Here’s what I think: Larry David should definitely move back to New York City.
He’s losing his edge out there in California, living among all those other neurotic Jewish men friends and all that constant sunshine and fresh fruit.
No, I’m not saying David’s comedy or his HBO show, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which returns Sunday night for its eighth season, has lost its edge. Hardly. The upcoming season is actually funnier than ever, but it’s Larry himself that I’m worried about.
He’s definitely not an NYC lunatic anymore. He’s officially an LA neurotic.
I know this because yesterday we had breakfast together at a very fancy uptown hotel whose name will remain anonymous.
For one thing, David didn’t know that the hotel bar is a rumored hangout for Russian hookers. I mean, who doesn’t know that? Out-of-towners, that’s who.
“You know, I saw a very good-looking blond woman with a Russian accent talking on her phone in the hallway last night,” he said, shocked. The New York Larry David would know right off that women who look like supermodels, but aren’t — and who speak with giant accents and mysteriously appear on certain floors — aren’t looking for their missing modeling gigs.
Then, I further wrecked our breakfast by bringing up the bedbug issue. I told David that my friend advises always putting your suitcases in the bathtub because bedbugs — unlike wealthy travelers — hate porcelain. Not that NYC seems to have bedbugs anymore, but still, one can’t be too cautious.
He looked genuinely alarmed and accused me of ruining his egg-white breakfast.
But the Larry David who made Manhattan even more of a go-to destination than it already was with “Seinfeld” can’t stop really being a New Yorker — and, in fact, five of this season’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episodes take place here.
Did anything drive him as nuts here as everything seems to do in LA?
“Rickshaws,” as he calls pedicabs. “How much time are you saving?” he asked, exasperated. “Why would anyone who isn’t disabled get on one of those things? It’s faster to walk.”
“I also have swipe problems,” he moaned.
Immediately thinking “too much information,” I was relieved to know he meant his ability to swipe a MetroCard. Because David’s been gone too long, he was under the foolish impression that it only takes one swipe of the card to get through the turnstile — when, in fact, it takes at least three swipes, along with the slow-swish-up-and-out motion, to achieve full success.
David said that every year he contemplates whether or not he’ll do another season of “Curb” — until the itch hits, and he gets back to work.
He’s also got another tiny, tiny itch that may or may not develop into a full-blown work rash: Doing stand-up.
I asked him if he’d start his act in Vegas, and then mentioned that a hotel I had stayed in had bedbugs.
Again a look of controlled panic hit his face. I hope his itch to not itch didn’t quash the resumption of a brilliant stand-up career.