If you haven't seen it, here's a portion of Michael Richards' recent onstage racist outburst. This is the tail end of the incident—if you've heard the audio recording, you know it lasted much longer and involved some 20 angry drops of the n-bomb. Almost as excruciating is his inarticulate, squirm-inducing apology on Letterman last night.
It's not often that you hope that someone is not a well person, but here we are. I'm actually hoping for mental illness. Skipped meds. A psychologically debilitating childhood fork trauma. Throw us a bone, Richards. Don't do it for yourself. Do it for Kramer. He's likely ruined for us now.
Much has already been said about Richards' career and social suicide. I have three observations of my own.
- Is anyone happier about this than Mel Gibson? Fit him for his halo now.
- I found it oddly affirming that Richards' audience uniformly rejected him and walked out. They could have just sat there like stunned sheep, waiting for Richards to leave, but they stormed out en masse. Fifty years ago, as they say, would that have happened?
- In the segment after Richards' satellite-link post-meltdown meltdown, Letterman of course asked Seinfeld about his three kids. They're 1, 4, and 6. "That's remarkable!!" Dave gushed.
