The Art of the Heel

American professional wrestling has split wrestlers into two primary groups since time immemorial, or at least since the days of Gorgeous George.  First there are the heels that go around and act like jerks all the time, and then there are the babyfaces who confront the jerks with the intent of ultimately teaching them a lesson in the ring after a sufficient build to a match.  

In the late 80's this formula expanded from the ring to the commentary booth with commentators like Jesse "The Body" Ventura and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan encouraging the jerk wrestlers in the ring to be even bigger jerks than they already were, much to the dismay of play by play commentators like Gorilla Monsoon who just wanted to call the action in the ring.  Eventually it got to the point where the heel commentators seemed even more like jerks than the heel wrestlers who were actually wrestling in the ring.  I can't tell you how much I enjoyed heel commentators and wrestlers over the years and how fun I thought it would be to emulate them.  It's so rare to see a job description where you actually get paid MORE if you can make people consistently upset with you and any ridiculous antics you try to pull.

But becoming a professional wrestler myself just wasn't in the cards.  I injured myself long ago lifting weights, and I'm not too big on traveling.  So I just decided to enact very obvious but not too tasteless heel tactics in my daily life and see what the heck happens.  Then I thought it would be fun to document some of my experimentation with this artform and give it a flashy title.  That's why I'm starting this "Zen in the Art of Being a Jerk" blog, basing the title off of the wonderful book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" which I read some years ago.

The art of the professional wrestling heel is what got me started on this journey, and I guess we'll see just where it all goes from here.  I hope it ends up being an interesting character study or perhaps even a very minor dissertation.