Welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a friend.
I just spit some gum out of my mouth.
How many sticks?
How many? I think I put in three pieces.
Right.
Sona, you've observed over the years
that I'm incapable of having just one stick of gum.
It is, but it's not even like,
you have the pack in your hand,
you take it, you unwrap it, you shove it in your mouth,
then you unwrap another one, you shove it in your mouth,
then you unwrap another one, you shove it in.
And it's like there's five or six pieces
in there sometimes and you chew it for like five minutes,
and then you just spit it out (laughs).
It's fucking weird.
Wow, well, I thought you were gonna say
this was kind of endearing,
or this is a little trait Conan has, but it got bad quickly.
I didn't mean to say it.
It is like when you were chewing right now,
it's nice that I know that you
have so many sticks in your mouth (laughs).
That is nice.
There's something compulsive,
I mean, I have a compulsive nature in some ways,
and gum brings it out.
If there's 20 pieces of gum in a pack,
I want to get through them.
It feels to me like a task.
Why?
I've gotta get through these pieces of gum.
If it's the little kind of small rectangles,
like the Tridents,
I'll get like four of those in my mouth
and be chewing them
and I feel like I've gotta get this done,
and then I've gotta get on to the next ones.
I kind of understand that.
Do you understand what I'm talking about?
Really?
I do! I'm not happy about that.
And you know what? I don't smoke.
I've never smoked,
but in movies I'm always fascinated when people smoke
because it speaks to me.
And I think if I did smoke,
I'd be one of those guys that smoked four packs a day.
Chain smoker.
I'd be lighting one cigarette,
getting through it,
and keeping my eye on the next cigarette.
That's what I'd be doing.
And it would be, it's a compulsion.
You know what, if it's gum, it's okay.
I don't see anything wrong with it.
It's just, sometimes you do things
with a way of showing that you're almost punishing yourself.
(Sona laughs)
Well, no, I mean, it's this way I brush my teeth too.
Yeah. What?
You've seen me.
Yeah, you're just really hard on yourself.
When I brush my teeth,
I just go through toothbrushes really quickly
because they practically catch fire from the friction
of me brushing my own teeth which is why
I switched to one of those electric toothbrushes,
because you can't be as crazy
and it's the same way, I mean,
I saw this, I grew up, my father's the same way,
he washes his hands like he's murdering his enemy.
(Sona laughs)
His lifelong enemy.
He washes his hands, and he's squeezing,
and if you could slip a piece of coal
in between his hands while he's washing them,
he'd crush it into a diamond, like Superman.
You do that sometimes when you laugh really hard-
Oh, of course. You sit back and you go.
Yeah I'm compressing and I used to think, what is that?
People would say, are you nervous or something?
And I'd go, no, it's extremes.
If I'm extremely happy sometimes-
Yeah. or pleased,
I squeeze my hands together.
I don't know. I don't know what it is.
This is making me sad for myself.
No, don't be sad!
You could be using it in very negative ways and you're not.
Just because you brush your teeth too hard
or you chew a lot of gum, it could be a lot worse.
Have you seen me wash my face when I used to take
the makeup off after the show?
You know what, I've seen you put makeup on,
if we were on the road or something,
and you had to put some makeup on
just to like even out your face, you were,
it's almost like, I wanna get this done
so I can go onto the next thing.
You know what it is?
It's all get this done so I can get to the grave.
Oh, there it is! (Sona laughs)
It really is.
I swear to God, it's all this attitude of
I've gotta just get this done.
Yay, let's get this birthday party over with,
so I can get to my grave.
(Sona laughs)
There's a grave waiting for me and I got to get to it!
And so, yes, there's an angry haste,
and I've tried so hard, I've tried meditation.
I've tried all these things and eh,
you know, what is this meditation?
I've gotta get going!
Let's go! Let's go!
If you chew just one piece of gum, what happens?
Why can't you just chew one?
Yeah, why don't you tear one in half
and just chew a half a piece of gum.
Okay, I'm gonna just get, this is a Trident,
original flavor.
I don't know what that means.
Oh, with gravy.
(people laugh)
I love how it just says, it's original flavor Trident,
14 sticks, sugar free gum with xylitol.
Oh.
I love how they can just say that, and I'm okay with it.
That could be a terrible chemical!
It could be.
They're putting it forward like it's a good thing.
It could be a disclaimer for all we know.
Yeah, now with asbestos!
No, no, it's Trident,
and they don't do ads with us or anything, but.
They do now.
(people laugh)
And they got it for free.
After I've mocked xylitol?
No, it's a good gum. And it's a gum that I rely on.
(people laugh)
Okay. So what do you want me to do?
This is a very small- Take a half piece.
This feels like it's about an inch.
Yeah.
I'd say that's two.
It's a standard size, not a long piece of-
You think this is two inches? Then I'm in good shape.
Aw, man.
Come on! Here we go.
I'll bet you that's an inch and three quarters
by half an inch or five eights of an inch.
Oh Jesus Christ!
Okay. We'll be back with more boring bets in a minute.
(Sona laughs)
I bet you that peanut weighs less than a gram!
Okay, we'll be back!
Hey, we all have our compulsions.
All right. So I just broke this Trident in piece in half.
Yeah.
And I'm gonna try and just put that in.
All right, but you're chewing too close.
Oh that sound, I can't take that sound.
I have that misophonia thing,
that I can't take people chewing.
Yeah, it's too close.
My daughter has that and can't stand
anyone chewing or eating anything.
I can't either.
Hold on. Why did I ask this?
I don't like too much crunch,
but I'm okay with everything else.
It's not enough.
Yeah.
That's it. It's just not.
I don't wanna bother people who are listening
but I'm gonna cease.
There'll be a cessation of all chewing.
A cessation of all macular activities.
Yeah.
You really saved this podcast from being boring.
(Sona laughs)
From me guessing the width of the gum.
I snatched it from the jaws of defeat!
Okay hold on. Yeah, it's not enough.
It's just not enough.
Yeah, that's thin. I would feel the same way.
I stopped the other day to get gas.
Man those prices are crazy, but don't get me started.
Yeah.
So much money to fill a tank.
Don't you have an electric car?
That's what was insane to me.
He just filled up the backseat with gasoline.
I filled the whole backseat with gasoline.
I forgot that I had an electric car.
Good thing you don't smoke.
Yeah. It's muscle memory.
I was in my electric car and I pulled in,
I was on my way back from Santa Barbara
and I filled the backseat with unleaded gasoline.
It cost $7,000.
(Sona laughs)
It was all sloshing through holes in the bottom of the car.
Oh man, that's dangerous. Yeah.
Wait until he tries to charge his gas tank.
No, I stopped. I was driving, pickup truck.
That's right I'm a guy.
(Sona laughs)
And yeah, all my Hummel figurines were in the back
but I went in and I got those,
they sell gum that comes in,
a sugarless gum that comes in those canisters.
Like a tumbler? Like a bucket.
Like a little bucket. Like a bucket.
Like a tiny little container.
I can't tell you how many pieces I put
in my mouth at one time.
You pour it in.
You would. That's what it's for, and you rely on that.
I did! It was nuts.
I mean, even I left my own body
and looked at myself and said, "what are you doing?"
Yeah.
I got so much, and I'm,
so my whole mouth is just filled with gum.
And you like the berry flavors, don't you?
I like to try anything.
Do you miss the big gum of the eighties,
like Hubba Bubba and Bubblicious?
Oh my God, Bubblicious I loved.
Hubba Bubba, Bubblicious, those were fantastic.
But again, they can't make a gum that's too big,
that would be too big for me.
If they came out with a gum called,
the Big Whopper or-
What about Big League Chew?
The Face Filler!
Brick o' Gum.
Yeah. Then I might be okay, but.
Do you ever eat Big League Chew,
the pouch where you could just?
I like that.
I like that a lot, but then I'm a heroin addict
and I'm just in a heroin den.
It's too much.
It's not the same as heroine.
But you're on methadone right now
and you're not getting any better.
No.
It's okay. It's okay.
You need to stop being so hard on yourself.
If you want a lot of sticks of gum,
just eat a lot of sticks of gum.
You brought this up. He wasn't being hard on himself.
You're right, I brought it up,
and I said it was fucking weird, didn't I?
Yeah, I did, I did. I'm sorry I said that.
There's a lot of things about me that are
maybe a little off or strange,
but this podcast is maybe a way to get them in the open.
Yeah.
And maybe lead to recovery.
Oh.
I do think,
when I see you doing these things, and brushing-
And also when I eat.
Oh my God.
Like the way I eat,
you can tell I grew up in a large family, right?
Yeah I think that a lot of this stuff though,
you're like, "let me get through this
so I can get onto the thing I have to do".
Not the grave, but like the thing I have to do
'cause you're a very high-functioning person.
Hospice.
(Sona laughs)
What?
Not the grave. Hospice.
Yeah. You are just very high functioning.
You have a lot of things on your mind
and those are the things you'd rather be doing
than things like brushing your teeth.
I wanna be in the moment.
I very much want to be in the moment.
I don't wanna be like this anymore. I'd like to change.
You know when I think you are in the moment?
When you're performing or doing something like this.
Yes! No, I am.
This is my happy place.
And when I'm with family, relatives,
wife, kids, an endless torment.
Okay, let's get started!
(people laugh)
That's a shout out to all my people right there.
I love you!