In case you haven't heard, Michael Richards put in a remote appearance on last night's Late Show With David Letterman. A few nights before at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood, his stand-up act degenerated into a racist tirade. A lot of people walked out on him…I suspect not so much because he was up there yelling the "n" word as because he seemed to be offering some sort of "anger management" breakdown instead of entertainment. It might all have just been one bad set in a comedy club but someone captured much of it with a cell phone camera and it made it onto the Internet. Here's a clip of what Richards said last night when he appeared via satellite with Dave…
I don't know Michael Richards at all. Maybe he is a racist at heart or maybe he's a comedian who had one too many of something and then did a very bad job of ripping off an outta-date Lenny Bruce bit that wasn't all that funny when Lenny did it. Either way, I suspect he did himself more harm than good with the apology. Then again, the man is not exactly ever hired because he projects a calming image of stability so I doubt it will cost him a lot of work. I do think he deserves some credit for not announcing that he'd been molested as a child and then promptly checking into rehab. Perhaps that's next.