KRAMER VS. KRAMER
Meet Seinfeld’s inspiration
TO BE CLEAR: This literary work-in-progress is no coffee table book about coffee tables that itself turns into a coffee table.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The writer here is Kenny Kramer, one-time neighbor of “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David and the wild-maned inspiration for his namesake character.
He’s penning a tell-not-quiteall memoir, a look back that looks far beyond the quirky corners he inhabits in both the pop culture zeitgeist and the Seinfeld universe.
“It’s hard for me to sit down and write, but I keep coming back to it,” Kramer explains over sandwiches at the Westway Diner — known to Seinfans as the spot where Larry met Jerry to first discuss their sitcom about nothing.
Kramer writes inside the same W. 43rd St. building where he first met David, a November 1977 encounter that spawned a lifelong friendship and eventually gave birth to Seinfeld’s endearingly erratic across-the-hall pal.
Yada yada yada ... autobiography? Not exactly.
The truth is a lot more complicated, detailing Kramer’s life as a single dad, touring stand-up comedian, pal of Jose Feliciano and Gabe Kaplan, disco jewelry inventor, Seinfeld tour guide and New York Libertarian Party mayoral candidate.
“I had a life before ‘Seinfeld,’ and I had a life after,” Kramer says. “And for years and years, people kept telling me, ‘You should write a book. You have so many fabulous stories!’”
Like the excerpt posted on his Facebook page: The tale of his introduction to David.
Hints of a lasting friendship were in short supply after Kramer recruited a reluctant David for a cabaret night show in their Manhattan Plaza complex.
Stand-up comedian David initially committed, then tried to bail one hour before the show.
A furious Kramer called and tore into his fellow comic: “If you don’t show up, this will be our last conversation. And I just want to say in advance ‘Go f--- yourself!’”
David showed up and killed. The next day, around noon, the doorbell rang at Kramer’s apartment.
“It was Larry: ‘Hey Krame, wanna get some lunch?’” writes Kramer. “We went to lunch and began hanging out together. As Humphrey Bogart said in ‘Casablanca,’ it was ‘the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’”
When not banging away on the keyboard, the host of “Kramer’s Reality Tour” is gearing up for year 21 of taking Seinfield nuts on a bus tour of actual New York sites from the television classic.
“This could be the last year!” he warns, half-joking.
Which reminds him: Kramer is the holder of a valid New York City tour guide license.
“In order to qualify, you had to have no outstanding warrants,” he explained. “That was their requirement. If you didn’t pay a bunch of parking tickets, you were unqualified.”
Kramer is still seeking a publisher “to turn this thing into a reality” — and surpass his previous book industry success.
When the company behind a book titled “The Seinfeld Universe” went bust, Kramer bought boxes of the title at auction — paying 10 cents each.
“I was the only guy bidding,” he laughed. “I signed them and resold them!”
He pauses for a second: “Maybe I shouldn’t tell that story. But the statute of limitations is past, right?”