Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Fiki’s Gambit

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Conan talks to Andrew from Ohio about dairy farming and opening a Conan-themed amusement park. Next, he learns a bit about chess and cursed mugs while speaking with student Fiki. 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. Andrew, please meet Conan. Conan meet Andrew. Hi, Andrew. How are you?

I am fantastic. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Man, what a mellifluous voice. That's why I was going to say that too. Thank you. That's a nice voice. Yeah, I would kill to have your voice.

I sound like a mouse trapped in a helium factory and you have this. Have you ever done radio or anything like that? I have not. I know. My God, I could listen to him all day. Please. No, I enjoy listening to all of you. I think you all have great voices.

Oh. Well, that's, well, and he's nice too. Yeah. But I don't, wow. I'm hating myself. Every second that goes by and I talk to Andrew, I'm hating myself more. He just, you just seem like a much better person than me in every way. Oh, that's not true, Conan.

I find you to be the superior fellow. Wow. Wow. Indeed, yes. Andrew, really nice to talk to you and please, please start doing books on tape. I would listen to any book that you read. You know what I mean? It could even be a book that I despise and I would listen to it if you were.

Don't you guys think that would be a good idea? Oh, yeah. I mean, give me, I don't know, Tom Clancy with your voice. The phone book. Okay, take it easy, Sona. You're married. Okay. All right.

Sona's getting, she sometimes forgets. She wonders a little bit. Congratulations, Sona. By the way, I want to congratulate you on the twins. That's awesome. Keep talking. Yeah. Now they're triplets.

Another one just formed. That's the power of your voice, Andrew. I'm pregnant now. And I too am with child. Andrew, you're miraculous. Andrew, where are you calling from? Where are you? I'm calling from beautiful Pierpont, Ohio.

It's in rural Northeast Ohio by Pennsylvania and Lake Erie. Okay. Okay. I can picture that. Northeast Ohio. What's the terrain like where you are? I need to know the terrain. It's fairly flatwork.

The foothills of Appalachia and we're right on Lake Erie. So it's, we got some glacier formations as well. Okay. Let's keep talking about this. This is good. Glacier formations. Probably a lot of granite limestone or pretty a sort of a flat moraine, if you will. I don't know why I'm going down this road.

This is absurd. No one wants to hear about this. What we want to know is what do you do? Tell us about your life. Yeah. So I worked for the Ohio State Extension Office, which is part of Ohio State. Was that your dog? Yeah.

No, that was his voice. I hope so. Yeah. That was your voice giving out. Wait a minute. Andrew's a dog. That's why he sounds so cool. There are three dogs inside this Andrew Puppet operating him.

So your dog is right there? Oh, look, he's taking a nice sip of water. Refreshing pipes. Gotta take care of those pipes. Golden retriever. Oh, I love goldens. They're great. What's the name of your golden?

Bailey. Her name's Bailey. All right. Well, let Bailey speak at any time. It's really not a problem. Sorry about that. No, no, no. I'm saying we really is not a problem.

Animals, dogs, cats welcome on this program. Not birds. Despise them. Anyway, they do no good. They contribute nothing to society. Yeah. So you're living in Purpont, Ohio, and you said that you work in a school system. Is that right?

So I work for Ohio State University and as part of the extension branch, which I am an educator for. So I am an agriculture and natural resources educator, which means I work with farmers. Okay. So you're helping to teach farmers things that they need to know to grow their crops. Is that right? Exactly. Yeah.

It's a great land grant university. And then we take that knowledge and bring it to the county level. Here's a question. People have been farming for, I'm going to take a stab at 25,000 years. Don't we know everything about farming at this point that we need to know? Are they still coming up with new stuff? Like, do you know what I mean? Like I know there's a new way to grow corn.

Isn't there just a way to farm stuff to talk to me because I'm a city boy. I don't know these things. Yeah, definitely. I think the major thing that we work with is problems. So there's always new diseases. There's always new weather events. There's always new problems that we have to deal with. Right.

So you got to stay on top of it. That's icy. I see. Okay. So you got to stay on top of everything. Make sure that you're staying on top of the new diseases. Diseases that attack corn. What a horrible world we live in.

Horrible world. What attack corn? You know? Seriously. Corn. What did corn do? Why should there be a disease against corn? It almost makes you question the existence of God.

But anyway, Andrew, that's not what I want to go down. Oh my God. What? Well, I'm sorry. Who says like, you know what? There needs to be a disease for corn. Get corn. What did corn do?

Well, we're in the middle of a pandemic right now. I know. But people are, I'm saying people are flawed. We are flawed. We are, we commit sins. We are, some believe we are born in sin. So pandemics exist among humans. But when someone says, oh, there's a terrible disease and it's getting all the potatoes,

it's, it's wiping out the, the cherry tomatoes. I think why? Where's the sense in that? I know plenty of people who, if a disease got them, I'd think, well, they had it coming. You know, but what did a potato do to anybody? It's terrible. They were just there to provide valuable nutrients, primarily in the skin. Do you do any farming yourself?

Yeah. I was born and raised on a dairy farm and we sold the cows a couple of years ago, but we still do a lot of row crop farming and hay farming. Okay. So you sold the cows, you got out of the dairy business. Yeah. Please tell me you're lactose intolerant. No, I would be disowned by my family if that was the case.

What if someone has a dairy farm and they're like, oh, father, I'm lactose intolerant. Can we get a soy cow? They're usually shunned from society. Can we have at least one almond cow? Well, we grow soy beans as well, so I guess there's a little bit for everybody. Do you think almond milk comes from almond cows? Duh. Where else?

I'm sorry. I apologize for Sona, Andrew. She's very ignorant. Only you and I really understand dairy farming. Soy, of course. Now oat cows are very popular. So you work in a dairy farm and I don't know how I can help you because I'd like to help you in any way I can, but your life is so different than mine.

We have some similarities, both handsome charming people who are the best at what they do, but other than that, there's where the trail diverges. We both like to travel, so if you could get the pandemic thing figured out and we can go back to traveling, that would be great. Isn't it interesting if you're putting it out there that maybe I could have stopped the pandemic, but for some reason have decided not to, which makes me one of the worst people that's ever lived. You know, I can.

Andrew, I've always had the ability to stop the pandemic, but I like video games and I've been playing a lot of them. So I haven't gotten around to it. Would I be a happy guy if I was living in Pierpont, Ohio and I was living on your former, what was once a dairy farm? Would I be a happy guy? Would I fit in? Definitely.

Why do you say that? It's a great place to live. We get a couple feet of snow every winter and it's about 30 degrees outside right now. You'd love it. I like that. I actually grew up in Boston and so I like, you know, cold weather. I like the cold, right, Sona? But you'd have to do a lot of like work on the farm.

And I, Sona, I have an assistant. No, what? I would be the only dairy farmer in Pierpont, Ohio who had an assistant and you would be, you know, bailing the hay. You would be hauling the fertilizer. There we go. You would be, yeah, taking the truck into town. You know what I mean?

To get more of those pellets they put in the soil that makes things grow. Andrew, you know, it's on the tip of my tongue. What are they called? Oh, yes. Tractors. No, the pellets. The pellets that go into the soil that make things grow that add nutrients. What are they called?

Fertilizers. I thought there was a fancy name like hydrochlorazorozora. That's it. You nailed it. Yeah. Yeah. That was one of the Gabor sisters. Sorry, that joke made absolutely no one laugh.

But if you're out there and you got that joke and you ever meet me, please give me a hug. Andrew, is there any, so do you have a question for me? Yes. My question is, have you ever considered or would you ever consider opening a Conan themed amusement park similar to Dolly Parton's Dolly World? Whoa. Oh my God. I love that idea.

I'm serious. I love that idea. And then my mind starts to wander and I start to think, okay, it's a Conan themed park. But what are we, let's explore all of us together. You'd need rides, but maybe it would be a ride through like, you get in the ride and it takes you, instead of through Space Mountain or something, it's taking you down into a depressed over examination of your childhood. Oh my God.

Or it hurls insults at you the entire time. Okay. Please man, I think that's unfair. And I think you're a moron. Everyone gets free sunscreen. Okay. All right. That's fun.

So now, okay. Yes. It's a splash. It's one of those log flume splash rides, except when you hit the bottom set of water, it's SPF 50, just splashing up onto everybody. And the entire theme park is covered by a shade tarp. Just no sun. The food is all the food that I ate as a child, which was fried ham with some potato and then

more fried ham. So what a great, maybe I could open this in Pierpont, Ohio, right? That'd be excellent. Yeah. What are, what's the big tourist attraction now in your area? Yeah. So Ashtabula County, like I said, we're right on the lake and because of the lake, it gives us a micro climate that is great for growing wine grapes and we have 31 wineries here in

Northeast Ohio. Wait. There's Ohio wine? And it's amazing. Yes. It's good? Yes. I mean, you're describing, I'm thinking about it and I'm thinking, that is some micro

climate. It'd be really funny if you were just driving around and it was very gray and it was very cold. It was very bitter. And then you hit this one, like eight, you know, square mile stretch where it was just suddenly Tuscany. Some people call it the Napa Valley of Ohio, so it's a beautiful region. By some people, you mean two people.

Yeah. Not a lot of people, but some people. No, that's cool. Like, I want to try some of this. Is there any way we could get some, I want to try a bottle, a whole bottle by myself. I'm not sharing that, of Ohio wine. Yeah, we'll send you some. What kind of, do you do reds?

Do you do whites? What do you do? Do you do Zinfendels? Yeah. Peanots? Peanots and stuff. Cabernet Sauvignon. We have Chardonnay.

Wow. I'd be interested to try an Ohio wine. Are there other, who's competing against you? Is Pennsylvania have their own wine that they're coming after you with? I hear there's Scranton is coming at you guys hard with their wine. Yeah, they're a constant threat. Yeah. I like the battle between the Purepont Ohio vineyards and the Scranton vineyards are really

going at it. Detroit, also known for their wine. Yeah, it's a beautiful place, like I said, right on the lake and maybe, you know, a Conan within borders sometime. Oh. Oh, I like that. Conan within borders, so a travel show, but instead of going to Ghana or Armenia or Cuba, I like that.

I go to Purepont. Very rural. Yeah, Purepont, Ohio, and it's you and I just knocking back a really good Ohio Sauvignon Blanc. Yeah. Well, Sona will bail the hay. Come on. Of course, of course.

Yeah. What are you doing while I'm bailing hay? Are you just like drinking a pina colada on a porch somewhere? No. We know what I'm drinking. I'm drinking really good wine from Ohio. Okay. So that's what I'm doing.

And I'm bailing hay. And I am monitoring your progress as my assistant and giving you occasional updates. Is she pregnant with twins at this point? Not my problem. Oh, come on. Hey, if you're not pregnant, those two kids are helping out. They've got to learn early. Yes.

Isn't that how it happens there, Andrew, in your neck of the woods? There's no coddling infants for a year or two while they're skulls form. No, you get them out there, right? You get them out there. Y'all are in the ropes. Yep. As an infant, I was in the haymow. What?

Is that true? As a small infant, they put you to work. You got to learn. Yeah, you got to learn somehow, right? Are you a children of the corn? Yes. You came out of the corn, didn't you? You were sent by the devil.

That's why the corn got diseased. No comment. What? Yes. Never know. This charming stranger started as a baby, grew in the corn and created all diseases that attack corn. What a strange segment.

What a weird way to end. It's called editing, Andrew. And someone will do it, not me. I don't do anything. I know. But you know what? I salute you. You seem like a very nice guy, and I really appreciate you talking to me and teaching

me about your neck of the woods. I'd like to get there sometime, and I'd like to try that one. I really would. Anytime. That would be great. Okay. Thank you so much. Really good talking to you, Andrew.

Yeah. It's great to meet all of you. Thank you. I'm not all of us. It's okay. You said all of us. Mainly you've done us. Oh, come on.

Andrew. I want to work on your farm. Yeah, Andrew, I edit this. Yeah, you've got to be nice to gorelly, really, as soon as the one to go after. Hey, take care, Andrew. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Love you, I. Thank you. Take care. Oh. Conan, please meet Vicky. I'm sorry. It's Vicky. Is that right?

Yeah, it's like Vicky with an F, so Vicky. Yeah, you were saying it right. That is so cool. I've never heard that name before. I love an interesting name. That's a very cool name. It means my beloved and I'm hark. Oh, wow.

You know what Conan means in Gaelic? What? Wide face. So both of those are absolutely right. Basically, yeah, yours is right and mine is right. Well, Vicky, and you are a chess champion, right? Yes. I've been playing since I was eight.

Did you love the Queen's Gambit or were you kind of annoyed that she learned how to play chess by staring at a ceiling? That was a bit weird when people were like, oh, do you do that too? I was like, oh. But I mean, it's a good film. All the games are real because I've paused it and I've been that annoying person who's like, let me look at this. That's cool.

You would pause Queen's Gambit and check out the pieces and make sure that like, oh, I see what they're doing. Yes, this is an actual move. A lot of films use like, oh, this person's playing chess means they're smart, but half of the time it's like the moves aren't correct at all. Yes, that's what would happen if I made a TV show and a character was playing chess. If you'd look down and you'd notice, some of those aren't even chess pieces. There's a thimble.

There's a thimble. Yeah. There's a little horsey from like a plastic horsey set, there's a GI Joe, yeah, that's what you would find out. I also think one of the things I noticed in Queen's Gambit is that she hits this part of her life where she has a different outfit change that's stunning for every single chess move. You move her chess piece and then she'll say, I'll be right back.

Now it's time for Prada. I found that to be a little strange. Where are you right now? Well, my background's the United Nations. I see that. Yeah. I love that. I love that you're a United Nations background.

It looks like, you know what it looks like? It looks like you're a super villain who's appearing before the United Nations to tell them they have 24 hours. Yes. You have 24 hours to meet my demands or that sky will rain giant chess pieces. Just to be clear, that's not what you're doing, right? No. Okay.

That's good. Where in the world are you right now? I'm in New York City. Oh, cool. All right. You're in New York City. You must have been playing chess early because chess players, they practically start in utero, right?

I kind of have to. That's a lot of the Russians. So you were playing against the Russian champions when you were still unborn? Yes. That's really impressive. So you just kick the stomach wall a couple of times for a code and that means... Mom plays the smooth. Yeah, mom play this move.

Now mom play that move. That is, wow. That is impressive. So how early did you know? Really as far back as you can remember, you knew chess? Chess is your superpower? Well, I could play with the boys and get hurt, which I didn't want to do. I could sit with the kids who didn't do their homework, which was kind of awkward to do.

So my teacher was teaching chess and I just sat and I remember, I didn't get it at all, but he was just really nice to me and he kept teaching me. So every choice time I would go over to the chess table with like three other boys. I remember thinking very clearly, I can't play with the boys because I'll get hurt. I remember that very clearly. They're aggressive, even in third grade. Boys are the worst, trust me. I realized then that I didn't, you know, this is even going back to like kickball, which

is supposed to be the easiest sport. I remember trying to kick the kickball and missing and everyone laughing at me and deciding, I need to do something else and I need to be elsewhere right now. But I applaud that. I applaud that you found your passion so early. So what are you doing now? What are you working on? Trying to pass college.

Pass college? Everybody passes college. Well, you see the people that pass college every day. Yeah, there's no passing college. You're going to pass college. You are a brilliant person, you know? You can lie in your cot at night and look at the ceiling and imagine chess moves. I know you can.

I wish I could do that with tests and answers. Where do you go to school? Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. It's cold up there. I'm at home right now. I'm going to go back after I get my second vaccine. Oh, you got the vaccine? Yes, I did.

New York, I was eligible. That's cool. Podcasters are eligible. I knew that. Well, I'm here to tell you as a podcaster, no we're not. That's just what I want to do is show up in a long line in LA and go, excuse me, I'm a podcaster. That's not going to happen.

I should suddenly see a tall red-headed pinata getting beaten, but I'm glad you're getting vaccinated. I'm really happy about that. You're a very cool person. You're very smart. You are delight and you're just, you know, you're there in front of the United Nations. They have to meet your demands. I like the whole thing.

The moment I saw her background and I was like, oh, she's cool. I know. I thought that was like an international chess match or something. Many people think the UN does engage in international chess. Oh, okay. I actually went to the UN for chess conference type of thing. Judith Polgar, she was encouraging other women to, other girls to play chess because most girls stop around high school, college.

Right, right. They can get almost phobic or steered away from math because they think it's, well, that's not really what I should be doing or spending my energy on, which is, you know, terrible and should be that. I think that's changing. I think it's changing quickly. I think people like you are changing it. So.

Oh, thank you. Yeah. Well, that's what I do. I dispense compliments to people that deserve them. My name's Conan O'Brien. Not you. I don't know. What?

Yeah. Well, really nice talking to you. I love your name. Oh, thank you. I'm going to remember that name and I'm going to use it to steal your identity. In a murder? No, no, it's going to be. You said that hopefully.

Yeah. No, just cash missing from your account. You'll see. Oh, dang. Yeah, I do. This is pretty much a scam. I get people to give me their information and then they later on find out, hey, how come I never heard myself on Conan's podcast and how come $7,000 is missing from my account?

Well, nice talking to you. Thank you, Ficky. I have one last thing because it's my roommate. Okay. It's around the time of Halloween and so we were watching the ring and I got your mug. Have you seen your Conan O'Brien needs a friend mug? I think I saw one once. I can show you.

It's... How does it relate to the ring? The movie, The Ring? We watched it and then it was around the same time I got the mug and then so my roommate has LED lights so it just started completely flashing and then my, not my bed, my desk started to shake. So my roommate thinks this mug is cursed, so if you... It's a mug?

Bring it back. Wait a minute. She's saying that the Conan O'Brien needs a friend mug that you purchased online is cursed. She seriously is banning the mug from... I don't know how to sage it or should I put googly eyes on the mug? No, do not put googly eyes on my mug. It's demeaning and will make me look like some sort of absurd character. I can't believe that your roommate is so narrow minded that she would think that anything

with my face on it invokes evil. Okay, it's kind of... No, it's also just a bit creepy just because it's these two white, really piercing blue eyes just staring at you. Yes. When they said, what kind of mug do you want? I said I want one that captures the real me. And all the women on staff agreed that I'm a creepy staring guy and that immediately

became the mug. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry that if you think the mug is cursed, I don't think I can lift that curse. I think if it's cursed, it's cursed. Sonia, why are you laughing? They were watching the ring and then they thought that your mug was cursed. It's just her roommate won't allow it back into the house. There's so many things about this.

I love so much that you just invoke this evil just from a cartoon portrait of yourself. Or is it just the roommate doesn't want it in her view? So she's saying it's haunted. She came up with an excuse. Because we're finding out that a lot of people are coming up with excuses not to want that mug around. And so it could be that she doesn't believe the mug is cursed. She just doesn't like seeing my face.

And I've had a lifetime of people saying, I'd rather your face wasn't here right now. Oh, no. Oh, it's true. True story. True story. My room is also on top of the laundry mat. So I might explain why my bed's shaking. My desk is shaking.

Oh, wow. You're still going to say it's the cup. I'm sorry. They thought it was the mug before it was the laundry mat downstairs. You live above a laundry mat and you're blaming my mug for the room shaking? She's rather a cursed mug. Well, there is a rodeo downstairs. I forgot to mention that.

We live above a theater that's been showing hereditary around the clock 24 hours a day, seven days a week for two years. But my roommate says your mug is cursed. Well, my beep is with your roommate. I say it's not cursed. But if it is cursed, I hereby lift that curse. It's gay. Thicky, I really like you.

You're very cool. Thank you. Thank you. 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 Soloteroff, 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 Bekton, please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.