See Fran Lebowitz talk to Ari Melber about truth, growth & MAGA 'shame': 'The Summit Series'

i'm ari melbourne welcome to the summit series where we have in-depth conversations with leaders at the summit of various fields my next guest is someone who's made a career out of looking at the world through a very different lens writer and social commentator fran leibowitz she is also the subject of martin scorsese's seven part documentary series pretended to city on netflix take a look why do you think so many young people are still coming to new york what's here new york that's what's here i mean what's not here that's the way to look at it wherever they're from is not here so they come here no one can afford to live in new york yet eight million people do [Laughter] how do we do this we don't know we don't know it's a mystery to us you can come here without knowing how you're gonna live here and somehow you will do enough things to live here you know it's as simple as that okay fran thanks for being here you're welcome when did you first realize some people were interested in what you had to say um you know what i never really thought about it i mean certainly when i was a child i knew the people who weren't interested in what i had to say and those people were all the people in charge of me my parents my teachers you know um but once i left the you know the realm of their power my contemporaries even if they were five years old or six years old they were interested so i just disregarded the people above me do you think the people who were interested responded to the substance of what you were saying the style and attitude or both i have no idea i mean i did not grow up in the most discerning environment on the planet earth let me assure you that um you know it wasn't that hard so that you know i i really don't know i mean but i can tell you for a fact that all the things that you know brought me here today um were all the things i was punished for my entire childhood yeah you say punish as a child it is written that at that time in your schooling you were derided as surly or a chatterbox do you think that is the same way we treat young people or young women today oh no are you kidding it's the exact opposite every single thing i did was at the wrong time okay so that no people are very interested in their children even the children that are very boring um which is you know not just children but most people so no people are very interested i mean people ask your children questions all the time you know certainly no one asked me a question my entire childhood you know uh no one asked and not just me i don't mean to you know give the impression that i had dickensian childhood i had the standard you know childhood of a child in the 1950s you know all my report cards when i was a kid would say on them in the comment section francis asked too many questions francis speaks out of turn every single one and even if they were all like good grades my father would read this aloud you ask too many questions you do you ask too many questions so i mean now people if their child asks a question they're thrilled because it shows you know how curious the child is this comes up in the documentary because you critique the centrality that this generation assumes it has that young people assume that people older than them will want to help them or be interested in every thought they have so that that raises the question has it swung too far in the other direction well you know it's it's the thing is that you know first of all older people are always annoyed by younger people okay i mean this is always true and then they seem to forget it you know i didn't forget i remember it um but it's a little different now because people who have kids you know uh they extend this to many other people that are not their children you know so they're used to this you know um but i don't have kids and i'm i i'm used to it because you know it's been going on for a long time but it doesn't mean i don't find it delightful i have to say what did driving a cab teach you that i hate to work i hate to work there's no people say it wasn't an interesting job or you know i when i was that age i switched jobs like every five minutes because one thing uh in the in the 70s the one thing new york had was an incredible abundance of bad jobs you could get a bad job any day of the week and so that i was always thinking i don't like this job let me find another job i could always find another job and finally i just realized i don't like to work so there was there's no cure for that you know because that's something you know at birth if you're not going to have to work you already know that you're already not driving a cab so that was not my those were not my circumstances so basically i just don't like to work driving a cab when i did it was very dangerous you know and so people are always saying to me don't you think you know you're going to get mugged you're going to get you know hurt um but i didn't encounter any physical violence you know how are you defining work because you seem to get paid to talk and write which is work and it's work you seem to enjoy part of the time writing is work talking is not work you know i mean writing is really hard work you know i don't mean obviously hard physically but truthfully the only people i feel sorry for other than say coal miners which is worse you know i know we don't have that many coal miners anymore and i'm also pretty aware that they're not that interested in me coal miners but i feel sorry for minors in general that's the worst kind of work right after mining writing you know uh and so when p someone has something to write and they complain about it i am very sympathetic you know any other kind of work i'm not sympathetic but talking is an effortless thing you were a precociously successful writer when you did choose to write more regularly in your 20s and 30s do you feel now that you are a retired writer because you talk about in terms of writer's block but haven't you also decided to write far less frequently you know it's not really a decision and i don't talk about it so when other people talk about it they're always asking me about it i uh i guess they're asking me about it because it is an unusual thing to not you know publish a book in this amount of time i don't believe it's probably unheard of i don't think of myself as retired um i do think i think is maybe not the right word i i have some belief that i will write again but i can't prove that because that's what belief means but you're making a distinction that some people wouldn't even buy into in other words if you're really good at talking let me compliment you which you may or may not like but some of what you say when you talk is more interesting to read than what many other people write however laborious their process is so what is the actual distinction here if you have a life of words and people are consuming those words but they're written down after the fact by others just because you didn't technically write them what's the difference oh to me there's a huge difference people always say you talk exactly as you're right but that is just not true you know you talk in paragraphs you talk in sentences this may be relatively true you know since we live in an environment where people talk in not even sentence fragments kind of word fragments uh but if you see which i have seen numerous times you know an exact transcript of talking it's not writing i mean i also have to say that my editors frequently said to me uh in a very um angry maybe is a little extreme but a not favorable tone of voice uh what he refers to as your excessive reverence for the written word and that probably is true i mean i am devoid of any sort of religious feeling or spirituality i don't know what it means but it is true that books to me uh i have a i have a deep reverence for it so does that hold you back i mean there are musicians clearly clearly it holds me back but it's a way is there nothing i can do about it i mean it's a thing central to me there are musicians who have songs that their colleagues people they work with consider complete and they consider them incomplete and they won't release them and so at a certain point it's like we're waiting for what for a cataclysmic event where someone else will decide to release them but are you you say you hold back are you holding back on the moment and the time that we're in where people would want more from you even if you didn't think it was good enough to publish i i can i hope i didn't get the impression that i have a lot of unpublished work i don't okay okay i would say [Laughter] it's not that you know no one's you know if if on the way home i get hit by a bus you know whoever goes into my apartment to clear it out is not going to find you know these hidden manuscripts okay we live in a time of almost excessive demands for positivity for self-improvement for health and wellness which you cover in the documentary i could be wrong but as someone who's followed you for a minute you seem constitutionally negative and yet i'm excited to come talk to you today i'm looking forward to talking to frank and other people are listening to you does is there anything to be read from this do you agree that you're negative and that people will line up and come into these halls to listen to your informed negativity i don't think i'm negative no i know everyone else does i am aware of that that's why during the million cova tests i had to have every time they would call to give me my uh results and my tests they would say we have the royal syracuse you're negative and i will say i know that so i know that because my entire life people have been saying to me fran you're so negative uh i don't think i'm negative i think i'm realistic i just think i tell the truth the truth is very rarely positive like on what planet do these people live you know i don't think i'm negative i know i am judgmental and that is a thing that people really dislike i i don't mean just in me you know but that you know that is something you're not supposed to be you're it's very interesting the things you're now allowed to be and not allowed to be you know so being judgmental to me just means i have standards you know uh people who have like think anything you want to do or think is okay it doesn't mean it's okay with me it doesn't matter on the other hand the extreme reaction that i sometimes get out of hostility and some of it's very extreme um always surprised me because what difference does it make it's not you know i don't have any power so i can say what i think or whatever but it's not going to affect your life and if you don't like what i say don't listen to it don't read it you know i mean sometimes the anger toward me is the sort of anger you should have for people who actually make decisions for you you know but i'm not making decisions for other people i think what you're saying is very compelling and ethical framework because certainly someone who is spending our money or using the government force right these are big real decisions but i would quibble with you a little bit for the reasons that you know because you are immersed in the arts you believe in the power of culture you believe in civilization and so you as someone who wields that let's not call it power that influence or that sway matters a great deal to people just like it matters to some people you say in the in the documentary that you never identified as a gay activist or something fine but it still matters to people that you live your truth right that you're extant in the culture that way doesn't that also have some role it has some role but it doesn't it it can't if you if people are opposed to things i say those are the people i'm talking about if you're opposed to things i say just don't listen to me in other words you know and i mean that i mean people in politics make real decisions for you you know uh even people that you hardly heard of you know i mean even like you know most people because we have an election you know people are keep saying to me i don't know who my city council person is well that's your fault but you really have to know who that person is because they make a lot of decisions but fran makes none you say judgmental let's go to the way a lot of people may know you who who don't follow it as closely which is playing judges we have wolf of wall street uh i wanna we'll watch it first i'm curious whether this was acting or just you easing into your your judgments let's look at wolf of wall street 21 counts money laundering one count obstruction of justice bell is set at 10 million dollars are you acting um you know that is uh not really let me tell you that like that i had played an arraignment judge on law order several times like a dozen times um so when marty asked me to do that um i you know i can't act and by the way you know i often get i mean i have numerous times been offered acting parts and i always say to people i can't act you know the reason i can play these judges is because i'm judgmental um that however um they had a that's like the nine millionth take really okay because i didn't read they sent me they don't send you your the whole script you know they send you they call the sides it's like you know one minute i'm on um and when leo came in the first time uh i'm i'm waiting for him to talk because but i didn't read where it says it's a voiceover so they had it like 50 times life suddenly saw i thought what is wrong with leo doesn't he enough to be in a movie i mean i had never been in a movie like that it was a huge movie there were like eight million people on the set fi and you don't see morty and i don't mean just marty you don't see the director anymore he's not like you know she'll beat the mill with the megaphone so finally i was doing so poorly so many times marty came out the whole place was like very upset and i just said marty just tell me what to do tell me how to say it i'm going to say it exactly like that he said fran actors don't ask for line readings they said marty i'm not an actor i think i've proven that it's even considered d class a yes so um i did that and then uh thelma uh screwmaker the editor out of eight billion takes found that you know because let me assure you like anyone who remembers being on that set would tell you how poorly i did that marty cast you in that for the same reason that he's made now two documentary projects about you he loves you he vibes with you and you say it's mutual you've said it's chemical what do you mean by that i mean you know certain kind of friendships that are very uh instantaneous well marty's was like it took like a little while in other words we met each other numerous times but i always realized that when i would see marty at a party which is where i saw him uh we'd always spend the whole night talking so especially a shared sense of humor even though of course marty's sensibility is generally quite different from mine um i think friendship is as chemical as romances it's just different chemicals and those chemicals last a lot longer is he an alpha or beta well i mean he's a director i mean they're very alpha you know i mean everyone waits you know on that set where there are eight million people you know there wasn't a single person who wasn't waiting to see what marty wanted to be done i asked because that's what i would think because he's in charge he's totally in charge then you watch this series and it's been commented on to the degree that it you said it annoys you at least the impressions do but you watch the series you don't get the impression from the tape that they that they shared that he's pushing around at all he is just enthralled he's just he's just drinking fran no he never pushed me around but i made in i mean in making pretend as a city you know uh except that he did things like didn't tell me the cameras were on um didn't uh but also i don't ask him any questions in other words you know like i i didn't ask any questions about you know uh all the i don't know technical things there's like a billion marty shoots with like a billion cameras and a billion people around and he sets everything up and i just pay no attention i just sat down and talked to him you know i pay no attention things i never know where the cameras are i don't care about them um so everybody else he told what to do and he didn't tell me what to do until you know let's start so when you make a project like this is he treating you as a subject or a friend or it's all definitely as a subject i mean he also in other words uh when we went up to scout the library marcie wanted you in the library uh on the way up there uh in the car i said marty i don't understand your idea for the library and he said i don't have an idea for the library i'm just gonna say but of course afterward you know when i was for the first time i saw marty you know edits like eight billion times the first time i saw this stuff from the library i said isn't it lucky like you know where we go into that room and there are those two doors with the circular windows and you see our faces wasn't that good luck and everyone like look at me like marty set up that shot of course i never think of course there's a camera on the other side so marty did know what he wanted to do he just didn't tell me he actually has all these you know the i mean i've known other directors you know and they they think in these kind of pictures you know in a way that i don't and i don't think about it and i don't um you know lots of times people said to me even before this with public speaking you know what was it like to collaborate with martin scorsese and i said i would have no idea and collaborate with him he's he is a director i am not interesting so you you view your role there is you're doing your thing and you can do it as passionately or earnestly as you do it and then you just throw your hands up that he's he's going to do the whole he's going to create the world around you yes absolutely i mean in this in tennessee city i had contractually some say in the end you know in it which i didn't have in public speaking um it didn't make that much difference really because in public speaking there was something i wanted taken out uh and it took me like 10 years to get him take it out because he didn't agree with me what was it um it had nothing to do with me it was just a clip that he used to steve allen you know who he loved and i kept saying to him uh this was in public speaking on panetta city um that that i didn't think it was the right thing that i never watched t-valen that i wasn't that old that it was a creative difference yeah the whole thing is is a joy to watch you have famously said they're things that you just don't trust or aren't that interested in for the way they're presented american culture so we have some older older stuff here's a back in the day you talking about the news and its limitations take a look why don't you like television news since everybody seems to it's not just tv i don't like newspapers either it's i don't like news it's not tv news that i don't like it never tells you anything important it doesn't no i figured something really important happened my mother would call and news is never about the things people want to know about news is never about the things people really want to know about still true um no it's and really it wasn't that true then although it was true i thought that you know but you thought that then and now you think that younger you was incorrect i was incorrect although of course i i'm looking at me you know if you look at a uh you know yourself from like 100 years ago all you can think is is that me um uh you know i don't i don't know what year that was probably the late 70s so you know there are eras you know where 78. so okay that's the late 70s um no i'm confirming for you there i'm doing that news thing it's annoying there are eras where you know the news is more important than others or you know i mean unfortunately lately in the last several years the news has been unduly important okay so i would prefer and i'm sure i'm not alone in this you know to not you know have to be on the news 24 hours a day i mean since the last presidential election um i pay less attention to the news than i was compelled to pay for five years you know um so that if you know i know there are people who are just you know on the news all the time i mean interest in the news all the time uh but you know when the news is horrible by the minute you know and also threatening by the minute um uh you know i i would guess that the periods that people pay most attention to the news are the worst periods in history you know so i would prefer to pay a little less attention i'm going to agree with you like i did before but it's not a correction it's it's just building uh one of the most watched news days ever was january 6th i'm sure which was a horrific day of shonda right for the nation horrible and i at first i was i was in my living room reading and a friend called me and said i have a friend who has the television on 24 hours a day uh called and said are you watching this third going to the capitol i didn't know what she was talking about i said so what are you so what what are you talking about i said i think people are allowed in the capital i that is the capital when i was a kid what do you mean they're going to the capitol and then was short so i went and i looked and i you know it's i did not believe my eyes you know and you would think that by that point you know we would be enough used to you know the horrendous state of the nation um it was i mean it was one of the most shocking things i've ever seen in my life and of all i mean there was no aspect of it that wasn't shocking but to me to see the confederate flag in the capital was stomach turning it was just it was horrible horrible and of course now as you're aware of course the republicans is like this didn't happen or this was something else this was you know a new year's eve party or you know this was these were actual you know lefties and um yeah it was horrible and and and the fact that they refuse to investigate it you know it's it's always been interesting to me that you know uh shameful and shameless mean almost the same thing you know so these people are shameful you know and shameless you know they just don't care mitch mcconnell probably knew when he made that speech about how the president was responsible for this and two minutes later the president was not responsible he knew that people were going to put those side aside he didn't care didn't care they don't care they don't they're they're they care about nothing except retaining their power that they have at the moment they don't care about anything else what does it mean for society when that uglier truth can be put out there we can all see it with our same eyes on the same day a unified reality and then in these ensuing months a political party is trying to survive by telling everyone what you just went through why it didn't happen i mean it means that you know you know i know their political party but really it's a cult you know and so you know i've seen many cults in my life that seemed very central you know to disappear and you know it's not that i don't believe this will disappear it's that you know i don't believe it will disappear quickly enough i mean even like this you know trying to keep people from voting they're they they're basically saying we're trying to keep certain people promoting because if we don't keep these people from voting we could never win and even trump said that well the republicans can never win if everyone's allowed to vote um you know i don't know what to say about it that anyone else hasn't said about it i mean that was one of the most shocking things i've ever seen okay and i've seen numerous shocking things i'm not you know i'm not the young girl you saw in that clip so um and i don't think i would ever uh not have that picture in my mind you believe that dave chappelle is not only very funny um but kind of a public service and you've talked about the difference between entertainers and artists um on this topic january 6 and more let's take a look at chappelle if you could solve a black american's problems this country would have no problems this is a very basic wrong they kidnapped us they brought us here they treated us like and all the time that they did that they were afraid that we would do what you would do in the same situation but did we storm the halls of the capitol and rub our on the walls well of course not if that would have worked we would have tried it i didn't see that i hadn't seen that before what do you think of his point he's completely right he's completely right just the same way that everyone i mean everyone every sane person knows uh that if that had been black lives matter you know going into the capital uh someone said to me right after that can you imagine those bloodlines matter they would have arrested everybody i said they would have arrested a single person they would have shot everybody they would have shot every single person and they would have said it was self-defense these people were armed they were invading the capital you know so that i mean i'm aware that there's apparently 47 of the country uh that doesn't you know is unaware of the truth of things but yeah it's completely correct people have an idea about you and as soon as you're in public there are ideas and some of them will hit the mark and some won't but one of the ideas about you is to narrow you to a certain time and place a kind of a caricature of a stodgy new yorker and yet you're very open-minded and capacious in the entire conversation about the next generation at multiple points with regard to technology and the way they're living and how they define friends younger people you are you sound far more open-minded to the prospect that the evolution that they're going through could lead to better or worse we just don't know but it's not rational to do what some people the older generation do which is to assume it's worse how did you come to that view is that specific to technology or just the whole stampede of what's coming i came to that view because it's true you know i mean everybody in a certain way people tend to think the world began when they were born you know and it ends when they end you know i am aware that that is not the case you know so when people say you know i mean how can you know kids think that someone they never met is their friend you know from the very beginning i would say that's their idea of a friend that's not your idea of a friend but that's their idea of a friend um i mean there's not a set you know a friend is not a chair it's not like you can say this is a chair you know and that's a shoe you know a friend is what you think a friend is you know so that if that's their idea of a friend that's her idea of a friend you know um i i've never felt i mean i never felt that first of all my generation you know uh i have never felt you know that this is a generation that's going to stand out bulimia in history i mean when you i mean my parents generation was this fantastic generation in other words i always tell people because i know a lot of kids you know and they'll say i'll see he'll see i don't know i'm only 35 and i always say when a guy says this to me by the time my father was 25 25 not 35 he had fought and won world war ii he had gotten married he had a child and he had a business so don't tell me you're only 35. so were these people different people in other words different beings you know it's almost as if they made this world you know a great sacrifice in lots of ways um then gave it to us and when i say us i mean the other people my generation not me and then we trashed it you know and then and then people who have children gave them this trash world you know so that it's now up to them you know by the time you know i don't know if they're going to fix it or not you know but they can't make it much worse what areas do you see them having progress so far um you know it's a little hard for me to tell because so much of it is about technology or they talk so much about technology you know uh in lots of ways well one big difference is how much better it is to be a girl than when i was a girl there's no comparison just none at all you know and the boys are better and that's one of the reasons it's better to be a girl and the boys are better because one thing that my generation did do many people is raise better boys you know i mean they're so much better um and this gives much more company opportunity to girls you know that was one of the worst things uh of people my age you know uh no matter the mo it was totally acceptable and numerous times i would say i want to do this and they would say you can't do that why because you're a girl oh that was the answer but it never occurred to me to say um you know i'm going to change that i never thought that would change isn't that funny that you sit here and say that but you did do some of that change in the way you lived your own life right but that you know i changed my life you know because one thing i did luckily but how many but friend how many other people didn't um maybe many other people you know but i so why don't you credit yourself for that at all i'm credit i would print myself in i got out you know um but i didn't bring a bunch of people with me i wasn't like you know i wasn't moses you know i didn't bring them all out but it was lucky that i grew up in new jersey because uh uh i went to new york frequently so i was aware of new york if i had grown up in like omaha or something i might not have been to new york so many times and known there's another place there's a place you can go so you're talking about physical travel and isn't that the weirdest part of the internet which you take paints to say you're aware of even if you don't use it that much there's a lot of trash on the internet but it also allows a type of low-cost mental travel that was never previously available so a young person who lives in a place where they're told that they're a freak and no one's like them can actually very quickly fact check that and see wait maybe there's a lot of people like me maybe i'm not the problem maybe the problem are the people who won't let me just be me i'm sure that's true i'm sure that's a big advantage you know the problem with the internet with that regard is yes it enables people you know to be freer you know in being aware i don't have to stay here you know or or there is no here that's another thing about the internet like they're here but i'm not really here because i'm not here i'm here you know so that's a very different thing but also it allows really terrible things to spread so quickly because nothing spreads faster than a bad idea this has always been true you know good ideas can take centuries to catch on a bad idea even before the internet you know spread much more quickly than a good idea uh but now you know for instance there would have been no attack like that on the capitol without the internet not possible you know it just wouldn't there would have been no doubt or would it have been just uh piecemeal and far less effective in other words a person or two might have shown up to do something yeah but it wouldn't have been that that's right and and also it gives people because so many people live their life that way i think that even when they're doing something um you know in real in real life it has a feeling i think to them you know they were well aware that they were being filmed they were filming themselves they were filming themselves yeah that guy who put his feet on nancy pelosi's desk this is an image like well you're not old enough but the second i saw that something came on my mind which is that when i was a teenager there were you know all these protests at columbia uh university and uh sds which was students for democratic action or whatever it was called society society they had a big strike at columbia and they broke into the president's office and there was a guy who had a picture of himself taken not let himself but with his feet on the desk of the president smoking a cigar now he was older than me so i was a teenager and even as a young teenager i looked at that picture and i thought you're a jerk i mean just that you're a clown you know that's like the stupidest thing and when i saw that guy with his feet on the desk of nancy pelosi i thought the same thing you know you're a clown this guy was well into his 50s it looked like to me and when he said this is my desk i thought first of all you don't have a desk not only is this not your desk i'm guessing you're not a desk guy i'm guessing the last time you had a desk you were in detention you know in junior high school it was incredibly angering and i think that's why he did that you know and he has the same attitude as a teenager it's a teenage thing a lot of this stuff is adolescent you know except that they're not kids you know and they have guns you know and they're allowed to vote you know uh and so they're very dangerous in a way that teenagers generally are not very dangerous and do you see that in the current moment as overrepresented by a largely male and often a white male movement that is terrified of losing its station it's its historical position yes of course that's what it is it's fear you know i mean these people in general are the most fearful people i've ever even heard of in my life you know this thing with guns every time you see them on the news or whatever or reading the paper they're always saying i am entitled to defend myself i'm entitled to defend my family and i think who's after you you know i mean i lived alone in new york city um you know as a 21 year old girl you know in an apartment that not forget how to dormant didn't even have an intercom system okay new york was incredibly dangerous then it never occurred to me to get a gun i wasn't that scared i wasn't scared enough to get a gun i would never even thought of a gun you were scared enough to pay more to live in the village yes but not scared enough to have a gun a gun is to me truthfully a gun is a stupid thing you know it's just it's a sign of stupidity it's a stupid thing i want to do a lightning round where we do quick answers and then i'll let you get out of here does that sound okay in a sentence or a word if you can but we'll see what happens are you ready i'm ready [Laughter] new york i made that's too broad a question i'm sorry new york what new york new york city yes yes new york yes that's my answer martin scorsese yes [Music] tony morrison's meaning as a writer tony as of course you know has a meaning as a writer but tony has much more meaning than than even her her work which is great and important you know but even people have never read her she has meaning to and that's really unusual for a writer i mean tony was people who are young don't realize this i mean there was there's now a million you know black writers and a million black female writers you know um there weren't i mean there were some you know uh but you know tony is like the first car you know like before the car there were horses you know uh there were other women you know black writers but uh what tony said you know and i always quote this is you know her first book she said i wrote the book i wanted to read you know and she wrote the book everyone wants to read so now everyone thinks i should write a book about myself which tony didn't do joe biden joe biden you know truthfully i was never a big fan of joe biden i have to say um he's always been to the right of me i never forgot anita hill i didn't have to be reminded of it you know um but i was very relieved when he got the nomination because i really thought that he was the only one of the democrats that could win you know i didn't he wasn't my choice you know i mean i wanted elizabeth warren who i actually got to vote for because the new york primary so late that by the time we voted in the primary he was already the candidate and elizabeth warren was still on the ballot so i voted for her and she didn't win 2020 showed us well i'm hoping it didn't show us anything in a way because in other words like i hope that we don't have to we didn't have to learn uh how to be in a pandemic i'm hoping that this is going to be it at least for my lifetime you know so that now of course we know how to be in a pandemic this is something i never thought i'd have to know and i don't want to know because i don't want to now be prepared for the next one so you know i do know that i can stay in the house for a year um uh but i didn't want to know that you watch jeopardy because because i'm right so much it's like i'm right so much in jeopardy that in the in the year of the pandemic a year during which i had zero income by the way and was like really like i would watch jeopardy and i would think every week on jeopardy i win thousands of dollars and yet i'm still broke so i mean there i have to say whole huge categories that i don't even try to answer you know like the south american rivers you know the new testament the old testament i mean but if it's you know within and i think all the sports questions i'm glad to have this opportunity they're totally unfair your next book will come out if if i write it what do you tell a young person who says wow i'd love to grow up and be like fran well i would say you know it's not the fun it looks the growing up part you know i mean you're seeing the result of that you know you're not seeing the growing up part you know i mean i have to say that one thing i never expected to come back into my life now that i'm past growing up i'm you know uh my adolescence was miserable as almost all people's standard years when i was younger mostly but not for the reason people think because of algebra which i could never learn i took algebra like five times i don't even know what algebra is and i thought well at least that's over nothing in adult life could be as bad as algebra and then they invented bitcoin which i've realized now is the algebra of my adulthood like i have begged people i've had many financial people please can you explain this to me and they've tried really made a big effort um but i still don't understand it so it to me it's like bitcoin algebra they're the same thing well it's a non-country-based digital currency that if it works cannot be faked or replicated so it has intrinsic value because of its digital scarcity yeah okay do you own any of this stuff do i own any of this stuff uh try to think if it's appropriate or not for me to answer but yes all right well i guess you believe in it then but i made i saw that i saw the paper yesterday that china said you know they're not allowing it or something and i thought well i'm sure that will affect this yeah oh yeah it's it's dodgy and it's a bubble i would not advise anyone to put any money they care about into it as a responsibility so if you have money you don't care about which i've never had that money so as soon as i get money i don't care about by which i mean i do not need the same way the same with if you are at a party and they have the roulette wheel and you decide to play it i see that that hundred bucks is not because it needs to go somewhere that night if it does it definitely shouldn't be on the wheel right i agree so it's like gambling i would say it's more risky than gambling yeah but yes very much like gambling all right i got your final three okay okay failure means you know i failure me it depends failure what you know i mean i'm basically a person if i know i'm going to fail at something i don't try and then i look like i don't try to answer the sports questions on jeopardy i know people say now a lot about they talk about failure we need a place to fail it's important to fail people talk about that all the time you know i don't know what that's supposed to mean but it's better not to fail success means whatever you think it means you know whatever you know whatever it means to you yeah in your life you know what success doesn't mean to me is getting very rich you know i mean and it's never meant that to me to me here's what success is knowing there's such a thing as enough money you know because that is something that the culture fails in providing to people the idea that there is such a thing as enough money and reaching the summit means you know i i don't think in life there's such a thing i really don't i mean i guess you know if i had been a lawyer not that this was ever you know a possibility i would think being on the supreme court would be but my feeling about the supreme court has been so trashed you know uh ever since bushfigure that was it like that before that i was like was very interested in the supreme court um i thought it was you know this was the kind of you know most not pristine you know but you know the best manifestation of the you know of the government um and now of course you're looking at you think like who would want to be on this court fran liberwicz thank you for talking to me you're welcome [Music] you

Channel: MSNBC

Views: 1,487,573

Keywords: Culture, Politics, Ari Melber, Best of last night, The Beat with Ari Melber

Id: oTTmyZ3RgB0

Length: 42min 12sec (2532 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021