Remember when the whole concept of signing off an email with an “XO” was a relatively new idea?  When I wrote this piece for The L.A. Times, I recall being genuinely flummoxed by the fact that a married guy I only knew because we’d both taught writing at the same place was suddenly X’ing and O’ing it up in emails to me. Up until then, I’d thought such flirty but benign sign-offs were solely meant to be used in communication with close friends, family members, and people you were dating.

Can you believe there ever was such an innocent time? Now I’m just as likely to get an XO from a publicist pitching me a story as I am from the author of a newsletter I allegedly signed up for though I have no memory of doing so. X’s and O’s are now so prevalent that they’re barely worth mentioning. Especially now that their redneck cousins, emoticons, have gurgled to the surface.

Oh, emoticon — or, dear God, emoji — is there every really a place for you? In the admittedly judgmental world I live in, not really. (Perhaps this particular judgment is my birthright: Larry David — not, alas, despite our same last name, a relative — feels similarly.)

Now, look: I’ve been guilty of the odd smiley face at times. But by “at times” I probably mean twice and they were in all likelihood occasions where I was stricken with co-dependent guilt and fear that what I was writing would surely get taken out of context and I’d alienate the recipient forever if I didn’t sign off in a way more fitting for an 11-year-old than a grown woman. This Spartan use of emoticons seems appropriate in light of what I’ve read about the emoticon’s origins — apparently it was simply the easiest way a Carnegie Mellon Computer Science research professor could communicate whether something he wrote was a joke or not.

But emoticons have opened the door to all sorts of other forms of “just joshing” text and email communication that surely no nice Computer Science professor could have possibly imagined. Take the communiqué I once received from a guy I was supposed to go out with: Hey, it read, wear something sexii.

I tried to rein in my judgmental side. I tried, in other words, to not be me.

But some things cannot be reigned in. What adult with an IQ high enough to know how to text would choose to text someone he supposedly wanted to meet an instruction that she wear something sexy and choose to make the Y into two I’s?

I wanted to cancel the date. But, I reminded myself, I knew men who would never do such a thing who turned out to be terrible in some other way. Maybe, I reasoned, I needed to open my mind to the segment of the population who would issue such sartorial instructions and exchange two I’s for a Y.

Sexii? I texted back.

One for you and one for me, he responded. Pretty good, aren’t I? Wink, wink.

This was no mere smiley face, no cheesy spelling or forgivable abbreviation. This was willful idiocy followed by a prideful demand for congratulations and several winks. I didn’t care anymore if I was being too judgmental: I feigned a sudden emergency and never met the guy.

Look, I know it’s not original to complain about the way text language has taken over our culture. But I’m not doing that. In fact, I throw down btw’s and tmrw’s with the best of them. Still, I do this to save time, not because I’m trying to be clever. I’m not doing it, in other words, to try to incite a reaction.

But clever and creative texting is. I was recently telling a male friend the “sexy with two I’s” story and he theorized that the guy was simply trying to communicate the fact that he wanted to get laid.

Really? I asked. This hadn’t crossed my mind. Some women out there are turned on by sexii’s?

He said something about how emoticons are all we have in a world that’s growing increasingly technical and unemotional. Rather than saying I love you, he pointed out, we write 143. Now, as someone who obsesses day and night over words and how they should be placed together in sentences, I’m not sure how to feel about this. Are we making it easier for people to express their feelings — to, say, tell others they love them — because they can now use symbols instead of words or are we distancing them from their emotions by allowing them to communicate in tech speak?

I don’t really know. But I do know that if someone told me they loved me by texting me 143, I wouldn’t find that sexy — not to mention sexii — at all.

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Maybe it’s the physical and literal pedestal a DJ occupies. Maybe it’s the throng of girls staring up at him expectantly, poised occasionally against a makeshift barricade if the event warrants such precautions, arms all akimbo, hair in a post-coital swirl and skin glowing with the color given by one too many raspberry lemon drops. The DJ wears an expression that says “I hate you” and “community college.” Sometimes, especially if they’re European, he’s bouncing up and down with a feverish, hypnotic expression that means he’s lost in some self-contained vortex. It’s a duplicitous look typically found on strippers and other pay-for-play entertainers, an outward gaze that advertises seduction but inwardly is mulling over W-2 forms, poor career choices, the last episode of Glee.

For the scattered and horny straight male contingent of the club, guys who go back to work in the morning as junior media planners at trendy advertising agencies or online community managers, the entire charade is a little confusing. “What is that guy doing up there anyway? Where are the records, I thought DJs had records. Is this Jock Jams Volume Two? How come he’s allowed to smoke up there? He’s really not sweating in that leather jacket? Larry David was wrong – there are three kinds of people who wear sunglasses indoors: blind people, assholes AND disc jockeys. Why does he get free drinks, waiters don’t get free drinks, isn’t this guy just a glorified member of the wait staff? I thought it was his job to get me laid, not the other way around. How the fuck do I dance to dubstep?”

The DJ is eating it up. He’s pushing buttons, ordering drinks, getting phone numbers and rearranging images of his cat Frankie Knucklolz on his desktop while we silently add up the damage that awaits us when we close out our tab. We wonder how much longer we can extend the same two dance moves before anyone finds out we’re doing a thinly veiled 21st century rendering of a one-man waltz to ‘music’ that sounds more like a dial-up modem than a cutting-edge club soundtrack. We’ve sent three or four panicked text messages to our friend, but he never sees them because a pleasantly chubby Asian girl has taken a liking to him, and is plying him with drinks and strange compliments about his hair.

At some point we gaze into our girlfriend’s eyes. It was our idea to come here and she protested with ingenuity, promising to split a pint of our favorite but most disgusting flavor of Ben & Jerry’s and watch the new Katherine Heigl movie. We have grown to love Katherine Heigl movies. Our single friends will scowl with disdain when we reveal that we prefer 27 Dresses to anything Christopher Nolan has ever done. At first this was hyperbole, but then we saw Inception. Our girlfriend is wearing a most dramatic black dress that’s cut well above the knee and glistens even in the velvet glow of the club. She looks so hot. She’s dancing to music she hates, but you’d never know it. Someone tells her she looks like Mila Kunis. You look like a gutless teacher’s assistant on his night out. Holy shit, you are a gutless teacher’s assistant on his night out. How did you convince this beautiful thing to tolerate you for over three years? For the hour you guys spend together in the middle of a sweaty, hormonal dance floor, you can pretend you’ve just met, that you don’t even know each other’s names, that you’re taking her home tonight.

And when you move your two-year old son’s carseat to the trunk, and sit next to each other, roll down the windows and make out languorously and unhurried, you think back to the DJ, who’s unpacking his stuff, who’s going back to the hotel to sniff cocaine off a Hello Kitty vibrator with four gender ambiguous twenty-somethings, you’ll actually be grateful because you know in your heart of hearts, there’s no wife amongst the trollops.

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The other day, I’m walking down the street only to find myself accosted by a young woman asking me to join Greenpeace — which is not as much a joining as it is a paying. One doesn’t join Greenpeace: one pays Greenpeace to do various things, I suppose, including accost people on the street.

Now, don’t get yourself in a tizzy (I’ve never written that word before: tizzy. I like it). Greenpeace might very well be a fine organization doing a world of good. I have no idea. Nor, really, do I care. What interests me is that this encounter was such a familiar encounter: it was consumerist. That is, Greenpeace mimics any other corporate brand, hocking its wares for money in exchange for stickers, tote bags, and that sense of having done something good. When, in fact, all you did was buy more shit.

Again, don’t get yourself in a tizzy. What I’m pointing to is the performance. That is, put aside the content for a moment — Greenpeace — and just look at the structure of behavior: it’s the same old shit. And I think — I stress this part: I think — that real change happens when structures of behavior change, not when we do the same old shit under a different umbrella.

And then there’s the whole group thing. I have what seems to be an ingrained resistance to groups. I don’t join ‘em, however formal or informal. I don’t even have a group of friends — I swore off that shit after the hell of group politics that was college. I prefer the lone encounter. Or solitude.

But I am not advocating the selfish individualism that runs rampant in the US. I just don’t think that the way to resist said selfishness is through groups. Groups, as far as I can tell, foment sameness and with that violence: adhere to the group or die. (Think of that Seinfeld where Kramer refuses to wear the AIDS ribbon and they kick his ass for it. In fact, this is an ongoing theme of Larry David’s throughout “Seinfeld,” culminating in the finale which finds them in jail for apparent moral indifference.)

I return, then, to WS Burroughs’ ethics of the Johnson: the one who doesn’t stick his nose where it doesn’t belong but at the same time won’t let someone drown. This is my kind of ethics — rabidly individual but at the time thoroughly societal: A society of individuals.

And this is my politics, my ethics, my idea, my rhetoric: to build towards a society of individuals, a way to go with others but without demanding unity. This entails tolerance — who gives a fuck who wants to marry whom? Who gives a shit who fucks whom? And it implies a certain appreciation of diversity — after all, it’s a society of individuals and being an individual means being different. And so public discourse itself changes — rather than a media of conformity, we begin a media of multiplicity. And it asks for basic politeness, a sense of civility in the public arena: politeness allows individuals to negotiate public space without violence. It marks a respect for the other individual.

There are no doubt those who say: We don’t need more individuals. We need more cohesion, more togetherness. Perhaps. But I, for one, like my space and don’t want to give it up. And so I imagine a different kind of interconnectedness, a network of individuals.

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Once in a while a person steps into our lives and changes our view on the world. That person allows us to open up and see things in a whole new light; to embrace our true natures and stand up for what we believe in. That person is Larry David and we need him in our lives. But now the final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm has come to an end; with a heavy heart we must now consider the daunting prospect of a Larry-free world.

For a show that was only created as a one-off, one-hour, mock-doc special, and was never intended to be a show in its own right, the profound success of it has been a huge surprise to all; not least Larry David. The self-confessed ‘rich fuck’ who co-created, wrote and produced hit US sitcom, Seinfeld, has become an on-screen cult icon for his larger-than-life portrayal of himself in HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Sitcoms are a tried and tested formula. They take a cross-section of everyday life; a family, a group of friends, co-workers, and at the chosen demographic, the writers throw in a mix of often everyday, sometimes wacky scenarios to keep the characters and episodes interesting. What’s different about LD’s Curb? Well to start with, the show has no script. It’s more of a basic outline coupled with an LD pep-talk along the lines of “here’s the idea… now let’s wing it.”

Beyond its off-the-cuff style, the show achieves greatness through LD’s candid outbursts and grossly self-indulgent antics. That, combined with a well-formed, celebrity infused supporting cast including Ted Danson, his real life spouse, Mary Steenburgen and Richard Lewis (all playing vaguely alternate versions of themselves). Guests who have streaked across the show’s seven-season run include the likes of the Ben Stiller (playing a maniacal prick just a cat’s whiskers away from his real-life persona), Mel Brooks, David Schwimmer, and not forgetting season seven centrepieces, Jerry Seinfeld and the rest of the stars of the Seinfeld troupe.

If you have not yet seen the show, then you’ve missed out. Sure, I’ve heard plenty of friends whining excuses as to why Curb is not their cup of tea. They say it’s “too hard for them to watch,” or “unbearably painful,” and “so cringe worthy.” But friends, that’s the beauty of Larry –– like a child with no sense of shame, he is here to show us all the way.

The final season of Curb has been a real treat, adding a fourth-dimensional aspect to an already 3D concept by staging a Seinfeld reunion show within the Curb show. Genius. It’s rare in Hollywood to find celebrities who have the guts to really poke fun at themselves and the patent absurdity of their own lives, but Curb does just that. In Larry’s world, the smallest thing has the power to tick him off, consume his thoughts and subsequently wreak havoc on those around him. That tick can be set off by just the smallest of incidents, or the slightest of gestures that don’t line up with LD’s perspective, watching the consequences unfold after that catalyst is sadistically enjoyable to behold.

Try this season five gem for size… In a regular sandwich spot Larry frequents, the owner proudly names the sandwiches after his celebrity regulars. Existing sandwiches include the Ted Danson and the Richard Lewis – both sandwiches containing a host of delicious ingredients. So when Larry discovers he’s finally been granted a place on the wall, and the Larry David sandwich is on the menu, his initial delight turns sour when the filling is revealed as white fish, capers, onions, and cream cheese. “That’s disgusting!” he bellows. Bare-faced arrogance takes hold of Larry as he sets out to swap sandwiches with Danson and Lewis, before it all backfires and ends badly –– the usual result of most of LD’s escapades.

The humor is played very close to the line. If you’re easily offended, then Larry is going to offend you. Since season one aired in 2000, the show’s tackled topics including car washing retards, race (season six’s opener was entitled “Meet the Blacks”), religion, cancer (Larry races to split with his girlfriend before she is diagnosed so he doesn’t look like a jerk), and one episode in season seven even sees Larry in hot water over his relationship with an eight-year-old girl. Of course, there’s nothing going on, but still, the content is borderline twisted. It pushes the boundaries to breaking point.

Dwelling within all of us in an inner Larry who’s just dying to burst out and tell the world off.

Once in a while, let your Larry out to play.

Chilly Gonzales takes the stage at the Pigalle Club, a Forties-style dinner and cabaret spot in London’s West End (circular tables, low ceilings, regular intervals of green velvet), and assumes his place at the piano. He is wearing a brown knee-length silk robe with matching trousers and a pair of generously cushioned slippers. His hands are encased in pristine white gloves. With shadowy deep-set eyes and slicked back hair, he is the very image of the brooding piano maestro.

He eases into a medley of slow, spare classical pieces. The music starts off somber and restrained, but his fingers move with such fluidity that they can’t resist adding little flourishes here and there. The embellishments begin to mount up. What opened with an air of great solemnity is now becoming increasingly comical. Now he’s playing a blues standard with one hand, a blur of white hammering away at the lower octaves.

He wraps it up and turns to confront his audience. “Hi, I’m Chilly Gonzales. If you don’t know me, I’m a Grammy-nominated producer.” This is true. He continues: “I hold the Guinness world record for longest continuous piano concert at 27 hours.” This is also true. “I’ve got a lot of famous friends.” He pauses for effect, then performs a modest raise of the shoulders. “In France, where I live, they call me un génie musicale.”

In 2004, Gonzales, who is neither French nor Hispanic but Canadian and whose real name is Jason Beck, released Solo Piano, an album of concise minimalist classical numbers in the vein of Erik Satie which gave substance to the génie musicale claim. Those who came to know Gonzales through that album – his best-selling by some margin – would have been shocked to learn that the author of those beautiful, delicate pieces had previously made, among other things, a gleefully profane lo-fi rap record called The Entertainist.

It’s not entirely surprising that a musician who rolls out his “unfuckwithable resume” at the beginning of a show, and makes unabashed reference to his musical genius at every opportunity, should dabble with rap. Rapping is, after all, the art of the inflated brag. The Sugarhill Gang were extolling their globally-endorsed sexual prowess and enviable motoring options as hip-hop drew its first breath, and given the amount of hot air that’s been blown over 4/4 beats since then, it’s no wonder the ice caps are melting.

Gonzales embraces the spirit of boastfulness on The Entertainist and its more lavishly produced follow-up, Presidential Suite, although in Gonzoworld the line between brag and self-skewering gag is always porous. Yes, he may be “the greatest entertainer of the year”, but he is also “the worst MC” who gets “more pussy than a priest”. He is “the prankster Frank Sinatra”, a “combination of Joe Stalin and Woody Allen”, whom you may address as “Fuckeye” or “the one-eyed Jew”. Or “Chilly Chaplin”. Or “Santa Klaus Kinski”, because he spent a few years living in Berlin.

“I am the worst MC” is at once a villainous sneer and an admission that Gonzales’ rapping abilities circa 2000 left something to be desired. In fact, as he demonstrates during tonight’s show, Gonzales is a pretty good rapper – stylistically derivative perhaps, but deft, playful and always entertaining. He spouts vast jets of nonsense in his rhymes but somehow manages to be more upfront than any other rapper you’d care to name.

Musicians rarely speak about, let alone lyricize, the shallow calculations that often underscore big career decisions, yet here is Gonzales on why he left Canada for Berlin: “I still remember when it first occurred to me./ Fuck it, I’m gonna move to Germany./ I don’t speak German, screw it/ But hey! I’m Jewish/ And I need a new press angle and that should do it.”

These kinds of outrageous proclamations make listening to Gonzales, or attending one of his shows, enormously fun. His almost pathological frankness presents an interesting challenge, however, when it comes to interviewing the guy. Any criticism you’d level at him has already been anticipated, and slyly underlined, in his music, or on other platforms. When he released Soft Power, his paean to Seventies soft-rock, in 2008, he posted a video online in which a Mercury label honcho begs him to take singing lessons to soften his harsh Montrealer tones. In the clip he circulated to promote his London dates, Gonzales tells a buffoonish interviewer, also played by Jason Beck, that although he “owns” France, he remains an underdog in England, adding: “I’m not a young man anymore. This could be my last chance.”

So why all the second-guessing?