WILL 'REAL KRAMER' PLEASE STAND UP?

Byline: John Tierney The New York Times

Seven years ago, when the comedians Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David were sitting in David's apartment creating a television show about a single comedian in New York, they based a character on the lanky bachelor living across the hall, an affable guy named Kenny Kramer who had no visible means of support and a lot of free time to spend on projects that didn't work out exactly as planned.

Today, the Kramer character on "Seinfeld" is an internationally renowned New Yorker, so famous that his real-life model has an idea for another project.

Kramer, who still lives in the same midtown apartment, is starting up Kramer's Reality Tour, which he cheerfully calls "a shameless attempt to capitalize on my illustrious name and branded identity."

Beginning Jan. 27 at the John Houseman Theater, Kramer will show video clips, serve pizza and conduct bus tours of spots sacred to the legions of "Seinfeld" fans.

It will be a mobile off-Broadway tribute to New York landmarks: the facade of the coffee shop where the "Seinfeld" characters meet; the bar where Kramer apologized for punching Mickey Mantle; the midtown office building where Kramer found someone to publish his coffee table book about coffee tables; the soup takeout shop on West 55th Street near Eighth Avenue with the notoriously strict chef.

The Real Kramer, as Kramer now calls himself, will also use the tour to differentiate reality from fiction, which gets a little tricky.

On the show, Seinfeld plays himself, Jerry, a comedian living at 129 W. 81st St. (Seinfeld's real former address, although the brick facade shown on television is actually an apartment building in Los Angeles, where the series is taped).

David, the show's executive producer, is roughly represented by George, a character who acts out David's most neurotic fantasies. Kramer is represented by Kramer, an unemployed schemer who lives across the hall from Jerry and likes to burst frantically through the door without warning.

In real life, Kramer and David lived across the hall from each other at Manhattan Plaza, the housing complex for performing artists at 43rd Street and 10th Avenue. As incredible as it may seem to New Yorkers, these two single Manhattanites actually did leave their apartments unlocked and walk in on each other without knocking.

"Kenny was always coming up with these oddball schemes that sounded like they were made up for a television show," David recalled.

"He'd talk you into doing something with him, and it would invariably turn out bad for you. He'd do something like disappear and leave you waiting in the car for an hour. This new idea, Reality Tour, is something that the television Kramer would do. I hope it works out for Kenny better than most of Kramer's ideas on the show."

Kramer, 52 years old, prides himself on never having had a straight job. He grew up in the Bronx, dropped out of high school at 17, sold magazines door to door, played drums in a Catskills resort band and ended up working as a stand-up comedian for a decade. He gave up that career in 1981 when one of his ideas paid off: electronic disco jewelry.

"I hired handicapped workers to assemble earrings and other jewelry that lit up," Kramer said. "We'd attach a 15-cent red light to a 10-cent watch battery and sell it for $6 in the discos. People went crazy for it. It had this magical effect when you saw it glowing on someone's ear in the dark. That lasted for a couple of years, and it gave me a financial cushion."

Since the disco jewelry days, Kramer said, he has occupied himself coaching karate, managing an English rock reggae band in Amsterdam, converting his bedroom into a mini-studio for recording commercial jingles, promoting a coloring book on substance abuse, and doing voiceovers for adult comics on CD-ROM. When the first "Seinfeld" episode was being written, he briefly lobbied to be allowed to play himself on the program, but he's now thankful that the actor Michael Richards was chosen instead.

"If I'd played Kramer, it never would have flown the way it has with Michael," Kramer said. "He's the one who came up with the weird clothes and the physical antics that have nothing to do with me. He has to figure a new way to walk in the door every week. It takes amazing preparation, minute detail and a lot of work."

Such discipline doesn't come naturally to the Real Kramer, which is why he has enlisted another neighbor, Bobby Allen Brooks, to direct and accompany him on the Reality Tour.

"My job," Brooks said, "is to make Kenny rehearse and make sure that we cover the necessary points during the tour, that Kenny doesn't spend the two-hour tours talking instead about the Internet, which is entirely possible."

The Real Kramer tried to be disciplined as he gave a preview of the Reality Tour last weekend. He walked up Ninth Avenue, pausing near 43rd Street to point out Dak's Market, formerly Joe's Market, the name of the fruit stand from which the television Kramer was banned.

"In the show it was Kramer who was banned from buying fruit there, but in real life it was Larry David. He was squeezing."

Kramer pointed a few doors down to Kam Wei Kitchen, the Chinese restaurant whose delivery man actually helped David place a telephone order to China for an ointment purported to cure baldness.

"On the show, after the delivery guy helps George order the stuff, Kramer videotapes George's head so they can see later if any new hair comes in. In real life I did that for Larry. We're going to show that videotape of his head during the tour."

Nearby, at the Westway Diner on Ninth Avenue, Kramer pointed out the booth next to the cash register where David and Seinfeld drew up early plans for their show ("a show about nothing," as George describes it to Jerry during the episode in which they're planning to write a show about themselves). Kramer sat down for a cup of coffee with his director, and for a moment his new discipline flagged.

It was a classically Kramer-esque situation. Brooks, hoping to sell some of the $27.50 tickets to the Reality Tour, wanted to tell a reporter the 800 number installed in Kramer's apartment for information. But Kramer didn't want it published.

"I've been giving that number to women at parties, and it's amazing how well it works," he said. "An 800 number is a great babe magnet. I don't want to tie up the line with a lot of other calls. Let people call the Houseman Theater if they want information."

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO

Photo (1) Kenny Kramer, 52, whose life became the model for the Kramer character on "Seinfeld," shows off Tom's Restaurant on Broadway in New York City. The eatery's facade is used for the coffee shop frequented by the characters on the NBC sitcom. The New York Times (2) Kramer credits actor Michael Richards, above, with making the character so successful "It takes amazing preparation."