When I did move out and file papers, Eleanor and I started dating. In 2005, we got engaged. Then almost immediately a series of tragedies hit her like a wave. First, her dear friend comic Freddy Soto died. A week after Freddy died, Eleanor’s beloved grandmother passed away. She went from one funeral to another. She stopped eating, lost weight, went down to 110 pounds. I was worried sick for Eleanor, and it affected us as a couple.
During the summer of 2006, I got a show on VH1 following me and my family. They called it a reality show, but the reality was it was shit. With my career not exactly soaring, I couldn’t be choosy, so I took it. Eleanor and the boys were in the show, but the show went nowhere. Then that August, Eleanor said the words that I knew were coming.
“I’m always gonna love you and the boys,” she said. “I’m always gonna be part of your life. But I can’t marry you. If I do, it’s not gonna work. And then we won’t be friends and I won’t see the boys and I won’t see you, and I can’t stand that thought.”
I held her and kissed her and told her that I understood. I respected her honesty. I respect everything about Eleanor, who is one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever known.
Eleanor Kerrigan—who has turned into one of the best female stand-ups out there—is still opening for me. And we’ve stayed best friends.
• • •
On Super Bowl Sunday in January 2008, I scored an invitation for me and Max to the Playboy Mansion. I was happy to go, but Max, now eighteen, was dying to go.
The Playboy Mansion is pretty much what you’d imagine—a huge house packed with gorgeous chicks who happen to be unbelievably stacked. Max was running around having a ball getting his picture snapped with a bunch of Playmates. I staked out a spot on a couch so I could enjoy the view.
I kept noticing this one particular woman passing in and out of my sight line. I found myself staring at her. She wasn’t dressed like a Playmate. She was wearing blue jeans and a purple polka-dotted tube top. Her body was incredible. She wore her hair pinned up high on her head. She had gorgeous brown eyes and a radiant smile. Her skin was dark; she was maybe Italian, maybe Middle Eastern, maybe Latin. Whatever she was, she was a total knockout. And then, suddenly, she appeared right in front of me.
“I’m Dice,” I said.
The name didn’t ring a bell for her. She said her name was Valerie. She just wanted to tell me that she liked my oversized aviator glasses. Before we could really talk, a couple of chicks came over and asked if they could take their picture with me. I stood up and posed with them, and when I sat back down, Valerie was gone.
I couldn’t get my mind off her. After a while, I gave Max a mission: find Valerie. Couple of minutes later, Max returned and whispered her location to me.
I found her in a corner by herself, sipping a drink. We started talking. I told her what I did and she told me she worked as a hair and makeup artist. Then she asked me to guess her ethnicity. I gave it a shot. “Persian? Haitian? Hawaiian? Canadian?”
“Mexican,” she said, laughing. “Actually my mother is Italian and Jewish. Her father is Italian and her mother is Jewish. My dad’s Mexican.”
The more we talked, the more I felt myself falling. I invited her to meet me the following night at the Comedy Store.
That’s when I brought Valerie Vasquez into my world. I’d been focusing so much attention on raising my sons that I almost forgot what it was like to be in a relationship. I missed having a woman in my life. And Valerie was special—an entrepreneur designing her own clothing line, attentive to me, wonderful with the boys, a truly caring human being who happened to think I was funny as hell (a plus), and have I mentioned she happened to be fucking gorgeous?
Val and I got married in Vegas on Valentine’s Day 2010. Soon after she moved in, her best friend moved in, too. Her mother. Wild, huh? I love her too. She is an incredibly sweet, loving woman and a helluva cook who ran a concession stand at Dodger Stadium.
• • •
I’ve had setbacks in my life and people close to me have passed away, but nothing hit me harder than losing my mom and dad.
Jackie Silverstein went first. And then not so long after, Fred Silverstein passed away.
Just writing those words—
I can’t really write much more without crying.
When I lost them, I fell apart. I didn’t know how to process it.
I just . . . cried.
And cried.
I felt as if I’d lost a piece of my soul. I didn’t imagine I could miss two people so much. I wanted to call them. I wanted to laugh with them again. I wanted to see their faces. I wanted to hear their voices. I wanted my mom and dad to comfort me, to protect me, to cheer me on, to push me, to stand by my side, to take on the fucking world, the way they always did every day of my life. When they passed away, I felt so alone. I was a little boy again, back in Brooklyn.
I refuse to say I miss them.
Because that doesn’t come close to describing how deeply I feel their loss.
Not close.
• • •
I stopped smoking for ten years. But after my father died, I started again. I also stopped gambling. I took that up again because I had to.
The recession hit me hard. The ex was still throwing lawsuits at me. Attorneys were at my throat. I was about to lose the house where this new modern family of mine was living.
I said to Val and the kids, “Look, you know I gave up gambling. That was a good thing. But right now things are real bad. I’m down to fifty thousand dollars in cash. My debts amount to a lot more than that. It sounds crazy, but I’m gonna take that money and go to Vegas and come back with a pile. I can’t you tell why I know I can do it, but I can. I’m saying all this so it’s not a secret. I don’t wanna do it on the sly. I want you guys to know what I’m doing.”
I drove to Vegas and played blackjack with a focus and a vengeance until I turned that fifty thou into one million. I paid off the debts and bought Val her first Mercedes.
Back in Brooklyn so many years ago, I’d sat at my drum set, blasting the Mod Squad solo, my head and heart disappearing in the blinding flurry of my drumsticks, losing track of time, aware only of the time I was keeping.
And now, my son Max, twenty-three, drum master, drum monster (and stand-up comic and actor), and my son Dillon, nineteen, who plays guitar, writes, and sings (and is also an actor), have their own band, L.A. Rocks.
They were into music since elementary school. I’d wake them up, get them dressed, make their lunches, and herd them into the car for the drive to school. Once they were belted up in the backseat, I slipped in a cassette tape—a custom mix, of course—and did the announcing.
“Ladies and gentlemen, live from the Sands . . . it’s Frank Sinatra with the Count Basie big band!”
Or, “In one of his last appearances, live from the Hilton, the King himself, the one, the only, Elvis Presley!”
The kids went crazy listening to the music, and I went even crazier. We’d sing along to Guns N’ Roses and Led Zep and Aretha and Sammy Davis and Kool and the Gang and Aerosmith and Pearl Jam and Ray Charles and every great song you can think of. Driving my kids to school was the highlight of the day.
My kids are talented and tough and motivated, but if I’ve taught them nothing else, they know all that’s not enough.
“Here’s how you make it in show business and in life,” I told them. “You go out and get it. You let nothing stop you. You just take it.”
That’s what you do.
That’s what I did.
That’s what they’ll do.
• • •
Then there was the career, which had—for lack of a better word—stalled.
One day, I went to Starbucks to grab a coffee and tried to figure some shit out. Truth is, I had a lot of time on my hands. I took a table outside and a few tables away I saw an old friend, Bruce Rubenstein, who had worked for Mickey Rourke and wrote Bullet, which stared Rourke and Tupac. We shot the shit, and then Bruce, who’d
become a building contractor as well as a manager, asked me the inevitable question. “So, Diceman, you busy? What’ve you been up to?”
“The truth? Not that much.”
“Maybe I can help,” Bruce said. Two days later he and I were sitting with Doug Ellin, the producer of the HBO show Entourage. Right after that meeting, I got a call. Doug had cast me to play myself. I wound up doing five episodes in the final season. In the show I played sort of a role model to Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon). The mantra I gave to Johnny is one I’d adopted for myself. It became an Entourage battle cry: No one fucks with me; I do the fucking.
Entourage turned out to be a game changer. My shows got good ratings and I got critical raves.
Even better, Woody Allen saw the show, liked what I did, and contacted Bruce Rubenstein—now my new manager—to ask me to read for a part in his movie Blue Jasmine.
I have to say, I was a little nervous. But I was also cool. When I saw Woody, the first thing I said was, “I want you to know that you’re not meeting the Diceman. You’re meeting Andrew.”
“I appreciate that,” Woody said. “I’m hoping you won’t mind reading a few pages for me.”
“No problem. That’s what I’m here for. Would it be okay if I looked them over for a few minutes?”
“Of course,” said Woody. “Take your time.”
I went into another office with the casting lady and read over the lines for about ten minutes. “Okay, I got it,” I said.
I went back to Woody. “Don’t worry about reading them verbatim,” he said. “Feel free to change whatever you want.”
The part was not comedic. The role was for an unhappy working-class guy who got screwed out of money by his sister-in-law and was royally pissed at her. I knew this guy. I could feel him.
A week later word came from Woody that I got the part. I shot scenes in San Francisco with Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins, and then I went to New York, where the cast included Alec Baldwin. It was exciting, and I felt in my element. The acting came naturally. Woody is one of those directors who expects his actors to come prepared and to bring it. That’s just what I did.
The film was a hit, and the reviews were sensational. For the first time in five decades, I didn’t get one negative notice. And—just like that—I was back, only this time not only as a comic, but as an actor to take seriously. The gigs started coming in again. I got a chance to do a Showtime special for New Year’s Eve that I called, fittingly, Indestructible.
• • •
Since I returned to the Garden fifteen years ago, I’ve refined my act. It’s now funkier and harder-edged. And I’m talking about the new generation of wild women. I call it the most aggressive fuckin’ animalistic generation you ever met in your life. And I don’t say that with disrespect. I’ve been waiting for this generation. This is the generation finally meeting me on my own turf. This is the generation that says you don’t care about her if you don’t come all over her on the first date. When she says that to me, I say, “Relax, honey, ’cause on the next date I’m gonna blow my wad so big that it’ll be like putting your head under a yogurt machine and pulling the fuckin’ nozzle.” This generation of women don’t wear nice little earrings in their ears. They put piercings in their pussies. They BeDazzle the pussy. When they take off their jeans, you could go blind from the diamonds and rubies. Some chicks have a string of pearls hanging on their asshole lips a mile long. In this recession you can go down on a chick and come up a wealthy fuckin’ guy.
I talk about women today being so sex-crazy that the asshole has become the new pussy. This is the same asshole they used to hide from us. They actually bleach out their asshole and put it on their Facebook page as their profile picture. This is a mistake. No guy wants to go down on a chick and smell Ajax.
This generation doesn’t know how to have a good time. When they go to a party, all they do is go around saying, “Did you get my text? Did you get my e-mail?” I’m like, “Fuck face, you’re right in front of me. Just tell me!” Then they gotta tell you everything that their smartphone can do. “When your smartphone starts sucking dick,” I say, “I’ll be impressed. Until then, shove your smartphone up your ass.”
In my day back in Brooklyn, we knew how to party. You went for the chick with the biggest, fattest fuckin’ tits in the room. You hoped she was as horny as you were. And if she was, you took her into the master bedroom, where you fucked her on top of all the coats and jackets piled on the bed. During the fuck, you moved your jacket out of the way so she was driving home with your load on her boyfriend’s jacket. Now that’s a fuckin’ good time.
This new generation is Internet crazy. The Internet changed everything, ’cause these days even the shyest chicks have seen guys with giant schlongs. The humongous big dick has come to life before their very eyes. So they’ll say shit to you like, “Whip it out.” Well, nice Jewish boys from Brooklyn don’t whip anything out. We’ll bring it out. We’ll take it out. We’ll put it on a bed of lettuce for you and make a beautiful presentation. But there’ll be no sound effect. It’s not gonna sound like London broil hitting the kitchen counter . . .
• • •
So the Diceman keeps going.
You’ve seen it time and time again in these pages—knock me down as hard as you can, it don’t matter. I’m gonna get right back up and come at you harder.
The Diceman ain’t fading away, ’cause the Diceman is indestructible.
And with his family by his side, Andrew Dice Clay is just that fuckin’ good.
The Originals: Jackie Silverstein, my mom; Fred Silverstein, my dad; Natalie Silverstein, my sister; and me.
Brooklyn’s finest: Mom and Dad on their wedding day.
Mom looking like Liz Taylor at my bar mitzvah with her mom, my beautiful grandmother Shirley.
Dad helping me out, as he always did, at my bar mitzvah.
The Originals at my high school graduation in 1976.
At the Del Mar Hotel, practicing to be the next great rock drummer.
Andrew Clay, twenty-one years old, as Jerry Lewis from The Nutty Professor (above), transforming into John Travolta (next), performing at America’s first comedy club, Pips, in Brooklyn, New York.
The famous Breakfast Sessions with Lee Musiker at the Del Mar Hotel in Loch Sheldrake, New York. The summer that changed my life.
As a prize for winning Joe Franklin’s Gong Show, I got to perform on Franklin’s TV show and also got a two-week engagement at the Fireside Lounge in Queens with Tiny Tim.
While I was working out material at the Comedy Store in LA, Andrew Dice Clay was born. Part James Dean, part Marlon Brando, part rock and roll, all Brooklyn.
Playing the godfather of stand-up, Rodney Dangerfield’s club. Courtesy of Joan Dangerfield
Hanging out with Sam Kinison, the craziest motherfucker I ever knew, and my friend Hot Tub Johnny West (Neil Lustig).
On the set of Michael Mann’s Crime Story with Tony Denison and Michael Madsen.
This is the first picture I ever took of Trini. We are down by the water in Chicago.
Axl Rose and me the night we met at the Wiltern Theater in LA. Axl and the rest of Guns N’ Roses came to see me perform that night. We’ve been friends for life since.
The Brooklyn Band that backed me up on the Dice Rules tour. From left: Frank Diorio, Horn Player, me, Richie Santa, Carmine Diorio, Robert Santa, and Sal Iuvare.
My dad and I took out an ad in Variety to announce the HBO Special and the coming of Dicemania.
Meeting Sly Stallone on the set of Lock Up. Stallone’s character “Rocky” was a huge inspiration. It was insane to then get to be friends with him.
February 21st and 22nd, 1990: I’d reached the top of the mountain. Two sold-out nights at the Garden.
Rodney, thank you for everything.
Mickey Rourke with my mom and my nephew Michael at Sly Stallone’s birthday party.
It was a dream come true to have my original Brooklyn family always at my side and looking out
for me.
The one and only Howard Stern. I am proud to call you my friend.
It was an honor to get to meet and almost work with the great Jerry Lewis.
My family with Tom Jones at the Bally’s Las Vegas Hotel. Great guy, great sense of humor, and always great to our family.
At Radio City Music Hall doing my pre-show prayer.
The Three Amigos. Selling out the Garden was a big thing, but man, the birth of my sons Max and Dillon was ten times bigger. Getting to raise my boys has meant everything to me.
The Crew: Club Soda Kenny (Kenny Feder), me, Happy Face (Mike Malandra), and Details (Dave Schuller).
Michael “Wheels” Parise.
The night before the return to MSG: Max Silverstein with Club Soda Kenny, Happy Face, and Todd Rosken.
October 26, 2000. The return of the Diceman to the Garden. Ten years after the original shows. Sold-out again. That night was for my boys.
“Uncle” Lee Lawrence. My uncle. My friend. My mentor.
Being on Entourage was the beginning of a great resurgence.
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