WTF?: "Seinfeld"'s Michael 'Kramer' Richards in Weird-o-Rama Onstage Meltdown

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I'd be more concerned by the "fuck off me." People say that? In that format?? Weird.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

yeah i have to say echoing scott it looks pretty clear kramer was going for some edgy lenny bruce thing and failing horribly, this is the first i've heard of any bizarre racist behavior w/ kramer so i don't really have any reason to believe he's more racist than say stet nevermind nude spock, there's no pattern of behavior established unlike w/ mel gibson and he doesn't seem to be specifically endorsing any concrete bigoted ideology unlike trent lott.

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

If they said "fuck off me" I would be doubled-over with gigglefits

― Dr. Alicia D. Titsovich (sexyDancer), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:07 (nineteen years ago)

My girlfriend works in Harlem. Apparently, a lot of white people are moving in and the rents are going up, so some of the people who've been there for years are resentful of all white people. She regularly tells me stories of being asked, "How you like it up here, whitey?" and being assaulted on the bus, etc. Cracker and whitey are the terms used. I'm pretty sure it's not a nice joke. And I'm quite sure it makes her feel bad!

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I dunno, I've been told that fuckin' white people got some fuckin' nerve and that I was lucky he didn't take me off the train with him. Would that have been worse if he added "CRACKER!" to the end? Eh.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:09 (nineteen years ago)

I'd be more concerned by the "fuck off me." People say that? In that format?? Weird.

Showing your relevance in this issue.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

"Fuck off me" is pretty funny.

― Beth S. (Ex Leon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:10 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.cepolina.com/freephoto/f/other.food/cracker.snack.bread.jpg /= http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Digestive_biscuits.jpg/250px-Digestive_biscuits.jpg

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

there's no pattern of behavior established unlike w/ mel gibson and he doesn't seem to be specifically endorsing any concrete bigoted ideology unlike trent lott

Yeah, I keep thinking that, along with the very valid point that things get crazy in comedy clubs, but I keep coming back to the fact that he angrily and menacingly started yelling "nigger" and referring to lynchings. Which is off the fucking map.

― Noilly Prat (kenan), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

Proving context is an issue. Thank you!

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

screaming "nigger" over and over and making angry 'you're lucky we don't live 50 years ago' allusions to lynching doesn't make you a racist per se. but come on, who but a schwartze-loathing hollywood racist would try to pull that off and think it funny? (BTW, I'm aware Richard's isn't Jewish, back off.)

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:11 (nineteen years ago)

"I'm out there, Jerry.... and I'm lovin' every minute of it!"

― stoked for the madness (nickalicious), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

bernie goetz has a girlfriend in harlem??? what are the odds!

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

Digestives are like some weird halfway point between cookies and crackers, so I think it could still work.

― Beth S. (Ex Leon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:12 (nineteen years ago)

haha you don't have a girlfriend, whatever

― geoff (gcannon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:13 (nineteen years ago)

What about chocolate digestives? There are possibilities there.

― Noilly Prat (kenan), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:14 (nineteen years ago)

CRACKER!

http://img.shopping.com/cctool/PrdImg/images/pr/177X150/00/01/c6/07/0c/29755148.JPG

― otto midnight (otto midnight), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

i wish i could find a youtube clip of bobby hill's standup routine

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

http://john-kerry-news.newslib.com/img/logo/8.jpg

"I botched it"

― deej.. (deej..), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

hahahaha

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, geoff, it must make you jealous to imagine someone so much worse than you could have a girlfriend, which just shows how upside-down your world really is.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

John Kerry OTM.

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:16 (nineteen years ago)

i wish i could find a youtube clip of bobby hill's standup routine

I was thinking of that episode when I read through most of this thread.

― Beth S. (Ex Leon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:17 (nineteen years ago)

your poor girlfriend! if only they had neighborhoods whites could gentrify free of persecution.

― ath (ath), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:17 (nineteen years ago)

dude of course he has a girlfriend - remember, she didnt brush her teeth or something

― anticon jemima (ooo), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:17 (nineteen years ago)

o no stet's gonna have to find another 'what's racist about racism' spin! - 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.

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:18 (nineteen years ago)

your poor girlfriend! if only they had neighborhoods whites could gentrify free of persecution.

Irrelevant.

She works for the public school system and this is the best place she's found so far.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:18 (nineteen years ago)

we are all jealous of nude spock and his lovely companion gentrificatrix.

― elmo argonaut (allocryptic), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:18 (nineteen years ago)

poor girlfriend then has to come home only to be berated about her teeth, after being assaulted multiple times by racists on the subway. ;_;

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

My take on it is this:

Dude is doing his act, and starts getting heckled by a black man. He tries to ignore it, but the guy's persistent, gets to him. Maybe the guy calls him "cracker", and references their respective races in his heckles; maybe he doesn't.

For whatever reason -- too much alcohol, too much coke, mental illness, a bad day, bad judgment, or yes, crypto-racism -- this trips a circuit in Richards's head. He thinks to himself, This guy is fucking with me, going after me no-holds-barred, and he's doing it because he thinks I'm afraid to fire back the same way, because he's black. He can call me whatever he wants, but I have to hold back, I'm supposed to tiptoe. Well, take this, buddy.

And so he calls him a "nigger", makes a left-field reference to lynching him, because he wants that moment when the guy's mouth drops open. He doesn't think about consequences, he just wants to let loose, wants to drop the A-bomb (or, well, the N-bomb). And maybe he realizes what he's done, but he can't backpedal, he has to go with it, try to work it into something that'll tie it together. But he can't, everything he does just makes it worse.

I may be totally wrong on this, but I think it comes from the same place as Elvis Costello's infamous "blind ignorant nigger" comment -- in that I don't think the real driving force is any uncommon degree of racism in this particular person, but rather the desire to say The Thing You're Not Supposed to Say. It's the impulse that makes people in relationships go after their partner's jugular. To drop the bomb, to say "Fuck you, I'm going to deliberately escalate this past the point where either of us can control it."

This doesn't mean it isn't completely fucked-up; this doesn't mean that Richards isn't a racist. But I think the "OMG he's saying what he really thinks" argument is simplistic -- or at least I don't think it's the only explanation for the abhorrent events we saw on tape.

xpost t looks pretty clear kramer was going for some edgy lenny bruce thing and failing horribly yeah OTM

― lurker #2421, inc. (lurker-2421), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

nude spock's bumper book of heckler put-downs

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

Another King of the Hill connection! He's right, though.

― Beth S. (Ex Leon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:19 (nineteen years ago)

poor girlfriend then has to come home only to be berated about her teeth, after being assaulted multiple times by racists on the subway. ;_;

It's true!

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:20 (nineteen years ago)

'what's racist about racism'

Racism is racist, but racism doesn't make someone a racist.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:20 (nineteen years ago)

If your girlfriend exists, maybe you should consider that she is a tool?

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:20 (nineteen years ago)

bobby,

i'm no big expert on race relations, but you seem like you're sort of a shithead.

― M@tt He1geson: Sassy and I Don't Care Who Knows It (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

omg plz to photoshop kramer's head onto 'get happy!!!' cover

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

lurker #2421's post is the most OTM thing on this thread so far.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:21 (nineteen years ago)

If she is a tool, maybe you should consider that you are sub-tool?

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:22 (nineteen years ago)

i'm no big expert on race relations, but you seem like you're sort of a shithead

But, how can that be? I gave you Page's "Lucifer Rising".

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:22 (nineteen years ago)

guys, there's no girlfriend, come on

― geoff (gcannon), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:23 (nineteen years ago)

lurker #2421's post is the most OTM thing on this thread so far.

Yea, it is. And he is agreeing with me and stet.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:23 (nineteen years ago)

I give +10 bonus points for still using Harlem as a boogie man spector town. I lived way up north there myself, never really ever had a problem. So I'm gonna have to go with tool for yr shorty, dude. A) terrible hygiene B) dates you C) gets harassed by random strangers constantly for being shit. Have some self-respect and dump her already.

xpost geoff we know, it's just funnier this way.

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:23 (nineteen years ago)

xpost That's fine. I agree with a lot of what Stet has said. I've been ignoring most of your posts, NS.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

pathetic argumentation. I might as well go somewhere else now.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:24 (nineteen years ago)

no please dont go!!

― anticon jemima (ooo), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:25 (nineteen years ago)

Please do, I suggest here.

― Allyzay Eisenschefter (allyzay), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:25 (nineteen years ago)

Ally, you should remember I hold my own opinions. Attempts at psychic teardown are pointless coming from someone I don't respect.

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:26 (nineteen years ago)

Ha, I've already been there!

― Bobby Ganush (Uri Frendimein), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:27 (nineteen years ago)

so you respect them black folx calling you cracker???

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 20 November 2006 20:28 (nineteen years ago)

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