October 17, 2023 • 35 mins
You’ve heard of listening tours, right? Hillary’s done plenty of those. These days, New York City writer, humorist, and cultural icon Fran Lebowitz is in the midst of a talking tour across the United States and abroad. Between destinations, she found time to stop by the studio and chat with Hillary.
Fran used to write. She’s the author of two best-selling essay collections, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies. But she likes talking better, and has gained a following for her sharp wit and her incisive, unapologetic opinions on just about everything.
In their wide-ranging and fast-moving conversation, Hillary and Fran discuss Fran’s early days scrounging for work, food, and heat in New York; the truth about “the American Dream”; how to survive long-distance air travel without a smartphone or cigarettes; why Martin Scorcese’s documentaries about Fran, Public Speaking and Pretend It’s a City, were not collaborations; and much more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is you and me both.
I've said it here before that I'm a big admirer
of people who get things done well. My guest today
is someone who proudly claims she doesn't like to work.
She thinks she's pretty lazy, and she would have been
a good heiress.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, fran Lebowitz is not.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
An heiress, but she is an icon and an institution
of New York City and American culture. As you'll hear,
she's whip, smart, funny, and full of opinions. Fran famously
wrote for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, and she is the
author of two best selling collections of essays, but hasn't
(00:48):
written another book since the mid nineteen nineties. Instead, she
can be found talking in documentaries. She's done two with
Martin Scorsese, and the latest from twenty twenty one is
called Pretend It's a City, or on late night television,
or in her speaking tour across the United States and
(01:11):
around the world. Few voices out there are as original
and unapologetic as fran Leebwitz's. She's a truth teller and
a real breath of fresh air. I was so delighted
to have this chance to sit down and talk with her.
I cannot tell you how pleased I am to talk
(01:32):
with you today, friend, and I thank you. I feel
like I've got all of New York City, or at
least Manhattan, right here in this booth with me. And
I want to talk to you about your speaking tour,
your docuseries, and of course New York City. And I
was just asking you. You're heading to Brooklyn for a
live event. You've been to Brooklyn, right, yes, New Yorst times.
(01:54):
My grandparents lived in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
So when I was young, that's where grandparents lived, uh huh.
And then I got older, and then now it's where
kids live, by which I mean people in their twenties.
That's right. And I always say to them, you know,
when I was young, Brooklyn is a place where people.
The people live there were all the time eating talking
about food and watching TV or talking about TV. And
(02:17):
now it's a place where people are eating all the time,
talking about food, watching TV. Except they're seventy years younger,
you know, and they're not my mcgwen grandparents.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, you're going to King Theater, which you haven't been
to before. I've been there for two events, and it's
an extraordinary renovation.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
So Mashine photographs. It was a movie theater.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
It was a movie theater in the old days, the
very old days, but they've done an amazing job bringing
it back and they have live events like what you're
going to be doing. You know, you have had one
of the more interesting, kind of one of a kind
careers that I know of, And.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Well, I would have to say I bowed to you
in that Missus Well maybe schecking.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, I think we're you know, we're kind of on
parallel tracks.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yeah, we're exactly right, Astra Twins.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Part of it is.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You are a person of incredible gutsiness. And I admired
gutsiness a lot.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yes, I could tell, because you have it.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
You got to have it in today's world.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
And I just wanted the listeners to get a feeling
for how you ended up in New York as a
very young woman, as I recall, like like nineteen twenty, very.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Young, nineteen twenty. No, I'm not fair, I was nineteen
or twenty. I actually can't remember, because I think, you know,
I think I was nineteen. I grew up in New Jersey,
so people who are not from around here say, oh,
it's the same thing. It's no, it's the same planet.
It make no difference being from like Iowa, you know.
(03:47):
But I really had a very happy childhood. And I
know that's against Sola, but it was really a nice
town to be a child in. But at a fairly
young age, we used to come to New York. I
always said, when I grew up in little of New
York and we used to always go. They would at
a certaindage, they said, where do you want to go
on your birthday? What do you want to do to
a birth that I want to go to New York? Where
do you want to go to? Museum Motorn Art. That's
the place I always wanted to go. And I think
(04:07):
that possibly, like the age of ten or eleven, I
imagine I would move to New York and live in
the Museum Modern Art. This has not happened, And so
you know, people say, well, how did you get to
New York? I would say, bus buss. Okay, if your
goal in life is to live in a certain place,
you achieved your goal easily. Yeah, you know, people set
the bar too high. My goal was I'm going to
(04:28):
live in New York.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I lived in New York and I mean you've driven
cabs in New York. You've been a housekeeper, not a housekeeper,
a cleaning lady. Cleaning lady, Oh my god, that's a
phrase from my past.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, but I mean, believe me, no one would hire
me to keep a house.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Okay, but you ended up in an incredible position of
actually starting to be a writer.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
How did that go?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I mean, you went from cab driving, being a cleaning
lady and all of a sudden you're meeting Andy Warhol
and oh.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
No, no, I was doing the same time. Because you I
didn't make enough money. No, I had those kind of
jobs until my first book came out, you know, So,
I mean I always had to have those kinds of jobs.
It wasn't that hard, you know. Partially there were all
these little magazines that we called underground newspapers. They weren't underground,
you know, it wasn't Russia. And all you had to
do is like ask because it wasn't that hard. Because
(05:20):
no one my age wanted to be a writer. That
was a good thing. I had almost no competition. Everyone
my age who wanted to be an artist wanted to
be a filmmaker or a musician.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Not.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Now everyone's a writer, even without being able to write,
and so it was not hard at all, you know,
to get these jobs. And they paid nothing, so it
was pretty easy.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
New York was when people hear the rent I paid,
then they got that. You know, that's impossible.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Okay, what was the rent?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
You're paid that apartment one hundred and twelve dollars and
seventy eight cents a month. When I first moved in,
like nine years later whatever it was, seven years later,
it had jumped to one hundred and twenty one dollars.
On the other hand, the minimum wage was a dollar
and a quarter an hour. Also, it was an incredibly
horrible apartment. No one would live in this now. The
other thing is that people my age, you know, then
(06:03):
we didn't really care where we live.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
That's exactly right, you know.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I mean we expected to live in horrible places and
we were just never home. It didn't matter, you know,
I mean it never occurred to me, why don't I
have a nice apartment?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, No, I was thinking about the house I
lived in when I was in law school, which was
in the early seventies, and you know, the floors were
all tilted and the bathroom was so small, literally it
was just you know, as wide as a card table,
and every time you tried to lift the toilet seat
down or up, it would scrape against the bathtub.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I mean all of that. And I thought it was fine, That's.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
What it was fine. I knew there were nicer apartments
in my believing. But when I first moved in, the
super of that building, that's the only time I ever
saw him. The super came in the apartment with me,
and I pointed out to him that there was no
ceiling in the bathroom. Adjust the beams from this building,
which was like a nineteenth century building built actually as
a sailor's roominghouse, so there were no kitchens. And I said, look,
(06:57):
there's no ceiling here. He said, yeah, I know, I'm
going to get to that. I moved out like eight
years later. There was still no a sailing So it
turns out you actually do not need a ceili in
a bathroom. You do not. No, you can live without it.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
When did you publish your first book, because it was
a phenomenon, it was fantastic, nineteen seventy eight, And how.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Long did you work on it?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Well, you know, it was really kind of a fluke.
What happened. I was writing this column for Interview, which
no one read it or that was see Andrew Warhol magazine, right,
and very few people read it, but it was available
on newsstands in New York. And a woman who since
died named Laurie Colwin, who actually became pretty well known writer,
was a little junior editor at Dunton, which doesn't assist anymore.
And she was sick, she had a flu or something,
(07:36):
and she said to her boyfriend, I have nothing to read.
Go to then a stand by every magazine that I've
never heard of, and he did, and she read this
and then she read another one. And then she called
me up and said, would you like to write a book? Oh?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
My god?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
And I said no. I said no, I'm not ready
to write a book. She said, well, I'm an editor
at EP Dunton. Would you like to have lunch?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Lunch?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
It is great.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yes, And so that's how it happened. Really, no one
had ever heard of me. I didn't know this, by
the way, because the places I hung out and everyone
read an interview. It was really a fluke. It was
also a fluke. Then Laurie got fired and usually like
a little first book like that they paid nothing for.
There gets fired, the book goes away. But luckily there
(08:20):
was a man, Henry Robbins, also dead, who had just
come to be the head of this publishing house, and
he was a very important editor. I made a big
deal in New York and I was hanging around in
his office. I didn't even know who he was. I
was hanging around this office because the heat. And so
when she left, she said, Henry wants your book, and
also another guy, lovely guy, and also Bill. And I said, well,
(08:43):
I like Bill, I know him more. She said, don't
be stupid. Henry's the head of the house. So he
became the editor. And then he did something that Laurie
never could have done. There was like a really really
important there's no such thing anymore, the most important book
critic on the country, John Leondard for the New York Times,
and he did the daily reviews. And Henry could call
(09:04):
John Leonard and he said, I think there's a book
you might like, and he took him to lunch. He
gave Hi the book that would never have happened with Laurie.
So it was very lucky for me that Laura got
fired and then there was also another review on the
Sunday Time the same week, and then there was no news.
So because there was no news where people paid attention
to this. You know, people never talk about luck in
(09:24):
this country. You know, luck is really probably the most
determinive factor in anyone's life. I agree with that, you know,
and no one talks about it. Everyone asks, like in
the United States, it all has to do with how
hard you work, and that is just not true. Okay.
The most important luck you first have is where are
you born?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Okay, who are your parents? Where are you born? What
are their circumstances?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
And how healthy are you?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yes? And that is ninety percent of your life. You
were kidding yourself, if you think, because they show you
these things they do they say, look at this person
born into total poverty, you know, with the thirteen year
old mother and you know she was not well, and
you know, yet he became this. Yeah, that's like really
an anecdote. But basically it's not true, you know, It's
just simply isn't true. And it's a very I think,
(10:09):
kind of destructive myth.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well, people beat themselves up all the time and look
like why can't I do that? They have failed in something,
or they're ashamed. Yeah, I feel guilty, or they feel like,
you know, why can't I do that? It's just like
being old.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Okay. They're always showing you a ninety seven year old
man who finished a marathon. Okay, that's what they're showing.
Here's this ninety seven year old guy, he just ran
the New marathon. He's in perfect condition. Yes, there is
a guy like that. But the other ninety seven year olds,
you know, not in very good shame.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
But I'd even go and say that when it comes
to the outlier, the person who was born in terrible circumstances,
if you really look at that person's life, somebody provided
a path forward.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Somebody handed that person.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
An opportunity something because something happened, the serendipity of you
having an editor who's homesick reading your you know, your columns,
and then all of a sudden everything takes off from there.
Something happens, and that's luck. That's an intervening event.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I think it's really a disservice to the country for
someone not to say, you know, here's the truth. Yeah,
you know, you should work hard, you could, you know,
very often improve your leg.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
And we could as a society do more to create
the opportunity or.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
In fact anything, yeah, not just more, but in fact
maybe anything.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Yeah, we'll be back right after this quick break.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
So what was Andy Warhol like?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Oh? You know, truthfully, I did not like Andy and
he did not like me. I know, now everyone loves Andy,
especially if you didn't know him, Loving him is much easier.
I think I didn't get along with them. And I
noticed most of the people around the factory because they
went there because they wanted to be around Andy. But
I just went there because there was a magazine.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
But I don't like him. He don't like me because
I wouldn't talk to him, and you know, I talk
a lot. I didn't talk to him because he stole everything.
I could see that right away that he stole everything.
The reason he had these kids around him was maybe
this kid would come up with this thing or you know,
and so I had nothing else but that, right, and
(12:20):
I wasn't gonna let it go away. Now. I mean,
I have to say that after my second book came out,
I still worked interview and I only make money during
democratic presidencies, which means I only make money when taxes
are high. And when my first book came out, Carter
was president, and these top income tax bracket if you
(12:40):
were single. This is another unfair thing. Why do single
people pay more taxes than married people? They shouldn't. It's
totally unfair. You might be able to do something about it.
But however, I can't remember what it was. It was
like one hundred thousand dollars a year, seventy percent seven
zero percent. Before that, I paid no taxes because I
made three thousand dollars a year. I was completely shocked,
(13:01):
and so I thought money, which I always thought would
be like helpful, try out to be bad. So I said,
you know, to the edir of interview, don't pay me
money is terrible. I will take it in art. So
I had all these warholes. However, what also, when no
one remembers about Andy, is that before he died, his
(13:22):
reputation was very very low. Yes, and I needed money.
I couldn't pay my maintenance, and I sold all my
warholes all two weeks before he died for nothing, I
mean in order to All I did was pay the
maintenance of my apartment for one month, and I paid
a lawyer Okay, one of the lawyers I paid with
(13:42):
actually gave them a warholes. I'm sure, like you know,
it was a Tuscundy now, And I actually think that's
that's why he died, because he knew I had sold me, right,
That's why he died. But the prices, I knew that
we're going to go up, but no one would ever
what they are now. Yeah, I mean they are so
psychotic now that I really think if Andy knew they
(14:05):
go up that high, he would have died way before.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Well, you had these two very successful books, and then
you had a third.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Book, the children's book.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, but then you stop writing. And I've read where
you are very open about this. You tell interviewers, Yeah,
you've had writer's block and you haven't been able to write,
but you're sure doing a lot of great talking.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
So is that the trade off?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
You don't want to be like closeted away having to write,
which anybody who's ever tried knows is really hard when
you've got a lot to say, So you go out
and tell people across the country, in the world.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah, Well, because talking is easy, I'm lazy? Is it
basically laziness? I mean, you never hear anyone say they're
lazy anymore, even though there's tons of lazy people, you know,
many of them are you know, Republicans or congress I mean,
so I was like, I'm lazy. Writing is really hard
for me. If it's not hard for you, I don't
mean you sparking to you. Yes, if it's it's not
(15:03):
hard for someone, you know, it's they're not doing it. Well,
it's a hard thing to do. Some people like to
work hard, but I don't. So talking is easy. I
don't even think about it. So I took these.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Away on well, but but you're touring now or the
traveling is horrible? The travel I was going to say,
I mean, that's not easy going from town to town,
venue to venue. What's that like for you?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
It's horrible for me because the way that airlines are
running basically nice, you know. I mean, I know for
a fact, no matter where I am in the world,
I am the angriest person in the airport. And that
is because I don't have a phone. I finally figured
it out, like why should everyone else in a fury?
And it's because, except for me, everyone's looking at their phone.
So if you're looking at your phone, that's where you are.
(15:46):
It's a geographical thing. It's like, but I'm in the
airport where no one wants to be, and I'm always
at the counter, and I always have to say, I
know it's not your fault exactly, okay, but whoever's fault
it is? You know, they're never here, that's right, whoever are?
Where are they? I mean, you know who is in
seeing the people who run the airlines, and I would
say you realize, of course that no other businesses run
(16:06):
like this, none. And there's not a single person in
the airport who, if they did their work this way,
could afford to fly. Okay, who says you know we're
going to be leaving, We'll let you know, you know.
I mean if you go to a restaurant and they say, yes,
we're gonna open for dinner, but we're not.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Sure, we're not sure what.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Just hang around for two or three days and we'll
let you know, you know. So, yeah, the traveling is
really horrible.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
But how do you prepare for that trip?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Because you are famously known not to have a cell phone,
not to have a computer.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
So here you are, you do have I guess, like maybe.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
A written list telling you you're going to you know,
Dubuke and Boise, and I have people go with me.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I have like like they with phones. You've got people
got a phone patrol, right, well, you know, they call
themselves to our managers. But a friend of mine calls
them your babysitters. So yeah, people have to go with
me because of course I can't do it. And I
I actually have almost no skills at all, you know.
I mean it's not just I can't travel like this.
You know, basically I can talk, I can write. When
(17:08):
I can write, I can read, and that's pretty much it.
And they actually like do everything, you know. And then
there's also people that you can hire at the airport.
They're called greaders. They reach you, they take you, They
put you in the car, They tell you take this out,
take the car down, takes the you know, do this,
take your shoes, you know whatever. I just do whatever
they say, and it works out because I get there.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
You kind of, I know, you say you're angry at
the airport, but don't you have to kind of put
yourself into a bit of a zen like trance, like, Okay,
I go where they tell me to go, I do
what they well, I.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Do do that. But no, I'm angry. I mean, first
of all, I'm just generally angry. I try not to
be because I smoke cigarettes, which now is a terrible thing. Smoking.
I want it turned out now to be a wonderful
thing healthy, No one cares, but the smoking cigarettes are
very bad. And so you know, when you get really angry,
you want to smoke because it like leaves your tension.
(17:58):
So I try not to get the name. I had
to go to Australia about five years ago.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Oh man, that's a journey.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
And I'm going again in a few months. And really
traveling to me is about smoking basically, because when you
could smoke on planes and airports, it didn't really bother me.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
I look when I think, well they don't smoke. You know,
they're not thinking when am I going to get out?
I know exactly every single place United States? How long
would that a cigarette? And so when I was going
to Australia the first time, I said, no, I'm going
to be in a total calm state. I'm not going
to look at my watch, I'm not going to think
about it. I'm going to get a perfect book. I
asked someone, what is a book that will last twenty
(18:33):
one hours and that will be very engrossing. And someone
said to me, have you ever read The Master Builder
about Robert Moses power Broker?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Power Broker?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
And I said no, So I did. It's like eight
million pages. I hadn't won bag. Every time someone met
me at airport and took my bag, it's a small bag.
The guy would go, what's in here? I would say
a book, a book, But it worked. The book worked.
But actually, that fact that I didn't kill anyone on
that flight is my greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I congratulated you, and I hope you keep that record
going when you go to I mean, like lots of
times when you read about people fighting on airplanes, I
always think they smoke, you know, I mean for sure
they drink, okay, so I don't drink, So like, that's
probably why I don't kill people on plays.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So you bring one big fat book with you when you're.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Just say that was just for that La to Melbourne trip.
Oh that's a long okay. No. I bring a lot
of books with me. Even though everyone says, you know,
if you had a computer, all the books could be
on the computer.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I can't do that, though, fran I have to have books.
I mean, people say the same thing to me. I
have a book bag on every flight I take.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
But running out of books on a plane is really
a much bigger fear of mine than the plane's going
to crash. I'm not worried about the plane crashing, okay,
but I am worried, like because I once ran out
of books on a plane. And it was a long time.
It was so long ago. They had magazines on the planes,
and I remember and I ran out of books, and
I thought, well, what am I going to do? So
I asked you any magazines? Which just happened this one.
(20:04):
That's how I discovered there was a magazine called Golf Magazine,
which is a magazine about golf, okay, which is like, okay,
it's better than no magazine, but not much. And I
actually walk up in down the aisles asking people, do
you have a book you're not reading? Do you have
a book you might finish? You might have finished, you know,
because there are more people reading books on plas than
there or no.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I've been there, done that. I mean, yeah, I got
to have a book.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So now the way I understand your tour, you pick
somebody to interview you.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Well I don't always pick them. I mean I picked
them in places where I know people. Right, you know,
I'm going to fade I mean I did this already.
I was going to Fadeville, Arkansas.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
They said, who would you like to interview you? I said,
choose someone? Yeah, okay, I don't know anyone in favor
for Arkansas. So usually it's a journalist. You know. But
as I'm sure you know, many places there's no newspapers anymore,
so there are no local journalists, right. But usually journalists
that's usually a best choice because despite what most people think,
(21:04):
interviewing someone's a skill. It is, okay, like I don't
have them myself, So interview someone as a skill, and
they're the better people at it. Usually I do the
interview for half an hour, and then I that person
leaves the stage and I go to a podium and
I ask your questions for the audience for one hour.
This is my favorite activity on a planet Earth, other
(21:24):
than reading.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
How's it set up?
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Just I just stand in a podium, yeah, and house
lights go up and people raise their.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Hand and no microphone. They yell, they yell the question.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Well, I don't allow microphones in the audience. And this
is a constant fight between me and my agent, or
me and the venues, you know, because they say people
can't hear, and I say it doesn't matter. I sometimes
can't hear the people repeat the question somewhat, you know,
because if you have microphones in the audience, you don't
get questions from the audience. You get answers from the audience.
You know, they want to make speech, so go make
(21:53):
a speech, but not here. And that's why I don't
allow the microphone.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
That's so interesting because you know, I'm teaching at Columbia now,
I'm teen teaching, and so we teach for seventy minutes
and then we do questions at the end for twenty minutes.
But we do we have a microphone in the center aisle,
and we you know, try to keep it moving along.
But there's always the risk somebody is going to like
hold the microphone hostage.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
You know they're going to But you're teaching law, right.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
No, we're teaching.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I'm teaching a course on foreign policy decision making called
inside the Situation Room.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah you should be in Washington teaching this.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, well yeah, or somewhere, you know, honestly, So you've
done something recently, you know, within the last you know,
year two or three, which I think is pretty gutsy also,
and that was making a documentary and you made.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
It with one of the greatest filmmakers.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
In well, they didn't make it. Marty made it.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Marty Scorsese made it. But you were an active participant
because it was about you.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yeah, well it was. You know, Marty made a movie
about me about ten years before for ESBO called public Speaking,
and when he said he wanted to do this, I
said no. I always said no to documentaries about me
because I don't want to follow me around. And so
but with Marty and I know Marty, I said, well,
it can't be about me, Marty about my life. I
(23:12):
just wanted to be about what I think. And so
that's what it was. But you could only do that,
first of all. First of all, and people say, what
was like to collaborate with Scorsese, I would have no idea.
I'm not a collaborator with the greatest living American filmmaker.
I don't know it all. But I have a great
rapport with Marty. So you know, basically that is mostly
(23:33):
just me talking to Marty. There's other stuff. I mean,
I think Tony Morris and there's other people, but it's
basically talking. And then he wanted to another one right
away and I said no. And then this thing with
Netflix came and I said, I could do it, but
let's just do it about New York. I'm just going
to walk around New York and talk about New York.
Marty goes quait, I'm going to walk with you. I said,
(23:54):
don't be ridiculous, because, as I'm sure you know, almost
all famous people said they to get back nice, but
they're all lying. But Marty hates it. He really hates it.
So I said, you cannot walk around with me, Marty,
I said, because we're not going to be able to
walk more than one step in New York. I mean, Martin,
you can't do it. So the one day that Marty
came was actually visible during the filming in the street.
(24:17):
Within two minutes, he's hiding inside of a building. So
I said, you can't do that, Marty. It's not going
to work out.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And you know, for again for our listeners, it's got
this really evocative title.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Pretend it's a city. Where did that come?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
From that's my title. Okay, so I'm not I don't
make contributions to marty'scorsess, you know work, but that was
my title because you know, for I don't know how
many years, it's been like thirty or twenty five years
where there's been so many tourists in New York. You know,
the year before COVID, I see in the paper. You know,
last year, fifty eight million tours came to New York.
So there's already nine million people here. Yeah, okay, it's crowdy,
(24:54):
you know, don't come go somewhere else. And these tours
trive me crazy for numerous reasons, one of which is
that they have nowhere believe they have to go. Oh so,
what they don't realize is that in New York, walking
is a form of transportation. It is, Okay, that's how
we get a lot of places. Okay. It's also the
most reliable and also many times the fastest. So but
(25:14):
they don't do that. They first of all, there's a
lot of them together, you know, I mean there could
be like five people together, which you've never seen New
Yorkers do because that's too sociable. You got to get
somewhere and they stop. They just stand in the middle
of the sidewalk. And I am constantly getting in fights
with these people. By when it fights, I mean I
yell at them, you know, please move, please move nothing.
(25:35):
And so I started yelling like about ten years ago. Move.
Pretend it's a city. It's not your living room, it's
not your backyard. You know. People have to get some places.
That's where pretend to see if they came from.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
That is great.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Well, you also mentioned Tony Morrison, such an extraordinary human
being as well as just a great writer.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
How did you meet her? How did you become friends
with her?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
You know? Actually people asked me a lot where did
you and Marty meet? And neither one of us know. Okay,
but Tony. I not only remember where, I remember exactly when,
because my experience with Tony is what happened. There used
to be, or perhaps still is, something called the American
Society of Poets, and they sent me a letter and
I said, you know, we have a reading series at
(26:20):
the McDonald library. Would you like to read in the series.
This is my name, here's my phone number. So I
called on the telephone the man and he said, would
you like to read in this I said, yes, I
would like to. He said, we always have two people
reading together. Do you know who Tony Marrison is. She
wasn't that well known then, so I said yes. He said,
do you like her work? I said, I love her work.
(26:41):
He said, would you like to read together with her?
I said no. He said why not? I said, it's
too weird. It's a bizarre combination. It doesn't make sense
to me as a combination. He said, do you object
to it? I said no, but he said, well, we
think it's a good combination. So we read together and
it was a great combination. I don't know why. As
soon it was over, Tony said, this is a great combination.
(27:04):
Let's go on the road. So we did not actually
go on the road, but I became friends with her
instantly in a way that that's not usually how friendship works.
That's like maybe like a love affair maybe, you know,
because you know, love affairs don't have the last and
so I know exactly what it was. It was nineteen
seventy eight. Oh god, I love that story, and yes
(27:25):
it's true. I mean, Tony was a great writer. Everyone
knows she was a great writer, but she was also,
I mean, I've known lots and lots of very smart people,
but she is the only wise person I've ever known.
So the lack of not just my life in the world,
you know. I mean, I know a lot of people died,
I miss a lot of people, but not like Tony.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, you know, for people who weren't privileged like you
and I were to have met her and like you
to be a friend of hers. Just google her and
look at that picture of that amazing face and the
way that she just had a presence. Anything you can
ever see of her speaking, giving any kind of address,
(28:04):
doing anything but read her books.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Read her books, yes, and read them an order. Okay,
if you've never points present point that's that you asked,
not that anyone has asked. But my advice to people
when they've never read a writer before, I mean a
good writer, or in the case of they're a great writer,
read the writer in order if you've never read them before,
because then you see how they change, you know. And
so I mean, I can't say I wish I'd never
(28:27):
read Honey, but it'd be a pretty thrilling thing to
come to it new.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yes, it would be. And to start from the beginning
from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Well, you know, when I think about pretend it's a city,
I think about how consistent you've been in really defending
the culture of the city, the.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Feeling of the city.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And you know, I've heard you speak with great regret
about what you think has happened to New York City
over time. And you know the role of so called
gentrification and pushing people out. If you had the proverbial
magic wand what would you tell or make you know, leaders,
you know, not just mayor's, governor's presidents, but also the
(29:09):
business leadership here in this what would you have them
do to try to restore the spirit of this city
that you love and deserves everybody's love and attention.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Pay your taxes, but which I mean is rich people
pay your taxes. Pay your taxes. You know this whole
thing about this kind of gigantic philanthropy, you know, giving
like a zillion dollars and you're going to name this
museum after me, And I get that. You know that
kind of philanthropy is unpaid taxes, That's all it is.
(29:42):
If you have a job, like a regular job where
you get paid every week or two weeks, whatever, the
taxes come out of your pay. So they pay their taxes. Okay,
they pay you know, a significant percentage of their incoming taxes.
And so I don't want to know, like you know,
when I hear some like you know, zillionaire say I
pay forty million dollars in taxes, not enough. It's not
(30:03):
a big enough percentage of the money that you made. Also,
not that anyone asked me. I didn't even know when
I was young that taxes were hired on earned income
than on a passive income. First of all, what is
passive income means? It means you're not doing anything right.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Your money is making money.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Yeah, your money's making money. And I'm out a communist.
I'm not saying we should have capitalism. I'm saying we
should have more fairness. It's really unfair. It is really unfair,
and it was solful a lot of problems when every
people say, well there aren't enough rich people, they're enough here.
I mean, one thing is that New York does not
lack for rich people.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
We'll be right back. Where were you during COVID? Were
you in your apartment?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yes? For entire year? For one year, yes, during which
time at zero income. So like no money. That my
government put twelve hundred dollars into my bank account, which
was nice, but huh. For a year, and I had
never I mean a lot most people, I guess didn't
know COVID was coming, but I had never thought about it.
(31:15):
I never thought, what if there's a plague.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, I mean it turned down.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
That's what a lot of people had. Because there's a
lot of people read science fiction or they watched science fiction,
and it's apparently a common theme of science fiction. So
I couldn't think about it. I didn't know how to
think about it, and unfortunately now I do.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Well, you were home with your what ten thousand books?
Speaker 3 (31:34):
I was home with my books. I mean. The worst
thing about COVID, I mean, for me, obviously, the worst
thing about covis people died or got really sick. But
the second worst thing is fran There were no bookstores open,
so I buy books by I go in a bookstore,
I opened a book, I read like a page or two,
or sometimes last night I go no or yes, sometimes
(31:54):
I'm wrong, but not usually. But because bookstores were closed,
I had to borrow a friend's am a on account
I paid her back. And the only way I knew
about books. What new books there were was either reviews
or people recommended them to me. This is a terrible way.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah, you don't have that first hand experience.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Are you kidding? I now have about one hundred and
twenty books in my apartment that I never would have
bought in a million years. Well, you should give them away.
I've spent a lot of time thinking, it's like when
my father died. I always my father's in the last
generation of men. Who when he died you had one
hundred ties neckties? Yes, so I spent like a year
like thinking who should have this tie of my father's.
So now I'm spending like another year agoing who would
(32:33):
like this book? So my father had a lot nicer
ties that I have books that I want.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
So, oh gosh, friand I am thrilled to have this
conversation with you.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I'm going to end with a future oriented question.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Is there anything you really want to do or something
that if it came across your path you'd jump on doing?
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Well, I would like to be the mayor.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Well, why don't you run?
Speaker 3 (32:56):
I couldn't win this room. I'm sure I couldn't win.
I would like to be the mayor because we have
horrible mayors, you know. I mean I've lived here for
fifty years. There's been two mayors that I felt were
good in fifty years. Is not enough? Not enough? All right?
So it's a really great job. And it's the second
hardest job in New York and in the country, no questions.
(33:19):
And the mayor of New York one thing, since I
just am our present mayor of someone I really don't like.
I don't know if you know this scene went last
week to Mexico City that if you're the mayor of
New York, do not leave New York until everything is
fine here, okay. And if you want to take a
tropical vacation, I don't want to pay for it. You know,
he went to see why people immigrate. You know what,
(33:39):
call me, I'll tell you why. Okay, get ten cents
or whatever it costs to make a phone call. Now
give me a call. I'm going to tell you. And
don't get on a plane and charge it to New Yorkers.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, I mean, the city deserves so much love and
attention and support and leadership and all the rest of it.
So you know, I've run for a few things. If
you decided to run give me a call.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I definitely wive a call.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Thank you, Fran, what a joy.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I rank you really was. It was a pleasure an
honor for me too. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
For information on where you can see Fran in person
while she's on her speaking tour, go to Franlibowitz dot com.
You and Me Both is brought to you by iHeartPodcasts.
We're produced by Julie Subren, Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo,
(34:35):
with help from Huma Abadeen, Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Sarah Horowitz,
Laura Olin, Lona Valmro and Lily Weber. Our engineer is
Zach McNeice, and the original music is by Forrest Gray.
If you like You and Me Both, tell someone else
(34:55):
about it. And if you're not already a subscriber, what
are you waiting for? You can subscribe to You and
Me Both on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week.
I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is you and me both.
I've said it here before that I'm a big admirer
of people who get things done well. My guest today
is someone who proudly claims she doesn't like to work.
She thinks she's pretty lazy, and she would have been
a good heiress.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, fran Lebowitz is not.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
An heiress, but she is an icon and an institution
of New York City and American culture. As you'll hear,
she's whip, smart, funny, and full of opinions. Fran famously
wrote for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, and she is the
author of two best selling collections of essays, but hasn't
(00:48):
written another book since the mid nineteen nineties. Instead, she
can be found talking in documentaries. She's done two with
Martin Scorsese, and the latest from twenty twenty one is
called Pretend It's a City, or on late night television,
or in her speaking tour across the United States and
(01:11):
around the world. Few voices out there are as original
and unapologetic as fran Leebwitz's. She's a truth teller and
a real breath of fresh air. I was so delighted
to have this chance to sit down and talk with her.
I cannot tell you how pleased I am to talk
(01:32):
with you today, friend, and I thank you. I feel
like I've got all of New York City, or at
least Manhattan, right here in this booth with me. And
I want to talk to you about your speaking tour,
your docuseries, and of course New York City. And I
was just asking you. You're heading to Brooklyn for a
live event. You've been to Brooklyn, right, yes, New Yorst times.
(01:54):
My grandparents lived in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
So when I was young, that's where grandparents lived, uh huh.
And then I got older, and then now it's where
kids live, by which I mean people in their twenties.
That's right. And I always say to them, you know,
when I was young, Brooklyn is a place where people.
The people live there were all the time eating talking
about food and watching TV or talking about TV. And
(02:17):
now it's a place where people are eating all the time,
talking about food, watching TV. Except they're seventy years younger,
you know, and they're not my mcgwen grandparents.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Well, you're going to King Theater, which you haven't been
to before. I've been there for two events, and it's
an extraordinary renovation.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
So Mashine photographs. It was a movie theater.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
It was a movie theater in the old days, the
very old days, but they've done an amazing job bringing
it back and they have live events like what you're
going to be doing. You know, you have had one
of the more interesting, kind of one of a kind
careers that I know of, And.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Well, I would have to say I bowed to you
in that Missus Well maybe schecking.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Well, I think we're you know, we're kind of on
parallel tracks.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yeah, we're exactly right, Astra Twins.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Part of it is.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You are a person of incredible gutsiness. And I admired
gutsiness a lot.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Yes, I could tell, because you have it.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
You got to have it in today's world.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
And I just wanted the listeners to get a feeling
for how you ended up in New York as a
very young woman, as I recall, like like nineteen twenty, very.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Young, nineteen twenty. No, I'm not fair, I was nineteen
or twenty. I actually can't remember, because I think, you know,
I think I was nineteen. I grew up in New Jersey,
so people who are not from around here say, oh,
it's the same thing. It's no, it's the same planet.
It make no difference being from like Iowa, you know.
(03:47):
But I really had a very happy childhood. And I
know that's against Sola, but it was really a nice
town to be a child in. But at a fairly
young age, we used to come to New York. I
always said, when I grew up in little of New
York and we used to always go. They would at
a certaindage, they said, where do you want to go
on your birthday? What do you want to do to
a birth that I want to go to New York? Where
do you want to go to? Museum Motorn Art. That's
the place I always wanted to go. And I think
(04:07):
that possibly, like the age of ten or eleven, I
imagine I would move to New York and live in
the Museum Modern Art. This has not happened, And so
you know, people say, well, how did you get to
New York? I would say, bus buss. Okay, if your
goal in life is to live in a certain place,
you achieved your goal easily. Yeah, you know, people set
the bar too high. My goal was I'm going to
(04:28):
live in New York.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I lived in New York and I mean you've driven
cabs in New York. You've been a housekeeper, not a housekeeper,
a cleaning lady. Cleaning lady, Oh my god, that's a
phrase from my past.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yeah, but I mean, believe me, no one would hire
me to keep a house.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Okay, but you ended up in an incredible position of
actually starting to be a writer.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
How did that go?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I mean, you went from cab driving, being a cleaning
lady and all of a sudden you're meeting Andy Warhol
and oh.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
No, no, I was doing the same time. Because you I
didn't make enough money. No, I had those kind of
jobs until my first book came out, you know, So,
I mean I always had to have those kinds of jobs.
It wasn't that hard, you know. Partially there were all
these little magazines that we called underground newspapers. They weren't underground,
you know, it wasn't Russia. And all you had to
do is like ask because it wasn't that hard. Because
(05:20):
no one my age wanted to be a writer. That
was a good thing. I had almost no competition. Everyone
my age who wanted to be an artist wanted to
be a filmmaker or a musician.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Not.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Now everyone's a writer, even without being able to write,
and so it was not hard at all, you know,
to get these jobs. And they paid nothing, so it
was pretty easy.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
New York was when people hear the rent I paid,
then they got that. You know, that's impossible.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Okay, what was the rent?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
You're paid that apartment one hundred and twelve dollars and
seventy eight cents a month. When I first moved in,
like nine years later whatever it was, seven years later,
it had jumped to one hundred and twenty one dollars.
On the other hand, the minimum wage was a dollar
and a quarter an hour. Also, it was an incredibly
horrible apartment. No one would live in this now. The
other thing is that people my age, you know, then
(06:03):
we didn't really care where we live.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
That's exactly right, you know.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
I mean we expected to live in horrible places and
we were just never home. It didn't matter, you know,
I mean it never occurred to me, why don't I
have a nice apartment?
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, yeah, No, I was thinking about the house I
lived in when I was in law school, which was
in the early seventies, and you know, the floors were
all tilted and the bathroom was so small, literally it
was just you know, as wide as a card table,
and every time you tried to lift the toilet seat
down or up, it would scrape against the bathtub.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I mean all of that. And I thought it was fine, That's.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
What it was fine. I knew there were nicer apartments
in my believing. But when I first moved in, the
super of that building, that's the only time I ever
saw him. The super came in the apartment with me,
and I pointed out to him that there was no
ceiling in the bathroom. Adjust the beams from this building,
which was like a nineteenth century building built actually as
a sailor's roominghouse, so there were no kitchens. And I said, look,
(06:57):
there's no ceiling here. He said, yeah, I know, I'm
going to get to that. I moved out like eight
years later. There was still no a sailing So it
turns out you actually do not need a ceili in
a bathroom. You do not. No, you can live without it.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
When did you publish your first book, because it was
a phenomenon, it was fantastic, nineteen seventy eight, And how.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Long did you work on it?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Well, you know, it was really kind of a fluke.
What happened. I was writing this column for Interview, which
no one read it or that was see Andrew Warhol magazine, right,
and very few people read it, but it was available
on newsstands in New York. And a woman who since
died named Laurie Colwin, who actually became pretty well known writer,
was a little junior editor at Dunton, which doesn't assist anymore.
And she was sick, she had a flu or something,
(07:36):
and she said to her boyfriend, I have nothing to read.
Go to then a stand by every magazine that I've
never heard of, and he did, and she read this
and then she read another one. And then she called
me up and said, would you like to write a book? Oh?
Speaker 2 (07:48):
My god?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
And I said no. I said no, I'm not ready
to write a book. She said, well, I'm an editor
at EP Dunton. Would you like to have lunch?
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Lunch?
Speaker 2 (07:57):
It is great.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yes, And so that's how it happened. Really, no one
had ever heard of me. I didn't know this, by
the way, because the places I hung out and everyone
read an interview. It was really a fluke. It was
also a fluke. Then Laurie got fired and usually like
a little first book like that they paid nothing for.
There gets fired, the book goes away. But luckily there
(08:20):
was a man, Henry Robbins, also dead, who had just
come to be the head of this publishing house, and
he was a very important editor. I made a big
deal in New York and I was hanging around in
his office. I didn't even know who he was. I
was hanging around this office because the heat. And so
when she left, she said, Henry wants your book, and
also another guy, lovely guy, and also Bill. And I said, well,
(08:43):
I like Bill, I know him more. She said, don't
be stupid. Henry's the head of the house. So he
became the editor. And then he did something that Laurie
never could have done. There was like a really really
important there's no such thing anymore, the most important book
critic on the country, John Leondard for the New York Times,
and he did the daily reviews. And Henry could call
(09:04):
John Leonard and he said, I think there's a book
you might like, and he took him to lunch. He
gave Hi the book that would never have happened with Laurie.
So it was very lucky for me that Laura got
fired and then there was also another review on the
Sunday Time the same week, and then there was no news.
So because there was no news where people paid attention
to this. You know, people never talk about luck in
(09:24):
this country. You know, luck is really probably the most
determinive factor in anyone's life. I agree with that, you know,
and no one talks about it. Everyone asks, like in
the United States, it all has to do with how
hard you work, and that is just not true. Okay.
The most important luck you first have is where are
you born?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Okay, who are your parents? Where are you born? What
are their circumstances?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
And how healthy are you?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Yes? And that is ninety percent of your life. You
were kidding yourself, if you think, because they show you
these things they do they say, look at this person
born into total poverty, you know, with the thirteen year
old mother and you know she was not well, and
you know, yet he became this. Yeah, that's like really
an anecdote. But basically it's not true, you know, It's
just simply isn't true. And it's a very I think,
(10:09):
kind of destructive myth.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Well, people beat themselves up all the time and look
like why can't I do that? They have failed in something,
or they're ashamed. Yeah, I feel guilty, or they feel like,
you know, why can't I do that? It's just like
being old.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Okay. They're always showing you a ninety seven year old
man who finished a marathon. Okay, that's what they're showing.
Here's this ninety seven year old guy, he just ran
the New marathon. He's in perfect condition. Yes, there is
a guy like that. But the other ninety seven year olds,
you know, not in very good shame.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
But I'd even go and say that when it comes
to the outlier, the person who was born in terrible circumstances,
if you really look at that person's life, somebody provided
a path forward.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Somebody handed that person.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
An opportunity something because something happened, the serendipity of you
having an editor who's homesick reading your you know, your columns,
and then all of a sudden everything takes off from there.
Something happens, and that's luck. That's an intervening event.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I think it's really a disservice to the country for
someone not to say, you know, here's the truth. Yeah,
you know, you should work hard, you could, you know,
very often improve your leg.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
And we could as a society do more to create
the opportunity or.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
In fact anything, yeah, not just more, but in fact
maybe anything.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Yeah, we'll be back right after this quick break.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
So what was Andy Warhol like?
Speaker 3 (11:42):
Oh? You know, truthfully, I did not like Andy and
he did not like me. I know, now everyone loves Andy,
especially if you didn't know him, Loving him is much easier.
I think I didn't get along with them. And I
noticed most of the people around the factory because they
went there because they wanted to be around Andy. But
I just went there because there was a magazine.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
But I don't like him. He don't like me because
I wouldn't talk to him, and you know, I talk
a lot. I didn't talk to him because he stole everything.
I could see that right away that he stole everything.
The reason he had these kids around him was maybe
this kid would come up with this thing or you know,
and so I had nothing else but that, right, and
(12:20):
I wasn't gonna let it go away. Now. I mean,
I have to say that after my second book came out,
I still worked interview and I only make money during
democratic presidencies, which means I only make money when taxes
are high. And when my first book came out, Carter
was president, and these top income tax bracket if you
(12:40):
were single. This is another unfair thing. Why do single
people pay more taxes than married people? They shouldn't. It's
totally unfair. You might be able to do something about it.
But however, I can't remember what it was. It was
like one hundred thousand dollars a year, seventy percent seven
zero percent. Before that, I paid no taxes because I
made three thousand dollars a year. I was completely shocked,
(13:01):
and so I thought money, which I always thought would
be like helpful, try out to be bad. So I said,
you know, to the edir of interview, don't pay me
money is terrible. I will take it in art. So
I had all these warholes. However, what also, when no
one remembers about Andy, is that before he died, his
(13:22):
reputation was very very low. Yes, and I needed money.
I couldn't pay my maintenance, and I sold all my
warholes all two weeks before he died for nothing, I
mean in order to All I did was pay the
maintenance of my apartment for one month, and I paid
a lawyer Okay, one of the lawyers I paid with
(13:42):
actually gave them a warholes. I'm sure, like you know,
it was a Tuscundy now, And I actually think that's
that's why he died, because he knew I had sold me, right,
That's why he died. But the prices, I knew that
we're going to go up, but no one would ever
what they are now. Yeah, I mean they are so
psychotic now that I really think if Andy knew they
(14:05):
go up that high, he would have died way before.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Well, you had these two very successful books, and then
you had a third.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Book, the children's book.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Yeah, but then you stop writing. And I've read where
you are very open about this. You tell interviewers, Yeah,
you've had writer's block and you haven't been able to write,
but you're sure doing a lot of great talking.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
So is that the trade off?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
You don't want to be like closeted away having to write,
which anybody who's ever tried knows is really hard when
you've got a lot to say, So you go out
and tell people across the country, in the world.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah, Well, because talking is easy, I'm lazy? Is it
basically laziness? I mean, you never hear anyone say they're
lazy anymore, even though there's tons of lazy people, you know,
many of them are you know, Republicans or congress I mean,
so I was like, I'm lazy. Writing is really hard
for me. If it's not hard for you, I don't
mean you sparking to you. Yes, if it's it's not
(15:03):
hard for someone, you know, it's they're not doing it. Well,
it's a hard thing to do. Some people like to
work hard, but I don't. So talking is easy. I
don't even think about it. So I took these.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Away on well, but but you're touring now or the
traveling is horrible? The travel I was going to say,
I mean, that's not easy going from town to town,
venue to venue. What's that like for you?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
It's horrible for me because the way that airlines are
running basically nice, you know. I mean, I know for
a fact, no matter where I am in the world,
I am the angriest person in the airport. And that
is because I don't have a phone. I finally figured
it out, like why should everyone else in a fury?
And it's because, except for me, everyone's looking at their phone.
So if you're looking at your phone, that's where you are.
(15:46):
It's a geographical thing. It's like, but I'm in the
airport where no one wants to be, and I'm always
at the counter, and I always have to say, I
know it's not your fault exactly, okay, but whoever's fault
it is? You know, they're never here, that's right, whoever are?
Where are they? I mean, you know who is in
seeing the people who run the airlines, and I would
say you realize, of course that no other businesses run
(16:06):
like this, none. And there's not a single person in
the airport who, if they did their work this way,
could afford to fly. Okay, who says you know we're
going to be leaving, We'll let you know, you know.
I mean if you go to a restaurant and they say, yes,
we're gonna open for dinner, but we're not.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Sure, we're not sure what.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Just hang around for two or three days and we'll
let you know, you know. So, yeah, the traveling is
really horrible.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
But how do you prepare for that trip?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Because you are famously known not to have a cell phone,
not to have a computer.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
So here you are, you do have I guess, like maybe.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
A written list telling you you're going to you know,
Dubuke and Boise, and I have people go with me.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
I have like like they with phones. You've got people
got a phone patrol, right, well, you know, they call
themselves to our managers. But a friend of mine calls
them your babysitters. So yeah, people have to go with
me because of course I can't do it. And I
I actually have almost no skills at all, you know.
I mean it's not just I can't travel like this.
You know, basically I can talk, I can write. When
(17:08):
I can write, I can read, and that's pretty much it.
And they actually like do everything, you know. And then
there's also people that you can hire at the airport.
They're called greaders. They reach you, they take you, They
put you in the car, They tell you take this out,
take the car down, takes the you know, do this,
take your shoes, you know whatever. I just do whatever
they say, and it works out because I get there.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
You kind of, I know, you say you're angry at
the airport, but don't you have to kind of put
yourself into a bit of a zen like trance, like, Okay,
I go where they tell me to go, I do
what they well, I.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Do do that. But no, I'm angry. I mean, first
of all, I'm just generally angry. I try not to
be because I smoke cigarettes, which now is a terrible thing. Smoking.
I want it turned out now to be a wonderful
thing healthy, No one cares, but the smoking cigarettes are
very bad. And so you know, when you get really angry,
you want to smoke because it like leaves your tension.
(17:58):
So I try not to get the name. I had
to go to Australia about five years ago.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Oh man, that's a journey.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
And I'm going again in a few months. And really
traveling to me is about smoking basically, because when you
could smoke on planes and airports, it didn't really bother me.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
I look when I think, well they don't smoke. You know,
they're not thinking when am I going to get out?
I know exactly every single place United States? How long
would that a cigarette? And so when I was going
to Australia the first time, I said, no, I'm going
to be in a total calm state. I'm not going
to look at my watch, I'm not going to think
about it. I'm going to get a perfect book. I
asked someone, what is a book that will last twenty
(18:33):
one hours and that will be very engrossing. And someone
said to me, have you ever read The Master Builder
about Robert Moses power Broker?
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Power Broker?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
And I said no, So I did. It's like eight
million pages. I hadn't won bag. Every time someone met
me at airport and took my bag, it's a small bag.
The guy would go, what's in here? I would say
a book, a book, But it worked. The book worked.
But actually, that fact that I didn't kill anyone on
that flight is my greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I congratulated you, and I hope you keep that record
going when you go to I mean, like lots of
times when you read about people fighting on airplanes, I
always think they smoke, you know, I mean for sure
they drink, okay, so I don't drink, So like, that's
probably why I don't kill people on plays.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
So you bring one big fat book with you when you're.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Just say that was just for that La to Melbourne trip.
Oh that's a long okay. No. I bring a lot
of books with me. Even though everyone says, you know,
if you had a computer, all the books could be
on the computer.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I can't do that, though, fran I have to have books.
I mean, people say the same thing to me. I
have a book bag on every flight I take.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
But running out of books on a plane is really
a much bigger fear of mine than the plane's going
to crash. I'm not worried about the plane crashing, okay,
but I am worried, like because I once ran out
of books on a plane. And it was a long time.
It was so long ago. They had magazines on the planes,
and I remember and I ran out of books, and
I thought, well, what am I going to do? So
I asked you any magazines? Which just happened this one.
(20:04):
That's how I discovered there was a magazine called Golf Magazine,
which is a magazine about golf, okay, which is like, okay,
it's better than no magazine, but not much. And I
actually walk up in down the aisles asking people, do
you have a book you're not reading? Do you have
a book you might finish? You might have finished, you know,
because there are more people reading books on plas than
there or no.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
I've been there, done that. I mean, yeah, I got
to have a book.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So now the way I understand your tour, you pick
somebody to interview you.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Well I don't always pick them. I mean I picked
them in places where I know people. Right, you know,
I'm going to fade I mean I did this already.
I was going to Fadeville, Arkansas.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
They said, who would you like to interview you? I said,
choose someone? Yeah, okay, I don't know anyone in favor
for Arkansas. So usually it's a journalist. You know. But
as I'm sure you know, many places there's no newspapers anymore,
so there are no local journalists, right. But usually journalists
that's usually a best choice because despite what most people think,
(21:04):
interviewing someone's a skill. It is, okay, like I don't
have them myself, So interview someone as a skill, and
they're the better people at it. Usually I do the
interview for half an hour, and then I that person
leaves the stage and I go to a podium and
I ask your questions for the audience for one hour.
This is my favorite activity on a planet Earth, other
(21:24):
than reading.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
How's it set up?
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Just I just stand in a podium, yeah, and house
lights go up and people raise their.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Hand and no microphone. They yell, they yell the question.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Well, I don't allow microphones in the audience. And this
is a constant fight between me and my agent, or
me and the venues, you know, because they say people
can't hear, and I say it doesn't matter. I sometimes
can't hear the people repeat the question somewhat, you know,
because if you have microphones in the audience, you don't
get questions from the audience. You get answers from the audience.
You know, they want to make speech, so go make
(21:53):
a speech, but not here. And that's why I don't
allow the microphone.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
That's so interesting because you know, I'm teaching at Columbia now,
I'm teen teaching, and so we teach for seventy minutes
and then we do questions at the end for twenty minutes.
But we do we have a microphone in the center aisle,
and we you know, try to keep it moving along.
But there's always the risk somebody is going to like
hold the microphone hostage.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
You know they're going to But you're teaching law, right.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
No, we're teaching.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
I'm teaching a course on foreign policy decision making called
inside the Situation Room.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Yeah you should be in Washington teaching this.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, well yeah, or somewhere, you know, honestly, So you've
done something recently, you know, within the last you know,
year two or three, which I think is pretty gutsy also,
and that was making a documentary and you made.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
It with one of the greatest filmmakers.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
In well, they didn't make it. Marty made it.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Marty Scorsese made it. But you were an active participant
because it was about you.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Yeah, well it was. You know, Marty made a movie
about me about ten years before for ESBO called public Speaking,
and when he said he wanted to do this, I
said no. I always said no to documentaries about me
because I don't want to follow me around. And so
but with Marty and I know Marty, I said, well,
it can't be about me, Marty about my life. I
(23:12):
just wanted to be about what I think. And so
that's what it was. But you could only do that,
first of all. First of all, and people say, what
was like to collaborate with Scorsese, I would have no idea.
I'm not a collaborator with the greatest living American filmmaker.
I don't know it all. But I have a great
rapport with Marty. So you know, basically that is mostly
(23:33):
just me talking to Marty. There's other stuff. I mean,
I think Tony Morris and there's other people, but it's
basically talking. And then he wanted to another one right
away and I said no. And then this thing with
Netflix came and I said, I could do it, but
let's just do it about New York. I'm just going
to walk around New York and talk about New York.
Marty goes quait, I'm going to walk with you. I said,
(23:54):
don't be ridiculous, because, as I'm sure you know, almost
all famous people said they to get back nice, but
they're all lying. But Marty hates it. He really hates it.
So I said, you cannot walk around with me, Marty,
I said, because we're not going to be able to
walk more than one step in New York. I mean, Martin,
you can't do it. So the one day that Marty
came was actually visible during the filming in the street.
(24:17):
Within two minutes, he's hiding inside of a building. So
I said, you can't do that, Marty. It's not going
to work out.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And you know, for again for our listeners, it's got
this really evocative title.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Pretend it's a city. Where did that come?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
From that's my title. Okay, so I'm not I don't
make contributions to marty'scorsess, you know work, but that was
my title because you know, for I don't know how
many years, it's been like thirty or twenty five years
where there's been so many tourists in New York. You know,
the year before COVID, I see in the paper. You know,
last year, fifty eight million tours came to New York.
So there's already nine million people here. Yeah, okay, it's crowdy,
(24:54):
you know, don't come go somewhere else. And these tours
trive me crazy for numerous reasons, one of which is
that they have nowhere believe they have to go. Oh so,
what they don't realize is that in New York, walking
is a form of transportation. It is, Okay, that's how
we get a lot of places. Okay. It's also the
most reliable and also many times the fastest. So but
(25:14):
they don't do that. They first of all, there's a
lot of them together, you know, I mean there could
be like five people together, which you've never seen New
Yorkers do because that's too sociable. You got to get
somewhere and they stop. They just stand in the middle
of the sidewalk. And I am constantly getting in fights
with these people. By when it fights, I mean I
yell at them, you know, please move, please move nothing.
(25:35):
And so I started yelling like about ten years ago. Move.
Pretend it's a city. It's not your living room, it's
not your backyard. You know. People have to get some places.
That's where pretend to see if they came from.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
That is great.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Well, you also mentioned Tony Morrison, such an extraordinary human
being as well as just a great writer.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
How did you meet her? How did you become friends
with her?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
You know? Actually people asked me a lot where did
you and Marty meet? And neither one of us know. Okay,
but Tony. I not only remember where, I remember exactly when,
because my experience with Tony is what happened. There used
to be, or perhaps still is, something called the American
Society of Poets, and they sent me a letter and
I said, you know, we have a reading series at
(26:20):
the McDonald library. Would you like to read in the series.
This is my name, here's my phone number. So I
called on the telephone the man and he said, would
you like to read in this I said, yes, I
would like to. He said, we always have two people
reading together. Do you know who Tony Marrison is. She
wasn't that well known then, so I said yes. He said,
do you like her work? I said, I love her work.
(26:41):
He said, would you like to read together with her?
I said no. He said why not? I said, it's
too weird. It's a bizarre combination. It doesn't make sense
to me as a combination. He said, do you object
to it? I said no, but he said, well, we
think it's a good combination. So we read together and
it was a great combination. I don't know why. As
soon it was over, Tony said, this is a great combination.
(27:04):
Let's go on the road. So we did not actually
go on the road, but I became friends with her
instantly in a way that that's not usually how friendship works.
That's like maybe like a love affair maybe, you know,
because you know, love affairs don't have the last and
so I know exactly what it was. It was nineteen
seventy eight. Oh god, I love that story, and yes
(27:25):
it's true. I mean, Tony was a great writer. Everyone
knows she was a great writer, but she was also,
I mean, I've known lots and lots of very smart people,
but she is the only wise person I've ever known.
So the lack of not just my life in the world,
you know. I mean, I know a lot of people died,
I miss a lot of people, but not like Tony.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Yeah, you know, for people who weren't privileged like you
and I were to have met her and like you
to be a friend of hers. Just google her and
look at that picture of that amazing face and the
way that she just had a presence. Anything you can
ever see of her speaking, giving any kind of address,
(28:04):
doing anything but read her books.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Read her books, yes, and read them an order. Okay,
if you've never points present point that's that you asked,
not that anyone has asked. But my advice to people
when they've never read a writer before, I mean a
good writer, or in the case of they're a great writer,
read the writer in order if you've never read them before,
because then you see how they change, you know. And
so I mean, I can't say I wish I'd never
(28:27):
read Honey, but it'd be a pretty thrilling thing to
come to it new.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yes, it would be. And to start from the beginning
from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Well, you know, when I think about pretend it's a city,
I think about how consistent you've been in really defending
the culture of the city, the.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Feeling of the city.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And you know, I've heard you speak with great regret
about what you think has happened to New York City
over time. And you know the role of so called
gentrification and pushing people out. If you had the proverbial
magic wand what would you tell or make you know, leaders,
you know, not just mayor's, governor's presidents, but also the
(29:09):
business leadership here in this what would you have them
do to try to restore the spirit of this city
that you love and deserves everybody's love and attention.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
Pay your taxes, but which I mean is rich people
pay your taxes. Pay your taxes. You know this whole
thing about this kind of gigantic philanthropy, you know, giving
like a zillion dollars and you're going to name this
museum after me, And I get that. You know that
kind of philanthropy is unpaid taxes, That's all it is.
(29:42):
If you have a job, like a regular job where
you get paid every week or two weeks, whatever, the
taxes come out of your pay. So they pay their taxes. Okay,
they pay you know, a significant percentage of their incoming taxes.
And so I don't want to know, like you know,
when I hear some like you know, zillionaire say I
pay forty million dollars in taxes, not enough. It's not
(30:03):
a big enough percentage of the money that you made. Also,
not that anyone asked me. I didn't even know when
I was young that taxes were hired on earned income
than on a passive income. First of all, what is
passive income means? It means you're not doing anything right.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Your money is making money.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Yeah, your money's making money. And I'm out a communist.
I'm not saying we should have capitalism. I'm saying we
should have more fairness. It's really unfair. It is really unfair,
and it was solful a lot of problems when every
people say, well there aren't enough rich people, they're enough here.
I mean, one thing is that New York does not
lack for rich people.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
We'll be right back. Where were you during COVID? Were
you in your apartment?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yes? For entire year? For one year, yes, during which
time at zero income. So like no money. That my
government put twelve hundred dollars into my bank account, which
was nice, but huh. For a year, and I had
never I mean a lot most people, I guess didn't
know COVID was coming, but I had never thought about it.
(31:15):
I never thought, what if there's a plague.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Yeah, I mean it turned down.
Speaker 3 (31:19):
That's what a lot of people had. Because there's a
lot of people read science fiction or they watched science fiction,
and it's apparently a common theme of science fiction. So
I couldn't think about it. I didn't know how to
think about it, and unfortunately now I do.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Well, you were home with your what ten thousand books?
Speaker 3 (31:34):
I was home with my books. I mean. The worst
thing about COVID, I mean, for me, obviously, the worst
thing about covis people died or got really sick. But
the second worst thing is fran There were no bookstores open,
so I buy books by I go in a bookstore,
I opened a book, I read like a page or two,
or sometimes last night I go no or yes, sometimes
(31:54):
I'm wrong, but not usually. But because bookstores were closed,
I had to borrow a friend's am a on account
I paid her back. And the only way I knew
about books. What new books there were was either reviews
or people recommended them to me. This is a terrible way.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah, you don't have that first hand experience.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Are you kidding? I now have about one hundred and
twenty books in my apartment that I never would have
bought in a million years. Well, you should give them away.
I've spent a lot of time thinking, it's like when
my father died. I always my father's in the last
generation of men. Who when he died you had one
hundred ties neckties? Yes, so I spent like a year
like thinking who should have this tie of my father's.
So now I'm spending like another year agoing who would
(32:33):
like this book? So my father had a lot nicer
ties that I have books that I want.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
So, oh gosh, friand I am thrilled to have this
conversation with you.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I'm going to end with a future oriented question.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Is there anything you really want to do or something
that if it came across your path you'd jump on doing?
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Well, I would like to be the mayor.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Well, why don't you run?
Speaker 3 (32:56):
I couldn't win this room. I'm sure I couldn't win.
I would like to be the mayor because we have
horrible mayors, you know. I mean I've lived here for
fifty years. There's been two mayors that I felt were
good in fifty years. Is not enough? Not enough? All right?
So it's a really great job. And it's the second
hardest job in New York and in the country, no questions.
(33:19):
And the mayor of New York one thing, since I
just am our present mayor of someone I really don't like.
I don't know if you know this scene went last
week to Mexico City that if you're the mayor of
New York, do not leave New York until everything is
fine here, okay. And if you want to take a
tropical vacation, I don't want to pay for it. You know,
he went to see why people immigrate. You know what,
(33:39):
call me, I'll tell you why. Okay, get ten cents
or whatever it costs to make a phone call. Now
give me a call. I'm going to tell you. And
don't get on a plane and charge it to New Yorkers.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, I mean, the city deserves so much love and
attention and support and leadership and all the rest of it.
So you know, I've run for a few things. If
you decided to run give me a call.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
I definitely wive a call.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Thank you, Fran, what a joy.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I rank you really was. It was a pleasure an
honor for me too. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
For information on where you can see Fran in person
while she's on her speaking tour, go to Franlibowitz dot com.
You and Me Both is brought to you by iHeartPodcasts.
We're produced by Julie Subren, Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo,
(34:35):
with help from Huma Abadeen, Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Sarah Horowitz,
Laura Olin, Lona Valmro and Lily Weber. Our engineer is
Zach McNeice, and the original music is by Forrest Gray.
If you like You and Me Both, tell someone else
(34:55):
about it. And if you're not already a subscriber, what
are you waiting for? You can subscribe to You and
Me Both on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Thanks for listening and I'll see you next week.
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