Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Muahaha

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Conan chats with Tom from Dublin about reclaiming Bram Stoker as an Irish icon and what events Conan would suggest for the annual Bram Stoker festival.Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: TeamCoco.com/CallConan

Konan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Konan? Visit teamkoko.com slash call Konan. Okay, let's get started. Hey, hi Tom, welcome to Konan O'Brien. He's a fan, nice sweater. Wow, good job. First of all, I'm poorly on it.

Just being so positive, so quickly, on, so just being so positive so quickly, Tom, so nice to see you. I see you have your Christmas tree in the background. It looks dark where you are. We're in Los Angeles, where are you? I'm coming from Dublin, Ireland. Oh, you're in Dublin. Look at that.

Fine Irish cable knit fisherman sweater and Christmas tree. I'm living a life. I just want to trade places. I'm sorry. Mr. Gourley is making this sound like the home shopping network. Tom here is wearing a fine cable net sweater. It's gorgeous.

It's made of a fine Dublin weave. Sir, tell us and Tom, what's your, what's your last name? Lawler. Okay. Tom Lawler, calling from or calling. I guess zooming in, calling, whatever you want to say, appearing to us magically from Dublin. I love Dublin. I love the few times I visited there. I've had a fantastic time. You've been a few times. I've been a few times.

One of the times I went, I met up with a bunch of other, well, very famous Irish, Irish comedians, comedians from Ireland, who were all hilarious. And we all did a show together at the ambassador's residence in Phoenix Park. And I thought, these are the funniest people I've ever met. And then all of us got into a cab to go into Dublin to get a drink. And the cabbie was funnier than all of us. And I thought, that I thought that's Dublin. Do you know?

There's just everyone's just super high professional level funny. So no pressure on me then for the rest of this. Well done. Well, we can always say later on that you're going through a depressive period. And so that gets you off the hook. Tom, tell me a little bit about yourself.

Well, so I live in Dublin, as you know, and I right now, the co-director of a festival here in Dublin, that the city started in a group of years ago, called Bram Stoker Festival, which is basically a wave of celebrating the life and legacy in work of Bram Stoker, who wrote Dracula. Yep. And so this is interesting to me because I don't have to say I admit I don't know much about

Brahm, Stoker. Obviously, his work is very famous, but I don't know much about the man himself. Was he Irish? Yeah, he was Irish. And I think part of that, one of the big reasons the festival was started was was I guess to kind of reclaim him as an Irish author right so everybody knows Joyce and Beckess as Irish authors but I think a lot of people had kind of a way of taking it back and kind of reclaiming him as a Dublin-born Irish writer. Yeah. That's actually very, I mean, that's fascinating to me. You may have heard me say, I've said it many times

because it's kind of fascinating slash sad to me. But my people emigrated from Ireland in the late 19th century and we've been living in central Massachusetts, and I'm still genetically a hundred percent Irish, which is I think tragic. Tom, will you please reclaim him? Yeah, and Americans desperately want me to be reclaimed, and they mean taking back to Ireland.

And we'd be delighted to reclaim you and have you at the festival any time. Or in Dublin, I mean, you're hugely popular. I feel like lots of the friends or the fans on this podcast are coming from Ireland as well, right? You've got to go. No, it's funny. We do have, I do get recognition from Irish people

for the TV show, but also a lot from the podcast, which is very nice. So I'd love to go back there, and I'd love to reconnect because I think it would be lovely. That's a word that I'd hear a lot. Lovely. I've heard that in Ireland. They say, oh, isn't that lovely.

Also, they say, correct me if I'm wrong, Tom. In America, people say, um. So if you ask me a question, I say, um, yeah, I live near the Volkswagen dealership but about two blocks away. In my, the people I've met in Dublin say, M, E, M. Yeah, great.

Yeah, have you noticed that? Yeah, we, actually, yeah, it's funny to say that because, um, M, M. M, M. Yeah. When I, I moved to the States for college and I remember that was one of the first things people pointed out because, um, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, am, I had a therapist, a very brilliant woman who was from Dublin. And she used to tell her about whatever was going on in my life and she'd say,

um, I think you're crazy. You know, that is her official diagnosis. Her official diagnosis was that my family was shite and that I'm crazy. So this is interesting. So you're trying to, is there anyone else who we don't know is really Irish? Or can we start claiming people who aren't Irish, but just claim them anyway, you know?

Like Daniel Craig, let's just start saying, did you know he's from Dublin, even though he's not? We should start grabbing cool people when saying they're Irish. Absolutely. I mean, if you've got a list of people you want me to start claiming his Irish, we can put a festival together about all of them if they need to be. That's fine. Yeah, messy. Messy's from Dublin.

Lionel, Lionel messys a true son of Ireland and then he was stolen. He was stolen and taken away, Tarjan. We should just, because there are no better liars in the world and confabulous than the Irish. So we should just start making a list. Batman, Batman's from... He's the same, Batman's the Irish. No one thinks of Uncle Sam, and he more... What are you talking about?

No one's Irish, he's getting much slot of Uncle Sam since like 1911. I was trying to think of the most American icon possible. Oh. No, no, no. I mean, like Beyonce. Did you know that she's from Dublin? Did you know that? She's from Galway.

Yeah. It's Beyonce McNolls. Yeah. I'm telling you, I think Tom, I think we're really onto something. Sure, Bram Stoker, let's do that. But I think you're missing a real opportunity here. And I will help you generate the list. We're going to come up with just all of the coolest people. And uh, Kiana Reeves. Kiana Reeves, uh, is from the, he's from the South country down there. He's from cork. I don't know. We get

what, who's to stop us. No one can stop us. I mean, there's no one on this side who's going to stop you. I think if you guys have a list, you know, put together whatever list and we'll find some, I mean, there's so many people that come to Ireland and then realize that they've got Irish heritage, right? Like Obama was here a few years ago and he's got a very strong like Irish. There's so many, you go for it. All right, you guys can keep him then. Yeah, we need to keep him. I know. Wait, can we trade if you're getting Beyonce and stuff?

No, we can't trade. Can't trade. Depending on who you were, sorry, depending on who you were gonna say, maybe. Yeah, it's gonna be all worked out. Listen Tom, you and I are gonna work this out. We're gonna start an exchange, but we're gonna make lists of people

that the Irish can claim. And then I think we should get to have Liam Neeson. Yes. He's so curious. How many of you would we have to trade to get one Liam Neeson? You know what I looked it up? 35 Conan. Yes. 35 Conan gets you Liam Neeson's shoulder. Worth it. I'll take it. You don't think these celebrities would have a problem with these festivals? Fail to is their tolls. I would love you for you to say that to Beyonce. Well, I'm not gonna say that to Beyonce. But boy, I'm gonna say that to Liam Neeson.

I don't fear him at all. You should. He's like, yeah, he's my height. And it looks like, I mean, I talked to him not long ago. And it was so clear to me that minute he walked in the room like, oh, he's my height. And it looks like, oh, man, I talked to him not long ago. And it was so clear to me that minute he walked in the room like, oh, that's a real man. I'm a lucky charm's leprechaun. Anyway, Tom, this sounds like a good endeavor.

I'm glad that you're working on building up, reclaiming what rightfully belongs to Ireland. I think that's important. Yeah, I mean, we tried to, you know, there's only so much you can get out of, um, out of Dracula, right? In terms of a festival, like we need new ideas every year, we try to present it in different ways. So we have a lot of fun with it. It's not just all, we don't just, you know, we described it as we're not just like, wah-haha, like we try to have a lot of fun with that. I don't know if that's kind of

brain. Yeah, I would go to them. There's definitely so much. Come to more. Well, also, I'm not aware of what else did Bram Stoker, I don't really know, other than I know him for Dracula, but to the right, you know, erotic fiction that I could read. And if it's not erotic fiction, I don't want to read it. The first book he ever wrote was actually a book, like it was a guide for civil servants, like people who don't know how to do it.

Oh, I tried it on. So he did write some erotic fiction. Yeah. Wow. Exactly. So depending on your case, I guess that's a good one. But none of his other work has really made it into the kind of consciousness and design me at that Dracula's.

But I mean, you know, I don't think like being a one-hit wonder for Dracula, if you're like, this sort of pretty good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We are highlight. We're here highlight. Yeah. So we try to kind of stretch out everything. I mean, some of the stuff that I really enjoy, we've done a lot of research into Brown

and there's some great kind of lesser known things about him. Like he once tried to save a man that was drowning in the Thames and London, because he didn't live in the UK for a while. See, that's why they got to claim them. That's the problem. Yeah. If an Irish person goes and lives in London for a while. See, that's why they got to claim them. That's the problem. Yeah. If you even if an Irish person goes and lives in London for a week, they get to put up a blue

plaque somewhere and say, yep, he's the UK's own brand stoker. You know, it's just not for only only if they're wildly successful, though. I mean, if they're, you know, as soon as something goes wrong, then they're immediately Irish according to the British again. Oh, okay. All right. Those plaques, by the way, are put up with Velcro. They come off. The minute you do something. And everyone's getting canceled these days.

I think those plaques probably come off as quickly as they go on. So I'm going to bring my own blue plaque. The next time I go to London and some super glue and just glue it onto a building. That's good. And say, sir Conan O'Brien lived here, or stood here and chewed some bubble yum for 10 minutes.

You're giving yourself a knighthood. Sure, why not? Okay. Yeah. If you want to go back to Ireland, but you're going to have a knighthood from Britain, sure. It's not going to play well.

Also, what color plaque do they use in Ireland? If I go to Ireland, I want to glue some plaques up. I'm just going to use blue plaques up. You use blue plaques too? So you can, yeah, I'm pretty sure. All right, we'll find out because I want to glue some plaques up. I'm sitting here with Blue plaques up. You use Blue plaques too? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. All right, we'll find out because I want to find out exactly what they look like.

Make this priority. Excuse me, Tom. No, Tom's got such a busy schedule. Working on the bram stoker festival. Yeah, you've got 11 months of downtime. Yeah, yeah. You know, how many plastic fangs can you buy? Yeah, I've got some time to put in.

Whoa, I'm gonna be pretty easy, man. I am a civil servant. I'm here to clean up the bureaucracy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tom, I'm going to come to Dublin and glue some plaques up. That's what I'm going to do. I want some plaques up that say Conan stood here, Conan bought some stew here, Conan was asked to leave this gap for unfolding too many sweaters, but not buying one.

Things like that. Well, and how's your life going, Tom? How's everything in life? Yeah, it's pretty good. I mean, I've, you know, as you said, I've got a few, you know, easier months ahead because this we're just in planning that, but outside of work, things are going, yeah, things are good. I'm looking forward to Christmas.

You got your trip. You done you shopping? Got my trip here. I've got some, I just started doing some shopping yesterday. Yeah, things are yeah. I would think that Dublin would be a wonderful Christmas town. It would feel very Christmassy there. Yeah, it does, but it has that horrible thing of kind of the winter time here when it's freezing outside and it's roasting inside every shop you go into. So you kind of panic by really quickly everything that you don't need for far more than you would typically spend because you're too warm and it's all very stressful but yeah, I mean it is aside from that it's a really nice to be all those very specific complaints.

Yeah, that's just you have such a specific complaint. The truth is, I read for that other thing. Between the outdoors and the shop itself is such that I buy more quickly. I can't live anymore. I must take my own life. Tom, do you have a question for Conan at all? Yeah, actually, I mean, so we're in the stage now of kind of festival planning where we're thinking of ideas for next year.

And I guess just, you know, I run the festival with my friend Maria and we're collaborators, we collaborate with each other and with artists, and we wondered whether you have ideas for events that we could run at the festival next year, or if you yourself would like to come to the festival and put on a show. Oh, wow. Well, first of all, I take any excuse to, you know,

get in front of a crowd, very sick that way. So, you know what what all depends on you. We almost guarantee you one of those plaques as well, like I'd say, we could do like a special of this like a red plaque. Oh, listen Tom. No more. No, Tom, I bring my own plaques.

I don't want anything factual on my plaques. I want all kinds of crazy information. I, so it all depends on the schedule, but obviously I'd love to attend a Bram Stoker, you know, festival. In terms of ideas for what works, I think you have to embrace the Dracula of it all. I think trying to downplay Dracula is a mistake. You've got to lean into Dracula, and that means contest, find the Dracula.

He's somewhere in Dublin. And you know, you have, I mean, don't you think? You absolutely have. Whatever, how many? How many fun? Yeah. And then, you know the way, there's a, there's a, we have here in the United States,

chili eating contest, and we have hot dog eating contest. How many hot dogs can people eat very quickly? I think it would be, how much blood can you drink from this carotid artery who can drink it the fastest on your topic? Obviously, you don't drink it from a real person, but you simulate a carotid artery and then you have a whole bunch of people like an api eating contest and see who can down the most and it's not real blood. There's like fake cadavers on a table and your dummies, like crash test dummies. Okay. And who can drink the most blood and it's one, two, three, go. And you know, the blood can be, I mean, I would prefer it if it was real human blood, but I understand how

that's going to turn some people off. But we could come up with a carose syrup or something. This is actually a great idea. I think it's a fantastic. You have to like a blood-drinking contest and also like intestines, but they're linked sausages that you have to just keep eating like a hot dog content. Well, that's a werewolf. What are you talking about? Dracula, hold it. Dracula doesn't eat your intestines.

You know what, you're right. What are you talking about? I love how you immediately got angry. Like, what are you talking about? And I said, Dracula and you went, oh, right. No, he drinks your blood. Is that a werewolf though? Yeah, werewolf will disembowals you, rips you up,

tosses your innards all around, werewolf will disembowals you, rips you up, tosses your innards all around and then goes running over the hill going, ah, woo! You're right and I'd like to formally apologize and to the Bram Stoker community. To the Bram Stoker estate, I'd like to have my plaques taken down.

I'm sorry. Hey, is there a Bram Stoker estate, meaning are there people that still profit from Dracula movies and things like that? There is, yeah, actually, he's the Bramamster crystal kind of allow us to continue with the festival of a year. He has a great grand nephew called Daker Stoker who comes to the festival quite often who's also an author and has actually written extensively about Dracula, but also wrote a prequel book to Dracula. Can I ask you something?

Can I ask you something? Does his great grandson ever appear to be someone who's lived for millennia? Like is like hundreds of years old and actually could be Bram Stoker and does he ever say, well, when I wrote Dracula, er, er, I mean, when my great great M-M, my great grandfather wrote it

and then you realize that he is in fact, Vlad Dracool. Yeah. He does have a very particular look. So you might be to something in there. I'm telling you, lean into Dracula, because the civil service novel ain't going nowhere. That's it.

Melville wrote one of those Bartleby, the Scribner, and it didn't sell, and then he went back to the giant fish. And again, he was in the money. So he got a lean into what works. And I think if Bram were alive today, could be writing all kinds of more Dracula, you know, Dracula goes to Las Vegas, had to be doing romcoms with Dracula. Dracula has a Nancy Myers kitchen. You know, there'd be all kinds of Dracula would be in the Marvel universe. I mean, he would. He just would.

So lean into it, I say. Hey, speaking of eating people's intestines, I hear you're quite a cook, is that right? Good transition, anyway. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I was told to get that in. Yes, you're a cook, is that right? So I'm not, I mean, I'm not a professional cook, but it is the thing that I love doing the most. Yeah, and I enjoy cooking for big groups of people, but I actually just started seeing someone

recently enough who is also a really good cook. I think he is in fact far better than I am, which is- That's right, your identity doesn't it? That's right. Slightly, yeah. Because you thought of yourself as a great cook and now this other person comes along

and he's the better cook. Can I come to your house? Can you cook for me? I sure, yeah. We can both cook for you and then maybe you could decide which one is better. Okay. All right.

I don't know that you have the most refined. I don't have any palette. I'm at, I am, you know, I'll get any. Her meter is Burger King or not Burger King. That's the only thing that she can determine. I, well, that's, and, you know, I think Ireland used to get a bad rap for not having very good food, and that may have been true for a long time, but I feel like in the 1990s that reputation started to change greatly because what I heard is that young brilliant chefs

that couldn't get a job in London would go to Dublin. And suddenly that became this center of great cuisine. And I think that's emanated out now that that people in Ireland actually enjoy a very good food. Is that true? Totally. Ireland's a great place to eat. I think even a few years ago, I might have just been in Dublin, but now across the country, there's so many incredible places to eat. And I think, yeah, we had a bad reputation for, you know, like, Hammond cabbage is like what people think, you know, is like that. Although, Hammond cabbage is a pretty good meal if you ask me, but it was kind of what

people expected Irish food to be. But now it's much broader than that. Well, I think I grew up my mother exclusively. There was a lot of fried ham, a lot of ham and then fried ham and potato and potato with fried ham and then fried ham with potato. It was delicious, it was really good, but it was a lot of that. And I think that was handed down generationally because when her people left Ireland, that's what it was.

And so even all those years later in the 1970s, I'm eating a ton of fried ham to the point where I think I died two years ago. You're a Dracula. I'm Dracula. Wait a minute. Back me up on this tom in Stoker's Dracula doesn't he also turn into a wolf, a werewolf on the Demeter? Have you read Dracula?

Have you read Dracula? I would love if he's just going on and on about this. We're reclaiming Bram Soaker. Yeah, I'm reclaiming Bram Soaker. I just really like turns into a wolf. He's a wolf, he could turn into a wolf, a bat, an amiss. Are you gonna fight me on these? Yes, you will.

Everyone knows Dracula eats intestines. Yeah, you really want the sausage thing to happen. Because that's just stupid. If you want it all to be on the weirdest technicality, I'll take it. Yeah, we all know Dracula urinated places to mark them. And he was always chasing cats. What are you talking about? He could turn into a wolf. Okay. I'm sorry. It's right. You got it. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. All right.

So we'll have indicated in the most major way. Yeah. All right. Well, Tom, I guess that's another suggestion for your bram stoker festival is the where wealth events. Well, not where wealth Dracula turning into a dog. Yeah, he could also turn into the thing from the Fantastic Four. Okay. Now you're just poking fun and that's ridiculous. Well, I'm really happy with myself. Tom, thank you. Thank you for reaching out. Thank you. Speaking to us, I will take it to heart. This, thank you. Thank you for reaching out. Thank you. Speaking to us, I will take it to heart this whole Bram Stoker controversy.

I will work in the fact that Bram Stoker is Irish in every conversation that I can in the most awkward way. And I will fight this. Thank you. I'm really appreciate it. All right, well, happy holidays. Yeah, you too. Thank you so much.

Thank you guys. Thanks very much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Conan you so much. Thank you guys. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye bye. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Sessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley, executive produced by Adam Sachs, Nick Leal, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Your Wolf. 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 by Eduardo Perez, additional production support by Mars Melnick, Talent Booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt 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, where ever fine podcasts are downloaded. wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Coco production in association with New York. you