Boycott campaign starts

Comics have been urged to boycott a comedy club that apparently sent a racist e-mail.

The message sent to Los Angeles-based stand-up Doug Stanhope (pictured) was littered with obscenities and anti-semitic comments aimed at his agent.

However, the Amarillo Comedy Club in Amarillo, Texas, distanced itself from the offensive e-mail, saying it was sent by a visiting comic accessing its computer.

The e-mail, sent on April 25, said: "We want to deal directly with you we don't want to deal with the Jews or your little waste of cum manager either.

"Your gig, originally scheduled for July 11, 12 and 13 is invalid because of the Jews. They agreed to a certain price over the phone and, when receiving the contract it was more money than agreed to.

"We want to deal with you and only you ­ comedy club to performer. No middle Heebs or c**ts. We want you back. We want you to make all the money. We don't want you to share with dumpy little fucks...I guess that includes everybody that you work with. We hate them.

"Please call us soon. We will work something out with you an only you. With great love and admiration, Amarillo Comedy Club."

Stanhope - who admitted he was unhappy with his fee when he played the club last year ­ said: "All the words in the world wouldn't get me to go back to that cesspool. I'll never need their money that bad."

The message has been roundly condemned by other .Steve Marmel who hosts a late-night talk show on cable TV network TNN led calls for a boycott of the club.

He said: "If you work this room, then you are supporting the kind of racist, discriminatory garbage these people spew. In any business, it's unacceptable

However, club owner Kevin Moran said the message had not been sent by Amarillo's management.

He told Chortle: "This is a huge misunderstanding, I never wrote the email in question.

"At my club I work the door and comics have free access to my email. I'm a getting blamed for something I knew nothing about.

"If someone used your computer and wrote those horrible remarks while you were way, are you responsible?

"I like Doug's comedy, and next week we have a black headliner and a Hispanic feature. I also had to be told what some of those words meant, I was clueless.

"Anybody can sign your name to an email. I certainly never wrote that hate."

Published: 4 May 2002