 Hey everyone, it's Neil Brennan. It's a block's podcast. My guest today is a guy who I used to go to tapings of his TV show. Is that true? That's totally true. I never knew that. Yep, I used to go to tapings of Mr. Show with Bob and David. Excuse me, sorry, I'm sorry. Oh. Hey everybody, I'm David Cross. No, no, no. Wait, you'd come with us to the taping? Mm-hmm. I would go. I wouldn't have remembered. No, I wouldn't. You're our brother. No, no, no. I would go and sit in the audience. 1994. Yeah. Yep. First one. See? All right. See, I told you. And then he was on, it was Mr. Show, that was like five years. And then he did, he was on Arrested Development. I'm afraid I just blew myself. And the whole time he's been a great comedian. And his name is David Cross. And he has a podcast that I don't write and name down. And he is a new comedy special called Worst Daddy in the World. That's on YouTube. And he's got a few on Netflix and HBO. All over there. Yeah, they're fucking, come on. Grow up. Scattered to the winds. Yes, I used to go to tapings. I didn't go to that. No, I didn't go to like a ton of them. But I went to a few of them. No, I didn't. It was the, to explain to someone what like alternative comedy was at the beginning. Yeah. Now seems, I mean it was 27 years ago or whatever. 30 years ago. 30 years ago. I mean, that label came out a little later. I think it was somebody from the LA Weekly did a article. I'm young. What is the LA Weekly? Again, that's one of those things. Are you serious? No, I know the LA Weekly. But you know what I mean? Like, what is it, mister? A CD. All right. Clean Air. What? Tap water. It was, well, New York tap water is great. No, tap water is fantastic. I mean, there is no alternative anymore. It's all pretty much that. But yeah, back in the early, early, early days, 80s, I guess. I put the whole thing on Janine Garofalo. The professional darted what we now consider alternative comedy. Somebody else gave her squarely, gave her credit as well. Oh, I think she was it. She, I mean- Oh, Bob did, Bob in his book. Yeah, I think she pretty much, you know, I was with her in Boston and there was just, nobody was just doing that at all. Just going up with- You would have a notebook. Notebook, scraps of paper. Not nice clothes, not presentational in the hall. And not doing, not doing like, you know, set up punchline tag type stuff. I heard about you. I think, well, I heard about you from mothers, maybe it was later. I was kind of roommates. Sam Cedar had an apartment in New York or an apartment in LA that I stayed in and then John Benjamin would come out and stay there. Yeah. Well, John was in, John and Sam were in my sketch group in Boston. Yeah. So- So did I know you back when- Not really, no. When did I meet you and your brother too? Yeah, probably in the 90s, late 90s. And then I was, me and Chappelle wrote Half Baked in 97 and then I started- But you were in New York. You were in New York. I was, but then I moved down line. Quietly. Quietly, yeah. Under cover of night. Shh, don't tell anybody. Yeah, I didn't tell anybody. Totally obscure person's movie. It's like when people make a big production of like, hey guys, I'm getting off social media for three months. It's really toxic. Who the fuck are you? Yeah. You and your, you're telling your- It's, you're gonna realize- 87 followers. Yeah, no, you're gonna know. And this is not performative anyway, that's what I told you. I'm interested. I like you sent good blocks in, which I'm happy about. Are you happy with your life? Cause I've always looked at you. I look at you with the same sort of category as like you and Marin and people that are had, I'm gonna put it in quotes, integrity. Artistic- Ad infestants. Integrity, and there was an anger to how you did shit. Right. And I always felt like, cause I would go to tapings and I was like, I watched the, I watched Mr. Show. I think I've seen every episode several times of Red N' A and we spoke about it like a huge fan. You know, I would do things and I wouldn't consciously think, I bet Kross would think I'm a fucking sellout for this or whatever, but there was always this, this, I don't wanna say superiority because you were so, it didn't feel like you were winning, but it felt like you, there was like a way to do things. There was a right way and a wrong way. Sure. And I do, do you feel like that, looking back on that, was I right about that? And do you still feel that way? There's a lot to be covered in that. I don't, I wouldn't say right versus wrong. I'd say it's, first of all, it's, you know, integrity is subjective. You know, for some people, I'm a sellout, for some people, I'm not. And I- That was like, that's also a real 80s, 90s term of like- Yes, yes. Sellout and integrity and all that shit. And I've talked about this before because I don't think it exists anymore. People don't even know what you're talking about. Like sellout, they're like, what are you talking about? Did you get a Super Bowl ad or not? Sellout is an ad that's not on the Super Bowl. I think to me, at this point, and I'm gonna jump ahead, and I'm gonna, at this point, I think it's about, are you taking on everything? Like when I see, to me, the thing that's, there's not a lot of distaste for stuff left. If I know you're blatantly lying, then that's, I find that unethical and there's no integrity. If you are hawking something that you know is bad or the company behind it is bad, that is also lack of integrity. But for me, it's like, like if you're doing the Capital One bank card ads, and you're doing Amex ads, and you're doing smart water ads, I mean, that's just like kinda, and I do feel now in which I didn't when I was younger, yeah, if I can get the money, take the money. Like when I remember hearing Modest Mouse on some car ad, this is 10 years ago maybe, and thinking good. I mean, Isaac Brock is a genius and he works his ass off and he's brilliant. And the records aren't making him a ton of money. So yeah, make some money, enjoy life. You have a kid, two kids? I have a kid, yeah. Which that changes shit, I would assume as well. In terms of like, okay, now I absolutely need money and I'm a lot less rigid. I'll tell you what, this may be surprising, but that's not the case. I talked about this in my special. I think, I mean, I have a rich kid, certainly rich by my standards growing up, it bothers me. And she's great and she's smart and she's all the things a parent would say about their kid, but she's spoiled and that bothers me. And I really try to infuse everything that is good about our lives with, and we also live in Brooklyn, so we're around the corner from a treatment center. So I mean, you're gonna see messed up people, she sees it on her way to school from school, you know? Yeah, and you did that intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, what I did was I got a bunch of people addicted. They did, it's easy to do. And so they now go to the treatment center and it's, you know. And you'll stay to fentanyl overdose in the mornings? I'm totally 100% fentanyl free, that's part of my services. That's the David Cross promise. If I get you high, it will not, it'll be no, not even a trace of fentanyl, yeah. But you will stay high for a good decade and your wife is- Until your daughter learns. Yeah, and I have to say, don't drink, don't do drugs. Look, look at that guy shitting himself. And he'll be like, play it up a little bit. Hobble. Yeah, right. Well, they don't have to, I get them good stuff. So you have a rich daughter and that you've resented a little bit. Yeah, I'm at the point where, I've saved up a lot of money. I don't, if I had not married my wife, I would have so much more money. Is that true? Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't- You're married to an actress, Amber Hamlin, very successful, popular actress and great actress. You know, she's amazing, she's, you know, we were raised wildly differently. I mean, she had, she was the only child she's been working since she was 11. And she had to like, support her family growing up, right? Kind of. I mean, sort of. Yeah. I mean, her dad is, you know, a legend, but they weren't getting a whole lot of residuals back in his day. Yeah. And so, yeah, she was a breadwinner for sure. But she also just gets money and spends it and doesn't really think. Like, she doesn't know what a UPI is, you know? She, when you go shopping, there's no, like, I'm always looking at the UPI, Universal Price Index, tells you how much- Is it on the thing? I don't really know what an UPI is. It's the most important number. So you'll see some olive oil, right? Yeah. And it's $18.50. And you're like, Jesus Christ, that's a lot of money for olive oil. And then you'll see another one that's, you know, $9.20. And you go, oh, I'm gonna get the $9.20, but because of the packaging and all that stuff, the UPI is the number for how much you're paying per- Ounce or whatever? Ounce or whatever the increment is, you know? And that's on the thing. It's to the left of your price number. Thank you. Yeah, trust me, you will learn, you'll go and get a box of cereal, right? Well, I'm gonna get the cheaper one. This one's seven and that one's 11. Well, you're getting a lot more product for your $11 than you are for the seven- And they don't buy Ounce. They don't buy, like, they don't, it's not- It'll be right there. Whatever, whether it's liquid or- Right. Yeah, UPI, look at the UPI. Fantastic. Especially things like butter, right? You're like, well, this butter's cheaper. You're like, no, not really. Not when you add it up. Anyway. And she doesn't pay attention as to, I don't either. But like, here's an example. And listen, I'm not bitching. I love my wife. This is, we're just very different people. I was one of three kids. My dad left us in mountain of debt and my mom struggled and we were latchkey kids. Obviously, he had to work and we'd come home to school and she wouldn't be home. You know, I'd have to take her and my sisters and we had no money. So there was, do you had to make choices and do you want shoes or do you want this? And you learned about that. And you also learned not to waste a thing. You don't throw food away and you don't buy more than you need, right? You buy what you need. And just those little things from growing import that are, and listen, there's another thing, I don't want salmon mush out of a can with powdered milk. That's what we got. If you're hungry, you eat that. That's it and you eat because you're hungry. So, but there's none of that in our house. There's like- And you believe that's constructive as a lifestyle. Like you think it's worth, do you think it makes better people to grow up in some level of poverty or tension around money? I'm not necessarily better, but certainly more equipped to deal with adversity and literally anything that might come your way that is an inconvenience. I can sleep on a cement floor, I'll be okay. My range of what I can be not necessarily comfortable with but when it comes to temperature, like I can deal with 100 degrees and I can deal with it when it's 12 degrees. I just, I don't bitch. I'm with you, cause I didn't grow up. I grew up whatever and there are times when I think I'm better equipped for life, right? And then there are other times where I think if the shit went down or whatever, if there's some sort of giant shift in how people live, I kind of believe that rich kids, whatever would figure it out in about two days. They would just adjust to whatever. Now, if you're saying that- What makes you say that? Because they would have to. Cause people are- Well, everybody has to. Right, but I'm saying we're pre, the human body wants to stay alive, right? And you'll just adjust your standards too. But I will say you may be right if things remain calm that it'll be harder to study, it'll be harder to do difficult things. I don't know, I don't necessarily agree with that. I don't understand why a person who has been privileged would have an easier time if- Oh, I don't think it'd be easier. I think it wouldn't be, I think they would just- Adjust their attitude. Yeah, three days they'd stop talking about like it used to, he was rich and they would just be like, fuck it. You just like, in like a mill, there's a plot in platoon, like the guy who's very like, the sort of upbeat sergeant at the beginning and by the end, he's like, I don't give a fuck. Like he's just very, he's like turned completely. So I am with you in terms of like, maybe people that grow up privileged are soft. But I also think like, if they had to be hard, they would get there. But I'm with you. Let me add a little wrinkle to it. I think privileged and insulated is not good. So privileged and you have a horse farm and then you go to boarding school and all that, that's probably not good. But privileged and living in New York where you see everything, that's a little different. I think that I could see your point of view there. I think it's the insulation. And look, this kid is surrounded by love. What do you think of that relative to assuming you weren't surrounded by, yeah. My mom's side of the family, my grandmother was ice cold, weird, odd lady, just cold. And I used to say, just as for my own amusement, I'd end a phone conversation with, all right, I love you, Grammy. And then she would say, righto. She wouldn't say, it was weird. And my sister and I would always- So great. And then- Born in 1920. Yeah, 20 something. Right. And both of my grandfathers died before I was born. And then I had one grandma who was very warm, but she died of cancer when I was five or six. And then my mom's side of the family was just, so it was my grandma, my mom and her brother who went insane when he was 18 and was committed and kind of nuts. Kinda, he was. And so very small. And then my dad's side of the family, which was very boisterous and loud. And there were five kids, five or six, one, two, five kids and tons of cousins. They came over from England. And my dad was on the boat. And lived in the Bronx and Long Island scattered around. But it was really fun kinda. And very European in that sense. And, but then we moved every year, we moved somewhere else. And then we moved to Georgia, back to Georgia where I was born when I was nine. And then my dad split and just, and we barely saw him. And we just, the rest of the family just didn't have anything to do with this. I know they came down from my bar mitzvah, a bunch of people did. And that was really it. And like all the people, like they just, my dad wasn't involved, they just checked out. And so my daughter has none of that. I mean, she's just surrounded our in-laws. Or my in-laws and my family were always up. Her fucking spring break is coming up in a couple of weeks. And we wanted to take her to Northern California, go see the Redwoods. And my wife has family there and she has multiple reasons to go. We'd go to San Francisco. Napa, go to some Napa, yeah. Yeah, do wine tasting. She's got in a very sophisticated palate. But we make her spit out. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we had this, it was Amber's idea, go up to see the Redwoods. Yeah, be cool. She'll love that. And we could not get her, she was like, she was sorta into it, but she wants to go to Atlanta and hang out with my sister, sister-in-law, my mom. Like, we go to Atlanta like three times a year. You want to go for spring break? You don't want to go do this thing? Like, no, I want to see Aunt Wendy. Okay, all right. When you say that she's surrounded by love, my, because you grew up not surrounded by it, I grew up not surrounded by it in certain ways, my thought is like, again, growing up hard does make you pretty interesting. Yeah. As a person. And then you wonder, does growing up surrounded by love make you, I'm not gonna say your daughter's boring. Look, I don't know her. But do you know what I mean? Like does it, she's not gonna, she might not be an artist, Dave. Is that, what do you think? I'm quite happy with that. Yeah. That's fine. She wants to be a veterinarian, cause she learned, or she was under the impression that when you put a dog down, you shoot it. And she wants to be a veterinarian. So I, Go with that, yeah. You know, by connecting those thoughts, I think she wants to shoot dogs. Sure. But I'm fine if she doesn't. And look, I have the, if you were going to start from scratch and like, I want to build a comedian. I have all of the ingredients. So it's not a surprise. Yeah, it's funny, cause when you threw in Bar Mets, I was like, and you're Jewish? You have fucking everything. Total package. It was weird. Yeah, it was weird. And the South, and England, and abandonment, and righto. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm, okay. Well, we'll talk more about it. I would like to say- I wanna know a little bit of your background, if that's okay. Please. Just give me a- Holy shit. Yeah, youngest of 10. Oh, Irish. Yeah, Irish Catholic. Fucking 10. Yeah, just like alcohol. I'm the youngest. Alcoholic dad, violent, and mom who did her best. And you know. Well, that's also a recipe for a comedian. I know. Yeah. Yeah, my brother- Two comedians in one family. It's not good. Yeah. Not a good parent. It's not a good parent. Some went wrong. Yeah, 20% of the family is a good parent. Everybody did their best, but they weren't that good. Not a lot of natural talent. You gotta talk to Odin Kirk about his- I wanna talk to Odin Kirk. Yeah, he's got a- He's got a- Oh, yeah. Well, it's in the book. He doesn't even really go into it. I feel like the book was not- I feel like he didn't really- He didn't really. Yeah. It's tough for him. I mean, it's a tough thing, but yeah, his mom and dad were, I mean, his dad died of alcoholism and his mom was, you know- Barely scratches that in the book. Yeah, but his mom was like over the top Catholic, like- Yeah, that's in the book, yeah. In a very extreme way. Yeah. And, you know, and he's got also a large family, but yeah, you should talk to him about it. Yeah, I wish, I mean, and I say this as somebody who also, I wish he was having more fun. He's having fun. He is. I remember, like I had been hearing about nobody, his action movie for seven or eight years, he had been trying to get that thing. He had the idea that he would- He went and shot a little bit of it himself, right? Like he did like a sizzle kind of thing. I remember seeing him and he had just come back from shooting like- He was probably doing the stunt, probably showing the stunt training and stuff. He had been trying to get a project like that going for a long, long time and then everything kind of, eventually after years fell into place and he went and did, and he talked about a lot. I mean, we talk all the time obviously and it was a big thing for him. And then I went and watched the movie and it's not my kind of thing, you know? But I could see, obviously I knew the backstory, but I could see how much fun he was having. Okay, good. Okay, good. He had so much fun shooting it and getting it going and hanging out with those guys, you know, and I could tell. I could tell how much fun he was having. You know what's interesting about you? Because you were partners, but you weren't like dependent on each other. I'm really, it's interesting to watch both of you, both of your careers and like there were points where he must have been jealous of you and that, or not jealous, but like- He's not a jealous guy. Not jealous, but like, when you're in a partnership, people compare you to each other. Right. And there were points where like, you were doing crazy really well and then he was doing really well and I'm always like, I hope you guys are always, and it seems like you're always friends. Oh, God, yeah. Oh no, we're very close. We're gonna climb Machu Picchu in- For real? Yeah, in May. Who's filming it? Okay. What's, who's doing the content? Are you gonna make a documentary? We are. We will take, I mean, it'll be as minimal of, you know, one or two cameras and we'll wear GoPros and you know, how can we get those fancy glasses with the cameras in them? And yeah, we're gonna go climb Machu Picchu. But it's front, I mean- Yeah. It's filming it is, was later. The initial thing was like, hey, let's do this. Let's do this. I would like to quickly say in terms of like, if you're not familiar with Mr. Show, there's a sketch called The Audition that crosses the star up, whatever, stars of it, whatever. The star of the sketch. Well, the script is actually the star of that one. But like- Yeah, exactly. It's maybe the best comedy sketch I've ever seen and I don't say that. I say that pretty well in form. The monologue that I'll be performing now is from the play entitled The Audition by Gavin Hollerwood. Can I use this chair? Sure. Oh, no, I started it. That's part of the monologue. That's a good one. It's up there. It's fucking so good. There's just so, that show is so great and so layered and there's things just sitting here with you where I'm like, hearing shit like scammy, flammy, mammy. Meanwhile you say scammy, flammy, mammy, constant fucking, constantly. And God and the Bible. The one of some mother. Tamara. Yeah. You need to respect the baby because life is precious and God and the Bible. There's just so many things. There's so many small lines. Oh, my scammy, flammy, mammy. Oh, my scammy, flammy, mammy. I forgot all about that. It's so fucking funny and it's nonsense. It's just the tag on a sketch, you break in and sing my scammy, flammy, mammy and there's 70 of those. That was such a fun sketch and character to do. I always like doing those really earnest guys who are clueless, you know? You're very good at that. Was that, there was another guy, yeah, there was always a guy that wore a scarf who was like an inventor, rode over a common bicycle. Yeah, yeah, the, right, Dylan, I think it was. Yeah, I don't even know. Oh, that guy's like the pretentious, just, you know. He didn't have TV, he didn't. I don't watch television. Yeah, I didn't listen. I don't eat raisins, what? Why? Cause it's not a true grating or whatever the thing is. I don't eat donuts or hamburgers or any other food that has a approval of the masses. Yeah, I like, Fart and Gary was a character like that, just earnest, trying to be nice and just clueless. You also yelled at, and I think about it every time the weather's cold in LA where you're like, there was something, when maybe the first season you were filming in like a weird restaurant or something, and you were like, we fucking moved out here and we're shooting in a fucking route, or fucking broke down as restaurant. And I think that every time it's raining, like I fucking moved out here and this is what we get. It was, yeah, it was some weird place on Las Palmas, I think, just off of Hollywood and it was all we could afford. And it was a bar, it was weird. And they still had the menu up there, like windings and things and whatever. And you could literally hear crickets. There were crickets in the walls. And our audience was bussed in, we had an audience service at that point. It was a lot of kids from El Segundo who didn't quite. Who didn't really care for comedy in general or your comedy in particular, Brian didn't like your comedy. No, I remember asking some, there was a table, we were, you know, stopped down. It was a restaurant. And I was like, hey, so what do you guys think? And this guy's like, you could use a little more color in it, all right? Legitimate. It's just, you know, old white guys. Yeah, legitimate criticism, looking back. All right, let's do some blocks. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Can I ask you a question? What's the first thing you do if you had an extra hour in your day? Would you go for a run? Would you read a book? Would you show it for a friend? A lot of us spend our lives wishing we had more time. The question is time for what? If time was unlimited, how would you use it? The best way to squeeze that special thing into your schedule is to know what's important to you and to make it a priority. 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I've gone to therapy a lot of my life and it's had huge benefits that I talk about nearly every week. Almost boring. If look at me and I guess we're in so damn entertaining it'd be a real snooze fest but thankfully we're naturally pretty, pretty good. What? Pretty good. Pretty good. BetterHelp.com-slash-N-E-A-L. All right, let's do some blocks. Number one, anxiety. You say you have like standing anxiety. Yeah, before I understood what that meant and I just had a very cursory idea of like, oh, you're anxious, you're nervous or whatever and I didn't really think about it and I was, it happened since I was younger, like young, prone to depression and I always just assumed, again, ignorance, oh, I'm a depressive, I get depressed and then I, it got pretty bad. There was a couple of things that kind of triggered it when I was in Los Angeles and then I started going to a therapist which I had never done and she was amazing and then she recommended going to a psychiatrist, the one who I'm gonna describe. The one who gives, yeah. And I started seeing the psychiatrist and he's the one who diagnosed me, he goes, yes, you've got anxiety, you've got this level of anxiety and I, that was a real eye-opener because I didn't know what true anxiety was and then every, when I was- Like it was functional, that was just your personality? Not, that's, it's what I had and it's what I could treat and I could treat it both with chemicals, which I did and do and I can treat it by learning how to not go so deep, like come out of it a bit and I remember one time I was in a car driving and I was at the on sunset, trying to take a left on La Cienega. So do you remember that area? And there's like a pink dot over there. I was looking down, I was looking my left and I was looking down the hill and I was seeing the Beverly Center, Beverly Connection. A beautiful view. Yeah. And I've been in LA for maybe two years at that point and I had like a real kind of panic attack. Like attack is too strong a word, but it was just- A flood. Yeah, just overtakes and the light turns green and I can't go and people are honking and I'm like, I'm just looking, it was a- That is a, I will say, I've been not all over the world, but I put that in my top 10 most stressful intersections. Yeah. Cause going up La Cienega, you're rolling back. Yeah. I was going down. No, I get it, but I'm saying and that left, it's two lanes. Yeah. There's of course the pink dot. You don't want to fuck up in front of the pink dot. Do you not want to fuck up in front of the pink dot? And there's two this way, this way down a hill. Never would that be such a novel idea. Like, whoa, this place is like a 7-Eleven, but they'll deliver to you? It was incredible. There was nothing like it at the time. There were no apps, no. And you're like, you get toilet paper, ice cream. Yes. Colt 45. Yep, cigarettes. And cigarettes and condoms and a frozen pizza and they'll just put it in a car, bring it to you. Let me get this straight. Yeah, it was incredible. But yeah, so I had this and I knew then I was like, okay, this can't, cause I had little episodes when I was younger and a lot of it was, having moved to Los Angeles and not liking LA and also the thought of like integrity and all that stuff. Who am I? Am I being true to myself, et cetera, et cetera. And then I knew it was time to get some help. You know what's interesting? I don't remember when you talked about this. 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. 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 like a... Cause you don't seem very much like a drug guy. You don't like read as a drug guy. I was a big upper guy. Like I didn't like, I was not a downer guy. I didn't like lose or I've done, everything a handful of times, like heroin was just not worth it to me. Did you ever do it? Try it? Yeah, yeah. And it was like... I mean, it's okay. I never shot it. And it was, I probably did it, I don't know. Maybe seven or eight times total. Heroin. Heroin, yeah. How many times would you say you've done cocaine? Oh shit, hundreds and hundreds. No one ever openly talks about cocaine. I'm pro cocaine, but like in 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 grownups? No. He's a buddy, he's a head of... I like the title. He's a professor at Columbia. Yeah. And the book came out two or three years ago and he's like, you can do meth. Yeah. You can do all this. Oh, I did a bunch of crystal. I did lots of crystal. Did you really? Yeah. God damn it, that's great. I had one specific rule that's very, very important to me and it's why 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 it was amazing. And I was with two friends and three strangers and they were strange strangers. I hope everyone picks you like smoking it out of a pipe, like a wood pipe, like a British, something dignified. Mirror film or whatever that's called. Yeah, like Sherlock Holmes. We were, there was this guy who was like a very well-known town character figure in Camden, Camden Town, which was like the hipster. This is a pre-Shoreditch and all that and pre-Hackney. So Camden Town was the place. And this guy would perform in the back of a fish and chip place. And it was kind of rockabilly, whatever. And you 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, cackly British women. You ever read Viz, British comedy magazine? They have the, there's a comic called Two Fat Slags and they were kind of like them. Ended up at this guy's fucking tiny, shitty, dirty, flat with a, the one thing I'll never forget is a empty fish tank with 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 to comprehend and their accents. 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 gonna get some more? Cause we kept buying more. And I was like, if I don't leave now, cause I was doing shows. I was there, I had a month at the Soho Theater on Dean Street, Soho. And I was like, if I don't, oh, I didn't even tell you my, I'm sorry, if I've went through all this. So my rule, my one rule is, if I ever fuck 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 my ability to be professional to deliver. Karl Hart's rule is you have to sleep. Anytime people have psychosis from drugs, it's because they haven't slept. Yeah. All the bath salt, 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 gonna 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, 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 a.m. I'm in Tompkins 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? But yeah, I said no, I gotta go. And that was the one and only time because it was great. Yeah. It's great. That's actually a joke, I think, from Mr. Show. It's wide attack to sketch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you ever done crack? What about crack? Do you ever, do you want some crack? Yes. Dude, you're out there. I hadn't done it at that point, but Jay had and 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, I think the line is, yeah, it's great. It's crack. It's incredible. It was great. It's crack. It gets you really cool. But I was not a downer guy, but I love doing, again, in moderation and I wasn't like, let's do fat rails. Yeah, would you do it like celebratorily or would you just do like, I don't know, I feel like doing drugs. No, no, it was only as a practical function to keep staying out. So I would not do big lines, but I would have some and I would do bumps, you know, and we'd be out. I was a bachelor who was kind of famous with some money in the East Village and Lower East Side with some celebrity and why the fuck wouldn't you do that? By the way, the locus of your celebrity, if you're gonna be like, you're extremely famous, you're Will Smith in the Lower East 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. So I never did like, you know, Coke or you know, I'm not gonna talk like that and I'm all jittery. I would just, it was as I said to my wife, it's like a cup of coffee for your nose. I wasn't doing like stuff where I was an asshole. If it's enhancing, knock yourself out. That's what I, that's how I did Coke. So I did a lot of Coke, but I didn't, I was in a Coke head, I wasn't fiend, I just, and it's also, 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 easy. I mean, you'd 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. Are you sponsored by cocaine? Hopefully, if you'll do a funny read on it. Okay, so the anxiety and you've just sort of have, now you take Zolofta or you take something. Yeah, I'm on a very mild, so I was on and off it for a long time and I was on it for a bunch. It was great, very helpful, almost, I mean, not literally immediately, but very soon. And I had- I remember taking Zolofta worked on like the third day. Yeah, it was great, you know? And I didn't lose any part of my personality, which was my big fear and it was really helpful. And then I was in Turkey, I went to Turkey for a month and I'd been on it for a couple of years at this point and I was like having to take this, these, you know, bring my pills with me and I'm just like backpacking around Turkey and I'm like, what am I doing? I have to get up in the morning and make sure by nine o'clock I have my anti-anxiety. I was like, all right, I'm gonna go off it. And I went off of it for a while and then I found I needed to go back on. So I went back on and then when Amber and I got together and we were serious, like right away, it was basically, she moved in within weeks and that was all she wrote and- Real quick, that must have been exciting. Yeah. To have like fall in love and need- Yeah, we, I mean, it was like very quick and we were just in, which I rarely did if ever was I would always like try to- Did you question it? Were you like, is this healthy? Is this right? No, great. I mean, I, which kind of meant that it was, you know? I mean, our age difference was always a, you know, we were conscious of it, me more than her, but yeah, it's not an issue and it wasn't an issue. It was just, you know, the- I'm just talking about the speed. Whenever you're like, whenever you jump into- Oh yeah, no, I understand. I'm always like, ah. Yeah, again, it just sort of felt like, no, that's- So what's gonna happen? This has worked fine. And I think in part it worked early on too because we were, even though we like moved in together very quickly, you know, she'd go work on a project for three months and, you know, a visitor, she'd come back and then vice versa. I'd go out and, you know, I got a shoot in Vancouver for our Godel- She's not the only one working in this relationship, guys. And then I said, you know, I've been on, I'm on Zoloft. I think you should get to know me when I'm off Zoloft. And she said, okay, sure. So I went off of it. I was off for a long, long, long, long time. And then when my daughter started school, I started, like I would always, if you ask my wife, we have a place upstate and that I've had since before even met her. It's just, it's awesome. It's in the woods and it's great. It's tiny and I love it. But when we leave, when we go to leave, I'm always, it's where my anxiety kind of tends to come out and then not great, you know. Well, we got to be on the road by 2.30 and it's fucking two o'clock. And I, you know, I'm not leaving here unless the fucking floors are mopped because I'm not gonna, just, all right, chill out, dude, chill out. So when my daughter was born, I mean, that was all great and everything and I didn't really have those tendencies. But once she started school, I heard myself, could see myself doing this behavior with a fucking four-year-old, five-year-old, whatever she was. Like, well, you got to put your shoes on right now. We're gonna be late. And just like, chill out, you know? And it would just keep happening. Can you see it, because my girlfriend has a kid and I can, she'll be like, I was a little today and I could see it affecting my son. Can you, and it's like a symbiotic ecosystem where you're like, oh, I'm being a little crazy and it's making them a little crazy. Oh, for sure. And I'm hyper aware of it now, especially because it's been a thing in my life and I don't like it. I mean, I would make fun of somebody else if they were in my presence doing that. I would be like, okay, calm down. It's all right, everything's gonna be okay. And it's just a matter of whether you can control it. Even though I know what I'm doing, it's like, I can't, well, great. And it really came to four when we were playing video games. I introduced her to, you know, they have games for kids that are really great. And dumb, dumb fucking, put that peg in that thing and then you get the chocolate bunny or whatever the thing is. And I'm like, Marlo, you got to go left. I'm like, a video game. That's meant for children. And I'm going, well, no, now we gotta start over. Okay, now you've done it. Fuck. And just terrible. And then I was like, all right, I gotta do something about this. And so it was really when she started to go into school, I noticed it and then I've been back on since. Great. Really low level, low dosage, but enough to prevent me from screaming. You're talking about a video game about pegs. Block number two, which I'm looking forward to because I don't know what's ever said this, the illusion of happiness. So the illusion of happiness goes, it speaks to a little bit of what you had brought up very early on about the integrity and happiness and all that stuff and whether I'm angry or anything. It just makes me think, you really have to search and yourself and dig deep and like, am I happy? Because I know I should be happy. I have everything you could want and what you- You're living, this couldn't have gone too much better. No, I have- So as someone who's been aware of you for 30 years, Mike, this worked out really good for Cross. Yes, there were moments where it might not have. And I suppose it goes to this idea of, I should be happier, right? Because I've got everything. I shouldn't be depressed, but depression is part of the human makeup and even the things that, I have an amazing wife, I have an amazing daughter, I have a great in-laws, my family's great, we're relatively comfortable. There are two things that can make me unhappy. The state of affairs in America. Yeah, if you care about that, it's like a, yeah. It's like a commitment to misery in a weird way. Or not in a weird way, that's kind of what it is. And it used to be, I don't know, it seems like an especially severe time. Well, there's, it is more severe. It was always there, but you could, there was a feeling of like, up until six years ago, there's a feeling of, or eight years ago, there's a feeling of, oh, whatever, it's a cycle. It's a pendulum, the pendulum goes and these guys are assholes, but they'll be gone soon. And it didn't feel as weighty and existentialist, like there's a feeling, a very real feeling of like, oh shit, everything we ever knew may go away. And that's jarring and all the stuff that I grew up with making fun of the Southern Baptists and the weird rules at my school and I'd get in trouble for saying the word transvestite, what, okay, and like all that's kind of, just it's their anecdotes and they're things that didn't really deeply affect me, but the fact that those folks could, you know, have minority power in a very realistic way is frightening, you know, and disturbing and upsetting. So that's a constant thing. And I'm a bit of a news junkie, so I'm like, you know, opening myself up to all kinds of horrors that some people don't know and they're willfully ignorant and I kind of jealous of that sometimes. Like I don't watch the news, like okay. And then the other is work, work is the, perhaps the main thing that is drives my happiness or lack thereof. Do you think that's good? No, I wish it wasn't, I wish I could be happy in for its own sake. It's like this with some vocation, certainly ours, where if you don't work for three months, you start getting itchy like, and you really do think like, am I ever gonna work again? There's no other company, you don't go to a company and try to fill out. No one has to employ you. I was kind of cocky in a way for a long time, like look, if I say something and I can't be hired anymore and Hollywood doesn't wanna work with this bad boy rebel, then fuck it, I'll just do stand-up, I can always do stand-up. And then COVID came and that was a year and seven months, which is a lifetime. In this business, it's a lifetime. If I can't go more than a couple months without doing a set somewhere, like I have to, I got stuff to talk about and I wanna do it and I like the thing that it gives me where I get up on stage and it's fun and it's a year and seven months, man. Yeah. All of a sudden, I was brought down to earth and my cockiness about like, well, fuck it, I can always do stand-up. I was like, no. And that was an eye-opener. So the illusion part is- Am I, why I said you gotta dig deep? Am I tricking myself that I'm happy because I've got all these things that by every reason should make me happy? And I am happy, but am I that happy? Do you feel guilty about not being feeling- And appreciating your position? Yes, I feel guilty about, I feel guilty about having money, I feel guilty about not being happy, not being more appreciative, not tremendous guilt, but I feel it. Right, but like residual. Yeah. And do you do anything about it? Cocaine. Fanta, it's like a cup of coffee for your nose. No, I haven't done Coke in, like since my kid was born, or since shortly after my kid was born, I haven't done anything really. Yeah. Good. I mean, I drink, I still drink, I drink a lot, but I don't do, also, I mean, this kind of coincided, luckily with the, like I would just do whatever you put in front of me, stranger, be like, yeah, let's go in the bathroom, and let's find out what this is, what's gonna happen? And I enjoyed that part of life, like who knows? And, but now with a bit of like if it kill, if it's fentanyl, fuck it. No, no, this is pre-fentanyl. I would never do that now. I would never, I mean, there've been, I don't know, half a dozen times in my life where I found Coke, found a little bag of something like, oh, what's this? No, it's nothing, or I don't know what that is, but it burns, but, and you, and I would never do that now, you know? Yeah. Whether I had a kid or not. I mean, just like, it's, it's, you know, it's a Russian roulette. Yeah. I do play Russian roulette though. It was a place in midtown. That's, that's, you know, David Buster's has Russian roulette. Did they really? Yeah. I've been misjudging that place. This is interesting. Anger and dissatisfaction with your creative output. Yes, that is something. Because I would, from the outside in, you seem pretty fertile creatively. That's one of the things that when I was going to see a therapist, they were working on my ability to just go, okay, so you didn't come up with anything today. That's all right. I will get very frustrated. I also procrastinate. I mean, it's on me, you know? I'll sit down like, okay, no distractions. Yeah. Here we go. And then, you know, oh wait, what's going on in the game? Let me shoot this real quick. And then let me check my emails. Okay. All right. Oh wait, wasn't I going to get a new carry-on bag because the wheels fucked up on my carry-on bag. Well, one of the wheels was like catching a little bit. And I need like, you know, yeah. Hate to miss a flight because of a wheel. That kind of thing. And I, and I was like, I'm going to write a memoir. And I had probably a good month of like working on it, but you know, in a relaxed way. And then I haven't fucking opened that document up in, I don't know, eight months. And I get angry at myself because then I'm like, okay, you can't play the video game until you do this. And then I'm like, I'll find justification. It's so funny. Cause you're like, if I, if you asked me to guess, I go, you don't have a gaming console. Oh yeah. Chris does not have it. Oh, I love it. I remember Chris Rock told me one time he had to get rid, he was playing so much Madden, he had to throw it away. And if he hadn't, he wouldn't have written his movie top five. Yeah. He only wrote it cause he couldn't play Madden. Oh, I absolutely believe that. And I, cause it's like guys that I'm like, no, these guys are like pure artists. But I have a real deep appreciation for the breadth of some of these games. The breadth of thought is the best culture, is the most staggering cultural achievement of, I'm going to say the last hundred years. And I say that dead on. Yes. It's really fun. It's really impressive how expansive it is. But there are some stories. There are games that the story and the acting and everything about it is, and I find myself saying this to my wife who's not into that stuff at all. She's not anti, but she just doesn't enjoy it or get it. It's not her thing, but like the first, the Bioshock, the first Bioshock game, still never saw that twist coming, one of the greatest twists in video game history. I didn't play it. I don't know what the choice is. Someone told me what the twist was for this part two of the Rockstar Western game. Red Dead Red Dead Redemption. Told me the twist and I was like, that's a fucking such a cool twist. Oh, when we're done taping, I'll tell you the Bioshock is fucking genius, genius. Never saw it coming. And there are games where you just have this great experience. There's a game, I think it was an indie game called Life is Strange that was just brilliant. I have a question, I remember being in Miami, one time, driving along and being like, when was the last time I was here? And I was remembering it from Grand Theft Auto 3. Ah, yeah. And like, does that count as a human memory? Do you know what I mean? Like it was a good feeling. That's wild. It was a good feeling, a good memory of driving a convertible in Vice City. And then I was in the thing that it was based on and had the memory and I got the same oxytocin and dopamine and serotonin, like, I don't know. That should count. And that was the first one with the great soundtracks, right? Yes. Yeah, so maybe something was playing that was like. Yeah, of course. Yeah, that's why. I ran so far away. And did you purposely run over people? And walk and jump out and take their money? Like, yeah, at first you do. And then you realize it's only like 40 bucks. And you're like, fuck, I'm not gonna keep doing this. I have shit to, I have to get it. You don't want a five star. I gotta answer a mission and yeah. Yeah. Get to the garage. So yeah. Yeah, no, I'm happy that you like video games. You know, I feel like it legitimizes video games. Oh, they're so great. No, of course, of course they are. But like it's a hard thing as people who grow, it's like, it's still very, and it's a massive waste of time. I disagree. Okay, great. I don't think it's a waste of time. You don't accomplish anything after your time, not like you do with writing or something, but it's no more a waste of time than watching a very satisfying TV show or movie. It's no more a waste of time than even reading a book. I happen to hear you feel this way. Yeah. It will allow me, I will only allow myself to do it so often, but I think women hate them in my experience video, for the most part. There's plenty of video games. But it's not, but it's a very male domain. I told my girlfriend, it's like knitting for men. It's kind of just like absinthe. Yeah, but it's largely a female domain. And sometimes men do it. And I would say that video games are knitting for men, just as cocaine is a cup of coffee for your notes. Okay, so what do you, and then have you accepted the, your output is what it's just gonna, do you have a natural sort of tidal, like sometimes the tides come in, sometimes go out, you can't force it, you gotta chill and it will come. But I think that's lazy justification for not working harder. It is true, you can't force it, but you can sit and try to get something out of your system and see if you stumble upon something. Have you written jokes that way? I have a hard time writing jokes that way. I've never, I've never written a joke, sat down and written a joke, never done it. All my, I'm doing them now. These, these shows and the last four tours, excuse me, in the upcoming tour, I'll go out in the fall again, is all I do this thing called shooting the shit, seeing what sticks and then I'll go, I'll start in a small, you know, union hall, 99 seats, whatever in the basement. And I just have my notes and I go and I tape everything, take every set I ever do and just try to riff on these ideas and then slowly but surely, you know, you start getting this, oh, that idea is good and I'll put that and then you build the bit that way. That's how I do everything. Do you build it when you're not on stage? If you know it's a good bit, you'll just sort of run it in the background. Well, I can't, I have transcripts of everything I've done, right? So then I can start constructing like, oh, I riffed this line or I went off this tangent here because I'm very- You will look at it. Oh yeah, yeah. You will look at the transcript. No, I have it, you know, typed up and like I've got it on my computer and I go that line, let's like that. And then I can build the bit from there and have it written because it's all, I've got them all, you know, I've got, at this point I've got 10 sets. You had the first, I'm remembering another bit, I saw it on E entertainment television. It was about animal, it was about vegetarianism and something about dolphins. Oh, shit, that's- Going, or sorry, yeah, I'm talking about 30 years ago, it was on- Oh, that's one of the first, like, you know, when you first kind of stumble upon that bit, that is like, oh, this is like a signature, oh, this is- Yeah, no, that gave off a heat signature. Like, this is a good bit. That was one of my first, yeah. Good bits. Oh wow, that is cold old. It was, yeah, I remember- Well, it also came from a heckle. Like, I did this thing, I was doing this bit about, oh, how we don't eat dolphins, but we eat tuna because tuna's ugly and it's okay to eat ugly food. Nobody, you know, that's why we don't eat adorable food, whatever. And then somebody, I was doing that, this is in Boston, that's how long ago it was, somebody said, no, we don't not eat dolphins because they're attractive, we don't eat them because they're smart. And then I ripped, oh, well, if that was the case then we should probably be eating the retarded. And that got this crazy reaction like, oh, shit. And then I just sort of played with it in the moment and I was like, oh, well, there's the bit. Yeah. That's what- And well, I think either tag or punch line was like, and you go good with tuna. Or no, I'm sorry. And some fuck, I blew the punch line and you go good with mayo. Oh, okay. It was like tuna and sorry, tuna, you go good with mayo. So that's old, old old. Yeah, I'm a fan cross, I try to tell you. And then, all right, so you just, you've just accepted that you're, you do your best, but it's gonna come, the process is gonna be the process. Yeah, but I am partly to blame and that's what is also, it's a vicious cycle, because I will get angry with myself for procrastinating and then not, even though I, and then I'll justify it by going, well, you know, you can't force a brilliant bit. And then, and I think what helps is I just push away from the computer and the desk and I walk outside, I go outside and I live in New York too, so it's nice. And when I was, you know, I've run a couple of writer's rooms and when we would be doing Todd Margaret in London and you just, you hit this wall and then it's just a matter of, you know, diminishing returns for how long you're gonna stay there and try to figure out this fucking, how do we get, you know, this guy to go to the library because he's crossed out, you know, trying to figure out some logic thing and you just, you're just sitting there in silence and every two minutes somebody go, what if, oh no, you know, and then it's like, all right guys, let's go, we're going outside, we're gonna go, we're gonna walk around. Let's go to fucking Spit of Field, Mark, get a cup of coffee and we'll come back in 45 minutes because it's a better use of time than sitting here and, you know, and it usually is, you know, so sometimes they just gotta, if it's not coming, just go for a walk. Yeah, good. A power walk. A power, there's the only kind of walks we take guys. Have you had to entertain on the show? No, I'd love to though, give me a touch on it. Nihilism and hypocrisy, which is kind of what I open with in terms of observing you from afar. Yeah. There was a righteousness. There's always been a righteousness to you. And when I say nihilism, I mean, not in the specific clinical definition, but the idea of nothing matters, pessimism, dismissal, and I can feel that way and it's not a good way to feel and that's a block for being creative, I think, and living a good life. And part of that is because of the news I read and like, you know, good people, bad people win and good people go to jail or go get bankrupted or whatever. Or suffer. Or suffer, yeah. So that is something that I kind of have to work at to, and having a daughter has been tremendously helpful and I said this before, it's something that I wasn't conscious of, but I became aware of, which is because I got this kid and I hang out with her friends, they come over or I go to some other kid's house and I hang out and stuff. It's not fair to her, it's not right and I can't afford to have that nihilism and I need to find the good in things and be optimistic about things for her sake and for her friends. So me, you and I can do that and I can get on stage and talk about this stuff, but it has, I have to for my own health, mental health and for her, mental health, be positive about things. And that's just like, it's no, you can't negotiate with it, it's not like, it seems like dealing with my girl's kid that part of me and a parent, three and a half, part of me and a parent is like, protect them as much and then as you can and then slowly introduce heartbreak and pain. Absolutely. Like that just slowly immerse them and like this is what the world was, but just say, we're heading in this direction. We're gonna inform you. I'm gonna do that so much as a lot of it is about fairness and it's an old cliche, that's not fair. Well, life isn't fair, but I don't just say that. I try to explain in real ways that are helpful and helping her understand things. Life isn't fair for a lot of people and for example, I was mentioning the dozens of kind of junkies and pillheads and whoever on the corners of our street because of the treatment center. And it's not just like, I mean, I use it as a way to go like, well, I think he's fucked up on drugs. I would say fucked up. He took some drugs and it's making him not understand reality and he doesn't allow him to make good decisions and et cetera, et cetera. But it's also about, I will sneak something in there about maybe, who knows why, but maybe there was something that led him to that, that maybe his mom and dad weren't around and just things that. It's not a moral failure. It's just like he had a nervous system that couldn't deal with the world. And maybe he didn't get an opportunity. Maybe he wasn't able to and just little things like that. I don't just simply go, oh yeah, that dude's fucked up. I don't just go, oh yeah, that dude's fucked up. Yeah, he's a fucking bum or whatever. So, she knows my, that I had a bad dad. Cause she doesn't have, she has. Cause you won't shut the fuck up about it, go ahead. Hey, who, how do you think you've got this house? If you want a house, you'll let me live too. So, she's aware of that. And like, cause there's grandpa Russ, but there's no, my side of the family. Explain to her and she knows that and she knows there's kids in school who just have one parent and so all that stuff. I think it's a good, it's good to have an understanding of like, this is the world and this is how it works. And perhaps there's a bit of like, I guess I'm lucky to be appreciative of the things that she has that other kids don't. All right, we got a wrap. My question is, my final question, I mean, big fun, but like what's your goal for yourself? With all this stuff, with your, what's your goal for your emotional life? Well, I'd like to remain happy. I'd like to foster a fun atmosphere at home that's chill, that's like, allows for Marlowe and my wife to not have to worry and to grow creatively and as people and I don't want to be a cause of stress for anybody, you know, I don't want to be a cause of stress and I don't want to be a cause of stress for anybody. So emotionally that and I've, since she was born and I've gotten to be a better person for sure. Like I used to have a real problem. I did not like it hanging out with people after a show and I used to be really uncomfortable and I'd run away, run to the tour bus, I didn't want to talk to anybody and then, and I couldn't take a compliment and I was just a kind of a jerk that way and, or jerky behavior, I don't think I was a jerk but it could easily be seen as like, well, that guy's, why do you run away when I sit high? You know, but on the last tour, I did meet and greet. So I've come a long way and it was really cool about it and people, everyone was appreciative and I could not have done that five years ago, no way. Yeah, I just, I'm so I'm better that way and that was something that I worked on. What was what were you working on? Like being generous to people who like you or being generous to yourself or accepting love to people, all of that, if I was out eating with Amber before Marlowe was born and people like, hey, can we take a picture and be like, hey, man, I'm eating, you know? Like to the point where Amber would get uncomfortable and I learned to be better about that of like, you know what, maybe not now, but after, if you're around for sure, absolutely and just be more pleasant and not be so brusque about it and I'm a lot better at that now and have, you know, the last five or six years I've gotten much better about that. I would, when all said and done, and I pass, my goal is that I'm considered one of the top 400 stand-ups in the Eastern part of the United States. To which I say, stick with it. Yeah. Oh, my scammy, flammy, meh-meh.