Ding Dong v. Ring Ding

0:03Conan O 'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, Okay, let's get started. Hi Margaret, welcome to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Fan. Well, hello there, Matt, Conan, Sona. Is that Sona? Yeah, that's Sona. Oh my gosh. It's a Sona lookalike we hired. This is amazing. On the occasion. Sona hasn't been seen in months. Yeah. Well, I had my face in front of her face. Yeah, we called a bar mitzvah entertainment place. We said we need a Sona lookalike. They said we've got seven. Okay, your name is Margaret. Can you hear us? Can you hear us, Margaret? Did you lose us, Margaret?

0:44Margaret, can you hear us? Yeah, I can now. Yeah, there - Did you black out there for a second? We had a lag there, but it's - Yeah, I did. Oh, okay. But now I've got you. Okay, let's start at the beginning. Hello there, Margaret. How are you? I'm great. Thank you, Conan. Good to see you, Sona, Matt. I love the way you said my name. How did you say my name again? Oh, God. I'm like such an improviser. Conan? Yeah, that's it. Oh, that's it. The last time she said it, didn't it sound a little different? Was it a little Conan? Conan? Oh, did I say Conan? Yeah. I might have said Conan. Yes. Yeah, where are you coming from?

1:16Where are you, I mean, emotionally? No, where are you in the world right now? Where are you zooming in from? Emotionally, I'm about as, I'm like above my head, emotionally, is there a place out of your head? I am in Calgary, Canada. Okay, so maybe that's what I was hearing. Maybe there's a little bit of a Canadian. Oh yeah, eh? Oh yeah, eh? Conan. Yep. You're in Calgary, Canada. And tell us - I'm told that my kids say you're not supposed to make fun of accents. Oh, I wasn't making fun. I was, of course, just showing. She was making fun. She was saying hey and stuff, not you. Oh, well then you're a terrible person.

1:52I would never speak to you again. You're a terrible person, Margaret. And I think your kids are right. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, I am, obviously I'm a mom. I'm a recent empty nester. no no no no no no I kind of emptied the nest a bit I'm an I'm one of those unusual it's funny murder your family oh my god oh my god time for this nest to be emptied close I kind of my kids were away and then I sold my town home and uh wow so so so I kind of I kind of sold the nest oh wait a minute how old are your kids like seven and eight how old are they they are they're 19 and 21. okay that's still pretty young it's early it's still pretty yeah well okay so the serious side of the story as i have elderly parents i'm the youngest of four and i'm the only single divorced one and so when we thought you know it was getting to be the time where it felt like my parents could use some eyes on the ground and someone in there that could really, you know, just be there and make sure they don't need more support.

3:09Yep. So my daughter happened to be an au pair in Italy at the time, and my son was living with his dad. So I was like, all right, guys, go and make a life. Go and make a life. I gave you the first 19 years. That's nice. I have said to Sona many times, hey, could you do me a favor? Go and make a life. And she made two. She made two. Well, she's got more on me then and my kids. I don't know. You seem formidable, Margaret. And tell us, so did you grow up in Calgary? Tell us about your life. I kind of did. Well, it's funny. So I was born here, but my parents came from, well, eventually, they were in Oklahoma when I was conceived, but they're New Yorkers and moved around a ton.

4:00And so when I was three, we moved back into the U.S. for a few years. So long story short, I'm Canadian. I grew up here mostly other than living in the States for a few years here and there. But I don't feel super Canadian because I was raised by Americans. And I see that there's a big difference. There is a big difference. Yes. I noticed that there's a piano right behind you. There is. Is that just a coincidence or are you? Whoa. Oh, wow. I sort of took advantage of the moving in with my parents thing. And I took this career I've had. I've been a piano teacher and early childhood teacher for almost 40 years now.

4:40I'm in my early 50s, but I started young. And I kind of did this now or never thing and thought, okay, if I don't have to pay my mortgage quite as, you know, if I don't need quite as much financial support, I'm going to go for it. and I started a couple of unusual musical offerings. So I'm a pianist, obviously. I hope that I just made that clear because I'm not super concise in this setting. No, that's okay. No, you put the main information at the end, but that's fine. In editing, we can put the main information up front. I'm a pianist, but then I also... So you're a pianist, and do you teach kids the piano or do you teach them all kinds of music?

5:24Well, I do teach piano because it's kind of like the easiest place to put up a sign and say, hey, help me with my career and allow me to connect with kids. So that's really important. And then I also do this thing called intuitive composing, where I compose personal soundtracks for people based on, I guess, my intuition, my years of studying and being immersed in music. Are you saying that you could talk to me for a little bit, get a sense of who I was, and then compose a song about me? Yeah, let's do this. I can, yes. It's crazy. I know. I know. It's not crazy. I absolutely believe you could do it.

6:10What kind of song would you, what would the song sound like? The Jaws theme. No, not the Jaws theme. The Halloween theme. Okay, everyone has.

6:26Yay! That one's actually, I think it's actually a combination of the two. The sixth thing is. Can you play the bass and the. Oh my God, yes! Oh my God, Margaret, that is me. Amazing, that is you. That is me, menacing and clownish at the same time. Wow. That is amazing. It's funny, cause I really worked not to write it or create anything for you guys, even though I knew I was gonna be on the show, and the weekend it just came to me, and Conan, I'll be honest, now I don't know if I should say Conan or Conan. No, no, whatever you want, As long as it's said with respect and love, I'm fine. Is Bugs Bunny, Carl Stalling.

7:14I just kept thinking - What does that sound like? Do you guys know? I know Carl Stalling. Yeah, yeah, I know Carl Stalling. Did you watch Bugs Bunny? Yes, yes, but which tune specifically? Well, any of them, because I feel like you could be followed around by a Weep, weep, weep, weep. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. You know, wah, wah, wah, wah. Because you do it in your podcasts. Yes. Yes. Margaret, it's funny you say that about Bugs Bunny and how the Bugs Bunny themes and background music remind you of me because I've always thought I was a cartoon character. I've felt that way my whole life.

7:46Yeah, I love it. Yeah, so that's a very apt perception and I will take it. I think, I mean, I was an avid cartoon watcher and, you know, your Bugs Bunny was the thing. And when you, you tend to do those like, da-da-da-da-da, and you go into the funny accents, like the, here, see, I don't want to, you know, you live in that. I swear you live in a live world of Carl Stalling. Yes, I do, Margaret. And I, you just showed me myself and now I'm filled with dread. Oh, no. I don't want to be near that guy. Are you kidding? You know what I love, Margaret? I love that you're working with kids and you're making this music and you say intuitive music.

8:31So are they always using instruments or are they using stuff other than instruments sometimes to make music? So the intuitive composing is one of the things I'm offering. And the other thing, when I'm working with early childhood, so children that are five and under, it's called music in nature. And the intuitive side of that is just working with what is around and following sort of the children as they explore and then creating activities based on that. So, for example, we're out in a natural park. You know, if the children, if we find sticks, we're using the sticks and we're playing drums on the trees or we're playing a graded fence xylophone and we're sort of touring the park.

9:18and I'm creating, I mean, I obviously have a lot of songs I've created and activities to lead. But if something, you know, occurs to a child or even sometimes a parent, then I just, you know, change gears and try to follow their lead in that respect. That sounds kind of fascinating because what you're doing is taking anything around you that's found and then showing kids this can be music. Or if not music, we can make noises with this. And then it's actually probably the most simplest form of creativity and a great thing for kids to learn, I would think. Well, yeah, I think so. Because, I mean, you know, arguably just in any art, like any sound is music, right?

10:02And so what's fascinating, too, is you can teach children so many things. You know, like we spend a lot of time at the river. And so right now in Calgary, we've got a lot of ice on the river's edge. So if we can yank pieces of ice off and we can, you know, hit the rocks with them, they make these incredible exploding sounds. But at the same time, children, you know, their little brains, they're learning about the physics, if we throw things, how things land. I hope they're also learning stay away from an icy river. Are there parents that get worried about, you know, the kids and you're saying, hey, jump into that canyon and try and see if you can find something to make music out of?

10:46This is the woman that also sent her kids packing at 7 and 8. Let's walk on this really thin ice and see how many cracks we can make. Yeah, I know. Matt just pointed out you told your kids to get lost at 17. I'm pretty careful.

10:58There's a guest room here for them. Oh, yeah. Always nice to have a guest room for your five-year-old. Sort of. A couch. There's a couch. Your five-year-old. Hey, five-year-old, we got you a guest room for when you're not working at the docks. I'm busy writing intuitive music, so you're going to have to sleep in a guest room. Yeah.

11:26but so say today like we're in a freeze melt pattern the extremes right and so today I had little kids that were in their rubber boots and rain suits and you know holding my hands we were literally walking in the river you know the temperatures um I guess it's in the high 50s right now, speaking your language of Fahrenheit. Well, we are the - Which is very warm. We are the dominant empire, so. Oh my God. Oh, jeez. I'm sorry, we're like the Rome. The one country. Well, you're welcome to your strange methods, Celsius and such, but - Yeah, we really have our shit together. Well, we do. We invented the ring ding.

12:13What's a ring ding? What? It's a cake. It's a cake. You know what a ring ding is? You ever had a ring ding before? You mean a ding dong? No, there's a ring - You mean a ring pop? Yeah. There's a ring ding, isn't there? I don't know what a ring ding is. A ring ding? I know a ding dong. I thought there was a ring ding. I thought there was a ring ding. I don't know. This is important that we get to the bottom of this. I don't know as long as - This is the kind of stuff we worry about here in America, Margaret. And this is what we do. Oh! No, ring dings. That's it, right there. That looks like Ding Dong.

12:40So it's a knockoff Ding Dong? Yeah. Yeah, well I always, we knew of Ring Dings and I think that's what they had maybe in our area. Is a Ding Dong a, what is it? A Ding Dong is like a legit version of one of those. I love Ding Dongs. Yeah, me too. It's a little cake. Is it like a Twinkie? Covered with chocolate and then there's a cream filling. Yeah, but it's the same thing as a Ring Ding. I think in our area we had Ring Ding. Yeah, but you're in our area now. Excuse me. So here it's a Ding Dong. You're in the Ding Dong territory. I think they're different, I bet they're different companies. They're different companies.

13:07Yes, Hostess and then whatever. Drake's, Drake's Cakes. Dog and pony ship makes that. No, no, Drake's Cakes. Please. No one cares. Look, we got to the, you know what's sad, Margaret? Hostess is the dominant empire. At least. Margaret? Yes. The thing I love about this interview is that we got to the crux of who Margaret is, which is that ding-dongs are made by Hostess and ring-dings are made by Drake's Cakes. Correct. That's all. And I knew that that's what we were gonna talk about about the minute I knew that you worked. I was hoping we'd go in that direction. Doing natural music with children.

13:43Well, these kids sound kind of hardy. Like they get out there, you know, sometimes these days parents are too, not Sona, but a lot of parents are too worried about their, no, a lot of parents these days are too worried about their kids and rough play. Sona, not so much. She often doesn't know where they are. I found, that's true. I found them in the mall. Remember when I found your kids just wandering the parking lot of a mall? Yeah, they were just in the parking lot. Yeah, and you had given them each a knife and told them go get dinner? Yeah, they were going, mama, mama. And I was like, figure it out.

14:13Figure it out. Yeah. And then you rented out their room. Margaret. Sona probably knows that nowadays there's a huge amount of information around risky play and how important it is for kids, which makes me laugh because I'm closer to Conan's era. Risky play was just go outside and don't come back until dinner time. Yes, that's it. But nowadays it's contrived. So I happen to be in a great spot with my year round music and nature program to encourage parents, you know, because everyone resilience is the other catchphrase that parents are using right now. We want to teach resilience, which I would say is, you know, a mother of a 19 and 20 year old that probably was too in their face.

14:58You know, I think it's a good a good thing that we're hopefully going in the other direction. I was of the generation where you your parents never knew where you were. You wandered around. Someone invited you to get into a van. You just did. And if you were gone. Yes, Jesus. Yeah, and if you were gone for a couple of months. What if they'd hold out some ring dings and you went right in? Yeah, they'd give you a ring ding and you'd get all sleepy and then you'd wake up in a different state. Oh, man. But what I'm saying is that's the world I grew up in and it was a better time. It was a better world.

15:28I'm so frozen. Someone's, what did you put in this ring ding? I'm not taking that ring ding. I'll take the untainted ding dong. All right, we're recording. This is the dumbest, by the way, Margaret, it's not your fault. this is the dumbest conversation we've ever had. It's gone off the track more. It's completely not linear in any way. That's true, but still ding-dongs are better than ring-dongs. So much so her computer is like defying to be a part of it. Oh, I thought she was just staring at us trying to figure out, okay, I think we can keep this part. Well, clearly we have more stuff we need to talk about with ring-dings and ding-dongs while she's getting back to us.

16:02Margaret's Zoom froze. While that's happening, we're going to continue. I don't see any reason why we should stop, but it froze and it's probably something to do with, Look, I'm not saying it's because of the connection in Calgary. It could be something's wrong with the telecommunications here in Los Angeles. I'm not going to assume that it's one or the other. I just do know that this is Eduardo's job and he's not doing it. Maybe they are inferior. Yeah, who knows? The important thing is that we're together and while she... I have a ding-dong story. Hold on, I bet you do. I want to hear this. What I'm saying is this gives us a chance to talk about ring-dings and ding-dongs.

16:39while Margaret's not on. Go. It's not a good story. I like it. My dad worked. No! Hold on, Margaret. Just pause for a second. I want to hear the ding dong story. It's not even a story. It's a really quick thing my dad used to say. He used to work in a catering warehouse for lunch trucks, and we'd always call him and be like, can you bring us some ding dongs and donuts? And he'd always say, I already have two ding dongs at home. That's what I think of every time I think of ding dongs. That wouldn't work with ring rings or whatever. No, ring dings. Whatever. But the point is, you can't even have fun with it.

17:09I called my father once at his lab and I said, dad, can you bring some ringdings by Drake's when you come home? And he said, fuck you, I'm working. Isn't that a charming story too? That's a charming story. It's just as charming as your story. Oh my dad, what a scamp. That's pretty typical for the 70s. It's a different time. Margaret, it's probably time. Oh, this is the hardest I've seen Sonalap in a long time. Look, he just pushed the mic towards you. I'm choking. I want all those laughs. He wants - Get those laughs. He runs on laughs. I want those laughs. Oh, my God. I hate when she hides from a mic when she's laughing.

17:47Oh, God. Those are golden. Oh, my God. Hey, we're almost out of time. Margaret, do you think you could play us out with a little Conan's theme of some kind? Well, I've got a Conan theme. Yeah. So, yeah, I thought of something. Okay, here we go. Oh, this is a different one. It's not going to be super long, but can I talk you through it? Sure. Yes. Okay, so C major is your key. Yeah, I think so. You're a super straightforward guy, right? Yep. Okay. And very, again, the Carl Stalling sort of upbeat. So the theme is...

18:21Oh, that's... And if you remember, oh, we're the boys at the chorus. Yeah, do you like our show? So I'll play with that a bit. And I'll do different harmonic foundation, like...

18:40Something like that. That's great. I love that. When I start developing it, we got to get the zany, like the thing about you that I find having listened to your podcast, and this is all, I can only write what I know of you, right? Which is the external Conan. Yep. Is you, you'll just come out from left field with these zany things, right? So what I'd start doing is I'd take the super straightforward theme.

19:08and start adding these like dissonances, right? Right. Because those now make it into, I take the straightforward C major and I'm adding some flat sevens and flat thirds. You know what I love is that what I'm getting from that is someone who's basically upbeat, straightforward, well-intentioned, but very damaged and broken. Like the little, I can feel like the little shards, You're kind of open about that. Little shards of glass. Doesn't that sound like little broken - It should be played on like a honky tonk piano that's detuned a little bit. It's ironic because it sounds like jazz and you despise jazz.

19:43I don't despise jazz. Yes you do. No, no, no, no, I despise - There's some jazz I really love, but there's some of it that I think is, you guys are just, man, oh God. The jazz aspect of it though. He likes the ring dings of jazz. Yeah, you like the ding dong. The jazz aspect of it is to indicate, it's the intellect, because Conan's got this intellect, right? Yeah, Matt, what about my intellect? Where? And jazz is the intellectual music, right? That's out there, it's a very intellectual. Yeah, that's what I like when I listen to music, is some intellect being thrown at me. So you don't like the jazz?

20:15By a guy with a goatee and some bongos. You don't like the jazz? No, I like some jazz. All right, I'll take the jazz out. I like some jazz, we shouldn't talk about it. Eduardo takes it very personally because he's got one of those big collections of jazz and he's always drinking his various liqueurs and going out to late night clubs. He's got a beret. Yeah, he's got a beret. He's like, I just put weird honker notes in there. No, I never had you be that. I know what you'd be. What? You know be that. What? I know be that? You were never the guy in the beret. You were never that hipster. You were a different guy.

20:47You were the guy that went to the Rose Bowl swap meet. You bought an Isuzu phone. I'm just saying. They're overlapping Venn diagrams. You had like a lot of irony going on. There's less irony with Eduardo. He just loves that bad music. Anyway, Margaret, it has been very nice talking to you. And I really like the themes that you came up with me. And you know what I'd like to do someday? Meet up with you. We'll take a walk in the woods and recreate my theme using rocks, sticks, leaves. That sounds amazing. Yeah. And then we'll go and find the children that we weren't minding who are rapidly floating down the icy river.

21:20Okay? Because you are all for risky play. I'm all for risky play. Yep. Well, that sounds, doesn't that sound a little naughty? Sounds risky. Risky play. I'm all for risky play. Yeah. Yeah, Margaret. Yeah, Margaret. Yeah, Margaret. You Canadians, you keep it close to the vest. Yeah. Oh, my God. No comment. It was lovely talking to you, Margaret. Thank you so much. Yeah. I hope we meet someday in person. You seem like a really cool, nice person. Thank you. Well, this was a real honor, and I think, you know, I've lived now. I've lived. Oh, that's, wow. Well, I think you were living before, and if anything, we diminished it a bit.

21:59But thank you. You take care, Margaret. Thank you, guys. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam Ovsessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Nick Liao, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn.

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23:07This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.