Famed author and public speaker Fran Lebowitz, best known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York City sensibilities, dropped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday to talk about a number of observations she has recently made.
Traffic being one of them.
“I did notice that the very first thing that came back months ago was traffic,” she said. “No one is here. There’s nowhere to go. Everything is closed. No one is working. No one is going to school. Nothing is open—but there’s just traffic. So I thought, ‘This is traffic in its purest form. Traffic with no purpose at all.’ It’s just traffic that was sent here probably by a hostile, foreign power.”
Lebowitz also made some quirky comments on New York City’s cannabis legalization after Fallon asked her about it. The state legalized recreational cannabis on March 31 for adults ages 21 years or older.
Lebowitz noticed an immediate difference while walking the streets.
“I have not taken drugs since I was 19,” she began. “But I don’t care what other people do at all. But, it does seem to me—since it was legalized for recreational use—it seems that it was made mandatory. The streets of New York are clouds of weed. If you don’t want to smoke marijuana—you have no choice. Basically, every single person, except me.”
Lebowitz is the subject of Pretend It’s a City, a seven-part, Netflix docuseries directed by filmmaker Martin Scorsese. As reported by Tokin Woman, this is what she says about cannabis in episode five:
“Marijuana used to be a horrible thing that would lead to a life of desperate degradation. Now, it’s a wonderful thing. It’s curative. They put it in jelly beans, gummy bears and lollipops! These are things children eat …
“I smoked marijuana when I was younger. I didn’t particularly like it. I don’t like the smell of it. Of course, now people don’t smoke it as much. I mean, they smoke it, but they also take these other things, these candies or whatever. That’s not the feeling I was ever seeking, that feeling of kind of light happiness, OK? That’s not for me. No light happiness for me.
“I do have friends who are around my age or even older who I know to have been daily marijuana smokers for 50 years. These are not the most acute people on the planet. Let me assure that there is an aggregate effect. Because I knew them maybe when they started, OK? So they’re not, like, dangerous people, but maybe they’re not the people you would consult anymore.
“Sometimes, my God, I think, What happened to him? I asked him something, and he was so vague. I asked her what happened and she goes, ‘He’s a pothead! I forgot.
“So if I was in charge, I would say, ‘marijuana. People like it. It’s fun. Let them have it. What do I care?’”
