Larry David Gave Billy Bush His $7,000 Jacket! + MORE Untold Seinfeld & Curb Your Enthusiasm Stories

Blake Harris spent five years with Larry David writing this book, which, in my world, makes you a survivor, Blake. You're a survivor. How did you do it? I feel like I survived a Willy Wonka golden ticket contest. This was my dream project to write about Larry. Well, how did you convince him? Because there's no way Larry said, oh, sure, you want to write a book about me? No problem. I'll give you access to my life. We'll spend a lot of time together. That doesn't happen easily. How did you convince him? It was so hard. This was like the worst thing in the world to Larry. The book opens with him finding out this terrible, horrible news that someone wants to write a book about him, which is me. And it was a slow, sneaky, deliberate process. One of the big moments, you know, the first time I was introduced to Larry, he told me the 55 reasons why no one would ever want to read a book about him, why this was a terrible idea. He said that he has his wife, Ashley, and his daughters, Cassie and Rosie. That's only three people who would ever care to buy this book. And that's not a bestseller. But, you know, I pled my case, and I'm a persuasive guy like you. I think one of the big things early on was I said, Larry, just talk to me one time. Let's just see how the conversation goes. And for this one conversation, I don't want to talk about Seinfeld. I don't want to talk about Curb. The only thing I want to talk about is the New York Yankees, because I know he loves the Yankees, and I love the Yankees, and we swear to hit it off. So you kept it on the Yankees, and then eventually, you convinced him this would be a book about his career, right? The beginning, working stand-up comedy in New York. He lived in Hell's Kitchen. He hit the circuit with Seinfeld and others. He had these weird, odd jobs. I remember Larry told me one time he was a chauffeur driver for a woman who could basically not see, and so he never washed the car. And he told me he never washed the car. So eventually someone finally told her, you're driving around in a total jalopy. It's a mess. And she goes, Larry, I know you're fired. He had a good, sweet thing going. And that was, you know, first he was a bra salesman like George Costanza was for a day. And not a regular bra. It was irregular bras. It was Larry going around New York City trying to sell the manufacturer's defect irregular bras. And then, like you're saying, he was a chauffeur. But before that, he was a limo driver. I'm sorry, he was a taxi driver. Could you imagine being in New York and getting picked up by Larry David? Oh, my God. And was he a chatty driver? Because, you know, there's all kinds. I asked him that. He said that he can be chatty if he was in the right mood, but most of the time, and this is sort of throughout his career, even at Seinfeld, he would be so neurotic that once he dropped someone off, he would never get a fare again. That was the last fare, just like on Seinfeld. He never thought he'd come up with another good idea again. And of course, he always does. So, Blake, were you a big Seinfeld fan? Like, are you the kind of guy that can, you know, remember every scene and everything that goes? I have a great friend that you'll know him. He lives right next to me here in my house. He's a neighbor and a friend named Alec Berg, who was a writer for Seinfeld Forever. He went on to develop Barry with Bill Hader. That's his show. And of course, he was a writer on Curb. So he was in the Larry. I said to him one time, I said, Alec, give me something in the national lexicon that That was distinctively yours. From the writer's room, like manhands or, you know, one of these things. I bet I can guess, but I'm curious what he said. Go ahead. No, you guess. Regifting. Regifting. He said, I, the guy that came up with regifting, the regifter, I said, are you kidding me? That's the coolest thing ever to have that. So you were a big Seinfeld guy, you. Huge nerd. My yearbook quote is a Seinfeld quote. I love the show. I used to stay up every night. I lived in New York and watched WPI Off-network syndication. I recorded the episodes, and I was the guy at school, the not very popular guy at school, who had all the Seinfeld on VHS. That was my- I'll wait till the reunion. You're the guy that knows LD, Larry David, inside and out. Now, how much time did you get with him face-to-face versus the phone, and why did it take five years? Great question. So I would say that In all honesty, part of the reason it took so long is because this was a dream project, and I didn't want it to end. That's probably some part of it. And then I was also a huge beneficiary. I feel like a war profiteer of COVID, because when this all started five years ago, COVID was going on. I had Larry sort of quarantined. He had nowhere to go. He had no good excuse to get out of talking to me once he agreed to. So we spent a ton of time, I don't know, we spoke on the phone every week, I'm text every so often, and he's a great texter, starting as I'm sure you know, and then I was on set for the seasons of Curb. I got as much access as I would want, and I still can't believe I pulled it off. I remember telling Larry early on, he said, you're pretty good at making people feel comfortable. I to I thank you for that, but my job is essentially like that of a con man. speak. I get to know you, I make you feel comfortable, I build this rapport, but instead of draining your bank account, you end up with a great book in the end. And I feel like I delivered on that. And Alec Berg is awesome. He also ran Silicon Valley. And what's cool about Alec and what you see in the book, because as you mentioned, it's largely about his work, it's a biography of his work, as well as some of his life, is that it's like in the coaching tree, you know, he has Jeff Schaefer. Larry did not want to talk personal life, right? He didn't want to talk about his marriage to Lori David. That went on a long time. And now his new relationship with Ashley, which is... These two women could not be more. There you go. Actually, I mean, I wouldn't say that's true. Their politics are definitely not allowed. That part is true. But no, there was no subject that was off limits for Larry. If the book fails to delve enough into his personal life, that's a failure on my part, not his. I just didn't find a lot of that stuff interesting. I'm Maybe because I just don't like having to live through divorce. starting But yeah, I mean, in the course of my time with Larry, there was only like four or five things that he asked me to not talk about or to talk about off the record. And they were all things that probably wouldn't have ended up in the book. Like they were such innocuous things. to But I do get a lot, you know, his wife, Ashley, speak is now, his new wife, Ashley, is wonderful. We'll talk about how they met and get into that. And I think where it's a little bit blurry is that so much of his personal life now. becomes the basis for what happens in Seinfeld and Curb. As much as it's a book about those shows, it's not really because, you know, Larry did really participate in a real-life masturbation contest. He did talk to a low-talker that inspired him. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We will go right, you cannot blow right past that and add it to a list of other things. He participated in a who-can-make-it-the-longest-without-masturbating contest? That is a real thing, and that's like, I mean, we could talk about that. With who, like Richard Lewis and, you know, Mel Brooks and Rob Reiner? Who was in this? Frank Piazza, his roommate at the time in New York, but a lot of those people, maybe Lewis, definitely Larry's friend Bill Schaft, who was a late-night writer on Letterman, would say that even though they weren't part of that original one, Larry would always say, you want to participate in the contest? I'm undefeated. So he was always threatening to run it back. So he was a champion. And so, I mean, that just shows you, like, we all sort of know Seinfeld is based on real-life things, but the episodes that we think that never could have possibly been the case, even those ones are often based on real-life things that happened to Larry. Do you think Larry David is he's sort of like resentful of his wealth because I don't think he ever set out to be rich and he certainly had no master plan. Everything that he did, you describe it in the book as instinctive rather than career driven. He just. He trusted his gut basically and probably got a little bit lucky and in some cases stuck to his guns when any one of us would have been like, fine, you can have a little creative control. You can give me some network notes or whatever. He was stubborn and I think his massive amount of wealth that he has built. It's a total surprise to him. You're right. Like, there's so many surprises in the book. Every page is something new. Every day was something new for me. But the biggest surprise from a macro standpoint is that Larry was so unsuccessful for so long and so unlikely to succeed like even amongst the comedians which is obviously it took him a while to sell the bras and drive the limo and figure out that was his thing even amongst the comedians he was considered least likely to succeed and somehow he's the guy with this tremendous wealth and I and definitely there's a part of him maybe like a lot of wealthy people especially with him who doesn't think he deserves it. Like, and, you know, but I think, and that's what's such a fun part of what the book is doing is exploring those failures. And like you're saying, the one through line is that he always stuck to his guns, even when he had, when he was broke, you know, people might say, oh, now he has FU money. So it's easy for him to not compromise his creative vision. But no, he has that money because he didn't compromise his creative vision. That's always who he's been. Right. You when he was doing stand up and he wasn't as good as Richard Lewis and Jerry Seinfeld and all those people, but like. And he was, frankly, unprofessional. If the set wasn't going well, he would walk off in the middle. He was like, you know what? This isn't working. I'm not wasting their time, nor mine. I'm out. And he would just leave. And that's the one thing that you're not allowed to do as a comic. You can't walk off. You gotta finish the job. You got to recover. You got to recover. He'd say, I'm not recovering. I'm leaving. Bye. Yeah, if somebody, you know, if somebody heckled him, you can kind of understand, but it would be, it would get to the point where if someone looked at their watch and he thought that was rude, or if someone gave him what he thought was a dirty look, he would just walk off stage. And again, that's the one thing you can't do. So it wasn't even a matter of he was not funny or not. It's that he's, like you said, so unprofessional and having him open up about that was really fun for me. One of his great loves in life was Richard Lewis. He was destroyed when he lost Richard. He was with him all through the years in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Did you speak to him about Richard Lewis, and was he emotional? I've never seen Larry emotional in the time I've known him. Yeah, it's one of the few times I've seen him emotional. So I'll say I also got to speak to Lewis because that was one of the benefits of this taking so long. The book would have been much worse without Lewis's impact. You know, in his stories. But yeah, talking to Larry about losing Lewis is emotional. I also, as you mentioned, a big part of dealing with Larry, as you know, there's a lot of regret. And so getting him to continue talking to me through this book, you know, sometimes is a little tough. But I think sending him the sections with Lewis was something that sort of made him realize, all right, there's a good reason this book is going to exist. It's sort of. No. No. Being the loyal friend that he is, kept putting Lewis in. I remember being on set, Lewis couldn't even move his neck. Like, it was so tough. And as soon as they called wrap on the final, you know, the series finale, Lewis gave a little speech just talking about what a loyal and great friend Larry is. And that's something that, you know, I got to see firsthand over the course of five years. Speaking of walking off mid set, uh, as Larry did, you know, back in the early days doing comedy in the seventies there in New York, he walked off mid show with Seinfeld after seven seasons, the show went nine. He left before the last two. Do you get the sense that that was a regret for him or not at all? I, I. He never said it was a regret. I do get the sense it was a regret, you know, because he missed it so much, and I think it maybe would have been different if he went off to go do something awesome, but what he went to go do was direct the movie Sour Grapes, which is not something that he's particularly proud of. But, you know, all the signs were there. Like, I remember I was talking with Tom Gamble and Max Frost, who are legendary Seinfeld Simpsons writers. They joined on season five. At this point, Seinfeld's starting to explode. Larry is from the outside looking in. You don't look into his head. You know, one of the luckiest guys in show business. He's a showrunner of this hot new show. And their first meeting with Larry, their very first impression was Larry staring at a soup saying, I'd rather spend a year in prison than write another year of Seinfeld. So even when Seinfeld was at its height, he just wanted out. Right, this self-loathing and the resentment of his own success is what's so, and of course, led to his next great, you know, iteration, which is Curb Your Enthusiasm, which was, I can be this, you know, curmudgeonly type of neurotic kind of guy and people are going to love it. And so, you know, that led to that. In there, you know, back before Seinfeld is a really interesting moment in 1983 or so when Larry was working on a show called Fridays and they finally canceled Fridays and Larry wrote this movie called Prognosis Negative. I think it turned into a running joke on Seinfeld, but this movie, it's a tremendously. Funny idea, right? Limo driver living in Hell's Kitchen, kind of his own life, his girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend, all of a sudden only 10 months to live. He's like, ah, I can have a hot, sexy run with her. And then I don't have to stick with her long-term because she's dying, she's dead, and I'm out. So, I mean, it's a horrible thing, but this is where his true... Horribleness is the horrible thing that we think in the recesses of our minds that we would never say, you know, Larry does. But then in May, just this past May, the script leaks online. Some 24 year old kid, right, had it out there. And now this thing is public. Is there any chance that prognosis negative ever gets made or is he already hated? I'd love to see it get made. I think he hates it too much. I remember I sent him that link when I saw it go up because I wanted to make sure he had a copy of that draft. But I guess I should have anticipated it. He said, this is horrible. Take it down, Blake. And I was like, I'm not in charge of the internet. I can't take it down. But you're so right. There's so much of Larry in that script. And one of the most interesting things about it is that at that point in his career, he's not established, he's a first-time writer, and he had it written into his contract, because they're talking about his creative vision, his uncompromising nature, that nobody could change a word in his script. I mean, you know the business. That's unheard of for Aaron Sorkin, let alone for... Larry David and he sold the movie for 200 grand and still they were like wait a minute like I think the next investor came in and was like what do you mean he can't we can't change a word without him and he stuck to it and everybody blew it off. Another very quick very very Larry thing is his manager Marin Black you know as is typical they wanted a rewrite as always happens and he said he said great news I got you $35,000 for the rewrite he said no no that's too much I want less. And he had to negotiate for less so that he felt like he didn't have to change his mind, which is just so hilarious. He negotiated down so he felt better about sticking to his guns. It would be more expected of a $100,000 guy, but a $200,000 guy. The lead character, Larry's character, I guess, in Prognosis Negative, the name of the guy is Leo Black. And he finally brought it all the way around when J.B. Smoove comes on to curb your enthusiasm. He's Leon Black. So there it is. He's so good at that, bringing all these things around. And his inside jokes and his inside baseball stuff seems to work for large groups which is most of us don't get that. Yeah. And it's so weird because his humor is so specific. He has such a unique point of view, but he somehow makes it so relatable. And bringing things back in full circle, you were talking about Alex Berg and his former partners, Dave Mandel and Jeff Draper. The other reason the black name came back is because Dave Mandel was watching The Amazing Race. There was a family, it was a family season, and there was a family called the blacks that happened to be African American. And Dave thought it was hilarious how every time they were like, oh no, the blacks are coming. And the Blacks are coming, and he pulled that to Larry, and that brought back the whole Leo Black, and, you know, and Larry always finds a good place to use these things that he writes down in his notebooks. I don't like it. Reminds me of the Kevin Nealon comedy bit that he did used to do. And he did it on Conan O'Brien where he said, you know, he was talking about skiing. You ever been skiing? And he would say, oh, the blacks, boy, the blacks are tough. The blacks will really beat you up. You gotta be careful. But the black, if you want the good white stuff, you gotta hit the blacks. You gotta go with the black. And, and, and Conan is like, no, no. I mean, it is, oh, it's unbelievable. Another thing about Seinfeld that people. I don't know, maybe the masses don't know, is that originally there were three leads in the show and then they added the fourth. Who was not a lead and became one? Yeah, so originally, Julia Louis-Dreyfus was not part of the pilot. There was a female character, and it was a waitress named Claire. She was only in one scene, and the pilot is not very good. And part of that is because that was the one episode that Larry wasn't Larry's singular vision. He wasn't even the showrunner at that point. And then, to your point, he hates taking network notes, but the network gave him one note, add a woman, and him and Jerry actually liked that one, so they wrote this character of Elaine. And they based it off of a relationship that Larry had had in the 80s where he had managed to stay platonic friends with his friend Monica Yates, the daughter of the famous author Richard Yates. And Larry knew Julia from one of his other famous unsuccesses at Saturday Night Live. He was at Saturday Night Live for one year, 1984-85, got one sketch on the air, had a terrible year, but he found Julia out of that. And that's sort of another theme in Larry's life, is that even in these terrible experiences, he finds the little gem that ends up somehow paying off later on. A miserable, you know, it's like everyone else who just, the worst things turn out to be the best things. It's astounding. But then, you know, what is something about Seinfeld that, I don't know, you didn't even know because you were a Seinfeld expert going in, but you probably learned a ton from Larry once you got him going. Definitely. I mean, there's so much of it. I think just if there's a particular episode where the stories came from, that there was a real soup Nazi and all that. But I think that we all heard these stories about Larry threatening to quit. And I guess just a simple thing is. How much Larry really didn't want to do the show. I remember talking to both Larry and both Jerry. And after there was a pilot, the show basically got canceled. And Rick Ludwin gave four episodes. The show basically got canceled. The NBC came back and offered 13 episodes. And Larry and Jerry both had the same reaction. Oh, my God, this is terrible. But Jerry's reaction was, this is terrible because it was only 13. Larry's reaction was, oh, my God, how am I going to do 13? He ended up doing 130. But even back then, he couldn't conceive of how he would imagine these ideas for the show. And it was the process. It's just like, like Eminem, right? He would just have this little notepad and kind of walk around in life and write down his irritations, whatever irritated him, he would write down and make it funny. Yeah. Like seeing that notebook was like seeing the Holy grail for me. And like, you know, and for example, when him and Jerry still has the notebooks from, from all, from his years at Seinfeld, Yeah, because it's not even just that. Like, every year when he starts Curb or whatever he's working on with Jeff Shaffer, he'll go back to the old notebooks, because as he told me, you know, an idea that might not have worked in 1985, or there was these, like, puzzle pieces. They have to fit together. So something, it's not just, you know, an idea ends up not being good. He ends up trying to find it, sort of like you're saying with the Leo Black thing. Like, he always ends up finding a place for these pieces later on. Right. May sit there for years and years, but, you know, if it's in there, it's coming around. Right. And what would like some of the some of the scenarios and situation and people, by the way, people you talked about, you know, just running into, you know, his old, you know, the people he knew along the path. And somehow he brings them all into his picture. He almost got Rob Reiner, the legendary rest in peace, Rob Reiner, to direct Prognosis Negative that the movie he wrote and But that's how we found Cheryl Hines, right? She was, wasn't she working for Rob Reiner? Yeah. Like, I remember asking Cheryl Hines, Had you heard of Larry David, or were you familiar with him before Curb? Because I think a lot of people don't realize that before, even though Seinfeld was a mega success, Larry wasn't a famous person. He was just a guy who was famous to most of us, obviously. Right. To most people. But Cheryl said, oh, no, I knew Larry David because I was Rob Reiner, and I was their family assistant. And so I used to send out invitations when the Reiners would have parties, and I remember writing the name Larry David. And she said she got called in to play his wife. And so she actually knew him. And her reaction was, isn't he so much older than me? Are they sure they want me to be for his daughter, not his wife. But it ended up working out. Oh, my God. There's so many things about it. Is he happy the way that Curb Your Enthusiasm ended? Well, you know, Larry, I don't think he'd ever be so happy, but when I asked him that exact question, he said he was satisfied with it, and, you know, because for a guy with the amount of success and acclaim and admiration, he still was always haunted by the Seinfeld finale. I mean, whatever people want to say now about it, it wasn't as bad as it was. But he wasn't there. No, no, he came back for the Seinfeld finale. Oh, he came back for the finale. Did he write it? He wrote it, and that was like his double whammy. He came back with Sour Grapes, and then he wrote the Seinfeld finale, and it was like, so he got the blame as if, almost like it was single-handedly his fault for dooming Seinfeld, because it was going well. It did go well for those two years without him, and then he came back and the finale was a disaster. So he had these two things hanging on him for his whole life, and because the Curb finale was so similar to the Seinfeld finale and story, Larry felt like he was vindicated, and he loved having Jerry there for that. Has he let that go? I mean, the Seinfeld finale was, did he just bite off more than he could chew? There's just too much weird ---- happening. I think he just overthought it, because it's essentially just a clip show. Like, it's a clever version of a clip show by bringing back all the old characters. It's a great idea. I'm sorry, the concept is great. It just, maybe the execution wasn't what, it was just put out too much. Because that's what, the Curb finale is the exact same idea, but with a better execution. And ironically, the episode, the Curb finale is called No Lessons Learned, but he learned his lesson because he was doing it the better execution way. He's great at tying it all together, though. So that was his vindication right there. I mean, yeah. And you'd think, OK, I'm happy now. Then you don't know Larry David. He's not happy. We went out to dinner not long ago. And Jeff Ross, who is the executive producer of Conan O'Brien and been Conan's partner forever. And Jeff and Larry have houses next to each other in Mexico and they know each other well. I'm out. My girlfriend, Allie, is close to Ashley. So the four of us, the Davids and us, are having dinner at this spot called the Golden Bowl. And Jeff Ross comes over to the table. And Jeff, he goes, hey. He goes, Larry, I got my three buddies from college. And Larry goes, nope. No, Jeff, I'm not coming over to the table. I'm not saying hello. I'm not saying hello. I'm not taking a picture with your guys. That's it. I'm sitting here. And then after this, I'm walking out. So stop. And he goes, okay. Okay. Um, okay. It's just, and I thought about that. I'm like, Larry has interactions like this with people, but because he's built up so much capital as this curmudgeonly sort of, yeah, not that, you know, rude. He's kind of rude. That if he's rude to you, they're like, oh my God, it was amazing. He was so rude to me. And like, it's an honor. It's an honor to have him be rude to you. One of the more fascinating things to see, because he can get away with that, and we're kind of not surprised because he plays Larry David on the show and he's a lot like that, was Ashley, his wife, telling me that after she got married to Larry, you know, benefits of matrimony and respect and love and making each other laugh, but there was a hidden benefit that she went out with a friend and met the friend's friend of a friend and Ashley made a faux pas. She said something kind of rude and she was starting to apologize. And then the friend said, no, no, no, that's Larry David's wife. And then the friend of the friend said, oh, okay. So now Ashley had to get out a deal free card. Like it applied to her too. You know, he really met his match with Ashley because she has, he's a very funny man and she has the most infectious laugh you've ever heard. It's an explosive laugh. And so he probably heard that a few times and he's like, I need like a drug. He's a comedian. I need more. I need more. Talking to Blake Harris, who wrote this incredible book, The Emperor of Nothing, The Making of Larry David. And there is no more complex yet successful guy in the television business, certainly, than Larry. He just killed it. Like I said, I'm not sure he's wild about his own success, but he's got mailbox money for life. A couple of things that are in this book that I What will be interesting to people is, why did Larry do a cameo on Hannah Montana? Hannah. That's not Larry. Yeah, so that was like one of the first things I was curious about, because if you look at IMDb or you look at anything, he's actually not really done many cameos over the years. And any time he does, it's really something that he wrote himself, because he likes to write his own thing. So I'm like, Hannah Montana? And it was because he wanted to get tickets for his daughters, Cassie and Romy, to see the show. Oh, and so... He ended up, and then the showrunner who, you know, I interviewed for the book, he said he offered a spot on the show for Cassie and Romy to sort of sucker Larry into doing this part. And Larry, because as much as he's a grouch about things, he is a great dad and he loves his daughter. He didn't turn it down. And so that's like one of the few cameos that Larry David's ever done. And what was he, was he, was he Larry? Was he playing Larry? He was playing Larry David and trying to get a table. And the conceit was that not even Larry David could get a table, but Hannah Montana could. And then the final line from Cassie after Larry, her dad, failed to get the table is, I bet Uncle Jerry could have got the table. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. And how is the relationship? Jerry and Larry have a great friendship, right? It's still great. Did it ever suffer? It surprisingly did. I'll say, first off, I was surprised. I assume that they were like best buds. There was a reason that Jerry picked Larry to be his writing partner on the show, but they were just great acquaintances. And then they worked together on the show. I guess really when Larry left that one year, or after the seventh season, the show went on for two years, I thought there might be bad blood between Larry and Jerry because we've all been in creative partnerships. It gets complicated and strange with a strange sense of ownership. But not really, because Larry felt bad for leaving. The real problem was that he wanted a clean break. He sort of famously has never watched any of those episodes, so we as fans know more about Festivus than Larry. But he had to come back and do the George Steinbrenner voice, so he couldn't actually get away from the show. And he describes it in the book as that he was, like, coming back every week to do this voice, and it was like watching someone else raise his children. So it was definitely tough for Larry. But no ill will to Jerry. They're still great friends. They still talk frequently. Yeah, that's good. It would break my heart if it were any other way and probably destroy you as a massive Seinfeld fan. Definitely. Yeah, definitely. All right. I'm going to say two names and you tell me the relationship or the connection. Larry David and OJ Simpson. Alibi? So instigator? Is that how this game works? So I was, you know, There's like a Forrest Gump nature to Larry David, that he just happens to be at all these places where funny things or interesting things happen. And he just became a member of Riviera, the golf club that he still golfs at, with Lloyd Braun and with Ari. And he happened to be there on June 12th, 1994, having brunch with his wife and with Alan Zweibel and their wife. And who was there? O.J. Simpson, who later that day would allegedly commit double homicide. And, you know... Of course, it's just crazy that Larry's there and to imagine what happened, but Larry's friend, Alan, actually was a huge OJ Simpson fan, and Alan was a writer for Saturday Night Live and had a relationship with OJ, and he actually talked to him that day, and he saw him later that day. It was a very unlikely circumstance. Playing golf at Riviera. Hey, it's OJ at his table. There's Larry. He's at his table, the whole thing, and later on, allegedly that night. Yeah. Can't believe it. But it's like, it's amazing. You know, that was the first thing that sort of went viral with this book. And I was like, man, out of 500 pages, that's what went viral. But it makes sense because we can all imagine these Larry David scenarios that he sort of like looked at, you know, his wife the wrong way and OJ got a hint or something like it. It's just amazing that there's the idea of like a Larry David situation is now that synonymous with the general public, especially for a guy who couldn't get anyone to watch his comedy until, you know, he was 42 years old. What did you love most about your time, Blake, your five years with Larry David putting this book together? Excellent question. I mean, it really was like a dream come true, but I think it's just the laughter. Like, you know, with most things in life, especially good things, it sort of just blurs into a little memory, and the memory is of us making each other laugh, certainly him more than me. But I did bring something to the table, and any humor that I have, I credit him. I became a writer because of Seinfeld. Sensibility and DNA is because of Seinfeld. And I think that... He's a fun, funny, brilliant guy, and I love talking to him. I love making him laugh, and I think it's significant that he started off my personal hero and he ended my personal hero. That's not always the case. Usually when you get to know someone, whether it's a marriage or whatever, if you get to know someone well, you see their warts. But Larry is still exactly who I thought he was and hoped he would be. The question I wanted to ask you is, there's not a lot of people that Larry lets into his life. You are one of them. You must get asked a lot, what's the difference between the TV show Larry and real life Larry? What do you think and what do you usually say? Thank you very much. Not much. I do think they are very close. And I'll say to people, oh, you must laugh all the time with Larry. I say, no, no, no, no, no. Here's the trick to Larry. Here's the secret to Larry. You don't. Get to wind up Larry and the moments where Larry's doing the Larry thing and he's like, why are we going to the and he's putting on one of these days where you're like, oh, my God, I'm in the middle of a Curb episode. But it's you got to know when, when Larry is going to be Larry and don't try and make Larry do the Larry thing. Do not try. Don't be the person. This would be a great Curb idea. You have to underplay Larry. You can't. And I think he was probably surprised about that with me. He would think, oh, this guy's going to try and, you know, get all the. But I would just. Play it back with Larry a little bit and then Larry would start doing and then you could like effort it along and then one of the beautiful moments you want happens. But you don't decide. It has to be Larry. And that's... I mean, in addition to you just encapsulating him so well there, you're spot on about his approach to everything. It has to be on his own terms. Yeah. Is he an introvert? No. But he's not an extrovert because he's like... He must be an extrovert on his own terms. It's all about... Letting Larry come out of his shell and doing his thing on his own terms. And I think that the people who keep surrounding him are respectful of that. I'll share with you one little curb-esque moment with Larry. We are going out to dinner at Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills. It's Allie and me and Skip Bronson and his wife and Larry and Ashley. Three. Three couples, and I pull up, and Larry's just pulled up in front of us to valet. He gets out, and he's wearing this incredibly nice tan sort of, you know, for him, he's dressed up. It's a beautiful kind of a tan coat. And I get out, and as we're walking in, I go, Jesus, Larry, that is a gorgeous coat. You look so young in it. I mean, it's just vibrant. And he goes. All right, Bush, take it easy. I said, no, no, I'm just, I'm telling you, the coat looks incredible on you. Like, wow. And so we sit down in the middle of dinner. I, you know, I have to, I say it again. I'm like, if I may again, Larry, the coat is just, wow, that is a stunning coat. He goes, you know what? You can stop on the coat. By the way, it's not that great a coat. It's a little boxy on me. It's a little boxy. I'll tell you what, Bush, if the coat fits you, you can have it. I go, I'm not asking for the coat. I'm just saying it looks great on you. So we end up finishing and we go up, you know, we're about to leave and the general manager or whatever, the maitre d' comes over and he's like, okay, Bush. Time for the coat, and he takes off the coat, and I know this. I'm boxier than Larry. He's pretty skinny. I'm boxier, and it is a little loose on him in the front, so I know that's going to work for me, but I also know that Larry has long arms, and I don't, so I put on the coat, and I do the old stretch out the arms a little bit, and then bend them and keep them bent so that now the cuff is lined up just right, because if I hang it down, you're going to see it's going to come down halfway to my fingers. So I give it the bend and I'm like, what do you think? And I button the front and I keep the arms bent and I'm doing this. And Larry goes, Jesus, it fits like a glove on you. Beautiful. And I go, I didn't want the coat. I never wanted the coat. But if you're saying it's mine, I'll take it. So I leave, Mr. Chow, with Larry's coat. And I walk out, and as soon as we leave, the arms are still bent. I let the arms down as I get in. It's too long. I'm going to have them taken in. My girlfriend Googles the coat. And this is, you know, you've seen Larry. He just wears the sneakers and the pants. He does not dress to his wealth. We look up the coat. How much do you think that jacket costs? It's a Bruno Cucinello. I mean, if you had, I would have guessed. Brunello Cucinelli. Maybe that's it. Brunello Cucinelli or Cucinello. $7,000. I said, and he had no idea. He had no idea. Some, Ashley got it for him or something. I get in, I have a $7,000 coat from Larry. And I told him later, I had it hemmed up and I said, you know, that jacket, seven grand. I love it. He goes, what? What? Yeah. He's not loose with the cash. Thank you so much. . Oh, God. . . Blake Harris wrote it. . . It's a beauty. . Emperor of nothing. . . The making of Larry David. . . . Yeah, let's see it. . Why only half the face? . . The other half on the back. . . There you go. . Two sides to Larry David. . I was going to say, it's just half the story. . . Maybe you get another five years with him to do it again. . . . I did tell him, Larry, we've got to do the sequel . . so that we have a reason to keep talking. And he thought that was a bad idea, but not as emphatically as at first, so I can wear him down a little bit. Unbelievable. Blake, I can't thank you enough. Congratulations on the book. And folks, you've got to get a hold of it. I mean, if you love television like I do and like Blake does and the history of comedy, this is, if there's a Mount Rushmore, I'll tell you, Larry's on mine for sure. Thank you so much, bud. Thank you so much, Doug. It's great.