Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend

I was in Salty the Psalm Book.

Salty the Psalm Book, asshole.

And, you know, and she wanted you to say goodbye to each item and bless it on its journey.

And I realized I don't treat people that nicely. So why would I talk to my underwear that way?

I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I was 19. And I felt like I didn't know anyone could write like this and be so free.

I love Hunter S. Thompson... two books kind of changed my life early on... I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I was 19.

And I think that you have described your family. The book, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, on the New York Times bestseller list.

And also, the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told. Buy it, if for no other reason, just the book jacket is the best book jacket I have seen.

The book jacket, as well as all the photos in the book, were the brainchild of Megan. It's really beautifully done. And these are great photos, fantastic photos.

They let me design the whole book, which for me was a huge thing because I don't usually get that kind of autonomy on any project.

I do have a book I go back to a lot and I think I just read it for the third time was Guns of August because Barbara Tuchman's book on the beginning of World War I.

Liza always read me Good Night Moon. After that, she'd read me the final days about Nixon's last days in office.

When I read Fifty Shades of Grey out loud and talk about the various plugs that were put in the butt and stuff like that.

Oh, come on.

Yeah.

It just becomes the least erotic experience anybody's ever had.

And then it's still like this forbidden. He's now it's time for you to put on the leather chaps and descend into the pit. And I'm going to take this rubber pickle and I'm going to like, no!

And it's also the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Dear Girls, Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, and Advice for Living Your Best Life.

And it's filled with, you're a very good writer. When I look at your standup and your work, I can tell, oh, you've, you really thought about this before you went out there.

You wrote a novel.

I did.

And this is your first novel.

I had this story kind of in the back of my head after hearing so many cases again, what's the perfect crime?

And so finally, I decided, you know, if this is gonna be anything, I think it's I think it's big enough that it could be a book.

My guest today is a hilarious comedian, writer, director, and actor who's performed in front of audiences. His bestselling book, The New One, is out in stores.

You can't fire an A15 bullet through it.

It's that thick.

Yeah, they actually, there are many tanks now in the military that are just covered in Robert Caro books.

It's like an ancient Soviet detention center. But a lot of it makes sense. With an indoor swimming pool.

I would say my all-time favorite might be Crumb. Oh yeah, yeah, and yeah. I mean Crumb, Crumb just because you think the documentary is just going to be about Crumb and it was probably started out to be about R. Crumb the amazing sort of counterculture late 60s and 70s cartoonist keep on trucking guy and all that and you think in Mr. Natural you think that's what's going to be about and he is a documentary because he alone is incredibly fascinating and then you meet his brothers and then you find out about his childhood and then you start to meet several of his you know, his two brothers and what would have been a great documentary becomes to me one of the great documentaries of all time and really he had a lot of notes with me in so many different ways that when the lights came up I think I was crying and like had to be escorted out of the theater. You know.

I cannot agree more. It's also yeah, it's one of my favorites and it's really grim but it's also just like it, yeah it does so much right.

I read your first book and I loved it. I read "The Light We Carry".

And when I finished this book and I've also read your husband's book, I'm always nervous about the correct phrasing.

My guest today is a former first lady, best selling author of the 2018 memoir, Becoming, her latest book. "The Light We Carry" overcoming in uncertain times is available now.

But what I've found about your book, which is so nice and different, I think, than the first book, is that you're addressing something that I talk about a lot on this podcast,

which is there is a common misconception that people who are in your position or to a much lesser degree, my position, people that are known that we don't have anxieties. We don't have issues.

But that's not my... Here's the analogy... I dig a good thriller. That's right, you like Clancy. I love Clancy.

I read one paragraph of the 50 Shades of Grey. And then I have to wait.

I saw your last - Live show.

I saw your one-man show, and I saw it in downtown Los Angeles. And I absolutely loved it.

And I had this weird feeling of - because I knew that - you know, we've talked about it before, but I knew that you had interned with me. And I had this sort of feeling of pride, like, oh, my old friend is doing well.

I have a chapter in Sleepwalk with Me, the book, which is called literally I Can't Stop.

And one of the things that I think - and I remember thinking this when I saw Sleepwalk with Me, that when you described this, what I remembered thinking is in your subconscious, you were in a dangerous situation and you behaved valiantly.

I think I started out, if you can believe it, with a compliment from Billy Crystal. About how you turned your memoir, The Bedwetter, into a musical and how he saw it and he thought it was brilliant and to pass on that compliment.

I love Clancy. I love John Le Carre was outstanding, a great writer.

And actually Ken Feinberg had written a book based on the Victim's Compensation Fund, 9-11.