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 leibowitz ladies and gentlemen
it is nice of you to be here you are a uh uh a lecturer
you do that for a living yes i do that instead of right where do you where did where would one
go to hear you lecture one would go to college um but i what you really want to do is not so much do
colleges because they don't pay so well you like to do conventions convent you actually go to a
lecture at conventions i've recently returned from the cpas of pennsylvania convention boca raton
there's a fun group huh right where i am and i just did the wives oh i see as the man explained
to me uh well for the men at night we're having the amazing crescent but the wife's like culture
uh but uh you do some mind reading also don't you make things disappear in your
act to keep things lively i would guess that you're in forks i would guess that your uh
do your lectures take place during the day uh this one did this was a breakfast yeah
a breakfast reading and how long do you go with one of these uh about depends how much they pay
by the minute by the minute what uh you are a native new yorker i'm guessing uh well from new
jersey from new jersey close enough this is this is the question that i have loathed uh
for years and years uh when someone asks someone like yourself which do you prefer
uh california or new york but i'm going to ask it nonetheless you actually ask that question which
do you prefer yeah it comes up often around my house um i prefer new york yeah now why wouldn't
uh now why would that be just generally uh well generally i can't say but specifically i would
say that as a writer um to be in a state where the main pro style is apparent only on license plates
yes is disconcerting yeah it is uh they i don't know that that's in every state but
in los angeles it's a big hobby you in fact you can actually see cars forming sentences
when you're on the freeway you know people would like it's the primary form of literature
um what about children yeah you have any desire you like kids you were one i'm guessing
i was myself a child for about 27 years yeah i was i liked it it was a good job but
i kept being a child um i have no children my own i have several god children
uh i'm i'm rather fond of children adults i'm not crazy yeah children yeah that's the problem
with kids is they're great while they're children but eventually they grow up and become annoying
this is not not well i guess specific or general again um do you live here in a uh apartment do
you own a home somewhere no i don't own a home somewhere i live in an apartment
i would like to have a home somewhere yeah you would like to own one here
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 we're coming back here
uh with fran leibowitz and uh this television program and most everything else in life will
continue in a couple of minutes after you take a look at this fran leibowitz is here this morning
and we were discussing among other things we were about to include in that conversation
mail now i get mail and i just i generally don't read it the good and the bad upsets me equally how
do you react to mail i read all of it by answering none of it yeah that's right i don't answer
hate mail nor to answer you get a genuine hate mail i get very genuine hate mail yes i get um
physically threatening now you've actually done had that happen yes i seem to be very popular
amongst uh convicted felons prisoners i it seems to me for my mail that people in prison mostly
watch television you know people out of prison mostly watch television so i don't understand
why you have prisoners um at all you can just sentence someone to stay home and watch tv all
day yeah and watch television they do anyway yeah and then we wouldn't have to pay for them yeah um
but i don't answer any of my mail the worst uh avalanche of hate mail i've ever seen was
i wrote a piece for newsweek about teenagers and apparently this was assigned to many high
school classes across the nation to read their homework was to write me a letter um
what was your stand on the teenagers in the piece um generally um i'm not really crazy about it
i must say i didn't even like teenagers when i was a teenager including myself i have a theory
by teenagers was that a teenager's main intent 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 breakfast and annoy each other and this
would begin i guess when they're 13 through 19 through 19 and then they have to go to work yeah
well that's pretty much pretty much what college is isn't this 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 to sell help which to me is working
but any where people with the uh similar disturbances get together for help
unfortunately there are no people with similar disturbances been able to form a group yeah you
know since i guess my main um one i have two main activities in life smoking and plotting revenge
you don't really need a group no i could plot by myself revenge sometimes i use the phone but
yeah um i don't really uh not much group type yeah but the smoking is then i guess your
hobby yeah that's great if not my profession that's good advice for any teenagers looking in
today too i in fact in my pee suggested that teenagers uh smoke as a substitute for sex
more wonderful advice uh the book is uh metropolitan life you have a new
book coming um uh in march in march which will be called social studies social studies fran
liebowitz we'll be back with edwin newman and an nbc news update right after this