Larry David Decoded, by Holly Nadler

Written by Holly Nadler

He is our sole cult hero, with the late John Belushi filling that slot before him. As a summer Vineyarder, he’s drastically famous: People recognize him even without ever having watched his comedy series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

Of those who’ve seen it, there are two categories: Those who’ve endured it once and declared, “Everyone’s so testy and unpleasant. I’d rather watch old ‘Cosby’ re-runs.” And then there are the rest of us who sponge it up, and who verbally trade favorite scenes like others swap baseball cards.

My own fave was the time in the deli when Larry decided his pal Richard Lewis had a better sandwich named after him than did Larry. To get back at him, he reveals he’s recently discovered he was adopted. Richard, whose comedy act has always included stories of his dysfunctional New Jersey Jewish family, is so envious, he drops the f-bomb.

My son Charlie, a writer now living in LA, says his favorite “Curb” is when Larry “outs” the elderly Japanese kamikaze pilot in a nursing home: “How can you be a kamikaze pilot if you’re still alive?” Clearly, the guy missed the battleship, but is he going to miss Larry when he charges him in his wheel chair?

“Curb” is an improvisational series featuring a mega-successful TV writer/ producer pretty much playing himself (Larry David created “Seinfeld”), with actors portraying other key figures in his life, like his wife and his manager.

Actors and comedians, including Wanda Sykes, Ted Danson and Richard Lewis, often play versions of themselves.           

Larry’s character lacks that part of the brain with a conference table surrounded by censors with clipboards. Most of us have this brain monitor division fully active— i.e., should I tell her that skin rash looks like leprosy? Should I mention I missed his birthday party because he has boring friends? Would it be a bad idea to inform these people I don’t socialize with Republicans? No, no, and yes, the monitors will prompt us.

Larry maintains that he’s not the annoying jerk who makes us howl with laughter in his series. He revealed in a Rolling Stone interview: “We’re always doing things that we don’t want to, we never say what we really feel, and so this is an idealized version of how I want to be.”

But here on the Island where all of us are at our most relaxed, is Larry David one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet?

Well, sometimes. A friend of mine who attends many of the same up-Island parties says, “He’s a good guy. Oh, he can be a little oblivious to social etiquette, but if he’s known you for a while, he pays attention. He wants to have a good time. He’s very interactive. People really do like him.”

On the other hand, sometimes he can slip into his evil-twin TV persona. A doctor friend who spent a summer participating in a weekly poker party that included Larry David said he enjoyed the great man’s company so much, he thought he’d see if he could get him to take a look at the screenplay his talented daughter had just won an award for at Emerson College. As the two men walked to their cars, the doctor said, “Say, Larry, I was wondering if you could read— “

“NO,” said the comic with a firmness that took the doctor’s breath away. Larry climbed into his car, rolled down the window, and asked, “Anything else?”

Another time a journalist from Washington, D.C. approached Larry at a party and, after introducing herself, began to rave about “Curb.” “I don’t talk to reporters,” he told her curtly.

This is unsparingly rude. On the other hand, most of us Vineyarders know better than to lather on the compliments with celebrities. It’s classier to pretend Owen Wilson is just another guy rough-housing with a dog at the beach, or that Lady Gaga is getting away with her disguise of sunglass lenses big as salad plates, and wearing her own hair.

Once, in fact, when I owned a little bookstore in Oak Bluffs, I looked up from the counter and saw the craggy-nosed, bald-headed profile of Larry David checking out my Recent Non-Fiction Releases.

Even though a couple of years earlier I’d happily chatted up President Clinton in the store, I would have sooner cut off my middle finger than disturb the famously tart TV personality. Besides, he’d just split from his wife, and was dating girls young enough to be babies in his next incarnation. I was at least one hundred and eighty years too old for him, and I quailed at the idea that he might imagine I was flirting with him.

Minutes later an attractive young woman who was just being born when I became eligible for my first colonoscopy arrived to tell him their table was ready at the Oyster Bar.

So is he agreeable here on the Vineyard? Well, from my perspective, he could have asked me to recommend a mystery, just as Bill Clinton did. He could have bought a book for that matter. Does he even read? Well, that’s a subject for a whole ‘nother column.

Quick tip: Read “Hitchhiking with Larry David” by Paul Samuel Dolman. You’ll learn a few surprising things about a more thoughtful Larry David, and Dolman is hilarious.  

Originally published on MV Patch Aug. 1, 2011.

Have you met or seen Larry David on the Vineyard? Do you agree that he's "the Island's sole cult hero"? Tell us in the comments.