Have you people heard about this crap with Michael Richards? He's better known -- or rather, only known -- as that dude that played Kramer on Seinfeld. He was recently performing at the Laugh Factory. Two black guys were talking during his set and it pissed him off. He went on this tirade screaming the N word repeatedly peppered with a a few hearty "motherfuckers!" I suggest you all go to youtube.com and search for it if you haven't seen it yet.

He later apologized via satellite during Jerry Seinfeld's interview on David Letterman. It was pretty lame, as most public apologies are. Honestly, I'm not so much offended as a black man. I'm more offended as someone with a sense of humor. What he did was wildly uncalled for. When Steve Harvey had people not paying attention to his standup, he asked them what they did for a living and then made fun of "computer school." When Bill Burr was heckled in Philadelphia he went on a rant about how much Philly and their sports teams sucked. And the crowd loved it. When two black guys weren't paying attention to Michael Richards he wanted to lynch them and spouted racial epithets. The crowd gets up and starts to file out. He has since been banned from performing at the Laugh Factory.

I really think that heckling is as much a part of standup as standup is. It's all well and good to have a really polished act, but if you can't vibe with the audience and go with the flow, then you aren't really a very good comedian. And if you throw a tantrum when someone doesn't listen to you, then you're just a crotchety old man who is probably better suited to physical comedy in a sit-com setting.

I wonder if he would even be apologizing or feeling bad if somebody didn't happen to have a video camera during this performance. My guess is no. But what I really wonder is why he would perform in a Klan robe. Geeeheeheeezus, that's just asking for it.

i hate him right now because i had to go through and edit out every N word and background swear word for our morning show–he’s a honky

So apparently Richards was never a stand up comedian until recently. Before Seinfeld he was just a comedic actor. Thus I think his explosion; he’s never been in a situation where he was heckled during a performance.