Most people in Connecticut might know attorney Norm Pattis for his celebrity lawyering, representing a lot of unlikeable headline makers, including, most recently, conspiracy promoter Alex Jones and accused wife-killer Fotis Dulos.

I think of him as the lawyer for Konstantinos "Kosta" Diamantis, Gov. Ned Lamont's former deputy budget chief who is at the center of an FBI probe into state spending on school construction and many tens of millions of dollars to rebuild State Pier in New London.

And of course I can't help but wonder what Diamantis thought when he watched the YouTube video of his lawyer — it's been ricocheting around the state — dropping his trousers in public and using homophobic and racial slurs.

The occasion was, of all things, a recent amateur hour at an East Haven pizza joint. Pattis, who now claims he was channeling comedian George Carlin, was not the least bit funny.

Even if you could edit out all the obnoxious chatter — from dropping the n-word to crude sexual remarks about the first openly gay Cabinet member in Washington — just the sight of the 66-year-old ponytailed Pattis, with his pants down around his ankles, was offensive.

In the video he is especially antagonistic to a Black woman sitting in the front row, at one point directing his posterior at her, waving it back and forth.

Not only does she not laugh, but her grim expression makes it clear how offended she was.

Pattis is certainly not stupid.

What could he possibly have been thinking? For sure, he must not have realized how easy it would be for someone to post a video of his show on YouTube for all to see.

I called his office and explained why I wanted to talk to him. The young man who took the message said Pattis would be sure to call back. But then I had to give him my number, as he was ending the call.

Pattis is normally eager to hear from and talk to reporters. But I don't suppose he is returning many calls about his alleged comedy routine.

He did, however, post an explanation on a blog, which attracted a lot of hate comments, many calling him out as racist.

"Racism isn't funny," wrote one blog reader. "That's why blackface fell out of favor."

"Totally unacceptable," another wrote. "The Connecticut Bar Association should hold its members to a higher level of decency and decorum."

For his part, Pattis claimed the routine was an exercise in free speech and an attack on the "woke, the cabal of righteous folk who have decided they know what's best for the rest of us."

The blog posting, titled "Who Owns the Language," is itself a righteous rant, the kind of lawyerly defense you might expect from a celebrated courtroom maestro.

It is defensive and, in the end, almost as sad as the pants-down routine.

"The woke elite are much in need of ridicule and comedic take down; so are the semi-literate half-wits who rally around them," Pattis wrote.

I am not convinced, after watching him aggressively shake his old rear end at a Black woman, when he insists: "I am neither a racist nor a misogynist."

Gross and pathetic are some words that come to mind.

Just when I thought the State Pier scandals couldn't produce any more strange characters than they already have, I am proven wrong again.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com