Kevin Nelson - The official heckler handbook : the ultimate guide to offending and irritating the enemy

T H E

O F F I C I A L

HECKLER HANDBOOK

An imprint of Rowman & Littlefield

Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2016 by Kevin Nelson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

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ISBN 978-1-4930-2451-3

ISBN 978-1-4930-2452-0 (e-book)

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T iger Woods is striding down the fairway of the US Open with the earnest purposefulness that so distinguishes him on a golf course. But on this day he is not feeling very distinguished, for his game is a mess, like his reputation. Taunting reports in the media keep popping up like the gopher in Caddyshack about his spectacular, if unseemly, sex life. One of the juiciest tales involves a waitress at a pancake restaurant who partied with him at his love-shack mansion in Florida. It is a safe bet that the golfer he is walking with is not discussing any of these things with him and may not know about the rumors.

Somebody else does, though. This somebody else is a man who is watching Tiger play his Wednesday practice round. He is a heckler and he shouts, Waffle House!

The hecklers arrow strikes its target, because although Tiger does not stop walking, he looks back and points in the direction of the man who is standing along the edge of the fairway. His buddies join the fun. Waffle House! they all shout and laugh. Waffle House!

Jump to a recent NBA Finals game and LeBron James, who is to basketball what Tiger was to golf until Tigers life on and off the course got scrambled. The charismatic Mr. All-Everything is walking off the floor after leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to a win. Fans and the media surround him courtside and snap pictures of him as he heads for the locker room, flanked by men in suits and uniforms whose job is to protect him in case something happens.

Suddenly something happens.

A voice cries out, LeBron, how does it feel to be a p*ssya**b*tch? LeBron stops and turns and security responds too, all of them glaring back in the direction of the voice, which, shockingly, does not belong to a man. Disgust registers in Jamess face. The potty mouth belongs to a woman.

One of the men in suits comes forward and shouts, Hey, watch your mouth, woman! He repeats this warning as James moves on and the hecklera pleasant-faced woman in her late 20s, in a yellow Golden State T-shirt, nicely made up, with her hair pulled backmeekly apologizes for her outburst. She seems genuinely contrite, the last person on earth youd expect to be yelling profanities at a sporting event.

Heckling is a verbal pie in the face, and sometimes it can be an actual pie in the face. It also can be a whole bunch of people throwing pies at one another, like a slapstick bit in an old-time Mack Sennett comedy. Unexpectedly, too, it can be something else: a kind of dialog or conversation between the heckler and the heckled.

One more incident, this time from baseball. Tony Gwynn Jr., the son of the late Hall of Famer, is in right field for the Los Angeles Dodgers in a game against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. He is facing home plate, crouched in the outfielders ready position as the pitcher delivers the ball and a heckler yells at Gwynn, Hey, dont act like youre playing.

Hey, dont act like youre playing.

The pitch is called, and Gwynn stands up straight and moves his glove behind his back, actually his butt, and opens it. Then when the heckler in his nauseating Gilbert Gottfried voice starts yakking at him again, Gwynn is ready, opening and shutting his glove like hes manipulating the mouth of a ventriloquists dummy. Everybody around the heckler gets it and bursts into laughter.

The heckler keeps going, Dont act like you dont hear me, but Gwynn surely hears him, because each time the man says something Gwynns glove opens and shuts like its the mans big mouth. Its a clever piece of improv comedy that only the right fielder and the fans behind him were aware of at the time, but now it has been seen by close to two million viewers on YouTube. After the inning ends Gwynn starts his walk back toward the Dodgers dugout, and there is some swagger to it. He knows he has bested a man whose goal was to torment him.

Heckling has long been a glorious/inglorious sports tradition. Choose the adjective that best describes your point of view. Many see heckling as a blight, a nuisance, profane, uncomfortable to be around, scary, possibly dangerous. Others find it entertaining and fun, like with the Tony Gwynn episode. There is a First Amendment right to free speech in America, and hecklers are part of that. Pro athletes make huge sums of money and they can stand to hear what fans think about them, even ifas LeBrons lady heckler showedits pretty raunchy stuff sometimes.

Besides, heckling can distract an opposing player and put him off his game, causing misery for his team and helping yours win. What is wrong with that?

However you line up in this debateand you may see merits on both sidesnone of these arguments actually speaks to the essential mysteries of heckling: that is, why do people do it and how do they do it best? Why did those guys shout Waffle House! at Tiger Woods when most peoplemost sane people, some would arguewould never dream of saying such an insulting thing to him?

This is only one of the many topics we will cover in The Official Heckler Handbook . This is a book for and about hecklers and for all the people who would never shout Waffle House! at Tiger Woods but who may be curious, and perhaps somewhat appalled as well, by those who do.

Curious and appalling. These are two more words to describe heckling, which so offends some people they feel it should be subject to strict limits, if not banned outright. Why do these people, including some of the most powerful figures in sports, dislike heckling? This seems as good a place as any to start. Lets peel away the onion and see what we find.