Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - Wanda Sykes

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

Comedian Wanda Sykes feels trapped into being Conan O’Brien’s friend.Wanda and Conan sit down this week to talk about their mutual love of murder television, bowling with the railings down, and planning a vacation together. Plus, Conan gives a staff performance review. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone].For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.This episode is sponsored by Palm (www.palm.com), ZipRecruiter (www.ziprecruiter.com/CONAN), Roman (www.roman.com/CONAN), MeUndies (www.meundies.com/CONAN), Fracture (www.fractureme.com/CONAN), and Campaign Monitor (www.campaignmonitor.com/CONAN).

Hello, my name is Wanda Sykes and I feel somewhat trapped about being Conan O'Brien's friend because he's right here in front of me. Hey there, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend. This is a show where I, Conan O'Brien, I talk to celebrities and interesting personalities, basically people I've had on my show over the years, and I try to see if we can become real friends, not just on-camera friends. I'm aided in my quest by my assistant, Sona. Hi, hello. Hey, Sona, and my producer, Matt Gorely. Hi.

Okay, today's guest is a comedian who is brilliantly funny. She's been coming on my show for a very long time. I love her, Wanda Sykes. Okay, so it sounds to me like you're not enthusiastic about the idea of being my friend. You're not sure how you feel about it. You feel like this is a contrived situation. Yes. Yes. This isn't something that would naturally come about where you and I are a frogurt shop and we bump into each other, right?

Well, you would never find me at a frogurt shop, so right there you know absolutely nothing about me. If you would have said, oh, you know, walked into this, that we were in the same bar or at like one of those dumb junkets that we have to do. Yeah, we have to do dumb junkets all the time. Yeah, and then if, say, you know, we were at the hotel lounge or whatever, and... At a bar. Yeah. That's more of it. That's a situation that you could see unfolding much more than I walk

into a frogurt shop and you're there having like a triple scoop cone, right, with organic... Oh, you know what? Maybe if I were with the kids, then you would catch me in a frogurt shop. See? Yeah. So maybe you know something there. I do. Maybe. I know more about you than you think I do. Maybe.

Maybe. I know you have twins. Yes. You have twins. That seems overwhelming to me. It was very, very overwhelming. I mean, the first week, I really was thinking that I might have to take one back. No, I honestly, I'm serious. I honestly thought that, but I was like, we have a boy and a girl, and I was just wondering which one would my wife pick to return. Right.

And then I was like, she's not going to be in on this. I think I'm solo on this idea. You don't think she would have gone away with returning one? Nope. Is there a return policy? I don't even know. That sounds crazy. I mean, they're gorgeous kids. They're beautiful kids. Yeah. A little, you know...

No one's, no one's returning those kids. Yeah. Come on, white, blonde hair. I could have got a nice penny for one of them. You know what? My... You thought about this? Did you scout out what the prices are? Well, I mean, I didn't scout it out, but... You made inquiries. I was pretty sure I could get six figures. You know what? That's a great way to say I love you to a child. I looked into it and

you were worth six figures. And I kept you. My mother, I'm Irish Catholic, so big surprise here. I'm one of six kids. Wow. And where do you fall in that line of six? I am in the middle. Now, a lot of people, math nerds are like, how can you be the middle of six? You don't care.

You don't care. I don't care, but I'm the third from the top and the third from the bottom. So, yeah, I think of myself as, wait, fourth from the bottom. Wait, that's not math. That's not math. That's wrong. That means there's another kid in here somewhere. That means there's seventh. There is seventh. He didn't make it. We left him in the attic too long. He's supposed to

crack a window. Anyway, I'm fourth from the bottom, third from the top, but my mom had a kid like every six months. I don't know. That's impossible. It's not if you have the Irish gene, you can have a child. You can have up to two children a year. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. Like litters, then. It's craziness. Neil was born in 61, Luke in 62, Conan 63, Kate 64, Jane 67. What happened there? They waited a few years. Wow. Then Justin comes piling along right after that. It's insanity. And it was the Wild West in my house. No one was paying attention to us running around. Your kids are both being

doused with love, I bet, all the time. They're pretty. Yeah. That's nice. That's a lot of attention. I need to be re-parented. I'd like to come to your house and be re-parented by you and your wife if that's possible. Reparented.

I'd like you to be my parents. You're a handful. You're a handful. You don't want to deal with me. No one wants to deal with me. And you're so tall, that puts a strain on my neck because now I'm always having to, you know. Also. If I was to be friends, you would have to agree that we have a lot of conversations

and like, seat it. I'm not going to be walking around with my neck up. What if I agreed to always be in a wheelchair? Oh, that's even better. One of those little scooter ones. I like that. That's even better. You and I walking down the street eating frogurt, Wanda Sykes, Conan O'Brien, and I'm in one of those electric scooters. I like it.

And we have adventures together. Yeah. Because what I've noticed is that I've known you for years. You came on my show very early on. Oh man. Yeah. I was one of the people that came on very early on in the show and we've known each other a long time and I've always loved your comedy and I love you as a person. I really do think

you're terrific. And yet we're not friends, real friends. Yeah. And I'm thinking, and that happens a lot on my show where I really connect with people on the TV show and then TV shows over and buy and we hug. Right. And then you get in a big black SUV and you're driven away. And that's it.

And I don't see you again unless there's another work thingy or. Do you only come on my show to promote something? No. I've been on your show just to like hang out. But again, they have to ask. I think about it. I go, I have some funny stuff to say. Yeah.

I go hang out. But what I'm getting from this is you've never called the show and said, you haven't called me and I have nothing to promote, but I'd just like to see Conan. You've never done that. Nope. Can we get it hotter in here? Good Lord. Yeah.

I don't know. We're going to switch rooms soon. Okay. All right. This is a former. A big bread in here? Jesus. We're making some rye, some rye bread in the back.

It is warm in here. This isn't the best, but we're going to get a better place. And so just chill and then you're going to come back to the nicer place. But when I come back, hopefully between that time, we would have developed some type of a friendship. I hope so. It would maybe start with you inviting me to your house. That's a stretch right there.

What do you mean? That's a stretch. Wow. That is the most basic way. It takes a while to get into the house. Since the dawn of time, people have said, come to my home. That is how ancient people showed friendship and cordiality. And I just suggest it and you shut me down so fast.

When you make it to my house and I'm like, hey, come over, you know, hang out at my house. That's like, I'll help you have a body friendship. Wow. Yeah. Okay. That's a stretch for me right now. Yeah. Right now we're still at the maybe.

I'll meet you somewhere. You'll meet me in a neutral place. Yeah. Let's hang out. Yeah. And it's like, yeah, come on over, man. Okay. You just did basically described, they always tell someone who's meeting, you know, a drug

kingpin, meet him in a public place so he can't kill you. That's how you're treating me. You're treating me like I'm a potential murderer. I wouldn't say murderer. No, that's a stretch. Like we'll say, just like, you're getting to know someone. Okay. Right.

There's a public place where there's a lot of people there that you want some people there in case I, I start to flip out other people are there to restrain me physically. Yeah. We're going to be really good friends. You know, it's funny because we just mentioned, I just mentioned murderers, you and I, and I've talked with you about this before, but we do share something in common that we could talk about when we become real friends, which is we both love murder, love murder shows. You love them.

Don't you? I love them. I love them to the point where I had to like take a break from them because I was just, you know, looking at people as like, I bet you probably got a body in this trunk or really just looking at random people or yeah, or I'll look at couples and I'll think like, who's going to do it? Who's going to kill the other? Who's going to kill the other?

And then, and then cry on the local news and say, I can't believe, oh, can't you, can't you call it out now? Yes. I know it's missing and if the spouse is on, on the news, don't you know, yes, you can tell automatically. Right away. Yeah. Right away.

Yep. I can do it from 9-1-1 calls. You can tell from a 9-1-1 call? Yeah. You can just listen to the timber of their voice and I go, oh man, yeah, he did that. He, what is he talking about? Because he's usually forcing it a little bit. Yeah.

It's terrible. Or giving too much information. Yes. Yeah. You know, she, she, she, I came home and she's on the ground and I could, because I was at McDonald's and I had, I had the meal number two and, you know, and, and I had the receipt. And I had the receipt here and I get home and there's an ax in her, in her forehead. And I don't, I don't know how that ax got there.

Okay. I did touch it just to see if I could get it out. Dude, you did it. That's so true. Yeah. That's been, yeah. I watch every single murder show and there's that show, is it investigative files? What is that?

Forensic files. Forensic files. Oh yeah. They take over headline news after a certain time. Yes. So what happens is I've stumbled upon forensic files and I've watched maybe 18 in a row. Oh man. 18.

And I was supposed to like pick up my son and I didn't. And he's wandering in the woods alone. And I'm watching a show and I'm, and I can't, I can't stop. I just can't stop it. And I'm just, I'm fascinated by those shows. Yeah. And I'm always fascinated by how many people murder for the smallest thing. Like he had some butterscotch candies and, and his friend wanted three of them.

You know? So he went in there and just there's blood and hair on the walls. Right. And he leaves with two butterscotch candies. I don't know. I would, I love murder so much that I have said many times I would love to murder or even be murdered. If I was murdered, I'd be honored.

Isn't that weird? That is so weird. Why? Because I'd be like, I made it into the club. I'm such a fan of murder that someone murdered me. Yay. I made it. Someone took the time out to murder me.

Someone took the time to murder me. And now I get to be in the, and now everyone gets to talk about who did it. And it's probably a weird message to put out there. Yeah, it is. It is. Um, we've talked about this a lot, but I do think that you were in the best named movie of all time. And you know what I'm talking about.

You can't get enough of it. I can't. I can't get enough of it. Pootie Tang. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about? When you come on the show, you, you throw that card in there. Pootie Tang.

Pootie Tang. And the thing is, I don't know how long ago that was now. Good Lord. That was probably 2,000. 18 years ago. Yeah. 2,000. 16 years ago.

Who knows? 2,000. Someone out there knows exactly when it was. Exactly. Yeah. If I was interviewing you when you were 110, I would ask you about Pootie Tang. And regardless of what else you had done in your life, you know what I mean? Yeah.

You could have just become the first African-American woman to be elected president at the age of 110 years old. And my first question to you would be, let's talk about Pootie Tang. And then I'd be fired as an investigative journalist. Yes. Yeah. Such an incredible idiot. Right.

Yeah. That'd be hilarious. It would make me laugh though. I would enjoy it. If I can make you laugh, that's all I want to do. Do you have a podcast? Because if you don't, you're the only person who doesn't. I don't have a podcast.

Would you like to have this one? I'll give it to you. You're so generous. Yeah. They're not. It's really, it's just a couple of microphones and some guys I've never met. I don't know them. I'm happily going to give them to you.

Okay. They all come in one van with all the equipment. It really is like a dominoes. It's like Acme. You can have. You can have. You know, that's actually a good idea would be a company that you call them up and within 30 minutes or less, they come up and they set up a podcast in your house.

That is a very good idea. And then you do a podcast and it is available to automatically download for all of your friends. That's an idea. You could make some money off of. Matt, would that work? That's basically what you got here. That's already happened.

Yeah. That's why it's so hot in here is that we're in the back of a van. Back of a van? Yeah. But it's a nice van. Yeah. Probably not. It's mine.

It's home. Yeah. It's a nice van. I haven't seen Shag carpet like this. Well, I got to sleep in it. In quite a while. Shag carpet. Oh my God.

But you know what? It is, you probably get asked all the time by people because you're funny, you're a great cast. To do podcasts. Do podcasts. Do podcasts. And I was getting asked all the time to do podcasts and I thought, I'm going to have a podcast just so I can, that's my excuse to not do other podcasts.

Oh, I didn't think about that. Sorry. If you didn't want to come here today. I could have just told you. You could have just said, I have my own podcast. I have my own podcast. I'm going to know you don't have one? No.

Everybody's got one. Maybe that'll be my podcast. And basically all it is, is it's your day, you living your life, you put no effort into it. You're just mic'd for the day. Someone like this producer, Matt, chops it up into a podcast and people listen to it, they would. They would like you, they would listen to it and then it's your excuse for not doing

a podcast. Yeah. It's your get out of jail free podcast. And all I can do is just talk about all the podcasts that I got out of doing because I'm doing this podcast. Yeah. There's no awkward conversation with Mark Marin, or Dax Shepard, or Chaz Pumentary. I mean, literally everybody's got one.

And now it's time for a segment called Conan O'Brien pays off the mortgage on his beach house. Yep. No reason to get into this at length. I have a mortgage on my beach house, got to pay it down. Did it take you a long time to get here today? Do you live close by? Please tell me it was this was close by.

My biggest fear in show business is putting people out. I hate when I feel like I've taken someone out of their day. If I'm imposing on them, that makes me nuts. I do something. Makes me crazy. Yeah. I hope you at least got to run some errands on the way here or on the way back. Actually, I did.

What'd you do? I stopped and picked up my kids from the bowling alley. Your kids? Mm-hmm. They're old enough to go to a bowling alley alone? No. They were with the old pair. Okay.

Nanny. Okay. For a second, I thought you just left them at the bowling alley. No. You like. I don't just leave them. You like duct tape. Six figures, Conan.

Come on. Jesus. You don't leave that money around like that. That's 12 figures. Jesus. I think that's how it works. Again. Still not getting out right now.

I'm not good at the math. When they do bowl, do they put the guards up on either side? You know those little guard rails that come up? They do. They do. I worry about those. But when they bowl with me, I make them put them down. Good.

Because my son, the first time I took him bowling, those guard rails came up and he took the ball and he whipped it and it carromed off each 15 times on the way down and then accidentally knocked over a couple of pins and he turned and looked at me like, I did it. I did it, daddy. And I thought this generation is done. Right. Yeah. They're done before they even get started.

This kid, a turkey, could have nudged a ball and it would have knocked down as many pins as my sons did because it just bounced off and he had this look of elation. Yeah. Am I lost? I'm like, what is this? No. Put the railings down. And if you're going to throw, you know, 20 gutter balls in a row, so be it.

Learn now. You'll learn now. Yeah. That's the generation. It was a generation that understood that and they fought World War II. Yep. Well, they actually started World War II. They told me the greatest generation.

I think it's bullshit. They started as much as they made a mess and they cleaned it up. Anyway, that's going to get me in trouble. Yeah, until Broca here's that. Like Broca's listening to my podcast. He probably has a podcast. I don't think he has a podcast. No.

He's carving a radio out of wood right now. I don't know what that is, I don't think it's real. We talked about pornography last time, but I forget what we talked about. I have no idea. It was that your son knew the term pornography and learned it from the Simpsons. That's right. Yeah, my son came up to me and said, what's pornography? And I said, well, Beckett, why do you know that?

And he said, because I was watching an episode of The Simpsons where they talk about pornography and it's an episode that you wrote, and that was an awkward dad moment for me. So what did you do? I said, that's a different corner, Brian, now go to your room. I did. I said that. I believe in the old school. Okay.

I bet, I bet. Did you ever have your mouth washed out with soap as a child? No. I did. Oh, literally. Oh, wow. Yes. My mouth washed out with soap.

They got a woman to look after us who's from Prince Edward Island in Eva Murphy. She was old school and my parents weren't in the house and I said some word I wasn't supposed to say. And I remember she took me into the bathroom and she wet some dial soap and in and out of my mouth. And what I remember is that it caked on the back of my teeth. Oh, yeah. You turned out okay.

You turned it around, right? We didn't even write. Why did you write at the end? The question mark. You turned it around. And then you said, right? You'll only meet, you don't want me in your house. Right.

You'll only meet me in a public place. Uh-huh. Well, okay. You said that you'd like other people to be there in case I suddenly become physically crazy. You said you'd like to be murdered, so I'm pretty sure that all the things I've said, you can just throw those out the window and let's just start with you said you'd like to be murdered.

That's true. That's pretty creepy. You totally won. That's creepy. You won. Okay. I'm just, you looked around the room like other enough people here. Yes.

You're fine. Don't even try to trap. This isn't a trick. Wanda, you're allowed to leave at any time, okay? You're allowed to leave at any time. She's horrifying. I think that this podcast, we may end up only doing like two or three of these because my effort to find a real friend.

It's a mirror that I'm looking into. That's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing myself and I don't like what I see, Wanda. I don't like what I see. A very sad, needy man. What are the things that you enjoy doing? I mean, do you like to travel or when like when you take the show on the road is that?

I love doing that. Okay, well, do you travel outside of doing it for the show? Yes, yes I do. So you do enjoy traveling? I do enjoy traveling. Where do you like to go? Oh, I see what you're doing. Now it is your podcast, I like this.

Where do I like to go? I like to go, I love to go to Europe. I love to see things that are a lot older than I am. It calms me down. When you see like a, when you're in a building that's like 800 years old. I just think, oh yeah, I don't matter in a good way. Not in a bad way.

No, no, I get it. I think when I'm in cities that have been around, when I'm in Jerusalem, I just think, what am I worried about? This has been here so long. We're all here for such a short time. Relax, I get a great perspective and it lasts for about 18 minutes.

And then I'm right back into, I'm gonna make more of my TV shows. That's not enough, I need a podcast. I need even more than that, I must have more. And so it's tough, it's tough, but I love the perspective you get from France. Do you travel a lot? Yeah, I do.

Go to Europe often, France, because my wife is French, so yeah. It's so great to be with someone who speaks the language. I'd be a nice trip for the three of us. You, your wife and me in France. Not hearing anything from you. This is the longest silence on a podcast that has been recorded, I think yet.

I could stay in a separate hotel, but we would meet in the morning and we would spend the day with each other. Now you're just exhaling. You know what I heard is nice? What? A barge cruise, I can France, and because you can hop on and off.

Yes, and you go through the whole country. Yeah, you can get off, grab a bike. Just you can steal a bike. You can take any bike. It's not a crime in France. Oh yeah, it's not a crime, yeah. As long as you put a loaf of bread in the basket, it's not a crime.

Yeah, exactly. A loaf of bread in the basket, and if you're gonna be gone with the bike for like over three hours, you gotta put a beret on too. You know, they have it all worked out. That's what's great. Are you gonna do that?

Are you gonna take a barge cruise? We're looking into that. You'll come. All right, well I'll look into it too. I'll let you know. I'm gonna wait by the phone until you call. All right. And I will go with you

and we will travel on a barge. Maybe instead of going all the way to France, maybe let's just start small, like maybe go to Canada first, you know, like. Oh, I thought you meant just Montreal. Montreal's nice. Yeah. I thought you meant.

They speak French there. They do. So we go there and test it. Okay. See if we, you know. Right, I was thinking when you said start small, that we would stay in LA, there is an LA river. And we could find a place,

a part of it that has some water. Okay. And we could probably go as far as like 50 or 60 feet. Yeah. And then get out and spray paint something on the. Tag something, yeah. Tag something. And then I'll run in different directions.

But yes, I think you're right. I think it's smart to test it out, test it out and see if we're all copacetic. We all get along. Yeah, now I'm thinking, oh, we can just go down to the all ball pond, you know, and grab a croissant or something. I could do that.

Okay. Let's try that first. Let's try that first. We're going to do that. You hear that? We're going to, one to Sykes and I are going to go to an all ball pond. Don't give them the address because which one,

don't tell them which one. Right. I don't want to see you get murdered. Well, that's weird. Cause it's actually what I'm dreaming of to actually have all those guys standing around me and saying, wonder what happened. That's cool.

Thank you so much for coming in. Oh, wait a minute. Have you sometimes, right? When you're in one of your investigation discovery runs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Flip over to BET and watch some black murder. Really? Drama.

Well, wait a minute. I know. I don't know why we have to segregate murder. Somehow murder gets segregated. But wait a minute. How is the BET murder channel different? It's called fatal attraction. It's just black people getting murdered.

But how do you notice, what's the, is there a cultural difference in murdering? It's usually infidelity. Right. Yeah, it's usually infidelity. Like you're not going to see on the black murder, you know, somebody killed their neighbor because the dog wouldn't stop barking.

Right, infidelity. Yeah, that's white murder. That's white murder. Yeah. Also, white people love to murder each other over insurance policies. Yes. Like if we don't have insurance.

And it's always. And it's always like. And it's always like. You don't have insurance policies. And it's always for incredibly like, there was an $800 deductible. Right. Like he managed to get by killing his wife

in a murder that cost him $10,000. I'm going to do that. I'm going to start watching because as a country, we need to come together. So I pledge to now start watching murder on the BET channel. And I'm going to do that. Tell me what you think about that. I will.

I'll tell you when we're at the El Bon Pond. Okay. That's a date. A date. Some of you didn't think I could do it. One is a tricky one, but I did it. One is like, thank you so much. Thank you, Kyle.

A pleasure and honor. And I hope to see you very, very soon. And silence. And now it's time for another installment of Conan O'Brien pays off the mortgage on his beach house. One, one follow up question Wanda on a scale of basically one to 10, 10, being best. What do you think are your chances

or the likelihood of being friends with Conan after that discussion? I would say. And you can speak freely. He's not in the room. Right, right. I would say like a 6.5. You feel safe with him?

Do I feel safe with him? Oh God, no. I will have a weapon on me. Okay, good. All right. So 6.5 with a weapon. We'll put that little asterisk. 6.5 with a weapon.

Any weapon of choice? Pack and heat. Pack and heat, okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Now it's time for Conan gives a performance review. Can I give a performance review of how you just said performance review?

Now it's time for Conan to give a performance review, which I think is a better way to say it than what you said. I'm impressed. This is not your native language. And I'm very impressed. It is actually my second language. So yeah, this joke's on you.

I'm impressed that you know seven languages. I know three. Okay. How many do you know? I am impressed. I was saying I am impressed. I only know five. So good for you.

Now it's time for Conan to give a performance review. All right. I have a very good staff. I want to start by saying that. But I think one of the reasons we have such a good staff is that I'm tough on them. And I let them know when they've let me down. And I also like to praise them.

So it's the whole rainbow of emotions. But more putting down than praising. I see the face you're making. Yeah. Today we're going to give a performance review to someone who's been on my staff for a very long time. Aaron Blair. Aaron, what would you say is your title on the show?

I don't even know. I don't know either. You're the web guy. Yeah. When people ask, I say web guy. You're a web guy. You've been with me a long time. Anyone who's watched my Clueless Gamers,

that's Aaron Blair. Aaron, you've been with the show how long? Oh my God. I started as an intern in 2001. Yeah. You started in 2001. You were a young kid at the time. Still gray hair though.

Yes. You've had gray hair. You look like Newt Gingrich when you were 14 years old. That's true. It is. It's incredible. Yeah. You know, I felt like, you know, I made it work.

No, you do. You make it work. I wasn't criticizing you in any way. I was just saying it was striking that you had this gray hair and I thought, oh my God, Newt Gingrich is walking around the office. Oh wait, no, that's a 14 year old boy. You have completely gray hair.

Yes. Okay. And you have a completely gray beard. Right. But then it is colored dark brown. Right. Your mustache and right just below where your chin goes. Yeah.

It looks like you're a gray haired person who stuck his face into a bowl of cocoa to take a sip. Okay. So my question is, are you coloring that part? No, no, why would I color this part? Because it's so, I don't understand how I- When I just color the whole thing, why would- I'm asking you.

Well, no. To answer your question, no, I'm not coloring that part. That's just what God has given me. But soon, do you know what I'm talking about? Isn't that a little unusual looking? Doesn't it look like he dipped down. There was some, there was a hole in the ice. He was walking through the woods with completely gray beard.

There was a hole in the ice. He dipped down and saw a chocolate stream running under the ice, but the hole would only accommodate an area slightly larger than his mouth. So he dipped down to sip it and it got his mustache and the bottom of his chin. Yeah, I don't get beards. Yeah, so let's talk about you and your performance.

You have done a lot. I'll go on the record. Blay was one of the first people to push me to expand my foolishness onto the internet and to shoot silly little things. And you do a spectacular job. You won us an Emmy. Yes.

For your work. So you would think- Two, I won two for you. Settle down, power. I have to say. Okay, I got one of those too, remember? No, I got you two of them. I know, all right.

Oh, you got them from me. Well, I mean- You got me, Emmys? No, I didn't. You got me, Emmys? I didn't get using your work. What are you talking about? Using my work.

Using the clay that you have get. Oh my God. That's a better thing. I got you two, Emmys. No, I got you two. You don't get who the hell do you think you are? For me, you've won yourself two, Emmys. What do you want me to say?

Yes. How about despite you? Yes. This is going- Despite you, just man, I was about to give you such a good performance review, Winnie. Damn it. No, you're doing an amazing job.

And I do mean that sincerely. I have a few notes for you. Oh, boy. You know, I think that you sometimes on camera are way too loud and you clap your hands a lot and you act like you're running a children's show and you yell. And we do a lot of live streams together

and you really are sometimes acting like a circus performer who knows that he has seconds to live if he doesn't amp up the energies just a little more. So I'm telling you, as you've got to calm down just a little bit. Right. Okay, you comfortable getting that feedback?

I mean, it's, you've given me this feedback quite a bit and in public many times. Yes. So now can I just say, I realize I'm being loud. Can I explain? You know what I never get?

And this is great. I never get the chance to explain, not talk back to you, but whatever the nice way to say that is, that explain my position. Okay. And I'm glad we have this forum so I can do this. Okay.

Because what happens is. You realize if this starts to go south on me at any point, I will cut this off. I'm, I'll be shocked to face it. Go ahead, go ahead. When we're doing a live stream or some, my voice sounds crazy. You're yelling right now.

I know, because I'm very amped up. Okay. They're adjusting dials all across this building. Engineers are weak. Yeah, they're pulling levers. It's like that scene where the Titanic's just about to hit the iceberg and they're, they're turning giant wheels

and they're shoving huge levers into reverse to try and veer us back into a normal sonic level. But go ahead, Shouter. I did a lot of choir when I was younger. I project. Okay. Don't laugh at that. So I had to turn away.

Why is that funny? Choir is a thing. You know, he was the gray-haired, he was the gray-haired boy in the choir. I was. I was. I was. Gray-haired tenor.

Yeah. Second tenor, yeah. That was the second. The second tenor. And I'm just saying, so I naturally project quite a bit. To do, now, to do live streams, I feel like people are watching on their phones, very small.

You have to overcompensate really to get it out, you know, to be like, to do it. Right. So bored. You're looking at me with like dead eyes. No, I'm, well, first of all, I died inside a long time ago. So I feel like I have to overcompensate for that.

Yeah. So I feel like that's what it takes. It's all brute force. I don't have your talents of being hilarious. So I have to be just energetic. Why? I'm gonna say you are a funny fellow. Oh, well, thank you.

And I don't, don't put yourself down. That's my job. About to put you down. Yeah. Chocolate stream. I understand. And I also, I have to say, I do appreciate that,

that always gives me something to start with whenever we're doing something. Right. And I come into a room and you're doing a live stream and you're yelling, that's the first thing I do. And it's, so it's a little like peanut butter and jelly. It works well together. And then you punch me for the next 20 minutes.

I do, here's another thing I do. I punch you often because you're a big guy and you can take a punch. That's true. So I punch you a lot in the shoulder. Then your parents didn't like it. That's true. Yes.

They didn't like that I was punching you. That's true. And here's a negative performance review for you. You communicate, you communicated that to me. Now I think you should have just kept that to yourself. But I think you telling me that your parents don't like it when I punch you. I thought that was putting me

in a very uncomfortable emotional position as the person punching you. Well, to be fair, it was the most ridiculous complaint. I want to punch you, but I don't want to hear any negative comments from your family. Well, only what my dad didn't like it. My mom says that like do it more. She enjoys it.

Your mom likes it when I punch you. She enjoys it, yes. And I, you once explained to me that coming from brothers, very early on to your credit, you said, I'm going to hit you quite a bit. It's because I can't hit my brothers. So I'm going to hit you because they're not with them arms.

There are certain writers that I'm comfortable tackling and fighting, which is ridiculous and absurd. And I know that they're okay with it. I think they're okay with it. I may ask them someday if they're okay with it. There was one writer in particular, I remember, I was either an intern, it just started and I walk by in the old late night offices,

you had been fighting and you have his head. Whose head? Michael Coleman, his head, who you fight with a lot. You're holding it down to the desk. And as I walk by, you go, hey, come here. Blake, come here. I was like, you go, hold his head here. Just hold it here.

And if I walk by and his head is not on the thing and you're not holding it, you're fired. And I was like, oh my God. And so I held it for like 30 seconds and he goes, he's just kidding. And I was like, oh. Michael Coleman, brilliant writer, but he had that coming.

I love Michael Coleman. But, and I fully admit to that kind of madness, I'm an insane person. And he ripped your shirt, that's why that happened. He did, he tore my shirt, which enraged me. Let's move on to areas that won't get me in legal trouble. You wear ironic watches constantly. That's true.

Every day you wear a different ironic watch. This is true. This is a negative part of your performance review. Sometimes you'll wear a watch where all the numbers are scrambled or you'll wear a watch that has no numbers or you'll wear a watch that has no information, but just a pancake on it.

That's true. Yeah, this is my grandpa's watch. That's a real watch. It's ironic. It's strange that it's weird that I'm bringing this up today because this is one of the only times I've seen you wear a watch that isn't made to look like a mini toilet seat.

Well, that's true. Or, oh look, it's a steaming piece of poop. And it stopped steaming at 1230. It's limited. Yeah, exactly. What is the watch thing? Uh, I don't know. You know, I'm a wacky guy.

Never say that. Okay, I'm sorry. Never say that. That's true. Well, you know, I mean, okay, I'm not a wacky guy. I enjoy color and I enjoy, I think, I mean, psychologically it's probably, well, you know what, guys don't get to wear jewelry.

We don't get, no, it's true. Hey, guys don't really get to dress up. Like, you know, it's like, oh, you wear like a tie. You do when you're older. I've appreciated dressing up a little more as I, I'm wearing a tie right now. We can't, you are. And you look great.

That's all I'm wearing. You can't, you can't think on its long. Well, anyway, the point is, You know what, so I wear an ironic watch because I want somebody across the room to be able to see the kind of person I am from far away. Okay, here's the next part of your performance review. We're doing very well on the internet, don't you think?

I would say so, yes. Okay. Why am I not much bigger on the internet? What do you mean, you're huge. No, no, no. I mean, I think there's a lot you must not be doing. I wanna be the, because, you know, we're not at Kardashian levels.

Okay. Okay. And you know what I wanna say? Let's be honest. Let's be honest. You know. This is gonna be great. I can't wait to hear what you're about to say.

Well, all I know is every time I turn on Sona, jump in, when I turn on my phone or my computer, I see what the Kardashians are up to or who they're dating or who, hold it, who threw shade at Black China and who dissed Travis Scott and who got a new butt and stuff like that. And I'm thinking, you got a new butt.

You know, why am I not part of that discussion? Anybody? And I think I blame- I have a theory. Go ahead. They show their boobs a lot. And you- That's what I was gonna say.

Do not. Are you saying that they are considered sexier than I am, more sexual? Yes, they are definitely sexier. They have, you know, very voluptuous bodies and they show it off. I mean, if you show like your butt more often and like a thong, maybe-

Be honest, be honest. Tell them about my butt, tell them. You don't seem to have one. Right. They have a lot. There is literally nothing there. Yeah, but you know what? It is a straight drop.

I had a carpenter check it out. My butt, not only does it not go out, it goes in. Oh, come on. There's like an area where you can, there's just a big carved out indentation there. I can't keep pants on. Why did a carpenter check out your butt? You know, but can I say one of the best things,

not best things. One of the very popular things we did was when you wore jeggings. You remember that? Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, if you wore some tight, like Tassana's saying, you showed that off, even if you got nothing. Here's the problem.

Show it off, you know, like- Here's the thing, why'd you say even if you got nothing? Well, I'm saying, you, well, I don't know. I'm saying, maybe you should be a little sexier, you know? It might be a mistake. You come out in a suit every day, you know? Try maybe the jacket, no shirt. Gold, gold, gold.

Well, I'm just throwing, I'm just spitballing here. Have you seen my chest? I'd prefer not to. Have you seen my chest? I would really like not to. I look like someone, my chest is, you know, a sunken chest. It's the chest of someone who's been in the coal mines for many, many years.

God. Yeah. So I don't, but if you showed it off, I guarantee, there's a fetish for everything. People would be into the sunken chest. You guarantee, like Kardashian level? I guarantee not, well, they might not be the people you want, but you know, the sunken chest fetish.

Here's the thing. You're in charge or, you know, you are at the helm of my web presence in many regards. Why are you not figuring out a way for me to break the internet? I think we've broken it. No. My guess is doing well.

What more do you want? What would be? Don't ever ask me what more do I want? Well, I'm just saying. I want more. But would you want to be, what, the head of a country? Like, what are you looking for out of the internet? Remember when Kim Kardashian had that picture

that showed her opening champagne and the stream of champagne was going up in the air? I do remember that. And then it made an arc in the air and then it landed on her butt crack. But she has a butt. You can't do that. It goes straight to the floor.

You can't do the champagne on the butt because you have nothing. Photoshop. You don't have the thing that she has. Thank you. It shows off like on a private plane and like really fancy clothes. Can I say something?

Here's my leather journal. Here's my new book about the people who live in Boggs in 1910 and what they ate. That's not it. I took a selfie to be fair. I was on a US air flight that was fairly unoccupied. And I took a self portrait of me writing in my journal and I gave that to you to put on the internet.

And then I waited for the whole thing to blow up. Remember? You got US air flight. What is that? What are you talking about? That's nothing. You weren't in business. You weren't even in first.

You know what first costs on US air? But I'm just saying you weren't, that's not like bling bling, you know? You're saying, but okay. So you're saying I have to get on like a Southwest flight and be in the front. Yeah, you should check in very early. You're missing the point.

He's missing the point. You know what? Here's what you need. The internet runs on everything else. It's sex appeal. It's popularity. It's throwing. When was the last time you threw shade at somebody?

So now don't you think you should start a feud? You should definitely, you need a good beef. You need a beef. That's what you need. How about I go after Tyga? You don't know who Tyga is. You've heard it once and now you keep saying it. I don't know who Tyga is,

but I will tell you I have a lot of beef with Tyga now. What about like, who's somebody who you like? Why are you saying no to this? Ruth Bader Ginsburg, like who's somebody who you know a lot about? Oh, don't beef with me. No, no, don't beef. But what about if you beef with like,

but somebody who you know a lot about, who's still alive? Who's cool? Who's cool? Yeah, like somebody like, I know like Taft, you have, don't you have issues with Taft? Who's the- You said still alive. But no, I was saying, now you're the first person

you listed as dead. No, but, no, I mean, you know what? What if I'm the first person to have beef with a historical figure? But they can't beef back. They can't beef back. No, but I think this is the, hold on, just settle down.

Here's the problem with you. I don't think, what if I get into beef? You know, I can't get into beef with Taiga because I don't know who Taiga is all about. And I can't get into beef with Black China. And you know what I mean? And Kendrick Lamar and all these different people, I can't get into beef with them

because no one's gonna, they're not gonna know who I am. It's the whole thing's not gonna work. But what if I'm the first person who starts to have legitimate beef with, you know, I've got beef with Hamilton Fish. What? Who's Hamilton Fish? Exactly, look it up.

Everyone look up Hamilton Fish. Or look up, you know, Elehu Root. I have beef with him. He was in Theodore Roosevelt's administration. No. I have beef with Tsar Nicholas. You know, the last Tsar of Russia. I have major, he shouldn't have dissolved the Duma.

Then maybe the Russian Revolution wouldn't have happened. I'm here in a future segment for this podcast. I know gold when I hear it. And that can't tell you something. This blows up because then we get someone to start writing back to me in the voice of that person. You know, I just have, I have major beef with Hubert Humphrey. And then he has beef with me back.

I have major beef. It's called major beef by the way. Major beef, definitely called major beef. I have major beef with Secretary of State Seward from the Lincoln administration. No. I don't think he should have purchased Alaska. And I consider it Seward's folly.

And this is the kind of stuff that, oh, okay, I know what you're all thinking was stupid. You would learn from my beef. My beef would educate. Educational beef. Yeah. It's educational beef. We would learn from your major beef.

From my beef, would you learn? Yes. You would all learn from my beef. People would think, man, Conan and Secretary of State Seward are really getting into it. And then kids will just, because they're into beef, start to know about, yeah, maybe Seward shouldn't have bought Alaska.

It'll be so big that Kardashians will want to be on you. They'll be like, no, you're not historically significant enough. Exactly. Exactly. So I, we're gonna do that. And that's gonna blow up. That's gonna break the internet. Major beef.

Major beef. Okay, wrap up this performance review. Yes, please. Blay, you are an excellent and crucial part of my team. Thank you. Sometimes you speak too loudly. I wish you took your watches more seriously. What would you, what would you rate me?

What's the scale and how would I rate on the scale? Of your performance at the show? Yeah, like what is it? What do you rate, what am I rated out of? Okay. The scale is eight stars. Okay. And I'm giving you six stars.

Okay. Plus half a moon. But this, okay. It's confusing, but it works out too. That's very good. Oh. Well, thank you. It's not perfect.

All right. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Sonamov Sessian and Conan O'Brien as himself. Produced by me, Matt Gorely. Executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Earwolf. Special thanks to Jack White and the White Stripes for the theme song. Incidental music by Jimmy Vavino. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review featured

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 Find Podcasts are downloaded. This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.