Big..orange..shiny...

The tale of the anti-heckler.

I am one, I can admit that much. I am an avid and vocal heckler. I'm not ashamed of that. When a performance is good, I will applaud, tel my friends to go see, pay for merchandise and the like. When a performance is bad, I will heckle. I am of silver tongue and quick wit, and I use these attributes freely when trying to get somebody to just stop doing what they are doing. Mediocre singin, badly set up jokes, bad acting? I will heckle, heckle to my hearts content. My hope is that if I am ever on stage, people will do the same to me. Through heckling to greatness!

This weekend I was stopped. Stopped in such an absolute and incredible manner I can do no more than respect the artist who has silenced me. As most who read this know, it can sometimes be quite difficult to silence me, and he did it.

We, housemate, Sandra, Martin and I, were at a street fair in Uithoorn, my little hole in nothingness. And on this fair, there was a singer. Danny Panadero. A big, orange and shiny man. He sounded well, I have to admit, but he chose songs of such carnavalesque dutch horrendousness I couldn't help myself, I heckled. I threw in comments about songs, about the way he mangled lyrics, about his general orangeness, everything.
Then, he played a song I actually like, and to get my point across I punched the air a few times with the hand I had a purple scarf in, cheerleaderstyle. This caught the eyes of the orange Juggernaut, and all I could think was "Fucked, thy name is Kevin"

And yes, through the crowd he lumbered, light glinting of enormous sunshades, the orangeness of his face almost distracting from his bright yellow shirt, a big man, grey of hair and black of suit, an impressive character. I could feel his steely gaze on me, as small children were trampled underfoot and I desperately begged my friends not to leave me alone. Obviously and deservedly, they did (even though they heckled as well, bastards).
Standing right in front of me, singing "heb de hele nacht liggen dromen" (Dutch, translates as "been dreaming of you all night") for two verses right in my face, I have to admit, I fell silent. Not out of fear, mind, but mostly because I had no idea what to say now, and I actually liked the shiteload of attention it got me.
And, of course, out of fear, goes without saying, nearly.

He went back, pleased with the results of his actions, and started "YMCA" by the Village People after a few lines of banter in my direction. This, obviously, wasn't a problem for me, I'm very much out of the closet, and don't mind bantering with the stage when given the opportunity. I do respect his heckling techniques though, mark of a showman of some experience, if not directly quality.

Also, very happy that this helped me overcome my writer's block somewhat. I hope to have some more to blog about in the near future.
For now, be careful with big orange things.
Grtz,
Kevin.