Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Paul F. Tompkins

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

Comedian Paul F. Tompkins feels cautiously optimistic about being Conan O’Brien’s friend. Paul sits down with Conan to discuss getting started in one of the hardest cities for stand-up comedy, the origin behind his trademark gentleman’s wear, and his live variety show Varietopia. Later, Conan muses at the list of books purchased on his stolen Kindle. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.

Hi, my name is Paul F. Tompkins, and I feel cautiously optimistic about being Conan O'Brien's friend. I think you're right to be cautious. You never know when I could snap. Am I right to be optimistic? No. Hello there, and welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend podcast for all people everywhere. If you enjoy humanity, you'll enjoy our podcast, always trying out for your slogan.

Wait, what? I'm so sorry. What? To enjoy humanity? Is to enjoy Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. Don't you mean like you listen to this podcast, and then you go, oh, the humanity, like the Hindenburg? Yes, yes.

That's great. You're like the Hindenburg? That's a great reference for the kids. Kids love a good Hindenburg, a good Lakehurst, New Jersey explosion joke. No, I do think I aim for this to be a podcast for the people, people everywhere. This is not a niche podcast. There's no velvet rope up here. We are here to allow anyone who wants joy and laughter, they're welcome, you know?

That's nice. Yeah, as long as you listen to the advertisers and buy those products, you're welcome to our very friendly little club. No, Matt Gorley, good to see you. Hi. What's shit? I mean, hi. Yeah, okay, take it easy.

Last time you got on me about sound and weird or creepy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That second hi was still a little weird. Yeah, overconfident. And Sona, how are you? You know what? I'm okay. Okay, just a simple fine is good.

You know what? You were very just like, you know, when I really think about it, you know? It sounded like you actually cared. Yeah. No, no, I know I'm an actor. Oh. I've taken a lot of training. It threw me off.

It sounded like you were being sincere and I was like, wait, is this the real moment? Uh-huh. Yeah. And it was not. No, I'm excited that we're here. We're doing a podcast. We're together. I get a good energy from you guys and when I say that, I mean, I maintain my own energy

despite you. Oh. I think you mean like you're a vampire sucking energy from us to exist, right? Yeah. Uh, no. That would not be a lot of energy. That would be not a lot of nutrition in there. I'm trying to think of what we are going to talk about today.

I really haven't got nothing going right now in my mind. I don't know. No? No. We could just, we could, we could sit comfortably in silence. I think that will work. I don't. I hate that so much.

In fact, before we start, who will be the first to break the silence? It would be me. Well, let's see. It'll be me. Why? Now, are you uncomfortable with the silence? No, no, I'm not uncomfortable with silence. I don't know.

I just, when I, when I'm told to be silent, that's when I can't be silent. Oh, you know what's interesting? I do know this about Sona. Over the years, when I've asked her to tone it down, she gets crazy and she really gets ... Okay. No, no, you do. She gets very like wide eyed and like, what?

What? Don't you tell me to lower my voice? And literally we'll be in a situation where, you know, we could be in a room with someone and they're operating like on a child's eye and I'm like, Sony, you got to keep it down a little bit. You got to keep it down and the surgeon's like, oops, blind for life, little boy. No, hold on. Every time you retell a story, you make yourself sound so rational and so calm and so collected,

but you're never that way. You were, you're always like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. A master impressionist. Bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit, bit. A master impressionist. Son of a sessian. All right, everybody. Guess this celebrity.

I don't know. Who is that? Louis Armstrong. Yeah. Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong. Yeah. Louis Armstrong now.

Thank you. You get me, Matt. No, you do not like anyone to suggest that maybe you could be a little quieter. And it's not, and it's not even part of a, I will speak and my voice will be heard. It's, you know, you will not mansplain to me or make me be silent. It's not that anyone could tell you in a very appropriate situation where you need to be a little more quiet. Like, you know, we're trying to escape and our guards are asleep right there.

So let's get by. Let's start to probably say something like, you know what, it would be really good if we could go to one of those restaurants where they have a tray and you get as much as you want, like a sizzler. Yeah. And I'd say, and I'd say like, so can you just tell me you want to go to the sizzler? We're trying to keep it down a little bit because our captors are right there and they're trying to wake up.

Don't you tell me. I know. I have to say this narrative, I mean, you're pretty loud too. Yeah, you are. Boss. Yeah. That's true. But you are, he is right though.

So right now you're saying we should be quiet because you said that I won't be able to. Well, let's try this. Okay. So now I'm going to write on this paper, 300,000 Bitcoin. Okay. Okay. And whoever stays quiet, the lastest. Okay.

Wow. You know what, you are right. These segments really are better when we give them no thought beforehand. What do you mean? I've been planning this for ages. All right. It has to be silent for as long as possible. Yeah.

On a podcast. Well, let's see. Okay. All right. Perfect podcast. Three, two, one. So much. Shut up.

I can't even make sounds. Because you spoke second. I can't make sounds. No. 300,000 Bitcoin. No. I thought it was whoever spoke first. And then it was the longest, I said the lastest to speak.

Lastest to speak. Well. Okay. Look how competitive you just got by the way. You got so angry. I didn't know I couldn't make like noises. You want to meet? Yes.

Silence. No. Okay. We tried it. It failed miserably. Okay. And I'm rich. Can we try it again?

Sure. Just great podcasting. Okay. I'm upping it to 310,000 Bitcoin. Okay. Three, two, one. I can't do it. What's wrong with you?

Seriously. I went 610,000 Bitcoin. No. Okay. That's fine. Matt. You can have. I don't care about being second.

I just didn't want to be the first one to talk. This is I found the call. That's weird that you can't do it. No. No. No. No. It's I can.

I can. No. But what about like when you're twins or asleep? That's different. Are you able to be quiet? Why is that? Because nobody tells me to be quiet. Could you keep it down a little bit?

No. No. He knows better. He knows better. If you say be quiet, I can't be like, if someone tells you to sit still, Conan, you move. I remembered once asking you to do something for me and you said, if you ask me to do something, I can't do it. And I said, you're my assistant.

Yeah. It was the most hilarious exchange. You said, I have a problem sometimes when he, this is when we were talking to someone who, you know, was trying to be like a couples counselor with us and how we could work better in the office. And you said, I just have a problem when he asks me to do things. You're my assistant. I know.

But I'm being honest and I've never pretended not to do that. Okay. All right. Well, here's a wrap sign and also I just want to put this up to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't even know how do you get that? I don't know.

Who's going to give it to you? I don't know anything about cryptocurrency, but I know it's coming my way. I go to a server and there's a blockchain and a man in a dark suit hands it to me. My hands. Not. Not. It's important. I'm plowing ahead.

Okay. My guest today is a very funny comedian, actor and writer. He voiced Mr. Peanut Butter on the Netflix series Bojack Horseman and has been a staple in the podcast world on shows like Comedy Bang Bang, Super Ego and Spontanea Nation. He also has a live variety show, Varietopia with Paul F. Tompkins. I'm very excited he's with us today. Paul F. Tompkins, welcome. I want to say I was immediately disappointed when you walked in today because.

Yes. Well, you said that to me every time. I've known you a long time. You're a beloved comedic figure and a very talented fellow. And I swear to God, you walked in and you were carrying this nice leather box that opens up with a little hinge on it and I know that you're a fan of old time, old timey things. Sure. Clothes, various vintage items.

And I knew, oh my God, he's brought me, he's brought me like a watch from 1920 or he's bought me some really cool cuff links that are worth easily $800 to $1,000. And I was excited. And then you sat down and you started to open the box and I thought that's weird that he's not letting me open it. And then you took out your own custom ear buds. That's right. And I'm still looking at the box and I'm convinced there may still be a gift in there for me.

Should I put that box on the floor, honey? Is it distracting? I swear. You think there's still something in there for you? I'm convinced. I'm convinced. Paul, just pop the question. We've been going together for six years and this is our anniversary.

And then you pull this shit. That was such a fake out. But of course you... Such a fake out. I'm sorry. No, it was not. It was. Any time I see anybody, you know what's so funny?

Well, any time I see anybody holding any kind of container, someone can walk in with just a plastic container and I think, I'm getting my vintage watch now. You should get an MRI and never go to the container store. Oh my God, never go to the container store. Oh, I mean, I see... Well, those are all see-through, though, so that's not bad. I see hobos walking down the street with satchels and I think, here I go, he's about to give me a watch.

Clearly something's wrong with me. He's evading the railroad bulls, he's barely had time to pick up his spindle. Thank you for knowing spindle and of course you know spindle. We have a lot to talk about because I do love you, sir, you and no one trades in old-timey foolishness. But Mr... Well, I'm going to like to call you PFT. Oh, okay.

Sure. Well, may I say from a deli owner, that's a rave. It's so nice to be in a room with someone who understands that reference. I know, thank you. But no, it's true and good Lord, we've been messing around with, I think this is called a podcast. I don't know what this is. It's really, probably doesn't earn the title, but you've mastered this form such a long

time ago and alongside my companion, Matt Gorley, you did a beloved super ego and you've done so much great work in this space. So it's nice to have you here and I hope that, you know, feel free to point out what I'm doing wrong, like maybe starting the whole interview with the mistaken belief that I should have been given a gift. Something you could have easily not said on mic, like no one needed to know that. I think people need to know that about me. I think it's important.

Need it. Yeah. I see EMT workers jumping off of a helicopter with a container that looks like it's packed with ice and it's got a lung in it for a transplant for a boy who needs a new lung and I always get in their way and assume it's a vintage watch for me. So most of the time you think it's a vintage watch. I always think it's a vintage watch. Okay.

Even when there's... For sure you're headed towards Champagne. No. Even when... What I'm telling you is... This guy's getting me a cold watch. The ice is to throw me off the track. It's a time.

The ice is to make me think. I'm thinking back to when I first had you on the show, the late night show, I think it was 1997. I believe that is correct. Again, we're the perfect person for us because your style of comedy fit our quirky show hand in glove and you were always a very popular guest and I will tell you that... That can't be true. No, it is.

You mean with the staff? Yeah. Today. Oh my God. Viewers outraged, angered. Listen, I'm thrilled to be today breaking the glass floor of your show and being responsible for this being the most least listened to episode. Oh no, no, no, no.

Trust me. That can't happen. Yeah. We'll be very honest. Yeah. No, trust me. We had Tova Borgnein's lawyer as a guest on the show. Now, if you don't know, this is Ernest Borgnein's wife, Ernest Borgnein's widow, his lawyer

and I said, stay tuned next week, Tova Borgnein's lawyer will be here and it's a real estate lawyer, not even a lawyer who deals with anything that interesting. Conan, I've got bad news. That episode is doing incredibly well. I hear it. It is completely destroyed. I want us to do it right now. Destroyed the bow and yang by guest in the numbers.

No, but you came on a show and I believe that was your first time on the show. 100%. I was thrilled and excited and scared and everyone was so nice to me. From my memory, it went well. I haven't watched the tape in quite a while, but it was a huge milestone for me. I think subsequently you brought family to come see you perform on the show. Yes. Is this true?

Yes. I think the second appearance. I would never have the guts to do that. I never liked having any family. I really... Oh, it's the worst. People think, oh, that couldn't add pressure because you're on national television. I can't explain it to you, but when I knew that I had family or relatives in the audience,

it bothered me because it felt like more pressure, which it shouldn't because they can watch it at home. What's the difference? You're not there. You're not in the same room. I've had that same exact feeling if I've performed at a club or... This is the only time my family came to see a TV appearance of mine because they live in Philadelphia.

It was close enough. Just something you become hyper aware of them and only them. You are picturing yourself through their eyes and remembering everything they've ever said or more importantly, not said about your career over the years. I think that was my second time on your show and we went out to dinner afterwards. I treated everyone to dinner because I thought, you know, I'm just on TV. I can afford to do this. It's the thing you do.

This is a cool thing. You just... They just saw you get laughs on national television. Now I'm taking you all out to dinner. Yes. Yes. This is... You double down on the big shot thing of it all.

The dinner seemed to be the thing everyone remembered the most. I don't remember. There was a lot of talk about what happened before, but there was later there were anecdotes about the dinner. Right. Yeah. There was a lot of talk at the dinner about, can we get another basket of bread? This one's gone.

And I said, you can. Yeah. It's New York. You can do anywhere you want. And you'd say, did you... So what did you think? I seem to do pretty well with the crowd tonight and they would say, about the bread, can we get two baskets at the same time because it's a long table.

So there's one for each end. My mother's review, I believe, which is her standard review since I started doing plays in high school was, you talk too fast. Wow. Okay. Okay. I'm going to tell you something that is an absolutely true, a beloved uncle of mine. A beluncle.

A beluncle. Thank you. A beluncle, which I had a beluncle and I had it removed. It was obsessed. Once you hit 40, you got it. You got it. Be careful about those things. You have to get the beluncle removed.

But a beloved uncle who was a lawyer in Central Massachusetts, five years, five years into my run on late night television. So this would be a year after your first appearance. I started in 93. This would be 1998. He took me aside and the show was doing well by then. We had a rocky start, but by 98 it's doing well. He pulled me aside and tried to talk me into going to law school and I'm not kidding.

I'm not kidding. And he said, I know you enjoy this TV thing you do, but he said, but as a trial lawyer, you can be the director, the writer, and the star. Yes, he said all this to me and I'm like, I'm on the cover of this magus, look. He's like, you know, that comes and goes, you know, a lawyer, that's the life for you. So that's a true thing. I know that you've probably had, that sounds like you have the same kind of family. My, yes, my mother, this was, I want to say this was probably maybe even the same year

or no, it would have been earlier. It would have been earlier, I think, probably 90, no, it might have been 97 or something. I came home for Thanksgiving and this is after I worked on, this was probably my last year at Mr. Show on HBO. I think it was the year after the first Emmy nomination that we got, went over Thanksgiving. Coming around the table, my mother said, you know, your uncle could teach you how to tune pianos. And I honestly didn't know why she was saying it.

It didn't register and I was like, why? And she said, well, so you have something to fall back on. Yes, fall back on. It's like, what? No. Yeah. What more do you need to see? Yeah.

Yeah. This is gone by every measure. This is going quite well. Against all odds. Against all odds. Whatever you thought. I'm making a living. Yeah.

I think show business for so long was illegitimate. So show business was scandalous. And so it was, I could kind of understand why my beloved uncle, my belonkul, belonkul would pull me aside and say, look, I know you're having fun, but we all know that you'll be dead in two years if you keep doing that. Because you'll be on those red benes and blue poppers. Smoking jazz cigarettes. Smoking jazz cigarettes.

I actually had a different uncle come visit me at Saturday Night Live, and he saw G.E. Smith playing with the band. And afterwards he said, that guy there with the guitar, and he said, tell me that guy doesn't have a jazz cigarette shoved down his bootleg. His bootleg. Tell me he doesn't have a jazz cigarette shoved down his bootleg. They all talk like Jimmy Cagney. Hey, come here.

What do you hear? What do you say? Tell me that guy doesn't have a jazz cigarette shoved down his bootleg. Anyway, I'll tell you, I call him. I gotta get out of this mess. The law is for you, pal. When I would think about it, I would think, I would always try to say, this is so outside their experience that, of course, for them, they're very fearful for you and so on and

so forth. But the thing that's always, that always was so odd to me was, can't you see that I'm enjoying my life? Like that I'm paying my rent, I am eating every day, and I'm having a good time. Right. But wouldn't this be something that you want for your child? I think it's, yeah, there's a, well, let's take it back because I am a product of the Boston suburbs and so I knew nothing about show business and I didn't know anybody who

knew anything about show business. And as I've said, our only experience with show business was that Robert Uric shot Spencer for hire in the Boston area and occasionally someone would see Robert Uric. And that was as close to show business as I thought I would ever get. And I remember once being at Saturday Night Live when they aired the episode where Robert Uric is running through my high school and I was the asshole who's standing right by the TV going, you can't get from A-wing right to the gym. Guys, they totally, you can't, and they'd be like, shut the fuck up, who cares?

And I'd be like, but you don't see what they did. They had him run out of the computer center and then suddenly he's in the cafeteria. I don't think so. I hope you submitted that to Goofs and Gaffes on I Am Bigger. I was that guy. Anyway, I was roundly beaten with sticks until I shut up. You, sir, are from the Philadelphia area? Yes.

I could be wrong, but I've always thought, man, Philly's a rough town. It can be. Yeah. I mean, Boston is, too, but if they don't think you're funny in Boston, they let you know verbally. In Philadelphia, if they don't think you're funny, they throw a battery at you. That's heavy battery. That is just Santa Claus.

Tell that story. Please tell that story. Please tell that story. Let me see if I remember all the details. It was an Eagles game where it's snowing during the game. There's a guy in the stands dressed as Santa Claus. He was not supposed to be a part of anything. They had to stall for some reason.

I forget what it was. Maybe to clear the field or something like that. And they see this guy and they're like, hey, would you come out here? Would you come out on the field and wave to everybody? To cheer people up a little bit and there'll be some kids in the stands that'll make them excited to see Santa Claus. Well, people were not excited to see Santa Claus. They were...

People were drinking. I mean, beer is an all-weather drink. And people started throwing snowballs and batteries at Santa Claus. Why do they have batteries? Well, first of all, do you listen to the game on your portable radio? Oh, yes. They throw the full radio. Well, radios are more expensive than batteries.

It was battery day, and then the second time they tried it. It was nickel battery day. It was nickel battery day. To be fair, the next time they tried a Santa, it was rock day. And they gave everybody a rock in the stands to play with. Geez. Stay away from grenade day. Yeah.

Ninja Star Day was not a fun time for anybody. But no, that was always the word on Philly was, they'll kill you. And this is the thing I find so interesting, Paul, is that there are certain places where very intelligent and creative comedy can flourish. I'm thinking of San Francisco. Absolutely. San Francisco is this wonderfully warm terrarium where people, comedians are encouraged. Dana Carvey, I think, had a wonderful time.

And he grew in that environment, and he could try out all these strange ideas, and he could sing about broccoli, and the crowd would love it. And then, famously, this didn't happen to Dana, but there are a lot of acts that flourish in that wonderful warm terrarium, and they say, God, I'm so good, and I'm killing with my myth or Magura Gaga, boo-boo-dee-dee-ba-ba character, and then they go to Boston and they're murdered. Yeah. And I don't mean, I mean, they're murdered, they become murder victims.

And then I think, in Philly, it's even worse, because if you go there and you've got some great left brain, really cool alternative comedy that you want to try out, they bring batteries for sure. So you must have started, you started in a hostile environment. I did. And I would, I was the first comedian to wear a bandolier of batteries to throw back at the audience. No one had ever thought to do this before.

And if I sense people were getting restless, I'd reach for a D, and I'm like, do you want some of this? Do you want a D? Yeah. Or are we going to listen? Do you want a C? Do you want a C battery? I'm going to put your tongue on it.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, that's the nine-vol, excuse me. It's been so long. It's been so long. Yeah, it was. It's where you really had to, you had to, you had to really be on your game and you had to like be very good at monitoring the room. And since when they were getting tired, which in my case just meant I would talk faster,

I thought that would be, that would be a way to engage them more. Right. Wait, is this what your mom was talking about? Exactly. Oh my God. This is what she saw. This is, she saw. I didn't expect the tears to come so soon in the episode.

How many batteries does she have? She was buried with her batteries. Yeah. Yeah. That was her wish. So, you know, this can go two ways. I've seen this, or I've noticed this, where there are comedians that grow up. I almost, I sometimes think of them as those fish that learn to live at the bottom of a

very polluted river. You don't want to eat that fish, you know? They survive, but they've got one eye and no mouth, and they've adapted. And there've been times where over the years we would have a comedian on who had done very well in clubs in really tough cities over a long period of time, and they would come on the late night show and I'd say, you know, here they are, and I'm not gonna name names but I'd say, here they are, you know, all the way from Braintree, Burlington, Brockton. And this comedian would come shooting out from behind the curtain, and he'd just start

kind of yelling at the crowd and acting like, I'm gonna get you before you get me. And you could tell they were just tough, like this is someone who had like that fish at the bottom of the Hudson River had just learned, I can live off, I can eat old boots that just sunk to the bottom, I can, and this, and they would come out and they would, the crowd would be like, if it was our crowd, college age, young people that were excited to hear some cool new stuff, and suddenly this person would come out with facial scars because they had glasses thrown at them, and they would frighten these people. And I would think, okay, that would be that growing up in a tough environment, it has definite

pros, but then there are problems as well, it can break some people, or it can make them change their style of comedy where they're constantly, they're overly calloused. But yeah, I was so shielded all the time, it took me a lot, it took me moving out here really to kind of let that drop. So when do you move out here? 1994. Okay, you come out here in 94, where do you do your stand up? I don't do stand up, I did a few clubs when I first got here, I got hooked up with somebody

who took me to open for them on a few gigs and like, just the worst, like weird towns in Las Vegas, and this guy was kind of a weird sociopath, and we were in a car together for days, he wouldn't let me roll down the window, because it created wind resistance, but he also didn't want to turn on the air conditioning, because that uses up power. And I remember I was... Did he put a sail on top of his car? Did he capture some? This guy is so obsessed with...

I remember he had a big fan on the trunk. I've seen that work on a Wiley Coyote cartoon. You can have a fan, I still don't understand, I'm supposed to be a smart person, I don't understand why you can't put an electric fan on a sail and power a vehicle, and that that would not be a perpetual motion machine. Exactly. You just have to get a big enough fan, that's all it is. Exactly.

Of course not the fan from your dumb bedroom, that's not going to work, idiot. I'm so glad a real scientist is here to back me up. So you come out here, but I would think that you would have to find, because at some point you find improv, and to me, I was very interested in performing and did some wrote out jokes and did some stand up when I was in college, and then I remembered someone saying to me if you thought about improv, and the only improv I knew of was Second City in Chicago, and I had no idea what I was doing, so I wrote a letter to whoever was running Second City at the time, and said, you know, it was like, dear sir, you know, I'm completing my residency

at the Harvard Lampoon, and I'd like to be considered for this improvisational troupe at Second City, and of course I got a form letter back saying, a form letter that said fuck you, Conan. Yeah, why are you talking like that? I was shocked. I come to you in a state of wanting. I have no friends in your fair city. I will need lodging, and I will need a hat filled with beans.

I wish I had gotten into it sooner. I'd done stand up for eight years in Philly, and was like slowly moving up the ladder, and I was like, I feel like I have to start at the very beginning again, and I didn't want to do that. I got a day job, tried to figure it out, and then I heard from a comic that I knew, a guy named Jeff Hatz, who was a Baltimore comic that I knew from my Philly days, who was now in LA, and he said, hey, we're doing these, me and some other people are doing these regular shows at a place called the Diamond Club on Hollywood Boulevard.

If you want to do one, let me know. You could do like characters, sketch, whatever. At the same time, I met somebody from Chicago through Adam McKay. This gentleman was recently being talked about for some celebration he went to on January 6th last year. We became a sketch team, and so sketch was my entree into LA show business. We got hired at Mr. Show, and then I started discovering the alternative rooms around LA, which was the kind of stand up that I always wanted to do, but I didn't know how to do

it. So conversational, it was more, there was less of that sort of slick club kind of sheen to it. It was less practiced and studied. It was more like, this is me talking as myself and what I think is funny. Yes. And there is a happy medium. For example, as you know, Largo is a magical space here in Los Angeles.

Only appears once every 100 years. Yeah. As does everything great, but people I think used to love to say, well, LA, there's no culture here. And I think that is so untrue. There's so much happening here. If you're willing to go out and find it, or drive. If you're willing to drive for 35 minutes and you're willing to go East, there's amazing

shows being done in these cool little theaters, and it's so fun to go there and a little scary, but fun to play in front of people. Absolutely. I think that LA is an easier, it's a more fun town to live in than it is to visit. It's so spread out. And if you're taking so much time to travel, if you're just here for a few days or a week or whatever, but when you live here, and look, I was, there's an Eastern thing where you are raised sort of obliquely to just despise California for some reason, and no one ever

tells you why. Well, Annie Hall, I mean, Woody Allen went a long way towards New York good, LA bad. Absolutely. Yeah. And that bore out. Yeah, exactly. What's he up to these days? Oh, we'll get to that in the next edition of the podcast.

No, I, there was nothing, I mean, because I had been steeped in that culture, when I first moved out to LA, which is in 85, I wasted time doing the whole, no one here reads. Of course. Look at this. They worship the automobile. That's their highest form of, you know, and, you know, I look at that now and I think that was all time wasted. Never occupy a space and just denigrate it unless you've been put into a penitentiary.

Yeah. You know what? If you're in a penitentiary, you have the right to wake up every day and say, this place sucks. I did the same thing though, because I, you know, I just was like, I'll move there because I have to. And, you know, I felt that way for a couple of years and then I remember coming back from a visit home and it was, it must have been Thanksgiving because they, when I came back,

they had put up the decorations on Hollywood Boulevard and I lived just off of Hollywood Boulevard. I was in the back of the cab and I was looking at the lights. It was just dusk and the lights were coming on and I realized this is home to me. Like this is my home now and I was happy to be back and, you know, in a way that I hadn't yet felt. I also think that the island of Manhattan has, it became so expensive to live there. You know, there's this kind of idea that, well, down there in Greenwich Village, there's

this young, starving artist who's, you know, another isn't, there's no young, starving artist. Not no more. No. Okay. Soho. No, he's not a Soho either. Well, then he's in Williamsburg.

He's not in Williamsburg. No, he's not. Where do you think, you know, he's... Is he maybe in Greenpoint? By now? Oh, no. I mean, anytime you bring up an area in New York City and think, well, I don't have much, but maybe I could go to that really northern part of Queens that, no, the cheapest apartment

there is $8.7 million for just a square foot. Really? What was it? It used to be a giant urinal, but a year ago they put some Art Deco furniture in there and now it's $8.9 million just to look at it. You can't even own it. The big cake is now a Trader Joe's. So I don't know, I, one of the things that's made me happiest or given me the most, what

has given me the most satisfaction, I think it's because I come from a large family. I always like there being people around. Absolutely. So today I had the feeling of, oh, I'm really happy that Paul's going to come in and we're just going to be in this room together and screw around. That's always been the part of this that I like the most. Absolutely. Is that, and I sometimes try and, you know, younger people, I'll tell them, I'm telling

you, it's most really good sagas, movies are about someone starting out alone, whether it's Robin Hood and then they find their merry men along the way or Star Wars is all about collecting people as you go. That's how this always felt to me in comedy. That was the fun part was, and I'll go to a party at, you know, my former head writer, Mike Sweeney's house, and I'll see you and I'll see Amy Mann and I'll see all these really funny people who were there and I think these are some of the funniest people I'm ever going to meet and they're all in one house and the liquor's free.

Yeah. To me, it is as a child of the 70s and 80s, like when I was a little kid, it was the 70s and the feeling to me is when I would be at the top of the stairs listening to a party that my parents were having and just saying, man, it's, I thought it was implied. You'd hear them moaning. Oh, come on. The squelches, the sound of peeled latex and I'm thinking, I've got to get down there. And now when we go to a sex party at Mike Sweeney's house, I'm like, this is the dream, we did

it. Yeah, no, many times my parents would tell me, listen, you can't, it's a sex party. It's a sex party and you're eight, so obviously you have to stay upstairs and you have to watch Lost in Space, but one day you'll have your own sex party. Yes. And God bless them. No listening, but they know what they're listening. I'm picturing people having a sex party and being like, bring it, let it come, let it

come on down. Paul, come on in. Let them sing for us. Come on in. Yeah. They're all, everyone's there, lying there naked in different obscene poses. They stop in the mid-Orgy. Yeah, stop mid-Orgy.

Paul, sing that. No, no, Paul plays the recorder. He plays the recorder, he's in the fourth grade. Paul, play your recorder. Koo, koo, koo, koo, koo, koo, koo, koo, koo, koo. Oh, that's so nice. People leaning on one elbow on the floor. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, COVID ruined everything. Boy, that was great. Will you goodnight? Say goodnight to Mrs. Wolinsky. Goodnight, Mrs. Wolinsky. All right, I'm going to get back to it. You're young. This is the way it was.

Is it the way? Oh, this is just normal. Okay. Oh, trust me. Everyone, and it was the scene, then, when you missed out on it. Aw. But God bless. I wish my parents had a sex party.

I missed out. It's not too late. It's never too late. I have to ask you that you are a hilarious, hilariously gifted gentleman. But you've always, what always catches the eye first is your attire, your sartorial splendor. And I've said this to you before, but it is the most accurate description that I could ever give as I'll encounter you at a party at someone's house.

And you're always not dressed kind of like, you're dressed exactly like John Wilkes Booth. It's not. It is. Always. And I mean, literally, someone who has, okay, we need you to recreate the crime exactly. Blam, Sixth Semperturanus leaps out of the box. You've got the whole, you know, the whole attire. All of those things, me jumping from that box, yelling Latin.

That was all a coincidence. And you just happened to be. You fleeing on horseback and evading capture for 13 days was all just coincidence. They're not related to each other. These were things I was doing separately. I get when you add them up. Of course, that's what it looks like. No, it's very impressive.

I am not making fun of you. You can sell it. First of all, you sell it. Thank you. Your clothes are fantastic. Thank you. And you'll have like the chain for the, you'll have the watch fob. And you'll have the dagger that Booth used to stab General Rathbone,

who tried to capture Booth before he escaped. You have it down, but I'm quite impressed. But where does that all come from? When did you start doing that? I just want it's ever since I was a little kid. I loved costumes. I loved dressing up when, you know, when, when, like it was for you when I was a kid, when you would see people on TV, everyone was dressed up.

Yes. You know, and that to me was very adult. It was, it was like, that's what I'm striving for is to be a grown up, a cool grown up. Yeah. And the older I got the, the, the, the more kind of fun I had with it, you know, like being, like being a kid again. And like, I'll wear a frock coat to this Christmas party. Why not?

It's Christmas time. Right. Right. And I really, I've just always had a love of clothes and, and putting things together in that way gives me great joy. A lot of people don't know this, but you'll know this, but everybody dressed up in show business. They always dressed up in show business.

And then when I, when I try to explain the impact of Saturday Night Live in, when it, when it debuts in October of 1975, what is very hard to explain to people, I think I know what you're going to say is that all of the rest of show business, all of the rest of show business, whether it's, you know, Carl Burnett show or Sonny and Cher or the tonight show with Johnny Carson or all variety shows, people are decked out three piece suits. They're wearing glittery clothes, they're wearing outfits that only someone who's in entertainment can wear.

You can't miss, you can't walk into a restaurant wearing when the Brady Bunch pad a variety hour, they're all wearing these insane Elvis jumpsuits. So Saturday Night Live comes on the air and no one in the band was wearing a suit. They're wearing jeans and t-shirts. The host, George Carlin, is wearing jeans and a t-shirt. And people at the time who were there, like Bernie Brelstein, who was representing Lorne, were, they saw that at rehearsal and then they said, he's, Bernie Brelstein said, when is everyone putting on a tuxedo?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no one's, no one's putting on a tuxedo. And that was a revolution. Absolutely. Yeah. And it didn't look like anything else on television. And people can, you know, that was the most stunning thing was someone coming out and addressing a television camera wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Looking like they just got done digging a ditch for God's sake.

Yeah. And with the long hair, you can't tell if it's a guy or a girl. Get a job. Get a haircut, you bum. But that was the big shock. And I think I always understood, I liked wearing a suit. And I remembered some people suggesting to me, well, you're really young. This is this new, very different, weird show and you're supposed to represent this new

era. You know, you should just come out like in a leather jacket and a t-shirt or whatever. And I remember thinking, no, we want to be anarchists in a way. But the best way to be an anarchist is to look innocent. Yeah, absolutely. And also on a very practical level, when a tall, thin man acts like a fool wearing jeans and a t-shirt, he just looks like someone who's acting like an idiot. When you're wearing a suit and a tie and you're acting like an idiot, it's 600 times funnier.

Yeah. It's silly. It's silly. And to me, it always just felt like, oh yeah, it's Dick Van Dyke. Yes. If I can move my body in an awkward way wearing a tight fitting suit, it's a thousand times funnier, but what you were doing a bunch of years ago, I really do feel has come into vogue.

What I think is great about where we are right now, like fashion-wise, like the general fashion of the country, if not the world, is that everybody can wear whatever makes them feel good. Right. And it's like, I don't feel like everyone should be wearing suits all the time. I don't want everybody to just look like me, like that's weird. I think it's great that you can have a different hairstyle than everybody else. You can have different clothes.

You can have piercings, tattoos, whatever. It's like things come and go and we'll see how long this lasts or that lasts. But right now, I really enjoy that there's just this mishmash of styles. That's the way it should be. I'm kind of intrigued with the idea of me suddenly dressing like Pete Davidson and wearing Supreme, like lots of that kind of stuff because clearly he knows what he's doing and he can pull it off and it's working great for him. But I would love it if I did it and people would feel so bad for me.

Yeah, absolutely. And people would ask me what I'm doing and I'm saying, hey, no, I'm not copying Pete Davidson. I'm just, this is what I like and it would so completely be untrue. And I would look like such a horrid, can you imagine me dressed that way? Oh my God, yes. Did he get divorced? And we didn't know?

Yeah. From reality? That is weird. That's right. I leave my wife. I leave my wife of now 20 years and my two kids and people were like, why did you do that? It seemed like you had a pretty good marriage.

I just wanted to start to wear Supreme and I realized that the first step was I had to leave my wife and children and then I just started on the tag and then I just start hitting clubs and stuff. And people were like, what are you doing here? You bottle service? Yeah. You had a table? Yeah.

I don't even know what bottle service is, does that mean you, wait a minute, so you're going to bring the Pepsi to me? No, I'm not bringing you Pepsi. Well, let me understand how this works. I'm being joined by my friend Paul F. Tompkins. He's coming on his horse. Did you order the Pepsi yet? Well, they said they had bottle service.

Do you see that my cap is on sideways, sir? Do you see I'm wearing sunglasses where one of the lenses is missing on purpose? I'm wearing this fabric on my arm. It looks like real tattoos. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I have, sir? I have big dick energy.

Now where's my Pepsi? Hello? Hello? He's got PDE, Pepsi drinkers energy. Bottle service. What a great scam. Yeah, that is great. It's unbelievable.

And people are like, yeah, I want to impress people by letting them know I have money enough to fall for this scam. Right. That's how rich I am. I don't care. Oh, my God. Yeah. They should make a t-shirt that says scam me and the implication is I have so much money,

I don't care. Yeah. Where in Nigeria do I send this check? Yeah. Please. You fill in the amount. I don't have time. Tell me about, you do this live show Varietopia with Paul F. Tompkins.

That's how you got the job, was that was the title? That's how people know. Listen, if you see Varietopia with somebody else, that's not the real one. I've been seeing Varietopia with Tom F. Paulson. Oh, that fucking guy. It's fantastic. What? Yes.

He does the show the day after I do it. He dresses all the mistakes. He dresses just like you. That's right. I had this idea once that it'd be really funny if I, because I heard once that Gallagher paid a guy to go out, you know, he's so successful that he turned it into a franchise. So he pays someone else to sort of, his brother, to go out and be Gallagher too and do shows. And I always thought, I want to hire a guy, you know, who looks kind of like me, but not

but make him wear a red pompadour wig and his name's Cronin, Cronin Orion and he goes out and it's not good, but some people come and he's allowed to use, he's allowed to use some of my imagery and stuff because I, I get, I get 40% of the gate and he goes, he's so bad. That's generous of a thing. He torments the country and it's really shitty. Or conversely, people like it a lot better than anything I've ever done. Exactly.

How many people at Gallagher too are there because of irony poisoning? You know what I mean? It's everybody there. I just want to see Gallagher's old stuff. I don't want to see his new stuff, smash fruit. So tell me about Varietopia. Where do you do it? I do it at a great venue called Lodrum in Highland Park here in Los Angeles.

This was a, this is an old Masonic Lodge that has been restored and refurbished and is now a club. It's now a music venue. And I fell in love with the place I wanted to do, you know, coming out of the first quarantine. I was thinking, I miss doing live shows, I miss doing variety shows where I can do stand up and I can have, I can do sketches and have a musical guest and sing with them and everything. And so I got in touch with this place and so now I'm doing this show at Lodrum. I started back up in September and it's been, it's all the things that I've always wanted

to do at the same time. It's my favorite thing to do. It's my favorite thing to do. And you've got live music there too. Yeah. And we had Amy Mann on and we've had a great rapper named Abstract Rude who's legendary in the LA scene. I just did my, at the Bell House in Brooklyn, I just did it for the first time in New York

with Open Mike Eagle and St. Lennox. And it's like, yeah, to mix comedy music together like we used to do back in the old Largo days has been just a joy. Well, I'd love to come check it out. Please do. I'd like to be in the audience and then somehow insert myself in the show in a way that isn't organic and doesn't fit. Well, that sounds like a lot of fun.

I do want to come see it and I will not ruin the show. I promise you. You'll only enhance it. I'll enhance it by randomly shouting out lame suggestions from the crowd that were never funny. Gynecologist. We're not, we're not doing it, Professor. But thank you.

Gynecologist. All right, Lisa didn't say dildo factory, that's usually what we get. I'm Conan. Oh, no. He got hit by a big rock. Yeah, you know, I'm going to ask you the last question, which is, and I think this is something you've touched on before, but you seem like a happy fellow. Have you always been a pretty happy fellow?

Some people are fueled. I'm curious, I'm a little curious about what fuels you. I've, I think I'm more or less a happy person. I've got anxiety. That helps fuel me before I do something. But then when I get out in front of people, that's always been my escape. For me, I was thrilled when I, when I had the realization that I've been, I've been doing this long enough and I know my craft well enough that before I go on stage, it doesn't,

I realized, oh, I'm not, it's not so much nervous anymore as it is excitement. Yeah. Like I can't wait to, I just, like at the day of a show, it's the worst because I just want it to be the show. I just, I'm just thinking about it all day long. Right. That's more the anxious part. And then right when it's show time, being in the wings and waiting to go on, I fucking

love it. It's such a good feeling. I don't know if I, I don't think I've always generally been happy. I think, because I suffer from a coma city, the clinical depression. Yeah. Wow. And you're very new to this country from Italy and, and then I thought you were going to, you, you didn't have trouble saying a pizza pie, but then you nailed clinical depression.

Yeah. In my country was a depression, not a clinical. You make depression sound delicious. Yeah. It's not bad. What else do you have? The, the, the, the clinical depression with, with clams. Oh, with clams.

A terminal cancer. Oh, we have a diabetes for dessert. This has been, uh, not work. I don't know what to call this, but this was not work. This was just, Hey, let's get one of the funniest people we know to come in and screw around with us and, um, for a long time and, uh, record it. And people were going to really enjoy listening to it because you're a delight. So thank you.

Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Conan, you've always been so kind to me and thank you for, uh, for believing in me and thank you for having me here today. I really appreciate it. Well, that's sweet. I swear to God, I didn't believe in you. And I would often say in your introduction, I don't think this is going to work out.

That's why you didn't get a watch. If you go back and look at all your late night appearances, there's always that, ladies and gentlemen, uh, against my will, I am now introducing this gentleman who I think is, uh, is going nowhere fast. Under duress. He is Paul F. Tompkins. With no joy in my heart, ladies and gentlemen, and great trepidation, Paul F.

Tompkins. No, seriously, this was fantastic. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I had an interesting experience recently that I'd like to share. Yep. Sonya, you know this about me. I tend to lose my kindles all the time.

I shed kindles. I don't know what it is. It's something about the size of a kindle. I don't usually, I don't think lose things, but this, I know glasses, I lose glasses, sunglasses and glasses, but phone, yeah, didn't you drive off with your phone on the roof or something? Yeah. I lost my phone.

Yeah. I lost a son. Sean, if you're out there, yeah, I do love you, um, and I wish I'd made some attempt to find you. But anyway, okay, I do lose things and, but one of the things I lose regularly is a kindle. I'll get a kindle and I love the kindle because I travel a lot, especially in non-COVID times. I travel all the time and I love to read. I love not hauling around a lot of books.

So I had a kindle, lost it, had another kindle, lost it, got another kindle, lost it. Jesus. Now, I know. So I go out and I buy my fourth kindle because I'm going to take my wife and children on a vacation. So I buy the kindle and, you know, you have to set it up. So I put in all my information and I set it up and it says, great, you know, welcome back.

And I see that there's the home screen and then it says library, which tells you about all the books that you bought. So I think, I wonder if there's any books in there that I bought that I forgot to read. It's been a while since I had my kindle, since I lost it. So I go into library and I see, oh, there's a book I bought on Teddy Roosevelt. Oh, there's another book I bought on Teddy Roosevelt. Oh, there's a book I bought on World War II and another book I bought on World War II. And then I see this Tom Clancy spy novel.

I'm like, huh, I never buy those. Then I see another one. Then I see all these different spy novels. Oh, I'm listening. Who else was in there? James Patterson. James Patterson. Like people have, I never read this stuff and I'm seeing more and more of them, tons

of them, then I start to see all these books on how to drive, how to drive a car. And I'm like, like definitely didn't buy that. And then it's like how to drive a stick shift, like a boss, how to drive a truck, how to drive this, how to drive that. I'm like, I didn't buy any of these books. Then I start to see how to talk to ladies with confidence. And then I start to see. Then you know you're back in your own books.

Yeah. Then I knew. Yeah. Now that I bought, then I start to see. There's a, I have some of the books here. Yeah, yeah, read them, read them. Okay, so there's one of the books is the manual to manhood, how to cook the perfect steak, change the tire, impress, and then it goes on.

And then there's another one, Forbidden and Explicit Erotica for Adults. Yes. Yeah. Then there's another one, which is the 7% Man, a pickup strategy. Yes. I think I've heard about, which is some strategy where if you hit on a hundred women, seven will at least say yes, you know, or at least they'll talk to you for more than a second. It's about quantity.

It's about quantity of times that you, and I'm reading, and then it gets into mixed martial arts. Yeah. And then there's stuff like using the power of the mind to unlock. And I call you up and I go, what is this? And you said, was your Kindle locked? And I said, no. I didn't know you could lock a Kindle, which I didn't.

I didn't know you could lock a Kindle, that you could put a lock in and never got that far. I'm not a, you know, and she was like, yeah, a very horny 16-year-old boy has your Kindle and is buying books like crazy. And I was like, of course, because it's all spy thrillers. I need to learn how to drive. How do I pick up a 35-year-old sexy girl? I want to do sex.

I want to do sex. I need to use my mind power to control everyone around me. There's crypto stuff in there. Yeah, crypto stuff. And so anyway, I put a code on my Kindle. But the problem now, and we got rid of all those books, the problem, though, is that Amazon keeps suggesting books to us, and so I keep opening up my Kindle and it will say, have you thought about, you know, have you thought about how to get a 44-year-old milf

in the sack, seven techniques that work half the time every time? Yeah. And it was so easy to clean your library because I was like, oh, is this about a war or a president? And that's Conan's. Anything else was like sex, MMA, driving. But the thing is, for the rest of my life, Kindle's going to be saying, oh, who is this? Oh, Conan. Hey, Conan, we know what you'd like.

15 ways to talk your way into a lady's room. This similar thing happened to me because Amanda and I share a Kindle account, and so it takes our interests and blends them together. So I read kind of pulpy spy novels like this kid, and she reads a lot of maternity books, and so we get these, like, female romance novels like Bad Jonah and President Sex. Oh, that's why I would love it if they blended mine, because if they blended the kids and mine, it would be like, how to talk sexy to Theodore Roosevelt, how to get Abraham Lincoln in the sack, and then knock him out with a special Taekwondo kick, please do that.

Please blend my accounts, Kindle. Oh, wow. Okay, that was fun. Anyway, I did cancel that one account, so I'm sorry, kid. We're out there and you're listening to this. But you did get, like, 60 books. I did treat you to 60 books, so. Yeah.

My hope is that little whoever Kevin shows up your door with a 35-year-old woman, he needs to drive in a Ferrari. Thanks, Cones. Cones, thanks to you, I met Erica here, I've got a Maserati, and now if you'll excuse me, then he sweeps his leg around and knocks me unconscious, all right, onward and upward. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gorely, produced by me, Matt Gorely, executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Solotarov, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Year 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 Will Bekdon, additional production support by Mars Melnick, talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn. 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 323-451-2821 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 on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.