The Cock of the Rock

0:03Conan O 'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started. Hi, Adu. Welcome to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Fan. Hi, guys. I'm really excited to be here. Hello, Adu. How are you? Fantastic. How are you, Conan? I'm doing well. I have to compliment you on your voice. You have a terrific... And your sweater. Well, you know, I'm thinking it's mostly a vocal audio medium, but sure. I like the whole vibe. Yeah, the whole vibe is great. You have an incredible beard. You have a true Irishman's sweater, Adu. and uh and it's actually from ireland so oh i could tell yes that's the one thing i know it's got i can tell by the various coded messages in it right now it says oh for sure it says by guinness um but uh and yeah uh you've got the amazing beard but i've got to say that you the tone of your voice is very calming fantastic i i appreciate that i mean i brought my mic from home just so that you can hear it like the rich fullness of it all yeah yeah we've not found a mic in the universe that will give me a rich fullness i've put eduardo on that i'm still searching yeah yeah we're going through the uh the barry white estate to see what we can get um adu uh tell me a little bit about yourself uh what do you do uh what are you all about where are you coming from Wow, that's a huge question.

1:32Right now, I am a research engineer for the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington. So I live in Seattle. Oh, wow. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very cool job. I do R &D for the Argo Float Program. So Argo Floats are these autonomous drifters that we put out in the world's oceans that sample various things in the ocean, temperature, pressure, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, basically kind of giving us a comprehensive look on how our oceans are doing and how our atmosphere is doing. And it's all climate change related, conservation related. And it's a cool gig. I'm not an oceanographer.

2:19Wait a minute. Are you one of those people that believes in science? Oh, boo. Why don't you take your mumbo jumbo and witchcraft somewhere else? Hooray. Let's pack up and go, guys. I'm sorry. Three cheers. If I don't understand it, I don't like it. Exactly. Yeah. I don't like science. Now I'm going to go get in my car and drive around. Yeah. That sounds like really good work. I'm hoping you can tell me something optimistic because these are perilous times. It can feel for a lot of us. What do you want it optimistic? No, no, no. It doesn't have to be optimistic. I just want to get your take your it sounds like you're devoting your career and your incredible mind and hard work to trying to figure out the oceans, I'm guessing, are warming.

3:10That is happening. Yes, they are. OK. Yes. And they are getting hotter and hotter. They're just taking in all the heat that we're producing. And part of this program is to study how the heat content of the ocean is changing over time. And a large part of that also is how much carbon is taking in. So oceans are very good carbon sinks for all the carbon that we as humans produce. And some studies are actually showing that there are some regions that are actually sources of carbon now. So it's not just sinks, but there's a flux between the ocean and the atmosphere. I don't know if I have any positive gems for you, Conan, but I think one cool thing.

3:57So I'm very new to oceanography. I was a conservation based person for 25 years and an engineer. And I kind of combined those things and landed in this sector. But I think I've just been learning how cool and complex our oceans are. and how many different subsystems are, you know, in there. And what's cool is that oceans are like space to us in that they're just criminally undersampled, right? So we don't know much about the oceans at all because we don't have like an array of sensors in there for like, you know, last 100 years or so. But that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to put as much technology out there and like kind of sample as much as we can It's very cool.

4:45So that we can better understand a lot of these things. Understanding how rising temperatures are going to affect currents, winds. We've all noticed that things are getting more severe. We're noticing that here in Los Angeles, obviously, lately. And I think across the globe, people are noticing that extremes are becoming more extreme. And climate change doesn't always mean one thing. the influences can be very complex and so we don't really know sometimes what to expect and we're all figuring that out together and I think my work in this area is every bit as important I was going to say, you're telling him all this I do, excuse me, I'm not done yet I believe that by various neutron installments throughout the oceanographic plates and plateaus.

5:43There might one day be hegemony. Can we just go back to your sweater? Your sweater looks amazing. Thank you. Let's just let Adi talk. No, I do appreciate, all foolishness aside, I really do appreciate the work you're doing. And as someone who has children, I really do want us to figure this out and make a better world. So I'm glad you're doing this. Best we can, Conan. Well, try harder. I'm the best I can. Try harder. You don't look like it. You've just called into a podcast to goof around. This is time that could be saving the world. And you're like, I've got to go talk. You're like, I've got to go talk to Conan and goof off.

6:26Well, listen, I love Seattle. I'm sort of married into Seattle because my wife is from Seattle and I married there. And I go back a lot and I love my in-laws and I love to prowl around Seattle. It's my second home. So, uh, sorry, you said prowl, right? Yeah. Yeah. You know what? Late at night, wearing mostly black. Yeah. Okay. And, and there are, there've been some sightings. Uh, I wear a black cap. Um, listen, um, that's not important. My prowling is my own business. Uh, tell us about yourself. What are your hobbies? What do you like to do when you're not studying your sensors? What do you, and I say that with great respect.

7:07No, you don't. Of course. Beep, beep, bloop, bloop. What do you great respect? What do you like to do in your spare time? I do. What's your hobby? I think, yeah, my two main ones are trail running and bird watching. Oh, and what I found is I hang out with a lot of older folks because that's a very kind of niche subset of activities that I find my communities. Sure. But, you know, it gets me outside. And yeah, my father was a bird watcher. I loved it. And he used to always try and get one of us to go along with him birdwatching. And when I was a kid, I'd notice that no one else was volunteering and I would feel someone's got to go.

7:52And so I would go and I would trudge around marshes in the in the suburbs of Boston or Rhode Island and not enjoying the smell. And did you enjoy it? I have to say I didn't at the time. The one thing I really did enjoy was there was once a gull that got way off course and kind of made the news called Ross's Gull. And Ross's Gull, I think, usually hangs out in Alaska or Russia. And this thing, I think, lost its connecting flight, got all turned around. and Ross's gull showed up. Some birder spotted it in Boston. And this might be, I'm going to say this is 1970. It could be 76, 77, something like that.

8:39And I went, my dad was really excited and he said, we've got to go. It was like a 40 minute drive. And so we, there was a bunch of, I mean, there was 300, 400 birders there and we found a spot and we, I saw Ross's gull. and I remember thinking, wow. And then I tried that line on women for years. It never worked. Never worked. I almost traveled nine hours round trip to see something called a Baikal Teal down in Oregon. It was kind of a similar vagrant. Got kind of lost and found its way over here. But I'm getting married in two weeks And I don't think your wife would be. Wait a minute. I do. You buried the lead.

9:29This is a huge event. And you're talking about the double billed Quixel Quaxel.

9:37Making fun of his interest. I am not. This is, again, with great respect. So tell me about this. You're getting married in two weeks and? And basically there's a lot to do because I'm getting married in India. And my fiance, soon to be wife, is from Texas and her whole family is from Texas. And not a lot of them have visited Asia or India. And I'm basically coordinating a bunch of stuff like clothing, visas, flights, choreographed dances because it's a big soiree. I've never been to a true Indian wedding and I've always wanted to go. I think it would be amazing. It's true that it takes place over more than a day, right?

10:26It's three or four days, yeah, for ours. And actually, when writing to y 'all, I actually invited the three of you. So invitation's still open. It's on the 10th of February. And I know you have the Oscars to host. It'd be really great if I blew off the Oscars. I'll handle the Oscars. You go to the leg. I love that. There's been a quick program change. Instead of Conan O 'Brien, Matt Gourley's here. And best picture goes to Goldfinger. How is that possible? Every category. James Bond films from the 70s. Swept tonight.

11:13Where in India is the wedding taking place? The southwest side of India. And there are a ton of birds there. You know, I keep like a life list. of birds. And, you know, I started when I was six years old. And my mom and dad really got me into it because we would go visit India all the time. And I'd see all these like elephants, tigers, and like, you know, all these cool big mammals. And we'd watch Animal Planet. And then I'd come back to the Bay Area where, you know, I grew up. And I'd see, you know, a squirrel or like, you know, like a rabbit. And I was really bummed out. And my mom was like, here, take some binoculars, go look for birds you know what will take you to a park and I got hooked right it was just kind of like I want to see everything they're all so cool they all act so differently and you know but then I just kind of like wrote them on pieces of paper and then I would throw the piece of paper away like all the species I was seeing so you're a literar I'm a literar that's right in the ocean big problem with climate change is we keep finding these birding notes the fish are eating them and dying rare fish we're looking for someone named adu if you know anything about him he's wearing an irish sweater that he got from liam neeson uh but i'm uh well so but this is how you got interested in it and so now you're going to go to india and it's a chance to probably see some some new birds oh for sure yeah like you know i lost all those lists from before so there's you know i i want to say close to a thousand species there not specifically in that state but there's just like so many and i'm very excited uh the venue is actually right next to a bird sanctuary which i don't know if my fiancee knows about but i'm probably going to sneak away oh that's right during the ceremony will your eyes be kind of wandering up into the sky.

13:09I said, I do. Do you take this woman? Huh? I do. I do. Nicely done. Yeah. You're going to drift away so many times, like when it's time for toast. Where is he? You're there with nine birds on your arm talking to them. Like Dr. Doolittle. You're joking, but that's actually how most of it. I'm not joking. I sum up a human being very quickly. Is your fiance into birds? she's into large mammals and she kind of tolerates my birding and sometimes I'll find a bird you know we went to Peru earlier this year and I was showing her oh look that one's like a really prehistoric looking bird and she's like yeah yeah yeah and then like every once in a while I'll find something that she'll be like oh wow that actually is really cool and beautiful but I don't know we got our camps we're in the wildlife camp but you know that's good It's close enough.

14:05It's close enough. Yeah. My wife is not adjacent to any of my interests in any way. So where you are sounds, you know, much, much healthier. And I compliment you and I weep for myself. I do. There's a, well, I just think this is wonderful. Sona and I have been to Jaipur. Yeah. and to the I guess they call it the pink is it the pink city is it the pink city yeah it was very pink it was I think after but anyway we were there together we've had so many adventures together but we were there together I think around 2010 and that was my one dip into India and I loved it I think it's a magical place I really do it's fantastic yeah I'm I think the most exciting thing for me outside of you know marrying my soon to be wife is showing all these people who are so near and dear to me a culture that I have kind of taken for granted all the cool experiences that I've had.

15:10I'm allergic to niche interests. I'm sorry. Oh my God. He was having a nice moment there. He's really having a really sweet moment talking about India. I couldn't help it. I sneezed for real. And then I had to add a joke to cover my human moment. I'm sorry. Continue. So get it back. My sneeze is over. um well i'm just excited to kind of show parts of my culture that i took for granted growing up like being invited to all these weddings going clothes shopping like going up into the mountains staying in a bungalow you know you know seeing elephants and it's there's the culture there's the environment there's just like the country itself that i'm really excited to show people and yeah i'm super stoked it was a lot of work to get here but quick question uh i know it's a tradition are you going to ride in at one point on a white horse?

15:56I am not, but I am going to ride in on a vintage car. Oh, cool. What kind of car? What car? 1987 Buick LeSabre. I don't think I have a full say on the specific car. It could be a Jaguar, hopefully, fingers crossed. But, yeah, basically growing up for a lot of our weddings that I attended. Elephants were used, riding in on elephants. Riding in on a big animal is a big thing. And I know this because none other than Jack McBrayer was invited to one of the Jonas Brothers. I think it was Jebediah Jonas, I think, who was married in India. And he said that the Jonas Brother came in on a white horse. Yeah.

16:47And the horse was like, what's Jack McBrayer doing here? I'm sorry. I'm taking us far afield. No, it's fine. But elephants, we don't ride them anymore because we found that it's actually super harmful to them. And so actually it's good that we're kind of moving away from that. Phasing that out. A car. A car is nice. And my fiancé is going to be coming in on a boat. Oh, cool. That's nice. Oh, I want to go. Yeah. I want to go to his money. Let's go. Sona just come Can you postpone the wedding till after the Oscars? I think we postpone the Oscars Okay Let's do it You know what I mean? I would love to say the Oscars have been postponed and people would be like oh you know well probably because everything it's had in LA and I'd be like no no no no not because of that Adu is getting married and I need to be there and he's been a good friend of mine for about 11 hours Yeah You know Sona means gold in Hindi Okay no one cares There we go.

17:50We need Sona at the wedding. Give us time to process it. It means gold. The peanut is neither a pea nor a nut. Oh, God. It's a legume. Did you know that pirates have an eye patch? Okay. Not because they're missing an eye. Mine was relevant. To adjust to the light. We're talking about India and that my name means gold. You kind of forced it in. All right. Well, it's just cool. It's a cool little fact. Can I just say, choreographed dancing, though. I would love to see y 'all join in on the choreographed dancing. Yes. And this is an extra bit of enticement. If you come, we will add the string dance to the choreography.

18:24Okay, I'm out. I'm out. I'm out too. Eduardo, book me some flights. I got it. I love yelling at us. This is your engineer. Highly trained sound engineer to book. I know, but you have to be jack of all trades in these situations. Eduardo, get me those flights. And a cup of black coffee, see? Book, click, click, click. Click, click. Book, book, click. Book isn't a sound effect. Right. Book, book, aisle, aisle, book. Well, Adu, I'm very happy for you. What is your bride's name? Allison. Allison. Okay. I'm very happy for you and for Allison. And trust me, if I could find a transporter beam, I would be there.

19:07You seem like a very cool guy and I support, I just love that you're using your mind to try and help the planet. I love that. I would do that, but my mind's no good. But I'm happy that you and people like you are hard at work on this. I appreciate that, Conan. Thank you. I think we're good, right? Yeah. Yeah. I want to thank you so much, Adu, for calling in. And again, very energizing to find out that we have fans out there who are smart and funny and cool and doing good stuff. and have amazing taste in sweaters. I bow to you, sir. I bow to you. Thank you. All right. Could I say one last thing?

19:51Sure. As an exercise, I found birds that I thought reminded me of each one of you. And I have some photos. Go, go for it. That's a quick edit right there. This is called the Andean cock of the rock. And I'll repeat that, cock of the rock. No, it's not the real one. Name. I, that is, I mean, it's like looking in a mirror. I'm sorry, I'm not sure who that is. That is my bird. What's it called again? I want to write it down and make sure that they are, you know, don't go extinct. What is it called again? The Andean cock of the rock. Yeah, it's all upper body red with a huge red pompadour. Yes. I mean, you can't even tell what's head and what's like mating plumage or whatever that is.

20:41You can tell it breeds insatiably. It's called the cock of the rock. Yes. No, and it's just got so much sexual energy. It probably has sex with the rock. Come on. It probably does. So they have like these kind of performance halls. I'm not even joking where all the males just come and kind of unleash all their sexual energy by like bobbing and making like weird dances. Yes. And then the female, like, cock of the rocks kind of just watch and see, you know, which one catches their eyes. So it just kind of reminded me of Conan for some reason. You know what? I am now cock of the walk. Cock of the rock.

21:18Andean cock of the rock. Okay, I'm the Andean cock of the rock. I love it. Alright, let's move on. What's Sona? This is Sona. Nice mustache, Sona. Look at that. He's got your dad's mustache. Come on, man! It does. Hey, Gil. I want to preface by saying I love hearing you on the podcast and all the shorts, and your kind of laughter fills up the room, and I just wanted to shout out to that. Aw. This is called the three-waddled bell bird. It's a really cool bird from Central America, and it is one of the loudest birds in existence. Yes. Nice. Its calls go to, I think, 100 decibels, like a rock concert almost.

22:08Oh, my God. You can hear them across, like, the rainforest. Oh, my God. Three-waddled. I don't have. Bellbird. It's so funny you say that because we work in this office building, and I'm on the top floor. When Sona enters on the first floor, I hear it as clear as we all do. The whole building shakes because you're one of the loudest people I've ever met. Okay. Yes. Okay. You're a three-waddled. Three waddled bell bird. I'm sorry, Sona. No, no, no. You know what? You're right. And I get it. And I own that about myself. And now let's move on to the fussiest of the birds. Come on. Yay! Oh, look at that.

22:47I'll take it. This is the burrowing owl. I'll take it. So, Gorley, to all of you, I've been kind of ingesting Conan content for two decades. And, Gorley, you were on the scene for me. Right. But I think you came in and you were kind of this wise presence. Right. I always think of you as an owl, like the spectacles and everything. And then you kind of started to emerge as, oh, oh, he's insane as well. Yes. The burrowing owl. Super wise. But I mean, look at him. I know. They're kind of insane. That middle one is crazy. That middle one. That's me. It's very true that Gourley came in and we all thought, well, he's the steady hand on the tiller.

23:33He is, you know, he's clearly the experienced podcaster here. And he very quickly went quite mad. Definitely not the worst, but pretty terrible. Well, I do. That was a real treat. And we're going to post those because we want our fans to see those. And we should probably wrap it up. But my heartfelt congratulations to you. And I hope our paths cross in person. That would be very cool. I'd like to shake your hand. I would love that. I would love to do that. I have a very firm, firm hand to shake. Congrats, Adu. All right, take care, Adu. Have a great time. Thank you. Take care. Conan O 'Brien Needs a Fan.

24:13With Conan O 'Brien, Sonam Ovcesian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy.

24:54Thank you.