The recent attempt by Norm Pattis to be a stand-up comic was a despicable display of crude, homophobic, racist and mean-spirited vitriol that goes beyond mere embarrassment to him personally and to our profession generally. We condemn what he has said and done. We urge all to take a lesson from it.

For those who may not have seen or heard the reports, Pattis recently engaged in 7 minutes and 58 seconds of thoroughly unfunny commentary in a small pizza restaurant/comedy club, camouflaging his profound lack of humor with racist and homophobic invective culminating in a sorry-not-sorry routine about his use of the N-word.