This Week On A Very Special Real Time

When named in a lawsuit, it is generally thought that the defendant should keep his mouth shut. Except when the legal action is a waste of everybody's time, and the defendant has a very large microphone.

The fact that Bill Maher actually received a letter from Donald Trump's attorney, Scott S. Balber, attaching a birth certificate and a denouncement that Mr. Trump is not the spawn of an orangutan, is both troubling and hilarious.

You know in the coming days, Trump will be searching feverishly for some type of comeback that can level the playing field. But in his head, George Costanza is no doubt grumbling, "Jerk Store!"

The hour-long show was brilliant in a number of areas. There was the satellite interview with Julian Assange. Newsweek's Tina Brown explained the precipice of "culture change" in the Arab world, that the Taliban fear an educated woman far more than a drone strike.

But aside from the politically salient points and topics, there was satire at its height. Maher and his writers took the infamous Obama skeet-shooting photo to the next level.

Maher questioned to what lengths Obama would pander to endear himself to the nation's rednecks.

He could guest star on Hillbilly Handfishin'.

Or pimp out the presidential ride.

He could get tattoo renderings of his children - though you don't have to be a redneck to appreciate that one.

Or he could moonlight as everybody's favorite meth cook.

When I watched this sequence in my hotel room in Lexington a couple of nights ago, I was laughing out loud and nearly broke my hand slapping the desk.

I put the computer down and had to follow up down in the hotel lobby with the riff-raff after the Rascal Flatts concert let out. I didn't have DVR so I was operating off of memory. Either my delivery was bad or the Kentuckians didn't get the irony. But today I watched it again and it was brilliant - an all-time Real Time.

Ramp Up Your Enthusiasm

It is Season 7 of Larry David's ground-breaking comedy, but unlike other shows which traditionally jump the shark at this point, Curb Your Enthusiasm is still getting better.

Forget for a moment that Larry David and HBO hoodwinked NBC out of a Seinfeld reunion, which begins its story arc this Sunday. Forget we're going to see Jerry Seinfeld act (not Jerry Seinfeld's act) for the first time in years. Forget we'll see the possible redemption of iconic comedy actor Michael Richards.

This would still be Curb Your Enthusiasm's best season ever, and we're only two episodes in. CAUTION - SPOILERS.

First, Larry's quest to break it off with Loretta while she's undergoing cancer treatment has been brilliant. And just because Loretta just left Larry, taking her kids and Auntie Rae with her, doesn't mean "LD" has seen the last of her.

Especially since Larry's real soulmate Leon (Loretta's brother) isn't going anywhere. Leon said they were Leggos (interlocked). Leon will surely be goading Larry into confrontations, to "get up in that ass" for some time.

Meanwhile, Larry's best friend/manager Jeff Green, who we always knew was a sex fiend, has gone beyond the bounds of the conventional comedy. Two weeks ago he bedded Marty Funkhauser's sister, who was a mental patient. Larry was traumatized by the cries of "Fuck me fat boy!" while he was in the house.

Then last week, Jeff's intolerable wife Susie went down on him in the car on the way to party, causing a wreck that Larry happened upon.

But the best individual exchange, what the show is all about really, was when Larry broke a pair of glasses while hugging his former next-door neighbor in the cancer doctor's waiting room.

It wasn't just typical of what happens regularly to our protagonist, but was able to weave in money, insensitivity, guilt, shame, disgust and cancer.

Conventional wisdom is that George Costanza channeled Larry David on Seinfeld. I really think Larry's character is a mix of Jerry and George, the unwitting and the unscrupulous, the shlameel and the shlamazel.