John Mayer: I'm Clever and Funny

John Mayer thinks he’s funny and clever when he’s a racist tool.

John Mayer is still apologizing for his recent Playboy interview, but that doesn't mean he's cleaning up his act.

The embattled pop singer performed two sold-out shows Thursday and Friday at Madison Square Garden, where he again issued a mea culpa for his off-color comments in the men's mag.

"I hate to come off like an ass-, and thank you guys for believing that I am not an ass-. Never, ever in my entire life did I ever think that it would be a good idea to be an ass-," Mayer stuttered to a house packed with loyal fans. "It's a clean 'me' now, people. Clean me."

Well, not quite: Mayer spent the weekend partying at NoLita hot spot La Esquina - which is near the 2,500-square-foot SoHo apartment he owns - and acting, well, less-than-gentlemanly.

"He was drinking and saying vulgar things to the girls at the bar," says a spy. "He was hitting on one pretty brunette in particular, but she found him slimy because he was being so over-the-top."

We hear women aren't the only challenge the crooner can't seem to navigate: Friends say that even before the Playboy fiasco, he was having a love-hate relationship with the media.

"After every interview he gave, John would agonize over it and mentally kick himself over everything he said," says an insider. "He would swear it would be the last time, but it never was, and it became a never-ending cycle."

That cycle came to a head with the Playboy interview - in which Mayer talked about everything from his sex life with Jessica Simpson to his love of porn. And let's not forget about those crass comments that enraged African-Americans. "He always thinks he's being funny at the time but doesn't understand it's actually offensive," says a close friend. "He's very smart - he just needs to realize that not everyone finds him funny."

A female friend, meanwhile, suggests Mayer just needs to find the right woman - if he doesn't scare her off first.

"All he wants is to find the perfect girl," says the gal pal. "But he gets infatuated with women really quickly, and he's always asking other people for advice on what to do. It's like he becomes fixated on whoever he's dating."

Meanwhile, another friend makes a valid point: "Who's going to date him if he keeps pulling these stunts?"

Certainly not the young stunner at La Esquina. "She thought he was being really disrespectful," says the spy. "She definitely didn't go home with that sleaze."

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