COMEDIC DREAMS

The Larry David Stairway Episode

My unsuccessful debut on Curb Your Enthusiasm

I woke my wife in the middle of the night to tell her about a Larry David dream. She was half asleep and probably didn’t hear me. Plus, she hated Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm and thought Larry wasn’t funny.

But I told her anyway.

I was inside a TV studio doing an episode with Larry David. We were both bald. He had a frizzy halo, and my head was shaven. He was wearing tennis shoes, one of his brown zipper sweaters, and a pair of corduroy pants with pleats. At the same time, I had on my green Khakis and a black George Carlin T-shirt.

We were walking up a stairway, and a guy was waiting for us on the landing. Once he saw Larry, he bagged on his golf game, and Larry said to the man, “You need some professional help. I recommend a guy in Santa Monica. But I must warn you — I caught him wearing a thong bathing suit in Santa Barbara.”

“Go screw yourself, Larry!” the man said. “There’s nothing wrong with thong bathing suits for men. I have a Daffy Duck one. And the man started to hum the Looney Tunes theme song.”

Then Larry turned to me and said, “What’s wrong with that guy? He’s acting meshuga. And he owes me twenty dollars on a golf bet.”

“Yeah, what’s his problem?” I said, doing my best Jeff Greene impersonation.

“I don’t respect anybody who likes to talk in the stairway,” Larry said. “Who knows who’s listening to our conversation.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Somebody could be recording it. Then they might use it against us.”

“Go to hell, Larry!” yelled the man. “No wonder nobody likes you.”

“And you should be locked up in a monkey cage for having private conversations in stairways!”

Larry was so angry that spittle flew from his mouth.

It wasn’t an epic scene, but still, I was on Curb Your Enthusiasm—my first television appearance.

When we exited the stairway, I asked Larry, “How did I do?” I expected him to say, “Prettaay, prettaaay good.” But he gave me one of those close-up looks where he squinted his eyes, then he made a lengthy “Ehhh.”

Undaunted by his reaction, I asked, “Do you think I can do another episode?”

“Nah, I don’t think so,” and he checked to see if his fly was open.

I took that as a maybe.

Then Larry said, “I gotta go. I’m having lunch with Jeff and Marty. We’re doing a comic nativity scene. Jeff and Suzie are going to be Mary and Joseph. Ted, Richard, and I will be the three wise men. And I’m going to bring the kid a sponge cake as a gift.”

“Could I be in it?” I asked pleadingly. “I can play baby Jesus.”

“No, it’s just going to be Marty Funkhouser. He whines like a baby.”

“But I thought Funkhouser died?” I asked.

“Not yet,” said Larry.

My wife looked at me scoldingly and did not think the dream was funny.

“You’ve got to stop having stupid Larry David nightmares,” she said. “That’s the third one this week, Mark. Why don’t you have wet dreams like a normal guy?”

© 2022 Mark Tulin

Here are three more funny ones from Mark Tulin: