Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Lux et Veritas

Episode Date: March 17, 2022

Conan chats with Lux in London about rock climbing with a visual impairment and the dumbest, most physically dangerous thing Conan has ever done. 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. Hey there, Lux, please meet Conan and the Chilchum. Hi guys. Hi. How are you, Lux?

First of all, I love your name, Lux. That's very, is it L-U-X? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But it's not, it's not L-U-X-E, like this is Lux service, you know. You get extra fan. You're the ex-free. It'd be funny if you had a friend who was Lux without the E and you were Lux with the E and it just, you were like the more expensive version of that other friend.

Oh yeah, exactly, I am the more expensive version. Yeah, you're the, you're the high class. Well, very nice to talk to you, Lux. And I was told you're coming from somewhere else in the world, but I don't know where. Where are you right now? Well, I think you can take a guess from London. Why didn't know? Maybe you worked at Harry Potter World at Universal.

I didn't know. And by the way, you can walk down to a pub in Santa Monica about five minutes from my house and there's everyone there who runs these pubs is British. So I never make any assumptions. So you're in London right now? Yeah, born and raised in London. Oh, I love London. I do.

It's an absolutely beautiful city and the people are fantastic. And so I'm glad to know that you're aware of our work in London. That always makes me feel good that people around the world are listening to this. Yeah, yeah. Complete waste of time. So how did you, how did you find our podcast? Oh, literally, I was during lockdown. I was just on my laptop and I just saw, I think, one of your bits.

I think you were something with Jordan Slansky. Oh my God, my apologies. Yeah, Jordan Slansky is someone I've filmed many bits with over the years and they're very popular online. So you probably saw one of those and then thought, I hear this idiot has a podcast. I'll check that out as well. Yeah, well, I actually only got introduced to your podcast about two months ago. I was talking to my mate who is actually a really big fan as well. And he told me about it and I was like, oh, well, I love Conan, so I better listen to it.

And yeah, I've just been listening to all of them. Well, that's great. And you know what? I love your mate because that guy has good taste. Tell your mate, I say, good on you. No, that's Australian. That's Australian. Sorry.

Sorry. I mean, I am Australian as well. I'm half Australian. See? What? See? Gorley, I picked up on that. So yeah, do that.

Say, good on you. What's your mate's name? Adrian. Yeah. Say, good on you, Adrian. He'll be very happy. Whoa, my God. What was that?

I don't know. Let me try a couple. Oh, no. Hey, Adrian. Good on you. Oi, oi, oi, oi. Oh, no. How about...

Oh, yes. Oh, Adrian. Oh, chum. Okay. I'm falling apart here. I'm having a... Sorry, Lux. We apologize.

Lux, I'm having a total meltdown. Sorry. So what's Adrian is it? Wait, okay. Now you're a leprechaun. Oh, my God. Well, it goes well with your Irish side. Yeah, Lux.

Lux, you just saw why my career is very limited to YouTube nonsense and his podcast. I'll never give Daniel Day-Lewis a run for his money. That'll never... Every time I go out for a role that Daniel Day-Lewis is also going out for, he seems to beat me out for some reason. Oh, yes. Yeah, because I go in there to play Link. Really?

I go in there to play Abraham Link and I'm like, oh, I'm Link and I tell you. Oh, yes. And it just... Immediately I'm shown the door. So tell us about yourself. I don't know anything about you, Lux. I honestly know nothing. Tell us what you do.

What's your passion in life? So I'm a climber. I'm a climbing instructor, so indoor rock climbing. Oh, okay. So I've been doing that for about 10 years. I'm also part of the GB Para-Climbing team. What is that? Oh, the Great Britain Para-Climbing?

Yeah, so I'm visually impaired. I have no central vision, so I'm part of the visually impaired category of the Para-Climbing team. Can you explain to me, I don't know what it means to have no central vision. What does that actually mean? So imagine you're looking at someone and you look directly at them and then their head disappears. Oh, really? Wow.

So literally it means exactly what you said, which is the very center of your field of vision is blocked out. So if I look directly at you with the center of my eye, you disappear. So it's just blurry. It's just a blur. Oh, wow. Okay. And how did this...

Was this something that you've had your whole life or...? So something to do with genes, I don't know. So when your parents have two specific genes and when they mix one of their children could have it, I guess I was the unlucky one. Right. Right. And so you have peripheral vision? Yeah.

But at the same time, I can't see it at a distance and I can't see small things. I see. So how do you... It's fascinating to me that you have this condition and you've taken on... It's very inspiring. You've taken on something that I think would be quite challenging for anybody to do with perfect vision. You're climbing and you're a climbing instructor and clearly you're very good at it and yet

you have this, I would think, very difficult condition. So how do you compensate for that? When you're climbing, how do you... You must have to just maneuver your eyesight around so that you can see where to put your hand, right? Well, like every move, every hold, it's just one thing at a time. And then I usually get one of my mates to shout at me while I'm on the wall to tell me where I'm going.

Would that be Adrian by any chance? No. It'd be funny if Adrian wasn't shouting to you where to put your hand so that you don't fall to your death but was shouting, you should check out Conan. He's got a pole cast. Oh, no. Sorry. Again, I'm alienating people in the entire United Kingdom left and right and I shouldn't...

It's my own lack of talent. It's not any disrespect. I'm just doing the very best that I can. So you have someone literally who's with you saying, move your hand a little more to the right, move it a little more to the left so that you can grab onto the rock that you need to hold onto. Yeah. Well, holds.

They're not rocks. They're plastic. Excuse me. Bluffed. You made a fool out of you, Conan. Bluffed you in your... Bluffed. You just...

I thought we were friends and you just humiliated me. That's what British people do, they take the piss out of their friends. Yeah. You know, my ancestors, the Irish, you know, that's how they were treated by the British and so this is terrible. This is terrible what you've done to me. Yeah. I...

Well, actually, you know what? Most of my ancestors are Irish as well. Maybe you guys are related. We probably are. We're all related at some point, you know? Yeah. You look like someone who can't go out in the sun for very long. Yeah, no.

I've got that pasty white thing going on. I didn't say pasty. Lux, I never said pasty. I think I have beautiful alabaster skin. No one said pasty. Is that what you told yourself? God damn, Lux. Yes.

I have to say, Lux, for someone who says that you have an eyesight impairment, your aim is fantastic. You are blasting this shit out of me left and right. You shot the gun out of my hand. I went to pick up a knife, you shot that out of my hand. So this is very cool. So you're part of competitions then. You're part of competitions.

Yeah. There's probably a whole. And so when you're going up against other teams, is that how it works? You're going up against other teams from different countries? Yeah, so you're sort of put into a category. So for visually impaired, there's B1, B2, B3. B1 is like no vision next to no vision. B2 is a little more and B3, that's the category I'm in.

So like, and then it's like done male and female, so separate categories. So all the people in my category are from different countries, but it doesn't necessarily mean that there couldn't be a B3 guy who was in my team. I see. So you're kind of climbing individually. Okay. So is B3 one of the rarer conditions? So B3, there are less B3 guys because I'm almost normal.

I'm not quite fully blind. Right. So I guess B1 and B2, there's more common. It's more common to have more people in there, but they have less vision. So you compete against other climbers who are in the B3 category. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah.

Is there one in particular who's like your arch enemy? The Romanian guy. What? I knew it. Yeah. The Romanian guy. What's this guy's name? Yeah.

What's this guy's name? I don't actually know. I can't remember his name. Probably doesn't even have a name. He's that good. Yeah. He's that good and that mysterious. He was probably created in a lab, some evil underground Romanian lab.

So this Romanian gentleman who we don't know his name, but he's in the B3 category. Actually, he has your level of impairment visually. I think he even might have the same disease as I have. Really? So you'd think you guys would become friends because you could bond over this, but instead you've made him your arch enemy. Yeah. Well, gotta make some on it.

There's so many to choose from. I mean, I think you found, Lux, you found me. You've dissed me beautifully like 15 times in this conversation already. So I think... I thought you'd be used to it, Conan. I thought, you know, why? Leave me alone. Go after the Romanian, for God's sake.

I need to figure out what his name is. Is it scary? Is it frightening when you're climbing or are you all harnessed in? You can't get too badly hurt. So in para competitions, there's no bouldering, which is when you climb without a rope. And then you've got a harness on and you're attached to a rope. So if you fall, you're just caught by the rope. So it's not scary.

But to be honest, I've been climbing for so many years that climbing is not really frightening. It's just... It's probably more the anxiety of being in a competition, that's what you're missing. Also, one of the things that's so cool about climbers is incredible upper body strength, right? Yeah, they all have massive shoulders. Please tell me what that's like to have upper body strength. I've thought about it.

I've thought about ways that maybe I could try and achieve it. It's not going to happen. But the idea that you can pull your whole body pretty much, I know you're using your arms and your legs, but that upper body strength, I just... Tell me what it's like, Papa. Tell me. Well, son. It's...

It's... This is the bedtime story I ask for every night. I ask my wife, show me what it's like to have upper body strength. And she's like, okay, here we go again. Wow. Do you have to work out a lot to do this, or is just the climbing the workout itself? I mean, climbing is a workout in itself. I do a lot of training, though.

I train six days a week. Wow. Wow. I don't do anything six days a week. On Sundays, you don't breathe, right? You just don't. You practice photosynthesis on Sundays. No other breathing is done.

Wow. That's so... That's very impressive. You're a very impressive person. I love that you... Was that cute? No, seriously, that you've attacked this. Does it...

I'm just... In your everyday life, when you're not climbing, is there anything that you can use that helps you with this condition? Is there...? I mean... Is there a special glasses, or is there anything that you can put on it? There's no thing right here. What does that do?

So, if you hold it up to things, it will make them bigger. It's like a magnifier. Glasses don't work. Right. Right. Glasses have never worked. There must be some advantage to, if there's, as you said, a part that you don't see, that might be convenient at times when you're like, I really don't want to talk to this person

right now, I'm going to do it. I'm going to stare at their face, and so they just go, because that would be... There are times where I'm like, I really don't want to see this person right now. So I will position my head so they're just gone, but they think I'm looking at them, but I'm not. I've obliterated them. The thing is, you still have to talk to them, even if you can't see them. You just say an occasional, uh-huh, sounds good.

Are we there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really, you think of... It's what you're doing to me right now, I can tell. Yeah, yeah. You tuned me out a while ago, Lux. I haven't been looking at your face directly ever since we got on this. See, there are advantages and disadvantages to every condition.

Well, Lux, is there anything I can do for you? You seem like a terrific guy. I'd like to help you out. Do you have a question, or if there's anything I can do? Yeah, so I guess my question is, what is the dumbest and most physically dangerous thing you've ever done? Okay. That's exactly what it is.

Actually, there's a couple because, I mean, there's more than one. When I get thinking about what might be funny or in front of people, my good sense tends to go away. So on tour in, I think, 2010, we did this very raucous show that we toured around the country and it was in large venues, and I would do all kinds of comedy, but I would also play the guitar and do musical numbers, and it just started to, the crowds were getting bigger and bigger, and it was turning into, it was so chaotic, and there was so much energy that I remembered one time, I ran up, I had pretty much a radio mic on my guitar so I

could go anywhere with the guitar, and I ran up with my guitar to the second balcony, and I stood on the edge of the balcony playing the guitar and didn't even think about it, and the people who I employ were furious with me. They were watching it, and they were like, you asshole. You were standing there not even looking at what you were doing, and you so easily could have fallen, and it was a 30-foot fall, it wouldn't have gone well. That was super stupid, and I was very apologetic, but I was living out some weird, hey, look at me, I'm Eddie Van Halen, guitar fantasy, and it was just stupid.

The second one was we were doing a rehearsal once with animals, and there was a very large water buffalo, I think from Africa, and someone just said, hey, it might be funny if you got on it, and the trainer who actually knew nothing about, who was just there to hold the animals and didn't know that much about each particular one said, yeah, get on it. I said, okay, and I later looked back at the footage because we were shooting it for rehearsal, and you probably remember this too, Sona, and so I went, yeah, okay, and I jumped on the back of a water buffalo, now let me be clear, this water buffalo was the size of a mid-size compact car, and I jumped on the back of it, and this water buffalo didn't

want me on its back, so the first thing it did was threw me off, and I landed on a solid concrete floor that's extra dense so that you can roll TV cameras on it, and I bounced off my left hip, and the buffalo charged forward, knocked a bunch of cameras over, then turned around, and I always saw was the whites of its eyes, and started charging at me, and I ran like a cartoon character and made a hole in the wall that was in the shape of my body, I got a massive hematoma, it was so big I couldn't get my pants off, and I was like, thinking back to it, when we looked at the tape, my sidekick Andy Richter standing there, or sitting there, and he's not really paying attention, and in fact nobody's

paying attention, but what you can hear is someone says, I think a segment producer says, why don't you get on, what if you got on it, and then the trainer goes, yeah, get on it, I say, yeah, I'll get on it, and then you hear Andy Richter say, I wouldn't do that, and he says it at about that level, he goes, and I think he's like, playing with his phone at the same time, he goes, I wouldn't do that, and I- He's just putting it on record, trying to really stop it, yeah, exactly, he just says, he just says, I wouldn't do that, and then you just see me- You wanted to see what would happen.

Yeah, and then I instantly jump on the, I don't listen to him, I jump on the back of the water buffalo, and it's all like, my sympathies with the water buffalo was right, it was in the right, I was in the wrong, and so yeah, and I think, if I thought about it, I can think of 600 more of those, I just, and I have nobody to blame but myself, but I never said I was the smartest guy, I'm just the pain, oh, okay, all right, all right, all right, Lux, Lux, Lux at Veritas, Lux, Lux, I'm gonna come to London, I get there sometimes, and I'm gonna find you, man, okay, and we're gonna settle this once and for all, which means that you're gonna, with your upper body strength, instantly beat the crap out of me,

but then we're gonna- To be fair Conan, I'm quite a short guy, so you could- I don't think I, no, my height is of no advantage, trust me, the way I use it, hey Lux, it was so cool talking to you, and I am sincerely impressed with what you've accomplished, and I think, you know, more power to you, and I do hope we meet someday, I really do. Well, thank you so much for talking to me, and you know, you guys really helped me, I've been having a really tough time at the moment, and like listening to your podcast, watching your videos, it just, it makes my day every single time.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that you're having a tough time, a lot of people are these days, you know, it's not uncommon, and I do hope that you are good at, I did not used to be, and I know we both have the same lineage, I used to think, and I'm gonna get serious here for a second, but I used to think I shouldn't talk to people when I would get depressed, or I would think, well, because we come from this culture, this sort of Celtic-UK culture of just forge ahead and don't talk about these things, but I have found it's really good to talk about these things, so continue to do that, talk to your friends, and talk to people in your life and in your family, and when you're feeling low, and I'm glad that

we're able to put a smile on your face, but also keep talking about this, because it's important, okay? Yeah, yeah, that's nice, Lux. All right, our paths will cross again, I promise you that. I can't wait. All right, take care, Lux. Okay, bye guys. Yeah, take care, bye.

Thanks. 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 Beckton. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

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