Kenneth Keith Comedian?

Pulling No Punch lines: Aspiring comedian/Howard Stern vet Kenneth Keith Kallenbach. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

by Brian Hickey

It's Friday at the McDonald's off I-95 by the Delaware state border. Kenneth Keith Kallenbach is nowhere to be found. "We said we're meeting Friday," he maintains on the phone in his distinct South Philly-lifer-meets-Jeff Spicoli voice. Reminded it is Friday, he drawls, "Oh. OK. I'll be there in 15 minutes."

Soon, the vein-thin 35-year-old, with a cough best described as whooping, arrives. He looks nothing like the headbanger who graced Howard Stern's Channel 9 television show back in the early '90s. Gone is the long hair he'd lop off and eat for the cameras. And gone is the ability to blow smoke through his eyes.

He doesn't say whether he still puts bottle rockets in his ass and lights them, but the long hair disappeared because "all I was attracting were weirdos, wackos, Harley chicks with 10 tattoos, chubbers." The smoke shtick just escaped him. "The hole must have closed up or somethin'." Bygones, both.

He's here to talk today about his latest dream: to become the next Chris Rock. In an age of unearned celebrity, he says anything's possible. People laugh at George Carlin and Bill Cosby, and those guys just aren't funny.

He hasn't worked since 2002 (he was a sorter in a post office near his Boothwyn home), so Kenneth Keith has been developing an act, putting his headshot together with videos of Stern-show performances, and seeking gigs like the five-minute slot at tomorrow night's Electric Factory show featuring several Stern personalities.

"I want to get as famous as I can get," he says, noting that he sees a Sirius show in his future, despite never speaking with the satellite-radio folks. "My everyday life is a comedy show."

Dining on two burgers, no cheese, Kenneth Keith ad-libs in the booth. The material, for the most part, centers on the women he says he attracts.

"If she isn't home, I know where I can find her — down in the Arby's parking lot woofing down a couple HOT roast beef sandwiches and some potato wedges."

And then there's: "My ex-girlfriend used to accuse me of sniffing her cat's butt. I'm just affectionate towards cats and I musta been in the vicinity or whatever. She was always yelling at me: Kenneth Keith! Kenneth Keith! Stop sniffing the cat's butt! I said, "Shut up and get back to cleaning the trailer!'"

As the interview closes, he proudly hands over a videotape of his recent performance on Stern's radio program. (He'd begged his way back on after several years and his appearance was noteworthy enough to air on Stern's E! Entertainment Television show.) On it, he's told the act isn't cutting it and his jokes need punch lines, which they currently lack. He pauses, looking like it's painful for him to think.

"I know, I'm workin' on it," he says. "I'm thinking I can do it, for real."