Kramer, kramer, kramer, What Now?

I completely agree with the idea of freedom of speech, but with all freedom come responsibility. Michael Richard's responsibility on that fateful night was to understand his audience, hone his craft, and deliver a performance that was appropriate to the venue. Yes he had the right to try out new material, as a matter of fact, I believe that one of the services a great comic provides to us is the opportunity to look at ourselves in a different light, and the really great ones, Ernie Kovac, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Andy Kaufman, George Carland and such have actually help expand the box to break down barriers and made the taboo less taboo.

What Mr. Richards did was a totally different animal, he has admitted that he was reacting with rage, this was not a well thought approach. He reacted poorly to a bad situation and now he is going to pay the consequences for it. And I feel that this is not due necessarily to a racist nature, cause like I said, we all have that right below the surface and we deal with it in different ways every day. His real failure was to live up to the concepts of preparedness and professionalism that goes with job of stand-up. Fortunately, this situation has opened a dialogue about race and words, and unfortunately some unscrupulous people will be making money from it. And let me go on record and say that the amount of compensation anyone should receive from this debacle should be no more than the price of admission paid on the night of that show (and maybe one free ticket)

As for chances, he has all of the chances in the world to recover from that disastrous performance. He might want to consider small dramatic parts in independent films; he might want to build up his voice-over resume, or any number of entertainment options. From what I understand his stand-up act was never that impressive, so this may be a great opportunity for him to take his career in another direction and work maybe he will work at it a little bit harder this time.