Remember that time that Michael Richards' newly hired crisis manager tried to diffuse his client's less-publicized, anti-Semitic comedy club tirade by claiming that the actor is Jewish, so all that talk about the fucking Jews causing Jesus' death was just a little bit of role-playing fun at the expense of his own people? Apparently, when he told his publicist that he was a member of the faith, he didn't realize that the official conversion process might be more rigorous than squeezing his eyes shut, imagining his participation in a bris, and declaring himself a a certified son of Abraham. Beleaguered flack Howard Rubenstein explains Richards' complicated Jewish-ishness to the AP:

On Sunday, the Michael Richards Apology Tour made a stop at Jesse Jackson's syndicated radio show, a venue where there was no live studio audience to undermine with nervous laughter the seriousness of his clumsy explanations that his remarks about African-American hecklers hanging upside down "with a fucking fork up [their] ass" came from a rage-place, not a hate-place. During his interview with Jackson, Richards upgraded his level of regret from "busted up" to "shattered," and claimed that the N-bombs he so liberally detonated throughout his onstage tirade are not a part of his vocabulary, even though "the show business" makes them too "accessible" to misguided "young whites" who might think racist meltdowns are "cool":

Kramer's having kind of a bad week, isn't he? TMZ reports that new accusations have just surfaced from a couple who claim that Richards went literally Mel Gibson on them during a show at the Improv. But maybe he was just cracking some particularly edgy jokes? Well, judge for yourselves (again):

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]

· If it seems like David Caruso ends every CSI: Miami cold open by strangling the life out of an already cheesy one-liner, well, that's because he does.
Warning: Do not follow this link to a collage depicting the freckled death mask that is Carrot Top's face. Really, don't do it.
The Los Angeles Urban League suggests that the Michael Richards Apology Tour might have to extend a little bit past his Letterman appearance. Also: The Apology, remixed.
It's finally happened: MTV has completely run out of cities in which to film shallow assholes getting drunk and screaming at each other in a lavishly decorated home.
Never sell your baby to the bathroom attendant again just because you need to use the shitter! [via BoingBoing]
· Why do geneticists always have to go and fuck up a perfectly good, fraudulent claim by a crazy cat lady?

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.

• Michael Richards, the remix. That didn't take long. [Complex]
  

You can see bits and pieces of this all over the place today, but here's the whole enchilada — Michael Richards appearing via satellite on The Late Show with David Letterman last night, during a scheduled appearance by his pal Jerry Seinfeld. Richards apologizes for his on-stage racist tirade last week, and while he appears totally sincere and contrite, the whole thing comes loaded with enough squirmy discomfort to make Andy Kaufman's ghost rise up and applaud. Stop laughing!

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.)

A Defamer operative stumbled upon the subject of the racist celebrity meltdown du jour, Michael Richards, whose rambling and vicious verbal attack against some African American hecklers Friday night momentarily transformed the Sunset Strip's Laugh Factory into something more akin to the Hatred Sweatshop. The sighting occurred at CBS Television City, where Richards was likely taping the satellite interview set to air on The Late Show with David Letterman tonight:

We've already set our TiVos for tonight's episode of the Late Show, anticipating that David Letterman would probably have some questions for guest Jerry Seinfeld about a certain former castmate who recently tried out some controversial new material at the Laugh Factory. A tipster tells us that the taping has just ended, and that the Official Michael Richards "Sorry About The N-Bombs And Lynching Remarks" Tour has begun in earnest:

Extra reports that Jerry Seinfeld has already beaten his lower-billed castmates to press with a public statement disapproving of Kramer's N-bomb, saying, "I am sick over this. I'm sure Michael is also sick over this horrible, horrible mistake. It is so extremely offensive. I feel terrible for all the people who have been hurt." While this expression of heartsickness from the series' titular star should obviate the need for further comments from the Seinfeld crew, we suspect that The Insider, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, and no fewer than five separate E! countdown shows won't rest until they ambush every actor who's ever appeared on the show's call sheet, hoping for a great "get" featuring the Soup Nazi's poignant call for tolerance after he patiently explains to a reporter that his character didn't actually hate Jews, just people who didn't order their lobster bisque in a properly deferential way.

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.

Seinfeld's Kramer, aka Michael Richards, offended some audience members with racial-themed jokes at a comedy show on Friday, TMZ reports. Maybe his nuanced humor just flew over oversensitive audience members' heads? Uh, maybe: here's some of what Richards is quoted as saying.