Fran Lebowitz is a witless crank who likes to smoke

I was driving down to the studio the other night listening to one of those shows on NPR where they interview an author in front of a live audience - it was probably City Arts and Lectures, and Fran was on, being her normal crumudgeonly self. During Q&A, the NYC smoking ban came up, and she launched into this anit-Bloombergian diatribe, denouncing all us Nazi anti-smoking zealots and our Range Rovers (I drive a '99 Saturn, thanks for asking) and how we've enforced our idiotic lust for breathable air onto all the poor downtrodden smokers, the last great browbeaten, marginalized minority (after the Great American Sportsman).

You know what, Franbo? You want to sit around and rip off Dorothy Parker and inhale carcinogenic airborne particluates, be my guest. Just do it within the confines of you own posh digs. Me, I like to go out and knock back a few and talk to my friends and carry on and NOT go home with my clothes smelling like they've been in the crack of a chimney-sweep's ass all day. I remember one trip to Brooklyn to do some tracking at Seizure's Palace; after the session, we walked over to the Gate and had a grand time sampling the local microbeer and ogling some lass's rip-cord. By the time we got home, I smelled like Satan's dishrag.

See, Franikins, you have the right to smoke. You have the right to smear your haunches with Nutella, sing Sondheim through a bullhorn and sell tickets. I have the right not to be enrobed in the resulting exhaust of either activity.