December 5, 2005
WHAT WOULD LARRY DAVID DO? (WWLDD?)
Saturday night, while watching a television commercial with the GF, I started to comment and complain about the inauthentic nature of a sales pitch blaring at us from the box on top of the TV stand. (Nothing ever seems to rub me the wrong way like a television commercial portraying the appearance of one thing in order to sell another.)
At some point during the tirade I uttered, "This [complaining] is the type of thing Larry David would do (LDWD)!"
Less than 24 hours from the time those words left my lips, my old college buddy Dave left the following comment on my post from last Thursday (the one where I pointed out a discriminatory attitude over at a local pizza shop):
"...round up 3 or 4 of the folks you feel are being discriminated against and come into the pizza place, sit down and order a whole pizza. Sit there for about an hour or so, be a little boisterous but not too much, just enough to needle the owners. Do it on a regular basis and even tell the owners you are doing it on purpose. When confronting such racist jerks use the rule: WWLD - or What Would Larry (David from Curb your Enthusiasm) Do?
If you haven't caught HBO's hit series Curb Your Enthusiasm, my friend Dave's comment, as well as mine own "LDWD" reference, wouldn't mean much. For the uninitiated, Larry David is one of the co-creators of the TV's Seinfeld, and his HBO show--Curb Your Enthusiasm--which just wrapped up its 5th season, cuts so deeply into the twisted lines of decency, ethics, self-delusion, and morality that it's nearly as painful to watch at times as it is laugh-out loud hilarious.
Part Kramer, part George Costanza's alter ego, Larry David plays a quasi-fictional character based on himself... someone who consistently finds himself in awkward predicaments and misadventures, but as only he can seem to do (and get away with), stubbornly clings to his own brand of 'Davidish' principleñ-like the time he thanked a friend for an expensive dinner at a Santa Barbara restaurant for himself and his wife but deliberately chose not to thank his friendís wife; or the time he picked up a prostitute just so he'd have someone to occupy the passenger's seat in his car in order to legally drive in the less crowded HOV lane on the way to a baseball game at Dodger Stadium.
Curb Your Enthusiasm is so pervasive and drop-dead accurate about many of life's unaddressed awkward situations that its become an instant cult classic. Next time you find yourself in a shallow, miserable, selfish, duplicitous, egotistical, or neurotic situation, feel free to ask, What Would Larry David Do?
Posted by Mikal at December 5, 2005 7:53 AM
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