Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - John Mayer

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Musician John Mayer feels accepted about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. John sits down with Conan to discuss emotional deference, having a good show versus giving a good show, and his new SiriusXM channel Life with John Mayer.For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, my name is John Mayer, and I feel accepted about being Conan O'Brien's friend. Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brandy shoes, walking loose, climb the fence, books and pens. I can tell that we are going to be friends. Because I can tell that we are going to be friends Well, this is very exciting And I don't say that often And even when I do say it, I don't mean it Like now

But I am serious I shouldn't say that I am excited Because I'm back working with an old Friend slash enemy You'd call him Frenomy A frenemy I think he's more enemy than friends

So I'm just going to say Fenomy And just lose the R part of frenemy. Okay. You see what I mean? Yeah. I'm talking about Jordan Slansky. If you're a fan of Conan O'Brien and all he does, and yes, I talk about myself in the third person, then you know that my nemesis is a Mr. Jordan Slansky, someone who's been working with me for many years. We've had many adventures. They're all online. People stop me all the time and say, oh my God, what's the deal with that freak? You two make me laugh. We've traveled the world together. Well, now we have a show together.

and if you want to hear it, you can listen to it. It's the Conan and Jordan Show. I believe it's called. I'm just making that up on the fly, but I think that's what it's called because it's the least imaginative thing I could think of,

and that tends to be what people come up with around here. So I think it's called the Conan and Jordan show, and there are already two episodes available on the Sirius XM app. All you have to do is just search Conan, or if you got yourself, some nice serious XM show, Radio. You can go to my channel, Conan O'Brien Radio. It's the Conan O'Brien Channel, and it's on

104. And you can check it out. If you've ever seen the two of us talk, it's really like watching two mad dogs fight each other, except one is a really good dog, mad dog, and the other's just a dog named Jordan, who's not good. Anyway, Jordan, what do you think about, what do you think of my promotion so far? Yes. Well, it's good to see that you're promoting it. For the longest time, convinced that we had a show. You know, I come into this facility, and I record things, and I was told that some of those things will go on a show, but I've seen no evidence.

There's been no... You wouldn't see it. You'd hear it. There's been no launch party. I have not been... There's been no... I would assume when you when you reach a certain level of achievement, when you have your own radio show, the environment around you would support a sense of accomplishment. I don't

no one has congratulated me. I don't feel like there's any... Jordan. I don't know what machine is. I understand. It's always good to understand the arc of a career. Really appreciate the arc of a career. Now, Ronald Reagan had a terrific arc. He started out in radio. Then he went into movies and television. And then he ended up being the leader of the free world. And then he graciously left the stage. I've chosen a different arc. I started out in television and I've worked my way into radio. And I've brought you with me. Back in the old TV days, when we were on network television, we were throwing parties left and right. Those days are over. There's no party for you. There's no party for me. I'm saying, how does this compare to when you got your late night show in 1993 in terms of the celebration? This is like if, uh, it's as akin to you're walking down the street and you see a

walnut out of its shell on the sidewalk and you pick it up and you debate it for a moment and you eat it and it tastes pretty good. That's what this should feel like to you. Okay. This is finding a walnut out of its shell, out of its shell, but you still pop it in your mouth. Jordan, I'm excited about this. You and I have a chemistry that can't be bottled. You know why? No. It would be a terrible product. But I'm excited about it because I think these are going to, I've listened to the two shows. They're very funny. And I'm excited for people to hear these. I've not heard the shows because I don't have a serious subscription. Why not? I haven't been given a subscription.

I haven't been formally engaged. I haven't been engaged by serious. That's why I'm not convinced I have a show. This is the problem. Am I supposed to sign a contract of some sort? This is the problem. Because no one has reached out to me. Please.

I got your ex a long time ago and I just keep reprinting it. Let me tell you something. For you to say you don't have serious because you haven't been given it is so indicative of you and your generation. Isn't that a reasonable expectation that there would be. be some kind of subscription given so I can hear my own work. No. I'm not aware when new episodes even come out.

I don't have any information. You know more than I do about this show. I've not heard any of it. Okay. First of all, I don't think it's important that you hear the show or appreciate the show. When does it come on? Like, how often is it on?

Go on the Sirius XM app. I can't go on the app because I don't have a login. Oh, because nobody gave you one. Hey, let me ask you. How far do you think you'd get by? Am I supposed to join up on my own? You know the rule. when I raise my hand, it means I speak.

No, I don't know the rule. I just made it up. How do you think this would go over in Dickensian London if you walked around and I said, Hey there, little boy. Have you had any food? No, sir, I haven't. For no one has given me any. That's not how it works.

You have to go to the factory. What is Dickensy in London? How many people know what that reference is? Dickens London of the 19th century. Who knows this reference? Who is your target demographic that you're talking about Dickensy in London? I have charts here that Sirius gave me, and it said, our core demographic are people that studied the works of Charles Dickens between 1870 and 1885.

That's our core demographic. Oh, wait a minute. No, no, no, I'm reading. This is a course selection for Amherst College. I'm sorry, I had the wrong piece of paper. My point is, I think we have a wonderful show. I don't care if you hear it or not. And no, I'm not getting you an SXM subscription.

Okay. Because you say you work for me, but I don't see any evidence that you. you do. And yet still, you do get money from me, do you not? There is some compensation. Okay. Listen to me, I, uh, I was on vacation traveling for the holidays and I was in a rental car and there was serious. So I, I tuned to channel 104 in the hopes that maybe I'll, I know the show has been out for a couple of months, apparently, even though I've heard really no chatter. I've tuned to the channel looking for it and I see nothing. I see this show. Conan O'Brien needs a friend over and over again. Look, obviously this is the flagship show of this

empire that you've created. Okay? I understand. One need only look around the room and we see the creme de la creme of the serious brass, uh, top men as, uh, they say in Raiders of the Lost Dark, which Matt Gourley would have appreciated if he was here. He couldn't be here. Yeah, this is not in the same. So obviously, this is the flagship property. I understand that and I'm a big fan of all your respect of work. Everyone in this room and Mr. Gourley as well. I'm just curious, how does my show, obviously if there's a ranking system, this is number one. Well, we'd have to, We'd have to ask someone who works. In levels of importance, I'm talking about.

Mr. Cruz, do you want to just, Mr. Gruse is here, and he is a very important person in the serious XM hierarchy. Mr. Cruz, tell us, answer some of his questions. Would you please? It's very important. I guess the question is, do you expect it to be running on a loop 24-7 on the channel? Yeah. What kind of expectation is that? Oh, I don't get it.

I don't understand. I went to the game preserve, and I didn't see. see the grizzly right away. You have to wait for the grizzly. I waited for it. I waited for it for a long period of time. What I'm saying is, you're on vacation and you told your wife and your children, hey, go fucking get lost.

I have to sit in this rental car and wait to hear my own voice. Is that what you did? I thought to myself finally, since I haven't been given a subscription, I have the opportunity to hear this work that I've been doing for the past few months. And all I keep hearing is this show. And what my question is, is there any show less important than mine in this empire you've created? Yeah, yes.

Yes, there is. We have a channel where Sona just reads the local weather in Venezuela. Oh, that's really popular, actually. No, no, no, it's been doing well. It's been doing really, really well. Every time I turn on Sirius 104, that's what I hear. Yeah, because it's really a very popular show. It's her saying, muy caliente.

Very caliente. It's all the Spanish I know. The show is kind of a little bit of what you're hearing. It's Jordan and I discussing various philosophies, ideologies. we take some calls. We debate the great issues of the day. But more often than not, we debate your stupid pronunciation of various words. It's, I guess, your attempt to show that you have some kind of superiority over the rest of us, but you just bend words in a way that no one's ever heard. I have to say, I've laughed very hard working on these shows with you. It makes me,

If you really want to hear me laugh really from the belly, then you want to check out these Conan and Jordan shows. And as I said, you can go on the SiriusXM app and just search Conan, or you can check us out on. You'd think if you go on the SiriusXM app and you search Conan that you'll get to my show. And then you'll be offered, I guess, a menu of choices. And the Conan and Jordan show will be in there. Mr. Gruse is approaching again.

There are about eight, nine, ten different options, different shows that you can listen searching Conan and a cornucopia, a lazy Susan of select deli meats. If you go to the Sirius XM app and you search Jordan, will like, will the show come up? Michael Jordan will come up.

I see. Yeah. Yes, yes, it will. Yeah. Oh, is he right? That's great.

You just punch in Jordan. So, am I a radio host? Can I tell people I'm a radio host? The best you can do is say you're employed. Right. I think for you, that's a big deal.

But I mean, I have a show on the radio. You do. You do a show on the radio. You're a co-host. You're a, junior host, a lieutenant host to an admiral host. Oh, boy.

Okay. I'm not qualified. I'm not media trained. Do you understand? I'm not a smoothie. You know, like when you listen to like Matt Goreley talk, he's very smooth. He's got some training. He's oily.

He always sticks the landing, you know, like he'll go off on something and you're like, where's this going to land? And it just lands perfectly, you know. I'm sorry, which Matt Goreley are you listening to? That's not the one I'm listening to. I don't know what our show's about. I don't know what the future shows will be about. I don't even know what the past shows are about.

Again, I haven't heard the shows. We come in here and I talk, I guess. But we have a guy, Frank Smiley, who calls me like, you know, five minutes before I come in and he says, what's going on in your life? And nothing goes on in my life. So I really never have an answer. I said, well, I've been eating breakfast cereal. And then I guess we talk about breakfast cereal. You're a great spokesperson for this show.

Yeah. Well, let me tell you something, Jordan. I think it's a very funny show. I think it's one of the funnier things we're doing in the Conan Empire. People love our confrontations and our discussions. And I think Mr. Smalley's done a wonderful job with this program. I would steer people towards this show if they wanted, they wanted to really enjoy themselves. And you have a following.

Believe it or not, I know you cashed in on it during COVID. You went on cameo and you made tens of dollars. And why you shot it in your bathroom, I'll never know. But that tends to be what people do. You and James Vanderbeek. So my question is, what is it you're lacking in life? You're working with Conan. You have a show, the Conan and Jordan show, Sirius XM.

It's on the app. Just search for Conan, 104, Sirius XM. Or more direct route. If you search for Jordan, you get right to the show. If you search for Conan, you get the other properties, which clog up the Sirius Channel 104. Well, it's true. I have such a wide spectrum of works that I've done, and you just have that one thing. Is the show doing well?

Does anyone have, like, the metrics, data of some sort of? It's doing, look, here comes Mr. Cruz. It's doing great. You can also check out clips on YouTube. So a lot of different avenues. Yeah. So I don't know what you're bitching about. Instead of next time when you take a family vacation,

instead of throwing everyone out of the rental car, your wife, your two young children, and saying take a walk, go shit in the woods for all I care. I've got to scan Serious 104 and listen from my voice. Just go on the app. Okay, save yourself a little time. Yeah. I don't have access to the app again. Yeah.

reach into your pocket and some of the money that I pay you use a little bit of that. Is there any discount? Do I get? Is there a promotional code of some sort? There's actually a markup for you. There's a markup because you're really irritating me right now. Anyway, check it out the Conan and Jordan show. I promise you, and I can't promise much, but it is really funny. It really makes us laugh. So look, we've had some fun. Yeah. Okay. And we've, Sona, would you agree that we've had a good time? We had so much fun in this intro. Okay, but let me tell you something. Yeah. I think it's time to move on to the next level. But I want to keep talking about this.

No, no, no. Okay. You can't be trusted to keep jabbering as you do. Okay. Because we have things to do. This is a great man. We're talking to my guest today is a seven-time Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter. Seven Grammys.

That's six more than me. Oh, wait, I'm sorry, seven more than me. Yes, yeah. Because I don't have any. Anyway, now he's launched an exclusive year-round channel on Sirius XM Life with John Mayer. It can be found on Sirius XM Channel 14. Oh, he's on 14. I'm on 279.

That's what seven Grammys gets you. No, no, I'm on 104. I'm very happy there. Anyway, life with John Mayer can be found on SiriusXM, Channel 14, as well as in the Sirius app. Thrilled he's here today. John Mayer, welcome. I don't want to do the thing where someone says like, you never invite me over, Dave. But I have waited to be on this podcast.

I've waited for you to ask me to be on the podcast for a long time. Not angrily, but that's all to say. I'm excited to finally be here. I just want to say that everyone in this room has been here when they repeatedly come in and say, what about John Mayer? And I say, abs so fucking looting not. I'm not having it. I'm not a fan of this guitar fellow.

Yeah. That's what I always say. Not a fan. I'm thrilled you're here. I am. Thank you. And my acting assumption is that people don't want to do it. So I'm very happy to have you.

So let's clear the air on that and also clear the air on which of us is the better musician. Oh. Because that's a running debate. No, it's not. No, nobody's debating that. Oh, I'm thinking of a different debate. Yeah. I'm thinking of the famous Lincoln Douglas debates, which is, I'm sorry, I completely forgot because you're a virtuoso.

Thank you. You play from the heart. You play with love. No, that's the way to put it. That's the way to put it. That's the you have a good personality. Well, no, when it comes to playing the guitar. I play

I play You play with great intention You play with your hands You play with your hands You do you do You know what's really funny is I've always I've struggled it throughout my life

to play the guitar And one of my go-to songs was always Bob Dylan's buckets of rain I just I love that song and I like to play it And I like to sing it And I always started to think

you know, I think I play this one pretty well. And then there was a benefit. I don't know if you remember this. I don't know if it was like eight years or so ago. And you're on the benefit too. And I do my thing. And then you come out and I have no idea you're going to do this. And you start to say, I'm going to play a Dylan tune and you play Bucats of Rain.

Yeah, I remember that. And I went home and I destroyed my guitars. And then I fed my hands into a wood chipper. Because it made such a mockery of the one song I thought I could really play with like feeling. And I was like, oh, and it's that thing. I'm not even Salieri looking at Mozart in this. I'm a chamber pot looking at Salieri who's looking at Mozart, you know? It didn't make you want to go home and get it more under your hands?

No. It discouraged you. I just understood that I am an ape who's on this earth for so much time. And there's no amount of time left where this ape is going to learn that. Do you know what I mean? I just understand. I feel that way about so many things. I tried stand-up comedy.

And I did the same thing. I go, why would I want to be the 33,000th best at something when I could devote all my energies to be, you know, in the top. Right, right. In the conversation of the top something. But I always, well, I don't know. I guess I feel like they're different. Maybe the grass is always greener, but I just.

And I've heard you in interviews sort of talk about like, yeah, I made a decision. I think you say you saw Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future. And you were like, okay, I'm, I guess I'll learn to do that. And I think, no, that's not how it happens. That is not you. There's something in you. No, something else was there. There's something in you, clearly, that isn't in other people.

And so it was, in a way, it relaxed me because I thought, no, I play the guitar because I find it kind of calming for myself. and I try not to inflict it on too many other people. But no, I did not watch you and say, well, I better really get at it now. Okay, so I have a story about the time I was relaxed the way you just explained it. I was at a restaurant one night.

I was at Craigs, not to brag, I was at Craigs. You got into Craigs? I got into Craigs. I keep trying. It's like you on this podcast. They were like, absolutely not. But anyway, go ahead. And Jeff Beck was in the room.

Oh, Jesus. And I was relaxed. It's so funny to hear you say that I went, Oh, I don't have to think about how I play the guitar because the best is in the room. So, and it's not me. In your mind, it was, it's, it's, I was comforted. I could finally quiet down this noise in my head I didn't know was there, which is the best in the room is sitting over there.

And it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to maybe be me. Can I ask you a question, which is, when did this sighting happen? I know Jeff Beck passed not too long ago. It wasn't that long. It was probably 2018 or something. See, this is something, I think some of this comes a little bit with getting a little older. You're still in my book, an incredible young person. But I think some of this came to me later, meaning I had the ability to say, yeah,

that person's just so amazing and I'm not going to worry about it. Oh, I have that. I think that I don't know that I had that in my 20s. I was so, you know, teens and 20s. I was so hungry. I was too. And then there's this nice thing that comes later on. You know, people malign getting old.

And we have this whole culture that says, you know, oh my God, that's terrible. and I'm especially in comedy that, you know, I've turned 60 this year. And I, you know, I'm starting to get in my head a little bit about it. And then I thought, oh, no, I don't know. I do what I can. And there are so many people that are so great. And I'm excited when I see how great young people are. And when I'm around like a Martin short, I relax.

Because I go, okay, that's Martin Short. I'm no Martin Short. That's Martin Short. I have that when I go to Hollywood parties, which I don't very often anymore. But I used to go to parties and see beautiful women. and think to myself, I'd get discouraged. I get sad. I never even went up to them and I'd get sad.

And now... Get sad, why? I'd get sad because I'd be so desirous of their approval and their attention. I would just, I remember being so young, I'd want to leave. I don't even know what my expectation was, but it was to leave walking on air or something. It's so funny. Everybody just sort of knight me or something at the party. And now I walk in.

And I don't mean this in any sort of self-effacing way. I go, and it's freeing. They don't give a shit. Right. I say this, she doesn't give a shit. It's awesome because she doesn't and that's great. So I don't even think about it. They don't care.

I always felt sad for beautiful women because they don't get to be with me. Oh, gee. Because I'm taken. You know what I mean? No, I don't know. Let me ask you a question. Matt, let me just be really clear. Please.

They all go their whole lives and not know the orgasmic beauty. Oh, come on. Of being with this spam skin skeleton. I just have an issue with you in orgasmic beauty being in the same sentence. Oh, go ahead. And stab skin. When's the last time you left a party feeling a little small? Have you recently left a party feeling a little empty?

Because you had a conversation with people who took a little more energy out of you than they should have left you. Can you still leave a party a little wounded spiritually? Yes. You can always be in a situation. It's that old horrible cliche. you go, there you are, but we're always seconds away from being back in high school. Yeah, that's right. And I don't care what you've achieved or what you can do. You're seconds away from maybe feeling you misstepped or you aired or people didn't care about you

or people were made assumptions about you or rude. You're always, that can always happen. And I'm always amazed. I feel that way about audiences, which is one of the kind of magical things about comedy anyway. I don't know if it holds for music. I've always envied musicians like yourself because I feel like you can go out there and play and not be judged second to second. People weren't saying like,

I don't like the way he slid into the B-flat there. I didn't quite like that. They do in Nashville. Yeah. They're very specific hecklers. They're all musical. I didn't like the way you flew, slip into the B-flat. Sir, I'm still playing.

but you're always seconds away from going out in front of people that don't care, possibly. And that possibility puts you on your guard a little bit in probably a good way. But I feel that about any social situation is I don't, I think it's wrong to think of, I always think of like a Dean Martin as a guy that could just wander in and not care and he's smoking and everyone thinks he's the coolest guy in the room. And I'm the complete opposite of that person. I am too. I look up to everyone who isn't me.

I sort of naturally... Even me? Anyone who... A waiter. A waitress. Anyone who isn't me I somehow look up to and defer to in a weird way. Emotionally defer.

I'm getting better at not doing that because it leaves me really vulnerable. Right. But let me also... I'm not going to say I look up to everyone who isn't me. I think I'm a humble person and I'm just saying that because if I say it enough, it'll be true.

Well, how about... I'm the guy that's sad for a beautiful... women that don't get to be with me, by the way. For the record, that's not what I did not say I was sad because they didn't get to be with me. No, I said that. Okay. I was sad. You said something very beautiful.

I said something. Void. An unfilable void. But if you were at a restaurant. Hey, I love that we start comparing voids. You think you got a big void? Oh, boy. I got a big void.

My voice. Check this void out. My void's been good to me. Oh, my God. My void has been. Why do you men always talking about your voids? Oh, you two. your match.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're at a restaurant. Yeah. And something isn't right with the food. And it's not right enough to bring it up to the, to the waiter or waitress. Don't you defer to them?

I would never. I would never. Why not? And why not? I am. Probably mostly, I would say 80% way I was raised was just the big thing was that I learned from my mother was you just don't want anyone to be upset with you. That's how, that's what I'm saying. Yeah.

And this is, we're talking about the same thing. Yeah. My looking up to them is related to my not wanting to that, wanting them to be upset. It used to be, I need you to love me and now it's I don't want you to hate me. Right. So I'm getting better. I'm getting there. And I don't, I want to ask a question and it's a, it's not a rhetorical question and it's not a

criticism. Why do you think it is? The largest community of people who have hurt my feelings at parties over the years have been related to SNL. Oh, is that true? Yeah. Okay. What is it about the SNL experience? And I'm being very open-minded about it because it's, it can't be this sort of ad hoc thing where everyone at SNL is just a little pathological.

What goes on at SNL? Is it the fraternity that when you do see someone from SNL at a party? Okay. Do you know what I'm talking? First of all, I want to go into a little bit of, I want to do a little bit of forensics before I proceed, which is how most comedians talk. Make sure you're fully anesthetized. You don't have to name names, but are you talking about performers?

Both. And writers. No, not writers as much. Let's just say performers. Okay. Right? I don't want to get too specific. And it's not evil.

It's not pointedly mean. It feels neat. It feels like a coldness. Because I'm open. I show up open. And I show up with the weird expectation other people are going to meet me there. Yeah.

And there is this sort of pull away, this sort of if it's almost like someone on SNL has a difficult time pretending to be interested if they're not. Does that, does that check out? I think I think it's a couple of things. I mean, it depends. I wouldn't make a blanket statement about like all SNL people. I don't mean to. I don't want to. I'm just saying because of the people who I've left going, I feel like I hyper extended and I fell in front of them or that they walked away and weren't interested. Is that just my love of SNL?

Well, possibly, I think there is something in comedy, and maybe it's particular to SNL because it's, you know, it's a two-way street here. First of all, is this wouldn't happen to you if you didn't put maybe SNL on a pedestal. I think so. I think that's part of. So part of the problem is maybe you putting other people on a pedestal. That's where I've been sometimes hurt before. There is a thing, which is a two, there's a two-cool for school philosophy that can thrive at SNL. I've known obviously wonderful, great people there.

One of the things I think that makes SNL actually really good or has helped it endure all these years is that there's a limited amount of real estate to get stuff on the show. You think about it. It's really dictated by it's a live show. So there's only so much physical real estate in Studio 8H. And they can only get so much show on every week. And there is a competition to get your sketch on. And so at the end of the day, you're competing with other people in the room. Now, that's just the way the show is set up.

I saw a lot of lovely collaboration when I was there. And you can also see a very competitive, someone giving you, putting their shoulder into yours, like, it's hockey. And you think, Jesus, what's this? So, SNO is a very specific environment. And I think it's possible there's a kind of maybe top. toughness there that it could read. Does that make sense to you? I wondered if it was because they're so deep in the trenches together that if you're not someone they recognize from the trenches, you can kind of feel it. Like to your point, if they weren't huddled together in 8-H having this experience

that is so bonding with the people who are either writing for the show weekly or like friend of show, or I represent something kind of anti-comedy because I'm the tall musician guy or something. I can't quite figure it out, but I hope this is more interesting than it feels like an indictment or me talking shit about it. No, no, it's not an indictment of SNL. It's an, it's like this is an experience that you've had where you've felt like you've encountered comedians and that's a tough place. That's a that's a that's not always the most comfortable terrarium and anyone who worked at SNL would tell you that. So I would contrast it say with there are other shows I've worked on like The Simpsons where the only way the show gets done.

is if everybody works together. And so if this room right now is a Simpsons writing room, I'd be praying if we were stuck on a line for Marge, I would be praying that you came up with it or Matt or Sona or Edward. I'd be like thinking, oh my God, someone get it because then we can go home. And that wasn't always the way at SNL

because it was, SNL felt more like I joined the Marines. And it was really scary and I got yelled at and I had to do push-ups. This would check out. You know, and then, but I say that, with a huge caveat because I've heard, I've talked about SNL before and I think sometimes it's been misrepresented. I loved that job and that job changed my life and I learned a shit ton there and I wouldn't change a thing. So at the same time, so it's both. Yeah. And mark the out point

where we would edit this because I don't, I, sometimes my curiosity. You're making my job easier. Yeah. Sometimes my curiosity sounds like this very kind of shrouded. criticism of something, but it's really me going, what is it? But can I say something else that is... I'm on Conan's podcast, and he asked me if he could say something else. Permission granted, Conan. I'm sorry, I just remembered you playing buckets of rain and I... My penis went up inside my lungs.

Which is quite a void, by the way. You had a penile embolism. Yeah, I did. My doctor's like, what's this doing in here? It happens. And my penis is like, there's so much oxygen. This is fantastic. Oh, my God.

But, okay, I'm going to tell you, I have had the exact same, and I'm not a big believer in naming names, but there are certain comedians who are my generation, or maybe a little older than me, just a little bit old, but certain comedians that come from stand-up specifically who I've met over the years, and they have left me feeling that way. Yeah, not broken, not destroyed, but, huh, okay. You know when you have an interaction with somebody,

and you leave and you just have your body knows before your mind does. So I leave the interaction and I feel like when you, sometimes you bump into it. And this is just not talking about famous people talking to famous people, blah, blah, blah. This is about talking to other human beings. Sometimes you bump into someone and you leave and you feel like you've been nourished. You just have this nice feeling and you just feel lifted.

And I'm only, I'm mentioning a name right now because I just randomly ran into them the other day. but I saw it was in a restaurant and I'm walking out and Tom Hanks is there and any time I bump into that guy I leave with this tingly he does something that makes me feel like

you know that old way of like yeah I bet he actually and he gave me a candy cane which I found creepy by the way he tried to lure me to his van no but you know he was there with Rita and I just felt I left and I felt like

it wasn't like a oh my God, that was Tom Hanks because I've, you know, worked with him and done a bunch of things with them over the years and interviewed him. It was more just that he was so funny and he, I could see like he saw me as a person and we had this nice moment and I left and I, he made me feel better and he does that for everybody. He does that for the person who's changing the aisle in his car as if he goes himself. I've seen it.

I mean, I've seen him do it. It's a magic thing. And people talk about that, but he's, you know, really beautiful that way. But these people I'm talking about these other people who will go unnamed have just, I've had interactions with them. And when I leave, I always feel like they've just taken, there's like a little

bit of shit on their finger and they put it on my, like, smeared it on my forehead. That's so specific. Yeah, and you know what? And also, I realized later on, they did do that. Conan. These are very specific people who put, they put their hand, their finger up their ass, and then they anoint you.

They do it. Like Ash Wednesday. It's true. It's like Ash Wednesday, but it's shit. You may not be able to play the guitar like you want to, but you are a born lyric. That's why we're going to write a song. Shitfinger Jones is going to be... All I know is that it's in E. But...

Shit Finger Jones. Have you heard the Deca box set of shitfinger Jones? Oh, some of the deep cuts are fantastic. He has a urine phase, which is not good. It's acoustic. That's when he went to Austria. It was like his Bowie phase. It was the 70s.

It couldn't get arrested in the States. He ended up in Austria under the alligator records imprint. But all I'm saying is that there is always... By the way, real quickly. It is such a great metaphor for someone who has a great thing going with shit finger Jones.

And then one day goes, what about piss? Yeah. And then everybody goes, we don't like the piss thing. We don't like you is the shit thing. We tried. We have tapes.

We can play for you. It didn't work. We tried piss. The label. The label came to him. said, it's all about piss now. Yeah. When you put urine on someone,

they don't always know that it was urine. It's a backwards move. Yeah. It's going back. It's going back. It's regressive. And that is TikTok. Exactly.

In a world of shit, I'm being sold piss. But there's your lyric right there. Just cut me in for 1%. But John, seriously, seriously, like, I have, that is the exact feeling I've had with these people. may have again where there's like a little bit of a condescending and I feel like I extended myself and tried to be hey the puppy dog and then left and I'm driving home and I just feel a little small

like a little deflated little two dimensional and I think that's that's everybody so here's what I think it comes down to certain people are nourishers and certain people can give energy and other people defend their energy and I think I'm a nourisher I want to I want to show up with another person who's going to meet in the middle we're going to give give give give give give give If you're not that way, and I shouldn't expect everyone to be that way. I know that I'm not rare, but it's not everybody who thinks like I think, which is, wow, how can I give to this experience? How can I'm, like I'm saying, looking up to people who aren't me, wanting to give to people who aren't me. Other people who can do that with you, it's the greatest jam out in the world.

But not everyone has that. Other people survive by way of preserving what energy they have, not giving it in hopes the other person's going to give it back. And I think that's the polarity issue with comics, and we don't have to name anyone. It's also sometimes musicians, but musicians are more of a closed loop in what makes them happy and where their validity comes from, their validation comes from. So if a giver is talking to someone who's a defender, then that's when the giver leaves going. But I don't think the defender leaves going. Was I a little cold?

No, I think, no, no, they're not concerned about it. And there are people, and again, we're not, we're talking about a very specific thing, comedy, show business, but they're just people out in the world where my best. The best analogy is the sixth sense. I'm around these people, and before I even see them, I can see my breath, suddenly. I couldn't see my breath before, but now I can see my breath. And then I turn around, and that person is standing right there, you know? So let me ask you this question.

Knowing that, if you can predict that, especially with certain people, will you give less as a self-protection? Yes. Yeah. I will not only give less, but I will also say, life's too short. I don't think I'll go to that party. Mm-hmm. I think I choose not to interact with.

We're talking about Pat Sejek. Put it on the table. But I've learned with certain people. I mean, he literally put shit on my forehead. And you can see it on the wheel. You can see it on the wheel. It's how they mark the wheel. It's how you cheat.

It's how you cheat. It's how you cheat because he always puts it. There's a little bit of shit right near the... It's like marking cards. Yes. No, seriously, look at Wheel of Fortune closely. You'll see a little bit of shit. goes like this.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And see, John can hear it because John has a musician's ear. I have the perfect picture. It's very, it's very subtle. Slish. Dda, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Slish. Oh, man.

Slish. I saw a piece of corn fly off the wheel once. I swear to God. And they cut to say Jack and he was eating corn on the cob. He was. And he said, chop, chop. We got a real good show for you today. Who the fuck eats corn on the cob?

On television. On television. While he's hosting a game show. Anyway, he'll get his, you'll get yours, Sejack. Oh, man. That Sejerk is somewhere. Someone's telling him, Conan really outed you on the show for shitting onto your hand and rubbing it on the wheel. Or he goes out to go to the supermarket and everyone's yelling at him,

Cornman. Hey, Cornman. It doesn't know why. A corn man. Shit on the wheel lately. Or he goes, they found me out. Yes, yes. That's what he does.

Somewhere a stage. like, no, how does he know? Shit on the wheel lately, by the way. We're very unnoticed in that back and forth. Those are the things where, those are the things where, okay, so we've been talking a lot about comedy, and my curiosity is I always, for me,

music is the other. It's the thing that I don't understand, put up on a pedestal. I've always said, if I could make my living legitimately in a rockabilly band, singing and playing rockabilly music, you would never see me in comedy again

because it would just make me so happy. That's an illusion because it wouldn't. I'd say how come no one's laughing? Well, they would be laughing, actually. I'm playing honky talk man. Yeah, yeah. By Johnny Horton. How is this not killing?

Why aren't they howling right now? Don't they know this is a real Gretch, 6120 from 1959? This got the cattle brand on it. I've got a harmonic tremolo on. Oh, yon, yong, yong, yong. But no, I've always thought, I've always put what you do as the other. And so then I think, I think what we all do is we tend to think my thought is, okay, I'm here in comedy and I'm always living like second to second.

And if something goes wrong, I've got to quickly figure out how to fix it. And it could all fall apart any second. But if I could play guitar and sing and write songs like John Mayer, I'd be bulletproof. And yet I talk to you and you don't feel. that way at all. Well, I don't feel bulletproof, but for different reasons, I always tend to have a different version of the same problem everyone else has. I worry the entire time I'm playing on stage, but I don't worry about whether I'm good enough to make it happen. That's set for me, right? It just happens to be set. What I worry about is, am I playing the song anybody wants to hear right now?

Is there another song I should be playing other than this one? So I have the fear they're going to walk out and go to the bathroom, not because they don't like me, but because I'm not playing what they want to hear. Right, right. And it's the blessing and the curse of having eight, nine albums and so many songs being so different. And I also don't love playing the hits. Sometimes what makes a hit lacks a little bit of song fabric that you can work with every single night. And if I don't play something that I'm, well, it goes both ways, right? If I, if I'm playing daughters, if I'm playing waiting on the world to change, I will say to myself, they don't want to hear this. This is all played out. this is just a hit song used to be on the radio.

No one cares anymore. I should be playing something a little deeper, something a little more texture. Then I play that. And in the middle of playing that, I go, they're going to walk out. They came here. They got babysitters.

They want to hear the songs that made me famous. So I can't ever, as I'm playing, find that happy place where I'm like, they're fine. Don't you think it comes down to like, they're fine out there? They can handle themselves. Right.

They're okay. If the audience could tell you one thing, it would be, we're fine. Also, it took me a while to learn this, but there's something about a group think audiences as a group are highly intelligent. It's one organism. Like when you get that many people together and they smell things. And if they sense, one of the things in, and it may be true in music too, but in comedy,

they're just a lot of times they're looking for confidence. Do you have the confidence to, are you worthy of our time? Do you know what you're doing and can you lead with authority? In music, it's are you having a good time doing this? Yeah. And in comedy too. Yeah. They would hate to know.

If I got on stage and said to the crowd, it's so good to see you because I have a really bad headache. And then I went and played the show. They would probably develop like, you know, sympathetic pain. Or they'd go, oh, he has a headache. Well, for years on the, for the, whatever, 28, 30 years of doing late night television, I always, my heart would sink when a guest would come out

and they're doing okay. And then they'd say, ah, these stories suck. In front of the audience. And the audience, I would always say afterwards, I mean, I wouldn't lecture them. they would, because that sounds stupid. But I'd be thinking to myself, the audience was okay. Until you.

My job is to let the audience know that this is just exactly the interview I wanted, whether it is or it isn't. But the minute you turn to them and say, you just bought a lemon of a car. Yes. That Dotson, I just sold you, sucks. I know there's not that. You are the spiritual leader of them.

Yeah. That's why if you break a guitar string, most people in the audience don't know how insignificant breaking guitar string is. They think you might have broken the instrument. And if you go, then they go, if you play right through it, they don't even notice after that. I never apologize. I've seen artists apologize on stage, and I've told them myself never apologize from the stage. Right.

I'm sorry, I have a cough, the cold tonight. You're not getting my best show. Never ever say. No, no, no. You have to, you have to, I mean, this is all very elemental stuff, but it's so fascinating to me that I love that it's true in comedy. It's true in music. It's probably true in business. It's probably, I mean, it's a very, I think cult leaders don't say, I'm sorry, that thing I said last week about, you know, an angel is going to come and he's going to be wearing goggles.

It's not, it's not goggles. I misheard the angel. The angel will be adept at Google is what I meant, you know. Yeah, you just, it's authority. And, you know, sadly, I think it works in politics too where someone who you think is, you think is. complete idiot if they say things with great authority over and over and over again. And I'm not naming names, but I think we know that we're all talking about Gerald Ford. Well, listen, I've said before, if you're not a Ford guy either, could, because we've got to

take him down. If Donald Trump weren't saying the things he was saying, right, and was saying things, let's say, that were benign, he would have a lovely speaking voice. Yeah. He could have, he could have narrated Royal Tenant Boms. And it would be great. Someone, someone can use AI, I'm sure. A fastidious fan of yours will use AI.

And have Donald Trump narrate. And it wouldn't be terrible. Wouldn't be terrible is my benchmark. You just described. That's our best review. No, it's funny because a couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of very recently of going to talk to President Biden. and I'm a huge presidential history buff, and he was lovely to me. And we had a very nice conversation that wasn't really that political at all.

One of the things I notice is that he speaks quietly, but what he's saying is, you know, was great. He was a terrific, it was a terrific conversation. And he has a quieter speaking voice as opposed to, say, a Trump who can say crazy things like, you know, art varks should mate with zebras. And if he says it loudly! And everyone goes, that's a leader. And I think to myself,

he just said ardvarks should mate with another species. I like when he reads from the teleprompter and reacts to the teleprompter as he's speaking. And ardvarks should be mating with zebras. And they should be mating. He's sort of reading for the first time.

And you can always feel the binary of when he's going, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, they should be. He's reacting. It's a good one. And they should be. They should be mating.

And then he goes back and he's reading. And he's reading. And he's reading, and he's reading, and they should, and they should. And he goes back. I just love the moment he realizes what he's reading. Yeah. And reacts to it in real time. It'd be funny if they just put a recipe in there.

And he was just, so he's talking about like, and we're going to do this about the border. And another thing, if you're making buttermilk biscuits, a quarter. At high altitude, one, one egg only? One egg? Only takes one egg. But I like, he's going like, just one egg, you know, because it's a higher altitude.

It's a higher altitude. And then he goes back, and you can feel him go back. Yeah. A little bit of honey. in with the, because you know, it adds sweetness. It does.

Add sweetness to the biscuit. But I'm realizing that it's presentation is so much of it and intent. Like it was your, you know, getting back to like comedy

and possibly music, but when you talk about worrying whether people are walking out or do people want to leave right now and go buy a soda or alcohol soda? Where am I been?

No, they want to get a pop. I don't get it. Okay, yeah, okay. It's the Nickelodeon wards. You're just about to be slimed. Kids are leaving to get a... I just go get a soda. Kids have cigarettes, but they're also drinking soda.

I don't have a cigarette and a phanta. I don't need to hear this song. But it's just... I think the one thing that's changed with me and it's come with age more than anything else. Probably some erosion, like experience. Just a lot of abrasion. and erosion, but also just time is, I don't want to miss quote, but I think it was George Wallace. Someone

like that said, who's, you know, this great stand-up community as man met around forever and plays Vegas. And his attitude was, well, they got the show they got. That was the show I had tonight. And I gave them the show that I had. And I think about that every now and then. They got the show I had to give them. That's what I had to give them tonight. And I gave it to them. I have a couple thoughts on that. And I forgot one of them. But there's a difference between giving a good show. and having a good show. You're always going to give a good show, and it would be nice if you also had a good show.

It's nice when you get both. But even if you didn't have a good show, you can be sure that you gave a good show. And that brings it back to the thing I just remembered, which is I do this thing now if I start to get in my head while I'm playing, and I go, hey, it doesn't have the spark. They're not loving it.

I go, let's do a quick checklist. Are these the songs on your albums? Are they played in the original key, on the original instruments they were recorded with? Are you singing in English? Are you singing the lyrics that are germane to the song? What else do you need? What else do you need to give?

And couldn't you do that when you were, is it me? Have they come to see me? Right. Are they, am I speaking English? Am I telling jokes? Is my hair up? Is my hair? If my hair is high, that's 50% of why they came to see me.

Yeah. If it's, if there's all a sag. But, you know, it's interesting that you bring that up because it is actually, well, a lot of people know this, but there is a very sort of, more scientific type of therapy that I've experimented with in the past called cognitive therapy. And cognitive therapy is very much about your emotions. Everything is driven by thoughts. So you do a checklist. And I've just found what I liked about it was that it made so much sense because I would go into these very dark spirals. And one of the things they teach you is get out

a piece of paper, write down all your thoughts. People hate me. Blah, blah, blah. My career's over. You write all these things down. And then you walk away for like 20 minutes. And then you back and you look at them and your job is to respond to what you wrote. And if you even wait 20 minutes, everything you wrote on the left-hand column usually looks pretty silly. It's naked. So it looks very ridiculous. It looks.

So if it's you, what you would have written down is, you know, people hate me. And then you come back 20 minutes later and you're like, I just played for, you know, 50,000 people. And they cheered. And I've been doing this for 30 years or 25 years, whatever. I've sold this many albums. I suck at the guitar. Let's take a look.

I opened for the Rolling Stones. That's right. No, that's right. I played with B.B. King. I played with Eric Clapton. I've played with everybody. I play, you know, I'm just a popper. I am a great jazz aficionado.

I am, you know, like, and so you look at it, and suddenly it all falls away, and you realize how stupid our thoughts are. We're bombarded with stupid thoughts all the time. We're really bad researchers. if we applied the same methodology to actual rigid scientific research that we do to our own thoughts, we would be looked at as the most insane people of all time. Right. Because we would, nothing would compute.

The measurements and the weights would make no sense. Right. And you would say, yes, there are 400 seconds to a minute. You go, how did you figure that out? It just felt like 400 seconds or to a minute, you know? Yeah. And so we're just terrible compilers of factual information as to what's going on in our life and the grand total will come out sometimes in the negative.

Yes. And it's just the math is wrong. That doesn't help everything just to know the math is wrong. You have to still fix the math, but it's nice to know. And that's what age affords you. Yes. You skip all that stuff where you really feel the anguish and you go, well, let's fix it. Yeah.

You'll be all right. There's also something about I'm a magical thinking, which I know is a, there's a lot of magical thinking in my family and in my family history. And I have a lot of magical thinking. and magical thinking is just what we used to do for millions of years, not millions, but, you know, 200,000 years humans would try to explain things they couldn't understand. Yeah. Why did Grog just get hit by a lightning bolt? And so someone else in the cave would say, well, you know, I noticed that he, you know, he spat out his food, a piece of his food that had gristle in it before we went out of the cave.

See? Right. Don't. If you spit gristle out of your mouth before you leave the cave, the gods will kill you. with lightning. So rule number one, and it's just like, no, that just doesn't work. And thus, OCD was born. Yeah. And every kind of eating disorder. Yeah. I often wonder, what did my grandfather feel when he didn't feel great? What would he have used, what would your grandfather have used to describe his state? I really think. Oh, people didn't

use to think about this stuff. I feel weird. Annie, I feel weird. Annie, I feel weird. But that must have been what it was. I feel weird. Going for a drink. Also, I think going back to people weren't like us. They behaved. No one sat around talking about how they felt. Hardly anybody went to therapy.

Freud shows up very recently in our history. And then it still hasn't caught on with a lot of people. But nobody talked about how they felt. And when people died, they died. When people felt grief, someone brought them a pie. and then said, you better get out there because your fucking pigs are leaving the barn. There wasn't this, and I'm not saying...

No, there's a happy medium. Yeah, because I am not praising that era at all. But I also think that you can spend too much time in the boiler room of what's... You know, it is not an objective world. The inside of your head is not an objective world. Visit the way you would visit the spooky basement every once in a while just to grab something out of the second fridge.

Right. And bring it back up. Because there are some people who only see. stay in the constant reportage of a very subjective world that can't stay the same. And so I don't know how you could lean your weight against something that's going to change every day. I don't want to say it's imaginary, but it is highly interpretive. And I think there's a, boy, this sounds great, doesn't it? Listen to me, go. But there's a sweet spot between interpreting your feelings and getting lost in too much of an abstract world. And you have to move, go in there for a minute. And you have to move, go in there for a

minute, tinker under the hood, fix what you need to fix, and come back up into the more work at a steel factory, do objective things, write songs, write comedy, make things happen. Action, yeah, making stuff. So can I ask you a question? So related? Yeah. Is the reason there are so many people here in this building sort of buzzing around with work and creativity because that's how you came up working on the TV show and you want to carry that same vibe? We knew you were coming and those are actors. Am I getting pumped? We, yeah, this is like, have you ever seen that movie The Sting where they have to pretend? It's a casino, but it's an off-track betting place, but it's not. And they just hire a bunch of actors.

So Ashton is in the grooming van outside. He's watching. No, I love being around a lot of people. I come from a big family, a lot of, a lot of siblings and a lot of chaos. I like having people around. You've noticed, like, I just love bouncing off of people. Yes. I get a perverse thrill out of them making fun of me.

I don't know. Yeah. And they do. And you get power from making fun of them. Yes, yes. I grow stronger by belittling them. If someone has an ailment, I really go to town. Where's your leg?

Oh my God. Conan. Don't say that to Limpie. I should learn Limpie's name, by the way. Felt asleep on a train track. Terrible. But. But I'm just.

I love having people around and I can't work in a vacuum. There are times, if I have to really think about something, I need to go off and be by myself and I loathe it, but then I have to go back into this, we have this Keebler elf tree going here. And I really love that feeling of bouncing off. I mean, I, you know, it's so funny because I've been in comedy for so long and I can certainly talk a blue streak.

But this podcast, I think what makes, it the whole thing work is if I was here alone, it wouldn't happen. But I'm here with Son and Matt and Eduardo and Blay. And I can bounce off them. They can challenge me. We can get into it. And so there's a there's a little bit of a chemistry here that really makes it special. It's so good that as a guest, I was wondering on the way here like, okay, what's going to be my tactic in terms of being funny occasionally? And then as soon as you went, I was like, oh, I don't have to worry about carrying the weight of any of that. Because to bounce off of you, to give you the idea, to set you up for the big joke, makes me feel like I made the joke. Yeah. You know, also, there's a big thing you learn in,

in anything is just, I don't care how we get there as long as I'm happy that we get there. Like, occasionally we'll go and I'll travel the podcast and these two, I don't remember your names, but I'll get it. You just said it. I know, I know, and I had it written on my hand, but then it washed away. My tears, as I was laughing about Limpie. Cheers of joy. And yet you remembered his name, which... I know. He's got one leg.

Okay. I mean, come on, get it together. You don't sleep on a train track. He didn't even hear the train. Now we didn't hear the train. But like, ARP, this... That's the problem with those assailants. You're so quiet.

You know, here coming on strong. Fill of sleep on that train train. When I woke up, I was walking all wrong. Walking all wrong. Walking all wrong. Oh, man. Oh, night long. I was walking all wrong with one leg strong.

And they're the one hanging, just bopping alone. I was walking alone. Okay, so you've got Ballad of Limpie. And what is it? Shitfinger Jones. No, wait a minute. You have half an album already. This is what I do.

This is what I do. This is where you should come. If I'm lucky, you guys go home tonight. Take your jacket off and you go, I was walking all wrong. And your spouse or roommate says, What's that? You're singing. I like that.

Mayor started singing it and it's stuck in my head. Is that the ballad of walking on row? To sing more. And also in your version, the leg is still there, but it's hanging on. My version, it's on Tunnel of Love. My version is on Tunnel of Love. Oh, my God. Will it Saturday night?

I fell asleep on the tracks. And when I woke up, I felt something different run up or down my back my right leg was mostly hanging on by a thread. I love this song. It's so good.

That was a great contribution, by the way. You're gonna work. You act like I didn't elevate what John did? I elevated what John did. No, you didn't. John was singing in his barely passable voice. And then I added, which I was like a 10 a.m. orgasm. I don't know what you were doing.

If I could have an orgasm. I'd be quite happy, sir. Yeah, you're about right for me. Someone's been looking at my eye count. 10 a.m. high time. People want to go on a date. I'm like, sorry. Every day begins at 10.30 a.m. If you want to go on a day with me, you've got to get your request. before 10 o'clock a year.

The new Apple Watch has a function that lets you know when John Mayer is orgasm. And I didn't, I know how to turn it off. You can turn it off. It's just on there. No, I mean, first of all, you can turn it off, but you have to go in to the fucking whole thing and turn it off.

So I'll just be walking, be 10, every morning around 10 a.m. I was like, and I'm like. They'd say one more thing. With Apple's new exciting jack track, You can find out when you or your loved ones are pleasuring themselves. So as to better time, your amorous moments. With a new longer life battery

in the Ultra 8 and jack track. I love the jack track. That's an app. The jack track. You've got two songs and an app out of this relatively short discussion. That's what we do. This is fantastic.

Hey, I want to make sure I mention something, which is that you have a channel, which I think is, fantastic, which is you have your own serious XM channel, Life with John Mayer, and it's a different approach because you're not just playing your music. Very little of it.

It bums me out when my music comes on. It's based on time of day. I thought of this because of the jack track. I'm not kidding. The riff about the jack track got me thinking, wait a minute. I know this sounds like a forced plug, but it's not. I think you have a very cool approach to having a channel, and I'm

eager to check it out. But tell us what it is. called Life with John Mayer, and it is not genre-based as much as it's based on the time of day. Right. Because when we got into algorithms and Spotify and stuff, we kind of got trapped in this idea of telling a computer what we want to hear. And I always say it's sort of like your grandmother keeping track of what you like. Yes. And they're wrong a lot, you know?

And I know you're pulling a jack track thing in on. No, no, no. But I would never go back to something crass. I would never call back a crass remark. That's just not me. But you go, I don't know, what I want to hear? What I want to hear? And then you tell Spotify and Spotify goes,

I know what you want after this. And it's the same six, seven songs. And it starts to like, for me personally, it was becoming claustrophobic. I'd go to the gym. I'd go, I don't know. Give me George Benson. Give me the night. And it would go, got it, son.

And then I would know what was coming after that. And I was just getting more and more confined in what I was listening to. And I thought, if there was a serious channel where every time you turned it on, the music was synchronized to the time of day as best as possible. Like at night, it's super mellow music. So you can have it on in the kitchen. You can, and I do. It's great.

In the morning, it's like drive time music, you know, because when you wake up in the morning, you don't want it. It's not, it's not, you know, it's not Tom Waits Time. No. In the morning, it's okay to hear, you know, since you've been gone. And you might not play that. You might not think to tell Spotify to play that. But when it comes on at seven in the morning and you're in traffic, it's like, right on, right on.

It's great. It's like a cup of coffee, you know. What's programmed at 10 a.m.? Dead air. I'll be back in seven minutes. We're going to take a quick break between seven and 11 minutes. We're going to let dead air speak for itself.

I'll be right back slightly out of breath and let it play some Pearl Jam. I'll be right back after I find that. Sports Illustrated with Kathy Ireland from 1992. It's throwback Tuesday. It's throwback Tuesday. It's that would be Kathy Ireland.

Sports Illustrated. We're going to be... That's so funny. It's throwback Tuesday. Then you hear me opening a safe. I like the idea. Your hardcore porn is shrewed out and about throughout the house.

First of all, it's not online. It's not online. It's in a safe. You put on white cotton gloves. Yeah. Which is in itself. Weird obstacle. Three to the right.

Hello, Miss Ireland. It's like, you got the blue booties on. Hyperbarabar. It's like the curation room of the rock and roll hall of fame. No fluorescent lighting. I love the burglars that come to my house and bust open the safe. They take the safe out of the wall and then they get it back to where they're layer and they crack it open. What the hell is this?

They follow you home and hold you at gunpoint to open the safe and you finally open it up and club magazines come cascating out. These are all very attractive women from the late 80s and early 90s. This is a printout of Samantha Fox Half of these are articles The best VCRs of 1988 You actually printed the article On most poisonous snakes

There was always one article The Deadliest Snakes And every now and then I'm getting aroused by that an interview with the John 316 guy from the baseball games where's Conan someone mentioned Egyptian asp and he just dashed off

he said it'd be back in seven to 11 minutes oh my God oh my God well this I mean first of all I'm I'm very happy you're doing this channel and you're going to be like taking calls you're going to be talking to people because yeah I go live

I take calls ideally I'd like to do interviews with people if you think I'm any good. You're, I would, no, but I would love to, I mean, this, this has been an absolute blast, and I would happily, anytime you want me, come up, come by, yeah. I'd love, bring a guitar, we'll do, we'll do, I'll, we'll do bucket so we're in. I actually mean it. I actually mean it. You're the most encouraging person I've ever seen during a conversation. Do you, are you, are you aware that you give constant kinesthetic encouragement? I, I'm loving this. This is one of my favorite episodes we've ever done.

Okay, this is great. I look over to you, and this is, everyone in the crowd. We're doing what you were doing. Why do you think Conan keeps him around? You're effusive. It's great. You know, the thing is everyone else here cuts me down. And Blay is always telling me, that was amazing, even when it wasn't. No, it's great.

It is amazing. It is amazing. It's always amazing. It feels so good. It makes me feel so good. Honest to God. No, I would be thrilled, honored to come by and hang. I think I just need to do one really good interview, and other people would maybe hear.

I'm already down on myself about whether or not anyone would want to do it because it's so new for me. Oh, I wouldn't worry about that at all. Like, I just, I think you're gonna do a great job. I was thinking I've survived every scary thought I've ever had in my life. I've survived it.

I've woken up the next day. And I've survived everything I thought was going to kill me. And so now, and I got to a place where I feel like there's this trust in what I do with people that if I put a record out a year, two years, three years from now,

people go, oh, I want to hear what he has to say. Yeah. So everything feels so, set in a way that makes me feel like it's this until a doctor sits me down and says, you know, when I first got in the medicine, I go, oh, boy, you know, whatever that conversation is someday where I'm told I can't stay. That's the end of it. But until then, don't you feel like this is the straightaway now? This is the best. Oh, I'm, I like this part. This is the best. You did all the work to get here. Right. To where you can hire actors to hang out outside.

They're all, we, once you got into this building, I didn't want to pay for them the whole They're eating across the street. Yeah, and they're not being paid for that time. But the minute you leave, they're all going to rush back. I actually have one guy in the corner sawing something. And there's no reason for a guy to be sawing something at a podcast. You know a guy dressed like an oompa loop. Who's the man with the measuring tape?

Who's just going around measuring everything? And also, why did I make it look like an off-track betting place? And here comes Lucky Lindy in the straightaway. Hey, John Mayer, God bless. Thank you for being here. And before you go, I'll show you. There are a couple of guitars up in my office, and you can laugh at them.

I really want to hear your buckets of rain. You don't. No, no, no. And then I'm going to play for you. I was walking on, no, no. Don't think I don't remember that. No, no, no. I've written them all down.

You owe us big time. All right, thank you. Thank you. Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Goreley. Produced by me, Matt Goreley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Nick Leow, and Jeff Ross at Team

Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song by the White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick.

Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Brick Con. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien needs a friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.