Transcript of Summer S’pouses Episode 4: Liza Powel O'Brien

Hi, my name is Liza Powell O'Brien. And I feel so many things about being Conan O'Brien's spouse.

Ah!

Oh, this is going to be good.

Yay!

Summer Spouses with Conan O'Brien, Sonam Avsesian, and Matt Gourley. And Liza Powell O'Brien, Tak Baroian, and Amanda Lund.

Well, welcome to Summer Spouses, uh, the game show where the spouses of the three idiots that do this podcast come in. And today's special guest, Liza Powell O'Brien. Um, I thought I'd just start by saying, first of all, um, thank you, Liza, for coming in today. Um, no, it's a—

it's a—

I don't know if this was your favorite thing to do, but you were very sweet to say yes, you'd do it. And we were just talking, I think in one of the— I think it was the first episode, we were talking about last names because Amanda—

Lund.

Lund, yes. But Amanda took Gorley initially. Is that right?

Well, she took it legally, but not publicly.

Right.

Out of shame.

Right.

Oh, okay.

Well, this is a well-known thing Liza and I talk about because you have such a beautiful last name and a very cool last— Powell is such a cool last name.

You think?

I think I never thought so growing up.

The one L. The Powell with the one L and how it— and because I'm a history buff and how it goes back to, you know, revolutionary days.

I will tell you, it has definitely been misheard or maybe not misheard as bowel. So that's what I think of all the time now when I'm introducing myself.

Well, when I first— when we first met—

So that is a beautiful thing.

When I first met, I thought you said bowel and I was like, I am in.

Yes.

Yes.

It's one of my favorite topics. And then when I found out it was Powell, I was really bummed out.

Yeah.

No, but, um, you have a— it's just a really, you know, beautiful name. And, uh, and then I got to know all the Powells who are really cool people. But I remembered feeling a little bit like, oh, because I've never been a huge fan of my last name just because it's so generic, kind of just Irish name. And so we've, you know, we've talked about maybe I should just switch to Conan Powell.

Oh.

You know?

Really? Well, he's being very kind to me because I said when he was complaining about his name before we were— right before we got married.

Yeah, we were engaged.

And I said, well, you can always take my name. And it didn't go over well.

I know. Wait, you're making it seem like you're like, yeah, I was toying with it for a bit.

I wasn't toying it for a second.

Oh, no, no, it did not sit right.

Well, the Conan O'Brien brand had been built.

Correct.

That's like, we're going to change McDonald's? That's the problem is the Conan O'Brien brand had been built.

You know?

But my—

And I was like, privately, you know, à la Amanda Gorley, who no one knows as Amanda Gorley. We could have changed it privately.

Okay. You want to still do that?

No, that's fine. At this point, no more paperwork.

No, I just don't want you to have it.

You're not worthy of this stuff, Ryan.

Now that you've actually— now after 25 years, you're like, eh, no.

We gave it to both our kids. That's plenty.

Oh, yeah.

In addition to yours.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's all good. Well, this is— I mean, you're free to, you know, maybe I should step out.

Maybe you should leave. Like, I was wondering why you guys—

Oh, that's interesting.

Oh, do you want me to go?

Like, that's a better game show.

Mm-hmm.

It's true. But, you know, we can do both ways.

Well, you know, I clearly can't lead this conversation any more than I can lead a marriage or participate meaningfully in a marriage. Keep going.

Keep going.

You're doing well.

What is this perspective? Let's just say, you know, there's some—

I'm problematic around the home. Uh, what's the name of your bits? What the problematic things— I mean, there's a lot of problematic things.

I almost took a picture today, nothing to do with this. I was just going to record it to maybe show some other people, um, what they— what the kitchen looked like after he had cleaned up from making his breakfast.

Okay, okay, tell us.

Which he was very dutiful about putting the butter away and Putting the— putting the spatula from the sink into the dishwasher. And then on the stove was a pan, another spatula, some spray that was still open.

It was an SPF 50.

Cabinets left open.

You know that thing? No, I fried 3 eggs and put them on a piece of buttered toast.

Why did you need 2 spatulas?

One went missing halfway through. Who can say?

I think I used one spatula to pick up the other spatula. You know that thing? You can't be too careful. With a spatula.

That scene in Sixth Sense when the mom first knows something's really wrong with the kid because she is giving him cereal and she turns around and she comes back and all the doors in the kitchen are— all the cupboard doors are open all of a sudden. She's like, "Oh, no." Every single time you walk into the kitchen and he's— you can tell he's been in there because every door and every drawer, everything's open.

Yeah. What's happening? I will plead guilty to all of this. Also, I've been told when you— after you use a pan, it's supposed to sort of Cool. Sit and cool on the stove for about a week. That may be wrong, but that's just the—

Manufacturer's instructions.

Yeah, that's what I heard once. And that's— there's a lot. I think there's some things I've gotten better at.

Many things.

But—

So much better.

I would— I'm a— you say my stuff spreads.

You're a spreader.

I'm a spreader.

We recently figured this out. If you go into a hotel room, He has to put— when he comes in and drops something down, I like to make piles and stacks and, you know, confine everything. He has to put everything on a different surface so we can see it all. So next thing— I mean, it works.

And we're talking about t-shirts, jeans, and underwear, but I lay it out and go like, "I'm rich!" There's limited surfaces in a hotel room. $120 worth of clothing. We're rich! What?

There's limited surfaces in a hotel room. So you're just—

I know.

Not in our hotel room.

Imminent domain.

Well, first of all, and Liza's being very modest, but we always get the— I buy out the entire floor. Oh, penthouse floor of any. Yeah, I just— and I always let them think that I'm coming, that I'm Saudi.

With that, with that name.

Yeah, really goes far. That I've come in from my palace in my private jet, which also for some reason it was named American Airlines.

I have a question. Yeah. So you went out with him and then you saw him eat and you're like, I'll go out with him again.

You know what? On our first date, Date, actually, I remember telling Sybil about this. Yeah.

Our friend Sybil Goldman, who gets a shout-out. Yes.

Um, he— we went to a movie at like 4:00, something like that. And then afterwards, he had an idea to go to— I didn't know this, but he had an idea to go to Sean Lee, his favorite restaurant, which was right there.

Real quick, what movie did you see? Do you remember?

All About My Mother by Altmodóvar. He wanted to see High Fidelity, but I'd just seen it. He said, "I won't see a movie you've already seen on our first night together." I thought it was a great show. Yeah.

Yeah.

It was. It was sweet.

So then she takes me to a movie where one of the characters characters walks out of a vagina at some point.

Literally, like a 30-foot high— Yep.

And I— My brain melted. I can only imagine you.

Yeah.

I felt safe with John Cusack. She says, "I have another idea." And I said, "Okay, we'll try that." And it was like Saloon Doors. She comes charging out of a giant vagina, and you hear like a player piano in the background. A-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink-dink. And stay out. And stay out.

Anyway, so then he said, said, "Do you want to get some Chinese food?" And I was like, "No, I'm in the mood for Mexican." He's like—

Everything I said was, "No, but we're doing this instead," which should have been a clue.

So we went up to this really crappy Mexican restaurant that I loved at the time, and we were the— it was 5 o'clock in the afternoon. We were the only people in the entire restaurant, and they bring us chips. And he put the chip in his mouth, and then like the corner of the chip is sticking out, and he pushes it in with the heel of his hand. I thought it was adorable.

Aw.

I know.

He wasn't doing a bit.

This is—

I was not doing a bit. This is how he's eating.

I— if you watch, if you watch not just me, but I'm going to say some of my siblings as well, when it's time to eat, it was very much a— there's 6 of us. There was a round table and they would just throw a bunch of food.

Well, your brother, in fact, this morning asked if our 2 dogs eat out of the same bowl.

I don't know why he did that. Yeah, I was talking to my brother Neil and I said, oh, hold on a sec, because the dogs came running in and they both started eating their food. 2 dogs, 2 golden retrievers. They each eating out of there. And Neil went, do they eat out of the same bowl?

But I was wondering if he got that idea because that's what you guys got.

One bowl of gruel that you all had to eat.

Kinda.

But so I also, sorta be a little more specific about what you were alluding to, the way I eat. Also very—

So really fast and like, like, you know, like his siblings are hovering. I mean, you know, but it's, it is.

It's alarming.

It's compulsive.

And you tell me no one's going to take it away from you. She's always trying to—

Yeah, she's like, "Uh-huh, uh-huh." So when you guys were eating, like, family dinner with the 4 of you, you were just shoveling food?

Oh, it's gone before I sit down. Like, I put the food on the table. And by the way, you're not the only one in the house. And so I am routinely eating like Grandma used to, like, for 25 minutes after everyone else is done. Like, "Well, I'm still working on my food." Yeah. So—

She—

you eat—

yeah, she takes her time eating. When we were first going out, I just noticed that I would like— I need a giant hamburger. Oh yeah, you know, I need a— I, I need giant quantities of things because it was all this very sort of compulsive dealing with some trauma from childhood. I don't know. Kind of way of eating, and maybe some of it's just in the bloodline, you know.

As you— have you ever done that, like, your father giving the kids cigars in the closet and you just go to put a feed bag on and go until you're satisfied?

I don't know.

What are you talking about?

You guys haven't heard that?

Someone saw a physician.

No, there's a famous, like, thing where fathers would catch the kid smoking a cigar and they'd put them in the closet and make them smoke a bunch of cigars to make them so sick.

You did not word that properly the first time. That was a problem.

Well, you need to into a closet with a thesaurus.

I think aversion therapy is what you're talking about, right? Aversion therapy.

You go into a closet with a strunken white cop.

We're mostly gar heads out there.

They'll know. So, um, yeah, so what I noticed right away is, and this is still kind of the case, although I think I've changed a lot, but, uh, or gotten somewhat better, but I would just need like, I need a giant steak and a lot of potatoes, then I need some pie. And I would look over and she would be like, well, I'm just gonna have, it's good to have a salad first. I'll have this salad. I'll have these walnuts. And I'm always running into her and she'll say, "Did you eat lunch?" And I'll go, "Yeah, I took 2 pizzas and wrapped them around each other, unhinged my jaw, and slid it down and heard a splash when it hit my stomach." And I'll say, "What did you?" And she's like, "I'm good. I had some walnuts. I had a little piece of—

I had a radish that was really good." He used to call me Cornucopia Jones when we were first dating.

It was all— it's all little, like— And then I— and they had just a little bit of mustard on the end. I had— that was delicious. And I'd be like, what are you talking about? That's not a meal.

Sounds healthy.

Oh, she's very healthy.

Yeah. Yeah.

It makes me crazy.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Very boring.

Do you ever go for like a— just you got to have a steak and dig into it.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

She makes also the steak that I've— my favorite steak. She— when you make a filet or actually any kind of—

I hear she can do it with one spatula.

Yeah. Which is, I think, insane. I use a spatula to cook another spatula.

He's got two spatulas to eat it with.

I was like—

Doesn't know why it doesn't work.

I'm the Edward Scissorhands of flapjacks. No, you make an amazing— you grill. You're a master griller. She grills up— like, I'm always really excited when I say, you know, oh, we're going to make steaks tonight. We're actually— me and the kids are all super excited because it's better than anything I get in a restaurant. That's for sure.

That's nice.

Okay. Enough being nice.

I have another question.

Yep.

He talks about how, like, on one of your first dates, he muttered "murderer" to someone. Oh, okay.

No, not just murderer.

Were you ever concerned about his, like, mental health?

Listen, I don't know what's wrong with me, but this, this, this is a long story, the first date. But by the time we got to that point, we had been—

Murderer point.

She brought backups. She arranged for us to meet other people because she thought, I don't know that I'm safe with this idiot.

She did the right thing.

Yeah. No, it was— so I had made this plan with friends downtown, like, late. You know, when you're young, you make a plan to, like, meet up at 11:00 PM. That's not weird. And so we were seeing an early movie. And so I thought, oh, well, he must have something else to do after that. So I didn't cancel my other plan. So we get out of the movie, we go to the Mexican restaurant, we eat the chips.

We saw a man walk out, or someone walk out of a vagina. And then I jammed a bunch of chips into my mouth. And it was like feeding paper into a shredder. And then—

And then we walked up West End Avenue, and he— I was like waiting for him to say, like, well, I got to go, whatever. And it wasn't happening. I was like, okay, this is going on. And now there's this, like, there's a bar on the corner. You said, do you want to get a drink?

I'm like, sure.

So we go into this bar.

And then you did a weird thing.

I ordered a whiskey.

At the bar?

Scotch? I don't know what I ordered.

No, you did. You were like, I'll have a whiskey neat. And they were like, okay. And I was like, wow, wow, you know, this is why I did it. And ever since, not one time, not ever since. And then later on I said, I thought you drank. Like, I got her some whiskey and she's like, I don't drink whiskey.

Did you just panic and think of a film noir or something?

I guess, or something like that. Sounds like a cool thing to do and enjoy it.

She chewed tobacco anyway.

So we were, so we were there for a while and I'm thinking like, my friends are waiting for me downtown. And, and I thought, well, I don't want to bail on them because that's kind of lame. I didn't tell them I had a date, and I didn't tell. So then I said, well, I'm supposed to meet people downtown, do you want to come? He said, sure. And now this is—

I was not cool because I could have said, I've got things to do, buy, sell, buy, sell. But no, I went, okay, I've got nowhere to go.

So we get in this cab to go downtown. Now we both had probably something to drink at the Mexican restaurant and the bar.

We weren't sloshed though.

No, we weren't sloshed at all. But I think— and we're also— neither of us knows what's going on. And so we're in this cab heading downtown And he— you gave the address, or maybe I gave the address. I think you gave the address. You told him where we were going, and then you started going, "Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh." Oh, I know that.

Yeah.

We all know that now.

First of all, I enjoy life.

I didn't know that then.

So I just was like, "Okay, we're gonna go down to what?" It was like— Like St. Mark's Place.

Pravda, I think was the name of the bar.

Yeah, we're gonna go to Pravda. It's on, you know—

Bowery or whatever.

It's in the Bowery, blah, blah, blah. And the guy's like, "Okay." And I go like, "Thank you." Oh my God. Oh my God. And the thing is, I— people who don't know me, I'm always doing a show and the show is just for me.

Yes.

So I don't care.

I'm cringing for you.

So I'm just— I'm going, "Okay, thank you." And then I'm doing my sort of like Popeye, like, "Well, I guess we're going now. Oh, it's gonna take a right. Oh." I'm doing all that stuff. And Liza's just not really—

I was being polite.

She's not paying attention to it. So you weren't laughing or anything? You didn't even acknowledge it.

Nope. I was like, "It's almost over." Yeah, like it was like he had Tourette's.

She's— which, what do you mean, like he had Tourette's? Something's wrong with me. Did you feel like you were bombing? Did she—

No.

First of all, you don't understand, Matt. And I'm going to call you Matt. You don't understand that it's not about it working or not working. It's just what's going to happen.

That's right.

Like, okay. Oh, I guess we're going now. And I'm always— I mean, I'm with David Hopping all the time, and We'll be on an elevator and someone will say like, "Hey, Conan." I was like, "It's good to see you too." "I'll getcha." And David's like, "I think that person can hear you." So then you said murderer at some point.

Is that what you were getting to?

Oh, I don't even know. I mean, I don't even know if that was audible.

I don't know if it was murderer, but I guess—

But it was just strange noises.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Strange noises and mutterings and weird asides that don't need to be said. This one thought, "Well, I'm so glad we're meeting up with—" other people. This will be a safe environment. And, um, but then we, uh, we had a really good time.

Yeah, we did.

And how was the second date brokered?

There was no second date.

He called and left a message on my answering machine the next morning at like 11 and said I had a really good time last night, you know. I don't know if it was like, let me, you know, give me a call or whatever. So yeah, yeah.

And then I didn't hang up. I went, well, anyway, I left that message. Mm-hmm. Um, but we only scratched the surface. We could do so much more. We could do 30, we could do 35 hours of just— and, and what would happen afterwards?

You would really lose your podcast. People—

no, people would be very entertained and they would call in and say, you've got to get away from him. Are you safe? Um, well, thank you so much for coming in. Uh, anytime. This is the love of my life right here. Yeah. Um, and my favorite thing about you.

You've always said that.

You remember you told me that once? You said like, you didn't say, if you said, Liza's the only thing about you I like. But also, I was just out there in the hallway. We have the nice HD monitor out there, and I was just out, and it was before I came in, and yeah, I saw Liza up on the monitor, and there's a whole room full of people. I went, look how pretty my wife is! I'm still smitten. Ah, now what's for dinner? A radish. I can't wait to have my nightly radish. All right, well, that has been Liza Powell O'Brien, uh, and thank you so much. That was great.

And then next episode is over to you guys.

You get to— you guys take over the whole podcast. Exciting. Look out.

Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Conan O'Brien, Sonam Avcessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao. Theme song by the White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Our supervising producer is Erin Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples. Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns. Additional production support by Mars Melnick. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Battista, and Brit Kahn. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. You can also get 3 free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com/Conan. Www.patreon.com/conan. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.