Hey there.
Welcome.
This is our third show from the Largo Theater.
And we're shooting from this theater.
And what we think is a very responsible way,
medically, I only have a few crew members with me.
They're all socially distanced.
They're all wearing masks.
Now, I do wanna talk about something that is,
well, no way around it quite tragic.
As of this taping, as you know,
there have been over three million
confirmed cases of COVID-19
in the United States and over 133,000 deaths.
Of course, each of those numbers is a person,
and one of those people just happens
to be the mother of one of my writers, Laurie Kilmartin.
Laurie shared her experiences
watching her mother leave this world on Twitter.
It's been getting a lot of attention.
Each of the tweets she wrote,
even the funny ones are, of course, heartbreaking.
I haven't seen Laurie
since we stopped filming at Warner Brothers in March,
but I wanted to talk to her
and let her share her devastating experiences with you.
A lot of people were really drawn
to your very precise way of expressing pain,
but also making it funny at the same time and very human.
And nobody does that quite like you.
And some of the tweets were really pretty remarkable.
I was reading them, and as your mom was passing away,
and I would find myself laughing,
but also understanding how much you loved your mom.
You walk this tightrope, which is really fascinating.
Yeah, I guess, like every comic,
you don't like to sit in a feeling too long,
you'd like to pull yourself out of it.
And the best way for us to do it
is write a little joke about it.
And also, weirdly, I had already done this
with my dad when he died of lung cancer.
At that time, I didn't wanna leave his bedside.
He was doing home hospice
and the whole family was around him.
So I was just sort of tweeting little jokes
about what it was like.
And so, I have a specialty now,
and we'll probably never find love,
'cause why would you wanna enjoy my family?
(laughs)
But, so yeah, it was just a way for me
to at least find some meaning in it.
And also, I didn't feel like people knew enough
what a COVID death was like and how strange,
and surreal, and awful it is.
Would you mind sharing a couple of the tweets with us?
Yeah.
Okay, here's a few.
"My sister and I are both heartbroken
"that mom's last words to us were complaints
"about the nursing home and not about our appearance."
(Conan laughs)
"I just left a one-star Yelp review
"of the skilled nursing facility
"where my mom caught COVID-19."
Yeah, that seems like a well-deserved one-star.
Yeah.
"I was just notified that since my mom
"is a Trump supporter who died from COVID,
"her death has been ruled a suicide."
Oh, wow, okay.
(laughs)
So, this brings up something
that I wanted to talk to you about.
The COVID pandemic has somehow
improbably become now a political issue,
which really shouldn't be, I don't think.
But your mom was an avid Trump supporter,
and that was one of the areas of conflict
between the two of you,
but you sort of learned to coexist with that,
is that right?
Yeah, I mean, you just, and I think a lot of people
go through this just don't talk politics with that person.
But also I regret that I let it get in my head so much,
'cause I do think it affected
the last year or two I had with her
'cause I was so enraged.
I would blame her for policies that she didn't know about,
when I looked at the media, she was consuming,
she didn't know they were happening.
So yeah, that made things more awkward for sure.
Your mom's situation was tragic,
all these deaths are tragic,
but your mom was negative for COVID,
you guys have been very careful about COVID,
and then she had to go into a nursing home
where she contracted COVID.
Is that right?
Right, she was hospitalized for shortness of breath.
She was in poor health,
and she might have died this year anyway.
But after she was removed from the hospital
and taken to a skilled nursing facility
so she could just get a little bit of her strength back,
and that's where she caught COVID.
One person got it, and then within nine days,
apparently they had 50 cases.
It was crazy.
So, she was hospitalized.
And then after about a week, she died at that hospital,
Maybe there are a lot of people out there
that hear about COVID, people passing away from COVID,
but they don't really know what it's like.
It's, in your experience, a particularly cruel way to die.
It's awful.
And I have the comparison of my father
because he did home hospice.
It was nine days of him at home.
We were all with him the entire time.
We had friends coming by
to tell them what they loved about him.
It was like a parade and a celebration of his life.
My mom didn't get to have any last words.
The COVID like took her to a place
where she couldn't speak almost immediately.
She was alone in a room.
The people that came in to take care of her
were dressed head to toe in plastic.
You could barely even see people's eyes.
She didn't know them.
We watched on an iPad, and we were also lucky
that this hospital had done a hotspot in March,
so, they had iPad set up in all the rooms
and we didn't have to share a connection with anybody.
So, after we visited my mom,
we headed back to my house
and we left the connection open for 70 hours until she died.
And, she was just on my iPad
and I just take her around the house
and we'd be talking to her all the time,
and I put her next to me when we fell asleep
and woke up and checked to see
that she's still breathing and said hello to her.
We were just constantly saying,
"Hey, we're here, Mom.
"We're watching you,
"we're making eggs."
This is when we just got a puppy.
"This is our puppy."
We included her in everything we were doing,
and I think that was so important.
And I hope that families
that are going through it now
get to experience something like that.
It's really important for you to be able to let go.
And it's so important for that person.
I mean, people, a lot of the attitude has been,
well, everyone's old anyway, so who cares?
Well, first, they're not all old.
A lot of young people are dying,
and old people don't deserve to go out this way.
It's awful.
It's not fair to them.
And it's so much of it's unnecessary,
if we'd just done the right thing early on,
my mom might be alive.
Maybe she'd be in terrible health
but she'd at least be here.
And if she were going to die this year,
just surrounded by us, and it would be like a normal death
like my dad had.
What do you say to a lot of people out there
who refuse to wear masks?
What do you say to them?
You know what we should say is a mask will protect you.
I think our huge mistake was telling Americans
a mask will protect somebody else.
We're pretty selfish people.
We don't care about other people.
So let's pivot and just say,
"A mask will protect you from an awful death,"
and maybe that'll turn things around.
Yeah.
I have to ask this because I've known you for a long time,
should I, God forbid, anything should befall me
sometime in the near future,
do you have jokes ready to go
for the death of Conan O'Brien?
Have you already written them
or do you think you could access them pretty easily?
Oh, yeah.
The whole writing staff,
we contribute to a Google Doc every single day.
We're so ready for you to die, Conan-
(Conan laughs)
It's a shame you're still here
'cause the country really needs our jokes.
(laughs)
You know what, I have to say,
I've had a great life.
I'd like it to last a lot longer,
but when I go, I would be honored
to have you craft some just amazing jokes
about my passing, because I would like people to laugh.
Let's hope it's not for at least 600 years.
Yeah, my kid has to get into college,
so I need him to go to college.
So yeah, let's keep you around for awhile.
I'm really sorry that you lost your mom,
and in this way that, frankly, just is terrible.
And you know you're one of my favorite people,
and you're one of my favorite comedy minds.
And also, you're such a good person
that you didn't deserve this,
your mom didn't deserve this,
but you have a lot of people around you
as you know that love you.
And we care about you.
And you're fired.
(Laurie laughs)
Maybe this is a good time,
maybe right after the death of your mom,
and here on zoom, on television,
but I'm just not liking the work I'm seeing lately.
(Laurie laughs)
It's been 16 days.
I think it's plenty of time.
I'm ready for it.
I think I'm gonna get a lot of public support
for this move I just made?
I really do.
Well, I miss seeing you in person.
I like our Zoom meetings,
and I wish you and your family
the best during this difficult time.
And like I say, "Yeah, you're fired."
(Laurie laughs)
Thank you very much, Boss.
I appreciate.
Thank you.
You're one of my favorite people too.
And you guys have been so supportive,
and I'm so grateful.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, take care, and I'll see you soon.
Bye.