Michael Richards is no Andy Kaufman

Since I spent some time railing about Mel Gibson's vicious anti-semitic rant, it's only fair I comment on the latest "celebrity gone mad", Michael Richards. His deeply racist, hateful spew was captured on someone's cellphone camera. (I won't show it here, but you can see it just about anywhere.)

Here's what we know:

• Richard's career has been moribund since Seinfeld went off the air
• He didn't work stand-up in his early days. He was a sketch artist (If you're of a certain age, you might remember him from the short-lived SNL clone, Fridays. Larry David (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm) was also on this show.
• The heckler who first taunted him wasn't African-American.
• A few days prior to the well-publicized meltdown, Richard's performance included vicious attacks on women and Jews (Richards is Jewish.)

Some comics pushed the envelope with great regularity - Andy Kaufman, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Sam Kinison. These guys were genius. (I might add Sascha Baron Cohen (Barat) to the mix, as well.) Great art, comic or otherwise, forces us to examine our deepest selves and it isn't always pretty. In fact, most of time, it can be deeply disturbing.

But at some point, the comic alerts his/her audience to the joke. Richards, if he was attempting to walk in the giants of this comic art, failed miserably. If he wasn't, then he needs help. With his rage, his racism, and his misogyny.

Many moons ago, when I was very young, I did stand-up comedy. (Trust me, even with death, divorce, and childbirth in my history, stand-up comedy is harder.) Being heckled is part of the job. How a comic handles it marks him/her as a professional ... or not.

I liked Richards, thought he was a terrific physical comic actor. A first-rate second banana. But a little of him goes a long way. Now? A little of him is way too much. Richards should seek out his friends for help and intervention and stay off the stage until he gets himself together and into some serious therapy.