Muahaha

[0] Conan O 'Brien needs a fan.

[1] Want to talk to Conan?

[2] Visit team cocoa .com slash call Conan.

[3] Okay, let's get started.

[4] Please.

[5] Yes.

[6] Hey, hi Tom.

[7] Welcome to Conan O 'Brien.

[8] He needs a fan.

[9] Nice sweater.

[10] Wow.

[11] Thank you.

[12] Good, good job.

[13] First of all, Gourley on just being so positive so quickly.

[14] Tom, so nice to see you.

[15] I see you have your Christmas tree in the background.

[16] It looks dark.

[17] you are, we're in Los Angeles, where are you?

[18] I'm calling from Dublin, Ireland.

[19] Oh, you're in Dublin.

[20] Oh, look at that fine Irish cable -knit fisherman sweater and a Christmas tree.

[21] I live in a life.

[22] I just want to trade places with you.

[23] I'm sorry, Mr. Gourley is making this sound like the home shopping network.

[24] Tom here is wearing a fine cable net sweater.

[25] It's gorgeous.

[26] It's made of the fine Dublin weave.

[27] Sir, tell us, and Tom, what's your last name?

[28] Loller.

[29] Okay, Tom Loller, calling from, or calling, I guess zooming in, calling, whatever you want to say, appearing to us magically from Dublin.

[30] I love Dublin.

[31] I love the few times I've visited there.

[32] I've had a fantastic time.

[33] Yeah, you've been a few times.

[34] I've been a few times.

[35] One of the times I went, I met up with a bunch of other, well, very famous Irish, Irish comedians from Ireland, who were all hilarious.

[36] And we all did a show together.

[37] at the ambassador's residence in Phoenix Park.

[38] And I thought, these are the funniest people I've ever met.

[39] And then all of us got into a cab to go into Dublin to get a drink.

[40] And the cabby was funnier than all of us.

[41] And I thought that's Dublin.

[42] Do you know?

[43] There's just everyone's just super high professional level funny.

[44] So no pressure on me then for the rest of this.

[45] Well done.

[46] Well, we can always say later on that you're going through a depressive period.

[47] you know and so that gets you off the hook um tom tell me a little bit about yourself uh well i so i live in dublin as you know um and i right now i'm the co -director of a festival here in dublin that the city started a number of years ago called bram stoker festival which is um basically a way of celebrating the life and legacy and work of bram stoker who wrote dracula yep and and so this is interesting to me because i don't have to say i admit i don't know much about bram stoker i Obviously, his work is very famous, but I don't know much about the man himself.

[48] Was he Irish?

[49] Yeah, he was Irish.

[50] And I think part of that one of the big reasons the festival was started was, I guess, to kind of reclaim him as an Irish author, right?

[51] So everybody knows Joyce and Beckett as Irish authors.

[52] But I think a lot of people had kind of assumed or thought that Bram Stoker was British.

[53] And the Brits have a long history of claiming Irish people as their own when they become very successful.

[54] So it was kind of a way of taking it and kind of reclaiming him as a Dublin -born Irish writer, yeah.

[55] That's actually very, I mean, that's fascinating to me. I'm, you may have heard me say, I've said it many times because it's kind of fascinating slash sad to me, but my people emigrated from Ireland in the late 19th century and we've been living in central Massachusetts and I'm still genetically 100 % Irish, which is, I think, tragic.

[56] Tom, will you please reclaim him?

[57] Yeah.

[58] And Americans desperately want me to be reclaimed, and they mean taken back to Ireland and kept there.

[59] We'd be delighted to reclaim you and have you at the festival anytime or in Dublin.

[60] I mean, you're hugely popular.

[61] I feel like lots of the friends or the fans on this podcast are coming from Ireland as well, right?

[62] No, it's funny.

[63] We do have, I do get recognition from Irish people for the TV show, but also a lot from the podcast.

[64] which is very nice so I'd love to go back there and I'd love to reconnect because I think it would be lovely that's a word that I hear a lot lovely lovely in Ireland I've heard that in Ireland they say wasn't that lovely also they say correct me if I'm wrong Tom in America people say um so if you ask me a question I say um yeah I live near the Volkswagen dealership but about two blocks away in my people I've met in Dublin say M e M yeah yeah have you noticed that yeah we actually yeah it's funny you say that because um m m when i i moved to the states for college and i remember that was one of the first things people pointed out when i when i lived there i went to college in pennsylvania and one of the first things people notice was why do you say m all the time um we don't realize it but yeah but that's that's one of the differences we have i guess when i was in new york I had a therapist, a very brilliant woman who was from Dublin, and she used to tell her about whatever was going on in my life, and she'd say, I think you're crazy.

[65] That was her official diagnosis.

[66] Her official diagnosis was that my family was shite, and that I'm crazy.

[67] So this is interesting.

[68] So you're trying to, is there anyone else who we don't know is really, Irish?

[69] Or can we start claiming people who aren't Irish, but just claim them anyway, you know?

[70] Like Daniel Craig, let's just start saying, did you know he's from Dublin, even though he's not?

[71] We should start grabbing cool people and saying they're Irish.

[72] Absolutely.

[73] I mean, look, if you've got a list of people you want me to start claiming is Irish, we can put a festival together about all of them if they need to be.

[74] That's fine.

[75] Yeah, Messy.

[76] Messies from Dublin.

[77] Lionel Messies, a true son of Ireland, and then he was stolen.

[78] He was stolen and taken away to Argentina.

[79] We should just, because there are no better liars in the world and confabulous than the Irish.

[80] So we should just start making a list.

[81] Batman, Batman's from...

[82] Uncle Sam.

[83] No one thinks of Uncle Sam anymore.

[84] What do you talk?

[85] Because he's so Irish.

[86] One's thought of Uncle Sam since like 1911.

[87] I was trying to think of the most American icon possible.

[88] No, no, no. I mean, like, Beyonce.

[89] Did you know that she's from Dublin?

[90] Did you know that?

[91] She's from Galloway.

[92] Yeah.

[93] It's Beyonce McNoles.

[94] I'm telling you, Tom, I think we're really on to something.

[95] Sure, Bram Stoker, let's do that.

[96] But I think you're missing a real opportunity here, and I will help you generate the list.

[97] We're going to come up with just all of the coolest people.

[98] Yeah.

[99] And Keanu Reeves.

[100] Keanu Reeves.

[101] he's from the he's from the south country down there he's from Cork I don't know we could who's to stop us no one can stop us I mean there's no one on this side who's going to stop you I think if you guys have a list you know put together whatever list and we'll find some I mean there's so many people that come to Ireland and then realize that they've got Irish heritage right like Obama was here a few years ago and he's got a very strong like Irish I mean there's so many you go for okay all right you guys can keep him then yeah we need to keep him.

[102] I know.

[103] Wait, can we trade if you're getting Beyonce and stuff?

[104] No. No. Okay.

[105] We can't trade?

[106] Can't trade.

[107] Depending on who you were, sorry, depending on who you were going to say, maybe.

[108] Yeah, it's going to be all worked out.

[109] Listen, Tom, you and I are going to work this out.

[110] We're going to start an exchange, but we're going to make lists of people that the Irish can claim, and then I think we should get to have Liam Neeson.

[111] Yes.

[112] He's so cool.

[113] I'm just curious.

[114] How many of you would we have to trade to get one Liam Neeson?

[115] You know what?

[116] I looked it up.

[117] 35 Conan's.

[118] Yes.

[119] 35 Conan's gets you Liam Neeson's shoulder.

[120] Worth it.

[121] I'll take it sold.

[122] You don't think these celebrities would have a problem with these festivals?

[123] They'll do as they're told.

[124] I would love you for you to say that to Beyonce.

[125] Well, I'm not going to say that to Beyonce.

[126] But boy, I'm going to say it to Liam Neeson.

[127] I don't fear him at all.

[128] You should.

[129] He's, yeah, he's my height and looks like, I mean, I talked to him not long ago And it was so clear to me the minute he walked in the room like, oh, that's a real man. I'm a Lucky Charms leprechaun.

[130] Anyway, Tom, this sounds like a good endeavor.

[131] I'm glad that you're working on building up reclaiming what rightfully belongs to Ireland.

[132] I think that's important.

[133] Yeah.

[134] I mean, we try to, you know, there's only so much you can get out of Dracula, right, in terms of a festival.

[135] Like, we need new ideas every year and we try to present it in different ways.

[136] So we have a lot of fun with it.

[137] It's not just all, we don't just, you know, we describe it as we're not just like, Moahaha, like we try to have a lot of fun with that and kind of bring, oh, that sounds fun.

[138] Yeah, I would go to Mojah, ha, ha, come to Mooha ha.

[139] Well, also, I'm not aware of what else, did Bram Stoker, I don't really know, other than, I know him for Dracula, but did he write, you know, erotic fiction that I could read?

[140] And if it's not erotic fiction, I don't want to read it.

[141] The funny, the first book he ever wrote was actually a book, like it was a guide for civil servants, like people who work again.

[142] Oh, I'm turned on.

[143] So he did write some erotic a fiction.

[144] Yeah.

[145] Exactly.

[146] Yeah.

[147] So depending on your kicks, I guess, that's a good one.

[148] But none of his other work has really made it into the kind of consciousness and design me that Dracula has.

[149] But, I mean, you know, I don't think, like, being a one -hit wonder for Dracula, I feel like, is sort of pretty good.

[150] Yeah.

[151] Oh, yeah.

[152] Yeah.

[153] Rear highlight.

[154] Yeah.

[155] So we tried to kind of stretch out everything.

[156] I mean, some of the stuff that I really enjoy, like, we've done a lot of research into Bram And there's some great kind of lesser known things about him.

[157] Like he once tried to save a man that was drowning in the Thames and London because he didn't live in the UK for a while.

[158] See, that's why they got to claim them.

[159] That's the problem.

[160] If you even if an Irish person goes and lives in London for a week, they get to put up a blue plaque somewhere and say, yep, he's the UK's own Bram Stoker.

[161] You know, it's just not fair.

[162] Only if they're wildly successful, though.

[163] I mean, if they're, you know, as soon as something goes wrong, then they're immediately Irish, to the British again.

[164] Oh, okay.

[165] All right.

[166] Those plaques, by the way, are put up with Velcro.

[167] They come off the minute you do something.

[168] And everyone's getting canceled these days.

[169] I think those plaques probably come off as quickly as they go on.

[170] So I'm going to bring my own blue plaque the next time I go to London and some super glue and just glue it onto a building.

[171] That's good.

[172] And say, you know, Sir Conan O 'Brien lived here or stood here and chewed some bubble yum for 10 minutes.

[173] You're giving yourself a knighthood.

[174] Sure, why not?

[175] Okay.

[176] Yeah.

[177] You want to go back to Ireland, but you're going to have a knighthood from Britain?

[178] That's not going to play well.

[179] So what color plaque do they use in Ireland?

[180] If I go to Ireland, I want to glue some plaques up.

[181] I'm sure we use blue plaques, too.

[182] Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

[183] All right.

[184] Well, find out because I want to find out exactly what they look like.

[185] Make this priority.

[186] Excuse me, Tom's.

[187] Oh, Tom's got such a busy schedule, working on the Bram Stoker Festival.

[188] Yeah, you've got 11 months of downtime.

[189] Yeah, he's, you know, how many plastic fangs can you buy?

[190] Yeah, I've got some time to put it in.

[191] Wow.

[192] I'm a pretty easy bit the head.

[193] I am a civil servant.

[194] I'm here to clean up the bureaucracy.

[195] Tom, I'm gluing some, I'm going to come to Dublin and glue some plaques up.

[196] That's what I'm going to do.

[197] I want some plaques up that say Conan stood here, Conan bought some stew here.

[198] Conan was asked to leave this cat, this.

[199] Gap for unfolding too many sweaters but not buying one.

[200] Things like that.

[201] Well, and how's your life going, Tom?

[202] How's everything in life?

[203] Yeah, it's pretty good.

[204] I mean, I've, you know, as you said, I've got a few, you know, easier months ahead because we're just in planning now.

[205] But outside of work, things are going.

[206] Yeah, things are good.

[207] I'm looking forward to Christmas.

[208] You got your tree up.

[209] Have you done your shopping?

[210] Got my tree up here.

[211] I've got so I just started doing some shopping yesterday.

[212] Yeah, things are, yeah.

[213] I would think that Dublin would be a good now.

[214] wonderful Christmas town.

[215] It would feel very Christmassy there.

[216] Yeah, it does, but it has that horrible thing of kind of in the wintertime here when it's freezing outside and it's roasting inside every shop you go into.

[217] So you kind of panic by really quickly, everything that you don't need for far more than you would typically spend because you're too warm and it's all very stressful.

[218] But yeah, I mean, it is, aside from that, it's a really lovely place to be, although it's a very specific complaint.

[219] Yeah, that's just, you have such a specific complaint.

[220] The temperature difference between the outdoors and the shop itself, is such that I buy more quickly.

[221] I can't live anymore.

[222] I must take my own life.

[223] Tom, do you have a question for Conan at all?

[224] Yeah, actually, I mean, so we're in the stage now of kind of festival planning where we're thinking of ideas for next year.

[225] And I guess just, you know, I run the festival with my friend Maria and we're collaborators, we collaborate with each other and with artists.

[226] And we wondered whether you have ideas for events that we could run at the festival next year or if you yourself would like to come to the festival and put on a show.

[227] Oh, wow.

[228] Well, first of all, I always, I take any excuse to, you know, get in front of a crowd.

[229] I'm very sick that way.

[230] So, you know, it all depends on.

[231] It would almost guarantee you one of those plaques as well, I could say.

[232] We could do like a special edition of red plaques.

[233] Listen, Tom.

[234] No, Tom, I bring my own plaques.

[235] I don't want anything factual on my plaques.

[236] I want all kinds of crazy information.

[237] So it all depends on the schedule, but obviously I'd love to attend a Bram Stoker, you know, festival.

[238] In terms of ideas for what works, I think you have to embrace the Dracula of it all.

[239] I think trying to downplay Dracula is a mistake.

[240] You've got to lean into Dracula, and that means contests, find the Dracula.

[241] He's somewhere in Dublin, and, you know, you have, I mean, don't you think, think?

[242] How many fun?

[243] And then, you know the way there's a, there's a, we have here in the United States, a chili eating contest, and we have hot dog eating contest.

[244] How many hot dogs can people eat very quickly?

[245] I think it would be how much blood can you drink from this carotid artery?

[246] Who can drink it the fastest?

[247] Obviously, you don't drink it from a real person, but you simulate a carotid artery.

[248] And then you have a whole bunch of people like in a pie eating contest and see who can down the most, and it's not real blood.

[249] There's like fake cadavers on a table dummies, like crash test dummies.

[250] Okay.

[251] And who can drink the most blood and it's one, two, three, go.

[252] And you know, the blood can be I mean, I would prefer it if it was real human blood but I understand how that's going to turn some people off.

[253] But we could come up with a caro syrup or something.

[254] This is actually a great idea.

[255] You have to like a blood drinking contest and also like intestines, but they're linked sausages that you have to just keep eating like a hot dog contest.

[256] Well, that's a werewolf.

[257] What are you talking about?

[258] Do they eat?

[259] Hold it.

[260] Dracula does He doesn't eat your intestines.

[261] You know what?

[262] You're right.

[263] What are you talking?

[264] I love how you immediately got angry, like, what are you talking about?

[265] And I said, Dracula, and you went, oh, right.

[266] No, he drinks your blood.

[267] Is that a werewolf, though?

[268] Yeah, a werewolf will disembowels you, rips you up, tosses your innards all around, and then goes running over the hill going, Ah, ooh!

[269] You're right, and I'd like to formally apologize and...

[270] To the Bram Stoker community.

[271] To the Bramstoker estate.

[272] I'd like to have my plaques taken down.

[273] I'm sorry.

[274] Hey, is there a Bram Stoker estate, meaning are there people that still profit from Dracula movies and things like that?

[275] There is, yeah, actually, the Bram Stoker estate kind of allow us to continue with the festival every year.

[276] He has a great grand nephew called Daker Stoker, who comes to the festival quite often, who's also an author, and has actually written extensively about Dracula, but also wrote a prequel book to Dracula.

[277] Can I ask you something?

[278] Does his great grandson ever appear to be someone who's lived for millennia?

[279] you know, like, is like hundreds of years old and actually could be Bram Stoker and does he ever say, well, when I wrote Dracula, er, er, I mean, when my great, great, M, M, my great grandfather wrote it and then you realize that he is in fact Vlad Dracul.

[280] Yeah.

[281] He does have a very particular look, so you might be on to something there.

[282] I'm telling you, lean into Dracula because the civil service novel ain't going nowhere fast.

[283] Melville wrote one of those, Bartleby, the Scribner and it didn't sell and then he went back to the giant fish and again he was in the money so you got to lean into what works and I think if bram were alive today he'd be writing all kinds of more Dracula you know Dracula goes to to Las Vegas he'd be doing rom -coms with Dracula has a Nancy Myers kitchen you know there'd be all kinds of Dracula would be in the Marvel universe oh I mean he would he just would so lean into it I say Hey, speaking of eating people's intestines, I hear you're quite a cook.

[284] Is that right?

[285] Good transition, by the way.

[286] Thank you.

[287] Thank you.

[288] I was told to get that in.

[289] Yes.

[290] You're a cook?

[291] Is that right?

[292] So I'm not, I mean, I'm not a professional cook, but it is the thing that I love doing the most, yeah.

[293] And as I've got, you know, I enjoy cooking for like big groups of people, but I actually just started seeing someone recently enough who is also a really good cook.

[294] And I think he is, in fact, far better than I am, which is.

[295] That threatens your identity, doesn't it?

[296] the next well.

[297] Slightly, yeah.

[298] Because you thought of yourself as the great cook and now this other person comes along and he's the better cook.

[299] Can I come to your house?

[300] Can you cook for me?

[301] Sure, yeah.

[302] We can both cook for you and then maybe you could decide which one is better.

[303] Okay, all right.

[304] I don't know that you have the most refined.

[305] I don't have any palate.

[306] I have a, you know, I'll do anything.

[307] Her meter is Burger King or not Burger King.

[308] That's the only thing that she can determine.

[309] I well that's and and you know I think Ireland used to get a bad rap for not having very good food and that may have been true for a long time but I feel like in the 1990s that reputation started to change greatly because what I heard is that young brilliant chefs that couldn't get a job in London would go to Dublin and suddenly that became this center of great cuisine and I think that's emanated out now that that people in a in Ireland actually enjoy very good food.

[310] Is that true?

[311] Totally.

[312] Ireland's a great place to eat.

[313] I think even, you know, a few years ago, it might have just been in Dublin, but now across the country, there's so many incredible places to eat.

[314] And I think, yeah, we had a bad reputation for, you know, like ham and cabbage is like what people think, you know, is like Stan.

[315] Although having cabbage is a pretty good meal, if you ask me, but it was kind of what people expected.

[316] Yes.

[317] Irish food to be.

[318] But now it's much, it's much broader than that.

[319] Well, I think I grew up, my mother exclusively, there was a lot of fried ham.

[320] A lot of ham and then fried ham and potato and potato with fried ham and then fried ham with potato.

[321] It was delicious.

[322] It was really good, but it was a lot of that.

[323] And I think that was handed down generationally because when her people left Ireland, that's what it was.

[324] And so even all those years later in the 1970s, I'm eating a ton of fried ham to the point where I think I died two years ago.

[325] Your Dracula.

[326] I'm Dracula.

[327] Hey, wait a minute.

[328] Back me up on this, Tom.

[329] In Stoker's Dracula, doesn't he also turn into a wolf, a werewolf, on the Demeter?

[330] Have you read Dracula?

[331] You're really cutting me out here.

[332] Have you read Dracula?

[333] I would love it.

[334] He's just going on and out of about.

[335] We're reclaiming Bram Stoker.

[336] I'm reclaiming Bram Stoker.

[337] I just realized he's a wolf.

[338] He could turn into a wolf, a bat, and a mist.

[339] Are you going to fight me on the...

[340] Everyone knows Dracula eats intestines?

[341] Yeah, you really want the sausage thing.

[342] to happen.

[343] Because that's just stupid.

[344] If you want it all, it'd be on the weirdest technicality.

[345] I'll take it.

[346] Yeah.

[347] Yeah, we all know Dracula urinated places to mark them.

[348] And he was always chasing cats.

[349] What are you talking about?

[350] He could turn into a wolf.

[351] Okay.

[352] I'm sorry, it's true, right?

[353] You can, yeah.

[354] Okay.

[355] So, yeah, all right.

[356] Vindicated in the most major way.

[357] Yeah.

[358] All right, well, Tom, I guess that's another suggestion for your Bram Stoker Festival is.

[359] Some werewolf events.

[360] Well, not werewolf.

[361] Dracula turning into a dog and eating sausages.

[362] Yeah, he could also turn into the thing from the Fantastic Four.

[363] Okay, now you're just poking fun and that's ridiculous.

[364] Well, I'm really happy with myself.

[365] Tom, thank you.

[366] Thank you for reaching out.

[367] Speaking to us, I will take it to heart this whole Bram Stoker controversy.

[368] I will work in the fact that Bram Stoker is Irish in every conversation that I can in the most awkward way.

[369] And I will fight this fight for you.

[370] All right.

[371] Well, happy holidays.

[372] Yeah, you too.

[373] Thank you so much.

[374] Take care.

[375] Thank you, guys.

[376] Thanks very much.

[377] Thank you.

[378] Bye -bye.

[379] Bye -bye.

[380] Conan O 'Brien needs a friend with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gourley.

[381] Produced by me, Matt Gourley.

[382] Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Nick Liao, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf.

[383] Theme song by The White Stripes.

[384] Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.

[385] Take it away, Jimmy.

[386] Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples.

[387] Engineering by Eduardo Perez, additional production support by Mars Melnick, talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn.

[388] You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode.

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