Comedians & Actors on Drugs (David Cross, Natasha Lyonne, Margaret Cho)

David Cross I don't remember when you talked about this was it was either on a podcast or there was like a guardian interview with you where you're just talking about cocaine doing cocaine in England yeah where where did did I read that or I heard you talk about it do you remember doing a lot of cocaine in London not more than usual I mean there was a there was like a it was a the cuz you don't seem very much like a drug guy you don't like read as a drug guy I was way I was a a big upper guy like I didn't like uh I was not a downer guy I didn't like lose or I've done you know everything a handful of times like heroin was just not not worth it to me uh did you ever do it try it yeah yeah and it was like yeah I mean it's okay uh I never shot it um and it was I probably did it I don't know I I maybe seven or eight times total heroin heroin yeah and uh um how many times would you say you've done cocaine oh [ __ ] hundreds and hundreds no one ever openly talks about cocaine I'm I'm Pro cocaine uh but it like in any any drug it has to be used in moderation I'm not a nor was I ever like hey did you read the Carl Hart book drug use for grown-ups no it's a but he's a Bud he's a he's a he's he's professor of columia yeah and book came out two or three years ago ago and uh he's he's like you can do meth yeah you can do all you all this stuff I did lots of Crystal I love really yeah God damn it that's great I had one specific rule was very very important to me and it's why I uh of all the things I've ever done I've told this story before I did crack in London and this must have been the thing I heard yeah and uh and it was amazing and and I was with two friends and three strangers and they were everyone pict you smoking it out of a pipe like a Wood Pipe like a British something or whatever that's called like I'm sure like hes yeah um we were there was this guy who uh was a like a very well-known uh Town character figure in um Camden cam to town which was like the Hipster this is pre- shortage and all that and preh acne so cam to town was the the place and um and this guy would perform in the back of a fish and chip place and uh and he was kind of rockabilly whatever and uh and he just everybody knew him he was one of those guys and I don't know how it came to be but me and two friends and that guy and then these two older kind of funny cackle uh British women um you ever read viz British comedy magazine oh they have uh they There's a comic called two fat slags and they were kind of like them um ended up at this guy's [ __ ] tiny shitty dirty flat with a uh the one thing I'll never forget is a empty fish tank with uh dirty dishes in it and we smoked crack and I could not understand these women these women were like Northern England so that's really tough to hear and uh um to to comprehend and uh and their accents and uh and it was just weird right and we smoked crack all night until the third time maybe fourth time and it was like are we going to get some more cuz we kept buying more and I was like if I don't leave now because I was doing shows I was there had a month at the Soho theater on Dean Street Soho and uh I was like if I don't oh I I didn't even tell you my I'm sorry I've went through all this so my rule my one rule is if I ever [ __ ] up a performance or can't make a performance because of drugs or drinking I have to quit that thing I have to quit and that was my promise you have to quit the substance not comedy the substance yeah if it's messing with with my ability to uh be professional to's rule is you have to sleep anytime people have psychosis from drugs it's because they haven't slept yeah I mean all the B which is a fake story anyway but like any psychotic episode the first question you should ask is have you slept and the answer is always going to be no yeah so he's like take a sleeping pill do whatever you have to do yeah that makes sense I've been on you know was on some Benders where you just sort of come to you you not that you were unconscious but you're doing this stuff and you're walking around and then you just sort of regain Clarity and you're like what it's 10:00 a.m. I'm in Tompkin Square Park and I've got a tall boy in my hand what am I doing go home it's time to go home you know and uh but yeah I I I said no I got to go and uh and that was the one and only time because it was great yeah it's great and uh that's actually a joke I think from Mr show it's light detective sketch have you ever done crack what about crack do you ever some crack yes dude you're out there I hadn't done it at that point but uh uh Jay had and uh um he was like oh yeah it's great yeah it's the funny it's like the first time I've ever seen someone on television say yeah it's I think the L yeah it's great it's crack yeah it's incredible it was great it's crack it gets you really but I was not a downer guy but I love doing again in moderation and I wasn't like let's do fat ra you do it like up like celebrator or would you just do like I don't know feel like no no it was only as a a practical function to keep staying out so I would I would not do big lines but I would have some and I would do bumps you know and we'd be out uh and I I was a a bachelor who was kind of famous with some money in the East Village in Lowry side with some celebrity and why the [ __ ] wouldn't you do that by the way the Locust of your celebrity if you're going to be like you're extremely famous you're Will Smith in that side and Brooklyn but I mean I was having a blast and I was going out drinking and meeting girls and hanging out with friends and going to shows and and and so I never did like you know uh Coke where right you know I'm going to talk like that and I'm all jittery I would just it was it was as I said to my wife it's like it's it's like a cup of coffee for your nose you know it was I wasn't doing like stuff where I was an [ __ ] enhancing knock yourself out that's what I that's what I that's how I did Coke so I did a lot of Coke but I didn't I wasn't a cokehead I wasn't a fiend I just and it's also I you know literally I knew everybody there was a guy at every bar you just you find out who it is and you go grab a bag and that's it it's it's easy I mean it's you go and then you go in the bathroom do some bumps and you're like all right let's have another drink yeah great cocaine so yeah it's fantastic um are you sponsored by cocaine hopefully if you'll do a funny read on it is it safe to say You're Sober I Natasha Lyonne don't I don't really like to I think a lot of people uh do but I just feel like my take is you know I I don't want to be like an an advertisement for anything I just think that life is so tricky that you just never know so I just don't want anyone you I try to be open about my experiences anyway yeah I mean I certainly I certainly don't I certainly was somebody who was you know uh notorious and Infamous for for getting high and obviously that's not my lifestyle anymore um but I definitely uh I definitely identify with that uh typology of of person or something I don't know that you know like the brain ever changes or the way you hear music or something yeah really changes so in in that sense it's always sort of like in other words I'm somebody who still needs to be kind of like walking these streets at 5:00 a.m. sort of you know just thinking thoughts in the middle of the night almost like alone and you know or within the company of strangers uh and just to say and in that sense I don't know that I'm fully uh you know it's like I'm a a changed person in terms of I'm not I'm no longer uh like self-destructive in these same sort of violent ways that land you in you know hospitals and DUIs and that kind of a thing when you think about that being like that yeah is it about self-acceptance is it about you feel a like do you ever think about like your motives for because I you are you're like a legit interesting I don't know anyone that's kind of like you thank you uh you know the other thing is so weird is uh I don't know if you're getting older but I've been getting older so what's happening now La is we we FL down all this kind of shenanigan when we sort of like even when my mind sort of tells me a story about myself it's so you know connected to this like great event that are like my ears as a junkie and really in the sort of like history of that timeline that's now like a blip in the axis of you know what I mean there's like sort of 25 years before now there's like almost you know 20 years later which is weird cuz I'm 22 but it's it's sort of weird because that it's such a sort of seminal event but I think so in a way I no longer see it as being so much about drugs and alcohol per se but more almost like I was at at Tish like a film and philosophy double major I was like skipped my senior year of high school so I was there by the time I was like 16 years old and in that time I was already sort of a philosophy major like those were my interests at yeah and I think that the truth my story was more like I'd seen so much you know [ __ ] up [ __ ] as a kid alcoholic crazy parents and that kind of a thing and I'd already been a child actor I was never a child star and uh and I think probably because of like my and you never will be again do you hear me and God damn it not if you keep this sillly uh and I think probably because I always have like big hair and like a you know this personality or whatever my accent it seems like I'm such a an extrovert you know but in fact I think probably as a kid it was more that I was cataloging things like a a witness sort of more like a and maybe it was just like a coping mechanism but almost more like a a writer or a filmmaker like I was sort of watching vignettes because they were weird and traumatizing and [ __ ] up and there'd be like 60s music blasting from these crazy parents so I would sort of see them as sequences and had like an imagination because I was already in the language of sort of like on camera we make you know we sort of tell stories and I did I got sort of you know famous like American Pie slums of Beverly Hills and then I sort of like dropped out of college and sort of aggressively like dropped out of that life because I found it to be not where it was at on this very sort of like Teenage almost um like Jack carak Bowski level that I was like what is this thing like the top of the mountain is just you know Fame and like siant and free clothes and what the [ __ ] is this you know like that's where and you know my parents had put me in that business and so it just didn't add up and I don't think I had the sort of proper support network to say you know no this is just an aspect of self I was very entangled with like the artist's trip of you know either this is a substantive life or it's not so I think I really went under into like this sort of belly of the Beast of to see how the other half f in a way that was very like um pseudo intellectual teenager who's obsessed with a certain kind of literature that is traditionally very male Lone Wolf like expat I want to see what it's like sort of you know boozy Under the Skin and it's just non-filter cigarettes and then I think almost like a a narc who went in too deep it was like the nature of addiction you really look back on it like almost you were just like I just see what this is like just for a second not even for a second but more I was like this trip of like this sort of ego trip of I kind of I did it you know what I mean congratulations American Pie and magazines and I as you said American by I remember thinking when I saw you that you were in it I was surprised you did it yeah I I was like I was surprised they got you I was like they got Natasha Leon wow like the good for them and I was like I didn't I just thought you were a cool Indie yeah person and I think probably I was just sort of confused like sort of like now I it's it's very fun being you know a girl just because it sort of like time has caught up or something I couldn't agree more the women in their 30s are unlike like I'll meet girls I'll be like you know women couldn't be like you 20 years ago then it was more I just think I was sort of like what is this whole gig you know and uh anyway so I think like a narc that was in too deep I sort of you know drugs are catching so I kind of like uh you know you if you're weak yeah and uh and then it was sort of like the the journey out was really the Dark Nights of the Soul because it was not like she's back you know what I mean it was a whole [ __ ] extravagance of you know you better go on this spiritual Quest cuz you've got nothing else kid like you that was really where I saw that I burnt down the whole house and then now it's like I spent almost 20 years sort of rebuilding and but almost then it was more like a choice to kind of get back into all these things so all the relationship sort of changed of you know people like you know uh you know Maya Rudolph and Amy po that I knew back then it was suddenly like Amy and I were co-creating a show or Maya and I were like making a production company or it just felt more okay there's a different way to do this whole game that makes sense for someone like me and that all that experience isn't wasted but anyway just to say that it's it's sort of it's it's weird now looking back at all that stuff in the language in which you have to talk about it to make it make sense sort of you know like season one of Orange Is the New Black I had to sort of talk about it in a way that would be you know palatable to people sort of re accepting that per it's just it's all so weird when you talk about the nature of humanity and how we don't fully give ourselves like the full breath of The Human Experience is all I mean I say all that only knowing that we know each other and part of you know the excitement of you doing this is that you're somebody who does see things that way so that's all so that that was a thank you yeah kind of and then I went downtown and somebody Margaret Cho handed me this Jamba Juice filled with psilocybin mushroom and I drank the whole thing and I was not right in the head for a while after that it took about 13 years to kind of come down off of that that if anyone had paused it and said how long I would not have I wouldn't have even put 13 years as one of the options for how long it took 13 years 13 years what the first eight hours of after you drank the Jamba Juice So you so you're you you're a successful comedian yeah you're famous you've done shows I'm the one that I want all the popular specials and you then you kind of go and you're living a extreme alternative life yeah you start some kind of weird business look it up if you want and the woman tanks it and then you're Furious Furious you go downtown wh where downtown it was this party that I had um I used to have one of those egg chairs you know that has like stereos inside very cool mid-century thing so I gave it to this artist and he made an installation of it and so I was going to the the gallery to see it and uh I don't remember who it was somebody just handed me a psilocybon drink and I just drank the whole thing and it's like knowing what it was knowing what it was and being full was this breaking your sobriety or had you done totally breaking my sobriety to after 10 years yeah totally seven years totally uh and but not only that I wasn't e eating sugar I wasn't eating so it was a lot it was everything and nothing processed everything uh would just went down went down and after that I just didn't go I was like out for 13 years out of my mind recent fairly recently 16 2016 I finally came to my senses or was brought to my senses what were the 13 years like I was just drinking and on drugs you went back into yeah a c crazy addiction and and and probably still high from the sill up in mushrooms like probably still out of it like I think that what do you think it did to you if you could part if you could guess it was just like I had lived so rigidly like it's the monastic life for seven years and thinking like I'm going to be which in and of itself is its own addiction and own like I like it I like fasting I like like the Catholic in me likes the of self flatulation part of it yeah yeah and you and you really did it I did I did it and then it was did you feel better or did do you even remember how you felt physically is it when people go do you feel better because I'm vegan I'm like not really I did you did feel better I did I think that there was things about it that I thought was really um remarkable what was also weird was things that were very wrong which were like I didn't realize like I stopped having a period for several several several years during that like which is really weird yeah um that shouldn't happen especially in my 20s at that time you know um I just St I uh just stopped really understanding what what everything was like made for like I was so like outside of the realm of being able to do anything but you're still a comedian right yeah yeah still do com it's going great yeah it's going great and but you but OB stage it's like just so rigid you couldn't eat anything were they in tupperware like or was in everything was in like well Tu properly Tupperware plastic so that didn't I didn't have like a thought about like recycling or anything like that or plastic um but I could you just couldn't go to restaurants you couldn't go you couldn't have anything at a club there was just nothing you nothing there for you nothing anything possible did you feel righteous no I just felt so removed from any real ability to engage with Society but did that make you feel righteous or you just felt uh alienated probably alienated a bit righteous at first but then alienated but then I was also around people who were doing the same thing so all my friends were also trying to like be raw vegans as well yeah I mean whenever I walk past the raw vegan place I'm like was that place on uh West Third in New York it was like rainbow it was by myu but it was there forever and the thing about raw vegans they don't look healthy no they none of them look healthy they look palid and sad it's just there's it's just a a life of strife and I was doing a lot of yoga and then I thought oh I'm going to go and I'm going to be a yoga teacher and then I was taking all of these classes from beam who actual beam who was so mean it's not with the documentary he's so mean the women of the trash yeah I pick them from trash and give them life and uh so abusive to all the students and everybody trying to like become a teacher and a place stunk like in New York or LA in La just stunk like sweaty people asses and Fe and lots of feces ladies so much uh yeah this is what I mean like you're interesting you make I've you've never not been interesting I don't even know that yeah and did the what tell me the first eight hours of the mushrooms well I was so high and then I came back to my house and um everybody was kind of like looking at me like my husband was looking like what that's so weird that you did that and then um my animals were just really scared I had three dogs and they were like all like something something's very wrong and they would just avoided you yeah they just didn't want to they didn't want to talk to me they didn't want to be petted they didn't want anything to do with me and I was just out of it and it took me a long time to sort of not be really altered from that trip but then it just gave me the permission to do any drug and eat anything after that and did you was any of it enjoyable yeah totally yeah well that's the thing with drugs and alcohol and food it's like it's enjoyable but it's also not because it's just like it's enjoyable for the initial first part but then it just becomes really like oh you want more or you're trying to not be hung over or whatever oh it's all reaction to the F the thing you did most recently yeah so it's just trying to get that balance of whatever chemicals right and I could never do it I could never quite achieve what was good about the high that I remembered what was good about this what was good about this and hey did you like that did you like that yeah did you like it though you want more don't want to work would rather watch videos of me grab assing with people first of all go up here to subscribe and then go up here to uh watch more Clips this is like when the weatherman says there's a high pressure system coming in a little I'm not really used to the green screen