***

[Serpico]

.

[Kevan]

retirement.

[David Kirk]

What did he say?

Dave

[Serpico]

.
http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/20/kramers-racist-tirade-caught-on-tape/

http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/20/seinfeld-on-kramer-tirade-im-sick/

http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/20/richards-im-really-busted-up/
.

[Kevan]

his lovable character in the Seinfeld reruns will forever be tainted because of this outburst.

[Serpico]

his lovable character in the Seinfeld reruns will forever be tainted because of this outburst.

I still don't know what to think. If you contrast the two videos (the actual outburst and then the apology) it's a bit surreal. He was obviously contrite and apologetic, but much like someone who wakes up to find out he killed a carload of people because he was driving drunk the previous night. I guess my point is: anyone would be apologetic at that point, a few days later, after the "media firestorm" etc.

What I want to know is how he handled it immediately after the show. He was certainly sincere on Letterman, but I'm not sure what that says--except that after tons of media coverage he realized damage control was necessary.

[dave thompson]

......or it may be a sincere apology.

[Fat Robert]

maybe he stars in mel's next movie?

[Ray]

I haven't seen the apology yet, but I saw the tape. It almost seemed like he was initially trying to use the N word to shock, to make some point about political correctness or something rather than just calling out his hecklers in a very inappropriate way. But if that was the case, and I could be totally wrong, it got away from him real fast 'cause he was obviously really pissed, and then he just got in over his head and had no idea how to turn it off. Although not involving racist language or members of another race or religion, I've done similar things once or twice, where I started going off on someone in an ATTEMPT at dealing with anger through humor, only to find that it was going way off-track and then being totally unable to pull it back and just making it worse and worse. And having to apologize later because there was nothing left to do but admit you really blew it, regardless of intent.

I almost feel for him, but I don't think there's any excuse for saying what he said and he ought to have known better.

-Ray

[catulle]

Atmo...

[texbike]

I guess he'll be checking into an alcohol-rehab program and hanging out with the folks spewing anti-semitic comments to police, congressmen who enjoy the fondling of page boys, and those holy-roller types that hang out w/drug-dealing, male prostitutes.

Alcohol-induced craziness seems to be the excuse of the day. :)

Texbike

[Ginger]

Bandwagon...

If you're not "doing Borat" don't start in the middle....

[Ray]

I guess he'll be checking into an alcohol-rehab program and hanging out with the folks spewing anti-semitic comments to police, congressmen who enjoy the fondling of page boys, and those holy-roller types that hang out w/drug-dealing, male prostitutes.

Alcohol-induced craziness seems to be the excuse of the day. :)

Texbike
I watched the apology since my last post and, no, I don't think you're gonna hear any excuses from him. He seemed pretty devastated by the whole thing. He knew he fu(ked up, knew it was inexcusable, and seemed genuinely mystified by how it happened and how me managed to spew that stuff out of his mouth. He acknowledged he's reeling from the whole episode, said he talked to a lot of people that night but the people he was going off on had already left and he didn't know how to get in contact with them to apologize directly. Sometimes we surprise ourselves at how badly we can blow it - I think that's what he's dealing with at the moment.

-Ray

[flydhest]

This is why I don't refer to a cyclist as wearing knickers but refer to them as a "person of culotte."

[davids]

I dunno.

It's harder to see him as a bigot than, for example, Mel Gibson. I mean, "The Passion of the Christ" pretty much put it in the bag as far as most of the Jewish community was concerned.

But we really don't know what lurks inside a person, unless they let it out. There's lots of ways to scream at a heckler, atmo. He chose his words.

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . we've probably all at one time or another lost our temper and just haven't been able to stop ourselves. You fly off the handle, shoot your mouth off, then say to yourself, "Oh. My. God. HOW could I have done (said) THAT?"

Unfortunately, the vast majority of us are lucky enough not to do it on live TV. I would be happy to forgive him IF he would simply apologize and not make excuses. Like texbike implies, there are so many people feeling like they have to spew excuses these days. Nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions or admit they were wrong. In fact, most of our society is set up to give people ways to avoid doing it face to face, what with insurance companies and lawyers handling things. How many lawsuits and political p*ssing matches get totally out of control simply because somebody would rather die than admit they were wrong and apologize?

I would have some real respect for him if he just takes responsibility for doing it, actively seeks out the individuals involved, and apologizes to them without pulling some bullsh*t excuses out of the bag.

BBD

[LegendRider]

I dunno.

It's harder to see him as a bigot than, for example, Mel Gibson. I mean, "The Passion of the Christ" pretty much put it in the bag as far as most of the Jewish community was concerned.

But we really don't know what lurks inside a person, unless they let it out. There's lots of ways to scream at a heckler, atmo. He chose his words.

Foxman and the ADL claimed "The Passion of the Christ" could encourage violence toward Jews. Not only did it not, surveys indicated that most Christians who saw the film came out with a higher regard for Judaism and its historic role in the development of Christianity.

That having been said, I understand Jewish concerns given the history of certain Passion Plays, but I'd like for the Jewish community to acknowledge that there is very little Christian theological anti-Semitism out there today.

[flydhest]

Dave,
Everyone loses their temper, but I find it hard to believe that--let's take TooTall as an example--has lost his temper when dealing with a black guy and called him a ******. Losing his temper and calling someone a fu(king a$shole, I can see. Then saying, "oh my, I shouldn't have said that." Sure, probably. There's a huge distinction between saying rude and inappropriate things and spouting bigoted things. It has to be in your arsenal, ready to fire, so to speak.

--edit--who knew the more fully pronounced version of 'nigra' (don't you just love that Southernism?) was subject to auto-censor by the forum.

[davids]

Foxman and the ADL claimed "The Passion of the Christ" could encourage violence toward Jews. Not only did it not, surveys indicated that most Christians who saw the film came out with a higher regard for Judaism and its historic role in the development of Christianity.

That having been said, I understand Jewish concerns given the history of certain Passion Plays, but I'd like for the Jewish community to acknowledge that their is very little Christian theological anti-Semitism out there today.
I can't speak for the Jewish community, but I'll speak for myself - There's very little Christian theological anti-semitism out there today! But that doesn't mean that I, or any of my Jewish friends, were surprised in the least to hear what came out of Mr. Gibson's mouth when his inhibitions were low.

I hope I'm being clear - I'm not talking about a religion. I'm talking about a bigot.

[LegendRider]

Dave,
Everyone loses their temper, but I find it hard to believe that--let's take TooTall as an example--has lost his temper when dealing with a black guy and called him a ******. Losing his temper and calling someone a fu(king a$shole, I can see. Then saying, "oh my, I shouldn't have said that." Sure, probably. There's a huge distinction between saying rude and inappropriate things and spouting bigoted things. It has to be in your arsenal, ready to fire, so to speak.

--edit--who knew the more fully pronounced version of 'nigra' (don't you just love that Southernism?) was subject to auto-censor by the forum.

Years ago a friend of mine was bouldering (rock climbing) on some property popular with climbers. A man who lived next door hated the climbers and pulled a gun on my buddy. My friend - not a terribly bashful guy - got in his face and called him the n-word.

I distinctly recall being very upset with him and asking what the guy's race had to do with the problem. The guy was a jerk and a hot-head irrespective of race. However, my friend's answer surprised me. He said, "Look, the guy has been harassing us for too long and I was sick of it. I could think of nothing more offensive and insulting than calling him a n^&*^&*."

It was a completely calculated move based on his extreme distaste for this individual. I am completely sure he's not a racist and this was simply a "tactic" on his part.

[Ray]

I can't speak for the Jewish community, but I'll speak for myself - There's very little Christian theological anti-semitism out there today! But that doesn't mean that I, or any of my Jewish friends, were surprised in the least to hear what came out of Mr. Gibson's mouth when his inhibitions were low.

I hope I'm being clear - I'm not talking about a religion. I'm talking about a bigot.
I feel the same way. I was apalled by the portrayal of Jews in "Passion of the Christ" and was real worried about what it would dredge up from the worst of American Christianity. I was overwhelmingly pleased at how thoroughly NOT anti-Semitic the vast majority of Christian leaders/theologists reactions were in the wake of the movie. I don't know how it played overseas, but it was very well handled here. But I was about as surprised by Mel's anti-semitic rant as I will be when Tom Cruise finally comes out of the closet.

I think we've all heard various racial epithets enough times during our lives to have internalised them to some degree, as apalling as we find that. Certain scenes bring forth some of these words in that wierd place between my conscious/unconscious mind. I don't FEEL what those words represent, I don't BELIEVE anything negative about the groups of people these words refer to. But the words are there - they live in my history and remain in me and they don't seem to go away. I NEVER used them directly at someone or indirectly about someone and I can't imagine I ever would. But they're in there and I can't say it's totally inconceivable that in a fit of real intense anger, they could come out in the worst way. Michael Richards seems honestly shocked at himself over what he said. He hasn't made any excuses - he just seems totally messed up about it. If I ever did the same thing, I suspect that's how I'd feel. So far, my editor is waaaay better than his.

-Ray

[flydhest]

Years ago a friend of mine was bouldering (rock climbing) on some property popular with climbers. A man who lived next door hated the climbers and pulled a gun on my buddy. My friend - not a terribly bashful guy - got in his face and called him the n-word.

I distinctly recall being very upset with him and asking what the guy's race had to do with the problem. The guy was a jerk and a hot-head irrespective of race. However, my friend's answer surprised me. He said, "Look, the guy has been harassing us for too long and I was sick of it. I could think of nothing more offensive and insulting than calling him a n^&*^&*."

It was a completely calculated move based on his extreme distaste for this individual. I am completely sure he's not a racist and this was simply a "tactic" on his part.

That's a good illustration of my point, I think. That it was a "tactic," it's clear he had thought about it before hand and was ready with it for this guy in this situation. It wasn't a spur of the moment sort of thing. In that case, he had it loaded and ready to launch becuase of the particular situation.

Had it been out of the blue, that would have meant that he had that word all ready to go in regular everyday life.

[rob137]

I am not sure I understood the upside down fork in the a$$ reference. Can anyone enlighten me?

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . I would wonder if this thing by Richards DID start out as being calculated, but then just got out of control like someone else postulated earlier in the thread. He was simply reacting to the moment at hand and his anger at the particular individual who he saw as heckling him--trying to call up the most offensive thing he could think of to throw at this particular individual.

That's the only context I could disagree with Fly's otherwise very good point about having it "in the arsenal" . . . We all have that stuff "ready to fire" just by knowing the words and knowing their most likely effect. All that's needed is a violent enough trigger to set off their use, even if we would never otherwise use it and were not truly a racist, anti-semitic, etc.

But this particular word has such connotations and such shock value that it's a notch above just about anything else you could say to someone. I can't think of any equivalent epithet that an African-American could hurl at a white person that would have the same semantic impact value. Our policy here at the paper is NEVER to use this word, even if it's in a direct quote. Even in a direct quote, you just sort of have to write around it and say "racial epithet" of "racial insult" and make it clear somewhere else in the story what color each antagonist was. I can't really think of any other word that we have that rule for.

If Richards had to drop a career-ending bomb, then he chose well--it's the nuclear bomb of insults.

BBD

[Climb01742]

This is why I don't refer to a cyclist as wearing knickers but refer to them as a "person of culotte."

more than funny. that's witty. noel coward is paging you.

[swoop]

when someone feels shamed and exposed.. they behave in ways to attempt to shame and expose the person that put them in that position. if i'm torn open, i need to knock you down with all my might so i can close myself back up.

its called: unconscious nonverbal affective communication.
i doubt the dude is a racist or that in anger his true feelings were exposed.
i believe he knew he was tanking, see's himself in a distorted heightened way and has been protected from failure by the mechanisim of celebrity (blame the writers for post seinfeld failures) and when he was called-out he went into deep shame.

shame of all the emotions causes a quick over-response. what he said and did is less likely to be about the content and more likely connected to the stuff of celebrity... what i mean is.. there is a huge hole there that can only be filled by a world full of attention and when he fails to gain that attention.. he implodes into shame and anger.. feelings that are so violent internally that one can feel as if fighting for their life (acutally fighting to stay psychologically integrated).

the world will make it about racism.. but thats the easy way out because in most cases racism is a symptom of something deeper.

the thing about never looking beyound the surface of stuff is that you never address the real issue.

aside from that..like most celebs i've encountered.. there are clearly some issues going on. you may laugh at this.... but it is what it is. and the things is .. when you don't deal with yourself.... you carry around this explosive stuff and no matter how small the trigger.. there is a huge explosion.. and if you keep it about the trigger.. you still don't have to deal with yourself.

celebrity is a kind of pathology.

atmo.

[stevep]

im not going to call frysthnu a blockhead again*.
im sorry.

* unless totally necessary as noted above.

[ThasFACE]

It almost seemed like he was initially trying to use the N word to shock, to make some point about political correctness or something rather than just calling out his hecklers in a very inappropriate way.

It seemed to me that he initially meant it to be a joke but quickly got trapped and couldn't backtrack... and then he completely jumped the tracks. Not an excuse, but an explanation. Much in the same way that Mel's drunkenness does not excuse, but might explain.

[davids]

when someone feels shamed and exposed.. they behave in ways to attempt to shame and expose the person that put them in that position. if i'm torn open, i need to knock you down with all my might so i can close myself back up.

its called: unconscious nonverbal affective communication.
i doubt the dude is a racist or that in anger his true feelings were exposed.
i believe he knew he was tanking, see's himself in a distorted heightened way and has been protected from failure by the mechanisim of celebrity (blame the writers for post seinfeld failures) and when he was called-out he went into deep shame.

shame of all the emotions causes a quick over-response. what he said and did is less likely to be about the content and more likely connected to the stuff of celebrity... what i mean is.. there is a huge hole there that can only be filled by a world full of attention and when he fails to gain that attention.. he implodes into shame and anger.. feelings that are so violent internally that one can feel as if fighting for their life (acutally fighting to stay psychologically integrated).

the world will make it about racism.. but thats the easy way out because in most cases racism is a symptom of something deeper.

the thing about never looking beyound the surface of stuff is that you never address the real issue.

aside from that..like most celebs i've encountered.. there are clearly some issues going on. you may laugh at this.... but it is what it is. and the things is .. when you don't deal with yourself.... you carry around this explosive stuff and no matter how small the trigger.. there is a huge explosion.. and if you keep it about the trigger.. you still don't have to deal with yourself.

celebrity is a kind of pathology.

atmo.
mmmmmaybe. I have trouble getting past the content.

Flyd said it well. If he'd gone off the handle about the "@ssholes" in the audience, I'd prescribe some simple anger management. But his language was pretty specific, and it leads me to think that, no matter how good your diagnosis is, there's another dimension you haven't dealt with. Racism, atmo.

[swoop]

i'm not condoning.. the dood is a j*cka** and you just don't say some things.. or hopefully feel them... but people tend to stop at a certain level and the issues then never get resolved. yes disgusting racism... trust me.. i'm irish and jewish.. i hate half of myself at all times....
(it's a joke)..

the psychological process underneath is juicy. that's my point. yeah i get the racism part.. that's easy.... there's even racism within communites over the shade of skin... it's a vile thing.. but it's really a symptom of greater things.

symptoms are rarely a good thing... unless they are flagging you to your own stuff... so you can deal.
taking smething out of a context (still vile non the less) and enlarging to a global scale... will cost him a lot.

[davids]

the psychological process underneath is juicy. that's my point. yeah i get the racism part.. that's easy.... there's even racism within communites over the shade of skin... it's a vile thing.. but it's really a symptom of greater things.

symptoms are rarely a good thing... unless they are flagging you to your own stuff... so you can deal.
I feel ya.

[stevep]

[QUOTE=swoop] i hate half of myself at all times....
(it's a joke)..
QUOTE]

half the time i hate the part that cant climb...the other half i hate the part that cant sprint...

[Climb01742]

cheap video cameras. who'd have thought their impact could be so big?

[Sandy]

[QUOTE=swoop] i hate half of myself at all times....
(it's a joke)..
QUOTE]

half the time i hate the part that cant climb...the other half i hate the part that cant sprint...

Gosh. I must hate all my halves. All 25 of them. :rolleyes:

Sandy

[fstrthnu]

.

[Sandy]

"Kramer's" tirade seem like racism to me. Analyze it as you wish, but he had lots of other choices and he kept the same focus throughout. The words and combination of words seemed too readily available to him.



Sandy

[fierte_poser]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UonEdXBl1xw

Full apology here. Watch it before youtube takes it down since its copyrighted material.

[1centaur]

.Our policy here at the paper is NEVER to use this word, even if it's in a direct quote. Even in a direct quote, you just sort of have to write around it and say "racial epithet" of "racial insult" and make it clear somewhere else in the story what color each antagonist was. I can't really think of any other word that we have that rule for.
BBD

A slight tangent, but the whole development of "the n word" is very disturbing on a number of levels. There is clearly a difference between someone saying (and meaning), "You (n-word)!" and someone saying, "that creep called him a (n- word)," yet swaths of society pretend that is not true. If we trivialize racism by roping off words from the language we undermine our progress towards equality. Pretending that the mere utterance of a word is racist is an insult to the intellectual capacity of people to understand what racism is. I don't see a lot of people in this thread declaring Richards a racist merely because he uttered that word; we are discussing context rationally. And yet we can't bring ourselves to say or write the n word, fearing we will be labeled as racist. To me, that in itself could be viewed as racist, because we fear the label mostly from people of color, so we aren't according them the same ability to distinguish context that we accord ourselves. That's not equality, it's expedience.

I fear the rush by other special interst groups to claim the other 25 letters of the alphabet. I can see it now: "OMG, he called him the x word!" You know, xenophobe.

[William]

I can't speak for Richard's, just something for you to consider:

When I was a kid/teen living in Tacoma Wa, the racial make up of the school I went to was roughly 50/50 black & white. Parts of Tacoma were pretty rough back then (and probably still are) and there was a lot of "activity" going on at the time that most gangs today use guns to deal with. The group that I hung out with (my friends) was like wise about 50/50 Black & White. In that area, the word ****** wasn't so much used to negatively describe a race, it was ascribed more to an attitude or manner of behavior. Meaning white guys as well as black guys were called ******. In that context, he could be using the term to basically call the guy an a-hole. Again, I'm not saying that's what happened here. And since I have lived in many different places, I know that line of thinking is not widespread.

Just a thought.

William

[BumbleBeeDave]

A slight tangent, but the whole development of "the n word" is very disturbing on a number of levels. There is clearly a difference between someone saying (and meaning), "You (n-word)!" and someone saying, "that creep called him a (n- word)," yet swaths of society pretend that is not true. If we trivialize racism by roping off words from the language we undermine our progress towards equality. Pretending that the mere utterance of a word is racist is an insult to the intellectual capacity of people to understand what racism is. I don't see a lot of people in this thread declaring Richards a racist merely because he uttered that word; we are discussing context rationally. And yet we can't bring ourselves to say or write the n word, fearing we will be labeled as racist. To me, that in itself could be viewed as racist, because we fear the label mostly from people of color, so we aren't according them the same ability to distinguish context that we accord ourselves. That's not equality, it's expedience.

I fear the rush by other special interst groups to claim the other 25 letters of the alphabet. I can see it now: "OMG, he called him the x word!" You know, xenophobe.

I lack context here to definitively state that Richards is a "racist." Does one incident of using the word make him one? As 1centaur says, if that's true then almost everyone is a racist by that definition of the word.

But I don't want to get off on too much of a tangent here. To me, the one incident does not label him forever because there's no pattern. I would need to see some evidence that he uses language like this often--that he does things consistently this way. There's no established pattern, and in the absence of that I'd have to cut the guy some slack and assume he really, REALLY stuck his foot in his mouth in a moment of rage at some individuals who were being extremely rude to him as he tried to do his job, but no more than that.

But he's gonna get crucified by special interest groups that seem to get their jollies out of screaming about stuff like this. The same as the Italian-American league screams about "The Sopranos" and the Jewish Defense League howls when there's any portrayal in the media they find unacceptable. But unfortunately, there's no "Middle-Aged-White-Guy Defense League" and so Richards is gonna get hammered. He's really pulled a "Pee-Wee Herman" here . . .

BBD

[Grant McLean]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UonEdXBl1xw

Full apology here. Watch it before youtube takes it down since its copyrighted material.


I watched the clip of from the comedy club, and then the Letterman exerpt too.

One thing that struck me right away was that Richards was totally unfunny.
He was bombing big time. What happens from there, it just gets weird.
Secondly, what was with the audience on Letterman laughing?? Richards
is trying to explain this horrible train wreck, and people in the audience
think it's funny? Got me thinking about Borat, and how so many people aren't
going to get the satire. Another is the proliferation of the n-word in rap,
and how 80% of it is for white suburban kids, who don't understand the
power of that word. The fact "that word" still has the power it does today
is remarkable. Just about every other curse word is meaningless to shock
people anymore.

g

[bcm119]

I find it difficult to give Richards the benefit of the doubt. Its obvious that he lost his temper up there, but its also obvious that what he saw in the audience was not just a heckler that pushed him past his limit, it was a black heckler. IMO we were seeing his true colors there, no pun intended. I reserve the right to believe that he is a first class a-hole.


I agree with 1Centaur about the PC phenomena. I think the ultra-PC media has inadvertently supressed awareness of racism and possibly slowed any progress we've made towards equality. There is plenty of prejudice simmering in the depths of many americans' subconscience... I applaud the Borat movie for fooling people into exposing it.

[catulle]

I watched the clip of from the comedy club, and then the Letterman exerpt too.

One thing that struck me right away was that Richards was totally unfunny.
He was bombing big time. What happens from there, it just gets weird.
Secondly, what was with the audience on Letterman laughing?? Richards
is trying to explain this horrible train wreck, and people in the audience
think it's funny? Got me thinking about Borat, and how so many people aren't
going to get the satire. Another is the proliferation of the n-word in rap,
and how 80% of it is for white suburban kids, who don't understand the
power of that word. The fact "that word" still has the power it does today
is remarkable. Just about every other curse word is meaningless to shock
people anymore.

g

You amaze me every time. I like the way you think. Where I live the population is very heterogeneous and hardly racist. Some people here are classist rather than racist. Yet, human nature being the way it is, there are special words for the different races and/or ethnic groups, but they are mostly harmless and with little hostile content to them. To call a black person by the special word for blacks is not only common but often endearing. Yes, believe it or not.

However, to call an upper-class white person a "rabiblanco" (whitetail) is rather insulting, as it reflects the classist spirit of a determined group of people. In other words, I'd guess it all depends upon the social dynamics of every community or group. These types of words portray deeply grounded attitudes which in time could change. Evidently, words such as ****** still have a nefarious connotation in the US. After all, only two generations ago blacks had to seat on the back of the bus in many states.

[Grant McLean]

You amaze me every time. I like the way you think.

Does that mean I can drop that whole 'chocolate and flowers' thing?


g

[gasman]

[QUOTE=bcm119]I find it difficult to give Richards the benefit of the doubt. Its obvious that he lost his temper up there, but its also obvious that what he saw in the audience was not just a heckler that pushed him past his limit, it was a black heckler. IMO we were seeing his true colors there, no pun intended. I reserve the right to believe that he is a first class a-hole.


I agree with 1Centaur about the PC phenomena. I think the ultra-PC media has inadvertently supressed awareness of racism and possibly slowed any progress we've made towards equality. There is plenty of prejudice simmering in the depths of many americans' subconscience... I applaud the Borat movie for fooling people into exposing it.





Well said by you and others.

I can't really give him the benefit of the doubt after seeing the video and the apology.

[catulle]

Does that mean I can drop that whole 'chocolate and flowers' thing?
g

:eek:

[Lost Weekend]

At least the next dude is really going to think about before he heckles Kramer.

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . there just might not BE a "next time" for Richards in a club . . . I wonder what's happened to his bookings in the last few days? Regardless of how he really feels or what was really behind what he said, he's gonna pay the price fer' sure . . . :(

BBD

[Serpico]

.
did anyone watch matt lauer today?

he interviewed a couple of the guys who got into the argument with Richards.

few things:

1) apparently when they walked in (late, which is what initially upset Richards) he said "Ohh, the blacks and mexicans are here"

2) when they were ordering drinks, during the act, it upset richards and he said something like "I might be washed up, but when I wake up tomorrow I'll still be rich and you'll still be a ------" (after an initial argument between richards and a patron)

3) there's apparently a tape that the laugh factory (? is that the club??) shot, but Richards didn't "sign off on it" to be released. If this thing goes through a couple more news cycles (read: days) I doubt he'll have much luck keeping it under wraps. whether he is asked to authorize the release or the laugh factory is pressured directly.

4) gloria allred is involved :rolleyes: which basically removes any reasonable dialogue from this issue. she wants to have a "retired judge" come up with possibly monetary damages--and the two guys (interviewed on matt lauer) that were there didn't seem opposed to this.

I really think its a bad thing with media clowns like allred or sharpton (who was on tv last night, and is in contact with people from the crowd) get involved. if richards can survive the holiday + the weekend the story might go away, but who knows at this point.

I would like to see the laugh factory video, it seems that richard's comments were more than the brief phone video clip, and it sounds like it was more than some lame attempt at "shock value" humor.
.

[Dan Le foot]

I don't think he could have been more sincere with the apology.
But he does need professional help IMHO.
Dan

[BumbleBeeDave]

. . . from the video or witnesses that his final outburst was the culmination of a running series of statements by him toward these individuals, then I really couldn't give him the benefit of the doubt anymore because it supplies the context that what he did was pre-meditated and deliberate, rather than spontaneous, temper-fueled outburst.

I also agree that if Allred and Sharpton get involved it's gonna be all downhill from here. Sharpton in particular, being from NYC, has a long history around NY of leeching publicity off of whoever he can take advantage of. It also wouldn't srurprise me if you saw several others characters of this type try to insert themselves into the situation. Several lawyers come to mind who I'm sure would love to represent these guys if (when) they sue Richards.

BBD