Ask a New Yorker: Here I am with the one and only Kenny
Kramer. What’s going on?
Kenny: It’s all good. It’s a nice sunny summer day. We’re
having a mild summer. I have no complaints.
Ask a New Yorker: Come on, one complaint.
Kenny: O.K I have a torn mediscus, dindiscus,mendiscus.
Ask a New Yorker: A knee problem.
Kenny: Yea, my knee and it looks like I’m going to have to have surgery.
That’s my only complaint. Its minor surgery I’m told. They do it
with the little camera.
Ask a New Yorker: Microscopic.
Kenny: Microscopic, no it’s not microscopic. It’s something like
that. Hopefully I’ll be 100% and be able to return to my career as a professional
runner. O.k. I’m kidding, amateur runner. O.k., I’m kidding. I never
ran in my life. So what else?
Ask a New Yorker: It’s nice to meet you.
Kenny: It’s my pleasure. You’ve been very persistent. You’ve
been pursuing me now for 6-7 months.
Ask a New Yorker: Ten years.
Kenny: Hey, I was a little suspicious. I thought you might be stalking me. At
least now that I’ve seen you and know your face, if you are stalking me
I’ll be able to identify you.
Ask a New Yorker: What’s happened to your mustache?
Kenny: I had a little accident with the mustache. I was sort of trimming and
I trimmed a little too much on each side, trimming, trimming until I looked
like Hitler and so I said that’s it. No more mustache.
Ask a New Yorker: Time for the most frequently asked Kramer questions?
Kenny: I’ll tell you what, why don’t I answer them and you don’t
even ask them. How’s that?
Ask a New Yorker: Go for it.
Kenny: O.K First of all I don’t go bouncing into walls and sliding through
doors. I walk around like a normal human being. People who walk around like
Cosmo are in mental institutions. Secondly, I’ve never adopted a highway.
I’ve played nude backgammon with Elle McPherson although I wouldn’t
mind that one. I don’t have the Merv Griffin set in my living room. I’ve
never have had Japanese business man living in drawer in my apartment. And I
was very happy with the way the character was portrayed.
Ask a New Yorker: Yes, but what characteristics do you share with the Cosmo?
Kenny: Absolutely, well Larry David who was my across the hall neighbor for
5 1/2 years & who knows me like a book, gave the character a lot of my traits
and personality in terms of the golf and entreprenurism, raging heterosexual,
the hot tubs. And Michael Richards put his whole physical spin to it. In that
sense the character was based on me but Michael, who played Kramer, didn’t
do any research. He chose not to do research. We didn’t meet until after
the second or third season of the show. He knew it was based on Larry’s
friend Kramer. He wanted to do his own thing. Fortunate he did. Because if I
played Kramer the show would of gone straight down the tubes. I would of never
of thought of doing physical comedy. I did stand up. I never bounced into walls.
What he does is just brilliant. He’s up there with Charlie Chaplin, Buster
Keaton.
Ask a New Yorker: You’re New Yorker of the Month.
Kenny: Exciting. This is almost as exciting as when some company in San Francisco
named me pot smoker of the month. I haven’t smoke a joint in 17 years.
They insisted on making me the pot smoker of the month. I had to have an attorney’s
letter to have them take it down.
Ask a New Yorker: Interesting.
Kenny: I’m totally in favor of decriminalizing all drugs. I think it’s
ridiculous that the government interferes with people’s rights to do whatever
they choose to do to their bodies. If the only crime is drugs I feel that should
not be a crime. To bring the police…
Ask a New Yorker: I got you….
Kenny: Let me just say this. I ran for mayor. This was one of the big platforms
of my campaign to put an end to this drug war. I’ll tell you I could have
won the New York mayoral race by a landslide if the dope smokers in this town
would have just remembered to vote. That was the problem getting these idiots
to put down their Twinkies and go to the polls.
Ask a new Yorker: What‘s your favorite coffee shop?
Kenny: Best coffee shop. Well basically I’m a very lazy guy. The best
coffee shop is across the street from where I live. It’s right on theater
row. It’s called Theater Row Diner. The food is excellent. I use to be
a big Westway Diner fan also but that would require walking an extra block and
half. The Westway Diner is actually a Seinfeld landmark where Larry and jerry
had their first conversation on what kind of show they could create.
Ask a New Yorker: So where do you live now?
Kenny: I live in Hell’s Kitchen. The neighborhood is the international
capital of food. Every year in May we have the 9th Ave International Food Festival
which is a fabulous event. Any cuisine you can imagine is on these ten blocks.
Ask a New Yorker: Do you have a girlfriend?
Kenny: Yes, I have the lady of my life. Her name is Marcie
Castro. She a very talented singer piano player, song writer, musician.
She’s just the greatest.
Ask a New Yorker: Have you traveled much?
Kenny: Yes, all over the world. Marcie spent like five years on a very luxury
cruise line. Any city in the world that has a port she’s been to three
or four times. She speaks five languages. In fact when we met she took me on
one of her gigs. We flew to Hong Kong and spent a week. Then we boarded the
ship and went to Taiwan, Korea and Japan. We’ve also been to Europe, Italy,
Naples, Rome, the Malfi Coast, Venice. We’ve been to Barcelona and all
over South America. We’ve been to Brazil, Argentina.
Ask a New Yorker: Kenny Kramer gets around. Besides New York where else does
the Kramer brand hold up?
Kenny: The Kramer brand can
be seen in Australia. In Australia I might probably be the equivalent to
Mick Jagger. Honest to God. I go down the streets in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide,
Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, all over the place. I have my stage tour, Kramer
on Seinfeld. I’ve brought it to all the capital cities in Australia. There’s
so little media in Australia. There are like three key TV shows and if you’re
on these three shows everyone knows who you are, everyone. I’ve been on
those three shows like five times each. I have tremendous exposure in Australia.
Ask a New Yorker: I’m a big Curb Your Enthusiasm fan. Do you see Larry
around ever?
Kenny: I don’t see him all that much but we talk on the phone from time
to time. I got to spend a little time with him last summer when he was in town
shooting a Woody Allen film. It’s interesting hanging out with him. I
mean he’s become a babe magnet. I’m telling you we go into a bar
and women are buying him drinks. It’s pretty wild for a guy who is basically
so shy and so neurotic that he’s in this situation where he’s a
sex symbol.
Ask a New Yorker: How old where you when you lost your virginity?
Kenny: I guess I was maybe fourteen, fifteen with a girl that was twenty three.
I lied about my age. I said I was seventeen. It was very pleasant I must say.
Ask a New Yorker: Any other Larry David, Kenny Kramer neighbor-days stories?
Kenny: We always kept our doors open. We walked in and out of each other’s
houses all the time. He was actually, unlike on the show, always in my house
because I always had food. Larry never had anything in his refrigerator. It
was more like a hooker’s refrigerator with a can of ginger ale and half
a lemon. It was an interesting time. We had a lot of fun together. You wouldn’t
think us two guys would be great friends because we have very different personalities.
We shared a car, his. And we shared one pair of black pants. There was one pair
of nice black dress pants. They were actually mine but every time Larry had
to go out with the blazer he was like, “Kramer I need the pants”.
Ask a New Yorker: Any last thoughts?
Kramer: There is no such thing as luck. Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.
Kenny Kramer’s take on New York: I’m a New Yorker. It’s the
cultural center of the universe. It’s the media capital of the world.
It’s the most vibrant, electric fascinating city that anyone can ever
live in.
Kenny: My tour happens every Saturday at noon from right here where we’re
sitting at the Producers’ Club (358 W. 44th St.). I spend the first hour here
in the theater doing stand up. Then we go onto the bus and continue the gaiety
and jokes. Basically it’s standup up but the jokes are all about what
happened in my life that ended up as adventures on Seinfeld.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Kramer
