chapter 3

      WWLD

      The Genius of Larry David

       Humor is a social lubricant that helps usget over some of the bad spots.

      —Steve Allen

      A guy who smells really awful lives in my apartment building. He's pleasant enough and I found out he's a lawyer for the City of New York. Problem is that he smells so bad he stinks up the elevator. This guy is ripe.

      He lives five floors below me.

      What has happened on a number of occasions is that we've ridden up together in the elevator from the lobby and he gets off on his floor; then someone gets in the elevator on a floor between mine and his, and the person walks into an invisible stench of bubonic plague proportion and naturally assumes that I'm the one who stinks.

      This is a Larry David moment. What I call “assumed guilt” or “presumed culpability”

      Larry David struck comedy gold when he and Jerry Seinfeld created Seinfeld. His gift for finding humor in the minutiae of life struck a chord with audiences. He mined this to even greater success in his HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm.

      Another thing Larry's character on Curb experiences is the innocent or casual action that causes a problem (or a chain of problems) for him or someone else. There's also the self-serving behavior that becomes the catalyst for a crisis that shouldn't have happened but spirals out of control.

      These situations don't just happen to Larry's character in Curb. They happen to us all. Not every day or every week or every month. Most people don't give these experiences much thought beyond the moment they happen, but as a comedy writer, you should.

      Once I was buying a couple of things in a drugstore. There were two people ahead of me. The cashier sneezed and a gigantic wad of greenish snot appeared in her left nostril. It was gross. She wasn't aware of it. As she waited on the two people ahead of me, I wondered if she would realize the snot was there and wipe it off. She didn't. She just didn't know it was there.

      It's now my turn. Ironically, I was buying a box of Kleenex. She rings it up and sets the box down, and then the cashier next to her subtly points at her nose and my cashier takes her right hand and proceeds to remove the snot from her nose. Unfortunately, it's now on her right finger. She picks up my pristine box of Kleenex with the hand with the snot finger and puts it in a bag. The snot was now transferred to my Kleenex box. I didn't want to take that box. It felt tainted, but I didn't have the heart to ask her for another one. So I took it, covered with snot. When I got home I took a Kleenex from the box and wiped it off. Dramatic irony.

      Is that a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm or what?

      What would Larry David have done with that incident?

      Try to remember experiences like this and start being aware of those that crop up.

      Larry David has had an illustrious career by taking situations and putting his particular spin on them. Long before I started watching either show, I was experiencing these oddball situations (as I imagine you and everyone else have). But I never did anything with them, other than tell an amusing story or anecdote.

      Larry David made me realize the importance of looking for the things in our lives that embarrass us and the things that we do that put us in awkward or cringe-worthy situations.

      I am constantly on the lookout for things that I can use in my own writing. And as a teacher I'm always looking for examples to share with my students.

      Recently, I was in a restaurant having drinks and appetizers with a friend. Our waitress was efficient but unfriendly. Not rude, but totally charmless. She looked at me as if I had killed her cat and eaten it. But as I said, she was efficient. I left her a decent tip, but I was angry that she hadn't been friendlier. I like a friendly waiter or waitress. Even if the smile and attitude is bullshit, in the handful of seconds she spends with a customer she should be pleasant and charming. I should point out that this was in a very nice restaurant.

      Two days later I was in a Starbucks. The same waitress sat as a customer at the next table with two friends. I'm sure she wouldn't have remembered me. In the 20 minutes or so she was there, she was as smiling and friendly as can be with her friends. The more she smiled and laughed and behaved nicely, the more I wanted to go over to her and tell her that she should behave that way when she's waiting tables.

      I asked myself: What would Larry David do with this?

      Another question arises: When did Larry David discover this voice?

      Seinfeld aired in 1989. Larry David was 42. Did he have the point of view that made him famous at 20 or 30 or 35? Or was it something that developed gradually throughout his career as a stand-up comic, writer, and performer, something that was born when he and Jerry Seinfeld got their TV deal?

      This is not to say that if you don't find the right course of action for yourself, you'll be a failure. There have been thousands of comedy writers who have made wonderful livings and led creative, imaginative lives, and you may be one of them.

      But that doesn't mean that your long-term goal shouldn't be to find and nurture your special niche.

       a viewing exercise

      Examine the work of the following unique writers (and performers) of past and present generations: Charlie Chaplin, Howard Stern, Judd Apatow, Buster Keaton, Adam Carolla, Woody Allen, W. C. Fields, Laurel and Hardy (Stan Laurel was the creative force behind their act), Mel Brooks, and Jonathan Winters. Pinpoint what made them unique, then look into yourself and make a list of five things that make you unique and that can serve as the basis of something funny to write.

       Something You Should Know That's Not Big Enough to Deserve Its Own Chapter