Hey, I may loathe myself, but it has nothing to do with the fact that I’m Jewish. — Larry David, Curb Your Enthusiasm

Earlier this Saturday, I went to visit my grandparents up north. And then they took me somewhere, some place that I never want to go back to again. We went to my mom’s aunt’s house, where they were hosting a memorial lunch for someone who died in my mom’s family about ten months ago. The one thing that came to my mind was how Larry David from Curb Your Enthusiasm would fuck up something at an event just like this. So later that night, I turned on HBO and guess what my hazel eyes see on the damn TV screen? The Curb Your Enthusiasm season six premiere in friggen shining lights (at least through my eyes). Now here is what not many people know: I LIVE off of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Whenever it’s on and I’m bored, I turn it on and I sit there and laugh my tiny testes off at Larry and his damn antics. You really got to give it to the guy. Even when you are in the crappiest of moods, he gives you something to laugh at in each episode. In one way, his character is a Michael Scott (from The Office) without being in business, and in the other, he’s just Jerry Seinfeld. It’s about time we had two characters from two of the best damn sitcoms come together and form one big character. Larry David’s character is the best one that you can think of (or can’t think of). If it slipped under my radar until the day it aired again, I’m sure it could slip under yours.

Larry David plays”¦ well”¦ Larry David. He’s just there doing his he does best — annoying the fuck out of people so much with his antics, even though he doesn’t even know what he is saying. At the beginning of the episode, Larry, his best friend Jeff (played by Jeff Garlin), and Richard Lewis (played by Richard Lewis) are in a locker room discussing how they missed weatherman Marty Funkhouser’s party. Larry comes up with a great idea for an excuse to miss parties after Jeff says that he uses his daughter being sick to not go to parties: go to the party the next day. On the day after Funkhouser’s party (which happens to be same day of Ted Danson‘s party — Danson also plays himself), Larry goes to the house and guess who’s already there? His best friend Jeff, who’s using the same goddamn excuse (I should really start using this excuse, but they don’t invite people who don’t drink or do drugs to parties). See, because they missed the Danson party, Larry’s wife Cheryl (played by Cheryl Hines) tells Larry that to make it up to her he has to give Cheryl the okay to let a family — victims of a devastating hurricane — live in their home. This is what sets up the sixth season, and it is certainly the most entertaining one that Larry David and his Curb Your Enthusiasm friends have ever created. And I never speak in absolutes.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is a different type of sitcom. Instead of giving the actors a script and telling them to work with it, Curb Your Enthusiasm gives them an outline and tells the actors to make up their own lines. To be a part of Curb Your Enthusiasm, you have to be a master of improvisation and Larry David is one of these masters. He can create faces that you may just shit yourself laughing at. I know I did when I first saw the one episode “Krazee Eyed Killa.” But the season six premiere isn’t really as funny as the other episodes, and the reason for this is because Larry David is only beginning to explain what is going to happen for the rest of the season. He throws in a few gags from other Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes, like his usual jerk attitude and getting himself into some serious shit. In this case, his friend didn’t know that he picked up a black penis cake for a party that they throw for the family that moves in with the Davids. This episode is telling us two things: one, the family is definitely a troubled family (and a family that Ice Cube would deal with, but Larry David would deal with much better), and two, that we are in for one hell of a ride this season.

We even have new cast this season like Vivica A. Fox — in her best performance ever — and recurring characters like Ted Danson, Richard Lewis, Susie Essman, and Bob Einstein, and I’m only praying to the only god I believe in (which is Bobby Lee, if you guys didn’t know) that Wanda Sykes comes back in some of these episodes. She always adds a lot of comedy into them. Curb Your Enthusiasm is a lot like our lives. Larry David adds the awkwardness to his character to make it seem like us. He’s just one of those guys that gets taken advantage of and whenever he brings up a point about it, he is just told to go fuck himself. A lot of the show is based on Larry David’s own experiences (kind of like Seinfeld), so Larry is definitely perfect as the main character. In this episode, he tries to find a way to get out of house parties. Sure, for most people, it might work, but this is Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm here. NOTHING works with these characters. Because Curb Your Enthusiasm is so awkward — just to see the faces of Larry David in his most awkward of situations makes us realize just how genius this show really is. Curb Your Enthusiasm is the reason why you should get HBO, and the reason why I should go fuck myself and get a life.

“Curb Your Enthusiasm: Meet the Blacks” Episode 6.1
Air Date: September 9, 2007
**** out of ****
Creator: Larry David
Cast: Larry David, Cheryl Hines, Jeff Garlin