(audience clapping) Good to have you here.
Good to be here, man.
Yeah. You look relaxed and calm.
I'm pretty relaxed and calm right now.
I better be.
You were in the paper a couple days ago.
You'd been New York city
and you're doing Saturday Night Live this week.
Yeah.
So you're here in the city.
You're having fun.
And in the paper the other day you're playing bongos again.
Yes.
And we have a picture here of you that showed up,
I think right there.
Banging away on bongos.
(audience laughing)
Are you in a club there?
Yeah. That's where we had the after party
for the "How to Lose a Guy" New York premiere.
Right. So you just can't...
And that's what you do.
You love bongos--
When I can, yeah.
There's the famous story where you're naked
playing the bongos.
Would you rather play the bongos naked or with clothes?
Which do you prefer?
Absolutely naked.
[Conan] Naked?
(women audience cheers)
What does not, honestly,
what does not feel better?
Naked.
A game of darts, I think.
(audience laughs)
Okay, game of darts.
I could come up with a lot.
North pole. But I mean you know--
Driving a Camaro.
That's been out in the hot sun for a long time.
(audience laughing)
I can think of a lot of things
that I would rather have my clothes for.
You're clearly, you're very comfortable.
You're very comfortable with your body though.
I mean, not everybody is, you know.
I wear this thing when I sleep, I'm wearing...
I'm like lying in bed like, "Sleep, come to me now."
[Matthew] You know what though?
Here's here's what I mean.
When I can...
You know, I mean civilization and sophistication
is a bit of a bitch.
And that's where clothes came in.
So you think clothes are somehow getting in our way.
No, they're all right.
But they become like symbols or they become like a...
You get identified by the clothes that you wear.
[Conan] Right. Right.
And it's sort of the reason, not only that I like to
play or be on a drum in the buck.
But also I like to travel.
Africa, South America places like that.
You go there, nobody speaks English.
Are you naked on the plane ride over?
No. (laughing)
And I can't wait to get off man.
So, so you're just like, when you're traveling
you like to be naked?
Well, you go to those countries
and they don't objectify nudity.
They don't objectify certain parts of the body.
You know, I mean, again yeah,
running through the jungle through some of those sticks
and stuff may not be the best time to be completely naked.
But there's a real purity to it that I think is true, man.
[Conan] Well here, we're probably also very...
In this culture in America, we're very,
we can be very uptight.
Founded by the Puritans, you know.
So people are, I know, I get very uptight when
anybody's naked around me.
I just...suddenly I just...I want out of there.
You know what I mean?
You got any kids?
No.
(laughing)
Yeah, yeah sex, makes me very uptight.
Can't have that.
(audience laughing)
What's that...
Before we move on to other things,
you're very serious about the bongos.
Do you play bongos with other people?
Or if you're on your own do you put on a record
and play the bongos to the record?
Basically anything with a bassline.
And one of my favorite, just timeless, man.
Timeless basslines is Ted Nugent's "Stranglehold."
Ever heard of that?
Oh yeah. Yeah.
I call him "The Nuge."
"The Nuge."
The Motor City Madman.
Motor City Madman.
But he's got this bassline that...
It's so easy.
You can just be...
The first time you've ever played drums
you can fall into this bassline and find a beat.
And the great thing about this
for seven minutes and 13 seconds to that song...
(bass sounds)
Are you touching yourself or what?
(audience laughing)
Now I see why you like to do it naked, yeah.
(audience laughing)
And--
And what do you do while that's...
I'll do that part.
And you do what you do on the bongos.
(bass sounds)
Do you wanna do this on a subway platform later tonight?
(audience clapping and cheering)
We're gonna be in the subway.
Yeah, nothing wrong with that, man.
We're gonna be in the Columbus Circle Subway.
I can tell you one quick thing on the bongos.
If you do do it.
If you wanna do it without getting arrested
which is, you know, pretty good prescription.
Right.
The only thing I learned from that incident was
shut your window.
Oh, you had the window open?
Yeah, I woke up the neighbors.
And that was the only thing I'd learned
that shut the window
Shut the window and all the naked bongo-playing you want.
You'll be fine.
Okay, you mentioned travel.
When you travel...
A lot of people say, "Yeah, I traveled.
I, you know, I went to Hawaii and I took a vacation.
I went to Paris."
You go to very sort of exotic places, don't you?
You've actually, sometimes you go to dangerous places.
Well, I mean, some dangerous things have happened.
It always feels like I'm
in the safest place in the world though.
I mean--
Has your life ever been threatened?
Like you've been out, you know
in the jungle somewhere dense.
Then, you know, you've encountered--
A couple of times.
I went like, I just got back from Mexico.
Went jogging through the jungle, almost stepped
on an eight foot ilmacoa.
Which is this big black snake.
That is not poisonous.
Even though the story is better if it was.
(audience laughing)
We can edit that part out
and just have you say it's filled with a deadly poison.
Oh, it's an eight foot black ilmacoa.
And anyway, it coiled and got away from me.
Thank goodness.
I believe, I haven't test it out yet,
but I've got a theory on this.
Let's take a grizzly bear for instance.
[Conan] Okay.
I've thought about this a few times
but I think I know how to win that one.
Now, let's say you got a knife.
You get a knife.
Let's give eight to 10 inches of a blade.
That's fair.
[Conan] Okay. Okay.
You're gonna have to take one good hit here
before you get it.
You've thought a lot about fighting a grizzly?
(audience laughing)
I have.
This is what I have dreams about.
You've given this a lot of thought?
You think about, like,
"Okay, me and a grizzly, how am I gonna do it?"
This is pretty fascinating.
I'm very, very intrigued about how this is gonna go down.
Okay, I'm the grizzly.
You're the grizzly.
(growling sounds)
I need to think.
What are most people gonna do?
You're gonna go back-- Wait, honey first.
(gulping sounds)
(audience laughing)
So, you're coming, right?
Most people are gonna go back.
Right.
If he's gonna get you, here's the thing now,
when you stand up, give me the big wingspan.
(growling sounds)
I'll come inside...
(grunting sound)
Oh, I think--
And wrap him around me, right?
I thought you're gonna kiss me for a second there.
No, no, no. Move.
Okay, yeah.
Take the knife to the gut.
Now, you're eight, nine feet tall wrapping around me.
(grunting sound)
Yeah?
Come back where you're...
I got you, step...
I pull up into the heart--
Yeah?
And now is where the problem starts.
Because I believe that after I got
your heart up through your rib cage
all your weight is gonna bring us back
down this way.
This way.
(audience laughing)
And now--
And Matthew.
Matthew, Matthew.
Matthew?
Yeah.
Can I just...
Matthew, Matthew?
Yeah?
Can I just say to anyone tuning in right now,
(audience laughing)
this is not what it looks like.
(audience laughing)
Nicely thought out. Now you can see, though.
Now, you can see right there.
The problem then becomes,
how in the hell am I gonna get out from under
the ton and a half grizzly bear that's on top of me.
And I haven't got that far yet.
When you figure out that part, you let me know.
He's dead anyway.
Next time, we're doing that with diagrams, okay?