Life is not good for John Mayer this week.  After giving a truly terrible interview to Playboy magazine, in which he used the “n”-word and babbled extensively about his relationship with Jessica Simpson, he broke down onstage last night and apologized to his bandmates, some of who are African-American.

“In the quest to be clever,” he said, “I completely forgot about the people that I love and that love me.  I thought that if I was speedy and witty and pulled together as many fast words and phrases as I could, I would be clever enough to buy myself another day without anybody pinning me down and saying, ‘You’re a creep.’”

The thing is, this reaction was actually pretty lacking in the sentiment that John Mayer should have had.  To give you a sense for how horrifying the interview was, I have excerpted some choice quotes (and edited for profanity).  If you want to read the whole thing, it’s linked here, but be warned – it’s definitely not safe for work.

“I come on very strong…. That’s why black people love me….. Someone asked me the other day, ‘What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?’ And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, ‘I can’t really have a hood pass. I’ve never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, ‘We’re full.’”

Or this one:

“PLAYBOY: Do black women throw themselves at you?
MAYER: I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a f*ckin’ David Duke c*ck.”

Or this one:

“What is being black? It’s making the most of your life, not taking a single moment for granted. Taking something that’s seen as a struggle and making it work for you, or you’ll die inside. Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude’s.”

And this one:

“I feel like women are getting their comeuppance against men now. I hear about man-whores more than I hear about whores. When women are whorish, they’re owning their sexuality. When men are whorish, they’re disgusting beasts. I think they’re paying us back for a double standard that’s lasted for a hundred years.”

And one more:

“The only man I’ve kissed is Perez Hilton. It was New Year’s Eve and I decided to go out and destroy myself. I was dating Jessica [Simpson] at the time, and I remember seeing Perez Hilton flitting about this club and acting as though he had just invented homosexuality. All of a sudden I thought, I can outgay this guy right now. I grabbed him and gave him the dirtiest, tongue-iest kiss I have ever put on anybody—almost as if I hated fags. I don’t think my mouth was even touching when I was tongue kissing him, that’s how disgusting this kiss was. I’m a little ashamed. I think it lasted about half a minute. I really think it went on too long.”

If you made it through all of those quotes without tearing out your hair or breaking some furniture, congratulations.  All of these were from the same intervew – Mayer managed to make homophobic, sexist and racist comments within the span of probably 20 minutes.  His apology, which appeared on Twitter, only mentioned his use of the “n”-word, which was certainly problematic, but only a small part of the torrent of offensive comments that seems to constantly pour out of him.  And his subsequent “breakdown” and further apologies, citing his need to be “edgy” and “witty,” seems just like more narcissism. 

The only thing I can say is that we need to stop paying attention to this man.  Last night, the crowd at his concert cheered when he said that his bandmates were onstage with him “because they support myself as a possible future grown-up.”  Apart from the dubious grammar (and perhaps this is also because I don’t really like Mayer’s music), this is not enough.  Acting like an adult is not giving this interview in the first place.  Staging a breakdown during a concert only draws more attention to him in the long run, and gives him more time on the cover of Us Weekly – which, inevitably, is all that I think Mayer wants.