Summer S’pouses Episode 5: The Spouses Alone

Summer spouses with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Cessian, and Matt Gourli. And, Liza Powell O'Brien, Tak Baroyan, and Amanda Lund. [MUSIC] Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Conan O'Brien needs a friend. My name is Liza Powell O'Brien and I'm here with Amanda Lund and Tak Baroyan.

The spouses of Matt Gourli and Sonom of Cessian, respectively, welcome to Summer spouses.

“Doesn't that make you think that there's going to then be a false spouse?”

And, like, they're going to have to get remarried to new people every season so that there's something to put on the air. Oh my gosh, Summer spouses, right? I mean, that could take a break, you know? I could use a break.

[LAUGHTER] Hurd, by the way, that was a very good idea. Okay, how has this been so far for everybody? It's been great.

So, first time for me, you've done this on a podcast.

I have not done, like, what I haven't done is sort of the being yourself and talking about your life on a chat show is what I call that. Do you? And you do that, right? I'm not like this.

I mean, I have like one chat show with my friend Maria, but it's behind a paywall and I'm pretty convinced that no one is supposed to be. So, it feels very safe. This is scary because people are like, we've got eyes and ears. By the way, I think we fewer every second.

I think it's scary. I'm gonna be out there forever. Right. Also that. Yeah.

Yeah, but it felt like fun to be in the hot seat a little bit. Did your spouse act a little bit differently in this room with you in it? That's a good question. I was getting, like, supportive nods from him. From Matt.

From Matt. Okay. Did he look was there fear in his eyes? Um. [LAUGHTER]

He told me right before we came in. And he was like, it's okay. Like, you can. Whatever you. He said, you can speak freely.

Okay. And so I kind of got the green light. Yeah. A little bit. Does that mean that you're not usually in person?

[LAUGHTER] Excuse me. No, there's, I've signed a non-disclosure. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

I said that was okay. What about you? Yeah.

I soon was always so naive.

Yeah. Yeah. She was kind of giving me the fucking embarrassed me. [LAUGHTER] What was she also just watching?

It felt like she was also maybe a little quieter. Like, she was really interested in hearing what you had to say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

She was letting me talk for a change. Yeah. Exactly. That's not the norm. Yeah.

No, it is. We're cool. She was about the same. She's always herself. That's like her thing, right?

Yes. No matter what. It's a gift. It's a gift. It's a gift.

Yeah. It's not typical. I don't think. They look from somewhere else entirely. I think so.

“I think Mikey is more sona because he's like very adventurous and just hard headed and stubborn.”

And Charlie, and he's very extravert, and Charlie is more like, you know, he's more me. I think he loves to draw and he likes to do his own thing and like look at his monster books. Yeah.

And just sort of do his own thing, you know? Yeah. Got these great thank you notes from them with their birthday presents, which was adorable and I'm going to frame them because I don't have little kids right now to do that with. And one of them drew a picture and the other one wrote Michael.

Thank you, Michael. And so and it was like, this couldn't be a better representation of how different my kids are from together. That's it. Is one of the more social than the other?

The pens on the day sometimes Mikey gets little shy for some reasons kind of weird and Charlie steps up and tells the jokes, you know, which is like so like unexpected because he's more of an introvert, you know? Yeah. But he can tell that like the usual host isn't there, so he's filling in.

Yeah.

But I would say they're, you know, they're equally social kids and you know, they always

approach other kids and talk to them and introduce themselves. That's really cute. That's very cute. Yeah. Like that you're such a natural at this.

Yeah. That's a great quality. Thank you. Thank you.

“Have you just been like watching Conan all these years like I could do it?”

No. Better. No. I had a nightmare once. I don't know what brought this on that I was supposed to go out in front of

people and entertain them and I had a, I'd never had a panic attack. My life had a panic attack in my dream because I thought I had to go do that thing that he does and there's no way I could do it. So no, I never watch or listen to him doing what he does and think like it's nothing at it.

No. No sweat. No. Are you guys a little bit closer in terms of your skill set?

Maybe a little bit, but yeah, I don't know.

Yeah. Probably a little bit because what we cross over a bit, like Matt will be on my shows and I'll be on his stuff sometimes. So yeah, we do some crossover stuff.

“That's your favorite kind of performing, like is it theater, is it TV acting, is it?”

I probably theater, I, you know, I really actually love podcasting. It's just, I, I just really, really like it. There's just so much creative freedom in it and like you probably, I don't know, maybe felt that when you did your show. Yeah.

Well, yes, there were, I mean, I felt, it was, it was, it was no, it was great. I couldn't believe I got to do it. It was also, I signed myself up for so much work that I started to be very grumpy. And it was, it was a lot of research and writing and, and I was doing it sort of in, in lockstep with my younger kids last two years of high school.

And then he graduated and I was like, we're done with school. And I sort of felt like, I don't want to write anymore papers and I was, it was kind of funny.

But so it felt like a really, it felt like a limiting format that I had set up.

But I liked that. Yeah. I appreciate boundaries and stuff like that because I'm, you know, terrified of improvisations. So here we are. Yeah.

So it's a very different type of podcasting. Do you have any other projects coming up podcasting or other? I don't have any other podcasting projects coming up. No, I have, I have a, a theater piece in a, in a, in a, in a festival in Aspen. Nice.

Yes. Wonderful. Yeah. The theater is, where is that? Right now is that.

Right now is that. What's happening? Should we all be here? Yeah, that. You know what I mean?

Right. Well, it's like how life shows or the sort of backbone of the music industry right now. Yeah. And yeah, these, it's people are into experiences that you cannot, that not every single

person in the world can just get, um, you know, podcasts are dead. Right. That's what we got. Yeah. That's what we got.

“Yeah, we're done with that, um, yeah, no, I, I think, uh, in other parts of the world, too,”

like in, in London and Europe, I think there's a lot of theater happening and, like, sort of grassrootsy ways and, um, I think the US is having a bit of a difficult moment with the funding issues, but, um, but I don't think it will ever not quite completely go away because it's so human. But yeah, but maybe this is the new campfire, RIP Summer's Morris, I mean, I don't know if

that's totally gone forever. Um, okay, let's see. We have other prompts here, um, um, um, um, how has the podcast impacted your lives? Sorry, I read that wrong. Has the podcast impacted your lives and if so, how?

Well, we get, like, Sonna gets recognized all the time now. Really? Like a full blown celebrity at this point. Wow. Yeah.

Because that happened after you got married. Yeah. Was that weird? Yeah. To go through that transition with her.

It may she, people kind of knew she was when we were dating, but, like, now, when, when, when, when, when, when to YouTube with the podcast and everything because people are newer from the remote from the show before, but now it's the podcast is huge and everybody just, like, I know your voice, oh my God. And I'm like, people freak out now and they have to make sure that Sonna actually says,

can we take a picture? Oh, my gosh. That's great. That's so exciting. We have a collection at home recorded all my fans, a wall of them.

But, um, it was so weird we were in Hawaii, um, like a week ago and we went to, what would go? We went to the diamond head hike. Oh, yeah, yeah. And there was, like, the booth where you park, and then these two girls are working

there. And, and Sonna's like, watch this. They're gonna know. And we, we, we drive up and our cousin, our cousin from Australia, um, Steve, he's there.

And so we drive up and they're like, "Hi, like, can we park here?"

“I was like, "No, you have to buy parking, uh, you have to go, you have to pre, uh,”

range parking, or you have to go drive down the tunnel and park there." And then our cousin Steve's like, "Mike, do you know who she is?" And she's like, "It's Sonna!"

Yeah, they got like super stoked, I was like, "Oh my God, I'm never gonna live this

down." So then, and I was like, "So now that this happened, can we park there?" Oh my God. No, it's still gotta go down the tunnel. Celebrity has its limit, that was, that was it.

Yeah, I feel like you can kind of identify a podcast listener in the wild. Yeah. You know, you can, like, that person's gonna approach. Yeah. Yep.

There's a little approach. I have none of that because people were coming up to him before I knew him and so I can't,

People still come up to him and say, "I love your show." And I'm thinking, "Which one, what, what is your show?" Unless this is a show, maybe it's a show. And I bet like the travel show has brought in new audiences. Yep.

Probably because that's a whole different. Yeah. Yep. More than one. Okay.

Yeah. Well, you didn't expect that.

“Oh, yeah, I think for me, it's been interesting because, like, both Matt and”

I are both like, we work, like, gigs, you know, and especially podcasting. It's like, you'll do a podcast, like, on a regular. Yeah. And then having something that is such, so regular, it's like the nine to five

job at this point, you know, which I never would have thought podcasting would have been

for us. But it's like, okay. Yeah, this is like, yeah, this is the career, you know, which is, I don't think either of us could have foreseen that, right? That it was going to be like podcasting was like the stable thing because right now,

like everything's so influx with the other parts of industry industry, you know? So that's been really cool. And then also post YouTube, Matt gets recognized all the time. Yep. But there's like certain places where you can kind of, you think there's a higher chance

of it happening, like, any, any theme park, like, he'll usually get recognized a couple of times. How often are you in a theme park now? Yeah. You know, and when I met Matt, like, he has worked at theme parks, but he was like,

I'm not a theme park person, but then having a kid, he's like a total Disney dad now. It was like the minute we took Glenn for the first time to Disneyland and like he saw

“her light out when she saw Mickey Mouse, like, she cried.”

Yeah. Okay. He couldn't, but he was like, this is so magical. Oh my God. And now they're like, he's taken her to the, to universal, like, a lot.

I'll play hooky days where he's his beard. Yeah. Yeah. He's going for help. He actually, because she, he takes her to go see the water world stunt spectacular.

Okay. And to the point where they're like, regulars now. And so I don't know if you're familiar with water world, the movie. Yes. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. You're a big fan. Thank you. Okay.

So there's the villain in it. I have some funny name. I don't remember what it is. But anyway, he's, oh, they're all getting their phones.

It's a powerful, I never have this in my other podcast.

Anyway, so, the deacon, the deacon, the deacon, the deacon, the deacon, the deacon. They're like blends of big fan of the deacon, and after the stunt show, they wait and talk to the deacon and like take pictures with him. Oh. I barely, he's retiring.

Oh. So, so they got to go catch his last show. Is he going to be replaced by someone else? I guess, like, I don't know, and well, and she'll have to be in on those additions. I think.

Yeah. Play the deacon. That's great. Who here actually listens to this podcast? I used to listen regularly, and then I got a little uncomfortable with talking about our

lives and stuff. So I just kind of was like, I, it's like not looking at the comments anymore. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah.

Now, I just watch like chunks of it on my feed. Have you and Sonya had like boundary conversations about which you are comfortable with her sharing? No. I'm probably sure.

Yeah. I don't want to be stuck with that. I mean, I don't want to be like, don't talk about the song like whether it's like, it comes with a territory, you know.

Also, do you feel, okay, because for on, on our end, I, I am always impressed with the

sort of Conan's innate sense of boundary.

“I think he's got, he's, I will not be good at that.”

I'm a blabber. And he, you know, we can tell, well, everyone's information too. So don't tell me anything, no, but he has a very, I think, a very good intercom pest about how not to hurt anyone, basically. Oh, yeah, yeah.

And not sure if that, you know, shouldn't really be sure, even if they would get a big laugh. So I, I have never even had that thought. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Yeah, the same with Matt, I feel like I kind of just trust him. There was only one, one time. This is a while ago, but it was, it was actually like four years ago in Glenn was a baby. Uh-huh. And I don't know what they were going on about in here, but there is something about like

Matt had the monitor. Maybe I got in an alert from like, we have like a Wi-Fi connected monitor in the nursery. And I'm sitting there in, like, the dark nursing Glen, and she's like asleep on me. And all of a sudden, I just hear hello, and it's Conan's voice coming through the baby monitor.

And I was like, like, so scared, like, I didn't know what was happening. Um, and I was like, hello, like, hello.

And I was just like, what is happening in the mouse? Like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Like, I guess, I don't know what bit they were doing where he was like here. And I can even, like, talk through the monitor, and he didn't know that I was in there

with this sleeping baby.

“And I think that was the only time when I was like, I don't like that.”

That was like, that was all. Thank you. That was scary. No. Thank you.

And I listened to some episodes of the show, but I hear a lot of it being edited because

Matt's always working on it.

So, you know, I'm like, around in the back house in his office where he works. And I always hear lots of, you know, I hear the raw audio, and I hear get to hear what's taken out. Um, do you ever disagree with an edit? No, but sometimes I will say not like I'm taking any credit, but there's times and I'm

at vise, like, oh, yeah, maybe that could go or stay. Just a couple of times where I get to, I get to, like, a little hear some of the notes too that are kind of as receptive to that. Oh, I mean, yeah, like he'll do whatever. Yeah.

I'm just kidding. Um, no, man. It is cool to hear him editing a, you know, and just to see what he takes out it, it's never, like, really big things because they're such pros, especially when it's just the three of them.

You know, a lot of that is just, yeah, what they record is what you hear. Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask if there's ever, and then anything from a guest that's been edited out that you, I mean, that can work out.

“You guys know, yeah, that's sure that's every podcast, right?”

Um, yeah. I mean, it happens, but it's actually less than you would think, like we get everybody the same disclaimer when they walk in, you know, this is the safe space. We'll take out anything you want, just let us know either in the moment or afterwards, if you're driving home or the next day, if you feel uncomfortable, it's something, well, 100%

then take it out, and it's really rare that that happens, it's just very, it doesn't happen. And does anyone ever call in after they hear their episodes say, I want you to,

I don't know, I think that's all for the divorce, I've never heard of that happening.

Every, every, I think the biggest, I mean, every once in a while, like maybe once or twice a year, like, sometimes the order might change a little bit, like it might be like, oh, like, this was great. We should put this more upfront. But for the most part, it's kind of like the, as a habit.

Kind of like the TV show. It was kind of like, shot on tape, and then, so yeah, that was kind of, it might be the first. Exactly. Yeah, to redo all of it.

So people always ask me, especially, is he like this at home, like this being, however, he is out in the world, and he, he is who he is no matter what is happening, like, all the time. In the mirror, no one around, he's always doing his stuff. But all of that, there is no, it's, there is no compartmentalization of his character,

or his, you know, nonsense. So he, he is what you see is what you get no matter where who you are, is that, how does that compare to you guys, especially with, like, this show. Pretty much, yeah, and just to say about Conan, like, it was just so refreshing when I first met him to see that he's like that in real life, and he was just this great awesome guy.

And sometimes you meet people, and they're like, "Uh, it's not like that on TV." You know, right? Right. But like, like, who? I'll tell you later.

But yeah, he's, I love Conan, and he said some very nice things about me, and I just, well, he means it's okay. Yeah, he's the most, he said, even when you, you, but, no. He says him even when you're not listening, okay, that's the real test. But as far as, uh, so yeah, she's basically the same person everywhere.

Is there ever any time in your lives together where she is someone a little, like, Conan

used to say when my grandmother called, he could always tell she was on the phone because

I would suddenly sprout a bonnet, like, you know, and hello, and how are you, you know, that kind of, like, yeah, I just, you know, I zelegged right back to her, whatever she was giving.

“So is there anything that gets so no to do that or no?”

I, maybe when she's making some kind of, like, professional call on behalf of Conan, like, making reservations. I, this is something going from color of bronze office point of professional voice. Yeah, the professional voice, yeah, but she's always, I love to hear that. She's recording of that.

She's extra nice to other people, like, you know, like the staff and, you know, people restaurants and hotels, yeah, yeah, that's pretty much the only difference. She gets even nicer. Yeah. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah. It's a good way to go. There's such like a magic charisma that they all have together and, like, well, Conan obviously is a total pro and then Sonna and Matt are just like, they're such good laugh laugh.

Yeah.

at you beaming, running you to succeed and supporting you with their laugh.

“But they also, they, they, they stand up for themselves, you know, like he's a big, he's”

a big presence in the room and, but they, they hold their own, which I was always really happy

to hear. It's, it's so, it is just truly magical. I feel like Matt is basically the same, but I don't know, like, Sonna and Conan are, like, true extroverts because they come across super extroverted and it's, I'm like, oh, yeah, they are.

That, I, I wouldn't, I mean, I would have assumed that, you know, that he is, but I don't really, you know, think of things that way so much, but then during, during the lockdown part of COVID, I was benefiting from some of the changes like it didn't have to drive to a bus stop at 630 in the morning and have to make a bunch of meals before everyone left for the day.

And so, and we were all just together and, you know, that sort of hunkered down thing again and the, so the kids and I were all kind of at the beginning sort of happy about it and, and I looked over at Conan and he was like a house plant that no one had watered in four months. He was visibly starting to wilt.

Yeah.

And I thought, oh, this is what people mean when they say extroverts get energy from

other people. Yes. He does.

“And I, I don't, I think I, takes energy from me to, to be social and so it's a real, like”

he's very extreme that way. So what about Matt, Matt doesn't seem that extreme. He's, I mean, like on the podcast, you're like, oh, he's an extrovert, but I think he and I are both similar. We like, we love to socialize and be around people, but we're introverts.

So we got to come home and just like power down, yeah, you know, and like just kind of chill out for a little bit. Yeah. We call that extroverted introverts. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Maybe that's what he is. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I am, too.

Oh, it is. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

“Like after this, I'm just going to go pass out of my car.”

Yeah.

We're still in the house.

Well, we just separately. That's what I see. But yeah. I'm going to need a nap. Uh-huh.

Maybe a meal. Yeah. You need a little cook here, something. Yeah. I don't know.

Like you gave blood. Yeah. I know. I'm going to bathe. I'm going to bathe.

I'm going to bathe. I'm going to bathe. Okay. This has been great. Yeah.

Let's hope we're all still married to these people by the next time. Yeah. I thought we did good. We could have gone a lot harder. Maybe a very nice back for false false things.

Yeah. Part two. Great. We had a really good time doing this. I hope people had fun listening to it and tune in next week when you will get to hear

all six people around the table at the same time. Oh, boy. Conan O'Brien needs a friend. With Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Sessian, and MacGorley. Produced by me, MacGorley.

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