Liberationist improv television

Heather Havrilevsky is so powerful that she can even tempt me to like Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Most adults are unspeakably full of crap. We recognize this when we're young, but most of us slowly but surely develop into full-grown, full-of-crap adults anyway. A perky co-worker asks, ''How are you?'' and we say, ''Great!'' even when we're in a foul mood and wouldn't mind kicking her teeth in.
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America is probably the most full-of-crap country on the globe, but the consensus here is that lying and sugarcoating everything keeps us on everybody's good side -- oh, except for the European Union, but they're just jealous, right? We're told that people who speak their minds like, say, Yoko Ono or Denis Leary or Ralph Nader, are slightly unsavory and will only screw things up and rob the rest of us of the good life we're entitled to. Plus, they usually smell funny and have lint on their sweaters.

And then there's Larry David, also known as the Only Man Among Us Who Is Truly Free. On his popular HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm (Sundays at 9:30 p.m.), David does what he wants and says what he's thinking at all costs. While critics have described David's character as obnoxious, selfish, rude, nasty, pathetic and worse, considering the unbearable burden of politesse the rest of us struggle under, David is a true American hero, one whose confrontational behavior is merely a natural response to the absurd and moronic requirements of modern life.