Month: April 2012

Nitwit Assaulted by Prominent Bel Air Judge

Posted on by Pittsburgh Comedian Jeff Konkle

Bel Air, CA – Monday afternoon, police were called to the home of the Honorable Phillip Banks, Judge for Hartford County’s District court.  Reports allege that Banks assaulted a local nitwit known only as “Jazz.” 

File Photo

It is unknown what Jazz, a Compton resident, was doing at the Banks Bel Air Estate.  Some accounts say that Jazz had been stalking HillaryBanks, daughter of Phillip.  Others say that Jazz was in the middle of a social experiment, where he and Carlton Banks, son of Phillip, switched residences for the weekend. 

“It is unclear exactly what connection that Jazz has with the Banks Family,” said Anthony Porto, chief investigator.  “What is clear is that Mr. Banks physically assaulted Mr. Jazz, throwing him several feet onto the sidewalk, as evidenced by camera footage.”

A representative for Phillip Banks had no comment.

Another Stake in the Yard

Posted on by Pittsburgh Comedian Jeff Konkle

This week I got word that Pittsburgh comedian Rico Cooper was killed in his home in East Liberty.  I haven’t seen Rico out on the scene in a long time.  From what I understand he was pretty seriously ill for a while and trying to focus on his family.  Since I haven’t seen him at an open mic in months (probably years) I have definitely lost touch. 

Rico working on a set

It’s unfortunate that the first time I hear his name it’s such sad news.  Even briefly knowing Rico is one of the reasons why I love doing comedy.  It allows you to meet people from different walks of life that you never would have met.  Rico and I come from very, very different backgrounds.  But the common thread of comedy, a hobby, a dream, whatever you want to call it, allowed us to know one another. 

Rico was definitely fearless.  He was so fearless that he made me afraid for him in certain situations.  You might want to read about how he one time knocked-out a heckler.  That alone was enough to make me hyperventilate. 

Probably my most fond memory of Rico was when we were both in the Funniest person in Pittsburgh contest, way back in 2006.  He came down to the Improv chewing on a big twig.  “Rico, what the hell is that?” I asked. 

“These is Muslim sticks, Jeff.  You ain’t never heard of ’em?  The old men in the desert use to chew on these to clean their teeth.”

“Oh, of course,” I said sarcastically.  “Those Muslim sticks.” 

“You want one?” he asked, offering me his bag of twigs.

“Eh…why not,”  I chewed it for about 40 seconds before I politely threw it away.  I was due up on stage soon.

About 7 minutes later I came off stage after a strong set.  Rico gave me a big hug and said, “Me and you baby.  Me and you.”

I know I haven’t seen him in a while but back then I considered him a friend.  I never would have met Rico if not for his love of making people laugh.  I’m glad I got at least a short opportunity to know him.

A Six-Sigma Black Belt at the Drive-Thru

Posted on by Pittsburgh Comedian Jeff Konkle

A Volkswagon Passat pulls up to the drive-thru of Burgerland.

Voice: Hello welcome to Burgerland, home of the 99 cent Double Whammy. My name is Melissa; may I take your order please?

Six-Sigma: Well I guess the first step is that we need to agree on what my current underlying gaps are from a hunger-perspective. Let me do a quick root-cause analysis.

Six-Sigma drives away. Comes back in 2 hours and enters the drive-thru again.

Melissa: Hello welcome to Burgerland, home of the 99 cent Double Whammy. My name is Melissa; may I take your order please?

Six-Sigma produces a time chart.

Six-Sigma: Hi again Melissa. After looking at a few timelines, I determined that I haven’t eaten for 6 hours, so I’m getting to be a little bit hungry.

Melissa: Well we have plenty of options here to satisfy your hunger. Can I suggest the new Chicken Tuscana or our Classic Whammy?

Six-Sigma: Hmm. That’s an interesting concept. I’d like to run a few F-tests to make sure that our Alpha Risk is low. At the onset, I feel like the Chicken Tuscana has a high-confidence band. We’ll be in touch.

Six-Sigma drives away. Comes back in 2 hours and enters the drive-thru again.

Melissa: Hello welcome to Burgerland, home of the 99 cent Double Whammy. My name is Melissa; may I take your order please?

Six-Sigma: Hi Melissa. It’s so great that we were able to get back together on this. Really. Thanks for making the time. I hope you feel as strongly as I do that this project is heading in the right direction.

Melissa: I guess. Can I take your order now?

Six-Sigma: I’ve built a few tree diagrams for you to review. We have several options and we need to follow through on some of these decision points. But by my timeline, we are way ahead of schedule. This is great from a stakeholder perspective.

Melissa: What do you want to eat? Just tell me already. Enough of this ridiculous lingo. I can’t understand what the hell your talking about. What. Do. You. Want. To. Eat?

Six-Sigma: Well after looking at the subjective rating and ranking between the Classic Whammy and the Chicken Tuscana meal, I believe that the standard deviation as indicated by this scatterplot reveals that this rational sub-group has a standard deviation of about .12. I think this shows a pretty robust ordinal data.

Melissa: Hey! Order your God damned sandwich already. I don’t have all day!

Six-Sigma: Double Whammy meal.

Melissa: Great. How hard was that? Now, what do you want to drink?

Six-Sigma: Interesting shift in variables… I think I’d like to go back and –

Melissa: You’re getting a coke. How’s that?

Six-Sigma: That seemed a bit rash. But in all honesty, the drink decision was low-hanging fruit. The intangible benefits weren’t calculated but even with a Force Field Analysis we probably would have arrived at the same Linearity.

Melissa: Anyway, your total comes to $7.89.

Six-Sigma: Actually, I’ve just tallied up my billable time spent on this project and actually you owe me $3,280.

Hockey Humor

Posted on by Pittsburgh Comedian Jeff Konkle

In an effort to stop Pittsburgh Penguins fans to stop fingering the triggers of their respective handguns, I’ve decided to bring repost some Hockey-related humor here at Konkdaddy.  Below are a few more posts where Hockey is the main topic:

NHL GM’s Meet to Discuss Arena Playlist

NHL Player Finally Listens to Fan, Promises to “Shoot the Dang Puck.”

Doug Shedden – Patron Saint of Lost Pittsburgh Comedy Shows

Trade Deadline

These are posts I wrote from the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals.  We won the cup that year, so obviously I made a significant contribution.  Might help the Pens to revisit their old glory…

Evgeni Rex

Captain

The Highlight Reel

The Perennial

Rattling the Glass

The Piece