People Be Doin’ It

Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcocoa.com slash callconan. Okay, let's get started.

Hi Hannah, welcome to Conan. O'Brien needs a fan.

I didn't know if I should talk first.

Hi there Hannah. nice to see you. tell us. where are you? Where are you coming to us from?

I'm in, I'm back in Vancouver, I flew in last night, and I'm in my parents Christmas living room.

I love Vancouver, I love, actually, I love Canada in general, I love the people. It's a beautiful place to be and everyone has such a great sense of humor, But Vancouver, I particularly love, It's a wonderful place.

Yeah, I was going to say, we're pretty spoiled, we're very lucky here, so.

Tell us a little bit about your life, Hannah.

Like, from birth or.

Yeah, yeah, I want to say I'm not going to start from birth, but I'm going to say, start from like, four hours after birth. You've been cleaned, okay?

So I work on boats like yachts, and so I'm always in and out. So whenever I get any holiday or any leave, I come home to see family and friends. But.

I'm not permanently here. When you say you work on the boats, you mean not building the boats, but living on the boat and helping people. Is that what you do?

Yeah, so I'm not a craftsman, but I'm a chef on a boat.

Oh, okay, you're a chef on a boat? Yeah, oh okay. Well, recently, my wife got started, I had to travel a lot.

I haven't seen the show myself, but I've got friends that watch, and from what I gather, it's similar, but obviously a dramatized version of reality.

Right?

Right, but it is a very small space to live and work together with a small group of people.

So I also think, I have to say, I think being a chef would be tough enough, but to be a chef on a boat. Where if you suddenly need something, oh, we need paprika, we need nonfat yogurt, we need iceberg lettuce. And you can't get it because you're at sea, plus the boat's constantly moving. It sounds like it's 10 times harder than being just a regular chef.

I mean, you make provisions for that, you try to stock up on as much as possible. If people are coming on board, you get a list of their preferences, dislikes, etc. so you try to prepare accordingly. But yes, there's always the occasional thing where you'll be in the middle of nowhere and someone wants mini cucumbers. I don't know something, and you have to try to find that.

So let me guess it's mostly rich people, affluent people, that you're waiting on if they're living on a yacht, yes.

Yeah, that's pretty much the.

Are you ever tempted to say No, we don't have it? you know? No, sorry, we don't have that. You're on a boat, get your thumb out of your ass. You ever say that to anybody?

Thankfully, I'm not front-facing, it's always the other staff who have to deal with the guests face-to-face. I'm in the galley tucked away. It's nice. So we can get the order and we can all stare at each other in disbelief, and then we can proceed versus them. They have to listen to this person making an insane request, and they have to smile.

So they're the one that's hearing. I would like a pistachio vanilla mousse, three-tiered cake that's decorated only with yellow m&ms. And then they come down and they tell you, and you guys stand around in the kitchen and talk shit about them for like 15 minutes, right?

I heard you ordering that the other day.

I like that.

Okay.

And I demand it. I see why you're asking, Yeah, and I did it on an American Airlines flight.

On and off for the last nine years, so once I finished university, I started doing this and yeah.

That sounds, I mean, first of all, it's very romantic to go to sea. I think that's that sounds really cool, you know to, Yeah, it's nice to you.

Sorry, my enthusiasm waned there for a second. It can be. There's lots of nice places you get to go that I would never choose to travel to. Like, it'll be a very small, tiny island in Greece, for example, which is lovely.

Have you ever crossed the ocean, the Atlantic Ocean?

I think this last fall, I did my sixth crossing, so what?

Oh wow, wow, yeah, that's cool. I've never crossed an ocean on a boat.

And when you get asked to leave America?

Yeah, exactly, yeah, maybe I'll do it then, that is, I have to say, that's very impressive, that sounds.

Well, it's very fun. But it is a very weird existence where you're sharing a room with somebody. You've got a bunk, where someone's above you or below. It's just a very bizarre life as an adult, with sharing a bunk who's not your sibling. So that's strange. So I don't see this forever, but I figure keep doing it until I stop enjoying it.

I'm going to get real personal here and this does not include you, but I'm just saying, are there? There's got to be hookups on a boat? I mean, Sona, come on way in here.

Yeah, I said, people be fucking.

Okay, well, okay, no, no, I'm sorry.

Hannah, Do people be fucking yeah?

No.

She's from Vancouver.

They're very lovely people.

But people in Vancouver don't be fucking.

Don't stop saying that it's not cool. I'm sorry Hannah. I apologize for my very crass friend, but um, uh oh.

Oh, there she is.

No, I think she froze. it looks like you froze on Zoom, but I think you froze because of the coarse language.

Oh, sorry, I mean, people be making love.

Yeah.

People be doing it.

But that must, it must get complicated when you have men women hormones. Small boat, Yes.

Yeah, I'm not going to name names, but definitely.

No, of course not. I would never ask you to. We'll do that on a separate phone call.

Yeah, I would.

Um, there's definitely been, you see why there's a TV show made after this? Because there's been some pretty absurd situations of, say, someone being romantic with someone and then perhaps pursuing somebody else that's in the same department. And you're all in this little boat, and, to say the least, it all gets around word spreads.

Yeah, everyone finds out there's no way this stuff happened on Moby Dick, you know, I mean, any classic sea tail. There's always people hooking up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

I would forget the boat's not mine.

Yeah, that's probably true.

At some point.

How do you mean?

Like, I would start to be like, Is this my boat?

This is my yacht.

And then I would start sleeping in their main bedroom and stuff. Does anyone do that? Is that just me?

No.

You're like the goldilocks of the yacht. We have some.

I mean, perhaps.

Oh, okay, Sonya's onto something here. Yeah, that's interesting.

On a crossing, you'll have some captains that are very kind and generous. And they let crew use the guest areas when we're on a crossing. Because there's no guests on board. But typically, you have to wear white gloves and not touch anything in the guest quarters.

Can I ask you, Hannah, you might be somewhat familiar with this show or with my general personality? Do you think I would do well on a long crossing?

So the thing is, it's a very be honest.

Be honest.

It's a small space and typically, if you're in a marina, you can step off, have some space to yourself. But on a crossing, you realize just how tiny it is, and people tend to go a little nuts. I think you would try and entertain everybody to the best of your ability.

Yes, I would, but also can I say something? Hannah? That could be a problem.

I think you'd start eating other people, even though there's full provisions on board.

They'd make you walk the plank.

I would start drinking my own urine, even though there was plenty of water, I would do it as a culinary choice.

Personally not by me, but perhaps everybody else. I don't want to speak for them.

HANNah I don't think you could possibly understand what you're in for.

You know what I love? Hannah didn't say. Not by me, but maybe by someone else, she said. Not by me, but by everybody else. It would be murder. On The Orient Express, the answer is everybody did it.

Everybody, I think you would take on a persona, I think you'd think you were a pirate, and then you would start talking like one or a captain.

I would bring a stuffed parrot and glue it to my shoulder. Oh God, what?

I mean, it's so similar.

Do you aspire to have your own boat? or do you ever dream of having your own boat one day?

No, I mean, as somebody who works on them, I should be more respectful. But they're personally just a money drain. From what I've gathered. You buy it and you constantly have to flow money into it, it's just constant repairs.

It's like, children, that's the same thing. I've found my son and my daughter, just money goes in and I don't see. Okay, great, you've got an education.

Yeah, what would Conan's Boat be named?

I picture more of a warship for you, so like the SS Conan or the SS O'Brien, I don't know something more of that nature for you.

No, it's got to be the water blade, water blade. It's got to be something that I don't know. Everyone would want it to be like the rusty Shamrock, or you know what I mean?

Everyone would want it to be the sickly torso.

Everyone would insist that it be some kind of humiliating name, but I want something cool and war-like. I just have to think about it.

I was going to say something regal.

Yes, well, the HMs.

Oh, her Majesty's.

What is that?

Her Majesty's.

Service.

I don't know.

Wait, you're a James Bond guy, aren't you supposed to know this? Yeah, but that's service, but I don't know if the boat, his Majesty's ship.

Oh.

I mean, I guess he's an able commander. Oh, that's true. Bond. Okay, none of this will make it into the final podcast.

Hannah, What would you name your boat if you had one?

Honestly, someone asked me this and on the spot I just panicked and said, the dump truck. And then now I feel committed to that.

What a beautiful name. This is the dump truck we're going down by the bow.

H.ms.

This is the HMS dump truck. All souls on the dump truck were lost.

Christened with a bottle of four Loko.

What is your?

We've had obviously several incidents. It's just nature, we're par for the course, where everything is moving. And obviously there's hot things. Like if you're boiling a pot of water all of a sudden, you just have to stand there and watch it.

That is so.

What's the old expression that a watched pot never boils, but you literally have to sit there and watch boiling water?

Pretty much.

Yeah, all of a sudden everything takes forever, you're just watching pots boil and I'm like, this is pretty sad.

But I mean.

Genuinely, they have to put up signs above deep fryers on all the boats because like, if you're going to deep fry underway, please alert the bridge. Because I guess people have thought that to be a good idea.

There should not be deep fryers on a boat, that's just ridiculous. everyone should just eat pop-tarts and shut the fuck up, ridiculous.

I would love to see you in a room that's, you know, built to go like the waves in a full chef's gear, trying to deep fry a turkey.

Trying to deep fry a turkey and just screaming every time I get splashed.

I was going to say, You know?

Were you ever in a storm where you thought your life was at?

Weirdly enough, the only time we've encountered a hurricane, we were in port, we were in Florida and a hurricane was due to come, so everybody just decided to leave. But I was on watch with two other people, so me and the two other guys kind of looking at one another, being like, I hope nothing happens. Because you cannot leave the boat, it has to be people on board for safety reasons. So yeah, even during a hurricane, we just had to sit there and hope for the best.

Here's the difference between us. Hannah I would make up something. You're like, No. There was one time we were in port, everything was pretty secure, but we did have to kind of ride it out, but we were in port.

Is it more safe or less safe to be in a boat during a hurricane?

You mean, is it safer?

Than land.

Yeah.

I mean, Florida seems pretty unsafe in general. I don't know if the water would help.

Well, we're not going to get into the politics. I appreciate that. Do you have any questions for us? Hannah Yes.

How do you handle high maintenance guests, or do you have any tips for handling high maintenance folks?

Oh well, in the old days, when I had a TV show for 28 years, I would say, we'll take a break, we'll be right back. Commercial breaks were so fantastic because when I had a guest who was just driving me crazy, I could go to commercial. Usually, I'd try and get one laugh from the audience.

I will try that at work.

But it's nice now that we do the podcast, I'm almost exclusively talking to people I really like to talk to, so it's really nice. I don't have that issue anymore, but I should start pretending it's a ship.

I'll expect you shortly.

Stay safe, good luck at sea, take care of yourself.

Thank you very much.

Have a good night, take care bye.

Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien. Sona Movsesian and Matt Gourley Produced by Me Matt Gourley executive produced by Adam Sachs. Nick Liao and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song by the White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.