Heckle and Jeckle

Heckle and Jeckle
By Jeff Stone

Seriously… who does NOT like Heckle and Jeckle? The Brit and the New Yorker. Brilliant, Brilliant comedy. By the way, if you have no idea who Heckle and Jeckle are, a) You’re too young… b) do what the young folk these days do… Google it.

Alright enough with the Nostalgia. How many of you have ever been Heckled? Raise your hand. How do you handle a heckler? Well, I’m actually not going to answer that question… completely.

However, courtesy of an “incident” that happened to Diamond Jim, we’re going to get a little insight into the mind of a heckler.

Root:
Let’s remember our roots. Heckler’s are people too. That’s the root this month. In a nutshell, here’s the Diamond Jim incident. He was performing at restaurant that he performed at regularly. The environment is such that you were able to do more “showy” pieces, not just close up table-hopping.

As he was performing a young kid (late teens) was getting pretty dang annoying and heckley. Finally, Jim, decided to try and stop the heckling. So he had the kid come up as a volunteer, and performed the 2oth Century Bra Trick on the kid. For the unfamiliar, the effect is basically two silks are knotted together and tucked down the front of someone’s shirt.

The magician is going to magically untie the knots. However, when he pulls the silks out of the shirt, connected between them is a bra. Normally, Jim would use a woman from the audience who was a plant. However, in this case, he used the heckler.

BIG Mistake. The kid actually started to cry. Many of you may be thinking that he got what he deserved. On the contrary, however… hecklers are people too. The bottom line was that the kid was insecure. Who knows why, but that was the root of his hecklage (get it… root).

Branch:
Let’s build our branches. Do you want to be a better performer? Do you want to be remembered as a magician with class, or do you want to be remembered as the jerk who made a teenage boy cry with a bra joke? I’ll choose the former. So does Jim now. His intent wasn’t to be a jerk. Basically, his plan just backfired.

It’s a tough choice, and it takes serious commitment and a true performer to rise above it. Again, I’m not going to tell you specifically how to handle the heckler, but if you want to truly branch out and improve, I’ll tell you how not to handle the heckler.

Don’t fight back. Don’t embarrass him, don’t be the bigger jerk. Remember, hecklers are people too. Once upon a time, I read the wonderful book by Og Mandino entitled, The Greatest Salesman in the World. Let me first digress, by saying… READ IT!!!!!!!! Salesman or not, you MUST read it.

One of the “Scrolls of Wisdom” in the book is titled, “Today I will greet this day with love in my heart.” This was one of the toughest ones for me. The basic mission of the scroll was simply to get you to stop and change your attitude toward someone you had harsh feelings toward.

The scroll challenges the reader to look the “enemy” right in the eye and say (in the reader’s mind) “I love you!” Imagine looking right at the heckler and in your mind saying, “I Love You,” and meaning it. It’s not as hard as you think after the first few times you do it.

This act softens your face, heart and attitude, and will drastically impact for the better how your respond. This, of course, is a great technique for personal relationships as well.

So my challenge to you this month is to personally take some time to develop a nice way to respond to a heckler, and if you get heckled this month, apply the scroll of wisdom above.

If you don’t ever get heckled, then you’re one step ahead of us… however, your reading time was not wasted. You can apply this scroll to life as much as you can apply it to magic. Now go study the classics, and go discover your true magical self.

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