• Santa Loses It by aweekofkindness.com [YouTube via BestWeekEver.tv]
• Previously: Kramer's New, Racist Material Not Exactly A Hit At The Laugh Factory [Defamer]

"I felt like sending Michael Richards a note," Gibson says in an interview in Entertainment Weekly's Dec. 8 issue. "I feel really badly for the guy. He was obviously in a state of stress. You don't need to be inebriated to be bent out of shape. But my heart went out to the guy."

The 50-year-old actor-director added: "They'll probably torture him for a while and then let him go. I like him." [...]

Are people refusing to work with him?

"No, people aren't like that," Gibson tells the magazine. "Those are just the headlines: Mel ostracized by Hollywood! Hollywood is what you make it. There is no great pooh-bah up there saying, 'Go! You are condemned!"'

Gibson's debunking of the myth that there is one unified consensus in Hollywood that could easily turn a beloved A-lister into a reviled pariah after something as inconsequential as a few stress-induced N-words should come as a great relief to Richards, whose long, dark week of tortured soul searching and reaching out to unreceptive community leaders might soon see a single ray of light in the form of a handwritten note, printed on Icon stationery and reading, "Dear Kramer: Of course you'll eat lunch in this town again. It's not like it's the Jews that are angry at you! Your pal always, Mel."

• Gibson feels Michael Richards' pain [USA Today/AP]

"Technically, not having been born by blood as Jewish and not formally going into a conversion, it was purely his interpretation of having adopted Judaism as his religion," Rubenstein told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "He told me, `I'm Jewish,' when I asked him.

"He said there were two mentors who raised him and who had a big influence on his life, and they were Jewish. He said, `I agree with the concepts and the religious beliefs of Judaism and I've adopted Judaism as my religion,'" Rubenstein said. "He really thinks of himself as Jewish."

What do some Jews think?

"You can't feel Jewish. It's not a matter of feeling. You can convert to Judaism. You can't not convert to Judaism and then be Jewish," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

Unfortunately for Rubenstein, this lack of acceptance for Richards' claim of membership in a group he's recently offended completely derails the flack's strategy for combating Jesse Jackson's unexpected call for a boycott of Seinfeld DVDs, as any future statements that the actor considers himself an Afro-American because of the meaningful role his childhood friends played in the formation of his racial identity will likely be dismissed as cynical, damage-controlling ploys.

• Michael Richards: Jewish by association? [AP]
• The Michael Richards Apology Tour: Kramer Tells Jesse Jackson About His Quest For Closure And His Black Childhood Friends [Defamer]

"That's why I'm shattered by it. The way this came through me was like a freight train. After it was over, when I went to look for them, they had gone. And I've tried to meet them, to talk to them, to get some healing," he said. [...]

Richards noted that the racial epithet he used is frequent in the entertainment industry, and acknowledged that it could have consequences.

"I fear that young whites will think it's cool to go around and use that word because they see very cool people in the show business using that word so freely," he said. "Perhaps that's what came through in that ... the vernacular is so accessible."

Richards' publicist also claims that the actor has already begun psychiatric counseling for his anger issues, but we'll assume that his recovery is taking place in a Mel Gibson-style outpatient program, as no indication has been made that he's checked into the Racist Rageoholics wing of Promises Malibu for a more intensive course of treatment.

Bonus: TMZ has audio from the radio show, in which Richards' somewhat-less-than-cutting-edge, "When I was growing up, some of my best friends were African-Americans" defense can be heard. Also: The KKKramer rap further increases the accessibility of the nasty words he used at the Laugh Factory.

• On Radio, Comic Apologizes for Tirade [AP]

While Michael Richards has not been having, to put it mildly, the greatest of weeks, the actor has already set upon the long road of "personal work" and Jujitsu of the soul that might ultimately deliver him from his shocking inability to launch snappy, epithet-free retorts at comedy club hecklers. A Road To Kramer's Redemption Round-Up:
· "Some of my best friends are Afro-American civil rights leaders!" Richards' newly acquired publicist, Howard Rubenstein, says the actor spent the day calling Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to let them know how sorry and not racist he is. [TMZ]
· A couple claims they were subjected to yet another racist comedy club outburst, in which Richards screamed at a heckler at The Improv, "You fucking Jew. You people are the cause of Jesus dying," before storming off the stage. Richards would later insist what he meant to say was, "Save your breath for your inflatable date!" but his gut told him the crowd wanted something more "Jew-hatey." [TMZ]

· A dissection of David Letterman's single joke about the incident the night of Richards' satellite apology ("I blame it on Borat,"), which calls the awkward, titter-inducing appearance the "first recorded incident of the 'Borat' effect: guerrilla comedy intertwining with reality until it's a shoelace you can't undo." Still, the logical penance of having a naked Al Sharpton mount and smother Richards is considered by most to be too extreme, even for his egregious offenses. [LAT]
· Industry types wonder if the event is bad enough to not only effectively end whatever career Richards still had, but also negatively affect Seinfeld DVD sales and syndication ratings, making the one winner to emerge from this entire PR disaster "The Seinfeld Curse." Suck on that, middling CBS hit The New Adventures of Old Christine! [NYT]
· And finally, the inevitable T-shirt (pictured), which impressively veers from the "graphic of face with memorably offensive catchphrase" motif to offer a subtle and interactive racist-outburst-mocking experience. [CafePress]

Inevitably, one of the unfortunate side effects of having a video of your racist meltdown (and subsequent, cringe-inducing apology to the "Afro-American" community) played in front of virtually everyone with either a television or an internet connection is that some troublemaker will comb through the deepest recesses of your IMDb profile and eventually turn up something that's going to look a lot less amusing in light of recent events and slap it up on YouTube. We can't say we've ever seen Whoops Apocalypse, but we're sure there was a compelling dramatic reason why Michael Richards had to portray a jive-talking blind man while wearing blackface that makes C. Thomas Howell's self-tanner overdose look convincing.

Bonus clarification: The Jewish Journal points out that Richards is not a Jew, no matter what Paul Rodriguez might mistakenly think.

[Video via The Assimilated Negro]

Those of you with "interests" and "lives" may not have caught Michael Richards' appearance on The Late Show last night, in which the actor appeared via satellite to apologize to the world for allowing his N-bombed-tinged heckler revenge fantasies involving fork-based sodomy to come spilling out in one ugly, unhinged, onstage tirade. But through the magic of YouTube, you now have the opportunity to spend the next seven or so minutes experiencing the cringe-inducing awkwardness that permeates the interview, complete with Richards' multiple references to the "Afro-Americans" he offended with his "crap," mea culpa enabler Jerry Seinfeld's scolding of a studio audience who, obviously confused over whether or not this was a comedy bit, tittered through parts of the apology, and Richard's questioning of whether Letterman's show was even the right venue for sincerity. (Answer: Probably not so much. Maybe if he'd hired a publicist to handle the situation, he could've gotten a spot on Oprah's couch, or some face time with established crisis diffuser Diane Sawyer.)

After the jump, some "remixes" of the now-infamous meltdown using footage from Seinfeld and UHF, Richards' two most celebrated projects. Enjoy these brief clips of questionable taste once you feel you've squirmed in your office chair enough for one morning:

• Kramer Is A Racist, Remix [YouTube]
• Michael Richards Stanley Spadowski Racist Rant from UHF [YouTube]

I was at CBS Television City today. As I was walking out, who should be ahead of me walking down the corridor (lined with photos of David Letterman, et al) but Michael Richards of Kramer meltdown fame. He was walking with two women who appeared to be part of his management team. He was approached by CBS Evening News producers to see if he would answer a few questions on camera, but he declined.

As he was walking out, he said to the women accompanying him, "...so you go on these shows and apologize and apologize but it's never good enough." One of the women murmured something about him having a PR person to handle this kind of thing and he replied, "I don't have anyone handling this. If I did, I wouldn't have gotten into trouble in the first place." He looked pretty good - for Kramer, that is. Dressed neatly in dark jeans and a dark silk shirt.

A clearly frazzled Richards seems to have forgotten the basics of the celebrity/publicist relationship: No flack can stop a client from spewing potentially career-immolating racist nonsense; all they can do is release a carefully crafted statement after the fact blaming their fork-wielding inner demons for voicing their intolerant, ass-kebabing intentions.

In case you didn't know, Jerry Seinfeld is scheduled to be on The Late Show w/ David Letterman tonight. Well, they got Michael Richards to be on the show via satellite. He apparently insists that he's not racist, even though he kept referring to "Afro-Americans" through the interview.

Ouch.

Richards is obviously well-coached; not only has his crisis management team made sure he's quickly making a public apology in front of millions of viewers, they've already trained him to drop the unfortunate business about sodomizing African-American hecklers with forks. Our tipster further says that Richards is claiming "rage issues," avoiding the "alcohol made me do it" family of excuses made pass by Mel Gibson. More information as it becomes available...

UPDATE: TMZ has confirmation from Seinfeld's reps that Richards appeared and apologized.

• Previously: Kramer's New, Racist Material Not Exactly A Hit At The Laugh Factory [Defamer]

• Extra [ExtraTV.com]
• Previously: Kramer's New, Racist Material Not Exactly A Hit At The Laugh Factory [Defamer]

During his Laugh Factory set on Friday night, Michael Richards finally tried out fresh material intended to achieve some separation between his beloved, bumbling Kramer persona and the working comedian desperate to forge a post-Seinfeld identity. Upon some reportedly light heckling from a pair of African-American audience members, Richards unveiled a new catchphrase, "Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass," one he'd hoped would supplant any oft-intoned Seinfeld quips about masturbation contests or the efficacy of butter as a tanning aid. Unfortunately, the less elegant N-bomb-laced follow-up to his lynching bon mot ensured that various media outlets, looking for a quick hook, will go with "Kramer's Racist Tirade," setting back his efforts at leaving the character behind.

TMZ has video of the incident, which should retain its replay value long after his publicists issue a press release explaining that the comedian has checked into Promises Malibu to battle the alcohol-fueled demons that would make him say such hateful things about a minority group.

• "Kramer's" Racist Tirade — Caught on Tape [TMZ.com]