An Email to Larry David Analyzing his Cancer Jokes

Copyright © HBO

Mr. David,

First of all, I just want to say that I’m a huge fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  I’ve loved the show since a friend of mine first lent to me seasons one and two; I now own all six seasons on DVD and just finished watching the second episode of the new season.  You’ve taken this new season up another notch in ridiculousness; I agree with what you have to say about those damn plastic packages I can never open, and although your response on the show was ridiculous, I know that that’s the point.

Regarding other things that are happening this season, though, I’m a little bit concerned.  You see, my father recently died from Carcinoid Cancer, at the much-too-early age of fifty-four.  He suffered for about a year and a half, and that suffering ended on September 14th of this year.  The first two episodes of the show portrayed Cancer victims as being lazy and as using their illness to receive special treatment.  Up until the latter stages of his illness, when he became weak and frail, this was not the case for my father.  He was as strong as he could be and fought hard.  He fought until his very last breath.  With these last breaths of his fresh in my mind, watching your show portray Cancer victims as helpless and taking advantage of those around them offends me.  It makes watching the show very difficult for me.

I realize that you haven’t done this to offend me; I’m sure that you’re aware that there are many people fighting hard against Cancer and doing so in a dignified manner.  You’ve done this because there most certainly are people out there who use their Cancer to receive special treatment.  Because of this, you’re actually not making fun of people with Cancer: you’re instead making fun of people who use their bad situations to make others take pity on them.

Generally speaking, as well, I don’t want to say anything to stop you from offending me.  People (I include myself in this) are far too concerned about offending others, and this has gotten ridiculous.  Offending others puts that which our society represses out into the open.  People certainly think these things, so why shouldn’t they say them?  How can we ever get past something if we repress it?  If your show hadn’t offended me, I wouldn’t have written you this email, and I wouldn’t have had a chance to think about your perspective.  I think that it’s always beneficial to explore others’ perspectives.

I only wanted to express to you that your recent show was difficult to watch.  It didn’t make me feel the pain that I need to get through in order to move past this difficult time; rather, it made me feel disgusted that you’d poke fun at something that hurts so many people.  I suppose that feeling was misplaced, though, because I do think that you’re only making fun of the type of people who use their disadvantages to receive special treatment.

This “poor me” attitude is perhaps something that helps Cancers grow—I strongly believe that Cancer’s physical manifestation, destroying the body, stems from an emotional/mental/attitudinal difficulty or anomaly that is likely similar to this “poor me” attitude—so, perhaps your show’s response to it is beneficial.

I don’t know.  I suppose my father’s death is too recent to make a completely logical argument regarding something so closely related to it.  I’m glad for the chance to explore these ideas, though.  That is, of course, the point of this email; I highly doubt that you or anyone at HBO will take the time to read it.

So, to bring by attitude full-circle, if you do actually read this email: I want to thank you for your work on this fine show.  I’ll likely continue to struggle with the jokes related to Cancer, but regardless of how I respond to them, I’ll keep in mind that you’re not a mean-spirited man.  I’ve found every one of your episodes to be very entertaining, and I don’t think that anyone mean-spirited could make me laugh as well as you have.

Take care,

-C L (aka Jefferson Jefferson)

Zombie

I’ve been very busy, which has caused me to miss posting these last couple weeks.  Two weeks ago I was just constantly busy with work; now I’m just as busy because I went to the AWP writer’s conference this past weekend.  Missing five days of work definitely puts me behind.

Even so, I’m pretty excited about this poem I just completed a draft for.  I’m sure it needs work, but as I go through it, I remain pretty happy about it.  I’m surprised I don’t end up changing a bunch of stuff.  Surely I will after workshop next week, but…for now, I feel like posting it.  It’s called ‘Zombie.’

Zombie

Dangle head-over-heels as skies await your soles
And echoing canyons flee your fingers.  Angel
Shale stripes Muav like ribbon, but melts to grayscale,
Faded chalk, as sunlight dribbles away.  Shamble
Back, park in seclusion, recline your bed.  Night comes
At ten.  Breathe pale heat, not flat air; x-ray the dead
Upholstered waste to an upside-down dark ceiling
Whose blank white specks quietly judge you.  Successful
Beams all-present as one bulb, blocked by felt padding.

Thudding on glass, fingertips catch under
Your air slit, snapping like peanut brittle.
They decay and drool while they tumble down
Your naked chest.  Gray rotted blueberries.
The window breaks devoid of echo, struck
Like by a fermented melon, catching
Shards in its flesh, and you topple away,
Writhing through the passenger door.  It snarls
Lazily at your tired bare foot, grabbing
You.  Only craving sleep.  Its hand slides off
Like wet cardboard pulled apart; you stumble,
Crawling, and quash it, popping black brain chunks
Out the car-door-compactor.  Wash yourself,
As the goo sloshed your ear, infecting you.

Corrupted before and will be again, squashed bile—
Caked and bursting these never-ending secretions—
Is too familiar.  The noxious bag haunting you
Oozes, anxious.  Clean it in the morning, not now;
Trickle hot liquid from the trunk and scrub the gook
Until you’re fresh.  Stretch long on the cool roof, gazing
At kaleidoscope clusters that swirl, hypnotize,
And hush you away.  Heat brushes your tiny fur;
Forget the monster who will taint your flesh again.

Positivity

I’ve been particularly unenthusiastic lately.  Little has excited me–and the things that have excited me haven’t excited me much.  This has caused me to wake as late as possible: when I teach at 11, I wake at 9:30; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, since I’m free to do whatever I want, I wake at eleven, noon, one, or sometimes two.  Then the sun goes down a few hours later and I feel like my day has been wasted–which of course it has.

I just end up sitting there, dreading the cold outside of my soft, warm bed.  I don’t have any heat on at night because it’s completely unnecessary: even if it gets down to 40 degrees or lower, it’s perfectly warm in bed.  Because of this and because of who knows what else, bed has been the high point of my life lately, and today this disgusted me more than it has in a while.

I generally haven’t done anything about this lazy lifestyle, as much as I’ve wanted to change it.  I’m well aware that a healthy sleep schedule is the most important thing I can do to keep myself functioning well, yet it eludes me, making me feel a victim to it.  Nothing motivates me to get out of bed in the morning, so I don’t.  My emotions tell me to stay in the warmth and comfort, and I don’t resist, because those emotions and lack of motivation seem to be all I am at that early hour.  I often set my alarm early, but hit the snooze because, by morning, I forget how much I’ve previously regretted oversleeping.  In the morning, I don’t care about any of that.

As much as I’ve resolved to wake early, I have yet to accomplish this.  I found something today, though, that has inspired me in the past, and worked to inspire me today.  While I woke today at noon, I proceeded from there to have as productive of a day as I could because of this text I returned to: Actualizing (A Constructive Living Approach), an article at The Eyeslit-Crypt in which my good friend Jamie responds to Dr. David K. Reynolds’s book, Reality’s Reminders.

Making this text fit his own purposes, Jamie speaks to his readers, “As you read this blog, you could be doing any number of things, but you aren’t – you’re reading this blog. Is reading this blog moving you toward where you need to go in your life? If so, please, keep reading. If not, please get on with doing what you need to do.”  Reading this months ago, the article prompted me to return to my work.  I had perhaps been procrastinating–taking a moment from the consistent work I had established–and could easily return to work.  Today, though, I needed this.  I’ve needed something, and still am unsure that today’s inspiration will help guide me to push myself from this slump, but this was very valuable today.

This article asked me to ask myself “how is what [I am] doing right now moving [me] toward [my] goals, toward where [I] want to go?”  As much as I’ve felt uninspired to work towards my goals right now, I have many goals, and reaching toward them is important to me.  Further articulating this, Jamie’s blog led me to another article: a discussion of what’s controllable in life.

Lets look at the list of what is not controllable: the weather, other people’s actions, other people’s opinions, the outcome of events, my thoughts, my feelings, my moods. When we look realistically at life we see that a great deal of it is not directly controllable. What is controllable, then? My own behavior is always controllable. With a very few exceptions (stuttering, trembling and impotence) my behavior, that is, what I do at all times is fully within my control. Sometimes action is difficult. For example I notice that having the flu as I write this article makes me feel lethargic; it doesn’t, however, prevent my fingers from typing the words of this lesson. Writing is possible. It is behavior. I can do that action, even while “not in the mood.” I do it because it needs to be done.

This can be a startling fact for many of us who have believed that “motivation” of some kind must precede action. What a relief to discover that I need not fix my feeling or my self esteem or my motivation in order to act. Realistically we know that life can’t be perpetually easy, comfortable, “exciting” all the time. As we gain maturity we accept this as reality. The “good news” is that my behavior is in my control at all times. I don’t need to wait for motivation, inspiration, or self esteem to act. I can act on what needs to be done because it fulfills a purpose. I can act now. My behavior is always controllable.

This discussion is incredibly basic: of course my behavior is controllable.  Even so, I forget this.  I grow so attached to my emotions and my lethargy that it takes over.  The only real cause for lethargy, though, is previous lethargy: it perpetuates itself, slowly destroying me.  Before Christmas break, all I did was work, and I enjoyed it.  I was active in creating things and fulfilling my goals, and that continued activity inspired me.  Taking a vacation from those goals shifted me into a new mode of living that is without them, and I’ve struggled to return since then.  Without activity, I seem to only want to continue that inactivity. Inactivity, though, fills me with dread and ennui.  It makes me want nothing.  The cure to this ennui will be understanding that my emotions, while uncontrollable, contribute nothing to my action.  No matter what I’m feeling, I can always act towards my goals.  No matter how warm and comfortable my bed feels, I can leap out of it and into my day.

Seeing this articulated is inspiring, and writing this out is inspiring.  I don’t know if articulating these simple but difficult truths will help me in the future, but it helped me today, and perhaps it will help others stumbling on this unknown blog.  Perhaps I should repeat these quotations and simple truths to myself before bed so that I can remember them when I wake: perhaps repitition will engrain them in my brain.

Either way–whatever successes or failures stand in my future–writing in this blog is positive, whether or not anyone else finds what I write worthwhile.  I previously wanted this blog to be entertaining and interesting to others, but I don’t care about that anymore.  All I care about is committing to writing here weekly, and making positive posts.  I think committing to that will generally be positive for me, especially while still somewhat mired in negativity: if I resolve to create something positive every week, even if it’s only dull journal-style writing, this blog should have a positive influence on my life, and it should help me grow out of this negativity.  This negativity and laziness is only indicative of past choices, not those I can make in the future: while this negativity and laziness has weighed on my emotions, positive choices will shift those emotions so that making positive and productive choices will come easier.  I can’t change my emotions directly, by snapping my fingers or resolving to be inspired, but by ignoring them when choosing my behaviors and actions, I can guide them to correspond with what I want my life to be.