The Life Of Reilly

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 Riley, you've caught us at a bad time. This is Conan O 'Brien Needs a Fan. Hi Riley, how are you? Hi guys. Kia ora, I'm very good. How are you guys? We are, we're doing well, Riley, first of all, in the order of business, where are you right now? I am in the South Island of New Zealand in a little town called Hokitika. Hokitika, oh, okay. Have you heard of that? Yeah, sure. no no one's heard of hokitika it's a small town uh you're you're on a little island uh south of new zealand wow in south new zealand in the south island of new zealand so it's um yeah it's it's um i was in the north island for a while but we moved to the south island and it's like a different country it's absolutely amazing it's you know giant mountains um nothing to kill you in the wild.

1:09Are you in Hobbit country? It is Hobbit country. Yeah. The majority of Lord of the Rings was filmed in the South. Now I know where you are. Okay. I know that Peter Jackson shot the movies in New Zealand, but that's incredible countryside where you live. Just beautiful, gorgeous. It is so beautiful. And I basically live in a Hobbit house. I live in a container house, which is 40 feet and I'm quite hairy. So you could call me Frodo Baggins if you'd like. Wait a minute, Riley, let's back up the bus just a second. You said you live in a container house. What's a container house? So it's a container, a 40 foot container, like a shipping container that's been converted very slightly.

1:53It's quite rough into a house. So we all live in like one bedroom. We poop into a bucket. Oh. Wait a minute, who's we all? Who's we all? The poop club. Well, it's myself, my beautiful wife. We've married eight years today. Oh, hey! I'm not gonna celebrate this marriage until I find out a little more. Fair enough, fair enough. I'm not gonna yay. You're in a shipping container, dude. Now, you live in a shipping container that you say is 40 feet? 40 feet. By what? Yeah, 40 feet. It's small. It's small. And we've got four dogs and two beautiful children, six-year-old and a three-year-old girl. They're both girls, and they're my world.

2:42But it does - I'm sorry. Your world is a shipping container. That's what your world is, Riley. I've got a wife that's real understanding. You know, I'm six foot three, 280 pounds. Oh my God. I can fit in this house. There's a doorway that I'm getting a little chubby around my tummy at the moment. I used to be a lot more ripped. And then I can fit in this doorway just if I move sideways and that gets me to the toilet. So it's motivation for me to keep slim. The toilet is a bucket. It's a beautiful bucket though. It's orange. I'm sorry. So it's my favorite color. You sold me. Yeah. Does it flush and have plumbing?

3:23Or is it just... No. Okay. It doesn't. It's a compostable toilet. And every second day, you know, we put sawdust once we've done our business. Then every second day, we take it out into the bush and pour it into a big area where all our stuff lay. And then we can use that as compost. So if you ever come over, Conan, you can eat some of our beautiful fruit and vegetables that's made from our feces. Wow. Maybe the nicest offer I've had in many a year. If you'd like to join me in my small box, you can eat from our shit, says Riley. Riley, I'm sorry. Is the bucket, I hate to get too graphic, but is the bucket inside the shipping container?

4:14because there's no amount of sawdust in the world i mean what are you talking about you're in a small 40 foot by six foot trailer and you're pooping into a bucket yeah it's i'm sorry now i'm depressing him did you not realize my life is there a separated room there is a little room divider for it it is a little room yes um i there is a little So what we've got is there's a bucket, there's a toilet seat, and then there is a hole that has a fan on it that blows all the bad air out. So it's not that bad. It's not the worst thing in the world. And like I said. It's not having acid put into your empty eye socket.

4:59You're right. It's not the worst thing in the world. It's next in line, though. But it's right next to it because I have a list here of the worst things in the world. and acid in the eye socket is, you're right, is one worse than poop bucket in a container in a very hot environment. Riley, and you say your wife is okay with this life. Did she accept this life right away or did it take a while for her to acquiesce? She's Scottish, so she's very frugal. She's Scottish, She's used to living in a shitty environment. Everyone in Scotland immediately says, like, yeah, if it's between Scotland or a shithole, I guess I'll take the shithole.

5:43Come on. She saves money on power and water and fertilizer. So those three things are saved. So she's very, very happy. I mean, last time I spoke to her about it, she was happy about it. But eight years marriage, you know, I must be doing something right. Yes, I don't mean to, and I'm just going to say this, shit on your life in any way. It's good. Because you seem like a happy person, and I'm sure it's a nice situation. But I just think having all these, it sounds like you have a lot of animals, too, in addition to children. And it's a very confined space. So do you ask, do people take turns using the house and then other people go outside?

6:29it basically, we're just a very close family. We stayed in a bigger house for a little while. And I always thought we didn't communicate as much as we did if we're in each other's face. Now, it's a little bit, you know, we do have to rub shoulders with each other quite regularly. But, and when my daughters grow older, you know, when they're only six and three now, when they grow older, we might have some issues. But for now - Oh, Riley, you are going to have issues. where are they now i imagine they're just right off screen yeah i'm i'm actually in my little camper van outside the front of my house so it's a little crappy camper van and um they're inside i i've banished them to the container oh so you're not in the container right now no no and we also got a house bus down we've got five acres so which is two two and a half hectares so we've got a house bus on the property that you will stay in when you come conan and then Sonia and Matt.

7:25It's beautiful. It's got its own bucket. We don't shear a bucket, so it's got its own bucket. Oh, so I don't have to bring a bucket. I love that, because whenever I put my shit bucket in the overhead compartment on Delta, they just, they get all in my face. I thought they would. Excuse me, sir. I'm like, hey, it's my shit bucket. Yeah, you should have emptied it first before you tried to put it in the overhead thing. I was late to get to the flight. I didn't want to miss it. You do that every second day. It was an off day. Yeah, it was an off day. Okay, so Riley, what do you do for a living? How does one, I mean, obviously you don't have to make a lot since your fertilizer, water, and food is free.

8:05But still, what is your, what do you do? A combination of things. So we moved down here from Auckland to live more simply, as you can tell by where we live. And we run a swim school. You nailed that a long time ago. Yeah. So you run a swim school. We run a swim school. I teach children guitar, and I run an anime podcast called the Anime Dad Podcast, where I have one Patreon. So that's bringing us$2 a month in as well. So we've got a combination of things. Are you interested in anime then, I imagine? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I am. I love it. I absolutely love it. Do you create anime? Are you an artist yourself?

8:46I do draw. Yeah, for sure. um a lot of a lot of different things but but no anime it's just something right now that you I believe this is what you would like Conan to be as a cosplay character is that right yeah who is that Red Riot yeah that'll be a it's called his name is Red Riot Kirishima what he does his body gets hard oh you bet it does you bet it does and yes you have captured me perfectly so he has a like a full body erection what do you mean it gets hard he has a full body erection and that's how he fights off villains so it's a kid's show because no villain every villain's like whoa whoa all right dude that's a bit much even for me come on sony you've seen me that's exactly you i do i do uh you know take a pretty good care the old carriage yeah um i can see that bicep popping when you're lifting that teacup up there oh man you're not seeing the half of it, dude.

9:44That's a cool character. You are talented. That's a very good drawing. That's very good. Yeah, I'm going to say I drew that. Yep, I did. That's great. You didn't. Computer? That's okay. I can probably draw that if you'd like me to. But no, you are a human embodiment of an anime character. You've got the hair, you've got the good looks, you've got the muscle, you've got the average-sized penis. You know, it's a combination of... You know, it's all proportional, Riley. It's all proportional. So yes, normal size, but then so big that it can often appear at a quick glance. What? Okay. Listen, Riley, I'm just kidding, of course, massive.

10:28The old anaconda.

10:39Listen, Riley, I'm saying listen because I don't know what to say next. You live very simply, as Thoreau told us to. Thoreau told us that we should live very simple lives. Yeah. And you've done that, and you say it's brought you much happiness. I'm not sure if I go home to my wife tonight and say I'd talk to my pal Riley, and he seems to have found true happiness. Would you come with me to this small 40-foot container and we'll bring a bucket. I'm not sure that she would go with it, but it does feel like you're onto something. Yes? It's great. It's great. We're surrounded by animals. We've got 70 chickens, a couple of ponies.

11:23We've got parrots. We've got goats, turtles, and the children, you know, we're in the bush, so we're quite hidden away from people, which is okay. Do you miss people? Or do you talk to the parrots? The parrots are like, You're crazy. You're crazy. You're living in a container. Why are you insane? My wife is my best friend. So she's all I need. She really is. She's my best friend. She's my everything. Well, I'd say that if it were true too. So that's all I need. But we do have a lot of people. You know, most of our town is old. But they are, you know, most of them do think anime is a type of sushi.

12:09but they are lovely people overall. You know, they seem to help one another. And have you been to New Zealand at all? I've not been to New Zealand and I want to go. I very much want to go. Seriously. Yeah, I'd like to go. A good friend of mine was in New Zealand recently for a job and said it was absolutely lovely. So I'd love to see it. You'll fit in really, really well. You'll fit in really, really well because they like, you know, Gandalf and you're probably the size of Gandalf, the height of Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. Wait, you're saying they'll like me because I'm tall like Gandalf. Now, Gandalf the Grey or the original Gandalf or Gandalf the Grey.

12:49Wow. Or Gandalf the White. Gandalf the Grey or Gandalf the White. See, I know my movies. I'd say based on your complexion, Gandalf the White. Yes. That's kind of a no-brainer. But that's like the more ascendant one, right? Shall not pass! There you go. Yeah, that's good. Right? I could do that. Talk to Ian McKellen many times. You do that really, really well. Yeah, you just fit in beautifully. So in New Zealand, Lord of the Rings is not all we have, but it's - Yeah, it is. Riley, it's the first thing people think is Lord of the Rings. It is. And then did they shoot Xena, Warrior Princess there?

13:28I think they did. Yeah, I think they did. But they shoot a lot of things here. Why did you ask about Xena? I don't know. I kind of have a thing for her. Okay, but she's not there anymore. She's one of those 90s crushes, you know. Okay, but I don't think she's there anymore. She's in the container, actually. What? Yeah. She's in the container. Everyone's in a container. When you talk about, there's a town that has regular houses, right? Not that yours isn't a regular house, but - It's not. When you go into town, there are little homes and shops and things? There are, yeah. So my town of Hokitika, that's where we run the swim school.

14:06We run it in a pool, not in a lake or the ocean. So there's a pool there in town and it is a bunch of lovely people. You know, we all look after each other, look out for each other. I think there's about 3 ,000, 4 ,000 people. And I'm originally from, as you can hear from my voice, this is not the Kiwi accent that you'd expect. I'm South African originally and we moved to New Zealand. Is there a movie theater in town? Is there a movie theater in town? It is, and it's a lovely old theater that's got someone jumps on a pedal bike to start the projector. No, it's an old theater and it's - I see what you're doing.

14:47You're having a little fun with me. It's like an old, where they used to do musicals and stuff like that. So it's quite beautiful. What about medical? If there's a medical emergency, do you have to be flown to another island? I'm just trying to find out how rural this is. medical emergency there's a hospital half an hour away so as long as you've got half an hour to spare in your medical emergency you're not going to die so hospital half an hour away we're actually going to a place called christ church today um for a bit of a weekend getaway for our anniversary and that is three hours away and that's a bigger city so christ church is similar to auckland which you may have heard of so it's a bigger city um we're gonna eat mcdonald's you know do flush our toilets and do stuff that we don't usually do here, which is quite special.

15:36You better after eating McDonald's. Yeah. Oh. I remember when it was my anniversary and I told my wife, I'm taking you to McDonald's. Didn't go over. Didn't really go over with her. See, that's, my bar is really low. No, but that's what the genius of what you're doing, Riley, is that by living in this container, it's incredible. When you say we're going to go out and eat a McNugget, everybody just lights up. It's fantastic. They do. There's not much. Literally, I could say to my daughter, they go into the house that we're staying at, they flush the toilet, and they can stay there for two, three hours just having fun flushing a toilet.

16:13It's like they're going to a... It's like time travel. It's time travel. You're right. It's very, very special. They must really flip out when they... I mean, imagine if watching a toilet flush is exciting, then you get to go see a movie. Wow, yeah. That's incredible. That's pretty cool. You're like, wow, I'll see it top that toilet flush I just made. You know what I mean? It's incredible. It's one step above, yeah, toilet flush and then movie. But Conan, are you an anime watcher? Because you look like an anime character, I suspect you watch a couple Pokemon. I've watched some Studio Ghibli. Does that count?

16:46I've been watching some Studio Ghibli because my daughter's a big fan of anime and Studio Ghibli and she's been showing me these different movies and I love it. I've been watching a lot of that with my daughter. Yeah, they're terrific. They're so beautifully made. Hand, I think drawn by hand, they're really gorgeous. Yeah. Um, they are gorgeous. You sound skeptical. What was that? You have to think a doctor that just looked at my chart. Hmm. Yes. She would like a Pokemon as well. I interviewed the voice actor for Ash Ketchum, uh, from, for Pokemon. She's a woman and she's named Robert. Veronica Taylor.

17:18Um, my best friend is no, I'm not going to make up more. Um, but I, this is just, I, uh, you're insufferable Riley. Now you've gone totally Hollywood on me. You know, I know some people too Riley. He flushes one toilet, this guy. I get excited talking to people. I speak to my parents enough. I have a question. How do you even know about us? You're living out in the wilds. Are you a regular listener of the podcast and you listen through like a coconut? What do you, what's happening? I'm serious. I've got to wind up radio. No, I listen. I watched you on TV when you were a little bit younger. That's why you fled civilization.

18:05If I have to watch Conan one more time. Now I fled. I don't have television. I'll just listen to this simple podcast. Oh, no, it's him again. He won't find me out here. He can't find me out here. But do you listen to the podcast at all? I love the podcast. Sona, Matt, you guys are incredible. Conan, you're the kingpin. You guys work together so beautifully and so well, and you make my day and make me smile every single day. I probably rewatched your episodes so regularly. I could speak like you if I wanted to, but I'm not going to try. No, don't. It would just make me feel bad about the way I sound.

18:46Riley, listen to me. I'm proud of you. And I say this because you have gone out into an extreme situation and you've made it work. And I think to quote, I believe it was Emerson who said, simplify, simplify, simplify. Keep it simple. I think it's cool. Are you living off your land too? Like you pick all your food and you kill your animals? I kill them for fun. No, I do kill them regularly. You don't even eat them. You just kill, you massacre chickens and then bury them in a mass grave. I like to watch them suffer. No, I regularly - You pull pot to chickens. I eat my chickens. I eat my goats. I go out hunting.

19:34There's deer in the bush. And I go out hunting for those things. We grow a bunch of veggies out of our feces. Like I said before. You don't have to keep bringing that up. Don't bring that up when people are eating either. Okay. Hey, that's from my feces. You know, you don't want to bring that up. No. Not at the table. No. Okay. Good point. But no, we are self-sufficient in many ways. We're solar powered. So we're powered by the sun, which is challenging in a small town that has not much sunshine. There's a little bit of rain here now and again. But yeah, we're solar powered. We're on Starlink.

20:08So Elon Musk is my best friend. I'm going to name drop that as well. Oh, good. That won't make you any enemies. Hey, I don't know if you get the news much where you are, Riley, but you might want to ease up. Name drop the Pokemon character a little more than Elon. That'd be my angle. Did he say Pokemon? He certainly did. He said Pokemon. Yeah, it's Pokemon. Oh my God. I've heard it both ways. I've heard it both ways. No, you haven't, Riley. Thanks, Riley. Thanks for covering it. Come on, Riley. Oh, and don't act like you've never heard someone say Pokeyman. I was born in Alabama and we call it Pokeyman.

20:43How do you think Pokemon is like about? Poke-Man met Poke-woman and they made Pokemon. Exactly, thank you. You're welcome. Finally. Well listen, Riley, it was wonderful talking to you and I would love to get out your way sometime. I may come in a helicopter and it may be a helicopter that's quite large and has just a massive bathroom in it. Air conditioning, a wet bar, and a dining room. And I'll stay for 10 minutes.

21:18But I'm definitely coming. Okay, Riley? Okay, that's great. I'll make the bed for you now. But yeah, it's been a real privilege. You guys are incredible at what you do. Oh, thank you. I love you with all my heart. And all I need from you is to say I love you back. Maybe all three of you can say I love you, Riley. One, two, three. I love you, Riley. That's made my anniversary. Thank you very much for that. We haven't had the quarter pounder with cheese yet. Oh, that's for the 10-year, friend. That's for the 10-year. Today it's just fries and a Diet Coke. All right, Riley, you take care. Bye-bye.

21:52Bye. Thank you so much. Bye, guys. Conan O 'Brien Needs a Fan with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam Obsessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Nick D 'Leal, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Supervising producer Aaron Blair, associate talent producer Jennifer Samples, associate producers Sean Doherty and Lisa Berm. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.

22:35This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf