Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - A.T.O.S

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

Conan talks to author Megan about the rules of writing children’s books. Then, he speaks with Christian from San Diego about the best lock-picking tools available. Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: TeamCoco.com/CallConan

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hi there, Megan. I give you Conan and David. Hi, Conan and David and Max. Hi.

Hey, Megan. How are you? Hey, I'm good. How are you? Great. I know nothing about you, Megan. Tell me, what is it you do, Megan? I am a children's book author and editor.

Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah. I've never, how many children's books have you written? More than a hundred. Oh my God. Wow, my God. I've never read that many books. Yeah, that's a lot.

That's incredible. But I should note that they are for, most of the books I've written are for the school library market. We make books usually in series. So they'll be like a series about swamp animals or a series about presidents or medical grades. I see. You said you're writing about history, things like that. Do you ever write a series about, you know, Tommy the Angry Tomato or something where you, where a vegetable comes to life or that kind of story?

It's a life fiction. Yeah. Yeah. Wait a minute. First of all, Megan, don't assume that, I said he's an angry tomato, Tommy the Angry Tomato. So this is a very dark book. This is not late fiction.

This gets very dark. Yeah, maybe it's not even fiction. I don't know. Yeah. And when you find out why he's mad, you're going to have, he watched his family slaughtered at a pizza shop. So. That's a true crime story.

Yeah. And then he's seeking revenge against the Italian pizza maker who butchered his family. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry I made light of it. No, well, thank you for your apology, Megan. It was long overdue. Yeah. So you're a professional children's book writer.

You've written over a hundred children's books. Do you use your name, Megan, or do you use a pen name? I mostly use my name, but if I'm like not a huge fan of the book or the topic, I will use a pen name. What is your pen name? My pen name is Margo Gates. Oh, Margo Gates. Okay.

I can look for that. Margo Gates. Yep. I use an alias. Yeah. When I write into like Penthouse or whatever. Yeah. I never use my name.

Oh, that would be silly. Yeah. Yeah. It's always Margo Gates. Yeah. No, I don't use that. You've got the same one. I'm Charles DeFond.

But it's Charles DeFond who had a hot encounter with his teacher in the bio lab. So it's not me because that's just classy. Yeah. She has a different name. I mean, how could you not with a name like that? Charles DeFond. Yeah, exactly. She came in.

She said, are you DeFond, Comma Charles? I said, yes, I am. She slowly removed her glasses. Her hair tumbled down. I suddenly realized she was beautiful for the first time. Listen, I went off on a little cul-de-sac and I apologize. Megan or Margo. What are some of the rules because I want to write a children's book now.

Well, you got Tommy the Angry Tomato. Well, it's not Tommy the Angry Tomato, but what are some of the rules I should follow? Well, you're going to need to ultimately wash your sentence length and you're going to have to use vocabulary fit for a third grader. So you said, watch your sentence length. So William Faulkner would have been a very terrible children's book author. His sentences don't end. They just go and go and go and go and they usually involve a manchild, some sort of

terrible, terrible dark secret in the deep south, probably not a good children's book author. No, probably not. Probably more like Ernest Hemingway. It wasn't. We're in his sentences super short. Yes. He's like, it was good.

Yes. And that's exactly what you want. Yeah. And then punching someone and then people have. The content is another issue. Yeah. I mean, his children's book, I think he wrote one and it was about a guy who was impotent after a World War I wound.

Oh man, I didn't see that one. Yeah. He was drinking to compensate. And guess what? The library association did not accept it. Oh, really? Yeah. That was one of Hemingway's only great failure, I think, as a writer.

The only one. Yeah. I'm sure. I mean, when you're writing, you have to, if you don't mind me continuing, you have to run our manuscripts through something called ATAS and that basically gives your manuscript a score. And if you're writing for third graders, you need to fall within the, from 3.0 to 3.9, that like range generally.

Megan, Megan, this shocks me. What you're telling me is that children's books and the children's book industry is controlled by this algorithm called ATAS. That's chilling. This is Orwellian. That's insane that there's a deep state that's controlling what our children can read and cannot read. Is that what you're telling me?

Yeah. I guess that's how you want to spin it. Yes. There's also a way. Excuse me. Oh, excuse me. Megan. Or if I can use your fake name, Margo Gates, I'm sorry, but you're the one that came in

here with an alias and then you're accusing me of spinning something. I'm spinning nothing. I was just told that no children's book can be written in this country unless it passes the almighty algorithmic wisdom of ATAS. True or false? Because that largely pertains to the school library market for nonfiction books, but if you're writing a fiction book, you can kind of do what you want. Trust me, ATOS will find you.

Yeah. Yeah, sometimes does. Yeah. Suddenly you'll go to use your ATM. No cash will come out. You'll go to walk through that electric door at the supermarket and it won't open and you'll say, what's wrong here at open for everyone else? I am ATOS.

You will submit, you will submit to my algorithmic tyranny, write a book about tomatoes. Are you regretting contacting me, Megan? You can say if you are. I'm not. You can say it. Trust me, I have a chilling effect on many people. She just leaves. Yeah.

Megan just walks away. It's hard to walk away when you're in your own home, Megan, on a Zoom and ATOS will find you. I know how to find you. ATOS works for me now. So there's no way you could write a first grade children's book about a real dark subject, right? Or is there no such thing as impossible?

I think there's no such thing. No, I think you could definitely do it. So when you're writing for first graders who they're going to read it themselves and not have it read to them by a parent, you need to do like six pages total and there needs to be like one sentence per page. You basically need to follow the same pattern in every sentence, but just change one word and you have to use a lot of high frequency words that they recognize like I, you, she, he.

Megan, are you ATOS? Thank you. Do I sound robotic? Well, yeah. Well, first of all, a little bit and you do move your arms a little bit. I'm just thinking you're like the great Oz. When I started making fun of ATOS, I could see you having trouble processing. You weren't enjoying it.

I think Matt is onto something. I think you are ATOS. You have all these rules. You are a walking algorithm. Does that stand for something ATOS? Is it? That's a great question. And I don't know.

Thank you, ATOS. I've never, I've never looked into that. ATOS, ATOS, one more question. How did you assume the form of a young woman? How did you do that? Oh man. You're calling on me for some major improv. Nice deflection, ATOS.

ATOS does not improvise. No. Improvisation is illogical. ATOS, you are so busted. Is it strange when you're writing under, oh, first of all, do children's books get reviewed? They do. Yeah, they do. Do you ever, I mean, this is an indelicate question, but I don't know, does someone ever

really go after a children's book in a review and sort of tear into it and then you think, hey man, chill out. That's a children's book. I'm sure they have. I haven't read any specific ones that I've read that have been torn into, but I think there's reason to if people handle certain... Subjects indelically. Subjects, yes.

Or if they get facts wrong, I mean... You're more rigorous in fact-checking children's books than any news source that I've seen in the United States, maybe shorter than New York Times, but other than that, no one else in this country or the world for that matter is fact-checking anymore, and you're writing a book about a duck that lost its best friend, the frog in a top hat, and you're fact-checking. That's really impressive to me. Yeah, we would want to make sure that it's plausible that like a duck and a frog could be friends.

Guess what? Atoes. Atoes. Atoes. Atoes. It does not make sense. They are different species. What is kiss?

It is love. I forget what the question was. Of course you do. Of course you do. You know why? Atoes is smoking. Atoes is smoking and smoldering. Her head flies off.

Yeah. Yeah. Megan starts saying Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error.

Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error.

Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error.

Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error.

Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error.

Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. Error. The reason is because especially when I listen to this podcast,

there's many times when like you are just going out of joke and you're just like beating it down and like Matt and Sona are like at this point groaning, but like you don't care that you've lost them. You are loving it and you just keep that and you commit to it. And like to me that just smacks of like zero self-consciousness. You're just- I think in that moment that I'm in,

what you're talking about is the fever dream that any creative genius can experience where I lose all sense of self. So I have moments and I'm so glad that no one cut me off when I said creative genius. Maybe you're just, maybe Matt, you're just tired of hearing it after all these years, but-

Yeah, I blocked it out at this point. You blocked it out. You didn't even hear it. Or worse, I'm starting to believe it. Yeah. You know what I will say to condense this and then this will be a little clearer. When I'm doing comedy and I'm doing some Jag

and I'm enjoying myself, those are the moments when I am not self-conscious. Can I just ask one more light question? Okay, so if you were an action figure, what three accessories would come with your action figure? Whoa. That's a good one. Crossbow.

Oh. I would want a crossbow. Interesting. I would want Kung Fu grip. Remember Kung Fu grip? Yeah. Kung Fu grip was something that I think, was it G.I. Joe?

G.I. Joe had Kung Fu grip. His hand would lock in and that just early man only evolved because he had the opposable thumb and the ability to grab things. You're already two out of three for crossbow and Kung Fu grip for a famous G.I. Joe with red hair. Do you know that?

Well, we're getting there. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna throw, the last one may not fit the pattern, but I would want Kung Fu grip because that would help me evolve as an action figure. I would want a crossbow because they look so awesome and for self-defense.

Finally, I'd want a dune buggy. I'd want a dune buggy that I could drive around in because when I was a kid, I really wanted the G.I. Joe that was part of the Egypt Explorer archaeological series and it had a six-wheeled vehicle that was like a dune buggy and my G.I. Joe drove around in it and I loved, loved that dune buggy.

The red-haired crossbow wheeled in Kung Fu grip G.I. Joe I was thinking of was Scarlett. Do you know her? No. Well, this is my generation's G.I. Joe, the smaller G.I. Joe. Well, what happened to G.I. Joe that suddenly there's lady G.I. Joe's? Yes, there's lady G.I. Joe.

That was not the G.I. Joe world I grew up with. I knew it. I'm sorry, but I know my old ways seem unfamiliar to youngsters. But there was no, I mean, how do they get any work done? Oh, God. I'm sorry. Okay.

All these ladies Scarlett's around? No, Scarlett. Dune, not in my dune buggy. Just your crossbow and your grip or whatever. Yeah, exactly. No women allowed. That's all you need, that's all you need. Just be in my crossbow.

My crossbow and my grip is all I need. I don't need no lady in my life. Yeah, I'm sure G.I. Joe has gone through many, many iterations since I had a G.I. Joe. Yeah. So I'm sure it's all a different ball of wax now. And we're all the better for it, said Conan. Oh, the better for it.

Whew. Margot, what's the book you're most proud of? So a Margot Gates book that I'm most proud of is. Yes, Margot Gates. Yeah, is called A Good Nut. I like to call it my Magnum Opus. It's like six pages long. It's like 30 words total,

but it's about all the things that squirrels do with nuts. And it's kind of exploring opposites too. Like this squirrel finds a nut and this squirrel shares a nut. I think it ends by the squirrel sharing a nut, spoiler. Oh, that's nice. It is nice. Spoiler alert. Well, I'm not gonna read it now.

Yeah, don't. Because now I know that the squirrel shares a nut. And who's the illustrator? Oh, I forget who the illustrator is. You forget who the illustrator is. This won't go well for you. We use like a series of four illustrators for this particular type of book that I write.

And so they're all mashed up in my head, but they're from Europe. I know that. At least it's narrowed down now. Yeah, I knew who you're talking about. Of course, we all know now. It's the illustrator from Europe. Got it.

Well, you've just outed yourself once again as Etoce. Yeah. Individual humans don't interest you. Only the more powerful algorithm. A good nut. I'll check it out. I'm gonna read it tonight. Yeah, please do.

It'll take me 40 minutes. Um, yeah. Hey, it was really nice meeting you, Megan, and continued success with your children's books. It was wonderful to meet you too. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Yes, yes.

And you take care and remember, yes, I'm very self-conscious. Okay, I will. Not when I'm joking or drinking. Those are the only two things that kill it. Got it. You take care. You too, thanks.

Bye, Megan. Bye, bye, bye. Bye. Hi there, Christian, meet Conan and David. What's up, Conan? What's up, David? Hi. Christian, how are you?

I'm doing fantastic. How are you guys? We're doing very well. Tell us, where do you hail from? Where are you at this very moment? I hail from sunny San Diego. Just a little south of you guys. I've been to San Diego many times.

I've heard, yeah. Of course, Comic-Con hasn't occurred in some time because of COVID, but we used to take over the Spreckles Theater in downtown San Diego and... Yeah, I have a couple of friends that have met you down there. Yeah, oh, I pretty much met everybody. They were always dressed as Wonder Woman or Aquaman,

so I'm not sure I'd ever recognize them again, but I shook a lot of hands down there. And tell us a little bit about yourself, Christian. Well, there's not much to me other than me being a locksmith. Well then, goodbye. See you later, bye. I'll be leaving you now.

Yes, this is probably the most boring episode here. Well, there's not much to me, he said. Now, besides what? What did you said something on it? I'm a locksmith. Oh, you're a locksmith? That's the one interesting thing about me, yeah. Are you good at being a locksmith?

Oh, well, I think so. Usually they say that the complaint that you get if you're a good locksmith is you did that too fast. That should have taken you longer. So if you're making a key for a car or if you're trying to break into the customer's house because they left their keys inside and it takes you two minutes and then they complain,

they're like, shouldn't that have taken you longer? Do you ever try and stretch it out a little bit just to make it look more impressive? No, because I feel like it's more impressive when you take, the quicker you are, the faster you are. Yes, that's been my approach to love making my entire life. You know, that was just there and I did it, I don't care. So let me ask you something,

because I have questions that intrigue me. Locksmiths can commit heinous crimes if they want. You have a superpower which is you can go, I'm guessing what, to any door, any car and you can get in within maybe a minute or two? Yeah, like 90% of residential doors and commercial doors. Christian, what keeps you from committing robberies on a massive scale?

My wife. Oh, your wife, oh, very good. Yeah, she keeps me in check, yeah. That's good, all right, well good, yes. That's good, so she's the moral compass. She's the one that says. Yeah, yeah, without her and her input in my life, I don't know where I would be.

That's a very sweet thing to say because when I look into your eyes, I see a man who'll do anything to profit in this world and you have the skill to do it. You can get, let's be honest here, can you really break into anything? Let's just say residential, can you get into any house? Yeah, mainly because especially on this side

of the country, 90% of the locks are on two major keyways or brands and we have tools here, I got a little tool here. This is my favorite one to use. It's called the leashy and this basically, you just put it in and you just feel every pin until you pick it, you go one by one and it actually reads you the cuts.

Christian, could you teach me how to do this? I could, I don't know if I want to though because then I'm responsible for the heinous crimes you may commit. No, what crimes? Here's what I wake up with him in my bedroom in the middle of the night. Oh, trust me, I've been in there, I've watched you sleep.

It's something I do with all my employees. So scary the first time. Yeah, you wear a night mask, it's weird and a lot of creams on your face. Listen, I'm curious, Christian, seriously, like let's say we were in the same room, you had that tool, we had some practice locks, do you think you could teach me to pick most locks?

With the right tools, yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't want to put anyone who's listening with give them anxiety because a lot of people do put a lot of faith and trust into their locks and they are secure, most people don't know this knowledge but with a little bit of practice and the right tools, yeah, yeah, you could learn fairly quickly. You're a smart man, right, Conan?

Well, in some areas, yes, in some areas, there are stunning deficits, let's just put it that way. Stunning deficits is gonna be the title of my autobiography. You could pick it up. Now, what about a car? I mean, cars must be impossible to get into now, right? So this actually, so this type of tool, the same thing, this leashy,

actually was first made for cars, for cars, yeah. So there's numerous of different leashes because there's different types of locks on cars, right? So basically- But a lot of cars now use, I'm sorry to interrupt, but a lot of cars now use electronic, they don't have a real place for a key, what do you do with that?

Unless it's like a Tesla, they will have a key for the door handle. So you just pick that, you get in, if it's a push to start, then all you need is a programming tool. Do you have to pass some kind of morality test to have that locksmith tool or that programming thing? Because it seems like- Yeah, it doesn't have a locksmith license.

So that is provided by the state, the state license. All right, I have a question. Let's say I'm in a parking lot, it's late at night, I lost my keys, okay? And I'm stuck and I call you, do you show up in your car? Yeah, I have a work van, I was actually originally trying to do my interview with you in my work van,

but last week the engine literally pooped out. I need a new engine in that. So I'm in a spare van that has nothing interesting in there. Why didn't you just break into someone else's van and take it? Because I tried to be a good person, Conan. Oh, well, that's where you and I diverge. These types of questions is what makes me think twice about teaching you.

You're going to teach me, and I want to get that special device. Was it called the Schluden Schläder? I'm getting a Schluden Schläder. And I'm going to, I have to have that. This is, David, you have to get me that tool. I'm on it. What's it called again?

It's called the Lishi. Lishi. What, she's going to, I know David, he's going to come back with a jar of leachy nuts. And I'll be arrested. I'll be arrested trying to force them into the door of the 1988 BMW. What a headline though.

I do have a question for David, if I may not to change the topic too much. David, so you're Sona's assistant, right? That's how I started out, yeah. Do you have an assistant? Like, is there an assistant? You know what it is? It's working for Ben.

A Christian, it's like Russian dolls. It's, they just keep going and going and going until you get to the tiniest little baby one. There's a tiny baby who's at the very bottom of the chain. Yes, Sona had an assistant, which is hilarious, because Sona never did anything and David did it all. True story. It's a true story.

No, Sona's a good assistant. Oh, come on, she is not. And I say that with love. Wait, what? Anyway. I feel bad we're talking about Sona. Can I get an assistant? No, you can't get an assistant.

No, your assistant's gonna be one of Sona's twins, twin children. So you drive around in a van and you show up. Now, Christian, this must be the great part of your job. When you show up, people are desperately unhappy and freaking out because their girlfriend locked them out of the house or they lost their keys or whatever. And you show up, jump out and take care of the situation.

You're like a superhero. That's why I love this job. I come to save the day. 90% of the people are very happy to see me. What about the 10% who's not happy to see you? What's going on there? There's several instances that every locksmith will face where there's someone shady trying to break into a place

where they're not supposed to. So do they have to show ID? Yes, yes. And so a lot of times they'll say, oh, what if I pay you like in cash? I'm like, nope. Do you ever feel physically threatened? No, I've never been to that point.

I have coworkers that have been to that point where police had to get involved. Do you, I mean, again, I shouldn't probably admit this, but now this has given me the idea that I should call locksmiths to try and get into things that aren't mine. And I could probably talk my way around it. I mean, for Christ's sake, I'm a celebrity.

You know what I'm saying? You're arrested instantly. Arrested instantly. The jar of lichies. He's just holding the jar. Got my jar of leechy nuts. And... Yeah, I heard you can use these leechy

to break into this car. Yeah, come with us, sir. And we heard you talking about this on your podcast. You said you want to start breaking into homes using starstruck locksmiths. Well, Christian, can I help you with anything? I feel like you're the master of your own destiny. You don't need me.

Oh, well, I did have this question for you, Conan. So... Yes. And I think we kind of touched a little bit on this, but let's say you have the superpower and knowledge to bypass any lock security system out there. Where would you go? I'm gonna say Graceland. Oh, yeah.

I'm gonna say if I could get into, I mean, a huge Elvis fanatic, and I've been to Graceland, but it's not the same when you're being led through with a bunch of other people. If I could just get in and wander the grounds and walk throughout the house and get a real sense for what it was like.

That's awesome. And guess what? Christian, you're gonna make my dream come true. Yeah. Get your van. We're going. Get your van. Who's that?

You live there. Get your van. Oh, trust me. We'll work on that. Yeah. David can get that done. Don't worry, don't worry. Don't look at the ID too closely.

You guys plan the trip, I'll work on that. Yeah. I would love that. That's a date, Christian. You and I are gonna get into your van and we are, you're gonna drive up from San Diego, pick me up and then we are driving to Memphis, Tennessee and we're gonna break into Graceland

and we're gonna roam the grounds all night long. And then you're gonna do serious time in jail and I'm gonna get out of it. I'm gonna say it was all Conan. I'll be gone. They'll say Conan who and I won't be there. And David will be standing there in a bad red wig. You realize.

Oh, does he play on this podcast? This is the ultimate grift. Yeah. Hey, Christian, really nice to meet you. Yeah, nice to meet you too. David, Matt, awesome. I'm huge fans. Good to meet you, Christian.

Best of luck, take care. Likewise. Bye. Bye. Bye. Conan O'Brien needs a fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gorely. Produced by me, Matt Gorely.

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