Hey there.
Welcome to "Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend".
I'm sorry.
That's a legitimate opening to the show.
That's the problem.
That's the...
We do so much right before and they're like,
"Okay, okay, everybody stop."
And then you're like, "Hello there."
Yeah, well-
I know we've talked about this before
but it never stops being funny.
It really doesn't. Well, you know what?
Okay, let's be honest with the listener
that seconds before I said, "Hey there, and welcome,"
we were babbling back and forth.
And Sona you've been using a lot of Armenian words today.
Yes, I have.
Now the one that you just used just seconds
before we started, Matt burped.
Yeah.
And then you said something, what did you say?
I said (speaking foreign language).
(speaking foreign language)
What does that mean?
Like (speaking foreign language) means...
'Cause I'm speaking Armenian to my babies.
Mm-hmm.
So when they burp or, you know, fart or something
I go (speaking foreign language),
which means like, "I hope that was delicious."
(Matt laughing)
I hope that was delicious?
I hope like whatever made you do that was delicious.
Oh, I see. Oh, I see.
Not that the fart was delicious?
No, no.
Like I hope like...
I know that you're belching because you ate something.
Like, I hope it was good.
Oh, I like that.
And that's (speaking foreign language)
Okay.
I'm gonna use that with my daughter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's nice.
The other one is...
You and I have been friends for a long time.
Yeah.
And when I get comfortable with people
I sometimes when I see them,
I grab them by the shoulders
and I give 'em a little pat on the back.
When you get comfortable? What's that?
Like five minutes after meeting someone you'll do that.
Six minutes. (Sona laughing)
But anyway, I saw you today and sometimes you'll strike me
and maybe I'll give you a little pat on the back.
You grab and you shake a lot.
I grab and I shake to try and improve
people's circulation.
Oh, is that why?
You're really dancing the line
to make sure people know
you're not like abusing people.
But you are abusing people.
You've a abused Blay for a long time.
Well, Blay, for a while,
I was trying to teach him to be a,
you know, what to do in an attack.
Oh, you were helping him.
So I would strike him occasionally.
And Blay, you were fine with it, weren't you?
Uh.
Okay. We're good. Okay.
That's all the time we have, yeah.
So, Sona, I was giving you like a little,
"Oh, Sona!" and I grabbed you.
I was excited to see you
and I give you a little shake.
And you said-
I said (speaking foreign language).
And I say that to my boys who are 10 months old.
One of them, especially.
I say to Charlie-
One of them especially is 10 months old?
No!
One of them, especially, I say it more often.
Oh, I see.
' Cause he is very rough and
he's still learning about his body.
So I'm like (speaking foreign language)
whenever he is like petting-
And what does (speaking foreign language) mean?
It means like slowly, like gently, be gentle.
Chilling.
And when you were like shaking me
and, you know, being Conan,
I said it to you almost instinctively
the way I say it to my little baby.
So the relationship you have with your 10 months old-
Yeah. 10-month-old twins,
is the same relationship you have with me?
I'm trying to teach him how to be a human being.
Yeah. This makes sense.
And I say the things to him that,
I say to you what I say to him
when I'm teaching him how to be a functioning human.
What's the, you're teaching,
you want them to be only know Armenian?
Or do you also want them to know English?
I don't want them to know English at all.
Not I'm kidding!
Of course I want them-
(Conan and Matt laughing)
That's what I was getting to.
You want them to be strangers in a strange land
their whole lives?
I want them to have little accents.
Now how does that work?
How do you balance it
between English and Armenian at home?
Usually we speak to them mostly in Armenian.
Wait, but they need to know English too.
They'll learn!
My first language was Armenian and I learned English.
Don't do, come on. Did you?
I knew you were gonna do a bit.
Well you have problems.
What? Your G's are very hard.
Her G's are very hard.
Hey man, (speaking foreign language).
Okay?
(Sona and Matt laughing)
You're right.
You know what?
That's very soothing when you say
(speaking foreign language).
They say if one parent speaks to them
only in whatever language,
and then the other one speaks them in English,
they can just grow up being bilingual
which is what we're hoping for.
Or speak neither language really properly.
That's another possibility. Yeah.
Okay. Armenglish.
Yeah. Armenglish.
Yeah, that's true.
I mean it's yeah,
but (speaking foreign language).
I'm gonna say that to you from now on when you're-
I grew up, my parents who are, you know
super hardcore Irish Catholics
and my life was filled with these phrases and words
that I realized later on other people don't use
every single day.
What?
Yeah, my mom would call...
Say like you're being a bold stump.
Oh yes, I love this.
You know, I told you that? Yeah!
But also "Jesus, Mary and Joseph"
was something that I heard that every three seconds.
What is the other one? Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
I don't like that even fooling.
Well, that's not, I don't know if that's an Irish thing.
That was more of just a,
"Well, I don't like that even fooling"
But why do you speak so much nonsense?
Gibberish? Yes, so much gibberish.
I think it's in the blood.
I mean, you know, the Irish love to invent words.
After drinking.
Okay, that's wow, incredible.
And again, I'm gonna repeat,
it's the last ethnic group...
We are the last group you can make fun of and nobody-
Right after you just assaulted her for being an Armenian.
Yeah.
I didn't assault her being an Armenian.
I just think you have to choose a language
and stick with it.
Oh, okay, okay.
No, and it's-
It's good that that's recorded.
Yeah. Yeah.
You're right.
There's no movement to get rid of the Leprechaun from
you know, was it Lucky Charms?
Yeah. Yeah, of course not.
Or to change the Notre Dame mascot.
Or the Celtics. Like that's fine.
Yeah. Yeah.
'Cause where are they gonna go from there?
A banshee?
No, it's downward.
No, no.
What? I'm Irish.
I can say this.
Oh, you're Irish.
I am. Oh my God.
How much Irish are you?
How much do I need-
You're probably like 1/15 Irish and the rest is-
I'm Scots-Irish.
Oh, okay.
That's not Irish, sorry.
The longer that we do this the more I realize
you two are very similar.
How dare you?
I'm sorry, but if I say,
"Oh, I went to Harry Truman's,
"by his house the other day"
You guys would be like, "Oh my God, the one-"
I saw you there.
Yeah.
I can't believe we haven't passed each other
in all these different historic sites.
I know! I'm just a Goddamn hipster.
But I'll say that growing up,
they're just all these different words
that I realize are just sort of in the bloodstream.
But the big thing is I grew up, my father invented words.
Oh. His father invented words.
My grandfather on my mother's side invented words.
Like what? Do you remember any?
M y dad, when we were, he wanted us to get going
he'd say, "Come on, we gotta flang it and swang it.
"We gotta flang it and swang it.
"Let's go!" Wait a minute.
That seems very sexual.
And when you say he wanted us to get going,
we gotta flang it and swang it?
Yeah. That's his dad, Matt.
That's my dad and I was a kid.
Don't be a creep.
But anyway-
I don't think I'm the creep, here.
I like flang and swang it.
I like that. No, no, no.
That's like wedding night talk.
God sweating. Doubling down?
(speaking foreign language)
You're right.
(speaking foreign language)
It was delicious, though.
But I, I think every third word, and just in my life,
I mean, I didn't do it all the years broadcasting.
Oh.
But in my everyday life,
I'm mostly speaking invented words.
Yeah, you are.
And it's just complete nonsense.
And I remembered talking to my dad about it once
and I was trying to come up with an intellectual
cool reason why we do this.
And I said, "You know, and I had read this once.
"There's a theory that the Irish love to destroy
"and bend and twist language like James Joyce.
"We love to do it.
"We love to do it because it's a rebellion
"against the English language that was imposed on us by-"
The Scots-Irish?
Yeah, no.
That was imposed on us by the, you know,
the British overlords that that took over our country
and enforced their language upon us.
And this was our rebellion.
And I had this whole articulate argument
for why this was like a beautiful form of rebellion.
My father cut me off and went, "No, no, no, no, no.
"We do it 'cause we can't help it."
(Sona and Matt laughing)
And I realized, yeah, it's right.
It's just a weird compulsion we have to make up-
Yeah. Bullshit words.
And use them and babble away, so.
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway.
Well, it was like that mug that Greg Daniels got you.
That was on your desk for-
True story.
Yeah, when I started my late night show in September of 1993
just before I went on the air,
my writing partner, Greg Daniels,
who went on to huge success.
He did a few stuff.
He did so much better without me.
Once he got rid of the albatross-
Dead weight.
The dead weight, he blew up.
But he gave me this mug that I kept on my...
I had the Eisenhower mug that Robert Smeigel gave me
years ago that I had on my desk at "Saturday Night Live"
and I had this drinking mug.
And it was one that Greg made and he painted on it
all the words that I would babble,
that I had made up, gibberish and nonsense.
And so I still have that mug to this day.
And it was on my desk every episode
of all the different shows that I had.
Yeah.
That memorializes that this has been a problem
for me my entire life.
Yeah, yeah.
He did that.
But you know, we can't waste any more time.
I suggest we flang it and swang it.
Excuse me.
Excuse me, human resources.
(Sona laughing)