Janelle James

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Hi, my name is Janelle James, and I feel excited

about being Conan O'Brien's friend.

I heard he has a lot of money.

I did and I invested it badly.

Can I redo my?

No, just

fall is here, here the yell.

Back to school, ring the bell, brand new shoes, walk in blues, climb the fence, books and pens.

I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

I can tell that we are going to be friends.

Hey, welcome to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

I'm coming in with a lot of energy.

I've been away for a little bit.

I was in Boston, my old hometown of Brookline, Mass.

Oh, how was that?

It was great.

Got to see a bunch of my peeps, my old gang that I used to run with.

What were you guys called?

What's that?

What was your gang called?

Oh, it was a pretty tough gang.

We wore lacoste shirts.

Studied hard for our PSATs.

Yeah.

We were the PSAT gang.

Oh, cool.

That's tight.

That's cool.

So scary.

Yeah, it was really scary.

Yeah.

Used to run around.

Sometimes we'd just maladjust someone's cap on their head without their permission.

No way.

Yeah.

Did you have to give it a little twist?

What's that?

Did you have a nickname in the gang?

Mine?

Yeah.

I guess.

I don't want to talk about it.

It's a little bone.

You know, it's a bone.

It's half-life.

You don't want to go back to that.

They used to call me Colonel Baum.

Colonel Baum.

Yeah, he was a Revolutionary War general, and he was a

German.

Is this what the gang was like?

Everyone had to be named after a different Revolutionary War general.

He was a German who was sent to fight on behalf of the British, and he was ambushed, I think, up in New Hampshire.

So you guys would rumble and just you would come to victory by boring people?

Yeah, pretty much.

Pretty much.

But I was Colonel Baum, and you just had different people who were different members of the British fighting forces.

Cool.

That's so cool.

It's the coolest gang.

Sexy, too, a little sexy.

Oh, hot.

If anyone got laid, they were kicked out of the gang.

That's the number one rule.

And yet, no one did.

No, we lost one good guy that way.

Oh, really?

Yeah, and he just came looking at a woman on screen.

But that counted.

Any orgasm of any kind meant you were out of the gang.

Even on your own.

Yeah, but you know what?

Colonel Baum here.

Still in the gang.

Still in the gang to this day.

Wow.

Yeah, still in the gang.

There have been a couple of times where I've seen an ad for cocoa and an attractive woman is serving it.

And I'm like,

restrain oneself.

It's just you and all these 15-year-olds.

Yeah.

The new

hires.

Yeah.

Anyway, no, it was, you know, good to get back there.

And I have to say, wandering around Newberry Street in Boston, I ran into so many people who listened to the podcast who all said, hey, tell Matt, tell Son I said hi.

Oh, that's nice.

They said it in those accents.

But still, the message came across.

And I heard a great phrase, which is Newberry Street.

You remember Newberry Street?

It's where all the shops are in downtown Boston.

And I heard a great phrase.

And I attribute this to the singer from the Money Money Bostones, Dickie Barrett, announcer for Kimwell for many, many years.

Someone took a footage of me walking down Newberry Street while I was there and put it up.

People in Boston were seeing it and saying, hey, I saw you on Newberry Street.

And Dickie Barrett told my brother Luke, he was like, Damn, I just saw this footage of Conan.

And kind of in the vein of why can't they leave him alone?

You know?

And he said, you know, guy can't even shoot the noob in peace.

And that was, and I was like, shoot the noob, walk down Newberry Street is shoot the noob.

Oh, that's cool.

And I thought, that is the coolest phrase.

And just to shout out to Boston, next time, maybe this is something they all say.

I didn't know that.

Shoot the noob.

But I doff my cap to Dickie Barrett, who said, shoot the noob.

Conan can't even shoot the noob without people giving him a hot time.

Do you say it now?

I say it all the time.

Do you ever shoot the larch?

You're on larchmont no you can't you can't no no no it's not the same yeah yeah you can uh yeah it's not the same but shoot the noob

i so liza joined me on the trip i started saying

maybe every 20 minutes the way i do oh no

want to shoot the noob hey liza we're shooting the noob let's go shoot the noob and maybe i'll find an orthotic insert um you're awful i'm awful and she got to a point where she's like just no more shoot the noob for a while but i love shoot the noob

so if you're in Boston or you're going to visit Boston, I want to do a public service announcement for the city that says, hey, when you're in Boston, shoot the noob.

Hey, you just did it.

I think they're going to just clip that out and like use it for tourism.

Not without my permission.

Oh.

And the cost, $15 million.

No.

Yeah.

I'll do it.

Yeah.

No.

Shoot the Boston.

Oh, it's my Boston.

Hey, Boston.

Shoot the noob.

Hey, what?

That's your boss.

That's your Boston.

Shoot the noob.

Shoot the wicked noob.

Hey.

Wicked pisser.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know how to do Boston.

No, you did it.

That's the whole it's the attitude.

Shoot the wicked noob.

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

Shoot the wicked noob.

A isn't it.

The noob goes A.

It's a pretty good Gilbert Godfrey impression.

Yeah.

Go socks.

Go shoot the, say, shoot the noob and then say aflak.

Afflack.

Cole, let's go to Ben Wade Hat and shoot the noob.

I want to get that.

Maybe Maybe it's a thing they all say, but I love it.

We got to think of something for Larchmont, but nothing.

Noob.

Nothing's going to.

Let's larch it up.

The larch.

March the larch.

March the larch.

March dork.

March the larch.

No, he just went for that, and then you said it was dorky.

You don't march.

Anything with march, I think, sounds a little dorky.

Yeah, and a little fascist.

Okay, that's true.

It must march on the larch.

Yeah.

I don't like it.

Okay.

What about lope?

Lope the larch?

What do you mean, lope the larch?

Lope?

Yeah, I mean, lope?

You know, like the word lope?

Lope?

You know what I love?

You know what my favorite blay quality is?

When you choose to seize the mic.

That's my favorite quality of yours.

You lurch forward and you seize the mic as if you just cracked E equals M C squared.

Lurch the larch.

Oh,

let's go.

Stretch your arch on the larch.

Yeah, that.

Wait, that?

You go for that?

That's just

arch it on the larch.

That's like a public service announcement.

guys all i know is that when i was in boston you know what i did ask me what i did what'd you do like you can't do it that way you can't say shot the noob no it doesn't work hey what are you gonna do tonight shoot the noob oh he's gonna shoot the noob

man get a remy dog um i don't know what that is what is that okay what's a remy dog uh it's a hot dog oh named after jerry remy it's uh jerry remy don't say who's jerry remy that's gonna piss me off okay say it again because i need to ask it Who's Jerry Remy?

Second baseman, Boston Red Sox, iconic, also a great announcer, an inventor of the Remy dog.

He made hot dogs.

What's special about the Remy dog?

Yeah.

It's named after Jerry Remy.

But there's nothing.

What did he do with it?

It's infused with the essence of Jerry Remy.

That's all you need to know.

Like his ashes?

Or his ashes?

Okay, don't.

This is getting dark, and I don't like that.

Is he turning up?

Did we talk about it?

Is he still alive?

He has passed on to his great reward, but somewhere he's in heaven

and sharing a Remy dog with Christ.

Wait a minute.

There's nothing scary.

He didn't add it.

He probably did.

This is getting into stuff that I'm sure is proprietary to the Remy family, and I don't want to get into that.

Okay.

Listen, we are shedding listeners because we're getting way too local, way too parochial.

We can't do that.

We've got to open it up.

You did the shoot the noob thing.

I know.

I know, and I thought we got away with it.

And then we went down this wormhole of Jerry Remy, Remy Dog, Fenway Pac.

This is all.

important stuff to me, but we are shedding people right now.

You guys want to talk about more sports?

More sports.

Jay Whittier.

Whittier College, Richard Nixon, bibby.

That's where I met Pat Nixon at the theater.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Rocky Cola Cafe in uptown.

It's gone now.

Uptown.

Whittier.

Whittier where the girls are prettier.

That's right.

Yeah.

And never shittier than in Whittier.

What exactly is never shittier?

Show your tittier on Whittier.

Oh,

come on.

All of these were circulating in Whittier many, many years ago.

I'm sure they are.

Yeah.

Show your tittier.

I'd pity her.

Were she from Whittier?

You could say, show that you are tittier in Whittier.

Okay.

How are you tittier?

Like, you are titty, but you're tittier in the middle of your video.

You have like, guess what?

I'm running this through.

You have like four titties?

I'm running this through the latest advanced chat GBT, and it says this is the worst segment ever on a podcast.

Okay, well, you said tittier in Whittier.

I'm just trying to find it.

I'm not even saying I contributed any good to this.

Okay.

But I did shoot the noop.

All right.

Let's get into it.

Let's do it.

All right.

My guest today is a hilarious actress, writer, and comedian who stars as Principal Ava Coleman, such a funny character in the hit ABC series Abbott Elementary.

She is so good.

I'm thrilled she's here today.

Janelle James, welcome.

First of all, I'm going to describe the vibe here right now.

You can maybe see it if you're watching this on video.

I feel like I'm,

what is this that's happening right now?

You've you lit some incense.

You never know who entered the room before you, you know what I mean.

And I wanted a clean slate with my new friend, Conan O'Brien.

So I brought some incense.

This is nice.

What is the scent we're getting?

This is Palo Santo.

Okay.

Yeah.

What are we getting from this scent?

I'm not a connoisseur of scents.

Cleansing.

Good energy.

A little jump-off talking point.

Yeah.

It would be great if that was the scent.

Jump off talking point.

Jump off talking point

for podcasts.

Icebreaker.

Yeah,

this is two hits of icebreaker,

some tones of funny bit we could do.

It does feel like a small fire broke out in the podcast studio, which is.

If any time you want me to put it out, I know.

I know.

It's storm went right towards you, so you probably need some cleansing.

I was going to say what it is, mean

it's sensing a black hole of me.

Yeah, it's weird.

There is no like there's no wind.

It's just seriously going straight to you.

It is going right to my face.

That's why I moved it, and it's going right to you.

No matter where you move it, it's going to come to me because it senses a vacuum here.

It senses pain.

Are you anxious today?

Am I just anxious in general?

Yes.

Facts.

Same.

That's why I walk around with incense like a weirdo.

Well, let me paint the picture.

It's because it's still going right to it.

Conn.

Let's spray.

No, no, no.

Every time you move it, the smoke makes a beeline.

It's in a U-turn.

Must

heal creature.

Must heal creature.

That is weird.

She said it's for cleansing, right?

Yeah, what's the cleansing over here?

It's not working yet.

It's got a lot to do.

You need to bring in a giant bundle of these and light them all at the same time.

I'll do the whole studio for you.

So, Janelle, I'm at this event and I practically run Smack into you and

so delight.

What's that?

Facts.

Yeah, yeah.

You did.

You almost run right into me.

I did.

You know, I see attractive women sometimes.

I just try and do the old.

Hey, what the heck?

I sorry I bumped into you.

I love you.

And you can't get me too, you know?

It was just I bumped into you.

It was an accident.

And here I am.

That shit works.

Yeah.

That shit works.

No,

I ran into you.

I was so happy to see you because you're very funny and you're very funny in an original way.

I appreciate it.

And I was so happy to cross paths with you.

And you were there, David.

I was.

And I said,

I must have Janelle on the podcast.

Yeah, you called me over immediately.

I called you over immediately and said, can you just make this happen?

And you said, well,

I don't think I can.

You started bumpering.

It's so nice to have you.

He was real standoffish.

You were nice.

Yeah.

He was like, I don't know.

I remember.

I tried to be as naked as possible.

Well, you know what's nice is Matt Gorley is out today.

That's not the nice part.

Boy, what a nice break.

Poor Gorley when he edits this.

We all love Matt Gorley, but you are sitting in in his stead, David.

And you're a big fan.

You're a big fan of YouTube channels.

As is Sona.

Yep.

As am I.

So we've got, I mean, you've got a packed house right here.

Eduardo over there.

Big fan.

Very happy.

I feel a little bit.

Lay not so much because you're not in Star Wars.

Oh,

Yet.

Yes.

Let's manifest.

Okay.

As I said, your portrayal of Ava on Abbott Elementary, it brings me a lot of happiness because I think it's a very tricky thing to pull off the self-involved, maybe not a villain.

I'm not going to say villain, but a character.

For a sitcom, I'm a villain.

For a sitcom, you're a villain.

And so you're walking this line, but you do it beautifully and in a way where I think this is great.

This character is inept,

vainglorious, has all these flaws, but you're very funny doing it, consistently funny, and you keep hitting different notes.

And I'm just very happy.

Well, thank you so much.

I'm really happy for you.

Wow.

Yeah.

And yeah, I don't know.

My opinion might not mean anything, but seriously.

Talking about, I don't know if you saw the

WGA Awards last year, and I had a joke in there where I said, what's funny about late night?

And I said, I don't know.

Is Conan here?

He's funny.

And I got a little flack for that.

I am a huge fan of yours.

I'm very huge fan of yours.

In your opinion, I mean, that really made me feel like.

Well, you know, I'm also,

I know that

your story is a great story.

It really is a great.

It is.

You came to your success after a lot of hard work and struggle.

And I love those stories.

I really do.

I think I just won a contest.

But I think

how did you win?

what did you do before you won?

Yeah.

Well, I was a male stripper.

Okay.

I was in Thunder Down Under, and Lauren Michaels saw me grinding it.

I knew he was in it at.

Don't disparage the name of Thunder from Down Under.

Or Lauren Michaels.

No, but

let's just talk about the backstory a little bit because you're born in St.

Thomas

in the Virgin Islands.

I am.

You was.

You were.

You're still being born.

We're all still being born.

If you think about it.

Do you

at what age do you start to think I'm funny?

Oh, shoot.

Always?

No, not till adulthood.

Really?

Yeah.

I don't think I was a, yeah, everybody get that class clown question or whatever.

I was not a class clown.

Yeah, I don't, I don't, I know I was like always

a jerk, you know, like a little, like a smart ass.

Right.

But you know if I could make your friends funny.

I don't remember.

I i don't know if i'm just old i don't remember like that's all this incense facts

could be okay um yeah i don't remember i don't remember till adulthood people being like you're hilarious i don't yeah i don't i was like a nerdy bookworm growing up but i've always just been i'm sensing a kindred spirit here yeah i've just always been in adult business i know that like uh listening to what's going on curious about everything and then having something to report.

That was my thing, and just being like sarcastic with it.

And I think I became funny.

So just people would listen to me, state all my facts that I knew.

That works.

It's a survival instinct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You move.

How old are you when you moved to 16?

And you moved to Maryland?

Yeah.

And then I was there for a year and then I moved to New York

because I loved Madonna.

And

she had that movie.

She had that song, Come to New York.

Come to New York.

What was that?

Who's that girl?

Do you remember?

I remember watching that when I was like five or something, like just being obsessed with her and being obsessed with New York and was like, I'm going to move there and just like be like Madonna, just like bopping down the street and having a New York life.

And so moved to New York,

did every hustle in the book that were some of the hustles?

Man,

I worked in a salon in the fashion industry.

I worked

in a law firm.

I worked hosting in many restaurants, a waitress in many restaurants.

I worked in many hair salons as a receptionist and like shampoo girl and all those things.

I worked at,

oh, frick, what's the Howard Stern Strip Club?

You know what I'm talking about, bro.

No, what is that?

Scores.

I worked at Scores as a humidor,

which is a cigar girl.

Oh, so that means you walk around with a tray of cigars?

Too prudish to get naked, but I wish I did when I still had that body.

But yeah, humidor.

I was a humidor guy when I was in Thunder Down Under.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

Okay.

They wouldn't let me take my shirt off.

I did once, and three people went to the hospital.

You blind design.

They were like, I see a lot of white and then blue veins.

Am I dad.

Yeah.

What else did I do?

I started many like home hustles.

I taught sewing lessons in my house.

I threw like pout parties in my house for like entry because I had no furniture.

So I was like, what can I do?

All this empty space in this apartment.

I threw parties.

I started a personal chef.

This is when.

So enterprising.

Wow.

Cause I grew up, my dad had a restaurant, so I know how to cook.

I don't like to anymore, but

so I knew how to cook.

And I've just, I'm just like, what skills do I have that can I turn into money?

That's what New York was for me.

And so I started this.

This is when all the

startups, startups would go.

Yeah, yeah.

Like WeWork and all of that shit open.

So I started doing like personal chef for all these like, you know, eight-person offices.

I would go in and cook lunch for them.

And I will cook your food, then wash your hair.

Whatever you need.

Whatever you need, baby.

Yeah.

That was called the joy of not cooking.

I just remembered that.

So yeah, many things.

And then in between there, I got married, had a baby, and then I moved to follow the man to the Midwest, which is where I started comedy.

Okay.

Yeah.

So the whole time that you're doing what you call hustles, just jobs, you're doing all these different jobs.

You're trying to do it.

All the jobs at the same time.

Yeah, and you are, you know, you're earning your way.

Is it in the back of your head?

While that's all happening, I've got to get into a performing life.

No, not at all.

Not at all, really.

Not at all.

Wow.

So my ex-husband, he would say, so when I had that empty apartment,

he would come over and we would, you know, imbibe and we would get high.

And I don't know how else to say that.

And I'd be running my mouth as I do.

And he would say, you're hilarious.

He's, he's the first person I remember being like, oh, you should do something with that.

And I'm like, what, a clown?

Like, what do I do being hilarious?

It never crossed my mind.

Yeah.

It really, it really didn't.

Performing or I never did like stage play, nothing, nothing performance

Life is a performance.

I will say, my dad had a

restaurant on the beach.

That's where I grew up.

We started as a food truck and then it turned into a restaurant.

And so, our performance, me and my siblings, of which I'm the oldest of nine,

we were the kids that come up to you on vacation and sell you shit.

That's my first performing.

Like, hey, you got to have dinner.

You got to be thirsty.

You have to be overtures.

You know, like, oh, quench your thirst with this bucket of Bacardi or whatever, you know.

So, I, we were always

performing like, like, oh, we're just poor island kids, you know, you know, that kind of thing.

So I've always been like, I'll go in that way.

Colonel Brian Needs a Friend is brought to you by Airbnb.

Well, as you may have heard, I hosted my own Airbnb original experience at the Sirius XM Garage, LA.

It was part live podcast, part cocktail party, and part air guitar.

And I got to say, I think it was a a huge success.

Bla, what did you think?

It was fantastic.

And people learned how to be amazing air guitarists.

They got an amazing podcast recording from you guys.

And the best part is they all got to say how they feel about being your friend for the first time ever.

So that was incredibly fun.

Also, if you told me when I was 20 years old that I would get to interview Spinal Tap,

my eyes would have melted, you know, like marshmallows in a flame.

I just can't believe it.

That was insane.

Yeah.

So it was a really, really fun Airbnb experience.

And Sona, did you have a good time?

It was really cool.

It was a really cool night for sure.

Very happy to do this with Airbnb because I am not just someone who talks about Airbnb.

I'm a satisfied customer.

I've used Airbnb again in San Francisco for outside lands, had a blast.

Nice.

My daughter and I stayed there, found a place, and it really felt like our home, which was very nice.

That's cool.

So if you want to hear more about my Airbnb original experience, listen or watch the September 15th episode on YouTube.

I think you'll have a good time.

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That's cool.

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Man, this magenta status sounds amazing.

Blae, tell me, I think you get magenta status.

What's it entail?

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Yeah, I have T-Mobile.

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So you're in the Midwest and you decide you'll go to an open mic night.

What did you do?

Yep.

Somebody handed me a flyer in the grocery store and I came home, I put it on the table.

And my ex-husband said, what's that?

And I was like, some guy handed it to me and he was like, you should go.

Like, cause I, you know, I went there for him.

He was going to, to school.

And so I didn't, I hadn't really been leaving the house or anything.

So he's like, you should go outside.

And I went and I watched.

It was my first time seeing a comedy open mic.

I had no idea like how comedians start or practice or anything like that, or that that happens.

And I was laughing.

So they wanted me to come back.

They were like, come back next week.

And by the way, you can do some time.

You can do four minutes if you want next week.

And I was like, what does that mean?

They told me, you write your material, you can do four minutes.

And so that's what I did.

I came back the next week.

I did four minutes.

I got my first laugh.

I was like, this is it.

I loved it.

Yeah.

And I just started doing it every week, started hanging out with those dudes, like five white boys.

We started traveling around.

Yeah.

In a, not in a van, what were we in?

A Volvo station wagon,

going to like the different clubs around.

Did you work out a set?

Or did you have a lot of improvise, improvisation in your set?

No, no.

I was really like, so my, at that time, my dad was dying.

And I think a lot of comedians start from some traumatic, you know, shit.

And so I was just kind of working that out.

So my first 10 minutes or whatever that I built up was about my dad dying.

And, but then also like a lot of starting comedians, I started getting like book gigs.

Like, yeah, I got 30 minutes, you know, that kind of thing.

And so I had to improvise in that way, but I don't think I was good, but I was doing it.

So yeah.

And then, yeah, my home club is the Jukebox Comedy Club in Peoria.

I started hanging out there.

That's the home of Richard Pryor, if you don't know.

And that's where I met like all the traveling comedians.

And the first person to take me on the road was Todd Berry, who saw me there.

And

yeah.

And then where I was was a college town.

So all the big comics would come through.

And so Todd then told Rob Delaney.

I was going to open for Rob Delaney.

Todd told him, like, make sure you watch your opener.

And I remember like doing my set and Rob Delaney's like at the back of the room with his arms crossed.

And then he was like, hey, do you want to tour with me?

So I went with him.

And he was like huge on Twitter then.

And so I got to like two years in, do these like sold out 3,000, you know, seat back-to-back shows with him.

And then Hannibal, I just started going with different people.

And so by the time I got back to New York,

Todd had said, hey, if you're ever in New York, look me up.

And I showed up and I was like, remember you said?

He was like, no, I.

Oh, no.

Hey man, hey man, no man.

The cinch is stalking me, come to my birthday party.

And

that's where I met Eugene Merman, and then I started hanging out with them.

And

it's like a child and all those people.

So, yeah.

There's this,

and I think it's a common story.

I can certainly relate to it.

You spend your early years in what feels like the wilderness, and you're wandering around.

You don't think anyone's like you.

And then you get into a certain little...

I don't know, tide pool or something.

You meet one person.

And then that seems to be the reality for a little bit.

And then you meet one other person, another person, and suddenly you're wired into this community.

Yeah.

And it's a beautiful community.

And it's like, whoa, comedians.

You know, I don't know about cool, but yeah.

When you see Todd Berry,

Eugene Merman,

as cool as can be.

But like laughing and hanging out for

extended adolescence.

You know, I luckily came in when everybody was on the wagon, so I missed all the alcoholism and drug shit.

There's still time.

Yeah.

I'm sure.

But you know, that's interesting because everyone you've mentioned is really funny.

Hannibal, all these people you're mentioning are

unique, funny people.

And so you start, it's also a school

because you can watch other people and you can understand different rhythms.

And it's, I always think it's the same thing as music.

I mean, you're just around.

I mean, I always say after I met Todd, I did Todd Berry for like a year, very stoic, didn't move around.

Yeah, yeah.

And he taught taught me a lot about the road, how to get paid, make sure you're getting paid.

Like, yeah, those two things are the most important.

And I've worked with Todd, and he is very good at getting paid.

Getting paid,

yeah, Todd, you haven't done it yet, him and

yeah, like, don't get fucked over by these clubs.

And yeah, I learned stuff from everyone, and so yeah, I feel like I have a, it was the best entry into this, you know, business for me, somebody who was already an adult, you know, and um, and super focused because around that time I missed, I started missing like a lot of shit with my kids, like as entertainers do.

And so I was very focused because I was like, this has to be worth it.

So you didn't, you weren't thinking about Abbott Elementary.

You weren't thinking about the character of Ava.

This was something that came to you and you didn't even jump at it right now.

No, I, so

I got that audition during the pandemic.

I always thought, so I hadn't really thought about acting.

My whole goal at that time was I want to be Chris Rock.

I had just come off, my last tour was with, touring with Chris.

And I was like, this is amazing, you know?

And so I was like, this is my goal.

And so I would get auditions from our agents and I would just kind of fuck around with them, like, especially if I thought it was stupid or whatever.

I wasn't ever like pressed to get into the, get on, on screen.

I was like, if it, if it happens, it will.

And then I always thought one of my friends will get a show and bring me over like Adam Sandler does or whatever.

So when I got that script, I really liked it, which is rare, you know, to read a pilot and like, oh shit, this is amazing.

And so I remember, I wrote Quinta on Twitter and I was just like, your pilot is so good.

I know how hard that is to do.

I've been trying to write one myself and failing.

And she was like, thanks.

I said, I think I'm going to audition for Ava.

She said, I didn't know you act.

And I was like, I don't know if I do, but

I don't know.

I'll try.

I love how honest you are.

You're not talking, you're not selling yourself or talking your way into it.

You're saying, oh, I have no idea.

I was really just trying to compliment.

I was really impressed.

I was like, I'm laughing out loud.

I could totally see this.

And I remember telling my agent, like, even if I don't get this, this is going to go.

It's going to go with or without me.

And it was in the middle of the pandemic.

So I wasn't, I thought we were going to die.

I wasn't really trying to do much of anything, truly.

So I had the audition like in my hands for like six weeks.

And the deadline passed, I kept asking for

extensions.

And I just, I didn't have the motivation.

I was depressed.

I was depressed.

And then finally, my agent

was like, are you sure?

Like, I really think, you know, did I, I was like, fine.

I had to like pull out all the, I couldn't find my ring lights.

I had my son like holding a floor lamp towards me, you know, for lighting.

And

then I just, yeah, I sent in the self-tape and then I got a call back.

So yeah, that's how it happened.

And then I did four subsequent like Zoom auditions.

The highest compliment you can pay someone is, I cannot imagine that.

character being someone else.

Thank you.

In any alternate universe, you're still playing that part.

Thank you.

I mean, that's that's how I feel.

That's how I feel like it's meant to be because, again, I waited so long.

Everyone had already auditioned.

It kind of worked out for me in that they were still looking for the person.

It was like, oh, this latecomer.

And then I found out Quinta, once I did my initial, she just kept sending me up.

They were like, well, can we get a name?

Who else do you have?

She was like, it's this person.

It's this.

So she kept.

So it kind of worked out that I waited.

And yeah, I do totally feel like it's meant to be, which is how I like everything in my life to work.

Well, I don't want to

say anything.

Yeah.

But that's the thing, too, is that I feel like you probably, after all these experiences you've had, not just as a stand-up, but all these experiences you had just trying to make your way in the world,

that all, none of that's wasted.

That all goes into

your ability to look at this character and say, here's what I would do with this.

Yeah.

Cause and also,

what's the word?

Is it empathize?

I don't know if it's empathetic.

But yeah, she's a hustler at the end of the day.

Like, that's really really what I took out of her ethos.

Like, she has the same thing like me, multiple businesses going, even though she's a principal.

Yeah, why does she, why does she own a party bus?

And she has a thriving TikTok shop.

You know,

she has a rotating closet in hers.

Yeah.

You know, she's doing everything.

Also, when she unveils the sign that she has

thousands of dollars for

a public school that's very much in need of funding.

You spent it on a sign that you're on.

You know,

inspiring?

Yeah.

It's really what I was trying to do.

That's the word I wrote down.

That's right.

That's what she was trying to do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Because what is $1,000 when you need millions?

But you know,

I think empathize is the right word because you're saying

these characters don't work if you also don't like them.

And the fact is, if you just looked looked at this, at the character of Ava on paper, I don't know that you would see anything that you would like, but your portrayal of her, I see a lot of qualities.

She is fearless, she completely believes her own bullshit.

My favorite characters in comedy are

deluded, deluded, egotistical.

It's to me, it's that's the entertainment industry, baby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, gotta be a delusion.

People that, I mean, to me, it goes back to Peter Seller as Clusseau

or Don Knotts as Barney Fife.

People that don't have the skills, they don't really have any of the backing that they need.

They completely believe in themselves 100%.

I think that's the difference between me and her.

Like, she has like almost unearned confidence.

And I think my, just the coming up in stand-up, it's in how I, I mean, them shows I did in the Midwest were horrible.

You know, I'm doing like BFWs with like all, like a full house of white men just staring at me with their arms crossed.

Like, so nothing once I got to Hollywood and acting is scary anymore, you know?

And I also had the backing of like the Grace.

Like I've had Chris Rock tell me like, yo, you're the real deal.

Like, yeah.

So these are, um, these are the things that are taking, giving me the confidence to do, you know, this character, which is, you know, my first role.

So

yeah, it's kind of unbelievable, but I, but it makes sense to me because

early on, I always insisted what I had was my, my mind.

And I thought, okay, I can develop these other things, but I want to be in control.

I don't want to go around and say, I'm a blank slate.

Someone please cast me.

Yeah.

I knew that I had to form this

Conan thing.

I kind of knew what it was, and I just kept doubling down on it.

And I think your story

is

very inspirational to me because I see you finding yourself and you get.

Did you make me cross with God?

Again, I'm going to give the credit to the tie stick you brought.

Not only are you going to cry, I'm going to cry and von it.

Just smoke eyes.

Again, do you need me to put it in?

No, I love it.

All right.

It is the.

I can't tell when you being.

Usually not serious.

I know.

I've never said a serious thing in my life.

So

that's what me and him being, I love it.

Couldn't mean anything.

No, no, no.

Excuse me, just one minute.

No, but

you took control.

I think that has informed everything you've done is you deciding, no, I'm not going to chase anything.

I'm going to develop.

I mean, what I would think was my worst nightmare would be to be.

quote unquote trapped in a character, you know, like you're saying, you developed your own thing.

So, and I'm, and as many stand-ups are, it's like, I'm a thing onto myself, like, I am me, you know, that thing.

So, then to come to this, play this character who's become her own thing really like fucked my head up for the first couple seasons.

And now I'm like, I have to come back to, I like this person.

I think she's interesting.

How did it screw you up a little bit?

People

saying that I'm that person.

I see.

That type of thing, which I've now intellectualized as, oh, that's how well I'm doing that people think that I am.

Right.

So people meeting you and thinking

you're a deluded, egotistical narcissist.

Yeah, yeah.

I get that too.

Yeah.

You're like that Conan guy.

No, that's my character.

But also having to like realize,

having to realize that they admire it.

Like, yeah, we're saying it is like.

a negative and they're like, I love that you're this deluded narcissistic.

Also, you know, I always think comedy writers, I know in my career, when I was on The Simpsons, I only wanted to write for Mr.

Burns.

I only wanted to write

The Villain.

It was so much fun that they had to tell me, you can't pitch another Mr.

Burns story.

All your ideas are about Mr.

Burns because he's, you know, he can be infinitely evil.

He can have vast amounts of money.

He can have robots in the basement.

It's this whole world.

And it's the same thing with Ava, where she can.

Anything.

She's almost a cartoon.

Yeah.

You can come up.

That's

all kinds of stuff for her.

The hello sign that she aims towards herself.

I love it.

And I did that to make myself laugh.

The point was like, leave it, you know?

So, right, because someone tried to change it.

Someone tried to say, like,

I did it like, ha.

Isn't that funny?

Like, it's facing me.

And then I was like, all right, let me put it back.

I was like, no, put it back.

That's hilarious.

You know, so it's like, yeah, no greeting for the outsiders.

It's for me.

It's you saying hello to yourself

and explaining who you are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's such a little touch.

I love it.

And I love that it stuck.

And people, yeah, yeah.

But that becomes catnip for writers because

it's, I think, one of the reasons your character just sort of took on its life of its own is there's no end to it.

People can have a lot of fun saying, oh, wait, I just thought of something that Ava could be doing.

I mean, people watching this.

And I'm that.

So that goes back to me being like, oh, no, I'm stuck in this character.

I'm really not because she can do anything.

I think more than any of the other characters who are very like they, they are their, you know, ethos and their character.

ava can switch up at any time and it won't be a bit it won't be a surprise

you're waiting for the for the switch up you know were you happy when uh your former boyfriend was revealed to be uh oh iguadala

is that what you're talking about yeah yeah was i happy you know i mean it's just so it was hot yeah um quince actually ran that by me

What do you think about this guy?

And I liked that he was married

because I was like, oh, less incidence for sexual harassment.

And, um,

I was like, oh, a family man who's also a, a tall, attractive ball player who wouldn't want that in their lore.

That's her lore.

That she only

keep adding to.

Yeah.

I mean, she founded the roots.

I don't know if you've heard.

And like, no one believed that you knew Questlove.

And then you showed up.

I don't know how many times I got to bring it to these motherfuckers.

Like, use.

That's what I like about her.

She's like,

she says things.

And then it turns out to be true.

Turns out to be true.

That reminds me so much of, I grew up in Boston, and

Red Sox, of course, are everything.

And the star of picture was this guy, Louis Tiant.

And we had this, I got to be careful here so I don't get anyone in trouble.

I had a teacher who will go unnamed, who was just a character and was always spinning stories about hanging out with Fidel Castro in Cuba and escaping Cuba and being shot at and swimming across the ocean to get to America.

You just thought nothing he's saying is true.

And he used to talk about how his good friend was Louis Tiant, who was the biggest star in Boston.

We thought, bullshit, you know, whatever, man.

And one day we're all having class.

We're on the first floor.

Ting, ting, ting, ting, ting.

And a hand is rapping on the window and it's wearing a giant pennant ring.

No.

And we look over and it's Louis Tiant

banging on

this teacher's window.

And he goes, like, hey, guys, I got to go outside and talk to El Tiante and goes outside.

And suddenly I realized he is friends with Castro.

He did.

Everything else is true.

Everything is true.

But it's the same thing.

Yeah, and now he's a teacher.

And it's just like, yeah, I'm like, this character.

Another reason I was mad about the character being characterized with this character is like, I'm like, this is the least interesting thing about me, you know, is playing this part.

So I had to like get over that and realize that that means I'm doing a good job.

Yeah.

That comedian egoism.

Like

the part now, you're very well known.

It's a hit show.

Your character really pops.

Do you like being recognized and how do you handle that?

Because you're not someone who was three years old saying, I've got to be recognized.

That wasn't you.

So how do you do it?

Again, I had a very rough first couple of seasons just wrapping my head around all of this, you know?

And because you said it wasn't anything I ever like actively pursued.

And then

comedians are like,

especially stand-ups, we're like contrary loners, you know what I mean?

And then to have people think that I'm this character, which I know comes with a performance.

Like that's how we're different in that she wants to be famous.

And so people approach me as like, this must be great for you that I'm recognizing you because that's what you want because you're that character.

So that was hard for me.

And so now

I've gotten better because I just stay in the house.

that's a healthy approach

i saw a therapist everything's better

said don't leave the house everything's better no no it's been it's been wild i do have yeah therapists i have two

now they just talk to each other now yeah like oh what's going on with this bra um

yeah

uh

and then i and then i i don't want to feel because then people take that as ungrateful because people think that that's what they want or you want or you wanted fame.

I'm like, I just wanted money and to have fun

and not to have to perform every time I leave the house, which it does feel like a performance.

Like, even when people, I'm glad that I'm a villain that people like to see.

That's one thing, you know.

So, everybody's approaching me with like happiness and joy, but that's still like so much energy output for me when I'm just trying to go get some dog food or something.

I hope you have a dog.

That's all I got to say.

All the actresses.

That shit is good.

Have you tried it?

All the actresses on a dog food diet now.

That gets out.

And everyone's eating dog food.

It works.

Is that big food?

Yeah.

Are you on dog food?

Are you on dog food?

All your nutrients.

I found Alpo in your garbage can.

Do you?

I mean, how do you deal with me?

Because you've been doing that forever.

I mean, I know.

I know.

We ran into each other because I was running up on you.

Like, you know, so I

how do you feel about it?

I was like,

I'm very happy that you came running up on me.

That didn't happen a lot before I got famous.

Women weren't running up on me.

And so I say yes to fame.

Well, I have two good witnesses here that will tell you because they're with me all the time, Sona and David, and they see me out in the real world.

And I learned a long time ago there's two types.

There's

someone like a Steve Martin, who I think is just absolutely brilliant, comedian, legend, icon.

I mean, he's up there in the Mount Rushmore of funny people.

And he's very reserved and quiet and kind of shy out in public.

And I think a lot of his career has been people not understanding that crazy guy with the arrow through his head.

I saw him.

I'll go up to him.

and I'll give him that energy.

Yeah.

And,

you know,

exactly.

And it's like they're, they're coming across a very shy art history professor and they're confused.

What a jerk.

Yeah.

And then

and then there are

people like oh, myself

who are me all the time

to the point where it's probably an illness.

I mean, I'm just

I just like to try and

I do the same stuff with the waiter or the person person who's selling me the insole for my shoe.

I'll do the same thing for them that I would do with you here.

It's no difference.

I mean, it depends.

For me, if I'm with someone that I think that I feel safe with,

I love it.

I love talking to people.

I'm a comedian.

I want to know what's your deal.

What do you do?

How do you, and I always feel, I always say that's what this has, this experience has taken from me is talking to strangers, really, because I'll, what I'm looking for now is people who don't recognize me.

And then I'll have a conversation with them and I'm like, I leave so like energized because I do like people.

And then right before I step away, they'll be like, by the way, I love you on the, and I'm like, oh no, did I tell that person where I live?

You know, because that's how I talk to them.

I'm like, yeah, I just moved to the door.

Where do you eat?

I love this restaurant.

And we'll have a great thing.

And I'll be like, wow, made a new friend.

And then they're like, I.

think I already know you.

That's what I don't like.

Yeah.

And I've also noticed that I will also be more open.

Now I'm going to tell people how to fucking approach me.

if they come up and they're like, I love the show, I'm like, thank you so much.

I'll do the whole thing, but I'm wary of it.

But if they say, I've been following you since stand-up, I know you're in Netflix special.

Then I feel like, oh, you know me.

They know you.

And then I'm like, what's up, homie?

You know what I mean?

So it just depends.

I came to your fake restaurant.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So it's, I'm working on it.

I smoked some of your cigars.

Hey, I saw your titties in the 90s.

What?

What's up, old friend?

Me and Stern.

That's where I know you.

That's where I know you.

The year is 20th, 2008.

Me and my friend Stern.

And here you come, cigars and titties.

I'm like, yeah, you know the real Janelle.

What's up, friends?

How has your family reacted to all this?

Oh, my God.

Well, my mom just came around because she's.

Did she love it?

She's, my mom is very shy.

I am also, and I didn't realize this.

I am also kind of surprisingly shy.

Yeah.

And so my mom is very shy.

And so she, for the first couple of seasons, wasn't even telling anyone.

And then

she said, I put a picture of you on my desk and people keep stopping by.

Like, what is it?

And she's like, that's my daughter.

And they're like, what?

She's been, you know, your daughter this whole time or whatever.

So now she's kind of leaning in.

And also I'm trying to get her used to the fact that i have money and that she can uh accept things from me that's been a big deal and that she can have nice things that's something i had to work through like oh i can have i could i have money so it's been so many things all at once uh my kids don't watch the show they're cool i think that's good

I think it's good.

Yeah.

You know,

my oldest son says it's weird to see me like that.

Yeah.

He's like, what is that voice you're doing?

And who is that?

But he's like, wow, you're like, I took him just recently to like a talk I did at a, at a college.

And just him seeing how people react to me, which

people cry when they meet.

And I'm always like, I'm not MJ.

Like, it's, it's cool.

I'm just a lady.

But people cry and like shake.

And my son was like, what the fuck?

Like,

you're famous.

And I was like, yeah.

Yeah, this shit is wild.

And that was just a couple of weeks ago.

And that's like the first real conversation we've had about, because I try to tell them, but it's not till you're, my my mom, too.

We I took her to New York, we went to Broadway, people were chasing us.

My mom, her, she's so tiny with her little legs running, and she was so anxious.

She's just like, What the fuck?

Like, they don't,

it's it's been crazy for all of us, but yeah, again, I uh, I just stay in the house, yeah,

she's a hologram right now.

I'm beaming in.

We uh, we assembled the studio.

I'm like, oh, why does celebrities?

Yeah, why do celebrities live in the mountains?

I know now,

You know, it's so nice to see someone's work from afar, just see their work and admire them and then meet them.

Conan O'Brien just said that.

No, no, but what I'm saying is admire them and then meet them and they're just who you would want them to be, which is, which is, you are yourself.

I am.

You are yourself, and there's no changing that.

And so many people would have been warped, bent, twisted, stretched by this.

I wish I could lean in, though.

I wish I could be like, yes.

I don't don't know.

That's what Ava would do.

Yeah.

I'd be out as her, but you're not.

I don't even have so much money on the table.

I could perform as her.

Welcome to the Ava extravagance.

I could probably have a fucking Vegas show, all kinds of shit.

Don't say no to it.

Don't say no to it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, there's always time for that.

Yeah.

And in fact, it's not time for that right now.

It's time for you, you know, to see this character through.

Now, some people, people are speculating because your character got fired.

Facts for a couple hours.

Yeah.

At most.

We would all panicked when that happened.

I didn't think you would be.

I was like, oh, I go back on the road.

I wonder what Chris is doing.

Like, I was like,

oh, my God.

I was like, I mean, that's the benefit of having multiple skills.

Like, and I mean, I've, I've quit jobs for any reason before.

Again, I'm always on the hustle.

I'm like, okay, well, if you think that's the best thing for the show for me to be off of it, I agree with you, Quinta.

You're a fucking genius.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

She's like, no, you'll be back the second and next episode.

I was like, oh,

I'll even get some days off.

Can't your character be in a coma?

Can't Ava be in a coma and you still get paid just to do it.

How many days?

Can I go to Mexico?

Like, what's going on?

No, I was back the next episode.

But that was very thrilling for me because people still come up to me now.

So that happened last season, months ago.

And people still come up to me now, like, let me know when you're back on the show so I can start watching again.

And I'm like, dude, I was on the next episode.

Yeah.

People are like, I don't watch it anymore.

They fired you.

Why would they do that?

So that was like gratifying for me.

Like, oh, wow.

I'm a thing.

Yeah.

Yes, you are a thing.

Thank you.

Absolute delight.

Thank you.

To get to meet you, get to know you.

Like I told you when I met you, I wanted to do time on your show.

And then I was too precious about my little five-minute set.

And then all of a sudden, you weren't there.

Here we are.

This is, I mean, who knows what I was going to say back then.

My dad is dead.

Killing.

Look at me.

Crushing.

See, still got it.

Still got it.

I'm sorry.

It's just such a funny line.

My dad is dead.

It just kills every time.

That was probably my set back then.

Yeah.

No, it's just, you know,

one of the things that makes me really happy, this has been a real gift to me, is this podcast format, which was invented by people long before me.

And I just came along and it fits me like a glove because what I really want to do.

Love your tribal series as well.

Oh, thank you so much for that.

You're the best at talking to people.

Anyway, I love you.

Thank you so much.

But what I love to do is in the old days, it would have been you.

Yeah, it would have been you doing your set and me coming over and thanking you and us standing together

from the desk and shaking my hand.

And yeah, and then good night.

We'll be right back.

Janelle, James, everybody.

Credits.

This, to me, is more meaningful.

This because we really get to talk about some stuff.

Okay, how many listeners you got on this?

I got a a lot.

Okay, great.

I don't do numbers, but I'll be the judge of meaningful.

I refuse to be here today.

It's okay.

I was doing a bit like, how meaningful is it?

We shall see.

Good quantum.

One of my followers.

No.

A lot.

We have a lot of people listening, and they're all the greatest people ever.

Yeah.

You are your fan base.

I always say that.

Yeah.

Janelle, you are just a delight.

And I do hope you come back sometime.

Anytime.

And I hope we are friends for real because that would be

seriously,

that'd be a nice thing for me.

You would have my friends.

I probably would.

I feel like everybody says that.

And then I'm in your backyard.

And you're like, how did you get here?

No, you don't.

I really don't have a lot of friends.

And I'd be so happy to, I'll come to your house and I'll hang out.

I just got a pool.

What's that?

I just got a pool.

What's the shape of the pool?

Is it kidney-shaped?

Nope.

It is.

Oh, is it?

Kidney-shaped.

It's bulbous.

It's more squash-shaped.

Is it kidney?

The mind wanders.

I'm here for your bulbous pool, Janelle.

Welcome, is what I will say.

Oh, my God.

The way you just invited yourself to be able to do it.

I'm going to ring your bell.

I'm here for bulbous pool.

Who is that?

I don't know.

I can't see, but I think it's Conan O'Brien.

I'm going to say, here's your incense.

Please cleanse yourself before you enter and let's have a great time.

Thank you so much for being here.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I mean, I've had the, this was so great.

Oh, great.

And easy.

Love it.

We all win.

And my close.

Thank you, guys.

You know what?

I'm going to go home and my wife's going to say, who are you cheating on?

Catholic nun.

You smell like parsimons.

Sona, you and I share many things in common, but one is that we love mysteries.

We love true crime.

And frankly, I love me some murder.

Yeah, I love any crime, really.

I love fraud.

I love it.

You do love fraud.

You love to commit fraud.

You've committed fraud on me many times.

It's true.

I have to say, when it comes to true crime podcasts, there's one that really delivers.

It's called Crime Junkie.

And I don't even have to say it's called Crime Junkie.

Everyone knows it's Crime Junkie.

Yeah.

Every week, the queen of true crime, Ashley Flowers, who I love talking to, by the way.

Yeah.

She dives into a new case, some well-known, others you've never heard of, and she tells it with the kind of storytelling that makes you feel like you're right there with her, which is terrifying because she's often talking about things where you don't want to be right there with her.

It's true.

Yeah.

I feel like I'm with you committing this murder, Ashley.

But no way, it's really great.

There are hundreds of episodes of Crime Junkie already waiting for you.

New cases covered every Monday.

So listen to Crime Junkie wherever you listen to podcasts.

As a team mobile member, you can take the perks with you because you're traveling with magenta status.

That's cool.

I love saying it.

I know.

I could tell.

Ask me my status.

Hey, Conan, what's your status?

Magenta status.

It starts the moment you take off with free in-flight Wi-Fi so you can stream your favorite show on the go.

Plus, you're covered with 15 gigabytes of high-speed data in over 215 countries and destinations with experience beyond plan.

That's cool.

And And this magenta status sounds amazing.

Blai, tell me, I think you get magenta status.

What's it entail?

What's included in magenta status?

Yeah, I have T-Mobile.

I have had T-Mobile for a long time.

I love it.

And, you know, when we went to Thailand, I got great coverage and great high-speed data, which means that I could...

I hear it's up to 15 gigabytes.

That's right.

How did you know that?

That's the word on the street.

Wow.

I hear people going 15 gigabytes.

Yeah, that's incredible.

Yeah.

But it was great.

I was connected and it really helped.

Well, this sounds great.

Find out how you can experience travel better at tmobile.com slash travel today.

Qualifying plan required.

Wi-Fi where available on select U.S.

airlines.

Terms and conditions apply.

Let's do a review, the reviewers.

I like it.

I like to keep my finger on the pulse of what the podcasting listeners believe, feel.

That's right.

This is where we go to Apple Podcasts and we take a five-star review.

Okay.

Not hard to find.

Hey, it's nice.

Okay.

So you're weeding out all the no-star reviews.

Yeah.

I don't think you can give no stars.

You have to do one.

I'll find a way

to your own podcast.

Yes.

I'm going to load up our

comment section with no-star reviews.

All right.

And we read it and we review it.

Or if there's a question, we'll answer it.

Yep.

This is from Analysis 0912.

The title is Best Podcast Ever.

Wow.

Yeah.

I listened to this all day at school.

I have absolutely no idea what's going on in any of my classes, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

The bad thing about listening to this at school, though, is that I can't laugh out loud.

And believe me, I really want to.

Seriously, if you look over at me while I'm listening, you would see tears streaming down my face, me quivering and shaking with laughter, and my face as red as a tomato.

I'll often at times have to go to the bathroom and I'll sit there and just laugh.

I'm sure everyone thinks I'm a big creep, but I could care less because Conan is so funny.

Also, Sona and Matt, pure gold.

I'm only 16 years old, so I love getting to know guests that I have never heard of.

I think that y'all should make a Team Cocoa iPhone app.

You can have full episodes of all Conan shows, not just the clips like YouTube, remotes, podcasts, and anything Team Coco related.

My screen time would be off the charts if y'all do that.

Anyways, love the podcast and love Conan.

First of all, I love Annalise 0912.

And thank you so much.

What a great comment.

And I, I mean, Adam, you can get involved in this.

Why aren't we an app?

Why aren't we an app?

I think

the main ask I heard out of that is that she wants the full episodes.

And my guess is that this review was written before we started releasing full episodes.

So we're doing what she wants.

And you don't have to go to an app.

You go to YouTube where everyone has access to it.

This was a year ago.

Yeah.

So I think it's...

That's how long.

So now she's 17 and despises us.

Oh, no.

And that's how far back I had to go to find a five-star review.

It's a part of my brain that determines what's of quality developed in the last year.

No, it's really nice.

I'm going to, I usually push aside compliments, but we just have to take this.

It's so nice.

Are you worried, though, that she's in high school and she's listening to this during class?

You know, no, because I remember in high school learning nothing

that was of use to me.

And I, I, I'm just, come on.

You know, when if, when was the last time you used any of your math skills, Sona?

You still walk around with an abacus, you know?

Exactly.

I know.

I used to write disco rules on all the

tables I sat on.

Did you really?

I know, no, why?

Disco didn't rule.

I know.

I think it was just me being like silly and ironic.

And I would just be like, disco rules, because I didn't think it ruled.

But I also, maybe I did go through a bit of a disco phase.

It's a fun genre.

I like disco.

But I think that what I'm excited about is she's young.

Yeah.

I know.

Young people,

I really want them to like me.

Really?

Do you guys ever feel that way?

Or is it just me?

He does.

Like, I want young people to assist me.

Help me up if I fall in.

Guide me to the part of the iPhone that I can use.

You know, I mean, that's, I'm mostly looking to young people for, I actually, I will say this.

This is honest.

I love the enthusiasm of young people.

I really do like that.

And when

young people are happy, I'm happy.

It's a weird, I don't know if that's weird to say, but I am.

I think that because I tried to think I was hip for a while.

And then now I've completely lost touch with 16-year-olds where I don't know what they're interested in.

And I think that when they like something that I'm involved in, it makes me feel good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why not?

I like this.

I like this very much.

And I have to say, when I'm cruising around,

not cruising.

What?

Were you cruising?

There was a time in the late 70s, early 80s when I was cruising.

It was after the

Al Pacino movie Cruising came out.

And I didn't understand what it was about.

Don't even know what that meant.

I just thought it meant having a nice walk.

Did he cruise?

Yes, he certainly did.

He's an undercover cop that went in underground in the gay scene to solve a murder.

Oh, cruising like that.

Yeah, I didn't know what it was.

So I wore the same outfit that Al Pacino wore in cruising, which was all leather and a leather cap.

And I would go, and I would yell, I'm cruising around, and I'd walk around.

I didn't know what it meant.

But boy, certain people were very friendly to me.

But anyway, that's neither here nor there.

What's important is

just walking around.

A lot of young people say they enjoy this silliness, so that's nice.

I wonder what a youngest listener is that finds it on their own, not that their parents listen.

It would be in utero, I think.

Sometimes, yeah,

there are obstetricians that say you should be, there's a way you can just put the podcast up to your belly and a child as it's forming, a fetus, can be listening to this noise.

Imagine that if a child is formed only this as its influence, yeah.

It comes out and it's just it wants to immediately buy all the products we mentioned in the ads.

Oh man, that's dark.

What qualities does it take from us?

I think it's loud.

It's needy.

I don't think that's my one quality.

Well, we're talking dominant qualities.

I know.

What is your dominant quality?

That I must dominate.

Oh, what are you going to dominate

this conversation?

And then

you can say, I don't want to say nerdy men.

I knew you were going to.

But you knew that.

Then why did you make me say you knew?

Why didn't you just say that?

I'm not going to take your idea and do it for you.

When a baby's born wearing a straw boater.

And wearing a t-shirt that says wittier rocks.

I'm more worried about a mother's birth process with a straw boater on that baby's head.

It gets slightly knocked askew.

After that, it's fine.

Is it a boy or a girl?

I don't know, but it's wearing a straw bona.

And it wants to get to the Rose Bowl swap meet immediately.

That does come up a lot.

I've literally never once been to the Rose Bowl flea market.

Never, never.

Even I never.

But

you sit just outside the Rose Bowl and wish you could.

But they won't let me in.

Yeah.

You're blacklisted because they're too scared.

I've been to the Pasadena City College one.

No, it's pretty good.

That one's really good, too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He was escorted out.

He's not allowed back to the Rose Bowl anymore.

Why?

He shoplifted a loot.

You know what?

That's not true because I'm going there this weekend to see Oasis motherfucker.

Me too.

Saturday?

Yes.

Me too.

What are you doing?

Are you coming?

No.

I do like Oasis, though.

I love

those Gallagher fellas.

It's a different Gallagher than the one you're thinking of with the slash.

Peter Gallagher.

Peter Gallagher.

Peter Gallagher.

I honestly thought that Peter Gallagher was one of the Gallagher brothers because he's got the eyebrows.

Yeah, he does.

You know, and

they won't tour with him because they really hate him.

Yeah, they just thought his work on the OC was inferior.

Shout out to Peter Gallagher.

Love you, man.

All right, what's there?

Enough nonsense.

Knock it off, you eight balls.

Come on.

All right.

Hey, a shout out to Annalise0912.

Very much appreciate your encouragement and just try and study some, just some, okay?

All right.

I look forward to you being my surgeon.

Take care.

Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Session, and Matt Gorley.

Produced by me, Matt Gorley.

Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Fross, and Nick Liao.

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 and Mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns.

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 Cocoa Hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message.

It too could be featured on a future episode.

You can also get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at seriousxm.com slash Conan.

And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

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