Transcript of The Cock of the Rock

Konan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Konan? Visit teamcoco. Com/callkonan. Okay, let's get started.

Hi, Adu. Welcome to Konan O'Brien needs a fan.

Hi, guys. I'm really excited to be here. Hello, Adu.

How are you?

Fantastic. How are you, Konan?

I'm doing well. I have to compliment you on your voice. You have a terrific-And your sweater. Well, I'm thinking it's It's mostly a vocal audio medium, but sure. I like the whole vibe. Yeah, the whole vibe is great. You have an incredible beard. You have a true Irishman's sweater, Adu. It's actually from Ireland. Oh, I could Oh, yes. That's the one thing I know. I can tell by the various coded messages in it right now. Oh, for sure. It says, buy Guinness. You've got an amazing beard, but I've got to say that the tone of your voice is very calming. Fantastic.

I appreciate that. I brought my mic from home just so that you can hear it, the rich fullness of it all.

We've not found a mic in the universe that will give me a rich fullness. I've put Eduardo on that task.

I'm still searching.

It doesn't exist. We're going through the Barry White estate to see what we can get. Addu, tell me a little bit about yourself. What do you do? What are you all about? Where are you coming from?

Wow, that's a huge question. Yes, it is. Right now, I am a research engineer for the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington. I live in Seattle. Oh, wow. Cool. Yeah. It's a very cool job. I do R&D for the Argo Float program. Argo Floats are these autonomous drifters that we put out in the world's oceans that sample various things in the ocean, temperature, pressure, salinity, pH, dissolved oxygen, basically giving us a comprehensive look on how our oceans are doing and how our atmosphere is doing. It's all climate change-related, conservation-related, and it's a cool gig. I'm not an oceanographer.

Wait a minute. Are you one of those people that believes in science?

Boo.

Should I go? Why don't you take your mumbo jumbo in witch somewhere else. Hooray.

Let's pack up and go, guys. I'm sorry.

Three chairs.

If I don't understand it, I don't like it.

Exactly. I don't like science. Now I'm going to go get in my car and drive around. That sounds like really good work. I'm hoping you can tell me something optimistic because these are perilous times. It can feel for a lot of us.

What do you- You want it optimistic?

No, it doesn't have to be optimistic. I just want to get your It sounds like you're devoting your career and your incredible mind and hard work to trying to figure out the oceans, I'm guessing, are warming that is happening?

Yes, they are. Okay. Yes. They are getting hotter and hotter. They're just taking in all the heat that we're producing. Part of this program is to study how the heat content of the ocean is changing over time. A large part of that also is how much carbon it's taking in. Oceans are very good carbon sinks for all the carbon that we as humans produce. Some studies are actually showing that there are some regions that are actually sources of carbon now. It's not just sinks, but there's a flux between the ocean and the atmosphere. I don't know if I have any positive gems for you, Konan, but I think one cool thing... I'm very new to oceanography. Was a conservation-based person for 25 years and an engineer, and I combined those things and landed in this sector. But I think I've just been learning how cool and complex our oceans are and how many different subsystems are in there. What's cool is that oceans are like space to us in that they're just criminally understandled. We don't know much about the oceans at all because we don't have an array of sensors in there for the last 100 years or so.

But that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to put as much technology out there and sample as much as we canIt's very cool. So we can better understand a lot of these things.

It's very cool. Also, it's understanding how rising temperatures are going to affect currents, winds. We've all noticed that things are getting more severe. We're noticing that here in Los Angeles, obviously, lately. I think across the globe, people are noticing that extremes are becoming more extreme. Climate change doesn't always mean one thing. The influences can be very complex. We don't really know sometimes what to expect. We're all figuring that out together. I think my work in this area is every bit as important.

I was going to say, you're telling him all this. Excuse me.

I do. Excuse me, I'm not done yet. I believe that by various Neutron installments throughout- What are you installing? The oceanographic plates and plateaus, there might one day be hegemony. Can we just go back to your sweater?

Your sweater looks amazing.

Thank you. Let's just let Adi talk. No, I do appreciate. All foolishness aside, I really do appreciate the work you're doing, and I'm As someone who has children, I really do want us to figure this out and make a better world. I'm glad you're doing this.

We're doing the best we can, Konan.

Well, try harder. I'm doing the best I can. You don't look like it. You just called into a podcast to goof around. This is time that could be saving the world. You're like, I got to go talk. You're like, I've got to go talk to Conan and goof off. Well, listen, I love Seattle. I'm married into Seattle because my wife is from Seattle, and I married there, and I go back a lot, and I love my in-laws, and I love to prowel around Seattle. It's my second home.

Sorry, you said prowel, right? Yeah.

Late at night, wearing mostly black. There have been some sightings. I wear a black cap. Listen, that's not important. My proweling is my own business. Tell us about yourself What are your hobbies? What do you like to do when you're not studying your sensors? What do you... And I say that with great respect. No, you don't. Of course. Great respect. What do you like to do in your spare time? I do. What's What's your hobby?

I think my two main ones are trail running and birdwatching. Birdwatching. What I found is I hang out with a lot of older folks because that's a very niche subset of activities I find my communities, honestly. It gets me outside.

My father was a birdwatcher. He loved it. He used to always try and get one of us to go along with him birdwatching. When I was a kid, I'd notice that no one else was volunteering, and I would feel some like, someone's got to go. So I would go. I would trudge around marshes in the suburbs of Boston or Rhode Island and not enjoying the smell. Did you enjoy it? I have to say I didn't at the time. The one thing I really did enjoy was there was once a gull that got way off course and made the news called Ross's Go. Ross's Go, I think, usually hangs out in Alaska or Russia. This thing, I think, lost its connecting flight, got all turned around, and Ross's Go showed Some bird or spotted it in Boston. This might be, I'm going to say this is 1970. It could be '76, '77, something like that. My dad was really excited, and he said, We've got to go. It was like a 40-minute drive. There was 300, 400 birders there, and we found a spot, and I saw Ross's goal, and I remembered thinking, Wow. Then I tried that line on women for years.

It never worked. Never worked.

I almost traveled nine hours round trip to see something called a bichal teal. Down in Oregon. It was a similar vagrant. It got lost and found its way over here. But I'm getting married in two weeks, and I don't think your wife would be- Wait a minute.

I do. You buried the lead. This is This is a huge event, and you're talking about the double build, quixel-quaxle.

Making fun of his interest. I am not.

This is, again, with great respect. Tell me about this. You're getting married in two weeks, and?

Basically, there's a lot to do because I'm getting married in India, and my fiancée, soon to be wife, is from Texas, and her whole family is from Texas, and not a lot of them have visited Asia or India. I'm basically coordinating a bunch of stuff, like clothing, visas, flights, choreographed dances because it's a big soirée.

I've never been to a true Indian wedding, and I've always wanted to go. I think it would be amazing.

Is it true that it take place over more than a day, right?

It's three or four days for ours. Actually, when writing to you all, I actually invited the three of you. So invitation is still open. It's on the 10th of February. I know you have the Oscars to host.

It'll be really great if I blew off the Oscars.

I'll handle the Oscars.

You go to the lag. I love that. There's been a quick program change. Instead of Conor O'Brien, Matt Gourley is here.

And best picture goes to Goldfinger. How is that possible? Every category.

James Bond films from the '70s. Wept tonight.

Where in India is the wedding taking place?

The southwest side of India. There are a ton of birds there. I keep a life list of birds. I started when I was six years old, and my mom and dad really got me into it because we would I'd go visit India all the time, and I'd see all these elephants, tigers, and all these cool big mammals, and we'd watch animal plant. Then I'd come back to the Bay Area where I grew up, and I'd see a squirrel or a rabbit. I was really bummed out. My mom was like, Here, take some binoculars. Go look for birds. What we'll take you to a park. I got hooked. It was just like, I want to see everything. They're all so cool. They act so differently. But then I just wrote them on a piece of paper, and then I would throw the piece of paper away, all the species I was seeing. So you're a literary. It wasn't until maybe... I'm a litterer, that's right. Okay, that's great. In the ocean, straight I'm sorry.

Big problem with climate change is we keep finding these burning notes. The fish are eating them and dying. Rarer fish. We're looking for someone named Adu. If you've known about him, he's wearing an Irish sweater that he got from Liam Neeson. But this is how you got interested in it. Now you're going to go to India, and it's a chance to probably see some new birds.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. I lost all those lists from before. I want to say close to a thousand species there, not specifically in that state, but there's just so many, and I'm very excited. The venue is actually right next to a bird sanctuary, which I don't know if my fiancée knows about, but I'm probably going to sneak away and try to bird- During the ceremony, will your eyes be wandering up into the sky?

I said, I do.

Do you take this woman, huh? I do.

I do.

Nicely done. Yeah, you're going to drift away so many times, like when it's time for toast. Where is he? You're there with nine birds on your arm talking to them like Dr. Doolittle.

You're joking, but that's I actually have most of my- I'm not joking.

I sum up a human being very quickly.

Is your fiancée into birds?

She's into large mammals, and she tolerates my birding. Sometimes I'll find a bird. We went to Peru earlier this year, and I was showing her, Oh, look, that one's a really prehistoric-looking bird. She's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then every once in a while, I'll find something that she'll be like, Oh, wow, that actually is really cool and beautiful. But I don't know. We got our camps. We're in the wildlife camp, but that's good.

We have our own areas. It's close enough. It's close enough. My wife is not adjacent to any of my interests in any way. Where you are, it sounds much healthier, and I compliment you, and I weep for myself. I do. I just think this is wonderful. Sona and I have been to Jaipur Yeah. I guess they call it the Pink. Is it the Pink City?

Is it the Pink City? Yeah. It was very pink.

I think after... But anyway, we were there together. We've had so many adventures together, but we were there together, I think around 2010. That was my one dip into India, and I loved it. I think it's a magical place. I really do.

It's fantastic. I think the most exciting thing for me outside of marrying my soon to be wife, is showing all these people who are so near and dear to me a culture that I have taken for granted all the cool experiences that I've had.

Excuse me. I'm allergic to niche interests. I'm sorry.

Oh, my God. He was having a nice moment there. He's really having a really sweet moment talking about India. I couldn't help it.

I sneezzed for real, and then I had to add a joke to cover my human moment. I'm sorry, continue. So get it back. My sneezhe is over.

You're fine. Well, I'm just excited to show parts my culture that I took for granted growing up, being invited to all these weddings, going clothes shopping, going up into the mountains, staying in a bungalow, seeing elephants. There's the culture, there's the environment, there's just the country itself that I'm really excited to show people. Yeah, I'm super stoked. It was a lot of work to get here.

Quick question. I know it's a tradition. Are you going to ride in at one point on a white horse?

I am not, but I am going to ride in on a vintage car.

Cool. What car?

1987, Buick La Saber. I don't think I have a full say on the specific car.

It could be a Jaguar, hopefully, fingers crossed. Basically, growing up, for a lot of our weddings that I attended, elephants were used, riding in on elephants.

Riding in on a big animal is a big thing, and I know this because none other than Jack McBrayer was invited to one of the Jonas Brothers. I think it was Jebediah Jonas, I think, who was married in India, and he said that- He might have stopped saying who it actually was. The Jonas Brother came in on a white horse. The horse was like, What's Jack McBrayer doing here? Sorry, I'm taking us far afield. No, it's fine.

But elephants, we don't ride them anymore because we found that it's actually super harmful to them. Actually, it's good that we're moving away from that.

Phasing that out. But a car.

A car is nice. My fiancé is going to be coming in on a boat.

That's so cool.

That's nice.

I want to go.

Yeah. We'll go to his wedding. Let's go.

So to just come.

Can you postpone the wedding till after the Oscars?

I think we postpone the Oscars. Okay. Let's do it. You know what I mean? I would love to say the Oscars have been postponed and people would be like, Oh, well, probably because of everything that's had in LA. I'd be like, No, not because of that. Adu is getting married and I need to be there. He's been a good friend of mine for about 11 hours. Yeah.

You know, Sona means gold in Hindi. Okay, no one cares.

We need gold. Give us time to process it. It means gold.

The peanut is neither a pea nor a nut. It's a legum. Oh, God.

Did you know that pirates have an eye patch? Not because they're missing an eye. Mine was relevant.

To adjust to the light. We're talking about India, and that my name means gold.

He forced it in. All right.

Well, it's just cool. It's a cool little fact.

Can I just say, choreographed dancing, though, I would love to see you all join in on the choreograph dancing. This is an extra bit of enticement. If you come, we will add the string dance to the choreograph dance. Okay.

All right. I'm out. I'm getting for myself. I'm out, too. Eduardo, book me some flights. I love I'm yelling at us. This is your engineer. Highly trained sound engineer to book. I know, but you have to be Jack of all trades in these situations. Eduardo, get me those flights. And a cup of black coffee, see. Book, book, book, book. Book, book, click. Book isn't a sound effect. Book, book, aisle, aisle.

It's a cheese drive.

Book. Well, Adu, I'm very happy for you. What is your bride's name? Allison. Allison. Okay. I'm very I'm really happy for you and for Allison. Trust me, if I could find a transporter beam, I would be there. You seem like a very cool guy, and I support. I just love that you're using your mind to try and help the planet. I love that. I would do that, but my mind's no good. But I'm happy that you and people like you are hard at work on this.

I appreciate that, Konan. Thank you.

I think we're good, right? Yeah. Yeah. I want to thank you so much, Adu, for calling in. Again, very energizing to find out that we have fans out there who are smart and funny and cool and doing good stuff and have amazing taste in sweaters. I bow to you, sir. I bow to you.

Thank you. All right. Could I say one last thing? Sure. As an exercise, I found birds that I thought reminded me of each one of you. I have some photos. Sure. Yes.

Go for it. That's a quick edit right there.

This is called the Andian Cock of the Rock. I'll repeat that. Cock of the Rock.

No, it's not the real name.

That That is the real thing. It's like looking in a mirror.

I'm sorry, I'm not sure who that is.

That is my bird. What's it called again? I want to write it down and make sure that they don't go extinct.

What is it called again? The Andian Cock of the Rock.

Andian Yeah, it's all upper body red with a huge red pompador. Yes. I mean, you can't even tell what's head and what's like mating plumage or whatever that is.

No, you can tell it breeds insatiably.

It's called the Cock of the Rock.

Yes. No. It's just got so much sexual energy.

It probably has sex with the rock. Come on. It probably does.

They have these performance hauls. I'm not even joking, where all the males just come and unleash all their sexual energy by bobbing and making weird dances. Then the female Cock of the Rocks just watch and see which one catches their eyes. It just reminded me of Conan for some reason.

You know what? I am now Cock of the Rock. Cock of the Rock.

Andy and Cock of the Rock.

Okay, I'm the Andy and Cock of the Rock. I love it. All right, let's move on. What's Sona? What's the name? I got Sona.

This is Sona.

Okay. Nice mustache, Look at that.

He's got your dad's mustache. Come on, man. It does. Hey, Gil.

I want to preface by saying I love hearing you on the podcast and in all the shorts and your laughter fills up the room, and I just wanted to shout out to that. This is called the three-waddled bellbird. It's a really cool bird from Central America. It is one of the loudest birds in existence. Yes. Nice. Its calls go to, I think, 100 decibels, like a rock concert, almost. Oh, my God. You can hear them across the rainforest.

Oh, my God. Three waddled. I don't have Belbert.

It's so funny you say that because we work in this office building and I'm on the top floor. When Sona enters on the first floor, I hear it as clear as we all do. The whole building shakes because you're one of the loudest people I've ever met. Okay.

Yes. Okay.

You're a three-waddled. Three-waddled Belbert.

I'm sorry, Sona.

No, no, no. You know what? You're right. And I get it. And I own that about myself.

Now let's move on to the fussiest of the birds. Come on.

Of course.

Yeah. Look at that.

I'll take it. This is the burrowing owl. I'll take it. To all of you, I've been ingesting Konan content for two decades. Gorly, you were on the scene for me. But I think you came in and you were this wise presence. I always think of you as an owl, the spectacles and everything. Then you started to emerge as, Oh, he's insane as well. Basically, the burying owl, super wise. But look at him. They're insane.

That middle one is crazy.

That middle one, no. That's me. It's very true that Gourly came in and we all thought, Well, he's the steady hand on the tiller. He's clearly the experienced podcaster here, and he very quickly went quite mad. Definitely not the worst, but pretty terrible. Well, Adu, that was a real treat. We're going to post those because we want our fans to see those, and we should probably wrap it up. But my heartfelt congratulations to you. I hope our paths cross in person. That would be very cool. I'd like to shake your hand.

I would love that. I would love to. I have a very firm hand shake. Thank you so much.

Firm hand shake.

Congrats, Adu.

All right. Take care, Adu. Have a great time.

Thank you.

Take care. Konan O'Brien needs a fan. With Konan O'Brien, Sona Mouvsassian and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Jeff Ross, and nick Liao. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino. Take it away, Jimmy. Supervising producer, Aaron Blaird. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Associate producers, Sean Doherty and Lisa Burm. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at siriusxm. Com/conin. Please rate, review, and subscribe to, 'Conon O'Brien Needs a Fan' wherever fine podcasts are down.