Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - The Need for Weed

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

Conan talks to Matthew in Las Vegas about what it’s like to manage the world’s largest cannabis dispensary and which terrible superpower Conan would saddle himself with. Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: TeamCoco.com/CallConan

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay. Let's get started. Hey. Hi there, Matthew. Hey.

Please say hello to Conan and Sophie. Hi, Conan. How are you? I'm great. How are you, Matthew? Oh, I'm doing fantastic. This is amazing. Thank you so much.

Oh, of course. Happy to talk to you. I don't really know anything about you, Matthew. Where are you contacting us from? Yeah. I'm in Las Vegas, Nevada. Oh, Las Vegas. Okay.

Very good. All right. Are you from Las Vegas originally? I'm from the Northwest and from Spokane, Washington. But I've been out here. Yeah. I've been out here for about three years now. Yeah.

My wife is from Seattle. Oh, okay. So when I was a court in her, of course, I was in Seattle all the time. Well, I was. I had a little banjo. And I courted her outside her window. Yeah. And, but she married me despite all that bullshit.

But I do, I do love Washington, but now you're in sunny, beautiful Las Vegas. Yeah. Right in the middle of the desert. A natural wonderland unspoiled by man. Yeah. That's the thing about love about Vegas is they took what God did and they just left it alone. You know, they just, they didn't get all too involved and build it up.

Well, tell us what do you do, Matthew? Yeah. I'm actually the general manager of the world's largest cannabis dispensary. Oh. Do you mind if Sona takes over the interview now? I feel like you're, you're asking me medical questions and I'm, and Sona is the surgeon general. And so I feel like Sona needs to, well, wait a minute.

When you say, when you say this is the biggest marijuana or weed store, how big we talking here? We have just under 10,000 square feet of sales space and 77 registers. Whoa. Wait, wait. You have 77 registers. Yeah. Bigger, bigger than most stores in general.

But the biggest is just because people are so high that they can't find a register and have them every two square feet. Actually, you know what? They're so high that they go to multiple registers and pay multiple times. That's where they have them. They pay 10 times over for one bag of gummies because they're like, whoa, whoa. I should pay. Wait, there's another register.

Whoa. Okay. Ring me up. Wow. Okay. So wait. So you're like, let me see if I got this straight. You're like the Costco for weed.

Yeah. It's very big. We have a huge open display. Everything is in nice cases. So if you're looking for flower, you go to the flower section and check it out there. If you're looking for your gummies, you would go to the edible section and you would check those out. Oh.

Yeah. It's like Willy Wonka's weed factory. In a lot of ways. Yeah. That is so cool. Basically, right now, Sona is Cookie Monster and you're talking about how you have the largest cookie manufacturer in the world and she just wants to throw it all into her mouth, but like the puppet, it won't even go in.

It'll just come in. This all looks like they're going to mess. So wait a minute. Paint the picture. Let's say. Yeah. Okay. Sona and I walk into this massive, massive Costco of weed.

Yeah. And it sounds pretty fancy, but are there salespeople walking around? Yeah. So first. So you walk into a grand hallway, actually. So we have the grand hallways, the dispensary check-in. So that's where you first meet our reception crew. You know, a nice big greeting there.

We have a full restaurant. I bet you do. Oh, that's cool. I bet you do. And guess what? The food doesn't have to be that good. I'm sure it is good, but it really doesn't have to be that good. It doesn't.

Today's special is four-day-old reheated pizza. But you can just sit in a bean bag. Yeah. Your bean bag, sir. Oh, thank you. And I'll have the three-day-old pizza. How dare you? With a pint of ice cream.

So you walk past the restaurant. And so we have the sales floor that I mentioned. And there's a digital line instead of a physical one that you see in most dispensaries that you're kind of used to. But then you'll meet one of our cannabis consultants. They'll walk you through, answer any of your questions. Wait. There are cannabis consultants on the floor.

Yeah. If I went to, like, a Best Buy, someone would say, well, this is, OK, I'll take you over and show you the flat screens. Absolutely. But they get to try every flat screen. What? Yeah. And your flat screens?

And flat screens. And wait, there are free samples? Well, in a way, yeah. So we can't, so, well, my blood tenders, yeah. The consultants get their free product from the salespeople, like any other sales groups. Oh. I see.

Yeah. So they got to grease the wheels that way. Are you hiring? And are you high? Please answer the question in that order. Mr. Gorely, it's middle of the work day. Very nice. Call him officer.

Officer in the middle of the work day. So I'm curious, would Sona, if we sent Sona to you to work there for a day, do you think, I mean, she is an avid consumer. OK. Do you think she would be, do you think she'd be, I mean, do you want to interview her right now and see if she's the right sort? With all respect and congratulations,

of course, we'd have to wait till after the weaning, right? So, like, after you're done feeding the children? That's true. God, Matthew, you are so fucking good. You are so, you are so, you are the, you are so, so good. I'd like to see you in giving Senate testimony and everyone would try and nail you and you'd be like, well, I'm sorry, Senator, but of course you understand.

And you would totally win. You're the smoothest character I've met in a while. Yes, let's say, let's say Sona was not feeding, breastfeeding her children. And she was at a stage where that was not a consideration, but good catch there, Matthew. If you wanted to come through and do a day on the sales floor, I would welcome you with open arms.

Absolutely. Wow. Oh, my God. Can I take some stuff home with me too? I wouldn't let you leave without it. Hey. Yeah, if you come work for me, if you come work for me, you get to, yeah, you get to smoke for free.

That just comes with it. Oh, man. What is your most popular product? I'm curious. Yeah, it's called a super blunt. So if you'll follow me, if you will, it's two grams of premium cannabis. It's rolled into a blunt with a wood tip.

And then that is mixed with a live resin at the end, which is pure concentrated cannabis. It's without the plant material. And then it's rolled in the key from the flower as well. And he sparked that up like you would a cigar. And it's a good experience. What's the size of this thing? Is it well over six feet long?

I'm feeling like it's a prop from a Cheech and Chong movie. It's just about, yeah, it's about, I think it's like five inches, actually, but it's pretty four or five, yeah. Man. Okay. I have a question for you. Yeah, of course.

Because you seem like an expert. I mean, you are an expert. But professional. I'm the first person in my family to sell weed legally. Okay. I think you should be very proud. But also, I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't be proud, but that's also a historic anomaly.

If you would try this weed Costco 35 years ago, I'd be talking to you in prison. Yeah, absolutely. It'd be a different zoom call for sure. So hard to denigrate our ancestors for not doing the same. Okay. So I think it's so well known that I'm pretty square, obviously, and don't...

I've seen you hit a joint a couple of times. I don't know. Well, no, I did one that got a lot of traction just because it was one of my, it was like my last episode, and Seth Rogen. I didn't even know he was going to do this, but he offered me a joint. And I famously, because everybody was thought this,

I mean, some people thought I did it on purpose to be funny and I swear to God, I didn't. I put the wrong end in my mouth. And the whole crowd is like, wrong end, wrong end. Then I take a hit and really breathed it in deeply and held it and let it out. And then didn't really feel that much. And then Andy proceeded to have some,

and Andy smoked it like a champ. I mean, the minute Andy took over, it was like watching Sam Snead pick up a driver. You know, he just knew exactly what he was doing. But I don't know, I almost think, Sonia, do you know what my problem is? I don't seem, am I just the wrong personality? You're too tense.

It's not for everybody, yeah. You're way too like, I don't know. You can't loosen up enough to actually let it like loosen you up, right, Matthew? I mean, that's like, you know. Yeah, there's the social stigma. I mean, you've been socialized against it for so long, I'm sure. For a long history.

I was socialized against masturbation, but that didn't stop me. Oh, come on. Well, I'm sorry. Nobody needed to know that. No, she needed to. And that doesn't work for you either, right? No, it doesn't.

I feel nothing. When I reach, when I climax, nothing happens. Come on, Coney. It doesn't. I feel nothing. Instead of having this ecstasy, I see historical figures. I see, you know, Benjamin Franklin and Isaac Newton. I think you've got marijuana and masturbation mixed up.

Yeah. I probably do. I probably do. If you guys came in and we had this conversation on the sales flow, I would probably see you actually more towards like a mint and not something to smoke. I would get you something like very low dose. You would love mint.

Yeah. You know what? I'm not kidding. I'm not trying to be funny or facetious in any way. I would, at this stage in my life, after everything I've been through, and I could understand, I'm kind of interested now in like, yeah, maybe there is something for me in this realm that would, I think the world wants me to take it down a notch.

And so what is a mint? What is, what is the mint? Is it like a tic-tac? Just like it sounds. Yeah. It's something very small. So, so your typical gummy is 10 milligrams. So, and a mint is going to be a fraction of that.

So probably about two and a half milligrams. Dissolve, hit you sublingually. So it doesn't really hit you like in the body, like a, like a brownie or a really strong edible wood. So just kind of light, take the edge off. So especially if it bounces out with CBD, be good for you. Okay. You're a, first of all, you might be my new favorite doctor.

I'm going to fire my doctor immediately because I think all my problems, I could dump my therapist. I could dump my general practitioner. I could dump the person who makes me orthotics. I could dump everybody and just, and just work with you, Matthew. Yeah, but don't tell my therapist that. No, no, but you, oh, do you have a therapist?

Of course. Are you high when you see your therapist? No, we have an agreement. The fact that you have an agreement means it was an issue. It was an issue at one point, wasn't it? Did you say to your therapist, I had this dream and your therapist said last night, and you went, no, just now.

Just now we were talking. Oh my God. Matthew, you're the best. Yeah. So now don't you, I said, so now I think I need, I think I need Matthew in my life and think how it would help you, so now, because you, could you imagine me if, if Matthew was in charge and he took it slow.

And so I did a mint and then we balanced it out with, what would we balance it out with? A little bit CBD and always, always set in settings. So it would be nice, you know, on Vegas, there's lots of do, lots to do. Yeah. Well, I, I can't end up in a strip, strip club, you know, I'm a married man with children.

There's more, there's more than just strip clubs in Vegas. Not in my experience. I'll, I'll end up being part of Cirque du Soleil. I'm not even, people will just say, hey, look, I've been shown in spinning from, from the ceiling on this, on this purple scarf. That's so amazing. And the people in Cirque du Soleil are like,

we did not ask him. We don't know how he got in. Well, do you have a question for me, Matthew? Uh, yeah, sure. My question for you, Conan, is if you could have any terrible superpower, kind of like, if you were to join the West Coast Avengers, what would your terrible superpower be?

When you say terrible, you mean bad, be specific. Yeah, undesirable. Something that on paper nobody would actually pick. It's not like your invisibility or your super strength of your flight. It's something that would be detestable at first, but you would grow to, you'd grow into it. I kind of feel like I have that already,

which is I can bitterly mock myself to distract bullies and make them not want to attack me. And I feel like that was a superpower that I did have when I was growing up and no one would really want that. Do you know what I mean? Like, what you would want is I'm super strong or I, you know what I mean? I have heat vision or something that,

so I can fry the bullies or toss them into the universe. And instead I could distract them by ridiculing myself so indefinitely that they would just sort of say, they would laugh and then they would say, oh, that's sad. And they would walk away. Well, let's put this in the superhero world. So it wouldn't be bullies.

It would be super villain and you would have to do it to a super villain. So like if a super villain came up to you and went, ah, Mr. O'Brien, we meet again. They would just get bummed out. Yeah. We've actually met before. You just don't remember,

but then again, nobody really remembers me, Lex Luthor. I'm easy to forget, I know. And it's probably because of my long thin legs and my disproportionate body. I mean, my hips are so high that my dick is actually up near my nipple. Oh, okay. You can go.

You can go. Yeah, exactly. I was going to take over the world, but screw it. I'm going to grab a cheeseburger somewhere. You know, we got to pay Matthew a visit, so no. Yes. Yeah, please do. And we need to get you some mints.

ASAP. Why do mints have to be counterbalanced with CBD? And I'm asking. Oh, they don't have to be. It's just it would be good for you for a beginner. It's just always good to have the balance there. I like that. Well, nothing's worked so far.

You know, I will tell you this, when I go back to, this is how much the world has changed. This is an old-timers perspective. But when I was growing up, really little kid in Brookline, Massachusetts, the most important or to me, the most impressive building in town was this marble bank that looked like it was made in like 1890. This marble bank building that's on Route 9,

and it was called, you know, the Brookline Savings Bank. And I remembered my mother taking me there when I was like five to open an account. And I got an allowance of whatever, 50 cents a week or whatever it was. And I had a little plastic envelope, a little plastic ziplock thing. And I had saved up a couple of dollars and I went there

and we opened my account and they gave me a book. I remember everything about this building because it was, to me, like a temple of, this is the serious adult world. I've been allowed in. I'm starting my account. It's like this rite of passage, little red-haired boy with his bowl haircut.

Here are my quarters. There you go, little girl. Actually, I'm a boy. Whatever. And then I would scuttle out. And this was a big thing in my childhood. Obviously, I get home, but I don't pass the Brookline Savings Bank that much.

Last time I was home visiting my parents, I'm driving up Route 9 and I see my old savings bank. It's nine o'clock at night. There is a line out the door of Brookline Savings Bank that looks like it's half a mile long. And the place is swarming and it looks like there's a run on the bank, like the bank failed and people are trying to get their money out.

And I said, what the hell's going on over there? And the guy who was driving me, the Uber driver said, oh, that's a weed dispensary now. It's still the same building with these amazing Doric columns. It's beautiful. It looks like a Greek temple. It still says Brookline Savings Bank,

but they dispense weed there now. And if I could get a time machine and tell my mother back in whatever, 1970, mother one day they'll sell jazz cigarettes here. You know, she would have, you know, I mean, she just would have lost her mind. It's just impossible to comprehend. And they're open like all night.

So shout out to the Brookline weed dispensary. And I just love that they're taking over, like someday the Supreme Court building is going to be a weed dispensary. You know, the Jefferson Memorial will be a gummy dispensary. It's all going to change. Matthew, thank you so much for talking to us. Conan, thanks for doing this.

Yeah, yeah, I'm quite intrigued. These mints. Hey, I'm going to be a whole different guy a year from now. Oh, yeah. I'm going to... No, Sonia, what do you think? No, I don't think so. I don't think there's enough weed in the world.

It's like dropping an aspirin into a nuclear reactor. Well, that should calm it down. Hey, Matthew, thanks so much. This was amazing. Thank you. And have a great day. But that seems unnecessary to tell you. I think you will.

Every day is great. Absolutely. That's how we... Thanks, Matthew. Yeah, thank you guys. Conan O'Brien needs a fan. With Conan O'Brien, Sonia Mufsesian, and Matt Gorely. Produced by me, Matt Gorely.

Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joe Anasoloterov, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Music by Jimmy Vivino. Supervising producer, Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Associate producers, Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm. Engineered by Will Beckton.

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