Much Adieu Adieu Adieu About Nothing
by John Kendall Hawkins
A shitful of longtimeagonesses, I wrote an adieu, adieu, adieu thank you note to Seinfeld's producers for giving the world a much needed laugh over that show's reflection of postmodern reality's seeming lack of coherence. They say, or at least Dylan one said, that too much of nothing can make you mean. But Seinfeld more often than not had me coming away strangely inspired and feeling that as quantum as the world was getting -- self-serious and bizarro at the same time -- there were still moments of light-footedness that made it all, if not acceptable, bearable; you just had to accept that when your antic foot came back down to earth it very well might find itself in a new steaming pile of dogmatic sh*t. Poets hate sh*t on their feet. And I'm a poet. Gotta say, the gathering nothingness is beginning to wear thin.
That piece, which appeared in the Melbourne Age, just a few days after my review of Dylan's concert (think, Time Out of Mind), which was just a few weeks after my piece about Abbie Hoffman and the rueful end of the heady days of activism and street levity appeared in the national daily Australian, and all of it was meant to inaugurate my career as a journalist Down Under, where I migrated (think, she got pregnant) the year before, in 1997. Instead, I went crazy, driven from distraction to distraction by distraction (h/t TS Eliot) by Aussie contradictoriness and an ever-present pressure to conform to mateship rules that supersedes democracy here. "It's a conservative country," as Aussie journalist Andrew Fowler once told me in an email. I laughed at this, but it wasn't the same kind of laugh about nothing that Seinfeld gave me. Conservative? That's like saying a black hole is anal retentive when it comes to light; it's true, but there's more.
And now, it's time to say goodbye to more sweet nothings. Curb Your Enthusiasm has run its course after 12 seasons. Larry David, its star, writer, and creator is tired. David also was co-creator of Seinfeld (along with Jerry), which ran from 1989 to 1998. Seinfeld is in some ways just another incarnation of Curb, with George being the David character of Curb. So, essentially, the theme of nothing has been going for at least 36 years. That's a lonnnng time. And it doesn't even count David's prequel years in the toilet 'reading' Portnoy's Complaint. That's a whole lot of white stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Watch your head.
The regular cast of Curb Your Enthusiasm is perfect. As with Seinfeld lots of care was put into creating an ensemble with exquisite chemistry that allows the actors to play off each other with a sense of verisimilitude (a lot of the onscreen shtick was improvised). David is, of course, the sun around which all the planets orbit, and very self-consciously, as self-conscious, often painful to Larry, is a key to understanding the program -- and postmodernism. But very colorful planets they are: Cheryl Hines (as Cheryl, David's wife), Jeff Garlin (as Jeff, David's manager), Susie Essman (as Susie, Jeff's manager), and LB Smoove (as Larry's foul-mouthed housemate Leon Black).
In addition, the show has featured over the years a Who's Who of film and TV stars, including Ted Danson, Richard Lewis, Vince Vaughn, Wanda Sykes, Rosie O'Donnell, and Jon Hamm, all playing versions of themselves, coercing one to recall that line from Penny Lane: Though she thinks she's in a play / she is anyway. Jesus, when the Beatles start seeming deep it's time to change El Cid dealers. Someone's cuttin' something. But seriously, rolling down the list of players who have appeared in Curb over the years leaves one deeply impressed. In the last season, the show brings in an aging Bruce Springstein, who shows he can act comically (improv, too), and who contracts Covid from David in the "Ken/Kendra" (Episode 9) to much hilarity. The Boss gives David The Toss. Speaking of aging, Richard Lewis, the stand-up comic who made a living out of gags that highlighted his "dark, neurotic, and self-deprecating humor, [Wiki]" who plays David's best friend and alter ego in the series, looks like he's barely hanging in there in the final episodes, and, it came as no surprise that he died of a heart attack before he could see the finale aired. And, likewise, seeing Steve Buscemi in a late episode was a reminder of how quickly and irretrievably we age. The last time I saw Buscemi so dead-looking was as ashes coming out of a Folgers coffee can on a windswept cliff face in The Big Lebowski (1998).
And all of these practitioners of fucked-up reality bounce around to that rambunctious tuba-driven theme song, "Frolic," written by Luciano Michelini that plays the way Larry walks. Is there a funnier walker in show business, Spindly, but like Chicolini's fingers on a keyboard playing "Everyone Says I Love You" in Horse Feathers (1932). Some 'zany' sh*t, huh?
A lot of great episodes. Some of the nothings, of the quibbles over nothing. In thee last season alone we enjoyed watching "Fish Stuck" (Episode 5) in which David at a Chinese restaurant is chagrined to see what appears to be a goldfish stuck in the tank's filter. David calls attention to this situation, only to be rebuffed by the Chinese, broken English-speaking waiter, who argues back, "No stuck," and the gag begins. It reminded me of a time I was in a Chinese restaurant in China and the room was filled with fish tanks where you pointed to what you wanted and not long after the once-swimming was belly-up on your plate. Stuck soonly, on your fork or chopsticks. I wonder how Michelini would have handled the tune, playing by ear. Would tubas figure?
Also, funny is the season-long problem David faces after, in Episode 1, he gets arrested in Atlanta for giving a bottle of water to an African American who has been waiting in line for a few hours to cast their Constitionally-protected right to fuckin vote for one of the lesser of two devils our system is placed with. The episode featured Stacey Abrams, who investigative journalist Greg Palast convincingly demonstrated was cheated out of gaining electoral office by current governor Brian Kemp. Georgia also enacted a law that made it illegal to provide food or drink to voters waiting in line. David committed a crime and must pay, says Georgia. Larry decides to fight instead of plea (as his craven instinct tells him). The verdict comes at the end of the series.
Larry is arrested in another episode, when he is blamed for spray painting graffiti on a billboard advertising Susie's new business. The paint depicts Susie sucking co*k [sic], which has David and Jeff cracking up to Susie's humiliated wrath. Pulled over by police, the officer espies a bag of spray paints in the back (yes, he has sprayed graffiti, but for a different cause, he tries to explain to the nice fascist officer). It is delightful when we learn that the sexual graffiti has actually helped Susie's sales. America! Shining Light on the Hill!
It was also fun to watch Larry David get caught giving cunnilingus in an episode that will go unnamed.
And, of course, predictably, Jerry Senfeld shows up for the final episode. He, too, looked sucky and old, but he did still have some funny in him, and we feel as if we are with old friends again. Passing the bong around, and Cheryl. No, that was uncalled for' I just punched myself in the face for that remark. I'm getting good at it. I'm thinkin of goin soup Nazi next.
As with Seinfield episodes, and Dylan tunes, it's almost impossible to say what your favorite Curb episodes are. They are all good. All reach in and touch you there. The system is the solution. No news is good news. Curb Your Enthusiasm is just that. That David could make a career out of this stuff of bad dreams and pettiness might suggest how far civilization has drifted off course. If the IMDB ratings for these series are any indication, 8.8 and 8.9, then folks are tuned into the unmuscular doings of historical progress these days. 450,000,000 guns out there. Hmph. Talk about the silent majority, as Nixon used to say. Of course, Thoreau said the mass of folks lead lives of quiet desperation. f*ck Thoreau.
The Larry David phenomenon has infected my own work. Recently, for the hell of it, I wrote a David-esque sitcom pilot about Noam Chomsky, based on the foibles and fables of working with him at MIT that his office manager Bev Stohl captured so well in her memoir, Chomsky and Me (OR Books, 2023). I wish such humor were infectious. All I hear now is the sound of sadists laughing, animals of the regime let loose, like trained German shepherds sicked on the faces of Auschwitz Jews. Funny, huh? Soon, we'll all be without levity and light. Now, it's dark. This ol stumblebum can't wait to get out of this historical dodge.
Larry David's nothingness, including his productive adolescent years, has helped us confront nothing for, perhaps, 50 years. Thank you, Larry David. Now, as dear friend Susie would say, "Get the f*ck out of here."
