Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - The Bonering Conan

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Conan talks to kinetic sculptor Breakfast about how to create moving pieces of art and designing a 50-foot sphere for cruise ships.   Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: teamcoco.com/apply Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit team cocoa.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Oh, no, chew, chew. What you said? Terrible timing. Terrible timing.

Oh, no. Hey, welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Oh, my God. I want to apologize for, let me apologize quickly to you, sir. Matt Gourley was chewing what looked like a kind of a nut bar. It was a nut bar. And that's rude because we're talking to you. You're a guest, but my mouth is clear, and I can speak to you succinctly. I just was given no real warning. No, I think you did. I thought that's just how you talked. Yeah, I don't know. You've been away for a while,

so maybe something happened. Thank you. Yes. Andrew, yes. I forgot out of talk. Andrew brought out the big guns right away. He knows you took an overly long fraternity leave. Here we go. Um, your name, sir, is Andrew Zolti. That's your real name, but you go by the name. Tell me how to pronounce this. Breakfast. You probably put that name. What did you, how did you think it would have been? I didn't know if it was, it says breakfast and I thought, oh, chances are I'm going to say breakfast and he's going to go, excuse me, it's breakfast. But it is here in the notes that it means to move fast and break stuff. I don't read the notes. Oh, okay.

I talk to people. I was trying to help you. You're an accountant over in the corner. I was trying to help you. You don't need to. Excuse me, I got to have another bite. Yeah. Yeah.

You need to see that to go back for it. You need a carboload. So breakfast. You are, it says here you are a kinetic sculptor. What is kinetic sculpture? Tell me about it. Can you see behind me? I can, but it's also a podcast.

There's a lot of, So I thought it would be good to maybe include some words in there somewhere. I see behind you, let me describe to our listeners who aren't watching this, that, yes, I see interlocking rings that are twisting and undulating. I mean, it's very cool. I see a shimmering series of silver rectangles. I mean, look, I could describe these things all day. Could you? Because that was a rough description.

Yeah, that was pretty rough. That was pretty good. Look who's candy bar just hit the stomach. You came in hot. Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp, really, Conan? Okay, breakfast. Tell me this kinetic sculpture, I've seen examples of this places. I go to Seattle a lot.

It's where my wife's family's from, and they have a hammering man there. It's a tall sculpture that hammers. away like it's like it's it's it's hammering out some pewter or something but it's really cool and it's about i don't know might be 40 feet tall um yeah is that that would that be a kinetic sculpture i think it would i mean kinetic just means moving but uh i try to i try to dial it up a little bit so like so yeah all the things i i make i tend to try and one make them really interactive which maybe if i run away from the microphone in a second i can show you uh but then all these things are actually moving based on real-time data as well. So like this little silver moving,

kind of moves like water. Yeah, it's beautiful. It shimmer. It is, yeah, it does. And it, uh, here, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, he's moving away. He's moving away. Oh, wow. He is like a magician. You just waved your hand over this surface. And it, it all started sort of undulating, responding to you. And, and all the different tiles moved in a different way. It was very cool. Yeah. And it's, and it's actually, the way that it moves, it's connected to Lake Chapala in Mexico, which is receding due to climate change. And so as that water goes up and down, it changes what happens when you move your hand through it. So kind of like if you had a puddle that got deeper or shallower. Yeah.

It actually changes based on that. So all the pieces have this sort of real-time data thing going to it and interaction. And it pretty much just comes from me being a kid walking through museums and feeling bad that I was bored. Right. and just trying to make art that said... You walked by Michelangelo's David and thought, why ain't that fucking guy moving around? No, yeah.

Why isn't his penis twirling? Oh, my God! Well, I'm serious. Why isn't it twirling? I know, and it should twirl. It should grow and shrink in relation to... Now we're talking. Well, okay.

I went too far. Yeah. But grow and shrink. It's a... Getting bonoer. But I have a question. I have a, well, wouldn't that be amazing if they could grow and shrink in relation to what's happening? If only.

Clearly, I'm completely unfamiliar with how a real penis works. Mine goes up and down based on that lake in Mexico. Yeah. Whenever a lake passes, he's like, breakfast. And I say this, I love saying breakfast. Now listen here, breakfast. You are the most important meal today. What are the devices at work?

What's happening to, what kind of mechanical stuff are you doing? What kind of wiring? I'm just curious. I don't need to get into the weeds on it. We will. Yeah, well, I should be fair in that over there, normally there's 16 people that help me do this these days.

Because we make massive, massive things. So we're doing all the electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial design. So there's computers inside each one of these things. There's motors. We've made pieces with 9,000 motors that move 24 hours a day in the middle of cruise ships and weird stuff like that. But it is complex, takes a tremendous amount of effort and time and gets really nerdy. I have a question.

But, you know, it's just for the kids. It's really cool. It's very cool. These things look amazing. What is the, it's funny to ask about sculpture, but what's the maintenance? I mean, do you get called in? Like you've done a very beautiful, complicated, and they say, yes, one of the servos, one of the 9,000 servos is on the fritz. Is it hard to maintain?

Our battery needs to be replaced. Yeah. You just go to Angie's list to get someone? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's all Angie's safe you sculpture. Where is it? Oh, yeah, you got one of those undulating Lake Tidicaca.

All right. I know what's going on. Stick a screwdriver in it and be fun. Yeah, no, it's, I mean, it's, that is the, that is actually my favorite question to answer because I get it constantly. And, and the way that I explain this is we live in a world where we are very used to consumer devices that are made as kind of cheaply and efficiently as possible and they got to cost very little. If you think about sending a satellite into space that you don't get back, that's kind of more the model that we follow. Right. So every, that's why we make.

make everything from scratch, is to every motor is custom design, every circuit board, and the part you put on there, you can choose something that, instead of costing 10 cents, oh, we spent a dollar on that one little part, and it will now last 50 to 100 years instead of five to 10. And so if you build it the right way, it will last. And then at the same time, you know, we got a lot of pieces all around the world. And if something were to happen, You know, I've had, you know, the cleaning person smash a broom into something. Then we got to make it really easy to just swap it out. So we also design and fire the cleaning person.

Yeah, exactly. That's the first thing you do. At least fire them. You designed and built a piece called the Pearl. It says here it's a 54-foot sphere with thousands of tiles and it mimics the wind and waves. I mean, where is this? How can I see this? that is the one on, well, we made two of them,

and they're on the two biggest cruise ships in the world. So they literally hold up the decks above where they are. This is a massive thing. Oh, so it's, they're load-bearing as well. They're load-bearing. Yeah, this was a horrible idea. I mean, it's load-bearing, it's 54 feet in circumference, I guess, thousands of tiles.

Yeah, it's 9,000 motors moving. This is the one I was saying. It's just 24 hours a day. In the middle of the ocean, reacting to data across the Caribbean. It's a beast. And, you know, it was a little hard to sleep at night. I could just see the ships crashing all the time

because everyone on board is just looking at the undulating sphere. Oh, wow. And then they just ran into an iceberg. And then the sphere undulates even more. Yeah. it starts undulating and then it's underwater undulating because an orca goes by. I'm probably not supposed to say it, but there is a, there's a stairway that wants. So you walk down these stairs through the middle of it and my fear kind of came true,

which is who on a rocking ship looking at a sphere can walk downstairs and not trip and fall. And they probably don't like me mentioning that. But, you know, there's some extra stair lighting now. We'll just put it that way. And may God rest their soul. Exactly. I'll make sure my lawyer doesn't listen to it. Yeah.

Now, do you have a dream to one day build something that's on the same scale as, you know, one of those sculptures or pieces of architecture that defines a city? Do you know what I'm saying? The way the Eiffel Tower defines Paris, the way the Trump arch is going to define. in Washington, D.C. Oh, God. Do you, and by the way, you should make that thing move, you know?

Somewhere else. Move on. The Trump, right? Hey, we did political humor. Look at us. We're not so dumb. Anyway, go ahead. What do you think?

Yeah, no, I mean, that's, that is, that is the dream, I would say, is that we don't build, we don't build, like, the Eiffel Tower kind of, kind of pieces anymore. And if they are, I don't know,

I want to create something, that's the big dream. What city would you choose? But now imagine Brookline Mass. A giant mechanical Conan used car balloon. Yeah.

What would you do? What would you do? Let's say I was insane and let's say I had a massive amount of money. And I commissioned you what how would you depict me?

How would you use your powers? Oh, yeah. How would you use your powers in with all these servos in moving parts to do a Conan sculpture. To do a Conan's, okay. So what you like, I actually think we should lift from the, the Michelangelo. I think we need a nice,

a boner and Conan. We need a pale figure. A boner and Conan. It's like a bird watching, too. We're going to use that. And then I think what we're going to do, we're going to make your hair. It's got to be the hair.

We're going to get out of brass. Yes. And it's going to work. Actually, we'll connect that to Brookline. So whatever the wind is, my hometown of Brookline, mass in how the wind's blowing in Brookline will affect how my massive 60-foot-high hair is undulating. Yeah, but I think the best part of it, do you know those sculptures that sometimes, like,

you'll go by a, there's like a statue where you'll rub it the guy's foot or his nose and it's like luck. You ever see these sculptures at some time? They're actually kind of worn away in those spots. They're worn away. So I think this is how, because my pieces are interactive. So I think you need to rub some part of you and your hair. Your hair shoots out. I think we all know what we're talking about here.

I think we do. I think we do. And we should go for it. How about instead of that, when the real man gets rubbed, the kinetic sculpture has a hookup, you know what I mean? Yeah.

And so, you know, it's penis twirls. Yeah. When I'm in some rubbing tug joint in Miami, come on. Waiter in Prague, my hair starts doing a loop-de-loup. Not your hair.

The hair's still connected to Brookline. Oh, oh, the hair's showing you Brookline. Okay, I get it. This is amazing that you have made this your life. I'm always fascinated by people who manage to, through perseverance, talent, a lot of hard work, I'm sure, carve out this life of themselves. It's just kind of perfect. And it sounds like you're doing exactly what 10-year-old you would have dreamed of doing.

Is that true? I think that's very accurate. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, still waiting for the money. But we'll get to that part. I mean, you seem like you must be very successful. Yeah.

Even your space is very. There's, there's this, there's the, you know, there's the success in terms of what we've achieved. Yeah, definitely. But then there's the, you know, I got to send my kids to college, right? There's got to be a way to do that. Yeah. Well, I don't know what you do. So I'm going to go outside and just, I'm going to busk.

I'm just going to play guitar on the street. and everything's going to be fine. I'm not worried. Listen, I think college is overrated. Just tell me everything's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. They can learn from their phones. AI and their phones.

We'll tell them what they need to do. You've got sculptors to make. They are not your concern. I agree. I always say that about children. Is it true that you worked? Someone told me that you worked on the Conan Blimp when we launched on TBS back in 2010.

Is that true? That is, yeah, absolutely. I got to, I flew in. that blimp. In fact, I will tell you all of this is here because of that blimp. Because it was the first project. So we started breakfast. It was me and two other guys. And we were trying to explain to people how you could connect the online world and the real world. And TBS calls up and says, we have a blimp. Do you think you can connect that in some way? And that was the first project that kind of guys going. People could like tweet at the blimp. And so, people could like, tweet at the blimp. And

and it would react. Yeah. It would, it was four, does anyone remember four square? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you remember four square. Yeah. So it was the first moving location.

So people would get in their cars to try and get close enough to check into it. And then the blimp would actually get happy or sad. And when it would get sad, it would like go and check into a cemetery. And if it got happy, it would go over to like a baseball game and get a hot dog or check in. And that's, that was so weird. I'm happier at a cemetery. and sat her at a baseball game. I'm not even kidding.

Oh, no. But that, you know, that's amazing. First of all, thank you, because I thought that blimp was one of the coolest things I was ever associated with. It was so much fun. Did you ever go in it? Yes, I flew in the blimp,

and I'll never forget this. They let me take the wheel at one point, which isn't that scary because it's a balloon, but I put it into a power dive, and it was slowly diving down, and through the windshield, I don't know if you can remember this, Sona, you were at the Good Year, I think it was Good Year. Yeah, it was.

You were at the Good Year, you would come with me. And so you were in this giant field, and I went into a PowerDive and aimed it at you. And I remembered you, like, in jeans and that brown leather jacket running away as I was in a Power Drive, PowerDive, in a Good Year blimp with my name on it. It's like View to a Kill. Yeah. No, it really was. It's one of the funniest images in my head is me. And they're like, well, you're going to want to pull up soon, but it's not dire in a balloon.

They mean like, maybe that potato is done in another hour. But I'm in this dive and you saw me coming towards you and you ran. I remember that. And you ran. I really do remember that. I do. Tormenting my assistant with the Goodyear blimp in real time. Sick man.

This is really fun. I love the stuff behind you looks amazing. It really does. And I think it's... Can I make it look more exciting? Sure. Oh my God. Can you see that?

Yes! Holy shit! Wow. The sculpture behind you just became my face. Oh my God. Now, turn it off. No. That's, uh...

Oh, wow. You're going to run away from the mic. That's incredible. Look at that. Oh! He just ran through my face and shattered it. That is so cool. I didn't like the part where my face went away.

It's got. It's bad. It's bad. Yay. Baby happy. This thing's connected to his ego. Baby happy. My ego, the power of 10,000 sons.

Listen, you are a very talented person. I really love what you're doing. I look forward to, I want to check out. I'm going to go online and try and check out. Because I want to see the sculptures that are on the cruise ships. I want to see this stuff. Is this in a gals? They're in galleries.

Yeah, there's some stuff. Where are you now? Where am I right now? Can we go there? This is, yeah, this is Brooklyn. Next time you're in New York. I was in Brooklyn a couple of days ago. I could have gone by.

I don't know. You could have been here. Yeah, you should have. You're lost. I had a gig. I had a gig in Williamsburg. It was really fun. But I missed that.

I didn't know. Well, my hat's off to you. And I'm looking forward to seeing more of your stuff. and just very cool to talk to you and to see what you're up to. I've been amazing to talk to you guys. I'm honestly, massive, massive fan.

This is a true honor. Well, the honor is ours. You're super talented and I hope our paths crossed because I want to see what you're up to. I really do. So cool.

Likewise. I love it. Well, thanks so much for having me. Sorry. There's no more to see of what we're doing. I think you're going places. All right,

take care, man. We'll see you later. Thanks so much. Bye-bye. Thank you, everyone. Conan O'Brien needs a fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam Obsessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leow.

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