Thanks very much for coming.
You're welcome.
Nice to have you with us
especially since I understand
you're going through a bit of a hard time right now.
A little bit of controversy about your children's book,
"Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas."
What's going on?
Well, I've heard from a great number of panda experts.
You were probably surprised, as I was,
to discovered there are a great number of panda experts.
(Conan laughing)
And they have taken issue.
I actually chose pandas at random.
Just as a fun animal to frolic with the children.
Right, they occurred to me for no reason.
I know so little about the natural world
that I had no idea that they were even from China.
You didn't know pandas were from China.
No.
Even I know that.
All right. Well,
I didn't know they're from China.
I didn't know they were rare.
I mean, you could easily have convinced me
that the lawns of Greenwich
were filled with cavorting pandas.
(Conan and audience laughing)
It could have been squirrels. I thought pandas.
And I started getting letters when the hardcover came out.
Well, what are these panda experts mad about?
What have you done to these panda people?
They feel that I have misrepresented the panda.
(Conan and audience laughing)
I mean, I've actually gotten letters that say,
"Pandas don't eat pizza."
Really?
Pandas eat bamboo, which in fact is why they're rare.
(Conan and audience laughing)
Because there are apparently fewer and fewer bamboo trees.
Okay, and that's why there were no pandas.
That is right.
So clearly they should eat pizza.
(Conan and audience laughing)
We should send them pizzas, yeah, definitely.
These pandas talk.
So I was obviously-
Which is why they're-
I was trying to
pull the wool over the eyes of the American public.
(Conan and audience laughing)
And, I once wrote a piece for Newsweek about teenagers
where I made a disparaging remark about guidance counselors.
And I heard from about 80 million guidance counselors.
And I think there's really an equation to be made here.
I mean, considering the fact that we need none.
(Conan and audience laughing)
The fact that there are 80 million guidance counselors,
and an equal number of panda experts,
who I feel actually have been the students
of the school guidance counselors.
(Conan and audience laughing)
They're causing a lot of trouble.
(audience applauding)
Yeah. So what are you gonna do?
I mean, if you learned a lesson next time
will you research the animal that-
No.
(laughing) You don't care.
No, I actually, offending panda experts really
just rolls right off my back.
(Conan laughing)
I'm not running for anything.
I don't have to appease the panda expert sanction.
I see. I don't know how you sleep at night.
It's come... I don't.
Yeah. Okay.
I understand and in a similar vein,
you've been working on the same novel now
for quite a long time.
It's probably since you were born.
Really? 1978.
Well, actually not much after that.
I feel that it is important in this changing world
to have something stay the same.
And so I've clearly chosen this book to be the thing
in my life that's the constant.
That's the constant.
Literally, how can you work on a novel?
It's, how close to completion are you on this thing now?
That's really hard to tell.
It depends on how much distraction there is.
I mean, I could spend months on the panda experts.
So I would say that I'm getting,
I'm getting toward the middle.
Okay. And you've been getting...
So, so this is literally years and years
you've been working on the same-
No, I haven't been working on it for years and years.
I've just been doing it for years and years.
Okay.
Being a writer is just very much
like being a high school student
without, of course, the fun.
I mean, it's like always having a term paper due.
The only problem is you can't do it
the night before it's due.
I know that since I've tried it twice.
(Conan and audience laughing)
So I just said I have poor working habits.
I understand.
Well you've done both now.
You've you've been writing real adult books,
not real adult books, I shouldn't say that,
you've been writing adult books
and you've been writing children's book.
What is easier to do?
Children's books.
Really?
Yes.
Why is that?
Well, they're easier to fool,
which is why we like them, isn't it?
It's just easier because I'm childish, I guess.
It's easier, there are fewer words.
The whole thing is much less complicated.
And there are pictures that take up a lot of the space.
(audience laughs)
So what happens when, what happens when you go on TV show,
say like this one,
and you say, "writing children's books is easy"?
Easier.
Easier. Do children's book authors now get mad.
You're gonna get letters from them.
Yes.
You will?
Yes. I've gotten letter from them.
You've offended them now.
Yes, but they write in crayon on shirt cardboard.
(Conan and audience laughing)
It's not that threatening.
It's not a threatening thing.
Now we talked about this the last time you were on
but you don't like, and you admit to this, you cop to this,
you don't like having people around, do you?
Not in my own home, no.
You don't like having people in your home.
That's correct.
Okay.
That's what home means.
Home means the absence of anyone but me?
That's right. That's why I call it Franland.
(Conan and audience laughing)
In Franland, there's just not room for others.
So that this apartment that I have now,
I tore out two bedrooms.
Why?
Because they would be thought of by others as guest rooms.
(laughing) That's pretty extreme
to actually rip out guest rooms on the odd chance
that someone might misconstrue it as a place to hang out.
It's not an odd chance.
If you live in New York and you have a guest room,
you'll have a guest.
Yeah, that's true. That's true.
It's not like you live someplace out of the way.
It's not like you can freely say to people,
"If you ever happened to be in New York,
you can stay with me."
It's gonna happen.
Every airline goes through New York.
Through my apartment, actually.
Now, what about, does this extend to family as well?
Or particularly to family?
No, my mother stayed with me once
but my parents live in New Jersey so they,
it's not really necessary for them to stay overnight.
But on this occasion my mother wanted to stay in New York
for the weekend, so I allowed it since I thought,
you know, "She's my mother, I have only one."
I don't wanna start a trend.
People wanna say, "I'm also your mother.
I can stay here."
(laughing) Okay.
So my mother is allowed to stay there.
And did that went well.
You could share the same space and it was okay?
Well, I slept on the sofa.
Oh.
So it was okay.
There you go.
For my mother.
Now what about just in life, walking down the street,
you interact well with people outside your apartment?
Then are you perfectly happy to see people?
No, I'm not perfectly happy to see them,
but unfortunately I'm not in control of them, so.
Okay.
Although they feel they're in control of you.
They make all these rules, but I try, I ignore them.
Okay. This is a nice attitude you've got going.
Yes. Well, it works.
Warm and fuzzy.
Yes, well it works for me.
My mood hair is changing as we speak.
(audience laughs)
I feel very threatened by this whole thing
(audience applauds)
Hi there!
How do you, you're also a bit of a, you have a fear,
I don't know what the technical term is,
a fear of technology or you don't trust technology.
You don't like technology.
I would say a distaste for technology.
Okay.
A contempt.
Contempt.
Yes.
All right.
That's the other side of fear.
How does this manifest itself? I mean-
I don't know how to work anything.
So that chair you can handle. This you're doing fine.
If it was invented after my childhood,
which was the last time I learned anything, I can't work it.
And so I just don't have any modern things like that.
But what about you're a writer.
Do you work on a word processor or computer?
No, I write with a pen.
Okay. How 'bout, but like a nice pen, like a fancy pen?
No, I write with a pen now that is called a Bic Clic,
which is an old fashion,
it's an old fashioned ballpoint pen.
They're very hard to find.
So I mentioned the brand name in case anyone
would like to send me some.
Okay.
You know, you press down the thing.
You know, they really-
I'm familiar with that concept.
And you can handle that.
I press down on this button and the point emerges.
Right, well as opposed to more modern pens
which you sometimes have to turn
and they're too complicated.
So if you sat down to write
and there was a turning pen there,
would you freak out and run out of your empty apartment?
An excellent excuse to not write for a few weeks.
All right, boy, where you gonna end up,
I guess, is the good question?
I mean, where's this leading?
Where do you see yourself going say,
if technology just keeps encroaching on us?
I mean, it's getting harder and harder to avoid.
More and more people are using are online with computers
and it's becoming such a part of life.
Aren't you gonna just have to flee the country
at some point?
Live in Greenland or something with your Bic Clic
or whatever it's called?
They probably have it there too.
Okay. A panda will sell it to you on the street.
That's right. I mean, the more things they invent
and the less I know,
gives me less in common with other people,
and they're less likely to wanna be guests.
(audience applauds)
It's a beautiful theory.
I love it.
All right, well, my thanks to Fran Lebowitz
for sharing your philosophy with us.
Very refreshing.
The book is "Mr. Chas and Lisa Sue Meet the Pandas."
It's now in paperback.
Go out, but don't buy the stuff about the pandas, right?
We should warn the children at home,
they don't eat pizza.
Buy it, but don't believe it.
Okay. Fran Lebowitz.
Thank you very much.