Summer S’pouses Episode 3: Tak Boroyan

Hi, my name is Tak Baroian and I'm still adjusting to being Sonomafcesian spouse. Summer spouse is with Conan O'Brien, Sonomafcesian and Mack Whirling, and Liza Paolo Bryan, Tak Baroian, and Amanda Lund. How many years have you been married now? It's been 10. Where are you being serious? No, no, no. We got married in 2019. No. 2018. Yes. So, Dad, let me do my math. Well, we're going to wrap this up. This is already great. We're going to wrap this up. This is fantastic. I feel like Chuck Woolery right now. Wait, wait, wait. Oki's eight years old. So, eight years. You're going off of Oki's eight years? Yes. How many children you have? Well, let's see. Let's see. There are two little beds. Okay. I'm going to start this off by saying that Tak Baroian is one of the cooler people I've met in my life. True. And I will-- I'm going to give you the evidence. It's a guy super handsome, cool graphic artist. Okay. You've worked for Tim and Eric's company. Absolutely. For 14 years. Yeah. You are a sick guitarist. You've been in a bunch of bands. Okay. Toward, this guy emigrated in 1989 from Soviet Armenia. Yeah. Where you either did or didn't cause the plant, the power plant. We talked about this. You told me not to bring it up. I know. You said-- What? You said I never said he was responsible for Chernobyl. I never said that. Yeah. We're all a clan. Oh! This is the way I had always heard the story. Tak was on a school trip. They went to Chernobyl to see the plant. They said, "Don't touch anything." Tak said, "What's in this room?" And they said, "Tak, you irrepressible scamp. You stay out of that room." Tak went in there, removed an important cooling rod, and walked out of the reactor. He exploded, creating one of the worst nuclear disasters ever, after which Tak fled the Soviet Union. Came to America, married you, and then you said, "Maybe we should get a microwave." And he said, "Who needs a microwave? Watch this." And he just put his hand over the food. Okay. Okay, look, maybe I said that, but you emigrated from Soviet Armenia in 1989. How old were you at the time? I was 11. That's a tough time to emigrate. Your whole world changed. Yeah, I was like, I was somewhat of a child, and then I was still a child when we came. And I didn't speak any English. I think it's the hardest thing in the world to do. You're very imaginable. I'm still struggling with that. No, to completely, especially at that age or any age, uproot and come to a different country and need to learn the language, the customs, everything. Yeah. It was tough. It was not easy at first, but you know. When you're young, you adjust really easily, so. Did you make friends pretty quickly? Oh, yeah. Did you? Yeah. I don't want to. Because I still have it. I still have it. That's a couple. Yeah. So we were a cool kid. Were you pretty cool? No, God, no. I only became cool when I started marrying Sona. When I started marrying Sona. Yeah. It's a long, it's a long process. It's a long process. It's still marrying. Yeah. That's why he doesn't know how long you've been marrying. Okay. It's not a special yet. Here's what I remember. Here's what I remember very clearly. Okay. I don't know how much you know, but Sona was, you know, it's a wild tornado at the show. Oh, yeah. And she was a force of nature. I love Sona, but she was always getting mad at me for different reasons. And we would becker and she would say, well, I'm not going to give you your messages because you need to, you know, I mean, crazy stuff was happening. Sure. And then one day she comes in and she's the happiest person in the world. Oh. And she was like, I met this guy. We used to do shows at Comic Con. She said, I met someone at Comic Con and the next thing I know, you're in the picture. And you, she was immediately over the moon happy. And then all of us were like, this guy, Tak is the coolest guy ever. Then you guys get engaged. You have this wedding and went to the wedding. And I watched you guys come out and I was like, that is the, that is the Jack Kennedy and Jackie, you know, like, you're just like the high praise. Seriously. Like there's a, like, power couple. And he used to do us an engagement party with like 150 of our closest friends. That was fun. I've never seen so many moustaches in my life and eyebrows. Yeah. So nice of you. And I realized they all had one eyebrow sweet all of the big, grew the one circular one. It's like redwood trees that share roots. I notice like, these guys all have to go in one car. Well, we better go now. Yeah, just, just been a delight. And then you have the coolest, you have these, these twin boys. And they're super cool. Good looking. They're just going to lay ways to the world. They are. My kids Charlie. A lot of energy. A lot of energy. It's a lot. They're a handful. But they're so cute and they're so sweet. They are really sweet. Yeah. It's just the, the fighting. Like, my God. It's constant. I always say, I feel like I'm referring half the time at the house and just like, yeah, you go there. You go there. You go there. Yeah. Are you a cool dad? Or are you a dad that loses, gets his loses his temper? What dad are you? I try not to like, lose my shit, but I do, right? Yeah. It's hard. But yeah, try not to do it. Uh, it's just like so frustrating at times. Um, you just got to remember that they're little, and don't take everything personally and. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Again, these are skills I've not mastered. Yeah. Yeah. English. Having friends. Not taking things personally, I think I need a lot of work. Um, tell me about the music because you're really into punk music. Yeah. What are your inspirations? Who do you love? Oh, man. There's so many. Um, well, everything from like, you know, old school like British punk, like, you know, cox bar or the clash, sexual stuff like that. Yep. Yep. Yep. And then like American bands, rancid, like, dropkick wear fees. Yep. Yeah. They're on your show. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so and you shred. Uh, yeah. You do. You shred. You're too modest. No, you're modest. He shreds. These are really good guitars. For punk music, I do. Okay. Yeah. But in like, uh, compared to like metal guitar players or, you know, that whole circle, I don't. You know, I'm not. I'm told that when you, uh, go check out a punk band, you'll jump in the mosh pit. Uh, yeah. Uh, we, I do sometimes. When you, I took Sona into the mosh pit. Right? Yeah. And how, wait, how did that go, Sona? We went to sea cox bar in Santa Cruz. They don't come to LA, right? Because someone got stabbed. Yeah. Is that what happened? It happened. Yeah. People get bitten on the cox bar ticket. Yeah. He will be stabbed. And then he, uh, there's like a code with mosh pits too. Like, they're not, it's, it's like violent, but also if someone falls, they create like a barrier. Am I doing this right? And then, uh, but so like, tacked just like kind of grabbed me and like took me in there. And then the crowd of people just threw me around like a doll. Yeah. And then I got out and it was intense and scary and really fun. It looks violent and crazy, but there is like a method to the madness. Like people watch out for everybody. At least when I was going to shows, you know, um, soon as somebody falls down, that's like everyone sort of just jumps in and pulls them out, right, or her out and then stabs them. Yeah. You stabbing when it comes away. You stab mosh pits, don't you? I do. I love, I love starting a good pit. Have you ever started a mosh pit and realized this probably isn't the environment for it? We're at a bar mitzvah. You're wetting. This is a brisk. Brisk. The oil is being fabbled around. Oh my god. He's still working on the kid. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. I was, I was wanted to start a mosh pit at a comedy show that like, oh my god, stand up. Great idea. Yeah. So you're at Comic Con. Yeah. And how did you, were you wandering around and you saw Sonia? Yeah. This is after we, we had finished the shows for the week. I went back. You said, I'm going to stick around, you know, and, and check out some of the venues at Comic Con. Is that right? I went to the actual convention. Yeah. I was walking around with my friend, David. He was walking around with his friend, Katie, and they knew each other, David and Katie. Just by chance. Just by chance. And we just ran, ran into them by chance. And did you know who Sonia was in terms of the Conan thing? I seen the Armini episode, like a few months ago before that. And then I was like, where did I know this brought from, you know, she looks so familiar. Yeah. And I thought she was somebody's cousin at first. I was like, I, I, you're a silencer, I was cousin and she's like, yeah, I am. And then, and then it clicked. And then we started talking and I told her what a good job she did on the episode. That was a lovely episode. It was. You said we know a matchmaker. I took you to a matchmaker and little did we know that it worked right then it, in a way it did because you were on television with a matchmaker. We couldn't find you a good match. I think most of the people that the matchmaker was showing us, she was on her computer. She said we have to wait for him to get out of prison. they were all They were all 40 years older than you and they all looked like they had been, they had had a rough couple of years. And then she did say like, oh, you got to wait, that's a really good episode. That was a great episode. It was. It was. And then because of that episode, because of the matchmaker, I got a lot of random requests, friend requests from guys. I was one of them. And he was one of them. And so the next day, because we didn't exchange information the next day, I stalked him on Facebook. And then I found him, he had requested me as a friend like months earlier. It was more of a thing like I was like, how do I, how do we not have any mutual friends or relatives? Because we're in the same business. We're just like, we're the same age roughly. I'm a little older. And I was like, how is this possible? We don't never met. Right. Yeah. And then I sent her a friend request and I never heard back. And then when we got back from Comic Con, I was like, will he new? I think I wrote it. I think Zach swept you off your feet. He did. He's very glant. Well, you, you met a lot of the guys I had dated before attack. Yeah. Yeah. And it was not that my standards were low. I'm not saying that. But I always say that when tack showed up, I was a miracle. It was fantastic. What the fuck? It was a miracle though. It was fantastic. Why? Because he's, he's like this, you know, dashing cool guy who can do everybody's, you know, I don't know. I just say it was. And, and, and, you know, some of the other guys I didn't like. That's all I'm saying. I know. I like the guys. Yeah. One of them had an air mattress in an alley, you know? God. That was a video game guy. They wanted you to drop them off at the methadone clinic. What are you talking about? What are you saying? The guy from the, it was playing video games when you showed up. But you know what? But I was like her, I was at the father figure. So she, I would say, she'd come back from one of these dates and I'd say, well, how did it go? I said, and she went, it was okay. I mean, I went to his house. He entered the door in his underwear. He said, I'm not ready to go out yet because I'm still playing. I'm on a new level of my video games. Can you just chill? And she said, okay. And he gestured to a bean bag chair. And I sat in that. And he played his video game in his underwear and then said, well, should we just walk to like the olive garden? And then we can split the check. And I was just like saying, no. He wooed me like the, your wooer. How did you come important? What did you guys do for your first date? Our first date was at city walk. That's like Amanda in me. Yeah. It was an ironic city walk date, right? Yeah. We went to see, we went to Hard Rock Cafe. And then we went to see a horror movie and I did the movie, you know? What was the movie? There's a couple of moves here. That's just one out. I think was it? It was lights out. Yeah. Which I, and I hate horror. And I told you, I hate horror, you're like, but this one's good. And I said, all right, I'll be. I'm in charge. I know. Is this a video game? He was guys doing a Hard Rock Cafe. Yeah. It was fun. It was really fun. Obviously, I was good marrying him. I'd babies with him. We did all right. We did okay. We did okay. Yeah. And how are you adjusting to Sonia's family? Let's talk about that. You've got Gil, who I love Gil. Love Gil. That's your dad, of course. Yes. Don't do it. Oh, sorry, Gil. All right. You know what I love? When I do my Gil, I put a finger on my nose and what I love is I blow on this corner of the finger to make it lift up a little bit. Love Gil, Nadia. You know, Nadia said to me when she first met me in 2009. She said Conan Rock, USA. You Rock, USA? She said, you Rock, USA. Yeah. And I said, fantastic. It's amazing to me too, for some reason. But you do Rock, USA. Yeah. So, you know, any of my, you guys, do you have any questions, Matt? Do you remember? I pitched that you and I do a podcast together one time. Yeah. Called Paris Toika. So Paris Toika. And where we just talk about the toys from our youth, mine in America, and yours in Soviet, Albania. Oh, but you know, you don't you have some old Soviet toys from Europe. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we bought some for the kids. We bought a crack a deal again and Chiburashka. Oh, can you tell us who you don't know who those are? Oh, you know, you don't know. You guys like this. This is a rough, it's really. It's really scary. Vinipoch, Vinipoch, too. They're like, you know, Vinipoch has, we need a poo, but the Russian version. Right. And he's got, and he's got a smoker's voice. Yeah. Yeah. You Rock, USA. 20 of the poo, but he's instead of like the 100 acre woods. He's, he's in a line. He's in a line to get borscht. It was a beautiful children's cartoon. I'm sorry. What's the wolf one? That one's weird. Oh, Nupakadzi. Nupakadzi. Yeah. That's like the Tom and Jerry of Soviet animation. It's like a wolf and a rabbit always tries to eat them. Right. And you know, now it goes. I know how it goes. It's a chain scratchy. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's fascinating to me that it doesn't matter what the culture. Kids are going to want the same kind of stuff, and the culture will provide that for them. It will look different to us. It will sound different, but we want, we want two characters that are trying to kind of kill each other. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. One crazy ugly one and one cute one. And that's it. And do your kids like these toys? Yeah. I think so. They sing. So he pressed the button and they sing the songs from the cartoon. Do they look? Because these were made a long time ago, right? No, these are like remakes. Oh, they're remakes. Okay. Yeah. What's the songcrukey deal? Get us things? I'm not going to sing that. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, listen, we've all had childhood toys. I had, I had a Mrs. Beasley doll. Mrs. Beasley? Crazy reference family affair. Listen, you can, that'll come right out. What? And snip. And we're back of family affair. Yeah. Yeah. Boy, that'll, that'll help. We're talking about Mrs. Beasley. No, that's okay. Oh, we, we cut that out. Oh, and we didn't. We didn't. It's still it. Stop that. Stop that. What am I going to play music with you? And what would I do? What would I do? What would I fit into? Because you know, my vibe is sort of more rockabilly kind of thing. So I don't know. I've never really tried to play punk. All the way. Love the clash. Yeah, punk or kind of adjacent kind of adjacent. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. I play rockabilly so fast that it might sort of, it's actually a genre, some genre called, it's called psychobilly. Psychobilly. I'm kind of a psychobilly guy. Are you really? Well, a little bit. And my, in my youth, I was more psychobilly because I was just more insane. I believe it or not, I have mellowed. To me, psychobilly is like communism. Like sounds good on paper, but for some reason what I heard together, I'm like, I still think it could work. And we're going to find out in Manhattan real soon. There's a, there's a joke they say like rockabilly is like the retirement plan for punk rockers, you know, because they get older and they go there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe, maybe that's me. Maybe that's me. There you go. Maybe after all I am punk. Now, Sony, is there anything or grievances you'd like to air here or maybe tech? You'd like to say, well, there's something, come on, is there something that Sony's doing around the house that you'd like maybe for her to alter her behavior a little bit? This is a safe space. We can talk about it. Yeah. Proceed. How much time do we have? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. No, everything's great. One thing that drives me crazy is, is sometimes I'd play certain kinds of music and Sonny will get mad at me and like, you play like such a good Sony impression. He plays like mega deaths for our five-year-old. No, I got to learn to make this great. No, but like, there's some, what was the one that had a lot of like f-boms in it? Like, it was the one who just, the guy, the Irish guy who died like a couple years ago. Oh, the pokes? The pokes. Yeah. Oh, Shane McGowan. Shane McGowan. Yeah. Oh, he's got a hunt. They got in here. But they were like three. You could barely make out what he's saying. No, no, no. I mean, Shane McGowan couldn't understand Shane McGowan. No, no, no, it's just like, I don't know what that is. They don't know what that is. Sorry, Shane, RIP. There's a lot of like, not age-appropriate music he puts on. He's just so eager for them to like, have the same music taste. And I'm like, they're five. Are they, do you think they're going to be interested? Do they? Oh, I've seen, you guys used to put on some music and then when that it jumped in, it got fast. Yeah. They would both, I mean, they were like two at the time. They were sort of, they were sort of, uh, gyrating a little bit with the music. And then the minute this fast part would come, they would both spring to life. And I was just so good to see. They'd start a mosh pick at home. No, it's, it's, it's not even that. It's like, I'll play like a little bit of like country music or something in a car. And she gets mad at me. It's like, what's wrong country. It. It's not fun country, like, you know, Dolly or Woody, it's like redneck country. - I don't like redneck country, and I've said, I don't like redneck country. - I don't play Walmart country in a car. I play like, like, Grand Parsons, you know, like, cool shit. - Oh my god, yes, one of my favorites. I got a Grand Parsons is mellowies. - I don't know. - Then she's like, "Come on, flying real bados!" - I'm gonna say this, I love tack. And don't get mad at him. - Don't get mad at him ever, sonat, ever. - I ever? - Yeah, he can do no wrong. Whatever you're doing is right. - He's gonna be crowdsurfing with our boys. You've crowdsurfed. - I did, yeah. - He's crowdsurfed before. You know, people would just learn, like, on top. I always wanted to do that, but I've never done that, but he's done that. - Yeah, one of my things. - If that's your one of your wishes, we can make that happen. We can crowdsurf. - I wanna crowdsurf. - Yeah, we'll use everyone who works for the podcast company. - You wear a fishbone concert. - Fishbone concert? - Really? - At Crenshaw High Auditorium. - Oh, that's cool. - I know, is that you crowdsurfing to the Benny Goodman Tribute concert? (laughing) - But it went on so long, they passed me into the fishbone concert. - Oh my god. - Botnap your overcoat when the wind blows, free, and he's jumping. (laughing) - You're just lightly misusing you as you are. - A bunch of 90-year-old women holding you up. - It's like stage diving. - This is crutch. - This hurts. - Yeah. (laughing) - Sobosolo. - I was just tossing out Shakespeare T-shirts. (laughing) I was like, "Oh, hold on with a cannon." Zach, thank you so much for coming in. You are a superstar. You're one of my favorite people. And also, I love Sona. And you made her and continue to make her so happy. You're such a good guy. It's such a great dad, such a great husband that I'm just delighted. I'm delighted that you could come in today. Seriously. - You heard it, folks. - I'm going endorsement for "Remen himself." - Yep. - We all know that Conan only says "reasonable thing." (laughing) - That are beyond dispute. - Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonom of Sessian, and Mack Gourley. Produced by me, Mack Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, 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 BrittCon. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review read on a future episode. Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco Hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It, too, could be featured on a future episode. You can also get three free months of Sirius XM when you sign up at SiriusXM.com/Conan. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O'Brien, Needs A Friend, where ever fine podcasts are downloaded.