Hey Bob,

I look forward to hearing your views about hecklers. I've never been seriously heckled before. Some playful jabs from friends who were in the crowd is all that I can remember having experienced. Perhaps I've simply been fortunate that my audiences have been nice. Or maybe I've just blocked any of those bad experiences out of my thoughts.

Mild tauts or give and take banter between my friends and I while I'm on stage are something that I enjoy. It tells me that there are those that know me that are among those listening and supporting my efforts. That kind of a playful connection with those in attendance is important to me as a way to test the waters.

(An aside) I can recall a performance at an internet coffeehouse near campus where all of my efforts to make any kind of connection with those in attendance fell almost entirely on deaf ears. It was one of those gigs where I was merely considered to be sonic wallpaper. I couldn't even begin compete with what was going on at every table. I had never before played in a room were everyone was totally engrossed with their laptops. The soft clicking of keyboards, muffled caffeinated conversations and the occasional screeching shriek of the espresso machine from the other room was all that broke the silence between songs.

I've got some tricks in my bag but nothing that I did was able to break the focused connection to the web or the hold that the high powered espresso drinks had over the assembled body. Caffeine and the internet together are tough competition. It made me wonder why this place was even interested in paying entertainers to perform. Rather than struggle with the tide of indifference I went into a modified muzak mode and decided this was one of those places that I'd not frequent with my efforts.