Don Cheadle

24:41And then to put that out there and be like, whatever is something I'm trying to learn about more how to be more, I guess, graceful with that moment with myself, as opposed to being, to use your word, neurotic about it. Because I think most actors are pretty neurotic. yeah if you care if it matters you know you want to you want to do the best job possible and you want to you know if you love the material you want to like do well with the material you want to be in things that are that work and that feel good um and that you can tell yourself the reason that you spent four or five months out of your life doing it you know that's another thing is you can't get that back no matter what they pay you it's like your your time is your time so you You want to make all of the best decisions you can going into the thing.

25:24And then you want to show up fully and be there as much as you can be. And so it's weird to then after it's over, kind of like how you dial that down or turn that off. It's just a very interesting process. And it's over a long time. You do the pre-production, then you do the production, then you do the post-production, you're doing ADR, then you do press. It's like a project lasts years in your life. It's not just when you shoot it. It's amazing to me. it took me a long time to figure this out but over the years and years and years of doing the late night show to realize because i'm you know not from the world of acting movies and so it was very foreign to me but the idea that when people were coming by the time they got to my show or anytime you came on my show which i think you came on my show like nine times uh you were promoting something that you had maybe finished making a year or a year and a half earlier yeah and then And you would have to get yourself into the mindset of, you know, yes, I'm here to talk to you about this.

26:24And that is so foreign to me because everything, you know, this world particularly, but even late night world, everything was we think about it at three o 'clock in the afternoon. We tape it at 530. They like it. They hate it. People that night like it or hate it. Someone on the street, maybe the next day, but you're already on to the next thing. And so that was news to me, was how there's kind of a marathon quality to it. Like you said, all these steps and you've got to be totally invested each time one of them comes up. But then you move on to the next project. And then by the time the podcast or the talk show rolls around.

27:05That was six months ago. Yeah, that's far away. I mean, Fight Night, the one that's coming out in September, that's not that far away. We've wrapped it in, I wrapped in June. But yeah, very often it's six months, nine months, a year. You're like, set up this clip. You're like, I don't remember that. Oh, trust me. I was out there so many times. So many times. I have the 10 ,000, you know, late night shows I did. I was out there so many times where I'd say like, so tell me what we're going to see. And they go like, well, and I could see it in their eyes. and then I'd say, you go to a camel store.

27:45And they're like, right. Yes, yes, camel store. Oh, don't tell me, don't tell me. And then, and then. Suddenly it became a game show where I'm telling them what their clip was and ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You get a new car. A camel store. Yeah. You didn't see that movie? They sell camels? That was a movie, yeah. Okay. That you're very proud of, by the way. Absolutely. and I came up with the twist that's where I know you're from the camel movie yes camel store camel store yeah you probably sussed me out as a real camel guy I look there was one ticket sold and it looked like it was to you a geek bought a ticket that's the good news hey no no no not that kind of geek the good kind of geek the good kind of geek you brought up fight night so I want to talk about it which is this is a true story it's based on a true story right uh you guys we have to be clear with that yeah based on a true story yeah um it takes place in and around uh muhammad ali's big comeback fight that's right 1970 i think and one of the things first of all kevin hart yep is in this with you and i think you and i have to agree to grab that man and hold him still i because i try to ankle him many times.

29:05I try to kick his back foot out from under him, but somehow he rolls up and he's just like, no, you can't do it, man. See, it's a good shot. But let me tell you what I am. I've never met anybody. He doesn't stop. It's insanity. He doesn't stop. And I do think he makes so many different projects. He's always good. I adore him. I think he's fantastic. I Then I think there are moments in between projects where there's not something lined up. And so they just put a credit card into his hand and start shooting and they tell him it's Amex. And he goes, okay, with Amex. It's CityBag, whatever. Move him over there.

29:44Okay, slightly to the right and we're gonna switch out cards. He's like, fine, I can do it. I know who I am. Yeah, I have had the experience of, he asked me to do his podcast and it was on Zoom. and he clearly, I'm waiting around for a little bit, which doesn't usually happen, but I'm like, okay. And then he comes running in and clearly he's just shot nine other things. And I think also entertained at a kid's party. He does a lot. Yeah, it's fantastic. But anyway, he's great in this. He's really good in it. And you have such an amazing cast. Yeah, it's really good. And the look of it is such a great homage so that's like one of my favorite periods yeah it's a great era 1970s hair cars music cars you name it yeah and it's yeah it was a lot of fun to work with and i'd great you know the it's me taraji uh terrence howard sam jackson and kevin and i've worked with all of them before so that was the first time that i had been you know we all together in one thing and it was just great to have they're on one side of the show really and i'm on kind of the other side of the show so toward the end, our characters kind of collide and then I'm with them for the rest of it.

30:57Your character is based on a real detective? Yes, Detective J.D. Hudson. The first, one of the first black officers in Atlanta at that time. And also one of the first black detectives at that time. So yeah, it's based on this true story about when Ali couldn't get a fight after he didn't agree to go to the draft. The senator in the town, in the center of Atlanta at that time, there was a loophole in the laws which would allow him to get a sanctioned fight in Atlanta. So he brought him there. It was a lot of controversy. People didn't want him there. It was a lot of death threats. You know what I mean?

31:27And my character gets asked to, gets not asked, but gets assigned to his detail to protect him while he's in Atlanta. It's crazy. I don't know. I hope young people know this, but how many prime years of his boxing career Ali lost because he refused. Because he stood up for what he believed. Yeah, stood up for what he believed. and he said, you know, no North Vietnamese has ever done anything to me. I'm not going to go over and fight. And it was a really principled stand, which, you know, there's a lot of people talking in the world today when people say, oh, this celebrity or that sports, they were really brave for doing X, Y, or Z.

32:07And I think you don't know what bravery is until you go back and look at some of the stands that some of these athletes took that cost them years of their prime career. Some of them, all of it. Some of them everything and never got back from it. And then you go back to your hometown and have to deal with. We're not just talking about getting canceled. We're talking about people like maybe lynching you, you know, people maybe shooting you, you know, so absolutely that spirit of who he was and still is for so many people is, you know, it was really cool to have the opportunity to hopefully bring refresh people about that.

32:44You know, people talk about that as being an aspect of the story to entertain by the story. But all these real things that were happening at that time were really important and interesting, too, which is why it's fun to tell a story like this, because if you get a chance to, you know, do edutainment like KRS-One would say, you know, it's really it's really cool that you can entertain and people can actually learn something historically. Because I guess some people don't want us to know history anymore. I guess that's a problem. so you know to it's funny to look at movies and look at entertainment and to look at something as being well maybe we may be the last bastions of trying to make sure that people remember stories like these if people win who don't want us to but it's nothing i ever thought about we would that would be necessary in our business do you know what i mean but it's great that we have an opportunity with a story like this that i still think is even with all that whatever is heavy about it which is a lot heavy about it but it's just it's a really good story and great cast and really good actors and a time period that was very formative for that state and that city where the city really became a different place.

33:47Somebody was telling me that they was in this golf tournament with this guy and he said he took an African-American studies course at Columbia or something and he's very young. He was very young. Of course, he's 17, 18 when he went to school and the guy said, what do you think is the black population in the United States? And he's like, oh, I got this. And he raised his hand. He goes, yeah. He's like, 33 percent. And he went, where are you from? He said, Atlanta. He's like, yeah. It's like, you're very. We're roughly half. Yeah, I think it's most. I'm going to just undershoot it and say half. Like, yeah, no.

34:27But that's that's when Atlanta like became Atlanta. You know, that's when it became a chocolate city. That's when it became a black Mecca. And that's what a lot of this show is about is these people trying to find their places in society and find out where they can be somebody and, you know, how they can show up and how they can like get their piece of the American dream. And, you know, what happens around it with them robbing the wrong people is really cool. It's there's a great speech to that. Kevin Hart's character gives, which is about how Atlanta is so unique. Yeah. And he's like, we've we are not you know, we're not New York.

35:02We're not L.A. we're not Boston. This is a unique place. He sort of talks about the Civil War history and reconstruction and just like, this is its own place. Martin Luther King going there. Yeah. Yeah. It's ours. It's ours. Exactly. Yeah. A real ownership and a real time where that was possible. And someone could go into a class and say, yeah, there's 30 % black people in the country. Well, Sona believes that 95 % of the country is Armenian. Is Armenian. Yeah. Because when you're in Glendale. Yeah. You go to Glendale. 95%. Yeah, 95%. That's the country. That's the whole country, sure. Yeah, it's the same everywhere.

35:43Yeah. It's the same in North Dakota. There's a lot of Armenians there. Well, I believe 50 % of this room is Irish. Yeah. Well, yeah. If we're just doing volume by size, definitely. I don't even think that's true. Well, I bet the team. The Irish are just, we're like, I don't know, we're everywhere. No. you also have a project I want to make sure that I mention which is Unstoppable which is a a true story yeah also based I think based on a true story say based on because if they say this and then you say it's true and then this happens they're gonna be no but it is I'm based on a true story then too yeah hi I'm Conan O 'Brien and I'm based on a true story but yeah just my lawyers make me say that what is based the kids say based what is based yeah what's based like a good thing oh we all go to joe we all look at joe yeah we know what is it it's like it's it's like a good thing like that's based like someone's fit or like the music or like is it mean like don't say like a bass guitar don't say that no no no were you gonna say that no no is it like a bass what i was like it's probably worse it's like the kids like a like a good bass guitar, right?

36:58So they're like, hey, that's bass. Bass. Or is it like a cooking sort of a term? B-A-S-T-E? Oh, see, I didn't even know that. That's what I thought. No, it's B-A-S-E-D. It is B-A-S-E-D. But I don't know why it's used. I was trying to make a funny. Oh, I'm sorry. Thanks a lot. Let's Google this. No, no, no, stay. What are you Googling? It's where bass comes from. Don't piss off Sona Dawn. She's 95 % of the country. I think it means like being She will take you out. Being genuine, being yourself is what kind of Google says. Oh, well. Based is a slang term that originally meant to be addicted to crack cocaine or acting like you were, but was reclaimed by rapper Lil B for being yourself and not caring what others think of you.

37:40I knew it was Lil B. You do? I thought it was Lil E at first, but it is Lil B. No, no, Lil E does cased. Yeah, Lil E is cased. You know what? this went from one of my favorite episodes to absolutely just nosedived in the last eight seconds. Can we go over some of it and get it back? I mean, is this live detail? I think we can. I think we can pull this out. Yeah, okay, let's get rid of this. But look at this. You've got not one, you've got two projects because you've got Unstoppable as well. Yeah, greedy. And it's based on a true story. Yes, it is based on a true story about Anthony Robles, the ASU wrestler who went on to become the, you know, won the whole thing that year.

38:22in college level. And he has one leg, which was, you know, oh, poor guy at the beginning until he started beating everybody. And then they're like, that's an advantage. That's an unfair advantage. Stop him. I wish I only had one leg. Some of us get all the luck. Exactly. He is, he was there when we were shooting the movie. He actually is in some of the movie. It's great. But Jarrell Jerome plays him. Great young actor. And it's a really incredible story based on a true story about this guy's life. Man, you got lawyered up before you came in here. Look, man, it's not going to happen to me again.

39:04Maybe one of you guys in here. Fool me four times. It ain't happening again. What did you say? He made me say it. We got into a bass thing and then it went all weird.

39:23All right, I'm gonna go off script here for a second, but I am obsessed. This was all scripted? Yeah. All of it. And you did, what do you mean? We're both holding scripts. We've been doing this film or not. Guys, are we on camera? Can they see what's happening? Don't worry about it. Okay, don't worry about it. That's what he said. Don't worry about it. Hey. Don't worry about the camera. Just do what I told you to do. Jeez. This is based on a true story. Yeah, yeah. I'm obsessed with Nicolas Cage. I'm just going to tell you. And I'm going somewhere with this because I know you've worked with Nick Cage.

39:54And I covet any Nick Cage story. And if there's anything you can give me, I'll die a happy man. Oh, man. And very soon. Yeah. What can I give you of Nick Cage? You worked with him in The Family Man, which is like, I think it was made in 2000. Yeah. Nick always had very serious things. We didn't have a lot of light conversation. You meet Nick, he gets in the car and he's right in. And we were right into some heavy stuff like right away. And I was like, oh, I'll meet you where you live. We'll just live in heavy. So we'll be in heavy stuff. So I can't I don't have any like apocryphal light delightful stories about Nick.

40:35That's that's just making me happy. But let me tell you, I am so glad and so happy to see what he has done. Yeah. And how his because he is doing what he wants to do. and he has become i mean he was already really really really really good but i think opening himself up to all these different things and going like i'll do an insane comedy all the way i'll do a super dark horror movie i'll do you know yeah he's just my favorite kind of an actor who's like let's see how many gears i have let's open this thing up and just have fun and just play and do a lot of good stuff and i think he's really proven that he's like really real he's really i re-watched face off recently and it is one of the most bananas insane slash bananas slash delightful films and it's both of these guys uh it's travolta and kate just going for it chewing the scenery chewing it up swallowing it bombing it back up again like a dog re-eating it yeah yeah yeah yeah uh but one of my favorite moments is um you know we did so many weird odd bits but we had one bit that's not even wasn't well known or anything, but it was a segment of the show where I'd go visit a horse.

41:49It was a horse's head, like it was a kid's show. And the horse, it was someone in a horse costume and his name was Cloppy. And I'd say, now it's time for another visit with Cloppy. And we'd play this goofy kid's music and I'd go over and I'd talk to this horse and the horse would say these, it'd be like, oh, Conan. And then he would say these very depressing things, very depressing things and then wander off and you'd always hear a gunshot and I'd go, oh my God, like Cloppy killed himself. But then Cloppy would come back and explain what the gunshot was and how it had nothing to do with him. And he's okay.

42:22But then he'd be very depressed again and then leave. And that was the bit. And then this faux, very dark sketch for kids about a horse named Cloppy. And it had a really fun song that went with it. And one day, we didn't even do it that often, but I think Nick Cage was on our show one time and he came out and we're talking. And then out of nowhere, he just went, I like cloppy. And I was like, what? And he just, it turns out, had caught the show once when cloppy was on and that had caught his imagination. And out of nowhere, he just went, I like cloppy. So what we did is I insisted, I told my writers, take that and the next time we do cloppy and every time we did cloppy after that, would do the whole opening to Cloppy and then a circle wipe would come up and it would say, endorsed by Nicolas Cage.

43:17And he'd go, I like Cloppy. Without his permission. Of course. But I don't know why. He was probably so flattered. I just liked the whole concept that this sketch has been endorsed by Nicolas Cage and then just his head comes up out of nowhere from the interview. I like Cloppy. I like Cloppy. I bet he loved it. I bet if you saw him again, he would maybe do the cloppy movie if you guys figured it out. I bet I don't even have to figure it out. No. I could just write something quickly on an envelope. I'll do it. Based on a true story. Based on a true story. We're sued by the real cloppy. Cloppy's air is going to get you.

43:58That's not how dad was.

44:06You misrepresented dad.

44:11wasn't there a story where you were in a car with him shooting a movie and he owned the car or something yes and he did not wreck yes that was the day one it's like hey it's nick nice to meet you i'm like nice to meet you he's like yeah i it's a great car this is a ferrari today he told me the exact make and the year and he's like i love this car i had a car like this i think this is my car but this is the car you're shooting in yes the camera car the picture what's that with his car. He had owned it before? He had owned it. He had so many cars that he was like, this looks like one of the cars that I owned.

44:49He reaches under the seat and finds like, this is my car. Yeah. Wait a minute. Turn your head. I have to reach over here. They told me they destroyed this car.

45:06He's owned that many that chances that Any car he gets in, probably 50-50, he's owned it. Yeah, he's owned it. He did it. Look, Nick Cage was a movie star back... I mean, he still is, but he was like sweet spot of movie star. He was island-getting movie star Nick Cage. I think he was the... I mean, I remember him, I think, buying a dinosaur or something. He was one of those guys who was buying... Yeah, that's right. Yeah, just crazy things. Dinosaur egg and... Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I got... You know, it's funny. I've never come close. Even if I had the money, I'd be like way too cautious to like, to buy a dinosaur.

45:43What's the smallest dinosaur you guys have? It's for my wife. Yeah, I know. I'm not into dinosaurs. It's a little baby velociraptor. It's two inches high. They're quite plentiful. I don't want to stand out at parties. Yeah,$75 for this petrified baby velociraptor. Do these things appreciate? Like a car, as soon as you put it in your pocket, it starts to lose value. I'm not going to buy one dinosaur for a lot of money. I'm going to buy a lot of small dinosaurs for little money. You're going to amortize your risk across the place of dinosaurs. And then hang on to them. Just hang on to them. I'm not stupid.

46:24Like people say. Conan went long on dinosaurs. Did it work out? No, it didn't work out. He's ruined. He has an ice cream truck now. Here he comes. Ding, ding, ding, ding. In a shitty dinosaur museum. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Can I have ice cream? You can go in the back and look at the - The dino museum. The dino museum in the back. Oh no. That's a character in the cloppy movie, by the way. He's got to be in the cloppy movie. Look, the question is, will you do the cloppy movie if I can get Nick Cage? I think we've seen that I'll do anything. I just love that when it gets out that you've agreed ahead of time to the cloppy music, your agent just screaming at you.

47:08Right now, they're like, I had you all lined up for Ocean 75. It's Conan, guys. It's cloppy and Conan. What am I saying? No? Yeah. Look at Conan's track record in film. I mean, it's unbelievable. What track record? I don't know. I got him confused with someone else. He's big. He intimidated me. I'm scared. I have to say something. Every time I talk to you, it's an absolute just delight. Seriously, you are. You're crazy talented and just, I don't know, just, and man. Yeah. Improv. We need to form an improv team. Let's do it. With Don Cheadle, this would be such a good use of your time. I love this.

47:46Being in film, I'm thinking a small improv troupe in the valley. Yeah, run it by your agents. Yeah, I will. I'm sure. Oh, is that them at the door?

47:58They're unscrewing the hinges. They're breaking it down. get out of there uh no you are so smart and so funny and uh and also such a nice person i remember running into you and uh i remember you and your and your wife uh at a restaurant and an airplane that's right um but i remembered running into you with my son who knew you from the and and he never does this but he was i just got respect when we got in the car afterwards that i knew you Oh, that's hilarious. And then it ended. It was short-lived. Yeah. As soon as you handed that ticket to the guy, it was like, man, he's just bad. And then I'm going to be calling him today.

48:35I saw Don Cheadle again. Doesn't quite work. Dad, stop. You're making it creepy. Dad, it's sad. I know where he lives. Dad. We're in an improv team together. Yeah. We're going to do improv in the valley. He'll be here soon. Dad, we've been here for four hours. I know he's coming. Oh, no. Anyway, Don, congrats on everything. As always, you're the best. And I hope to see you soon. Appreciate you. Thank you, guys. A lot of fun.

49:13You know, just before we started the podcast today, there were other things I was thinking of talking about. And then I came in at the tail end of you describing, Matt, a job you used to have. And I immediately thought, I want to hear about that. And I honestly have not heard the whole thing yet. It just sounded quite strange. And I'd like you to tell this tale if you don't mind. Yeah, sure. It is very strange. There was a guy who found a corporate loophole with an airline where he figured out if he could pay dumb people like myself to fly legs of a flight, he would accrue more in mileage for his company than it would cost to pay us to do this thing.

49:52Who's us? You said me and some friends from our improv group. This was in the 90s. Okay, hold on. In the 1990s, you were in an improv group. Yeah. How did he, this person, this... Oh, God, this gets deeper and weirder. I know. I'm asking the questions. I'm the lawyer here. I'm asking the questions. There used to be a show on NBC that was on after Saturday Night Live called Quick Wits, which was an improv comedy type show that we... Sorry, I worked at NBC in the 90s in the comedy division. Never heard of Quick Wits. No, would you? Nor would you because this thing I think was syndicated and we were all on it and it was what it was.

50:33And I don't, maybe Quickowitz wasn't doing well enough that he figured out he had to somehow scam an airline. I don't know. He was a very nice guy, but he paid a bunch of us in this group. So he was associated with the show? He was a producer on the show. Okay. But he was also running the side hustle where he would pay essentially mileage mules like us. and I would do three round trip flights a day. To where? To LAX. Well, that was the thing you could choose. So you could, a bunch of my smarter friends chose Vegas and Arizona. I chose San Francisco along with my buddy Jeremy, just thinking, ah, it's cooler up there, but you get fogged in up there.

51:09So we couldn't even complete all of our flights each day. So you're flying LAX to San Francisco. Yeah, three times back and forth. Three times in a day. And we'd get off the plane and get right back on the same plane. And the flight attendants would look at us like we were drug mules or something. Well, you may have been drug mules. Well, we were handed these things to put places. Did he ever put you to sleep? And then when you woke up, you felt something in your bottom? Yeah, but that's most nights. Okay, so many questions. K-W-I-K-W-I-T-Z. You don't have to explain that anyone who comes up with the name Quick Wits would have to, of course, spell it that way.

51:47Look, I'm not proud. Uh, okay. Did you ever suspect, because I never saw this show and I worked at the fucking network. Do you ever suspect that there was no show and this was just a trick to get you to be mileage mules? I'm suspecting it now. I don't think, I mean, I think this person literally said, I want to get as many mileage, as much mileage as I can. So I'm going to pretend there's a TV show, hire eight improv people. And then your, your improv game was fly on an airline. Three times a day. Yeah. I don't know what to say other than the airline figured it out. And they got into a big argument.

52:25And eventually, the other thing is, you had to pitch a quota amount that you would do. And if you didn't do that amount, you had to pay a penalty. You had to pay him? You had to pay him. So if you didn't meet your quota, you had to pay him money as a penalty. Yeah. Okay. Now is the crucial question. how much money did you get paid to say wait, go to the airport wait in line, go through security get on the plane, fly LA to San Francisco get off the plane then wait around for the next plane, get on, fly back how much did you get per flight? We got$50 per flight This is late 90s, pre 9-11 I was going to say pre-TSA $50?

53:09No,$150 a day, because we were doing three flights But yours would get fogged in I know, that was the problem. Because you were... And I wasn't going to make my quote. You were always just circling. You probably never landed in San Francisco. By the way, no one... They were first class. No one's ever landed in San Francisco. These were first class. They were, but it's those little Airbuses, so that almost doesn't even matter. No, there's no first class on the Airbus. No. Did you try and eat a lot of free snacks and stuff? You'd just get peanuts. That's it, you know? I mean, I had a nice time with my buddy, Jeremy.

53:37We became best friends because of this, but then they got into an argument, the airline and this guy. How do you know this? He told you? We found out because most of us were not going to make our quotas by this deadline. And luckily, the airline and he settled for some amount, and we didn't have to finish our quotas. He then went and wrote a book, I think like a self-published book about it that's maybe on Amazon or something. Okay. Has this guy continued to flourish in show business? I don't think so. With shows called The Wacky Wiggles? Can we watch Quick Wits? I don't know how you'd find it.

54:11Is it on YouTube? I doubt it. I googled it and it did come up but there are no clips Quick Quits It says eight mileage mules Circle the San Francisco Bay Area Wayne Brady was on it a bunch Oh he went on to other things Yeah somehow he escaped it What does it become in the hands of Wayne Brady and Corey Rouse? Put your hands together for a funny comedian Emmanuel Lewis I'd like to do my impersonation of Gary Coleman What you talking about? What if, oh boy. By the way, none of this was improvised. Wait, where are you? I'm not in this episode. It changed every. You're not even in the, oh, cause you're.

54:49Oh. Your plane is circling. I'm 10 ,000 miles above San Francisco. Who, did you recognize someone? That was, she's a marvelous Mrs. Maisel. What was her name? I love her. Never seen this. No, and why would you have? It was on at like two in the morning. And by the way, it's presented as improv. Everything was written. Alex Borstein. Okay, can I ask a question? Yeah. You're saying that everyone I'm looking at right now was flying - No, no, no, no. No, Wayne Brady was not doing this. Alex Borstein - How did they get out of it? I don't know. He just went - I was part of an improv group that did this.

55:25And a lot of the people in the improv group were also on QuickWits, and we knew him because he ran it. But - Were you ever on QuickWits? Yeah. You appeared on camera. Yes. You were doing this at the same time that you were flying around to earn this? Roughly, I don't remember. Yeah, somewhere around there. It's all a blur. Yeah. That's fun. That's a, that's a, that's a, that's unbelievable. And, and it's just insane to me. I guess it's not illegal what this guy was doing. I don't think so, but it was something shady about it that they settled with him outside. There's something shady about it.

55:59Hey, you kids, go jump on an airplane. I'll give you 50 to nowhere. I'll give you 50 bucks. I did feel like exploited for sure, you know, but in the most like innocent way, you know, it could have gone a lot worse. We all did things for a buck. Yeah. Well, Sona, do you want to go ahead? No, you know, just we did things. Yeah. What did we do? We did. We flew to San Francisco three times a day. Oh, but now what did you do? That's right. No, you did. No, that was you. No, I'm we did it. We're OK. OK. You don't want to hear about we don't want to hear about it. I did like a thing for the National Association of Music Vendors.

56:43Is this like pre any kind of exposure? Yeah, I'm just getting started in the business. I'm writing for not necessarily the news. And someone saw me at an improv show and said, you're funny, we'll pay you some money if you can get yourself. It was like an hour and 40 minute drive out of LA to this weird structure where they shot videos of how to sell. They want to teach you how to sell musical instruments and how not to sell musical instruments. And what I realized later on is they wanted to hire an improviser because they didn't want to hire a writer. And so they would just say, be, you know, a real handsome guy would come out and say, the one thing you don't want to be is the know-it-all salesman like this guy.

57:28And then I would just be behind the counter and say, well, if you're going to get a synthesizer, you don't want the Moog R23. Let me tell you why. And I would just make up all this stuff and the customer would go, yeesh, too much information. And the handsome guy would go, now let's try that again. And let's have this guy, you know, listen more than he talks. So I did that and I have it somewhere. It's in my parents' house up in the attic on three quarter inch tape. Do you remember what three quarter inch tape was like? A giant brick. We should bring these in because I think I have a DVD copy of Quick Wits.

58:00We would have to build that machine that could play this stupid tape on. We should have a segment where all three of us bring in our most embarrassing thing. Do you have anything embarrassed captured on tape? I have 28 years. Five nights a week. I don't think I do. I've only been on TV with Conan. But when I was in second grade, I was in the opening credits for a show. it was a legal drama and there's a quick shot of me saying the Pledge of Allegiance I love this oh that's great I would love to see that I don't even remember the show you know what I want to see that I want to see you in a quick wits and what I really remember fondly more than anything I did was the opening of the video has that kind of late 80s it's space and cubes spinning that have an image on each side of the cube showing different parts of what you're going to see in the video and like welcome

58:58and I just thought we gotta find this I've been on a million game shows and then I also won a national toilet flushing sound effect contest and was all over national? people from all over the country did this? is this a noise you could make with your mouth? it's a noise I did make with my mouth and I'm not going to do again because that's not what won me the competition What won the competition? No, it was just the way I set it up. I slept with everybody. I fucked my way to the top at the toilet flushing competition.

59:37I just love you in bed and you're smoking a cigarette and you're like, what'd you think? Pretty good. Good enough to say that I'm King Flusher tomorrow? I finally found what I want to give it away for.

59:55You're always right. You're taking a cab home. You're crying and your mascara is running the next day. And the winner is Matt Garley. I love the one who actually deserves it. Just being really upset about it. The artist. The artist. Oh, man. Well, we learned a lot about each other. Yeah. Let's never talk again. Okay. Conan O 'Brien needs a friend. with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam Avsessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Leow. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

1:00:37Our 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 Coco 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 SiriusXM.com slash Conan.

1:01:12And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend and wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.