Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Amir From Iran

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

Conan is joined by Amir from Tehran to hear firsthand about the situation in Iran, what it’s like to live through revolution, and what we can do to help. Find a transcript of this episode here: https://teamcoco.com/amir-from-iran Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: TeamCoco.com/CallConan

Hey, this is Conan O'Brien. You're listening to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan. This is a bit of a different episode today. A fan from Iran approached us and wanted to speak on the podcast. We're going to call him Amir. We've changed his name and his voice so that he can remain anonymous for obvious reasons. Also, I should mention at one point you'll hear a bleep. That was put in at Amir's request for his safety.

It's very dangerous to speak out in Iran, particularly at this moment. So we want to make sure we do everything we can to protect this young man. I do want to give a quick disclaimer or trigger warning. You're going to hear Amir describe the situation there in great detail. Many of the details are brutal. They're difficult to hear. So just keep that in mind. A lot of people obviously may listen to this episode and wonder how they can help out.

If you're one of those people, you can visit at Team Cocoa Podcasts on Instagram for more information on how you can get involved to help the people in Iran. So let's talk to Amir. Hey, Amir. How are you? Oh, my gosh. I'm just, you know, it's amazing. Like, I couldn't be there right now.

I can't get visa. This is the only way I can see you. This is a dream come true. Amir, it's very funny. I know that Amir is not your real name, but I will call you Amir. I think it's important for us to describe Amir at first like to know how is it you're able to reach out to us technologically? How are you able to do this?

I imagine the Iranian government does not want you going on a Zoom and talking to any American broadcaster. Each American tourist that comes out of Amir's Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, what they've just got banned lately because of the protests, they're all banned. They're censored. You have to access them by a VPN and, you know, it's like Pono going through Instagram is like finding Pono. Right.

There's not much difference between them and, you know, they're all banned. I'm talking to you via VPN and I'm scared that the connection might drop. Right. Amir, yesterday, the whole thing, I couldn't connect via VPN. Right. You could connect via Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi is extremely slow. I had to download a two-megabyte picture and it took two or three minutes, two megabytes. Amir, let me ask you, I am not going to say too much about where you are.

I'm going to say broadly you're in Tehran. Is that right? Yeah, I'm in Tehran. Don't worry about the security details. I'm not going to figure anything out with my name and don't you worry. Okay. All right. If you assure me that's the case.

Yeah. It's like Sam. Okay. Sam. All right. Well, Amir, I'd like you to use it. It's not my phone name. Okay.

Watch it, Amir. I'm reaching out to you. These are very turbulent times and now you go after my name. By the way, I'd like to change my name for this interview if you're okay with that, Amir. Let's see. What should I be for this interview? What should I be? Hmm, let's see.

Kate Blanchett? Yes. I'm Kate Blanchett. You're Kate now. I'm Kate now. Call me Kate Blanchett. Just Kate. Okay.

All right, Amir. Yeah. We're being silly, which I'm glad because silliness must always prevail. Let me ask you this. Do you feel safe talking to me right now? Yes, and yes, because I already told your producers about what I'm going to do about this. I asked them to change my tone a little.

I don't want the same frequency as I'm talking to right now as when the episode comes out. Because people, because look, this, the IRGC has, as a system like NSA, they can find you via your sound, via your image. I asked specifically not to show my face because that would cause me trouble. These are very intense times for you right now, yes? Yes. These are intense times. Days ago, the state president there called Evine was on fire.

I heard about that. Yeah. By the way, I'm glad you guys heard about that because in here, your news media just tells nothing. So there were videos of two motor shots, I think, were fired. I have a friend who lives near Evine. It was like, look, it was like hell. We had to close the windows.

The windows were shattering. It was ridiculous. Everything was shaking. Is there any, Amir, let me ask you, does anyone know what happened at the prison? You say you live in the vicinity of the prison. Do they know what happened? We've heard that eight, is it eight prisoners died? Well, the state TV says four prisoners died, but the state TV lies all the time.

You just don't, at some point, we want to, whatever, state TV says, just believe the opposite. Okay. And this tactic sometimes work, and sometimes it doesn't cause, you know, the regime here is ridiculous. But still, you know, it's such a historic accident. I just saw it on my phone and I was like, this is fucking historic, but like, can I stay here?

Yeah. You've got bigger worries than that, Amir. I wouldn't worry about swearing, swearing, swear away. You're welcome to swear all you want because we're all very curious here in the United States and of course, people all around the world are curious. What is it like to be in Iran right now, in Tehran, to be a young person? I've always been aware that Iran has a very young population and people are very intelligent, they're educated, and they have strong opinions.

And so, we'd like to hear from you right now what it's like to live in Tehran during this revolution. Yeah, that's the main reason I called you guys to talk about the situation here, because we need more people to talk about us. This is not a joke, this is not BS. We want people to hear us and your news organizations are just, I wish you guys could have seen your news organizations through my perspective. I wish you guys could read Persian, so that you would understand the amount of law being

happening, the amount of stuff that aren't being shown, that must be shown. I wish I could have from you as myself and talk to you about comedy. I'm a comedy nerd, I can talk to Kodi with you all day. It's my pure passion. Oh, okay. Pure, pure passion. But I'm going to have to talk about this, then we'll get to comedy. Well, first of all, can I say, Amir, I think you've got your priorities completely upside

down. I know that some intense stuff is happening in Tehran right now, but we should talk about comedy first. No, no, no, no, no, I'm kidding, I'm not going to talk about comedy first. I'm kidding, Amir. I'm kidding. Oh, you were kidding. At first, let me tell you what it is like living as a young person in Tehran.

So, I'm f***ed. So let me tell you some of the restrictions here, and by the way, I'm lucky, I'm a god, I'm a boy. Being a female here, being a girl here is a whole other hell. The reason this whole protest got started was Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl. That's why I sympathize so much with her. I was like, look, she's a 22-year-old girl. She was beaten to death in custody.

In custody. And the detainees next door reported, like, yes, they beat her to death. She had a blood coming out of her ears, and the state TV said she had a blood attack because of pre-medical conditions, so you're going to expect people getting furious that, wait a minute, that's not the truth. She was beaten to death. There were images of her on the hospital bed, and there were bruises on her eyes, and it's just lies.

We're just seeing our government, by the way, it's not our government anymore. I won't get mad at anybody if they don't get us your government. No. These guys are not humans, and Mahsa Amini was just the beginning. These guys don't care about anybody. Let me talk to, by the way, the conversation is going to get real dark now, as there's this 17-year-old girl, well, there was this 17-year-old girl called Nika Shaka. So let me tell you what happened to her.

She was protesting in Keshavara's Bully War, but she got arrested, and she wasn't heard about for 10 days. Then her body was found with bruises, and with bruises on her face, her face was beaten. She was beaten to death with batons. On her face, her parents reported that her nose was smashed, her skull was broken. Again Conan, 17-year-old girl, minus 18, do you guys that's mine, right? Everywhere that's mine. They don't hit a child to death, and then later there were reports about her getting

raped. Her getting raped for 10 days Conan. She was tortured, raped, and beaten to death, you know, this is what they do. Like, you know when you see HBO or Netflix episodes, and at the beginning of the episode it says caution, violence, sex, drug use, whatever. Now imagine the amount of caution that you have to put simply just talking about Minko Shokaren. A girl who was just protesting, she burned her scarf.

Like you guys don't understand what burning a scarf means here. Masa Amini was in custody because she didn't look the right way. Her hair was out of the loop. Her hair job wasn't proper. The morality police arrested her, beat her to death. How do you handle that news Conan? Let me break in for a second and say that I do think there is an awareness of what's happening in the West.

We obviously don't know to the great detail that you have because you're living there, but there are wide reports in the United States that this revolution is quite different than some of the disturbances that have happened before. I was reading an article recently that said that more young people and children are participating in the protests, which is quite different than anything that's happened before in memory in Iran. Is that the case? Yes.

These are children. Look, these are people my age and this. Yeah. This protest is insane, three days ago in Adebille, they threw tear gas in a school in Adebille. Adebille is a town in Iran and they took children as prisoners and one child, a girl, a school girl, died and people do this protest have been going on for a month now. So each week you just hear terrible news after the other.

This psychological situation, look, I'm getting, I'm under so much psychological pressure. I hear this news and I'm like, what the hell are these animals doing to children? Like a child was killed, I think she was eight years old, nine years old, like imagine going through that. Even in video games, they kill children and they kill children. Do you think the revolution, which I remember very well in 1979 when the Shah fled and Iran turns over into this theocratic government, it's been such a long time since that happened and there have been moments, many moments since 1979 when young people have said, we

want change, we want something different. Do you feel that what's happening right now is different than what's happened before? Do you feel like this, this revolution, this protest is stronger? Is it more vocal? Is there a chance that this could lead to change? Well, the main difference about this protest was first of all, it was a protest that was sorted as a female, where females look women in here have a lot to say about the constant of pressure and how these guys just like imagine, you cannot go out like so now, by the way,

hi so now, imagine so now you're going out in the streets and you'll get arrested for showing your hair. You cannot wear a t-shirt, you have to be clothed all the time. They wear a long t-shirt, which is a long shirt, it's insane and you know, if you see a picture of it on, I don't know, New York Times and you'll be like, oh that's Iran, but people around will tell you, that's not what we want. We don't want that. I want my mother, all the women here to walk freely without, without being press charges

here. Yeah. They are fierce, they, you know, they're brave, they've not come to fuck around. Since the beginning of the protest, this is like the first time in the beginning of the protest, I noticed this, people were like, that just saying that is insane. Right. People arrest you, people have got an hang for saying, and you know, you know, they just torture, torture us here, even prison, we call it every university, because there's

so many scholars, so many university students, so many women, so many human rights activists, I want to talk about, what's in one of these, he went on a strike, both of, they broke both of his legs. He's a human rights activist, he was just saying how the regime was doing propaganda, because the rest said, he is in prison right now, there are so many people in prison right now, when the fire happened, people were like, this is, we're worried, these are geniuses in there. I mean, imagine, imagine the pain, imagine the grief you would have to go through, from

that happening to you. There's a couple of points I'd like to make. One is, you've said repeatedly, and I understand why you're saying it is imagine, imagine this, and I have to be honest with you, I can't imagine it. It's unimaginable to me, it's unimaginable to people that live in a society like mine, that this could happen. And I have incredible sympathy for what you and what your people are going through. I would like to say that we'd very much like to speak to a woman and hear her point of

view, if you have a friend who would be able to speak to us, or would they be too worried to do that? I'll tell you guys, there's no female around me right now, it's midnight here. Right, okay, okay. Yes, yes. But we would like to hear very much from a woman who is participating in this movement and hear from her point of view, as well as your point of view, and you know Conan, you talked about my personal experience growing up here, so remember being in elementary school

and we had Koran classes, the book that Muslims read, you know about that, right? Yes, of course, yes. And so we had classes of Koran, and they would tell us the full premise of the class was just read Koran, and read Koran musically, read it, learn to read Koran the right way. And I was like, wait a minute, so I'm reading Koran, but I'm not reading the translation, I'm just reading an Arabic, like how insane is that, reading the Koran in Arabic, not reading it in Persian, not reading what it says, and that's what people would say like, well, are the protesters protesting Islam?

I was like, look, there are problems with Islam, I just don't want Islam ruling my life. Right, right. I don't want Muslims out of this law, but there are more gods here that haven't read Koran, they just make stuff up. They just make stuff up, they haven't even read Koran, this mandatory job is not in Koran, Muslims will tell you, it's not in Koran, they do a lot of stuff that's not in Koran, but since people do read Koran here, they just need how to sing it perfectly. But it's crazy, imagine if people were like, look, you're gonna have to read the script,

read it in Arabic and don't understand anything, just reading an Arabic, it's insane. It's just, you know, pure hypnotizing us, the history book here is not a real history. And by the way, I urge you guys to share this knowledge, share this with everybody, it's what we want most. I heard my son post on Instagram, people said, yes, celebrities are talking about the wrong of our attention, yes, we want attention, talk, I don't care if you're a narcissist or you're just some down to earth guy who's about Iran, people need to know about us. And this is important, like, you know, how many will call out and say, yes, it's because

of American Israel, he just says that so they can oppress people, so they can freely shoot people. And I've seen you have the same strategy, I've flown in and you shoot everybody in there. I mean, come on. Well, I use, listen, if you're comparing me to the oppressive regime in Iran, you're not far off. I have, I have my own way of dealing with people, but it's a verbal assault and how dare you Amir.

Amir, do me one favor, do me one favor, I know you have notes there, but I want you to put your notes aside for a second because what I'd like to do is understand on a very human level, you, years old, young man living in Tehran, at first like to know how are you participating or are you participating in this revolution and what do you do? What is your day to day? How do you help out? How do you contribute? Yeah.

The beginning of the protest, by the way, so now my parents, nobody knows about my protest cause they'll tell me, don't go to protest, you're gonna get killed. And you know, I tell them, yes, okay, I don't go anywhere, but I do, I, you know, it's an instinct. You cannot not do anything when you see a 72 year old girl getting raped. Yeah. Like that's not, look, I'm a guy, I cannot see that happening. So I grew up, my parents tell me, you do not hit a girl.

That's not appropriate. You do not hit a girl, whatever you do, even if she takes out a knife, you do not hit that girl. And they be girls, they be children, they don't care. So what do you do? So I'm a nerd in the **** is my favorite thing in the world, comedy and ****, just two things that I love the most, and I've worked in a ****, I won't tell you where and I won't tell you which city it is.

And I would go house to house, people would open up their doors and protesters would come in running away from the IRGC's forces and passages. People would come with wounds, with pellet wounds, with baton hits, and I would bandage them up and I told them what to do, I advised them, I asked as many doctors as I could about their situations. That's, look, I'm a medicine freak, the least I can do is help them that way. And I urge everybody who can do that, to do that, help in whatever way you can. That was my help.

And you know, I would chant, but you know, there are people getting shot, there are people getting killed in universities, a really close friend of mine, she tells me at universities they just, they held each other's hands and they chanted and they sat there, they just protested whatever way they could, and you know, the IRGC has spies among university students. And there are people just like us who sit down with a tattoo with a nirvana t-shirt coming to university and this guy is from Basij and you cannot tell the difference. And by the way, my problem with your news media, you guys are talking on and on about

Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, like aren't you guys done with them already? I am, yeah. That's why we want to talk to you is this is an opportunity for us to try and understand on a human level what's going on, which is why I'm, I really want to connect with you and understand your day-to-day experience. It sounds like what you said is you haven't told your parents that you're helping out in the protests. I won't dare tell my parents, I won't, I won't even dare tell them to listen to this

episode. A lot of people, Amir, a lot of people won't admit they listened to Conan O'Brien but for different reasons, okay? You happen to have a very good one. But I'm curious to know because you would have a sense of how your friends feel and how your friends think. I have always imagined that there are many young, very intelligent people in Iran, very well-educated, who are very unhappy and have been very unhappy with this government for

a long time. Do you think that you and your friends feel that there's a chance that things could change or do most of your friends think it would be better just to leave Iran? We'll see, that's the plan everybody does here. In my school, there were 100 people, same grade as mine, there were 100 people, I think 40 of them or 50 of them have stayed, the others have left to Canada and a lot of my friends from the university are going to Canada because this isn't my, I don't think this is my country anymore.

These guys don't treat me like a human being and I'm a God. Imagine, imagine being a woman here. You can't talk freely, you can't sing, there's not a, you know, there's not a Karebi concert here. There's no female concerts here, all men. Again, I'm insisting on that this movement started as a women's right movement and in here look, all women's hope about the protests when I see you guys stop talking about it. When I see your news media just going silent on these stuffs, I go, what the hell, they're

just going to do what they did to us three years ago, did you know three years ago there was another protest for fuel prices and they caught internet completely for seven minutes. You do understand what that means. But there are limits to what the Iranian government can do. You're an example right now, you're talking to us. I understand it's after midnight in Tehran, we're in Los Angeles but we're having a real in time conversation. There is hope that if you can do this, many more people can get the word out and keep this

story alive. Yeah, so there are stuff you guys can do and I encourage you guys to do this. Please tweet about us, please talk about us. I want everyone, not just you, everyone in that studio and anyone you know, just ask them to talk about us. We need people to hear our voices because it needs to be heard. There are crimes happening here that should not be forgotten, 180 more than, I think more than 200 people died in the last month simply because they were like, look, we're not with

those. Right. And the regime was like, well, guess what, I'm going to torture you guys, imprison you guys and kill you guys and guess what, the Muslim media won't talk shit about you guys. And that annoys the crowd, I need you guys, I urge you guys, everybody, anyone there, please talk about us. On that point, Amir, let me quickly ask you, I think there are many Americans and I agree with you that we can do our part to be more vocal about what's happening in Iran and we

should do that and we will make people as aware through our platforms as aware as we can of our interview and we're going to keep up our end of things on that. But I do believe there are many people in the United States who think Iran is a closed system. What is it we can possibly do? It's an isolated country. We don't have diplomatic relations with Iran. So what is it that Americans can do on a practical level to affect change?

I think there is a feeling sometimes of helplessness in our country. There's actually stuff you can do. Yeah, okay, go ahead. So contact your representatives. There are some petitions online to throw out the children of the officials, look how many his children, all the officials who have participated in the IRGC's crime and Fominay's crimes and this regime's crimes, they all, you'll find their children on social media in America, in Hollywood, in Los Angeles, they take our money, the money that we gave

them to. They steal that money and immigrate to U.S. to live a better life. So what I'm asking you guys is contact your representatives in Congress, parliament, I don't know the political system there, but ask any officials, mail them, tell them something. Ask them to identify and freeze the assets of the officials who participate in this crime. I bet you you'll find a list of more than 50 or 100,000 people, of just people who came there just because of privilege.

Similar strategy has been used against the Russian government because obviously many Russian oligarchs have assets here in the United States, they emigrate here, they buy expensive properties and there's been an attempt in the same way to crack down on the people around Putin to increase pressure on him. You're saying that you think in the same way there are people who are related to someone in the government or to Homei and that they are living in the United States and that their assets could be frozen. I'm talking about Homei and not just Homei, everybody.

By the way, do you know how extremely crazy is that I'm telling you guys, I cannot say any of this to you guys. It's extremely dangerous and I'm telling this because people need to hear about this. So yes, contact your representatives, ask them to identify and freeze every asset of the Islamic Republic's officials. There are petitions online, just you do a Google session, you'll find about them or go on Twitter. Let me ask you quickly for clarification. When you talk about Homeini, I just want to make it clear to everyone that it's a distinction

from obviously Ayatollah Homeini who's been dead for a long, long time. Yes. Homeini is the supreme leader right now. Yes. Homeini has been torturing us for a long time, like you know, the Conan, want to know what my point of view is, I'm an Iranian. I don't want to live in Iran. I really don't want to live in Iran.

I don't want to beg anybody from a foreign country, from the US, from Canada, to beg them to accept me as what, a researcher? What the hell? I want to be normal. I want to be the same as you guys. Look, I'm a comedy fan. The first thing you tell anybody who's a comedy, who wants to do comedy is go to a comedy club.

You'll find a comedy club in LA or New York or anywhere in Iran. There's no comedy club. You're not going to find a comedy club to go perform as an open mic, let alone as an MC. There must be places though, Amir, or ways that people like yourself who like comedy can gather secretly and have performances. Does that happen? Yeah.

So everything gets censored here, comedy. Yeah. You've got to understand everything there is political science, like if I make, let alone even politician, even if I make a joke about Muslims, it's extremely dangerous and you don't want to do a joke about Islam to Muslims, but you know, there's a lot of Muslims here. But you cannot just, you know, in order to do comedy, you'd have to either go silent or you'll have to go like Jim Gaffigan, just clean comedy. Right.

Clean comedy works well. There are people who have made a lot of money from clean comedy. Are you saying that Jim Gaffigan could tour Iran right now and he'd be welcome? Wow. Burma and Jim. No, no, no. I love Jim Gaffigan, but I'm going to tell him that I've got the word has come through. He should book a date in Tehran immediately.

Yeah. No, no. Oh, okay. I'll bet you you'll find one offensive joke in his jokes that might get him hanged. Oh, shit. Right. Right. Well, he has to take that risk.

Yes. Look, that's the risk Gaffigan has to take. Well, yeah. And I think that's the reason you're telling him to call me. I'm here safe in my podcast studio in LA, but I think Jim Gaffigan needs to get over to Tehran right away. He's a scram. Yeah, look, I'll go there.

Here, what is your plan? What do you think you would like to do in the next year? Do you have a plan to try and leave? Yes. Tehran? Yes. Everybody has looked, Conan. Everybody in here has a plan to leave.

Right. Okay. Genius people are moving away. I'm going, I'm not going to stay here. I'm going to leave. That bothers me. That bothers me a lot. Right.

Okay. Now, I'm lucky because I kind of can, but there are people who are so under the poverty line. Look, there are guys so below zero, you need like 100, 200 millions for that guy to reach zero. And by the way, Conan, this protests, these, yes, they started as human threats, but these are us telling you guys, the economy here is ridiculous. Everything is ridiculous.

But remember when Trump was like, look, I've had it enough with nuclear deal, which is to have his own benefits and, you know, his own casualties. So after that, the dollar price went up by five times, six times. And our worst car here is called Karate Troy, of all names, Troy. And we're not proud of that name by the way, because the car is terrible. This is an Iranian, this is a car that's made. In Iran. And it's called.

It's called Troy. Oh, it's called Pride. Yes. You have a car that's called Pride. Yeah. And it's, you're saying it's not a good car. Yeah. I had a joke where it was.

Pride means another family getting killed because of the accidents with Troy. A mirror. Yeah. I know. A mirror. He made really dope jokes here. This is not a, that's not a joke, Gaffigan is going to go with. The Pride is a very dangerous car, is what you're saying.

Dangerous car. It's insane. So the price of the shittiest car, Pride, was about 14 million, 15 million Tomat. Tomat is the currency here. So in a year, the price spiked up to a hundred. And right now, Pride is 200 million. Want to know what the minimum wage is in Iran? The minimum wage in Iran is 3 million per month.

So if you divide 200 by 3, you're going to get 66. And you divide that by 12, you're going to get five, five and a half year without spending any money just to buy pride. Just to buy a terrible car that may kill you. Yeah. Yeah. People ask me, why do you want to leave? Look at the economical situation, you like, like forget the, like, like, let's forget

about the whole freedom thing. Let's just talk about the economy situation here. I'm living with my parents. Do you really think I want to live with my parents? No. Well, I want to get out of here. But the real estate prices are so high. You cannot.

You cannot simply buy a house or buy a rent a house even with a minimum wage. And look, I'm not that financial, you're like, bad, I'm normal. Right. And even I can't do it, not like, imagine the guy who has nothing. Amir, one question that anyone would have at this moment is, and I think I obviously know what the answer is, but I have to ask it, there's this theocracy, there's this religious government that you and all of your friends and a large swath of the people are unhappy with and the economies in ruins, you wonder how long this government can sustain power.

How can they stay in power? I understand they're using terror tactics to repress the people, but it feels like things cannot, do you have any hope that this just cannot continue at a certain point if enough people like you, if a large enough part of the population is disaffected and violently upset? So that's why I look at the protests now as a historical movement. Yeah. These are historical moments in Iran.

And there have been a lot of historical moments happening in the past three years, this wasn't our first protest. There were protests happening 40 years ago, and after 10 years, there was another protest. But the protests had a long time between them. Right now, it's like a year and months even between protests. Yeah. That's why we're getting hopeful about this, because look, even if the protests stop, they're just going to be another protest, because people are fed up.

Ask any Iranian you know about this, and I'll tell you, and I bet you there's a lot of Iranian out there in L.A., right? Yes. I mean, there's more Indians in L.A. than sometimes in Iran, and I just cannot not talk about this comment. My main goal for this interview is for people to hear you on a very human level talking about what it's like in Tehran right now. And I think you've done that.

I think you've done a lot of that. I'm curious to know, you've said that your dream is to leave, which does make me sad that people as intelligent as you should be the hope and the future of Iran, and it saddens me greatly that yourself and your peers feel like there is no future there, that this government can't change, because you do have a beautiful country. You do have a country with an incredible history and culture, and the fact that you feel that your only hope is to leave is devastatingly sad. Yeah.

That's why I want this revolution to succeed, because I want freedom. I want you to do a touring in Iran, and by the way, all of you guys, all the women's staff is invited to my house. Oh, really? I'm going to give you the best first in June ever. Yeah. Oh. If Iran gets free, the first place to come here is my house, and if you go anywhere,

I'm not seeing you. Do you know what? Yeah. What's that? I think, didn't you? He said, if we go anywhere else, you're not invited to. No, wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Okay. I'm here. I'm here. No, no, no. The whole concept here is that I need a friend. So you're my friend now in Tehran, so I want to come visit you. How would that go over if I visited you in Tehran? Would your friends even know who I am?

Would they have any idea? Yeah, I'll have to explain to my friends, like, oh, I'm going to meet a Conan, and, you know, obviously, they were like, who the hell is Conan? I was like, look, he's a comedian, he's my favorite comedian, he's an Irish fellow, he, you know, he has red hair, he makes really good jokes, and they were like, oh, I love Wilbur, and I was like, no, no, it's not that good. Oh. Okay, Amir.

Singer. I had that coming, I guess. You'll stick out. I think you'll stick out in Iran a little bit. You know, I think, don't underestimate your parents, Amir, you know, they may know about me, you know, and it's important. Do you know Cape Lanchette? Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Everybody knows Cape Lanchette. Yeah. Just say this. I'm modeling everybody not scorned. Oh, that's good. Everybody not scorned.

I was just making a joke. No, it's too much. And also. No, I like it. So, no, let this man speak. I'm sorry, it's too late. He needs to be heard. Are you saying that I'm beloved in Iran, Amir?

We love you, Hickham. But Amir, the good news, and I always try to look for some optimistic shred of light, is that clearly you and your friends and many people, not just your age, but I'm sure throughout many demographics and age groups in Iran, it's not working. It's not working anymore. You know it's a lie. And you know that this is no way to live. And I think that obviously is the fuel that's generating all of these revolutions and protests.

Yes, they're planned fair. People are turning atheists now. Yeah. People are becoming atheists. Right. And I'm not going to tell you what's my, because, you know, like, IRGC alone wasn't about tracing. If I talk anything bad about this.

Right. So I'm just telling you guys, this is not Islamophobia. If you're saying take off your, you're not saying take off your job. We're just saying, well, whatever you want, we just, I don't want to wear a job. I don't want to wear a job also. It's like insane. And there are so many ridiculous rules. Let me tell you something funny.

They make advertisements for the state TV. And once in advertisements, there was a duck and it went to the censor and the censor told me we cannot put a duck in this video because ducks walk in a sexual way. Like what the fuck. That guy is basically just telling you that he's got a thing for ducks. That's yes. I love that. I love that.

Hey, we can't have any ducks because all of us want to fuck a duck. Right. I mean, am I right? We're all secret duck fuckers. We can't have that. I know. That's fantastic. That's a fantastic story.

Yes. And I was like, what kind of ever is Johnny gets ham with fucking ducks? Like who the hell is sure. What was your phrase there? Johnny is ham. Okay. Listen, Amir, I was very sympathetic to you and the revolution until you took us down to this duck fucking avenue.

Now I must part with you completely. Amir, here is. Oh, please don't. I wish I could have talked to you a lot. I know. Amir, well, maybe we'll talk again. We have to keep these lines of communication. But Amir, listen to me.

I am so glad that you reached out to us and I can't say that we're the best people to reach out to, but we're here for you and we feel great sympathy, not just for you, but for all of your friends and everybody in Iran who is going through this terrible experience and we are thinking of you and we will do what we can to get your message out. I just want you to know that you do have friends here, specifically me and Sona and Matt Gorley and Blay, everyone in this booth and everybody on Team Coco, we're with you and we'll use what platforms we have to make sure that your message gets out.

But in the meantime, I want you to stay safe. Okay. I appreciate what you're doing. Yeah. We're going to have to move on, actually. Oh, come on. I had so many jokes. You had jokes.

We spoke for an hour. I haven't heard any of the jokes. What jokes? You can open for Jim Gaffigan. Yeah. You know what? Forget the joke. Just everybody listening to this.

Do whatever you can to support us and go to Instagram, go to Twitter. We just need your support and that's it. Well, you have our support, Amir, and you have our admiration and you have our friendship and we will do everything in our power. I'd like to pretend that I'm a very powerful person in American entertainment. I don't think I am, but we do have some influence and we'll do everything we can to make sure that Iran and your struggle are in our thoughts. I want to tell all of your friends that there is great sympathy and love and support for

the Iranian people going through what you're going through right now. I hope they can speak again and look the way the government was supposed to be ushered and I've been meeting you guys. I wasn't supposed to meet you guys because you guys are in the US, but we're talking about the magic of internet and I'm grateful for that. Thank you so much for taking your time to speak with me. Thank you, Sona. Thank you for everybody.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Amir. Thank you very much. Thank you, Amir. Be safe and I look forward to meeting you in person under happier circumstances. That will happen. I hope we can talk in Iran. Come to my house, we'll have a dinner here.

I would love that. Maybe then my parents will know about you. I would be honored. I would be honored to go to Tehran, dine with your parents, and explain my career to them. It's going to involve them watching several hundred hours of YouTube, but that's just what it's going to take. But we'll see you in better times. This is about to talk to you guys.

Take care, Amir. Conan O'Brien needs a fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gorely. Produced by me, Matt Gorely. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Salateroff, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Music by Jimmy Vivino. Supervising producer, Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples.

Associate producers, Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm. Engineered by Will Beckton. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This episode was edited and mixed by me, Brett Morris.