The Michigan Daily - Wule 4 4c. - Thursday, April 11, 1996 - 3B

Andrew Dice Clay attempts comeback with TV special

DEAN BAKOPOULOS
Sound and Fury
R~edRosej'

are

dead

pril is indeed the cruellest
month. At least in Ann Arbor it
s. Cold temps and TA
walkouts. But above all, you can't go
anywhere without hearing some
mushhead senior giving a weepy farewell
address to the University.
Take for example my cohort and
fellow columnist Mike Rosenberg,
author of the "Roses are Read" column
Page 1 of Weekend, etc. Now I
;Onderstand, dear readers, that most of
you probably skip Rosenberg's column
on a weekly basis, as I do. But if you
managed to read it this week without
spoiling your dinner, you probably
experienced the nauseating drivel of
"Rosey"'s farewell column. Sob, sob.
Aw, poor Roseywosey. Man, you're
breaking our hearts. Does this guy really
think anyone will miss him? Here's a
fellow who insulted every woman on
us with his somber homage to Sports
lustrated's swimsuit issue. And let's not
blame the blatant misogyny of that
column on an attempt at irony. Rosey
doesn't even know what irony is, in fact.
He told me that his mother still does his
irony when he goes home for a visit.
Don't be surprised by Rosey's
misogyny Right now, this guy is working
on a covert plan with the Board of
Regents to convert all sorority houses into
*onut shops. That's right, Kappa Kappa
would be the Jellies, Sigma Floobah
would be the Chocolates, Blubba Blubba
would be the powdered and so on. Each
sorority would be a donut shop, specializ-
ing in a certain kind of donut. You could
soon hear eager first-year students
.shouting, "Eeek! I just got accepted into
the Blueberry Cake house! Eek!" All
because of that donut-addicted slacker
Mike Rosenberg.
M is first love is donuts, the glutton's
~eod love is the Magic Wok. He says
:he still walks normally, but he thinks just a
few more meals and he'll be able to amble
around here magically. It's all in the
f Magic Wok soy sauce, he says.
Now about Rosey's column bashing
Pat Buchanan: I don't think it's right to
talk about Daily staffers personal lives
in the pages of this paper, but let's just
say a certain guy whose column appear
*n Page 1 in Weekend, etc. each week
does a little work for Buchanan's
campaign.
Oh yes, and isn't it funny how the
word "columnist" sounds just like
"Communist?"
Just skimming this year's letters to the
editor, one can see Mike ain't exactly the
most popular kid on this campus. He gets
only one e-mail each term, and that's from
the CRISP office. He's the only kid who
ill gets locked in lockers. And he had a
once in college. It came in a big fruit
basket his mommy sent him with figs and
bananas and oranges.
You'd think with his lack of a social
life, Mike would at least dedicate
himself to his studies. Not so, although
I do remember that he went to class
once. They were showing a movie, he
said, and "Hey, free movie." He said he
left when he realized the movie was a
ok, too, and he didn't want "to read a
ok or nothing," he said.
Not that Mike has ever been sober
enough to study, despite his that opaque
facade as Mr. Temperance. A typical
after-work discussion with Rosey as he is
leaving the Daily (presumably to go the
Magic Wok):
Me: Hey, I feel sorry for you. I'm
going to let you take me out and buy
me some beers.
Rosey: Actually, I don't drink very
Ouch at all.
Me: No?
Rosey: Naw, but I'll just have three
scotches, a bottle of wine and 12 pints
of beer or something. You go ahead

and drink.
Even when Mike was editor in chief
(read: symbolic monarch of the Daily) he
spent most of his time throwing up on his
shoes. (A lovely pair of velcro-strapped
rax you've got there by the way, Mike.)
And now that Mike has gotten his
diploma (from an ad in the back pages of
Hustler, but no matter), he needs ajob.
How about a doorstop? Maybe a
paperweight? A lamppost? An oil rag?
You'll find something Mike.
Oh. l know what you're thinking, good

By Brian A. Gnatt
Daily Music Editor
America's most notorious foul-
mouthed comic, the sexist, homophobic
and vulgar Andrew "Dice" Clay ismak-
ing a comeback - or at least he's
coming back.
After selling out arenas, dropping
out of comedy, reappearing on a CBS
sitcom as simply Andrew Clay and now
reappearing as the famed "Diceman" in
an upcoming HBO special, Clay's ca-
reer has been quite a rollercoaster ride.
Back in his "Ford Fairlane" gear -
black leather jacket, slicked back hair
and cigarette in hand (he only holds
them these days because he stopped
smoking 1 1/2 years ago), Clay has
been gearing up for his HBO one-hour
stand-up special, "Assume the Posi-
tion."
"This is going to be the greatest spe-
cial HBO has ever done," the comic
said in an interview with The Michigan
Daily. "It's my greatest work so far.
You know how they always say Oliver
Stone's 'Kennedy,' Oliver Stone's
'Nixon.' It's Andrew Dice Clay's 'As-
sume the Position.' It's very powerful.
It's very unnerving. It's very funny.
That's what I like about it more than
everything I've done in the last few
years as far as stand-up goes. It's one
thing to be angry; it's another thing to
put the funniness into the anger, and it's
a good mix on this one."
With two of his comedy albums cer-
tified gold, numerous cable and televi-
sion appearances, a starring role as the
rock'n'roll detective in the film "The

ANDREW DICE
CLAY: "ASSUME
THE POSITION"
TV: HBO
When: May 11
Adventures of Ford Fairlane," and, most
recently, the lead role on CBS's "Bless
This House," Clay has strewn himself
all over the entertainment industry.
"I have such a crazy career," the 38-
year-old comic said in his heavy Brook-
lyn accent. "There's always so much
bullshit surrounding it, sometimes you
get pissed off and you're not sure what
you want to do. So I laid back for a
while, came back and did this TV show,
which was fun to do forthe small amount
of time I did it. But for the past year and
a half, I've been working on this mate-
rial, and it's really powerful and it's
really funny. And that's what I like. I
don't mind the dirtiness, I don't mind
the vileness, as long as it's funny."
But it's the dirtiness and the vileness
that helped to propel Clay into the main-
stream in the first place, making "The
Diceman" a household name. The con-
troversy he created over bits like his
famed nursery rhymes and other politi-
cally incorrect materiel fueled Clay's
career in the early days, but it remains
to be seen whether the politically cor-
rect '90s has a place for his fiery mate-
rial.
"It's not about the controversy -
it's about being funny, and being funny

means saying whatever you feel like
saying to make people laugh," he said.
"I'm not saying this to 5-year-olds.
I'm saying this to adults. I never in-
cited riots. I did gay material, I still do
the sex material, but it wasn't to hurt,
it was to make jokes. If you take away
the people, what are you going to say?
What are you going to make jokes
about? Trees?"
Clay's return to stand-up comedy in
1996 raises questions as to the comic's
motives and credibility. After dropping
the "Dice" from his name when his
sitcom began last fall, Clay told Enter-
tainment Weekly that"Dice" was all an
act, and he hated doing the routine near
the end of his touring. He said his sitcom
character Burt Clayton was the real
Clay. But since the cancellation of
"Bless This House," he has again picked
up the "Dice" and returned to his old
material in what could easily be seen as
selling out to keep his career alive.
"None of it is selling out because
it's all entertainment," Clay said. "I'm
in entertainment, I'm not in politics.
When I did the television show, I sort
of understood what they meant. I'm
not dumb. So I understood that they
wanted to drop the name, but I was
like, 'I think it's a mistake.' It's like
taking the leather off of Fonzie's back
or taking a baseball bat out of a great
baseball player's hands. He can't hit
the home run.
"I feel now that I'm back on stage as
a stand-up, I'm getting to give my fans
what they really want from me, which is
basically to laugh harder than they've

He's bad - real bad ... but please watch his HBO special.

ever laughed in their lives. That's why
I sold out the arenas, that's why my
albums went gold - because I didn't

just make people chuckle, I made them
laugh their fucking balls off. That's
what I like to do."

P

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