Summer S’pouses Episode 2: Amanda Lund

Hi, my name is Amanda Lund, and I feel, you go girl, about being Matt Gourley's spouse. Summer Spouses with Conan O'Brien, Sonam Ovsessian, and Matt Gourley, and Eliza Powell O'Brien, Tak Baroyan, and Amanda Lund. Amanda, we have a lot to talk about here, because I have painted a picture of Matt over the years, and there have occasionally been charges that it's not an accurate picture. I portray him as an effete, you know, fez collecting, lute playing, twee who hangs out, right, in little bespoke garage sales, right? You're just asking the wrong person if I'm looking for a defense here. But no, but I'm sorry. Of course, I'm a caricaturist. I don't paint portraits. I make obscene caricatures. So, Amanda, where have I gone wrong in describing the Matt Gourley we all know and tolerate? You're touching on so many truths. There's a lot of truth to it, but I think where you go wrong is the style aspect, because I think people are imagining him in like a little vest and like a little cap. I know he has one. It's deep in the closet. Do you have a vest? I have a vest. That's a part of a suit, like a three-piece suit. But you never had just a solo vest. Oh, like without a shirt on underneath. So, I go to all the time. All the time. He worked at Chippendale. Yes, I portray him as a guy who wears like a straw boater hat and a little bow tie that spins when he pushes a button in his pocket. And you know what? Since he started working here, he won't wear a bow tie anymore. Anymore. Okay, that's great. So, I'm changing his behavior. You and Tucker Carlson. Yeah, exactly. You're the two. And I think one thing that I've noticed is that he's been a little bit more of a bow tie guy. I think one time he wore a little scarf, but that was just for 24 hours. What? And then it was like a little experiment that you did for a while. So, that is true. And so, it is true. He loves like little hobbies. Yeah. Like a scarf, like a flight attendant. Yes, a 1968 Swedish flight attendant. Named Inga, who's va-va-voom. It looked good. We were on vacation. It was like a kind of an open, relaxed linen shirt with a little scarf. Oh, my God. If you had taken a. Yeah. Yes. Thank you, Amanda. First of all, Amanda, thank you. Thank you. I can live off the meat on that bone for seven years. I didn't bring you here to have you live for me, you know? I need to sing your praises, Amanda. You are very talented and very accomplished. And I don't want to embarrass you or anything, but you have quite a list of things that you've done. You're a very successful podcaster. You have played Disney. You've done many princesses, many different ones. Is that right? Where did it all start? Why don't you tell your story for us? Okay. And you did this motion, which, like, kind of short. That's good. I want your life in three words. Okay. No, no, no. Go for it. Expand. This is a nightmare. I did not know I was going to be, like, interviewed. You didn't? No. I just thought I was more like a seat filler. Like, here to. No. Amanda, you are not a seat filler. And by the way, no. And if you think there was any planning that went behind any of us, any of this, you don't know us. Okay, okay. I'm just as surprised as you. Okay, let me just say, I'm from Long Beach, California. Okay. I worked at Disneyland. This is interesting. I played a princess when I was in high school, into young adulthood. And that's where it stops. But wait. And that's where I peaked. But this is fascinating to me because I remember clearly my wife and I taking Nev to. I think we took her to. We took her to Disneyland and the princesses were there. And to this day, I haven't seen my daughter that excited. I mean, she's excited about a lot of things, but it's a kind of. They're meeting real royalty. She was. Well, yeah. Yeah. It is real royalty. The scary thing is she was 21 at the time. No, I'm kidding. No, she was just this little girl, but she was meeting Cinderella. I know you played Cinderella. And you did it in Tokyo for six months, too, right? Yeah, I did it. I played Mary Poppins in Cinderella in Tokyo. I played Mary Poppins in Cinderella in Tokyo when I was 21, and it was the best six months of my life. Oh, wow. So you know. Wow. So you know what it's like to just have. I've been married for a while. I have kids. Adored. You know what? I had fans. When you work at Tokyo Disney, you have like full on a fan base. Yeah. Because the fan culture there, especially for Disney, is just outrageous. And they love it so much. So I would be just riding the subway on my day off and someone would come up to me and like hand me an envelope that was filled with pictures of myself. Oh, my God. Is that kind of scary? Well, I liked it. I did like it. And then also on the last day that you work, all of your fans, because at the beginning of your term, you work there for six months, people decide like, I'm going to be a fan of hers. And then on your last day, they all wait for you and they shower you with gifts. Oh, my God. Like you're dying. We know we're learning some important things here. The other ones. Matt wore a scarf once, like a flight attendant. And Amanda loved it. She likes men to photograph her from a great distance. Yeah. And then hand her the photos in an envelope. It's nice to have. You don't get a lot of pictures of yourself, you know, especially as a mom. You're always behind the camera. Yeah, it's true. Through shrubbery. I was going to say, I know there's like a distinction between the ones that have to wear the heads and then they're like the ones like you who are just it's your face. Yes. So is there is there like a legit hierarchy? Well, OK. When I worked there, yes. But but it was just a pay hierarchy because a face character, you get paid a little bit more, but you don't get paid as much as what Matt did at Disneyland, which was he was a talking trash can. Yes. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Push the talking trash can. And he got paid no joke, like three times as much as I was making as a princess and working hazard pay because people people people are constantly jamming a half eaten burrito in the trash can for the hundredth time. You know what? Were you on your knees like waddling? So you weren't inside. I think that's where you really should get the big bucks if you were inside the trash can. I was walking around with a really smart scarf on. Yeah. And and I had a little remote controller in a bag. And so I was nearby with a microphone hidden in the crowd. And the and it's a remote control. Are you controlling the motions of the. Wow. OK, so it was like early drone work. Yeah. So you could see why I was at a higher pay grade. No, I don't see that. No, I don't either. No, the princess. Is it true that the military is interested in weaponizing these trash? Just to go defend Ukraine, we're going to send 10,000 trash cans could be 10,000 Matt Gorley's doing improv, doing improv. That would kill him. Yeah. Good improv is a powerful weapon. It's true. You what you've you've don't you have done many podcasts and they're very creative. They involve character work. I mean, let's face it. We sit here. We babble like chimps and somehow we get away with it. But these are very creative podcasts. Can you tell us a little bit about some of those? Oh, yeah, sure. OK, so when I met Matt, this is a long time ago. Like he was already podcasting because like he was one of the first, you know, but I also was kind of podcasting from my little apartment in Taitown. I had my original podcast was called Trading Movies with Craig Kikowski and my friend Maria Blasucci. And so they would each give each other a movie to watch. The other one had never seen. And I was just the host. So they were of different generations. They were of different generations. So that was my very original podcast. And I didn't even know what was happening. I just knew like I was talking and I didn't know anyone was listening or anything. And then, yes. And since then, I have my kind of my life's work is called The Complete Woman. And that's a character piece based on my muse, who's a love and marriage expert from the 1970s. Her name's Maribel Morgan. It's a real woman. Yes. And she's she's a real woman. And I found this little book in a used bookshop one afternoon. It had just a rose on the cover called The Total Woman. And I cracked that thing open and I was like, oh, this is amazing. It's like the most insane marital advice. Yes. And so I do a play on that. Right. You inhabit it. This inspired you to become this woman. I am her. That's a great idea. But it's as if these albums were found. So it sounds like a record from the 60s. It's kind of vintage and it's all produced. It's so good. Yeah, it's really fun. And I love doing it. And it takes a lot of work because I edit it and do all the sound design. So it's been a while since I've done a season. Amanda is a more legitimate. I will say, Matt's super legitimate podcaster. I'm a total fraud and you're a total fraud. Well, you guys are the real deal. That's very cool. Well, I can get on the little computer and do a little sound design. I think she's done it for my job. Is this woman still alive? You know what? Last I checked, she was and she's now an artist. And you can. She does like paintings of horses. Give me an example of some of the advice this woman was giving women in the 70s or the 60s. So, OK. Yeah. So this is OK. So this woman was a direct response to second wave feminism. She was like, no, it's ruining marriages like we have to get away from this. And it was all it was based in evangelicalism. Is that the word? Yeah. OK. And so she was basically like, we can't be feminist. It's ruining our lives. We have to empower ourselves to make our husbands. Yeah. yes okay no you're gonna like some of this stuff heard no and seen conan's legit gonna like some of this stuff and so okay one of her okay how about this um uh the only way to stop a man from cheating is to let him cheat with you okay okay and like she means like okay she means get a wig yeah get away yeah get away i was telling lies and get away get away wasn't she dressing up like a native american yeah but she calls it an indian princess and guess what her kids love it too oh my god who is this lady okay and then another one of her ideas and this she was on the cover of time magazine okay this woman was a sensation oh wow okay like people know her if you ask a woman of a certain generation so she suggests if you don't have the money for a full-on costume um just wrap yourself in cellophane and go-go boots with nothing underneath and answer the door when he gets home from work with a chris martini and this was actually referenced in um fried green tomatoes i believe what yeah in the movie fried green tomatoes one of the characters does that to spice up the marriage i haven't seen in a long time but that's what the internet says she's a hoe um yeah i love it you know be naked yeah also if you want to stop your husband from cheating which is any moral thing to do it's your job to let him cheat with you which means it would be so confusing because then you'd play a character the guy would spend most of the time bitching about his wife to you the sex is terrible well well that's too bad it's so it's so strange so she's dropped all that now i don't know what the lady's up to but i just love her and i hope she's still with us i'm gonna google it after i leave here today i'll send you guys an email with an update if you can please do that show notes can somebody now um i'm gonna ask you some personal questions i've never come home just steaming mad about conan and his that that prick i can't believe i had to put up with him today and then you have to give him a martini and wrap him in cellophane does that ever happen shut him up yeah it's only happened like once well let's talk about that okay we'll leave it alone no not often okay not often not often oh man there's something here do i probe more or do i leave it alone go for it oh go for it okay matt's saying ghost and i look i i think i'm a fun guy to work with but i'm sure there have been two moments we all have moments um no he he loves this job we're so happy to be here thank you for having me can i just say something you're becoming the woman again she's like i just have to keep this red-haired man happy no but one more tip real quick okay so like if you want your husband to take out the trash but you don't want to nag obviously so you go oh honey your arms look so strong when you take out the trash this is just manipulation lord or love it i do love her yeah yeah i thought she was gonna say there's a hot chick out by the trash can you should walk over that way with the trash and then she has to put a wig on and run over there and go hi you big boy what's great about this woman though she ended up being the breadwinner because she was such a sensation and she would go like head to head with the actual feminists of the time like on talk shows and stuff oh she would debate them yeah she was a complete um like spectacle she's like the og trad wife she yes she was yeah it's and exactly making all the money too yeah so i that's why i love her because she's just crazy how do you like to unwind how do you like to relax oh what's a good day for you when this one's out of the house you get to just chill off with my indian princess who looks suspiciously like amanda oh i love i love to kick my feet up i love to unwind with a little bit of reality television you know i love when people cup their hands into a microphone you know you just made it louder yeah yeah i know but um there's no listen you will not be shamed here about reality television because because uh lies has been getting into the real housewives lately of i think beverly hills yeah she says it's it's particularly nutty right now and um yeah i you know i i don't publicly speak about reality television not for any reason just no one's ever asked me um but i i will say like but it's a policy of yours yeah until someone asks you i will not murder unless given the opportunity or asked to murder i have morals i have morals i just don't have a friend to talk to about it and i don't want to talk to anyone out it so but but a lot of um really dignified women watch these shows like michelle obama watches some reality television liza yep yep are you looking at me i like i abandoned a lot of my reality shows yeah why i think now i because my time in front of the tv is so finite that i like uh you know i like my sexy shows i like shows where people are banging okay so can i just say you talked about how a lot of classy people the uh amazing legendary director verner herzog was here when he did the podcast and i said what do you how you like to uh and he said i i you know he said i sometimes i like to watch these reality shows to observe honey boo boo and i thought okay if verner herzog is watching honey boo boo yeah it's true we're all okay yeah yeah no it's fine i like it i mean i i get too into it though like i really want to watch love island but it's like a huge commitment yeah i can't i've not gotten into that or like the bachelor i'll say this again they each one of those people burns about two calories an episode they sit they talk and then one of them might stand up and lead them to a slightly different area that's three feet away to have a separate talk you said that it's true yeah or it's a bad take does matt ever come home and go conan said the funniest thing today well he does say like he told me that and he said you might be interested in this that conan said oh that's nice does he have i have a question yeah yeah does he have too many projects yes is he always tinkering and doing things and is it annoying i yes i can answer for him definitely he does love a project yeah yeah and in your defense i've been over to your house uh and he's very talented he'll say oh i built this i built that and clearly you are quite handy but yeah it he does seem like someone who is always tinkering in the corner yes like the latest project is okay so he's got the back house right which is like our little his podcast studio number two second to this one and okay so in in the on the wall he's doing these other podcasts i won't have it okay on the wall there's okay a guitar case with a guitar in it but it's not just a guitar case you open it up and a bar comes down and inside it's a hidden closet and inside the closet are like booze shelves that are lit from below yeah um he is a crafty alcoholic and then he made a bassinet but it's really a beer dispenser giant flask yeah yeah it's i'm noticing a theme here i know uh no that but you are you're very good at it but i just think there must be times where you think you put down that screwdriver right now let's tango yeah yeah yeah there it was there's i support the projects but in there's certain projects i'm like 100 behind and some that i'm just like just turned a blind eye to and i go let him have his fun you know what i mean as long as he's in the door by 6 p.m what do i care what he's doing with the first you know 10 hours of the day uh wow i start podcasting probably at 5 30 a.m every morning you can do anything you want as long as you're home by six that's an incredible leeway that you're getting uh yeah lies is having me to do anything as long as i don't come home uh okay this is a fair question i think but is there anything that matt does routinely that sort of rankles you a little bit that it doesn't have to be anything terrible but just it's like oh my you know um because my wife has plenty of those oh like a pet peeve yeah oh this is like a question okay this is a real question okay well okay this he doesn't do it as much anymore he doesn't do it as much anymore he doesn't do it as much anymore anymore but he used to um wear noise canceling headphones like around the house listening to podcasts um so i would talk and then there'd be no answer and that i didn't like that and so i we talked about it that's why that's why you got a podcast just just so you could talk to your husband welcome back to hello matt can you please put the tuna salad back in the refrigerator your arms look great when you take out the trash we talked about it your legs look great when you get the fuck out of here we had a serious discussion about it but i was wearing noise canceling headphones oh my god but now what he does is he just plays them out loud on the phone wait not that often though do i do i need to do i need to scale this back listen i'm cool i'm easy peasy i'm like no i don't i'm just i'm being put on the spot to say a pet peeve uh you know i think we found rap sign just came up here no we found this is an area where maybe there could be some and i think of this these this series is a little bit of marriage counseling yeah you know it's a chance and the the healthiest marriages can use with a little discussion yeah except for mine or maybe i can talk but i don't want anyone else typing up oh you guys will like this okay so this is um like my talk show story that i wanted to bring on yeah okay so this is a something about you that surprised me okay um so matt and i had been and it kind of goes back to like the question of like your your hobbies and like his is he how you perceive him or how you display him on the podcast okay so matt and i have been dating for like a couple of years at this point it was in our old apartment and in our bedroom there was like this old vintage trunk that we were using just as a bench like i just thought it was a decorative trunk i never thought you sit on it you put your your work boots on you head out the door yes and i never thought to open it and so one day i was just like oh i wonder if this could be storage for something and i open it and inside there are hundreds of t-shirts novelty shakespeare t-shirts and for years he had been selling these t-shirts um hand-drawn shakespeare art in these t-shirts on a website he had a whole website domain and he never disclosed this to me you had a secret website i was not hiding it the the business had like had like withered to a near death it wasn't even i wasn't really there's not big money in bespoke cool shakespeare t-shirts what what explain to me what these even are like you look like okay i had this he still sells them and he's you still sell them wait a minute wait a minute can you describe i'm not going to go to him you can't speak for a second amanda describe okay i just had to say this it was um like a white t-shirt with like a hand-drawn ink portrait of like i don't know like hamlet um what happened to hamlet again nothing good dad died okay and married his mom am i thinking about okay okay there'd be like a quote underneath it that was like a joke like what they were humorous so it was just hamlet lying dead on the ground and the quote was not to be and so i would say be or not to be your festivals yeah yeah and as like merchandise for their plays and stuff like that that's like i'm not proud you went to no no but i'm imagining it's not a huge bedroom because you're a young couple you haven't gotten married yet you know he's not he's he's living off of t-shirt dough from shakespeare hey we're living in the house that those shakespeare t-shirts built he told me he was a teacher he did not mention that he was running this company right he tells a lot of people he's a teacher and it's generous no it had just died it was i wasn't doing anything that's why they're sitting in your home your your wife fiance catches you your that's my your secret your secret activity on the internet late at night and uh it's not robot porn it's watching it's it's t-shirt a t-shirt company with puns about hamlet many ways it's it would have been better if i had a mistress yes it would have been so much better you'd have been so much happier if it was just it would have been so much better you opened it up and it's just hundreds of thousands of vhs cassettes yeah or dildos if it was just dildos dildos you'd be like i would have been like oh yeah we can resell these hose them down and resell them i think i just sat there quietly and just waited for him to get home and was like how do i what do i say secret life and so what did you you just said explain this and you held up a t-shirt i did and and then um you're bringing in one of these t-shirts yeah you have yeah you are yeah you are i gave them all oh here we go yeah i i've known i've known matt for maybe 14 years at this point and i've never heard of this before i've never heard the story and it must have been happening while we've known each other and the fact you had an entire business is just it's it shouldn't be shocking because of what it is but it's just shocking that it exists it's quiet i mean it really is like if i was just if i make landmines in my spare time and bury them around you know it's just as shocking well honey do you want to plug your website because it's still live i don't know the website is the website red bubble it's on red bubble and every time he makes a sale now he forwards me the email and i'm like oh my god i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry and people are buying like the sticker version of it so it'll be like 88 cents for like this like ophelia sticker can we can we plug it on no but what is it how do people find it we need the money oh my god things are tough at the gorley house go listen to the complete woman that's the pod that's where you should go this is all right well uh your your podcast the complete woman sounds hilarious thank you um i'm going to investigate this business of yours matt and there's nothing you can do about it um i am curious i know i've been given the rap like 15 times but you're extremely entertaining how did you guys meet like what was that the cute meat how did it go yeah the cute meat it was um a trash can was following you home well we actually meet cute i'm sorry yeah it's me cute yeah we um did not meet at disney although we worked there together for years and never crossed paths that we remember but uh we met at universal studios capital of la and in orientation um anyone who's been to universal probably has seen on the new york street they have like these new york people who hang out of a window are like hey like pepperoni or whatever pepperoni i love that yeah so for one summer they were trying they had a little like um british street and they were like well let's put some british people hanging out of the window and matt and i were hired to do this job and we met at orientation and it was your line was english pepperoni but we met at orientation and it was like love at first speak yeah yeah so right away right away and then by the end of the orientation day we were going up you know like those big escalators they have for the parking structures he and i were on the escalator together and there was a couple in front of us and they were both wearing um benicio del toro werewolf what's it called the wolfman bowling shirts yeah that had big wraparound graphics of benicio del toro as the wolfman right yeah and i thought i could make a t-shirt better than that and i did and i did and i turned around i said that's gonna be us in 20 years oh and and then it it is in five years that's what we'll be doing yeah that's what we'll be doing yeah that's really sweet yeah um also you brought your your little kids in today which was really sweet yeah that's lovely yeah our new little baby that is the smilingest baby i've ever seen just amazing and then until i showed up smiling at everybody and then i was like hi kid um amanda thank you so much for coming in really cool and um this is fascinating we're gonna and then there's going to be an episode where just you guys talk wow are you guys scared yeah i think we might lose the podcast we're thinking yeah i think this could be a problem but you know what i'm i'm happy we ran our course yeah we did it we did okay we had a good run put us down put us down we had a good run all right thank you very much amanda conan o'brien needs a friend with conan o'brien sonam of sessian and matt gorley produced by me matt gorley executive produced by adam sacks jeff ross and nick leo theme song by the white stripes incidental music by jimmy vivino take it away jimmy our supervising producer is aaron 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 batista and brit khan you can rate and review this show on apple podcasts and you might find your review read on a future 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