Getting back to nature with Andy Dick.
(Credit: Reuters/MTV)
But as Californians, we're lucky to live on a coast that supports all things fruity—including weird detox methods and vanity-driven diet plans. We're also, I guess, lucky to live in a city with more rehabbed celebrities than anywhere else on the globe. And who better to turn to for post-binge advice than L.A.'s own merrymaker/overindulger, Mr. Andy Dick?
We heard he was into new-agey fasting, so we hit him up for some post-indulgence advice. We had no idea we'd be talking about adult diapers and celery juice.
So, Andy Dick, how often do you fast?
Whenever I feel like it. Sometimes I go years without fasting. This is my first one I’ve done in, I’m thinking, one year. And it really, really takes you back to ground zero, if you do it proper.
You’re only having juice then?
I do a mixture of fresh juices and powdered or freeze-dried E3, which is an algae.
What about that Master Cleanse?
The Master Cleanser, which I’ve done over ten times, is fun and it’s kinda the poor man’s way to fast because it’s cheap as fuck. There’s barely anything to buy. It’s literally water, cayenne pepper, maple syrup and lemons, so you make that concoction and you can just sip it all day long. You know, if you’re really anorexic, you can actually go on that diet and work your way back up to food.
Well, I imagine that maple syrup is probably more caloric than Diet Coke and cocaine.
Yeah, it is. That sounds like the Dr. Dickley’s old school diet!
Have you ever woken up somewhere and been, like, “Oh god, I’m gonna need to start a fast”?
Well no, just whenever I’m sick. What happens when you shut down your digestive system is that your body goes… into…it’s called auto…something, it means “eating itself” in Latin [autophagocytosis, from the Greek]. It starts to eat itself and it always eats the dead and diseased cells first.
Really?!
Yep. Guaranteed! But that’s why you need to support your system with nourishment while you’re fasting. You also need a laxative when you fast, so the stuff is going all the way through you.
Ew. How do you hold down a job and also, um, flush your system out?
You just have to make sure that you do it early enough that you leave some time, leave an hour or so to let it all… See, at first it flushes right out, but after that it leaks for about an hour after.
Oh God! So you just have to get up early before you go to work?
Yeah. I’ve done so many fasts that I’ve had everything happen to me. I’ve had leaky butt, I’ve actually crapped my pants. One time when we were filming the Ben Stiller Show, that’s 20 years ago, I was doing a fast and they were saying “Really, you’re not eating at all?” I’m going on like “No, you don’t even understand! I have more energy than you could ever know!” and I jumped up to show how full of energy I was, and promptly fainted. Out cold. And not only that, my head hit the side of a cabinet; I broke my glasses, got a black eye.
Did you convert anyone to fasting?
No, they ran the other way.
Have you ever needed any diaper action for “system flushing”?
During a News Radio photo shoot, I remember having to take my underwear off and wrapping it up, burying it in the garbage so deep cause I didn’t want anyone to find it…and then had this total paranoia, like, “(Someone’s) gonna sniff it out, find it in the bathroom, find it in the bottom of the garbage, unwrap that present, and gonna parade it around.”
Um, this is making me never, ever want to fast…Ever.
Well that was when I didn’t do it as well as I do now.
What have you consumed today, so far?
I wake up and I do a bunch of herbs… I don’t even know what most of them do. I just listen to an herbalist and take about 20 herbs, and then about 20 dropperfuls of different, um, you know, herbs. And then some vitamins that go along with my green shake.
Is there ever any inclination to just debauch and eat some Ho-Hos?
Everyday. When I start dreaming about donut holes it’s time to start thinking about getting off the fast. There was one time I was going to go for forty days, and forty nights, like Jesus, and I only made it to day 21… Twenty one days, and the reason I stopped is plain and simple.
Why?
I got fucking hungry!
If you’re so inspired, get your fast on for the New Year, and if you’re looking to bro out with Mr. Dick, catch him in person judging the Manhattan Monologue Slam at Safari Sam’s at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 9, directly followed by a screening at 10 p.m. of Andy’s new movie: “Danny Roan: First Time Director.”
Alie Ward is Events editor at Metromix Los Angeles.
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