Larry David & Curb empower others

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Stephen Deininger was drinking a glass of Pinot Noir on the couch at a friend’s party last year when he noticed a sizable ring on the wood coffee table.

He wondered about his friend. Does he respect wood

Deininger, 43, a government office manager in Pikesville, Md., went so far as to dig a jar of Wegmans full-fat mayonnaise out of his host’s refrigerator and slather the condiment across the table, removing the stain roughly 10 minutes afterward.

His friend stared back slack-jawed. He didn’t get that Deininger’s fixation on the wood ring was a reference to the TV show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and its acerbic lead character, Larry David.

On the drive home, Deininger’s wife warned him he was again behaving too much like David and causing a real-life commotion.

Larry David, co-creator of “Seinfeld,” is also the star of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which will end in April after nearly 25 years. The Max show has been a showcase for David to play a version of himself, inspiring many wannabes.

Cultural references to “Seinfeld” and “Curb” have long been common, but “Curb” has inspired a more aggressive band of imitators. These Larry Davidisms are now baked into society, and fans suggest the influence will be enduring—even when many people will never get the joke.

Fans discuss their Larry-like lives on Reddit threads such as “Do you ever worry you’re becoming Larry David?”

Among Davidisms, both practical and annoying, that have taken hold: saying “Happy New Year” for no more than three days, repeating the line “Pretty, pretty good” or imitating David’s stare-down technique.

“When it comes to opening up in social situations, I think I do that a lot more than I used to, in part because of Larry,” says Deininger. On the show, David asked his TV wife if she respected wood—leading to a dispute that ended in the characters’ divorce.

John Kennedy, a 35-year-old Toronto-area resident who works in customer research, recently called out a noisy couple at a restaurant and shouted at a group using their phones while he watched the film “The Boy and The Heron” in a theater.

“I don’t have a problem really doing that anymore,” Kennedy says. David shows minimal restraint on “Curb,” calling out a diner using a Bluetooth headset and a boy making a finger-pop sound in a theater.

“He’s very much like me in that he lets these things bother him,” Kennedy says. “A lot of times, he’ll be a victim of circumstance where he tries to do the right thing and it ultimately doesn’t happen.”

David, on a recent Jimmy Fallon TV show appearance, said his personality is “melding” with his character’s, allowing him to say no to a lunch invitation, which he described as “fantastic.”

Some of David’s TV antics were done alongside his friend, Richard Lewis, who also played a version of himself and who died last month at age 76.

With the show ending, David previously joked in a statement, he’ll have the “opportunity to finally shed this ‘Larry David’ persona and become the person God intended me to be—the thoughtful, kind, caring, considerate human being I was until I got derailed by portraying this malignant character.”

Chris Ritchie, a 48-year-old owner of business publications in Walton-on-Thames, England, believes in using available handicap bathroom stalls when the others are occupied, something David tried to justify on an episode. Last year, after exiting a handicap bathroom at an amusement park, Ritchie received a glare from a man in a wheelchair. He shrugged and uttered a defiant “Yeah!”
To Ritchie, David is right about 80% of the time in social interactions. “It’s all good-natured,” Ritchie says. “He is just being true to himself.”

Tom Kirby, 47, who works in business intelligence for a hospital system in Pittsburgh, says David has empowered him to avoid “stop and chats.”

The phrase was popularized by a “Curb” episode where David avoids exchanging pleasantries with someone he doesn’t know well. Last year, Kirby dodged a “stop and chat” with the brother of an old friend in a grocery store. Kirby says his friend’s brother slowed his pace while he maintained his stride into the store, giving the man a handshake and a pat on the arm instead. ...

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