Author David Sedaris gave a typically warped interview to Stephen Colbert on last night's Late Show ahead of a commencement address at Oberlin.
Colbert was curious about what Sedaris would tell grads.
Said the humorist: “I started keeping a list of my wisdom. Part of it is, you have to be really careful about scented candles. There's really only two kinds worth having. And if you don't get those two kinds of scented candles, you have to go without. It's a hard lesson to learn. Diptyque or Trudon.”
Sedaris went on to say there's more philosophical advice in the address as well:.
He added: “Your parents probably said to you, well you want to be in the arts you need to find something to fall back on. And I hear parents say that all the time. But I think if you find something to fall back on, you're gonna fall back. But I think that parents just don't want their child to be broke and suffer rejection. But at 22 you're built for poverty and rejection. In part, because you're good looking.”
Colbert looked curious.
“As a kid you don't realize it,” Sedaris went on. “Maybe those 22 year olds are comparing themselves to the person sitting next to them or two rows up, but they are stunning. They just can't see it. But when you get to be 60, you're like, why did nobody tell me. And if you're gay, you want to get in a time machine and have sex with yourself. That's how bad it is. But you don't see it when you're that age.”
Colbert replied, “That's, that's a creepy message.”
But things got more twisted. As Sedaris does, he went there.
Asked about his new book Calypso, Sedaris described the title story, in which he had a tumor removed, which he asked the doctor if he could keep.
Said Sedaris: “He said it's against the law for me to give you anything I remove from your body. But they give women babies. How is that fair?”
Sedaris was eventually able to get the tumor, which he then fed to a snapping turtle.
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