A few thoughts on hecklers

Worst graphic I've ever put on this blog?

I had my first live experience with a heckler last night.

Well, I should clarify to say that my involvement was just as a passing bystander, but the events that unfolded while I was in the room fascinated me.

I was at the Beat Kitchen in Roscoe Village for a night of stand up presented by Chicago Underground Comedy. If you live in Chicago and you’ve never checked it out, you should. While it’s often known as a breeding ground for improv actors, Chicago has a flourishing alt comedy scene, with many of the comics opening for the likes of Brian Posehn and Maria Bamford when they come to town. In other words, they’re really funny.

Anyway, one of the comedians was halfway through his set when some doucher in the back screamed, “You suck!”

Now, in this age of social media, where an anonymous, condescending comment is just a click away, anyone who puts themselves out there in any form creatively—be it a YouTube video, blog post, original song, podcast or anything in between—will be subjected to some form of e-heckle at some point. It’s inevitable.

The Internet provides a buffer zone for people to say things they’d never have the temerity to say to your face, and gives them the ability to freely ignore anything you have to say in response. It could be a negative rating on YouTube, or a passive-aggressive comment on a blog post from someone who lists their name as “A Concerned Friend of Your Mother,” or my personal favorite, an email from a guy you barely knew in college, who you’ve seen maybe twice since, detailing why a video you did wasn’t funny, and providing you with three short video concepts he thinks would be much funnier. (Thanks for the ideas, Jason. They’re HI-LAR-IOUS.)

But the live heckle? That’s something entirely different. Stand up comedy thrives on pacing and timing, and the heckle can rob even the most experienced performer of that. But occasionally, you get a comic who derives joy from addressing a heckler face-to-face, who revels in the embarrassment and torment he or she is about to inflict on the assbag who’s just interrupted their set. This guy was one such comic.

“Thank you!” the comic said. “I haven’t felt this alive in a long time. Let’s do this!” You could see the delight on his face.

The comic asked the heckler his name, but he ignored the comic’s attempt to engage him, choosing to repeat his earlier gem. “You suck!”

As a passing bystander, this amazed me. In three minutes this heckler had determined 1) he didn’t like this comic’s jokes, and 2) he was going to interrupt his set to let him know.

Let’s discard for a moment the fact that comedy, like all art, is subjective, and what you might find funny, I might hate. For instance, I think the CBS “comedy” Two and a Half Men represents everything that is wrong with television today. But based on the sheer number of awards it’s won, there are a more than a few people who disagree with me … or perhaps the majority of the show’s fans are zombies who will brainlessly laugh whenever a laugh track tells them to.

But regardless of whether or not this heckler found this comic funny (for the record, he was killing), the best thing he could think to scream from a dark corner in the back of the room was “You suck!”? That, my friends, is not a heckle. That’s what one teenage girl says to another when she doesn’t get invited to a weekend at the Klondike Kavern Water Park in the Wisconsin Dells, or what you scream at any number of Cubs players after they shit the bed in early June. It’s the lowest common denominator of heckles. You’re simply stating your opinion, devoid of any creativity and in the most confrontational manner possible, to a person with a microphone and the audience’s sympathy, who writes jokes for a living. Who’s going to be the asshole in that situation?

Fortunately for this disruptive doucher, the good folks at Chicago Underground Comedy threw him out immediately. I don’t know the comic personally, but given the way he was salivating over his brief interaction with this “heckler,” I can only imagine with giddy delight what could’ve been.

So the next time you’re sitting at a comedy show and you think to yourself, “I should let this person know that I don’t find this funny,” do yourself a favor: don’t. Leave your condescending comments and creatively-challenged insults to the Internet, where the shroud of anonymity can protect you from the ire of someone who likely lives to rip an asshole like you a new one.