Good Luck With All That!

Cosmo Kramer, Jerry's unemployable neighbor on "Seinfeld," ranks among the most beloved, iconic television characters in the history of the form. That character, and everything else about "Seinfeld," will remain popular so long as there are monitors on which TV can be viewed. I don't think we have to worry about cementing Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld's creative legacy.

But I think Michael Richards, the potentially insane but definitely demented actor responsible for playing Cosmo Kramer, is over. Finished. Done. He has committed career suicide, harakiri-style. This guy is the Sylvia Plath of sitcom burnouts.

It's not like he was working anyway. A go-nowhere movie career (Trial and Error, anyone?) and a couple of failed post-"Seinfeld" aberrations had already caused Richard's stock to plummet, long before this week. But...oh my Lord...

A video posted on TMZ.com shows that the tirade apparently began after two black audience members started shouting at him that he wasn’t funny.

Richards retorted: “Shut up! Fifty years ago we’d have you upside down with a f—— fork up your a–.”

He then paced across the stage taunting the men for interrupting his show, peppering his speech with racial slurs and profanities.

“You can talk, you can talk, you’re brave now mother——. Throw his a– out. He’s a n—–!” Richards shouts before repeating the racial epithet over and over again.

I've discussed some pernicious racism before on the blog, but I have to say that Richards takes the cake. This is some skinhead rhetoric right here, making light of lynching among other things. I'm shocked and appalled.

Watch the video at TMZ. It's not like he used the n-bomb in the pursuit of comedy, even lame unfunny comedy. This is not a joke gone horribly awry. This is not some Andy Kaufman, messin' with the audience shit. That's how the crowd responds at first...Nervous laughter obviously awaiting an actual punchline. Then, when none arrives, people start to get actively upset. (In a rather mature, measured way. Guys are yelling out "that's uncalled for" at Richards, which is not exactly an incitement to mob violence or anything. I think the worst insult hurled his way is "cracker.")

There's a big difference between being a bad comedian trying for "edge" and letting your deeply-held racist ideology to break through to the surface in a moment of stress.

Artie Lange does a rather humiliating routine about accidentally saying "nigger" during a pick-up basketball game with some black guys, and it's not funny, but I also don't think he's a virulent racist. (Probably). He's just a messy drunk and a merely adequate stand-up comedian with some great heroin stories to liven things up along the way.

I'd like to stress this point because I love offensive comedy and think that pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable through humor is one of the most important things we, as active and vocal citizens, can do for our country. (Just look at the impact Stephen Colbert and John Stewart have had on our national discussion this year.)

But this is not that. This is not brave or subversive or satirical. This video is just a frightening lunatic getting angry at some black dude for interrupting him and then calling the guy a nigger. The rage on display here, from a successful, respected multi-millionaire no less, is really unsettling. Where did that come from? I mean, yeah, he's a guy with a lot of talent who was massively typecast by a single, really goofy role that, though granting him fame and wealth, will essentially trap him for the rest of his days in the persona of a goony idiot. (Or "hipster doofus," to use the Seinfeld term.)

But come on. That's still not such a horrible fate. I think Michael Richards must have mental problems or something, because hostility like this isn't natural. (Full disclosure: I've met him before and see seemed aloof and reserved but hardly maniacal.)

Amazingly, when a black guy in the crowd yells out the "cracker" retort, Richards gets all offended. As if that's worse! And the manic behavior didn't even end at the performance. Here's Richards today in an apology that will air tonight on "The Late Show With David Letterman":

"…You know, I’m really busted up over this and I’m very, very sorry to those people in the audience, the blacks, the Hispanics, whites – everyone that was there that took the brunt of that anger and hate and rage and how it came through, and I’m concerned about more hate and more rage and more anger coming through, not just towards me but towards a black/white conflict.

There’s a great deal of disturbance in this country and how blacks feel about what happened in Katrina, and, you know, many of the comics, many of performers are in Las Vegas and New Orleans trying to raise money for what happened there, and for this to happen, for me to be in a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, you know, I’m deeply, deeply sorry. And I’ll get to the force field of this hostility, why it’s there, why the rage is in any of us, why the trash takes place, whether or not it’s between me and a couple of hecklers in the audience or between this country and another nation, the rage –"

Guh? What the fuck is he talking about? Is he saying that, in the aftermath of Katrina, his comments were even more offensive than they would have been otherwise? Of is he trying to say that the anger about Katrina fueled his tirade? Or is he trying to say that black people are particularly angry with him because they are angry at White America? I don't follow...but I don't think that this is a reflection of black and white people being angry with one another. This is about everyone being angry at Michael Richards for being fucking retarded. And I don't see how any national event, no matter how tragic, could possibly inspire someone to chant "nigger nigger nigger" loudly in public for comic effect.

You know you've done something bad when Jerry Seinfeld has to come out of seclusion to condemn your behavior.

"I'm sure Michael is also sick over this horrible, horrible mistake. It is so extremely offensive. I feel terrible for all the people who have been hurt," Seinfeld said of Richards, 57, who played eccentric Kramer on the hit 1989-98 sitcom and whose major credit since was the failed 2000 comedy series, "The Michael Richards Show."

The sentiment is appreciated by all sane people, but Seinfeld grossly mischaracterizes this incident as a "mistake" which indvertedly "hurt" people. It doesn't seem like anyone is all that hurt. Upset, sure, but I don't think anyone in the crowd's self-esteem was such that the rantings of this unstable loon could really do their egos serious damage. What's upsetting isn't that we found out some people think "niggers" deserve to be strung up. What's upsetting is that a man who has brought laughter to millions has secretly been a vile racist all this time.

It doesn't necessarily invalidate the genius of "Seinfeld" or even the character of Kramer, whose delightful antics remain hilarious, but it's just unpleasant to think about. This will occur to me forever now when I watch the show. But I guess Jerry Seinfeld can't make a statement to that effect - "sorry for employing this guy for years and making him famous...who knew, all this time, he really was the Ass Man?"

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd type: Comedian George Lopez has, to my mind, the most sensible reaction.

Comedian George Lopez told Los Angeles television station KTLA that he thought Richards' lack of stand-up experience may have been a factor.

"The question is you have an actor who is trying to be a comedian who doesn't know what to do when an audience is disruptive," Lopez said. "He's an actor whose show has been off the air, he shouldn't ever be on a stand-up gig."

I'm not actually certain that Lopez is correct. I seem to recall Richards having a background in stand-up from the years prior to "Seinfeld," and his gift for improvisation is legendary. (He famously participated in an Andy Kaufman prank as part of the old sketch comedy show "Fridays" and made up all of his monologues in the film UHF on the spot.) So it's not like he would necessarily freeze in front of an audience.

But there does seem to be something wild and desperate about Richards' behavior on stage, as if he's been caught off guard somehow by the hecklers. I'm not saying he doesn't most likely believe the shit he said, which is why he deserves the coming infamy, but I've never heard the guy say anything like this before, so he must know that it's unacceptable. What about the mild disruption of a heckler or two could possibly set him off like this?

Oh, also, Paul Rodriguez (who hosted the event at the Laugh Factory) said some stupid shit that, while not racist, makes absolutely no sense.

"Once the word comes out of your mouth and you don't happen to be African-American, then you have a whole lot of explaining," Rodriguez told CNN. "Freedom of speech has its limitations and I think Michael Richards found those limitations."

Yes, Paul, free speech does have limitations. You're not allowed to endanger the lives of others, say by yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. And you're not allowed to ask someone to murder your spouse or call a friend to arrange a kidnapping/drug deal. But you are perfectly within your rights as an American citizen to get up in front of a large crowd at a popular comedy club and start yelling "nigger" at the black people. You would (and should) get your ass kicked, but you would not be in violation of the law. And that's a good thing.

(Also, there's nothing wrong with just saying the word if you are a white person, depending on your context. If I am quoting a rap lyric or, say, discussing its use by another individual in a news story, that's not at all racist and would require no further explanation. I have typed it at least 4 or 5 times in this article, but that's just because I don't like saying "the n-word," because that gives the word more power and mystery than it deserves.)

This is not a free speech issue. It is a career-ending racist fuckwit issue, Paul. You're simply confused.