yeah, the media requires there be a new genius every season. yeah, you would be very
lucky if in your whole life you saw the work of one genius. but very few people are great
young, great, great, great, great, great all along, but fast one it was widely reported
that this man on what was consistently referred to in the press, I'm not sure of the
figure, but $120 million book as a and he was showing it to some friends. and he hit it
with his elbow and tore a hole in it.
and I was very amused by this for numerous reasons.
One is that I kept asking people which picasso is this, and people kept saying 120
million picasso. And I keep saying, but which picasso? I don't know which one is hundred
20 million one, you know, and also that changes. you know, the price changes, but the
picasso remains the same. Um. and then but really I was interested in the story and in
this man, because this man can sing. and so I thought there is no more suitable and
pumping image symbol for our time than the image of these lines are collected.
I know
that some of that, I mean you can if you're gonna write just a history of the era, you
should call it the blind are collector and other stories noise time yeah oh. host. you're
right. Okay, we ask for your food, but we're not sure we're on the right one or fact. Is
this your book? the audiences can come into the girls are getting a hobby farm in our ah
seven 735 was most are 730, right? I was the only take a state.
how about the ice rink?
Is that because this is me and I I know they would buy. And this is me at my most boy
writers have to know things. you know, they have to know things about life. you know,
musicians don't. That's why these musical prodigies, you know, there was mozart. There's
no equivalent to mod start writing. because even if you were that innately talented, they
would still have to know something to write it down. you know. And and so in fails which
you have to know something, there's no talk about jews. Hence a child actor w actually
are not well served by knowing anything.
you may or may not learn more things about
writing. As you get older. Some people don't. Some people are fully formed with the first
book. You see that like with philip roth, you see that, you know, um, they have that
voice right away. Um, some people specializing useful things in writing. um, and then
that, of course, they get worse. if you're gonna specializing youth, you know, you're
gonna get worse. I like doing this because it's what i've always one of my entire life
people, s p b right?
and also in this situation, people are not allowed to interrupt. So
it's not a conversation. that's what I like about you seem to me almost always right,
yeah, people what I mean? See all but also never fair. that's why I'm always right,
because I'm their fair, I never thought about it. But I have to concede that I have way
too frequently for my own moral comfort. Been asked if I was an only child, which means
obviously people feel I have the personality and all the job, which I guess I don't uh,
really the rules.
and I actually wanted to tell us when I was at a small child, I love
publicly cells and public sales records. um, but I was remarkably intelligent. and when I
realized I was going to be as good as public selves, which was like in the first four
minutes of listening to the first record, I realized I didn't want to be shells. I had
excessive standards, but I was the worst Challenge in my school orchestra. I mean I
wasn't just largely not as good as public songs. I had that in a school, a little grammar
school offers with five shells. I was picture list and it was not an unfair assessment.
it was a fair assessment in my neighborhood. And I think all girls gonna do certain
physical things, you know, like climb trees, they say that all those type of things. I
was always very friendly. the terrified of and I believe that this is at the point at
which I like, er, if I say something funny, they won't notice. I'm only on the first
branch of the trade, not the 50th branch of the tree, where I have like no intention of
going to, because even as a child, it really struck me as anything out of exercise to put
yourself in danger for no reason. In other words, all right, if like climbing a trade, to
me, it makes sense if behind you are not seize, right, you're right. I'm you know being
in that race is smart thing to do upon the ground by the nazis. If on the ground or the
other kids and everyone sing high. Well, even at that age, it seems to be like no noise.
okay noise noise yeah, I was at least nine, if not all the while, and just tell time. It
was the central disaster of my childhood. my parents sent me to my aunt and uncle's house
for my winter vacation with the idea that since my uncle was uh, uh, an engineer at IBM,
that he would be able teach man tell time. I mean I suppose it was the idea that this kid
was so challenged, not a word they use, then eliminate all time that it required. The
expertise of an I MIT graduate was I be an engineer.
that's the level of person they felt
I needed to teach me how to tell dive. And it was just like a continuation really of my
own experience at home, which was that everything was o'clock like, in other words, you
know, and yes, and here's no milk. Okay. Now see if this raisin was 12 and this razor was
three and I would like, well, it just eventually it came to me, although not fully,
because even now, by which I mean my entire life, I see that other people, if you ask
them what time it is, they look at their watch like and they tell you this is something
i've always been me because i've like, then I tell you, okay, it is it lacks along my my
telling what job it is, because you can see me concentrating like I have to. It's like
it's whatever is the time telling equivalent of movie looks when you read.
that's how I
tell time. Then at some certain point in life, you know which I think was in the
seventies invented digital clocks, you know which I resisted tremendously purely out of
envy. like, oh, if they had this when I was a child, I would learn how to tell time. And
so since I didn't have it, I don't like it. you know, the same reaction that men of my
father's generation had, like during the sexual revolution, like, oh, no, you don't wait.
Never got that. You're not getting it. I thought the exact same way about digital clocks.
you know, I was a very very bad high school student. Terrible. the worst you could be.
Let me put it this way. I was expelled from my school, so you can't be a worse I supposed
to do than that. did you read? Uh, actually, I mean, that's one of the reasons I got
expelled from high school because I would be always reading behind my actual text books.
and I was constant punished for eating a strike even as a young Top really want anything,
instead of doing my homework. But I remember we're not gonna try. No, you're reading in
there.
you know, I had my desk in my room when I was a child, you know had a drawer like
in the middle. And my books would be on Top and I would open the door a real book by
which I mean what I wanted to read as opposed to a math bug. and bmi. My mother came in
there. I would like pleasantly that. and I want you, this was not the story of, oh, you
know, this this would be, you know, just a novel. There's something that wasn't my
school. yeah, yeah and uh uh 20.
their days is one of them. when you wonder what your
role is in this country and what your future, isn't it, how precise are you going to
reconcile yourself to your situation here and how you're going to communicate to the
best. heedless on thinking. cool. white majority that you're here. I mean, I remember the
first time I saw James baldwin, you know on the name of such can show when I was a kid, I
never heard anyone talk like that. You know, I always said, I mean only jew in America
whose first exposure intellectual. It was black eye.
you know, I mean I didn't know there
were such thing as usual lectures. I did not go up among them. So my idea of intellectual
was James baldwin. I never heard anyone talk about in my life. I was completely
mesmerized by him. I obviously love to talk, so I never thought about being good or bad
at it. They, I mean talking to me is like having a trick them. only when people start
remarking on it, did I realize that people thought of it as anything special. you know, I
I never really thought I was never. And that's partly because I was never compliments on
as a child. I mean, in fact, the opposite. When I was a child, it was called talking
back, okay, you know, now it's called public speaking. You know, but it's really the
same.
so the thing that I used to get punished for at home and in school and get bad
marks in school for it, then I you know, at a certain point my life, I got actually, I
don't know paid you know and rewarded for it, but it's the exact same thing. do you think
there's a difference between a female voice and a male voice in literature? Even on the
phone? There's a difference between a female voice over now boys, great, I think it's
very important that writers write in a real voice in their own voice, but only if they're
really good writers.
and I have noticed and surely even someone of your 10 years have
noticed that too many people are writing books, period. okay, there are too many books.
the books are terrible. And this is because you have been taught deaf self esteem. yeah.
and apparently you have so much self esteem that you think you know what, I shouldn't
keep these thoughts to myself. I should share them with the world old. When I first came
to new york, I fell in with a group of incredible talkers. you know, I mean incredible
talkers. And I thought my whole life would be like that. You know, there are certain
things that happen. Do when you're young, there's thing you always imagine what happened.
and then you find out it was like a fluke. You know, of course it disappeared. But I you
know, phelan right away. This bunch of incredible talk, as they were all guys, they were
all gay. um, they were much older than me, by which I mean the minimum of 10 years. I was
18 when I came to new york and it was a kind of, I mean, it wasn't really competitive.
You know, that was nasty. Let me tell you, that's the other thing. I mean, once I met
these guys, when I was like, literally like off the bus on the board, sorry, these are
the first people in need.
um, after that, I suppose nothing could faze me. New york, new
york is a uh, she new york, new york is ah, she's a million viewed. Oh, she's a marian
who does your socio new year. Your kids saw what I did when I first came to your I drove
a cab, I did things like that, you know, but just exactly enough to pay the rent. And
then I start working. as soon as I had that hundred $21 in a month, I would try the
cabinet, you know, because I want to hang out, you know, I want to do nothing. It's very
important, I think, for getting ideas, you know, or you know, thinking of new things or
the it that comes from like hanging around with other people, you know, talking, you
know, that that life, you know, sitting in bars, smoking cigarettes. You know, I mean
that's the history of art. New york.
you is a box state building americana hotel cp, it's
really fc are busy national city bank to. yeah okay. new york was not better because
there was more crime. it was better because it was cheaper. And I mean relatively
cheaper. When a place is too expensive, only people with lots of money can look there.
that's the problem. Okay? You can like people with lots of money for certain reasons,
hated for certain reasons. But you cannot say that an entire city of people with lots of
money is fascinating.
it is not. oh, all these things, in my opinion, seem to occur when
they decided to get the city out of bankruptcy by making it to a church attraction. yeah,
which everyone thinks was the smartest thing ever done. In other words, in the seventies
when the sea was going bankrupt, uh, you know, three guys got together and they said,
what can we do? This is going bankrupt. Well, no one here, you know, can think of
anything. We'll just have to bring a lot of people here to come and look at it.
and you
know that would be the way that we heard. And it apparently did. you know, it was an
incredibly horrible idea. And even at the time, I thought I thought this, this is new
york city. you know, we don't need this kind of, you know, sinclair lewis boosterism
here. You know, did you don't wanna come here, doug, could be good. Don't come here. uh,
it it was a very bad thing, because it made it seem like, you know, new york had no
resources. you know, by which I mean human resources. It's not like it's a boring place.
No, you cannot lure these herds of hillbillies into the middle of a city and not have it
affect the city.
it's not possible. You know, and sometimes I'm like, what trying to,
well, I would say walking behind them, trying to get past them. You know, um, and I hear
them say they don't like something. oh, yes, we went there. You know, oh, you mean that
the diner that has like the waiters who sing, yes. Did you like it? Now they were singing
too loud and I sometimes like saying, really you don't like it, tell us because we built
it for you. So if you don't like the diner with the waiter singing, we're going to close
it down. Like what we do is times square.
if there's no tourist, you know, a place that
we built for them. I mean it used to be just a neighborhood. okay? It's a place that we
built for them. I live near times square, so I wouldn't tell you something. Here's what
we could use in this neighborhood. A butcher, good, thank you. I shall repair a
stationery store, a book store, you can fill it with things. New yorkers need times
square. Now in the last many years, here's what it's like in times square. if you're a
new yorker and you run into another new york and time square is like running into someone
in a gay bar in the seventies, you you instantly start making excuses as to why you're
there. I'm not really here.
that's great going from there. I'm not really in the I'm not
really in times square. I'm on my way to some of them doing research. the reason that
people used to move to cities. That one of the reasons fact that I moved to the city is
that if you grew up in a small town, it's incredibly oppressive. you know, it's very
oppressive to have people know every single thing about you. you know, the the nosy
neighbor is not an urban figure. You know, in uh, the nosy neighbor is a small town
figure.
and everyone knows everything about everybody. And it's very suffocating. and so
that people use to move the city so they can do what they wanted. Even if what they
wanted to do was just walk down the street without someone calling up and saying, I saw
joe walking down the street. but if you wanna do something like other than that, you have
to live in the city. Um, and now people don't. I mean, anonymity is the worst thing that
people can have. I think because there's such a general desire for fame.
you're dog maybe
look into that dark, all of it. within the last 2053 years, fame itself became an
extremely valuable thing to people divorce from anything else. and that is basically the
fault of Andy warhol. But I mean one of things and it was he made fame more famous
because Andy kept like using the word family the time it was joke. let me show you this
was a joke. You take these drag queens who are actually criminals because it's against
the law to wear a dress. If you're a man at the time and you say this drag queen, who of
course they wanna be movie stars, they wanna be exactly store.
in other words, you know,
candy darling, you know wants to be exactly, you know, marilyn monroe. ok. This is a dry
queen fantasy that I'm no one takes it seriously, except candy does. And then and he
says, you're not just a movie star like Michael around race super star, he makes it up.
It's a joke. it's a joke. This is what we're in the world. this is what happens when an
inside joke gets into the water supply. I'm friendly. What's uh, I started writing for
interview, I think in 1970. Um, and the first time that I met Andy at the factory, uh,
when I went to apply for this position, uh, the door of the elevator opened. And there
was a um, metal door behind it that had a sign taped to it saying, knock loudly and
announce yourself and being 20. In this beam idea of humor. I knocked on the door and
someone said, who is? And I said valerie solana and and open the door when I was young
and the you know the seventy's early eighty's. My first real audience was interview
magazine. And at that time that audience was 99.9, you know, homosexual, male homosexual.
And that audience was uh very important to me. This was part of what formed my voice.
Everyone talks about the uh, effect that AIDS had.
and the culture in the sense, I mean
people don't talk anymore. But when people did talk about it, uh, they talked about like
what artists were lost, but they never talked about this audience that was lost. uh, you
know when people talk about like why you know why was in new york city ballet so great.
Well, I mean it was because of allergy and jerry robbins and people like that, but also
that audience was so I I can't even think of the word I mean it suzanne farrell wasn't
like this. Is that this that was it. She could be she might as well just kill herself.
there would be like a billion people who know exactly every single thing. You know, there
was such a high level of connoisseurship of everything that that that that that people
like this were interested in, you know of everything that means a culture better. You can
you know a very discerning audience, a very you know, uh, audience with a high level of
connoisseurship um, is as important to the culture as artists. it's exactly as important.
Now. We don't have any kind of disturbing when that audience died, and that audience died
in five minutes. Literally, uh, people didn't die faster in a war.
and it allowed, of
course, like the 3rd, the second 3rd 4th tier to rise to the front. because of course the
first people who died of AIDS were the people who I don't know how to put this got laid a
lot. okay. Now imagine who didn't get AIDS. okay, that's was then. Lord, it's like the
great, you know, hope artist. Ok. You know, if the other people that hadn't died have
been alive, if they all came back to life and I would say to them, guess who's a big
star?
guess you never guess who has shown brother guess who's like a famous without a
word? Get you to wait. That was like four on the floor. Are you kidding me? because
everyone else died last man standing. okay. I mean that had a that loss of that audience
had a terrible effect and a terrible effect on me. uh, I mean by which not just a sad
personal effect, I mean but in terrible effect. I mean because everything has to be
broader. I mean, I don't do that. you know, but everyone else did. You know, everything
has to be more late, more on the nose, broader. You know, because obviously they're not
gonna pick up little subtleties.
things in the culture that had nothing to do with the
new york city ballet. you know, it just got dumb down, down, down, down, down, all the
way down. one of the reasons we wanted to come here was to show the country, the oscar
levant show. And and you must rating no, it is not it's probably the most brilliant wit
on on every, you know you must understand about what what's very infrequent. You
mentioned so called western. I've said two or three things in our whole lifetime. almost
the stroke know now you mercies something else, you know that crackle barrel aw, shucks,
charlie weaver stuff who gets off fellow every now and then. Uh, that's it really I I
don't dig my toe and I'm not a cracker barrel philosophy humorous, just a comedian and
scratches, isn't that well that's what how humorous is somebody like you has four riders
and then add lips for the rest of. No, that's it's hard being his friend. I'll tell you
that.
yeah, yeah. Okay. so what we have had in the last 30 years is too much democracy in
the culture, not enough democracy in the society. there's no reason that democracy, the
culture, not because the culture should be made by a natural aristocracy of talent. okay?
I mean by which I mean like no one hears, it doesn't have to do with you know what race
you are, what country you're from, or what we're looking or should have to do with. How
good are you at this thing? and that is a natural aristocracy.
know your book is not as
good as anyone else's book. you know, no, you know your life story with that makeup. Look
good. Don't even try. you know, I I had to introduce toni morrison something give her an
award. She has not received enough. and you know, so everyone was, I gather c Tony gets
her a million for word. I said, um, uh, since you're right now that I have you all here,
I just want to say one thing. When toni marson said, write the book you wanna read, she
did not mean everyone, okay?
when I read things written, there's something in there. That
is I can distinguish by sound by not a definition, which is the difference between wit
and the comic or the humerus in writers? what do you think that differences niceness,
niceness, emission, or what people call like, you know, warmth, wit, no comedy. Ah. Oh, I
see, I see. I see like we have a lot of comedians. Yeah, because people like comedians,
people like comedians, because comedians usually make fun of someone other than the
person they're talking to, you know, or if they directly make fun of that person's in a
very insulting, vulgar way. But in writing, wit is something, it's cold, it has to be
cold.
you know when is judgement, ask the wild type cold. Yeah, people say ask a wild
type like there's like a lot of other people that so well on its to um, and yeah, I mean
and it's also usually short, you know usually can't be dragged out to the length of
feature film. um, and also it it it it has a lot of assumption to it, which is not a
thing americans like they don't want you to assume, presume or judge. that's elite. I
don't remember what your question was. Yes, you do know you've explained it entirely.
Correct. A good fire door, rear gate and now 47. But I'm actually usually rescue me at 15
an alternate. Er, it's called my friend. And I used to be 47 last year just last month.
Yeah, that that. Yeah, this one provide got done 93 of them. Well, I know keep that is
younger singers. Yeah, yeah. So bernice, see you again. Thank you for good.
when my first
book, man, I was 27, there were no people in my age, the light books up. that is
generational thing because people my age, they don't want to be writers. people my age
wanted to be musicians or filmmakers. so all the people I know who wanna be who are
artists at once or the other. That was the thing. so I I had like no can have a rise, you
know, and it looked like it was dying out. That's why people should stop saying, this is
the end of that. You don't know what's gonna happen.
you know, this is the end of that.
This is it. You know, when my first book was published, the publisher said, I don't know,
this book isn't gonna sell because it's not since 1920s has a book of comic essays sold.
and even though I was a kid, I said, so what I really I would say that now. So what you
know that here's what happens. One comes out of cells, there's a million of them who's
trying to buy your book back then. everybody, everybody, I mean, everybody did it,
everybody. I met with everybody. Everyone tried to buy the book, I met with everybody. I
didn't sell them all, because I I didn't, um, didn't want them to ruin my book, which is
a book of essays. So I knew that it would be ruined. I mean it isn't, you know, I mean
rule and uh, the more I said no, which was taken courses tactic, the higher the price
when until I actually had well more than one meaning but one meaning I remember and I
think it might have been warner brothers because warner brothers might have had like a
real office here in the 70 late seventies.
they did. And I remember sitting like a huge
conference table. We're finally someone who's had new york office said, all right. Well,
I suppose you want to direct that. and I was so stunned by that idea because that's when
I realized they really didn't believe me. you know, I said, no, I don't even want you to
make this into a movie. Not only don't I wanna direct this movie, I don't want this to be
a movie. And many movie stars try to buy it. Women try to buy for themselves.
you know,
and considering I'm not gonna go into names, but it was a movie start the time, you know
this would be enough to repel even the most greedy amongst us. um, I had every single
meeting, including one where someone who want to make a musical out of it and jumped upon
the table in the middle of the meeting to show me how it could be musical. um, and this
went on for a very long time because of the same know. yeah, you know, this was unheard
up, you know, and no one, believe me, including mage, you know, so no one believe me,
everyone kept telling me, you know, that's really good. You said no, because now you're
right. And and and even something that's money I was offered would be really great. Now.
Yeah, I mean that's how much money I was offered that. And um, the same thing when the
second book came out another round if it started. Um, now if I know that was it, that's
what even the point to, uh, but I didn't realize that, but it was worth it to the
meetings. I'll always have these meetings.
okay. the next morning I was awaken by a
telephone call from set agent informing me that she had just received and rejected the
offer of a sum and six figures for the movie rights. To my unwritten book. I think we can
get more. She said, i'll talk to you later. I'm all this over and called her back. look!
I said last year I earned $4000 for the things that I wrote. This year. I've been offered
276 figures. This amount included the book rights to my unwritten book for the things
that I have not written.
obviously, i've been going about this whole business in the
wrong way. not writing, it turns out, is not only fun, but also would appear enormously
profitable. you'll call the movie guy and tell him that I have several unwritten books.
Give it on the road that you are hit book social studies number 11 on the new york times,
their seller list. what's it been like out there in America? um, the exact opposite of
here. I love it out there in America. What particularly do you like? the way they buy
books? They are buying your book. Yes, they are. And I think therefore, do you think that
they know what you're really writing about?
I hope not. I understand that. Some people
seem to think it's a self helpful. It is it's helping myself. I'm familiar with education
and art as sort of marginal. and is this some kind of peculiarly American kind of into
anti intellectual is a music. well, I don't know how they think about it all over the
world, but certainly in America. And I mean america's always hated, you know, egg heads
or whatever. You know, I mean when that when they invent the term elite, they don't mean
rich American loves with people. They mean smart.
they I mean we don't want these elites
in here. We don't have smart people in here. do you think some people are born lucky?
that is the biggest piece of luck in life. No one wants to admit that in this country,
especially because it agitate against the very notion of America. But I mean, that's the
idea of democracy is to minimize that first second of luck. When you draw your first
breath, you know, if babies had that type of consciousness, they would look around and
most people think, no, now this isn't what I meant. This is what I had in mind. Um,
gender doesn't and gender a very big base of luck. Here's what a big piece of luck it is.
Any white gentile, straight man who is not part of the united states failed.
okay, that's
what a big piece of luck. That is. Ok. So why do you think are DNA differences between
men and women? uh, testosterone, testosterone is not learned. okay? If it could be
learned, we would be studying because it works. So disaster ring is actually some sort of
chemical that is in the human body. And testosterone gives people men who have it, um, an
advantage because it is what makes men aggressive women having babies is really a
disadvantage. it is a disadvantage to women. Even though women now seek to have babies,
or in fact, do extraordinary things to their bodies in order to have babies at the age of
4050 or whatever. Um, it is, it does kind of put you out of commission, um, in lots of
ways, which is that once woman has a baby, she seems to be so interested in it.
I mean a
woman in a room with her baby is looking at that baby. okay? Is that who you want for
your lawyer? yeah, but okay, men now go around with their babies. You know, I see them
all the time with there. Babies are always talking about their babies, but they're not
really looking at them. if they were your lawyer, they still be your lawyer, because
they're really not that interesting. Maybe they just like they have to do that. Now it's
like, you know the style. um, so it is very hampering to women the fact that they have
babies or that they wanna have babies. You know, that is very hampering to women. It is
very helpful to men that they have testosterone.
you know men don't want women to have
power because they already have it. people don't want other people to have what they
have. when I was growing up, I was told in American history books, but Africa had no
history and neither did I that I was a savage about whom the less said the better who had
been saved by europe and brought to America. of course, I believed it. I didn't have much
choice. both the only books they were, everyone else seemed to agree.
if you walk out of
harlem ride out of holland downtown, the world agrees. What you see is much bigger,
cleaner, wider, richer, safer. and it would seem that of course, but it's an act of god.
This is true, but you belong where white people have put you. it seems to me that of all
the indictments mr. Baldwin has made of America, yeah, here tonight and in his copious
literature protest the fire next time, uh, in which he threatens America. But he didn't
in writing that book, speak with the British accent that he used exclusively tonight, in
which he threatened America with a necessity, uh, for us to a jettison of russ to
jefferson, our entire civilization.
the only thing that the white man has the negroes
should want. He said his power. you wrote a fantastic piece in vanity fair on race. And I
just really want to know how you felt about the public discourse about race in this last
election. you know, I mean, obama speech about race, I thought was great. I thought I
thought that. I mean, it seems astonishing to me that no one made such a speech before. I
mean, here's the problem being ahead of your time. By the time everyone gets around to
it, you're bored. So you know, um, I think that uh, I think that people are afraid to
talk about it, um, because they feel they don't want to offend people or their usual way
of talking about it is in fact, offensive. And they're trying to think what would be the
non offensive way to talk about it. Um, I think that that's probably true a great deal of
the time.
you know, I think it's very important that there be a black president mostly so
that we got it over with. so that you know, this this is something that should be should
be in our past. This should be our present. This is absurd. it's an absurd way to
categorize people. It is, I mean, in that piece that you talked about, um, uh, uh, errol,
my editor, interviewed me about that. He asked me, I think racism would end. You know,
could it end? And I said, no, I didn't think it would end. you know that I think it
couldn't. It's possible for a den because it's a fantasy.
that's racism is a fantasy of
superiority. A fantasy can end. You know it probably won't, but it can. Whereas you know,
um, uh, inequality of women would never end, because it's biological. It's a reality. you
know men are really different from women. there is really a difference between men and
women. There is not really a difference between pieces. People of different races, you
know not. I mean the differences skin deep, you know, and so that racism can and I don't
think it will end. I don't think the election barack obama shows that it ended. I just
think it showed that it's not as bad as it was, you know, which is really the most we can
hope for.
I think that were astonished that the americans did anything good. not your
column dear for your the Top for your the new museum. The history of writing is a history
of when people are actually writing. They do something bad to themselves at the same
time. you know, it leads to drink people smoke while you're writing or doing something
bad yourself. And that is to punish yourself for playing god. you're the tower of pizza.
Your the mine on the mona lisa, I'm a workman. Check a total wreck, a clap. But if bay
behind the bottom, your the Top.
um, this is not the luckiest time to be a writer,
because writers don't have very much influence on the culture. there was a time when
writers to write in the center of the culture, and that is more desirable, um, because
writers want to influence with the algonquin round table, uh, influence when you're going
up. well, I mean I read about them. Yeah. And that old I worry I wasn't the Top. I mean I
read, you know have happy lives. But they did. I mean that life in new york city of those
people was very enjoyable.
they did enjoy that life. That's not true that they didn't. I
mean they were not happy people in the way that you're talking about. um, but they did
enjoy that life. In that era, people play word games. yeah, I mean adults, you know, like
word games, definition of language was highly valued by the culture general. so if you
were very good at it, like george s kaufman or dorothy parkers and like that, then you
were having a warning for it. razors, pain, you rivers are damp acids, daniel and drugs,
cause cramp guns aren't lawful.
gnosis give gas smells awful. you might as well live even
referred to as a modern day. Dorothy parker. And I was wondering if you agree with that,
and it's not who is it that you seek to emulate, if anyone at all. I'm very heartened
that someone who like seems from this distance to be as young as you are ever heard at
the barker. Um, and I'm even at this point in my life, happy to be considered the modern
to anything. Uh, but um, I'm not really a person who's ever been like that begun. You
know, I don't know emulating, I mean, Jackie parker, you if you read her book reviews,
you know there are book reviews of popular novels. You never heard of the writer. You
never heard. They're unbelievably funny.
they're funny. Now you don't have to know the
writer. You don't have to know the book. so they lost other contexts, which a lot of
especially funny writers depend a lot on context like that. and I I I don't suppose she
thought anyone would be reading them, you know, 60 years later, but you can't. And
they're really funny. you know, they're really, really funny. You're become your marrow
color, your the car, you're a coolidge dollar, you're the nimble tread. The big brother
day. You're only drama, your with mamma, your camera there.
and for what I think dorothy
barker for just plain laugh outloud unbelievable funniness. I don't think there's any
American writer that touches server. I was kicked out of class numerous times for reading
their brain. I'm a geography book or something like that. you know, because you could not
stop laughing. I slept in his bed ones. they they made his house, you know child and as
into museum. And they invite a writer to go there. And you're usually been, of course I
did sleep, but I like and it it that's a museum. I stayed overnight by myself.
so I was
terrified. they were issuing a thurber stamp and I thought it was like a literary event.
The issue with the stand, but in fact it was a postal event. And the postmaster general
came dressed like a general. the postmaster general has a uniform. where was this in?
This was where every 3rd was from an ohio whatever. That as cincinnati, whatever it is,
they it was the issuing of the stamp. That was the actual event. and there were hundreds
and hundreds of thousands of people lined and I thought, this is amazing. So many thurber
fans, no, they're stamp collectors. It was like being at a star wars convention. They go
to every first day issue stamping their all, they look like star wars fans.
they're all
like these kind of damp, sweaty boys, hundreds of them. They and they have a certain way
that you have decided they issue the first day cover and they want everyone associated
with its sign in a certain way. And if you put your pennies like the rock know, no, it
was the most bizarre thing i've ever it was really like the car was commission, they
issued a stamp. I'm not kidding. Like two months later they change the postage rate.
somebody used it on our news. It's old, it's not even two months. It's pretty, it's nice.
So I have some of the stamps that I got there.
how does mr. Kaplan plane go ahead? Not
guilty. Your honor. there's a first your honor. We are still examining bodies. Enough.
someone else could sort through the evidentiary issues. Thank god! Bella said 300000 cash
or bond. You're on a happy no good. Next case. that is my dream job is to be on the
supreme court. Chief justice supreme court. It is my territory all rooms or well
certainly robes also you know other people write their work for them. You know they just
get their ideas on other people right now. Um, I think i'd be a fabulous supreme court
judge because also I make snap judgments.
you know there's no one more judgmental than
me. I don't know why it takes him so long. Every thing before for for this room court I
know the answer to. but I think really they're deliberating about this. do you believe
in? Uh, yeah. do you believe in getting even? I mean, do I live in revenge? Yes, I
definitely believe in revenge. I I absolutely believe in revenge, which some people say
revenge, as you know, dish best served cold, it's better. It's good. Anytime you get it,
you know any chance you have for revenge, take never let that pass you by. Um, I do, I
believe in adventure. I don't believe in forgiveness. However, um, it might be ethnic
because forgiveness is a christian thing. I mean, forgiveness in fact is christianity.
That's what christianity is.
I mean, everyone was Jewish. Then came christ. He said, I
forgive you. Oh, well, they all went naturally. It's a much bigger religion, but the
Jewish god is an invention by the jews. Got to judge. you know. So I'm I would say that
I'm very judgmental, I'm afraid of guess. okay, I don't know really what guesses, but I
know it explodes because that's how the car works. okay? I'm not touching something
that's gonna explode. okay, I don't want to, you know, I do not want to, I do not feel my
grandparents did not come here. Steerage gallus island cycle gas in the car.
I'm not
putting gas in the car as simple as that. I'm scared of it. It explodes. it smells
horrible. I don't wanna touch it in long island. Once I got actually into a fight with
someone who had like a million like crosses on, there was a van and they had like all
these crosses paste into it. And like, you know, jesus says this and she says that. And
she says this. And I said, you know, um, I can't can't put gas in the car. Um, I am very
afraid of gas. Could you like help me put gas in the car? No, but are you kidding me like
that? I was really like nasty.
I said, don't you think jesus would put gas in my car?
Like, say as jesus, you seem to have been very intimate relationship with jesus. You have
things all over your car just division. Is that I said I personally believe jesus. If I
said excuse me, jesus, but get in my car, he would say, of course it's the christian
thing to do all to, okay, I own a check. And did you know that you want to check a I
wanna check a marathon. That is my car. I bought it new. I bought in 1978 after my first
book came out, which was the first time I ever had money. And among the last times, um,
the first thing I did was buying card.
it is very large. In fact, it's pretty much the
size of the apartment that I had when I bought it on the color. well, it is such a subtle
shade of prograde that straight men think it's white. you know, when I was in garage, I
always have to say it's the white. Well, I used to have to say it's the white checker.
Now I have to say is that old big white car that looks like an old fashioned taxi cab. I
remember when I got this car driving up to a bookstore uptown. That was partly why this
guy I knew, and I pulled up a friend bookstore in this car and he came out, he said, once
a punk always punk, because it was, you know, it's such a crazy thing to do. Toner,
carmen had and and no one who lives in berlin hat, who has a car whose is it? Because you
want to get that full $8 million a month? That is a crush, by which I mean, you offered
to do so department, which in any other city it would be you could live lavishly.
I'm now
I'm going to answer questions from the audience in an entertaining fashion. and you don't
have to ask them and entertaining fashion. don't ask them in an entertaining fashion.
when I do things, you know, like reading or an interview on the state, I take questions
from the audience. but the truth is now what people get our answers from the audience.
you know. And there's one thing that I do not want is answers from the audience. I mean
the answer from the audience used to be called heckling. That's an answer from the
audience. You know, I mean, who wants an answer from the audience?
you know. And my
feeling always is really, you don't like it. I mean you can receive how to go to see you.
is it like they broke into your house? You know, um, I I I know for instance that there
are people who really dislike me very intensely. there. Almost no one says anything
estimate because they're afraid. I'll say something nastier back. however, you can be in
a you know, speaking at a college. And you know, um, I don't know new orleans or
something, because that's what I thought because this happened mean rollers once and so
and there was unusual number of like what seemed to me to be for turning boys which I was
saying that maybe my usual audience. But there seem to be a lot of boys in the audience
likely groups a voice together, you know not like the big loser voice together. I used to
get san francisco, the big groups of always together, you know that drink a lot of beer.
And you're not that happy to see when you look into the audience of you because I still
see then it was a long time ago and it was neurons which is very um, humid.
and it was
also waiting, which is, you know, come in there. And so my hair was extremely curly. And
after i've been there quite a long time, one of these, uh, kids, these boys yelled out,
who does your hair, which was a very surprising thing. I mean, because obviously meant
like my hair was like very cruel. and so I just said why you wanna meet him. his mother
wrote me a letter, but I mean like a month later telling me that I had ruined her son's
life, that her son dropped out of school.
you called my son a you know, not a homosexual.
Another word from his actual. and he was with his fraternity brothers. Uh, and and they
were so hard on him. You know, and then he had to leave school and I thought to myself,
really he had to leave school, he had to leave school. I mean can't you take a joke how
you had to leave school? And I thought if the if the school had this type of a dirty in
it, you should say be thanking me for getting your son out of this idiotic school.
I'm
not very often nasty. I I'm not very often uh nasty people's faces, very rarely. you
know, first of all, you know, I believe in talking behind people's backs. you know, that
way. They heard more than once. yeah, get nerves before speaking in front of people. I
reserve all of my fear already, all of it. I mean, really I'm otherwise I would say, you
know all of it. Now, of course, it's like a very bad thing to do. But you know, if you're
saying supposed to be a writer would be much better to like spread your fear out. You
know, so that you could actually, I don't know. Right?
um. But all my fear, I put in one
basket. I I once fell asleep in the green room, a letterman before I went out. that's how
we're like. Well, i'd better like wake me up friendly. Boner next, which you know, of
course means last of your writer. Okay, we finally know miss america's finally off, you
know, because you would be like the 3rd and be like an actually movie star then who's
ever miss America or you know or something like that, then you no, I don't have none of
business at all.
you may be tired of this, but tell me about the writer's block business.
Because everybody seems to want to talk about you and writers block, um, well, I mean I I
don't really I would not call it writer's block writer's block to me is a pretty for
temporary thing a month, you know, six weeks, this is more a red as blockade I would say.
And for writers decades. Yes. I mean to me this was very much like the Vietnam war was
the same timetable was on the same schedule as Vietnam war. I I don't know how I got into
it and I couldn't get out of it.
um, so I don't really know all the reasons for it. I
mean I think I had um, a kind of delayed um, uh, and not very uh, positive reaction to
success. And you're able to go round and do lectures and write a magazine piece here in a
magazine fees there. I basically did 3 million college lecture days a year, which is
really a depressing way to make a living. You spent a lot of them on the early. Uh, and
you know I really felt you would slog through these airports, read a little suitcase. It
was like was like the willy loman of literature.
you loved writing until you became a
professional writer. And you said that before. You just said it again. I mean what was it
about writing professionally? I think, um, I have tremendous resistance to authority,
even if it's my own. You know, I mean, I think I am really lazy. I am the most slothful
person in America. no one has wasted time more than I have. No one. no, I would say that.
You know, I don't like to bread, but I would say that. Well, let me put this way. I mean,
the outstanding waste of time of my generation.
I don't need like my friends to say this,
my enemies will tell you this is true. You know. So there's no I know it's wasting time
more than I have. I mean, I looked at, you know, like 1979, I looked up, it was like
2007. you're right. I thought, you know, you'd better get to work. Right? what's the best
source for unbiased news? Me? yes. In my opinion, what's the best source for unbiased
news me? Now here's the problem. Here's what news used to be Information. that's what
news is.
now, every article new york times starts no matter what it is, it starts with
like on iraqi road in afghanistan, yeah, it's like three paragraphs till you get to a
bomb blew up something in afghanistan. The bomb is the news. The beginning is the writing
facts. You know factor. What's important in news, but no one is interesting facts
anymore. People are interested and this I find astonishing. They're interested in other
people's opinions. so unbiased news. I don't think we'll have any more because no one
seems to know what news is.
ok? And no one seems to know and they turn on the news and
they watch people get their opinions. that's what they watch on tv. That's what they see
on the internet. That's what they participated. Or how do you. I mean, here's what I feel
when when someone on CNN says, and here's our Twitter number, whatever you call it. I'm
not high on high technology, but whatever it is, we wanna know what you think. and I
think really I don't he was the home school Japanese, how is true, but thank you. God
will. But John, uh, let's try that. What we finally the weights for 400 please.
fran
warns that spilling your these in conversation is just exactly as charming as it sounds.
lin, what are your guts? Yeah. Uh, leibowitz for 12 in a hotel, 24 hour. This refers to
the length of time it takes for the club sandwich to arrive. sean, what is room service?
Yes. The media has replaced every institution. it's replaced every single institution
that there's, it's the only, I mean, I I I mean it seems to be authority, you know, but I
mean it is it's replaced all other institutions, you know it, you know, when they first
invented television, apparently there were people thought that television would be uh,
uh, failure because they thought that people, if they could see around the screen, they
wouldn't believe what was on television. In other words, they wouldn't become absorbed by
it. You know, they would be distracted because even though tv screen there that they
would see like, you know the lamp on the sofa and they wouldn't and they wouldn't be
absorbed by it.
um, and that was one fear by television. Other fair about television was
that like, say in 1950s intellectual said, no, it's gonna ruin the culture or whatever,
but no one could have imagined what really happened which is that the world went inside
the television became the world. you know. And so even though that, you know, everyone
says the internet is replacing television, it's just a different and it's a screen. It's
the same thing. I mean, this is a different format for it. I don't have cell phone. I
don't have a blackberry either. I have a called computer by any of these things, a
microwave oven, whatever these things, all of which seem like the same thing to me, by
the way.
you know, like if you tell me, well the right way above and can you text that
night? Yes, I would believe you. Ok. So, um, I have none of these machines, which is what
allows people to not be wherever they are. okay? But since I don't have them, and I'm
forced to be where I am all the time, which is why I'm noticing what other people are
doing. okay. But most people aren't noticing where they are, because they're not really
any place there. if you are like doing this, that's where you are.
I don't care where
you're doing it. That's where you are. So the experience of the street, say new york,
which I have commonly you know every day. um, I'm one of the very few people in the
street having the experience in the street just people walking in new york is a mode of
transport. But that's how I get around. I looked everywhere. so when I'm walking, I'm not
like strolling. I'm not exercising, I'm getting somewhere. And of course, because it's
new york, I'm late. So one of the things I don't have time for is trawlers.
if you look
at who's in the strollers half the time, the children are so big than a percent. In other
words, their legs are dragging these children. They're five ten 511 there, lolling on the
back. I mean the first person who invents a strong with a shaving mirror, that person is
gonna be a millionaire is there. When when I was a child, the the worst thing you've got
a child could call another child was a baby. that was the worst thing. Now apparently
that is the goal of all children is to stay babies and is apparently the goal of the
parents. Maybe who figure we went all this trouble to have a baby. Let's keep them a
baby. Oh, I mean of course 40 grand to have these two babies or maybe more probably than
any investing that. I don't know. I've never done this. You know people probably like
watching this saying 40 grand. Why is she subject? Not here here goes day grant.
no, that
is it like twins. they keep them in the stroller until they're like 16, 17 years old.
There they allow their they have this look on their face like walk not me. I'm not
walking. I'm wondering what the new york of your dreams would be like if we got rid of
the tourists. You know, the new york of my dreams. I mean, everyone, no matter how they
are, says new york used to be better. This is always been true, by the way. In 1812
people said wasn't new york better in 1790? So people always say new york used to be
better and it can't always be true.
ok. Now i've been very careful to not to do what many
people do, which is one of the things when you say something used to be better. That's
implicit in that is that well, when it used to be better? Here's one thing that is always
true. You were younger. if you ask me, was new york betta in the seventies, I would say
absolutely with the caveat that I know that I was in my twenties and the seventies. so I
know that it's better to be in your twenties than your fifties. I know that.
I'm aware of
it. Okay? I do think objectively new york was better because it was less boring. I don't
know. I I really seems have very high born threshold. Okay? Also you can smoke, which is
one of the reasons it was less boring. because if you're a smoker, when you're smoking,
no matter how boring it is, at least you're smoking. so k is in addition, people act now
like it's some sort of moral failure. You know, I mean in fact, I mean it's a very strong
addiction. you know, this is, I mean, I uh, let me put it this way. I could be starving
to death. I wouldn't leave my apartment three o'clock in the morning, the snow storm for
anything with cigarettes.
you know. And I remember once, you know, uh, being in uh, doing
read the drug store to buy cigarettes at like three o'clock in the morning. and the the
the court does it. Oh, you know marble a star and south and I thought really why are they
on sale? I mean, you know, uh, it's like, is there a heroin sale? You know sailors to
entice you? And I'm here three o'clock in the morning. It's knowing, you know, they could
be a million dollars. I don't care. all the things they say now about cigarette smoking.
They used to say about homosexuality.
okay? They used to say you can't be around
children. it was really always the second hand nature of homosexual I that scared people
noise noise noise okay you yeah, gay bars were illegal there in back rooms. They were
raided by the police, but you could smoke in them. It was against the law. And it was it
was beyond the pale. I mean, it was illegal. And when they would write a gay bar, I mean
this is when I first came to new york, you know which is like 69 some way that the way to
gay bar the next day, the names of every single person in the bar. The patrons was in the
new york times, not just some tabloid.
and every single person was fired from their job
that day. And it didn't matter what your job was. If you were cardiologist at mount sinai
hospital, you so choose a bloomingdales. You taught 3rd grade. If he has 10, you were
fired from your job. And the reason you were homosexual, that was the reason for firing.
That wasn't like, well, we're gonna pretend it's about something. No, it was respectable
to do that. now, gay bars have a plate, glass windows, they have l a parking. The cars
pulled up. People are saying the windows, but you have to go outside to smoke.
I mean if
you had told me when I was 14 years old, that's a behavior in which I engage, that would
be considered most deviant would have been cigarette smoking. I would have had a whole
different adolescence. yeah, I have a shelf full more than a shelf full of books written
by doctors about homosexuality explaining how it's contagious as DV n it's just the way I
guarantee you will. I won't live long enough because I smoke. um, but you will live to
see them admit that this data on secondhand smoke is fudge to if second hand cigarette
smoke this little stream as well if that is that dangerous. Imagine what happens when you
turn on the engine of your car.
you feel that gay rights is is progressing in this
country to be as equal as I mean to be part of the civil rights conversation. first of
all, I don't think these things are alike the way other people to, um, uh, I think
there's always been a difference between these things. I think there's a difference
between being marginalized and being oppressed. um, I know I know every bad thing.
Believe me. I'm not saying it's nothing. I just say it's not slavery. Okay? It's not the
same thing in my lifetime. It's inconceivable that it's even got to the point where
players were gay.
that's progress, by the way. I mean, if you like the word, I personally
don't use it in private. But I mean, do I think gay marriage is progress? Are you kidding
me? like, this was one of the good things about being gay. yeah, me too, people like, I
mean I am stunned that the two greatest desires, apparently if people involved in gay
rights movements is gay marriage and gays in the military. Really? I mean, to me, it
seems like these are the two most confining institutions on the planet, marriage and the
military.
why would you be like beating down the doors? Again? usually a fight for
freedom is a fight for freedom. This is like the opposite. you know, this is like a fight
for slavery. I find it completely shocking. I mean, if it was on the ballot here, i'd
love for because I know people want it, but personally not me, nor don't wanna go in the
army. I mean people used to pretend to be gay to Canada going in the army. I always have
been theory. maybe you want to move someone else as an artist. You want you yourself.
That's Sarah lee must have been deeply moved by what it is that you're writing. But you
must keep exploiting that emotion in yourself over and over and over and over till you
become completely cold about it.
I mean so that you no longer laugh say about whatever it
is in nature that for you don't week or whatever it is you made you weak, you should see
it like it is an extraordinary specimen, but you know that it had that effect on you.
Crazy. so that you know that if you can reproduce it, you can make it have exactly the
same effect on me. Uh, uh, the someone else people used to say all the time, there must
be something about homosexuality that makes you more artistic. because there's such a
huge, um, uh, I mean beyond an excessive number of homosexual artists, relative number of
homosexuals.
but of course it isn't true. What is not true that being homosexual makes
you artistic? What is true? Is that being put in prison or or being like kept out or
being being depressed, I mean, or being being forced to observe noise. the we should push
for uh, when toni morrison won the nobel prize for literature, she talk about your
friends with her to watch her get it. Because I guess what's the fun of women a prize? If
people don't see, you get it. and at the nobel prize ball, which is an incredibly
elaborate event, even more than it sounds like with flags flying, and it's incredible,
it's really beautiful.
the whole city stands out to applaud economists and writers. It's
just like new york and it is very formal. It's like white tie. And we all walked in
together, all of tony's friends. And there's someone who's in charge of seating, the
nobel prize winner, and everyone was sitting at the same table except me. Well, not Tony.
Tony was sitting with the king. as I sit down. I realize I'm the only adult in the table.
it is all the all the people when the science prices are very young, you know, and it was
all was their kids.
I was sitting at the children's table at the nobel prize wall. it's
like it took me years to get it on the table. My own family, thanksgiving. And now I'm
saying the children's table, the nobel prize wall, where the next oldest person to me was
12. and this was what the nobel prize while dinner, which is like six hours was like for
me. Put that down, take that out of your pocket. That it would be like and they're
reading the menu and the food comes. And the little boy next to me, the eight year old
says, what's that?
and so I said, oh, at stake, it was reindeer. And so he goes really at
stake. I said yes to state. Okay, he eats it as soon as his anything his older brother
goes, it's reindeer, you ate bambi. and the kids like, looks at me and he's furious. And
he goes, you lie to me. and I said, that's okay. I'm like your mother, you're never gonna
see me again. you will lie to me. How could you lie to me? I'll never trust you again. I
say to receive again, you're eight years old who live in cancers. That was my experience
of minimum. Probably while teaching manners to these children from kansas had it. And I
really need to know matters do because at a certain point I got up and walked over to my
publisher stables, also tony's butler shirt, although they've had better luck with Tony,
aha, to ask his wife something. And she was here, she said, get what are you joking? She
said it. And she pushed me down on the floor and I said what? And she said, no, you can't
stand up. If the king is sitting down, you know, that friend, I said, I don't know that.
She said no. I said, how would I know that?
like, this is one thing my mother forgot to
teach me. And fred, if you're ever having dinner in the same room with the games, we can
make sure you don't stand up. I mean, she said, you cannot you say that you're gonna
cause an international incident? then she would go back to your table. I said, how can I
like going to? And I woke up, I was like right to mark. So I walked back to the table
like that. so apparently although I thought I always thought that I you know had good
manners. Not good enough for this.
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. Mister chaz and lisa sue meet the pandas? What's
going on? um, well, I i've heard from a great number of panda experts. Um. You're
probably surprised as I was discovered, there are a great number of hand experts. I mean,
i've actually got letter to say pandas don't eat pizza, really. Pandas eat bamboo, which
in fact is why they're rare, because there are apparently fewer and fewer bamboo trees.
Okay? And that's why there are no pandas. That is right. So clearly they should eat
pizza.
these pennies talk. so I was obviously which is another more the wool over the
eyes of the American public. now you've you've been writing real adult books not real
adult books. Asian city been reading adult books and even writing children cook what what
what is easier to do. um, children's books. Really? Yes. Why is that? Um, the whole thing
is much less complicated. And there are pictures that take up a lot of the space. yeah.
so what happens when what happens when you go on tv shows say like this one and you say
writing children's books is is easy is here. Easier do do children's book authors now get
mad, you're gonna get letters from them. Yes you will. Yes, I do not like amended them
now. Yes, but they write in crayon on shirt cardboard.
all right. it's not that lucky.
That's not a breading thing. I am interested in that arc of creativity that's associated
with age. so I'm wondering why it is that some artists are better later in life. not all
writers become better toning. I mean, no, I mean, first of all, some writers, random
material, I mean some you know, uh, fitzgerald, I mean, I know he died, but if he had
lived, is there any doubt in your mind that he would become have become a worse writer?
he would have not become a better writer. This child. Um, we wrote the crack up. yeah,
bearing before he died, though beside to a player, someone to turn out masterpieces is
psychotic. you know, I mean you know to say things like fisher, i'll tell you what one
way pub, you know, I mean really and how many of the most people, right? you know, most
writers write a million books, don't write even one good book. you know. So I'm not
saying that it's not an incredibly valuable thing to have done.
I mean, toni morrison,
his new book, you know, is, I think, her best book, you know, she's 76. I think there's
an idea that has to do really with people's idea of artists that has nothing at all.
Truths are, but just people say a romantic idea of the artist. so romantic idea. The
artist has to be young because no one has a romantic idea of an old person. I was uh,
interested in other people. I always had friends much older than me. I had friends so
much older than that. By the time I was 40, many of my closest friends have died of old
age. All right.
but it was because they were older to make. In other words, I because
they could teach me something, you know, but not because I thought they were gonna do the
new thing. That was my job. you know, that's how they want you to be swept. but there
there's nothing new because the culture is soaked in nostalgia. you know that I believe
that that must be the cause by people my age, I mean there cannot be caused by 17 year
olds. I mean who's ever in charge was ever driving there, the one that has the accident.
I mean, if you're young, everything is new to it. So you don't know that it isn't new.
You know. So that to that, uh, you know, you go to an exhibit of, you know a young
artist. Uh, and everyone's isn't this amazing? And you look and you think this is some
realism, this is a hundred years old, but you have to first know that. you know,
otherwise it seems like a new invention here. Um, but uh, and there's an endless
recycling of the culture of last 30 years. that is really death dealing.
you know, I I
think it's just horrible, really awful. You know. And that is a sort of change I would
like to say. you know, I I think that is the job people were young. That's your job do
something new. the action spreads on Monday and Tuesday and enemy flags are fixed to war
boil. the issue of war is joined to law and order. Mister vidal, wasn't it a provocative
act to try to raise the Vietnam flag into the park? And many acts which provoked? if
you're going to have freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, you must be able to say
it. That is the whole point of this country. But I assume that the point of the American
democracy something you can express any somebody if you watch it shut up a minute, no and
some people without on that sea. And the answer is that they were they were well treated
by people who ostracize them. And I'm for ostracize ing people who egg on other people to
shoot American marines and American soldiers. I know you don't as far as I know this
earned the organization from were crypto nazi I can think of as yourself failing that.
I'll only say that we can't have I listen you go riders are the only of krypton. That's
let's stop calling name units goddamn face. Let's stay plastic gentlemen let's bill
likely tomorrow dragon respect to go back to his pornography and stop making any
illusions of that. I don't want you to infantry in the last war. He would not an actor is
the matter how it is that right I would like to why not are you distorting your own
military record?
you have every right in this country to take any position you want to
take because we are guaranteeing freedom of speech. We just listen to her other certain
age old tests. Exactly. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome great leader waits. I heard
that the bush administration had appointed something called the Iraq study group last
week. noise I I mean even if you were, say, I don't know in the 3rd grade, uh, and you
had a math test coming up. when do you think would be the best time to study before the
test?
uh, or three years after the test noise. noise. where do you think the Iraq study
group meat? I think. Windows on the world. yeah, don't boo me. I'm not even getting paid.
I mean, I did have the experience in my life time of once being booed by a quarter of a
million people. ok. And this is an experience. This is caused by joe papp. there was just
big movement to get the jews out of Russia. I mean, big among jews, uh, not my russians
or anyone else. No one noticed it. And joe papp um, organized a kind of a rally that was
in front of the u n uh, that was, um, in favor of soviet jewry being LED out of Russia.
and because joe papp was at the public theater, he had his fingertips like, you know, all
the famous actors. so he got all these actors to appear at this rally, uh, to read
letters, uh, from refusing, uh, people in in in Russia. And he called me and said what I
participate in this. He'd come to see me, give a reading of a book I was writing. and I
said, um, okay, you know that I would do it. And he said, but you know, uh, here's the
thing you I saw, I went, you're reading you can't be subtle at this. You can't just like
lift that eyebrow like I saw you do you know in that bookstore you have to be able to,
you know, like gregory peck, greg my pet can like like I said, of course I can't be no.
See, here's the difference. Like a great pet. He's an actor.
I'm not an actor. No, I
can't act because you're supposed to like be like the person is writing a letter. but I
was very much looking forward to talks. I looked out and there was I didn't know many
people that were there said, well, look a billion people at his rally. and I of course
i've never had such a watch against myself. and I love to talk in front of people. So I
said, this is quite good. How many people are here? this is fantastic. and so then right
before I love gregory peck, he was excellent.
uh, um, may either I can't think of what
the other actors were, you know, but all excellent. You know, they're all great, but they
also all talked a little bit before they read the letter and job have somebody goes, you
have to say something before you have something to say? I said no. so he said, well, just
think of something to say. I said, okay, so I have my letter, which you know, I tell the
name of the person with the letter. And I say, um, I'm sure that when I don't remember
who's had a Russia at the time who has ever had a Russia, I'm sure when, you know, uh, so
and so had Russia, um, seize this on tv and see how many people are here that he'll
immediately acquiesce to your demands. Because I know that I for one certainly would not
want this many Jewish women and greet me.
a quarter of a million people, both all that
one. I mean, it, it's a sound. I cannot describe it to you. and two of the rabbis, you
know, jump up and like, walk off the set. and I have like no idea what's happening like
close to me. I think what's nets are not that funny, but it's not the most unfunny thing
in the world. I mean and then I like, look, joe pepper site, some thinking. I thought
like do I'm gonna leave. no. So then I had to read this letter, but then bowing.
so that
was my worst audience experience was being booed by a quarter of a million people and
having to be taken off the back of the stage by cops. ok, because there were so much
anger. And he still, even if I read this delightful letter from like, you know, the good
jew who want to get out of Russia as opposed to me, the bad guy who made fun of people,
um, cops actually took me and they took me out of the whole neighborhood and police car.
ok. So um, after that, really, what could I do? You you know very little, I must say you
are just so fantastic. Thank you. Who's saying as it is, I love it so much. This is me
what?
who's this friend? semi have seen a different friendly goods. this is tell you what
this is, this your booth, or is that your booth? well, I think of this as my booth, but
all over new york, there's hundreds of thousands of people who think they have a table in
a restaurant. that's my table. You know, that's why I kept up with my team. And that's my
table. And that's my dry cleaners. They move my dry cleaners. you know, this is this is a
kind of ownership that people in new york field, despite the fact that no one you know,
owns less than your average new yorker, but feel no one feels they own more.
now did you
pose for this, by the way? I did not I didn't I I didn't even know it was gonna be
painted. And then one night I was eating here and I saw a man sitting across and he kept
looking me looking at me. And I seem talk to the waiter and then I hear him say asked
miss li would said she'd like to meet the man who drew her and it was mister serra. Take
him over and he did from photograph. He said at first I thought, well, I don't know. It's
not harsh.
now, I think I look younger at a certain point. The worst picture taken of you
when you were 25 is better than the best picture taken of you. When you're 45. There's
no, there's no question. Ok. So when you do need a second opinion, who do you go to? why
would I need a second opinion? You mean like a cardiologist? That kind of second opinion?
I I got a a cardiologist when I need a second baby. thank you very much. Good night. you
can do it. whether people seek my advice or not. It's really pleasurable knowing
everything. I'm sure that people think she doesn't know anything, but they're wrong.
I
do. So knowing everything is really pleasurable, especially watching other people who
don't know everything. you know, so that um, it's like, I feel like I'm in the stage of
life, what I would call the last laugh stage of life. You know, and the last laugh, it's
good. You're young is hey rule really? americana hotel CBS really SCI busy national city
bank. yeah, uh yeah right.
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