-Welcome back to "Late Night." we're here with James Spader.
One of my favorite things when you're here
is to talk about jobs you've had before entering show business.
I did not know that you worked at a record store.
-I did. [ Laughs ] -Where was your record store
that you worked at? -Up in the Upper East side.
3rd Avenue. -Gotcha.
And was this maybe -- Over the time you worked there,
you realized maybe not the most legitimate business?
-No, no, no. No, it was -- I mean, it was -- [ Laughs ]
It was legit.
It wasn't like it was ill-gotten gains.
-Okay.
-But, I mean, you know, where it went with --
I -- It was -- The eye -- It was a little,
teeny independent record store,
and this husband and wife owned it,
and they spent every dime they made
on cocaine and Quaaludes.
And they just went back and forth.
You can imagine what their household was like.
They're either, like, pacing or asleep.
'Cause it was cocaine and Quaaludes.
Every bit of it. So there was no stock.
It was like -- It was the only retail job I ever worked in.
And it was just calcifying.
I mean, you'd be -- It was a time --
It wouldn't even have taken much to fill the shop, you know?
Because it was so tiny. And yet they, you know --
Like, I think when I was working there,
"Some Girls" -- -The Rolling Stones album.
-Album came out.
I think we had like, I don't know, four copies
of it or something. I mean, it was just so pathetic.
So people would come in. They'd ask for a record.
You know, I'd do my due diligence.
I'd walk them over to the bin.
I'd go, "Oh, no, we don't. We don't have it."
And we'd have like maybe another record by the --
"Do you want this one by the same artist?"
It would be their least-interesting record.
And it was just so -- So you'd just be standing there.
Customers wouldn't come after a while.
And there was a guy --
There was a guy behind the cash register up at the front.
I wasn't allowed to be near the cash registers.
-So they had two staff members?
-There were two staff members. -Yeah.
-There was a guy up there, and who barely talked to me,
and I don't know what he was doing up there.
And he was raised up. It was, like, at the pharmacy,
to steal Jerry Seinfeld's great joke
about why do the pharmacists have to be higher than us?
But anyway, he was, like, higher.
I was down on the floor.
He was higher behind the cash registers.
And busy all the time doing God knows what.
It was before computers
and laptops and phones and everything.
I don't know what the [bleep] he was doing.
But he was there so busy all the time and so busy
that he couldn't talk with the only other person in the store.
And -- And I would stand there just waiting, you know, for --
And he played music and stuff.
He got to choose the music, as well.
And so I would stand there
waiting for customers and everything.
Or they would send me out to buy Quaaludes
because they --
You know, they had lots of scripts.
I don't know where they were getting these scripts from.
But they had tons of scripts, you know?
-Oh, so interesting. So they would send --
This is -- Quaaludes were prescription drugs.
-Yes. -Okay, gotcha.
-So they had scripts.
-They never sent you out for the cocaine?
-This was a long time ago. -Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
-They don't even make Quaaludes anymore.
-You can't. Yeah.
-But anyway -- -Yeah, I have tried.
-[ Laughter ] -I did, too.
I went on a vacation years ago.
Went on a vacation down to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico.
Mexico, a country I adore.
Cabo San Lucas, not so much.
I mean, it's sort of a --
I mean, it's basically --
At that time, it was sort of resorts and stuff.
I am not a resort person.
We have one photograph from the trip.
It's just this dark, black spot on a bright white beach.
The black spot is me under an umbrella.
And anyway, I was so board and miserable
that I killed two whole days out of --
I don't know -- a five-day trip.
Two whole days in town trying to go to pharmacies
because I've been told
that they sold Quaaludes in pharmacies in Mexico.
It was a bunch of bull [bleep].
-Were they -- And now here's a question.
In Mexico, are the pharmacists higher?
-[ Laughs ] No. They were -- They were on break.
Every pharmacy I'd walk into, "The pharmacist isn't here."
-They were like, "We have some girls."
[ Laughter ]
-Anyways, this couple would send me out,
because, you know, they had all these scripts,
but they couldn't keep showing up at places
with different names, so they were constantly looking
for someone else who could be the name, you know?
You could be Bob and whatever.
-And as soon -- Like, the minute you sold an album
and, like, it was cash in hand,
would they, like, then take the cash and send you out?
-No, they'd show up at different times
during the course of the day, of course.
-Yeah. -Keep things going, you know?
And so they'd show up during the course of the day.
You know, maybe twice a day.
Come up. They'd only deal with him.
The guy up there. -Right.
-Because he had the cash.
And they would just empty the drawer.
-Wow. -Yeah.
-They give you a reference? -And that did not last long.
It was so -- Oh, my God. It was brutal.
Really brutal. -Well, as always --
-Where the hell were we headed with this?
-Where we're always headed. To the end of the segment.
You guys.
[ Cheers and applause ]
The 9th season premiere of "The Blacklist"
airs next Thursday, October 21st,
at 8:00 p.m. right here on NBC.
We'll be right back with more "Late Night."