Come One, Come All: Come On Out To Meet & Greet The Heckler!

Oh; to be a clown in the midst of performance. Oh; to lash out loud and roar with the crowd. Oh; to stand out alone from the rest of humanity and scream with disapproval as you are pitted between yourself, the audience and the main attraction…lo & behold!

Ta-da! Come forward and let's all meet and great that great two-headed monster, the heckler!

According to http://www.dictionary.com/, heckling is defined as “to try and embarrass and annoy (someone who is speaking or performing in public) by questions, gibes, objections or constant badgering.

In other words, the heckler is the one (or two-headed monster) person in the crowd who will try their best at attempting to mutilate, destroy, disrupt and generally wreak havoc onto a performer, speaker or writer; this is, in essence their entire reason of existence.

Those that attempt to do so generally believe the individual is hurting them personally or wants to get back at them for being hurt by them in perhaps the most miniscule way, but they might not have even been hurt by them to begin with, at least not directly.

Sometimes the heckler will heckle others in order to protect their friends or colleagues and therefore shout, write, wave signs and intentionally disrupt with the meanest, most low-down and cruelest words they can think of in order to achieve success inside their minds. This tactic is similar to bullying, railroading & accusatory actions. It’s a vicious cycle to say the least, but where does it all come from anyway?

Well, one place it may directly have a connection to are feelings of abuse, mistreatment; perhaps the most hurtful action is violation of their own most basic humanistic rights & abilities to which that may pose a potential threat for them to function as a normal human being.

So who gets the blame in all of this? Is it the educational system? The media? Outside influences? Television? Films? Society? Nope, this time it falls directly upon the responsibilities of their parents; especially if the nucleus of the family as a whole behaves in a total dysfunctional manner or has split up over variable differences, either from divorce or disagreement or again, has been harmed or abused (raped) in any shape, way or form.

I honestly believe that their heckling is their personal cry for help because when they heckle, they are actually drawing attention to their inabilities to cope overall and therefore struggle publicly and helplessly when they cannot understand and therefore react to actions in a semi-unreasonable & irrational fashion. They need the attention; it is a temporary fix to their lifelong misery.

On the other hand however, they are naturally-born human ornamentations that give a performer, writer or speaker some comic relief as they stand up there or write to them and babble on either vocally, electronically or on paper with their disapproval. They do add value to performances and give the performer, speaker or writer a chance to reflect on their incoherent criticisms, whether they are real or imaginary.

In that sense and in my eyes, I appreciate the heckler. Value the heckler as dysfunctional beings who cannot handle realism as realism goes & instead live inside a plastic bubble that can and does pop from time to time, giving them cause to become caustic for no apparent reason. They are the very reasons some of us performers make it. It kind of gives the natural freaks a real run for their money.

So, hecklers, come one come all! I dare you to step forward and make yourself known to the world. It is after all your dysfunction that keeps guys like me in stitches!!!

First Good Poem-Post Grad School

Since leaving grad school, not my choice, a year too early, I've been writing a lot of poetry again. Rather than hold it in, my feelings that is, I've decided to publish what I've been thinking about over the course of time that has passed. I welcome your remarks as always, but if you're a troll, I will ban you, mark my words; it will be done. In the future posts, I will be mixing it up a bit, featuring poems I wrote during grad school and post grad school. Here is, what I believe, the 1st good poem I have written, post grad school.

Character Actor

I am talking about burning bridges

Bridges I built and those about to come down.

My fault? Theirs.

I don’t know. I can’t feel them because living inside this glass house you can’t feel much, only see their lives as they let you.

That’s something I never try to do.

Try to do with purpose.

Honest, I didn’t mean it; it was an accident, a little voice rings in my ears

Good enough, let others do the burning if they must

Let themselves snap each other into two

Let them come crawling back, come crying out for you

Make them miss you

Make them beg you for mercy

Let them tell you they are sorry

Slipping inside and outside of character, that’s what traveling is for, the wise old man once said.

You can be what you want without batting an eye

You can be that fellow, girl and guy and wake up with a hangover and clap your hands

I think I need a change.

Like tires that have gone flat

I need a change before I become like that.

(written June 6, 2015)