Name: Fran Lebowitz Collection on Letterman, 1980-2010
Uploaded: 2021-01-11T17:27:13.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fran Lebowitz Collection on Letterman, 1980-2010' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-01-11. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fran Lebowitz Collection on Letterman, 1980-2010' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-01-11. Transcript available.

Fran Lebowitz Collection on Letterman, 1980-2010

Welcome back to the show.
Thank you, Frank.
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.
It is nice of you to be here.
You are a lecturer.
You do that for a living?
Yes.
I do that instead of work.
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've recently returned from the CPAs of Pennsylvania convention in Boca Raton.
There's a fun group, huh?
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.
You do some mind reading also, don't you make things disappear in your act,
keep things
lively?
I bend forks.
I would guess that your lectures take place during the day.
breakfast reading.
And how long do you go with one of these?
By the minute.
By the minute.
By the minute.
What?
You are a native New Yorker, I'm guessing?
Well, from New Jersey.
From New Jersey.
Close enough.
So, this is a question that I have loathed for years and years 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.
I prefer New York.
Yeah.
Now, why would that be?
That's putting it mildly.
Now, why would that be, just generally?
Well, generally I can't say, but specifically I can say that as a writer, to be
in a state
where the main prose style is apparent only on license plates is disconcerting.
Yeah.
It is.
I don't know that that's in every state, but in Los Angeles it's a big hobby.
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.
No.
Yes.
What about children?
Yeah.
Do you have any desire?
Do you like kids?
Yeah.
You were one, I'm guessing.
I was myself a child for about 27 years.
Yeah.
I liked it.
It was a good job, but I kept being a child.
I have no children of my own.
I have several God children.
Uh-huh.
I'm rather fond of children.
Adults, I'm not crazy in it.
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, well, I guess it's specific or general again.
Do you live here in a apartment?
Do you own a home somewhere?
No.
No, I don't own a home somewhere.
I live in an apartment.
Mm-hmm.
I would like to own a home somewhere.
Yeah.
Here.
You would like to own one here.
I would like to.
Yeah, well, that would take care of both points.
Um...
What about the...
The audience is pretty much self-entertaining, aren't they?
Uh...
We're coming back here with Fran Lebowitz and this television program and most
everything
else in life will continue in a couple of minutes after you take a look at this.
Uh...
Hi, and welcome back.
Fran Lebowitz is here this morning and we were discussing, among other things
we were
about to include in that conversation, uh, mail.
Now I get mail and I just generally don't read it.
The good and the bad upsets me equally.
How do you react to mail?
Yeah.
I read all of it.
I answer none of it.
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 had that happen, huh?
Yes.
I seem to be very popular amongst, uh, convicted felons.
Prisoners.
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 just sentence someone to stay home and watch TV all day.
Right.
Stay in and watch television.
They do anyway.
Yeah.
And then we wouldn't have to pay for them to do that.
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.
Uh, and, uh, apparently this was assigned to many high school classes across
the nation
to read.
Their homework was to write me a letter.
Uh-huh.
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, which is 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 the state.
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 what college is, isn't it?
It's like a small Montana where they get together and annoy people.
But you have to pay for that yourself.
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.
Uh-huh.
But any, were people with, uh, similar disturbances get together for help?
Unfortunately, there are no people with similar disturbances.
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 for that.
No.
I could 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, uh, smoking is then, I guess you're...
It's my hobby.
Yeah, that's great.
If not my profession.
Uh-huh.
That's good advice for any teenagers looking in today, too.
Right.
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.
Paul Schaefer, ladies and gentlemen.
Uh, Fran Lebowitz is a very talented writer.
Her book, Metropolitan Life, uh, of which I don't have a copy here, was called
Outrageous,
Witty, Biting, and Acerbic by critics across the United States.
She is, excuse me, once...
She's terribly rude to swallow during someone's introduction, isn't it?
She has, once again, blessed America with her dry sense of humor and a new book
entitled
Social Studies, of which I do have a copy right here.
Please welcome Fran Lebowitz.
How are you?
Nice of you to be here.
You look nice.
You feel good?
Alright.
Good.
Just alright?
Just alright.
Have you ever felt better?
No.
So just alright is pretty much it for you.
I can start the Zenith though.
Well, that's good.
I'm glad we caught you at the peak then.
That's very nice.
Um, uh, this is a great book by the way, as was the other.
I know that you've heard this from people who are of some note in the literary
field.
And I was reading about you this afternoon and you were described or and or
again, words
like curmudgeon, W.C Fields like, um, you know, irascible.
Cheery.
Who?
Cheery.
Cheery.
No, cheery wasn't in there.
I didn't see cheery.
Uh, do you, now let's just cover a couple of these points.
Do you, do you really hate kids?
No.
I've never said I hated kids.
Never said?
Adults I hate.
You hate adults?
Yes.
Kids I like.
You do like kids?
Yes.
They don't review books.
Uh huh.
Uh, you don't have kids though?
No.
I like them.
I don't love them.
Yeah.
Uh huh.
Um, what about pets?
No.
You don't, you don't like pets?
Not at all.
Now, uh, did you hear the hush fall over the audience there?
I'm not running for anything.
No.
Maybe just your car.
Um, now, uh, hey hold it here.
We're just joking around now.
Um, now, now why don't you like pets?
Um, there's nothing I want from an animal.
I, I like animals, uh, I don't mind if animals are outside.
Uh huh.
Uh, I don't mean just outside the house.
I mean really outside, like in, outside the South American jungle.
I think, I think that's only fair.
After all, I don't go there.
Why should they come here?
Now, have you had, have you, have you had nasty experiences with animals?
No.
Just, you adopted this philosophy.
It's just an innate distaste.
Uh huh.
Uh, what about animals in the streets of New York?
That's where I particularly dislike them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I worked out a little plan.
I've often said that dogs are the worst.
Cats I don't mind because they stay inside.
You don't see them.
Uh, dogs are outside where you see them and, uh, their hobbies.
And so I particularly, I suggested that, uh, dogs be outlawed in New York as
they are in Moscow.
Dogs are outlawed in Moscow?
Yes.
And so I think the salient feature of communism is that, uh, no dogs are
allowed in Moscow.
Yeah.
So I suggested that they not allow dogs in New York.
Uh, and then people said, well that's alright for regular people, but what
about blind people or very lonely people?
Uh huh.
So I came up with a plan of, um, letting the lonely lead the blind.
Well.
They wouldn't be lonely anymore.
They'd have a blind person to keep them company.
That's right.
Yeah.
And the blind person would get to talk to someone who talked back.
Uh huh.
Uh, are you getting a lot of support for that, uh, notion?
Uh, very little.
Yeah, very little.
Um, now, you like living in New York pretty well.
Pretty well.
Yeah.
Uh, if I have to be living.
Oh my!
Good heavens!
Now that's, that was just a little joke, wasn't it?
You're not really that desperate.
No.
No.
lot of support for that notion? Very little. Yeah, very little. Now, you like
living in New York
pretty well. Pretty well? Yeah. If I have to be living. Oh my! Good heavens!
Now that was just a
little joke, wasn't it? You're not really that desperate. No. No, you're all
right. I'm fine.
Yeah. But how about Los Angeles, Los Angeles? Even if I have to be living, I
don't want to be
living in Los Angeles. Yeah. Now, specifically, what is your grievance against
LA? Well, I
always like to preface this by saying it's the people. But I don't mean the
regular people,
of which I've met none. I mean the movie business people. Oh, showbiz folks.
Yeah. They're kind
of artistic crowd. They rub you the wrong way? Yeah, I certainly do.
Yeah. In what capacity have you found yourself being rubbed the wrong way with
these people?
You go to meetings? No, I didn't mean that. But where do you meet these people
if you don't
like them so much? Where do you meet them? I meet them at meetings. In Los
Angeles, they
take meetings. They don't have meetings. That's right. I figured out that was
because take was
the verb they were most comfortable with. It's not a pleasant place for a
writer because they
consider writers employees. So I don't like to be considering an employee. Now,
would you
ever, if somebody, a major studio came to you and said, good heavens, this Fran
Lebowitz
is selling books left and right. Let's get her to write Star Wars 4 or
something. Would you
ever, if they just started peeling off the big bills and putting them in your
car, would
you ever say, sure, I'll go out there for six months and write a film? Well, if
it was
Star Wars 4, I would do it because you don't have to write that. You could draw
it. Which
I think is easier. But they've never asked me to. They've asked me to write
several movies.
I never saw any cash on the table, but it doesn't really appeal to me. It's too
collaborative.
Have they, oh, you mean that you don't really ha