LARRY DAVID, STAND-UP COMIC; ANGST, ANTIPATHY AND NEUROSES LOOM LARGE IN `SEINFELD' CO-CREATOR'S HBO MOCKUMENTARY.

Byline: David Kronke TV Writer

Larry David remains true to his roots. He's keeping it real. For whatever that's worth.

In ``Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm,'' the writer/comedian's friend and famous collaborator, Jerry Seinfeld, points to him as an example of the age-old genetics vs. environment test.

Seinfeld observes that when David - the guy who both created and served as the template for grouchy George Costanza on ``Seinfeld'' - was poor, he was miserable. Today, after having fathered one of the most lucrative shows in TV history and virtually becoming the Bill Gates of Hollywood, David hasn't changed a bit, Seinfeld proudly notes.

David spends much of the special trying to prove Seinfeld's point. ``Curb Your Enthusiasm'' - the title itself a deadpan affront to the usual frenzied atmosphere that usually fills stand-up comedy specials - is a documentary, of sorts, charting David's ostensible re-entry into stand-up after taking a few years off to become a sitcom mogul. We watch as David uneasily prepares for a splashy theatrical performance by playing a few clubs in L.A., but mainly angsting about his act.

At one point, acknowledging the camera's presence, he frets, ``I'm beginning to sense a whole big wave of antipathy (toward me), and now there'll be millions of other people joining this wave.

The one time David tries to do something nice - recommending a former employee for a job - he ends up getting into a heated argument with the guy's prospective employer, which is only professional protocol if you're Larry David. ``Curb Your Enthusiasm'' is a fair cross between ``The Larry Sanders Show's'' look at show-biz phonies and ``Seinfeld's'' sensibilities, with David himself as inspired as early Albert Brooks - he has the same keen understanding of his own neuroses, but, like Brooks, has no intention of ameliorating them.

``I'll take that as a compliment,'' David responds in a phone interview. The special, debuts at 10 tonight on HBO (and repeating on Oct. 25 and 28 and Nov. 3 and 8).

Our first question, under the guise of concern: Under what circumstances could he be less miserable?

David laughs the laugh of a guy acknowledging a fair question but who perhaps didn't expect to have it put so bluntly. ``I'm really not miserable,'' he insists with something approaching jollity. ``I don't know how I got that tag,'' he adds, disingenuously. ``I'm not quite George. I used to be. Not quite - he acted out many of the things I thought of doing; George had more courage.'' What he's saying is, he used to be a wimpier version of an abject loser.

A notoriously shy guy - Richard Lewis says in the special that David's problem was that he just never got over the fact that comics have to perform before real people - the comic explains the impetus for his return to stand-up.

``I hadn't done it in 10 years, and I was curious as to what it was like,'' he says. ``I thought about it - never forgot about stand-up, I just didn't do it for a long time. I just had the urge to do it again.''

David considered charting his return more surreptitiously until a friend suggested the special. ``I resisted it, I said, `No, I don't want to do that.' But everybody thought it was a good idea. I thought about making it a documentary where you'd watch my material evolve. You'd see me perform a set, then see me three months later, working on the same material. But then I realized that wasn't quite how to do this, and we focused on the stuff in between. At first, it was going to be 85 percent stand-up, 15 percent documentary material, but the percentages ended up being switched around.''

Declaring himself ``fairly happy'' with his return to the stand-up stage, David says, ``The tough part was that, after 10 years, I had to come up with completely new and different material. All my old material was geared to someone single and poor and bitter. I thought I had to write around that. So that was a problem.''

He eventually developed about 20 minutes of new material, including the perfectly Dadaist line, ``The one thing I respect about Hitler is that he never took any (word used recently on ``Chicago Hope'') from magicians.''

Another unique aspect of David's show is HBO's ad campaign, which basically re-creates painful moments of David's meetings with HBO marketers during which he disdainfully and wincingly shoots down almost every idea they pitch.

Marketing Larry David ``is difficult,'' he admits. ``You feel like a politician in a way. It's like saying, `There are all these shows on, but vote for me, because mine's good!' It's unseemly. I don't believe it's very effective anyway. I can't imagine anybody seeing me on a talk show and going, `Hey, I want to see this guy Oct. 17.' I did press for my movie (``Sour Grapes'') and nobody saw it.''

Perhaps, but the last episode of ``Seinfeld,'' which David wrote, aired at the same time the movie came out, and everybody saw that. David offers a belated postmortem on the much-criticized finale: ``The problem was, everyone had in their own minds what the last show should be. If it was any other episode, no one's thinking about what they're expecting. But since this was the last episode, everybody had their own idea, and when you're competing with what someone else has come up with in own minds, egos being what they are, that's a tall order. Jerry was very happy. It accomplished every thing he wanted, and it was fun going back.''

``Seinfeld'' couldn't have left the air fast enough for Jedediah Purdy. Purdy, the 20-something author of ``For Common Things,'' has gotten a lot of ink lately for arguing that irony has contributed to the spiritual downfall of our nation, removing us all a significant degree from actual experience and emotions. He singles out ``Seinfeld'' as being particularly pernicious in its dissemination of irony.

``Good for us!'' David cheers, providing Purdy with the last thing he wanted - yet more irony. Curbing his sarcasm somewhat, David adds, ``I'm sure it's true.''

Nonetheless, comedy's most curmudgeonly auteur is undaunted by the charge. ``It's Philosophy 101 in college, filling up blue books,'' David opines with a verbal shrug. ``Smart guy. He has a theory, right? There's always a lot of theories.''

Of equal disinterest to David is the profound influence his show had on the situation comedy - it's hard to find many sitcoms on the air these days that don't employ some tweaked version of the ``Seinfeld'' formula.

``I don't dwell on it,'' David says of the ad nauseum homages. ``I am aware of it to some degree, but I don't walk around thinking or talking about it.''

If he sees his sensibility being ripped off, does it please him if it's done well? David replies, with trademark cheeky venality, ``I'd really rather see it done poorly.''

The facts

The show: ``Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm.''

What: Mockumentary focusing on the Seinfeld co-creator's return to live comedy.

Where: HBO.

When: 10 tonight.

Rating: Three stars

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Photo

PHOTO Larry David