'CURB'S' FEELER LARRY DAVID PREPARES TO ENDURE YET ANOTHER SEASON OF HIS HIT HBO COMEDY.

Life is an ongoing, inescapable anxiety dream for Larry David. In ``Curb Your Enthusiasm,'' David's scabrous comedy beginning its second season on HBO on Tuesday, even the best intentions meet with the worst results: Agree against your best instincts to do a benefit for a children's organization, for example, and you'll no doubt wind up getting pummeled by a fat kid in front of the entire audience.

This season begins with Larry David - who's essentially playing the slacker incarnation of himself, a guy coasting on his money and fame from co-creating ``Seinfeld.'' He does have a meeting with Jason Alexander, who promptly insults David by complaining that he's been typecast (David and Seinfeld loosely based Alexander's George character on Larry himself).

No, what Larry wants to do most in this world in the second-season premiere is sell Toyotas. So he gives it a shot - and it ends badly, naturally. In future episodes, he tries to help his manager get through his separation with his wife, he tries to sever ties with his therapist, he tries to be friendly with a neighbor, he tries to keep in the spirit of Halloween, he tries to arrange for a nice birthday gift for his wife - and the end result is misery, inevitably. And, for us at least, fortunately - an unhappy Larry David is a very funny Larry David.

David spoke to the Daily News from his editing room, where he was putting some final touches on future episodes. Though he still likes to cultivate an image of being something of a misanthrope, he's become less reticent in interviews.

Q: The plotting in your show is pretty complex. How do you manage that with improvisation, or is telling HBO that your show is improvised a way of keeping them off your back?

A: I write a detailed outline of an episode and I send it to them. Occasionally, they'll give some input. It's never, ``You have to do this.'' They're always just suggestions. They'll usually have more suggestions after viewing an episode, like,``This scene is too long.'' Again, they're just suggestions. It's really been ideal.

I'll have some quotes in the outline that we might want to get to or not. That's it. When the actors come on the set, I'll tell them the scene, so they know what I want and what has to happen. We'll modify as we go along. Sometimes, what we'll do is not even close to what I'm looking for, but we zero in on it.

We do a lot more takes than if it were scripted. It takes a little longer, but on the other hand, we're getting real responses. That's what makes it fun to act opposite.

Q: Does anyone have trouble with staying in character and laughing during scenes?

A: (Quickly) Me. I find it particularly hard to keep a straight face when people call me ``a--hole'' ... and ``son-of-a-bitch''; there's nothing funnier to me. It's hard to keep a straight face when you're being called the biggest jerk in the world. When people think it, they never actually say it in real life, but every week on my show, someone's calling me really horrible things.

Q: The old saying is no good deed goes unpunished, but in your world, no deed goes unpunished. What message are you trying to impart to our kids: the glory of inertia?

A: That no matter what you do, it's not going to work. But you have to be me to have that happen. I don't know how I got that handle. Just years of trial and error.

Q: There's a thin line between kvetching that is funny and something that's not very palatable or funny. Where ...

A: (Interrupting) I see where you're going. No, you're right. You don't kvetch to go into a whine. Kvetching is funny without going into a whine. Whining is unacceptable.

Q: How well would the networks be served by switching to a system that doesn't demand 24 episodes of a comedy every year? It's obviously successful in England; how much better would American sitcoms be if you limited their output?

A: I don't know if it's a question of the number of shows. It probably has more to do with what the shows are. To tell the truth, even with 10 shows, I'm working in terms of weeks almost as much as when I was with a network. These shows take a long time to edit, and I have to write everything before we start filming, because I don't want to worry about writing once we start production.

The problem with those shows is probably interference with what the writers want to do from the production companies and networks. There are too many people telling writers what they want them to do.

Q: No offense, but you pretty much seem to be the last guy on the planet one would expect to see selling cars. Where did that idea come from?

A: (Brightening) It's not only cars. I always felt I could be a real salesman; I've got those people skills. I remember when I had no money in New York, I would go into stores and talk the people into giving me stuff. I'd pay them back, but I was always able to get them to give me stuff without paying.

Even when I was a kid, with the ice-cream man - I loved Bungalow Bars, and I was always able to talk him into giving me a Bungalow Bar. So I felt like I had a knack for salesmanship. Never had the opportunity to try it, so I made it myself. On the show, I'm not doing anything, so I give it a try.

Q: What kind of woman would willingly enter into an illicit affair with you?

A: Why? Do you know anybody?

Q: I'm thinking of the episode where you tell the woman you should have sex while your wife is talking to her husband.

A: Oh.

Q: Otherwise, that's a very creepy and dubious question.

A: Apparently, a very unhappy one who is not being satisfied. I dunno. I was out to dinner one night with my wife and this other couple, and my wife was chatting away with this guy and I was looking at this other woman. I could've said anything I wanted to and that's what I came up with.

Q: How long did you take off between ``Seinfeld'' and (the film) ``Sour Grapes''? Is coping with a prolonged period of idleness difficult?

A: Not too long. I started writing it fairly soon after the show. Of course, being a comedian before ``Seinfeld'' - that was a really prolonged period of idleness.

Wasting an entire day is something you develop into quite a skill. Reading the newspaper in the morning takes a long time. You have to have your muffin and your coffee just right. You go out; then, when you come home, you nap on top of the covers, not under the covers. Then you make some phone calls. It goes. Going to the dry cleaners takes up an hour. The post office, the bank - you stand in those lines, that's a day right there. You take public transportation, the subway, the bus, you have to stand around and wait for it, and that takes up a lot of time.

Q: How much of this material in ``Curb Your Enthusiasm'' do you think NBC would flag?

A: Last year, we probably could've done seven or eight of our shows on a network. The porno episode, no way. The incest survivor group, they'd probably have some problems with. The beloved (extravagantly naughty expletive), I don't know how we would've done that.

Q: What else happens this season?

A: More yelling and screaming. It only gets worse. And I say that in the best sense of the word.

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Larry David on being Larry David: ``Wasting an entire day is something you develop into quite a skill.''