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FIFTY WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER

Well, in six short weeks it will all be over. One of the greatest runs in sitcom history will finally burn out on Thursday evening, May 14. The very last NEW episode of Seinfeld will play to an audience of — who knows — maybe 125 million. What will happen during that final half-hour when Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer finally say goodbye? Writer and co-founder Larry David has been brought back to write that last 30 minutes, and he isn’t telling.

And we’ve asked a hard question this week: CAN JERRY SEINFELD MAKE IT INTO HEAVEN? The character Jerry — who lives in that fictional New York apartment, number 5A, and makes a living doing comedy at nightclubs with an occasional shot on Leno. Judging from the programs and all the reruns over these last nine years, this is a television character trying to get along without paying much attention to God. Is there hope for him? Will God open up the gates of His kingdom to people who ignore Him for the luckiest nine years of their life? And we might ask the same about the real Jerry, who is fabulously wealthy now — obviously so, if he’s able to turn down five million dollars AN EPISODE for a potential tenth season. Does the real Jerry need God? Has he ever thought about it? (That’s not something we can know, of course, although we can pray for it to happen.) And is it a joke to even suggest that this 43-year-old multi-multimillionaire has an empty life without a relationship with Jesus Christ?

I can’t help but wonder if we find a Seinfeld essay of sorts in the second chapter of Ecclesiastes. Because this was written by someone who was on the top of the Nielsen charts just as surely as the four Seinfeld millionaires from NBC. Notice how King Solomon hit it big-time as well:

“I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly — my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives. I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. . . . I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me.” (Those were the Porsche collections of Solomon’s day.) “I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well — the delights of the heart of man.” Well, this guy’s on a roll, isn’t he? But here’s a bit more even: “I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. . . . I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.”

Well, okay, there’s the setup. This is the Jerry Seinfeld of 950 B.C. He’s got a condo in Manhattan and a mansion in Beverly Hills 90210. But the next sentence, verse 11, is absolutely shattering. Listen up, Jerry and George and Elaine and Kramer:

“Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

All that money — meaningless. All the limo rides — meaningless. The headlines, the acceptance speeches on Emmy night, the chance to host the Oscars — meaningless. The millions and millions of dollars piled up — in the end, meaningless.

And really, in a quiet kind of between-the-lines way, the admittedly clever people who write these Seinfeld episodes know that they’re playing out a picture of meaningless life. Even they know it. I mentioned Larry David a moment ago; he’s the co-creator of the series and generally held as the genius — along with Seinfeld himself — who makes the show either fly or flop. As he confessed to Time Magazine when the news broke about Seinfeld’s retirement, the motto of the program has always been: “No learning, no hugging.” In other words, shallow and empty laughs.

And those who have watched the exploits of these four comedians know how true those words ring. Without God somewhere, anywhere, in the mix, these people never really learn to care about other people. Jerry — the character Jerry — goes from one relationship to another; one pretty and single female candidate after another, but none of them ever stay. They break up with him or he with them. And over what? One because she stabbed her peas one at a time with her fork. Another one got the ax because she liked a Dockers television commercial that he thought was stupid. In another fragile relationship, he actually gets quite involved with a very nice girl — and the relationship progresses quite a ways down the road even though he doesn’t even know her name. They’ve spent quite some time kissing on the couch already, and for some reason he doesn’t remember her name. So that’s embarrassing — he can’t bring it up now after all this time. “Who are you anyway?” And every scheme he and George and Kramer invent fails. She catches him digging through her purse, hoping to spot her driver’s license. “Oh, I was looking for some gum.” In the end she confronts him: “You don’t even know my name, do you?” And out she goes through the well-traveled door of Apartment 5A. “Give me another chance,” he cries out. “I can guess it.”

Finally, in a telling moment, his friend Elaine listens in amazement as he spouts off about yet another failed relationship. And she shakes her head: “You know,” she tells him. “Every time I think you can’t possibly get any shallower, you scoop a little more water out of the pool.”

Even in the real Jerry’s stand-up routines, he admits to the emptiness of his romantic
relationships. Men are scared that women won’t be impressed with they do for a living, he suggests. “That’s why we make up those phony, bogus names for the jobs we have. ‘Well, right now, I’m the regional management supervisor. I’m in development, production, consulting . . .’” Guys who work at the drive-up window at McDonalds tell pretty girls that they have a high-level job as a vehicular nutritionist.

And of course, bonds between two men are even more tenuous, as the fictional Jerry and George and Kramer endlessly demonstrate. In Seinfeld’s own words: “All plans between men are tentative. If one man should suddenly have an opportunity to pursue a woman, it’s like these two guys never met each other in life. This is the male code.”

Well, friend, we’re not here to spend five days indicting these four people. But as philosophies go, what we see on Thursday evenings at nine o’clock eastern, eight central, has been tried before, hasn’t it? King Solomon had it all: the girlfriends, the money, the fame and the fun. But in the end he found it was all meaningless. Every single year — in fact, several times a year — we read in the papers that a certain very famous person, big in business or politics or rock-and-roll music, has put a bullet in their own brain. Because royalties and one-night stands in a Caesar’s Palace penthouse suite can only last so long. And never long enough.

If we stay here in the book of Ecclesiastes, which reads like it came right out of Variety or the Hollywood Reporter, this playboy named Solomon finally gets down to the bottom line. In the final chapter he looks back at his own mess, and then maybe anticipates the thin prosperity of Mr. Jerry Seinfeld. And he has this to say:

“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth.” The sixth-richest entertainer in the world is only 43, so he’s still relatively young. “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them.’”

Larry David, who stood in a West Side deli with Jerry back in 1988, found himself talking about — you know, nothing. And they were also thinking about this pilot for NBC. And he suddenly said to Seinfeld: “This is what the show should be about — nothing.” And very quickly they were both millionaires. But even nine years later, Larry admits, rather cheerfully, to be sure, that “success is not what it’s cracked up to be.” He told Newsweek:

“I get up, go to work, come home, sit in my underwear, eat a box of Mallomars, watch ‘The Untouchables,’ yell at my wife and go to bed.” Then he sighs. “I’m married, so [all my success] really isn’t helping me meet any new women — and that was the whole idea.”

Well, we hope his tongue is right there in his cheek, where it’s apparently been all along. But being a millionaire whose name is on the television screen every single week in the coveted “Created By” industry line hasn’t been the magic elixir of happiness. It’s only when a man remembers his Creator, and builds his career and amasses whatever wealth does come along with that loving God at the very center of his existence, that life can have real meaning.

Jerry’s mother is an 83-year-old widow, living in South Florida. She tells People Magazine that her son is probably going to enjoy not working for a while; but everybody knows this creative genius isn’t going to just retire and count his money . . . not for very long. There are big careers still out there for Seinfeld and for Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander — who’s probably bound for Broadway — and for Michael Richards, if he can plaster down his hair a bit. Career-wise, these four are still “(quote) in their youth.” It’s certainly not too late for any of them to remember their Creator, and go on to show us some new material that’s really about . . . SOMETHING.