Hey Internet, can you pass this along to Conan, please. It's just a little thank you note.
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18 January 2021
Dear Conan,
It’s been almost a year since I sat mere feet from you at the Oxford Union in England. It was the only time in my life I stood in line for an event, and – as it would turn out, one of my last social outings before the pandemic struck in earnest. Picked a good one, eh.
Please forgive the serious tone of this note. I have wanted to send a witty, funny email that would most likely get forgotten in the hamper; but you clearly don’t get sarcasm, I know.
So I have to be straight for a moment.
Since hastily rushing home to the Canadian Maritimes in March 2020, photo album and fiddle in hand, I’ve been working in my province’s public health office. Along with the rest of the world, my mornings, days, evenings, nights, dreams and nightmares have been dominated by Covid-19. Oh yeah, and American politics.
My once go-to podcasts, news sites, magazines, TV shows, radio shows, and even family dinners – all they talk about now is the virus. Or worse, Trump. As a fellow celt, it’s enough to tut tut and mumble to myself, “Christ, the state of the world.”
Actually, seriously, it’s been a very dark few months – darker for many others. During those precious hours of escape when I take a long walk or jog, it’s been you that I turn to for company. Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend has simply kept me from the brink of, I dunno, a hopelessness I’ve never felt before. As a millennial of Scots descent, that’s saying something.
Other North Americans don’t get our celts’ melancholy. It’s been 200 years since you came off the boat, they say. How do you still consider yourself Irish! But they don’t get it.
Conan, you personify one half of our peoples’ simple philosophy that has carried down through generations. In this mean old world, you have to either laugh or cry.
Through famines, occupations, insurrections, pandemics, and wars old and new, Irish and Scots have persevered with that most powerful weapon: laughter. No one can conquer that.
I’ve cried a lot this past year. But, thanks to you, I’ve laughed even more. I hope you find your friend someday, Conan. Until then, you’ll be mine.
Thank you.
JJ MacGregor
Prince Edward Island, Canada
P.S. Why wasn’t that stupid contest open to Canadian citizens?
P.P.S. If you ever want it for your mantel, I have a grainy photo of you from the Oxford Union. People are looking away because I think you just mentioned your wife, and the room was pretty surprised.
