My Blind Date with Larry David
Blind dates never interested me but sometime during the winter of 1983, I was talked into going on a blind date with a guy called Larry David. My friend Belinda* had known him when they were both living in New York in the 1970's. I met Belinda in an elevator in October of 1982 in Los Angeles.
After I had graduated from Humboldt State University in 1982 I had moved back down to Los Angeles. I ended up renting a room in the house owned by Roderick Thorp, the author of “The Detective” and the sequel called “Nothing Lasts Forever.” The later eventually becoming the basis for the movie “Die Hard.” I was supposed to be living with my parents again but that lasted only two weeks.
When I moved out from my parents’ house in Encino into the rented bedroom in Roderick’s house atop Grand View Drive in Laurel Canyon, I had rent to pay. I joined a job placement agency and landed a gig with Neal Levin and Company, a hot-shot business management firm who made sure the incomes of Queen, Devo and Bernie Taupin were invested wisely. It was in the elevator on my way up for my first day on the job where I met Belinda. We got off on the same floor and realized we were both going to work at the same numbers-pushing firm. Kindred spirits, we immediately hit it off, but it didn’t take me long to realize accounting wasn’t my thing. I lasted at the business management firm for two weeks. Belinda stayed at the company a while longer until moving into the world of talent management.
We remained friends and would scout for guys in the local clubs, hang out with the up and coming comics at The Comedy Club or The Improv, and even found out that we once dated the same guy around the same time, a writer named Larry Gross. He thought he was God’s gift to the entertainment industry because his film, “48 Hours” starring Eddie Murphy was doing well at the box office.
She thought setting me up on a blind date was a good idea. I was skeptical.
“Larry, who? I asked.
“Larry David. He’s a friend of mine. And he’s Jewish,” quipped Belinda. “Your Grandmother Toby will love him.” Through the phone line I could hear her taking a long drag off a joint and imagined her blowing it toward the succulent plant in the yellow pot she kept next to her phone.
“You want me to go out with a guy whose last name is the same as my father’s first name? A guy who has two first-names in his entire name and a guy who is Jewish because you think my grandmother will like him?” I was on a role. “Belinda, you know I’ve had bad luck dating Jewish men since my boyfriend back in high school, and on top of that…”
“He’s a writer,” she interrupted. “You love writers. You want to be a writer. You told me this music business thing you’re doing is temporary. A way to pay bills.” I heard her unwrap something and pop it into her mouth. The piece of candy clinked against her teeth. “And besides,” she continued while sucking on the candy, “I know he’s going to make it big one day. Wouldn’t it be great if you got together, and he made it big one day with his writing so you could quit the music business and concentrate on your writing?”
Belinda must have been psychic because it was that Larry David.
The same Larry David born on July 2, 1947 near Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, New York. The same Larry David who would be very involved with the creation of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
When Belinda set us up, Larry David was between being a writer for ABC’s Friday’s and a writer for Saturday Night Live. I did not know any information about him back then. I only recently found out that particular piece of information when I was reading his bio on Wikipedia for this story.
A lot has happened to LD since our 1983 sub-minor hookup. I was just a 45-minute blip in his dating book.
I eventually agreed to the blind date with a then-unknown Larry David. I don’t remember who called whom to set up the date, but I do remember showing up at the pub before he did. I guarantee he would never remember me; the college grad who sat across from him at the Cat ‘N Fiddle Pub when it was located in Laurel Canyon.
I was sitting at one of the little round tables in the dimly lit pub, sipping on sparkling water when the door to the entrance opened. A tall guy with lots of wild hair filled the frame. Lots and lots of hair. It was the kind of hair Art Garfunkel had in the 1960’s but way more of it.
He was carrying a script. Not carrying, hugging. The script was clasped to his chest like it was a precious commodity. He didn’t let go of that script during the entire blind date. Thinking back, LD was probably so enamored by whatever the script contained that I didn’t have a chance. In the course of our small talk I probably asked him what he was writing, but I don’t remember. I doubt he would have told me anyway, just in case I might steal his idea. L.A. writers are weird that way.
But I might have said something like, “If this is going to go beyond a first date and we ever make it to the bed, you’re going to have to put that script down. I don’t do threesomes.” He probably hugged the script tighter.
In an interview a few years agao I heard him say he hates writing. Why then, on this blind date, was he guarding a script so close to his body? Why did he bring it with him in the first place? Was the script some sort of chaperone? Did a script accompany him on all his dates?
I reached toward the table to grab my glass of water. He flinched and backed away from me, sinking deeper into his chair, hugging the script even tighter. Did he believe I was going to grab his script, run out the door screaming, “I have the script?!” That I would run up and down the dangerous and curvy two-lane road of Laurel Canyon Boulevard playing keep-away with the script? It was amusing, the way that collection of words seemed to be a part of him.
I would have known he was New York born and bred even if my friend hadn’t said anything. He had that East Coast grin which wasn’t really a grin at all. It was closer to an anxious grimace. It’s a familiar lip pose for east coasters. The lips are in a straight, tight line and it almost looks like they’ll eventually break into a smile … except they don’t.
And he seemed nervous. Little did I know that the nervous, bordering on neurotic tendencies coming from LD that night would serve him well when he created his now-famous television shows.
Needless to say the blind date was a bust.
Maybe if we had hit it off his neurosis would have calmed and that may not have been a good thing. I’m pretty mellow. It takes a lot to rattle my mojo. If we had become an item and my mellowness rubbed off on him, “curbing” his neurosis … Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm may have never happened. Both shows thrive on drama, anxiety and neurosis, three characteristics in humans I generally stay clear of.
It never would have worked out with LD anyway. Let’s say we made it past the Cat ‘n Fiddle Pub meeting and had a second, third and even fourth date. By then we might have had sex and I’m guessing our sex life wouldn’t have gone very far. I expect certain things from a lover and, well, LD gags a lot. I would have been thinking that if I asked him to go “down there,” he would have pretended to choke on something or have an instant allergic reaction to the “thought’ of doing such a thing. That would have ended that.
I also like to swim and sunbathe in the nude. I don’t think he would have dropped his pants without making sure he was in another country where he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. Even then he would have probably held his script in front of his privates.
If he had his famous notepad with him during our brief meeting, I never saw it. He could have whipped it out when I went to the restroom, then shoved it back into his pocket when he saw me returning to the table. I wonder what notes he would have made about me. Would he have said I was too much of a hippie? Was my hair was too long? Probably the cliff notes on Stacey P. would have said I wasn’t anxious enough. I’ll never know.
At least Belinda and I still catch up every once in a while. I’ll have to call her to let her know that I have this friend named, “David” I want her to meet.
Really, I do.
*Name changed for privacy.
