him.
I was like, yeah, why don't I go on the road?
It may be a better comic, too.
Going up to the store only can kind of make you a little bit of a monster.
You could get sucked into his demonic spell and be a real fucking creep.
Thank you everybody for tuning in to the podcast and we will see you next week.
We've got a lot of show coming up next week.
Next week we've got Michael Rupert.
He's going to be here on Tuesday and Chael Sonnen the day before on Monday.
And then Shane Smith will be the week after that.
We've got a lot of shit going on.
A lot of new people that I'm putting in.
John Anthony West and I are exchanging emails so we're going to be doing that as well too which I'm fucking super psyched about.
Thanks to The Fleshlight for sponsoring us always.
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Go to JoeRogan.net, click on the link for The Fleshlight, enter in the codename ROGAN, and save yourself 15%.
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Alright, you dirty bitches.
This is the end of this show, but it is Friday and it's 7 o'clock in about two hours.
Two hours.
We will be doing the Ice House Chronicles, and that takes place right here at the Ice House in Pasadena.
You can only listen to it on Desquad, so subscribe to the Desquad on iTunes, or you can watch it on my Ustream page tonight, this one here, Joe Rogan, Ustream.tv, forward slash Joe Rogan.
Yeah, and for all you rumor-mongering cunt faces out there that thought for some reason, because me and Brian did a couple of podcasts away from each other, I wasn't with my little snuggle bunny, there's some sort of bridge or gap between us.
This is not true.
And he is my friend, and Brian will always be on the Joe Rogan Experience as long as he wants to.