Name: Fran Lebowitz Is Plotting Her Revenge | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-03-05T16:41:16.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fran Lebowitz Is Plotting Her Revenge | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-03-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fran Lebowitz Is Plotting Her Revenge | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-03-05. Transcript available.

Our next guest is a well-known lecturer and author and best-selling book,
author of the
best-selling book, Metropolitan Life. Here's Fran Lebowitz, ladies and
gentlemen.
Hello, Fran. How are you? Nice of you to be here.
Thank you.
It is nice of you to be here. You are a lecturer. You do that for a living?
Yes, I do that instead of writing.
Where would one go to hear you lecture?
One would go to college.
But what you really want to do is not so much do colleges because they don't
pay so well.
You like to do conventions.
You actually go to a lecture at conventions, huh?
I recently returned from the CPAs of Pennsylvania convention in Boca Ratan.
There's a fun group, huh?
Right, where I am. And I just did the wives.
Oh, I see.
As the man explained to me, well, for the men at night, we're having the
amazing Kreskin, but the wives like culture.
But you do some mind reading also, don't you? Make things disappear in your act,
keep things lively.
I would guess that you're-
I bend forks.
I would guess that you're- do your lectures take place during the day?
This one did. This was at breakfast.
Yeah.
A breakfast reading.
And how long do you go with one of these?
About- depends how much they pay.
By the minute.
By the minute.
By the minute?
What, uh, you are a native New Yorker, I'm guessing?
Uh, well, from New Jersey.
From New Jersey. Close enough.
This is- this is the question that I have loathed, uh, for years and years, uh,
when someone asks someone like yourself,
"Which do you prefer, California or New York?"
But I'm going to ask it nonetheless.
You actually asked that question? Which do you prefer?
Yeah. It comes up often around my house.
Oh. Um, I prefer New York.
Yeah. Now, why would that be-
That's putting it mildly.
Uh, now, why would that be, just generally?
Uh, well, generally, I can't say, but specifically, I'd say that as a writer,
um, to be in a state where the main prose style is apparent only on license
plates-
Yes.
Is disconcerting.
Yeah. It is, uh, they- I don't know that that's in every state, but in Los
Angeles, it's a big hobby.
You- in fact, you can actually see cars forming sentences when you're on the
freeway, you know, people with words.
It's the primary form of literature.
Mm-hmm.
Um, what about, uh, children? Yeah? Do you have any desire? Uh, do you like
kids?
Um.
You were one, I'm guessing.
I was myself a child, mm-hmm, for about 27 years.
Yeah.
I was- I liked it. It was a good job, but I kept being a child. Um, I have no
children of my own. I have several God children. Uh-huh.
Uh, I'm- I'm rather fond of children. Adults, I'm not crazy about it. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's the problem with kids, is they're great while they're children,
but eventually they grow up and become annoying.
That's true.
This is not, uh, not- well, I guess a specific or general again. Um, do you
live, uh, here in a, uh, apartment? Do you own a home somewhere?
No, I don't own a home somewhere. I live in an apartment.
Mm-hmm.
I would like to own a home somewhere.
Yeah, it would be nice. Here.
You would like to own one here?
I would like to.
I would like to share with both points. Um, what about the-
The audience is pretty much self-entertaining, aren't they?
Uh, we're- we're coming back here, uh, with Fran Lebowitz and, uh, this
television program and most everything else in life will continue in a couple
of minutes after you take a look at this.
Fran Lebowitz is here this morning and we were, uh, discussing, among other
things we were about to include in that, uh, conversation, uh, mail.
Uh, now I get mail and I just, uh, generally don't read it. The good and the
bad upsets me equally. How do you react to mail?
I read all of it. I answer none of it.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
That's fine. I don't answer hate mail, nor do I answer hate mail.
Do you get a genuine hate mail?
I get very genuine hate mail, yes.
I get, um, physically threatening mail.
You've actually done- had that happen, huh?
Yes. I seem to, um, be very popular amongst, uh, convicted felons.
Prisoners. I, it seems to me from my mail that people in prison mostly watch
television.
Uh-huh.
You know, people out of prison mostly watch television, so I don't understand
why you have prisons, really, um, at all.
You could just sentence someone to stay home and watch TV all day, yeah.
Right, stay and watch television. They do anyway.
Yeah.
And then we wouldn't have to pay for them to do that.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, but I don't answer any of my mail. The worst, uh, avalanche of hate mail I
ever received was I wrote a piece for Newsweek about teenagers.
Um, and, uh, apparently this was assigned to many high school classes across
the nation to read.
Their homework was to write me a letter.
Mm-hmm. Um...
What was your stand on, uh, teenagers in the piece?
Um, generally, um, I'm not really crazy about teenagers.
I must say, I didn't even like teenagers when I was a teenager.
Yeah, yeah.
Including myself.
Uh-huh.
Um, I have a theory about teenagers was that, uh, teenagers' main intent in
life seems to be to annoy those around them.
So I feel that one of the less populous states, like Wyoming, should be cleared
of all adults and all teenagers should move into this state.
This would...
And it should be just a teen state.
Yeah.
Um, in which case they could all, you know, wear dark glasses at breakfast and
annoy each other.
Uh-huh.
And this would begin, I guess, when they're 13 through 19, huh?
13 through 19, and then they have to go to work.
Yeah.
Uh, well, that's pretty much, uh, pretty much what college is, isn't it?
It's like a, a small Montana where they get together and annoy people.
But you have to pay for that, you see.
Yeah, that's true.
Um, what about, um, have you ever gone into therapy or self-help or any of that
sort of thing?
No, no.
I've gone into self-help, which, to me, is working.
Mm-hmm.
But any, where people with, uh, similar disturbances get together for help?
Unfortunately, there are no people with similar disturbances, so I haven't been
able to form
a group.
Yeah.
You know, since I guess my main, um, I have two main activities in life,
smoking and plotting
revenge.
You don't really need a group.
No.
I can plot by myself revenge.
Uh-huh.
Sometimes I use the phone, but.
Yeah.
Um, I don't really, uh, not much group type person.
Yeah.
But the smoking is then, I guess, you're, we listed as your hobby.
It's my hobby.
Yeah, that's great.
Not my profession.
Uh-huh.
That's good advice for any teenagers looking in today, too.
Right.
I, I, in fact, in my piece, suggested that teenagers, uh, smoke as a substitute
for sex.
Uh, more wonderful advice, uh, the book is, uh, "Metropolitan Life".
You have a new book coming?
Uh, in March.
In March.
Which will be called?
Social Studies.
Social Studies.
Fran Lebowitz.
We'll be back with Edwin Newman and an NBC News update right after this.
Thank you.