Meeting your Heroes

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I just met Gilbert Shelton, who partially inspired me to take up cartooning and the writing of comics. See futher episodes of the Holy Toledo site for details of that momentous meeting and the blushing and gushing that occurred.

Have you ever met your heroes, and if so, did you keep your cool or gush like a severed artery?

― Al, Monday, 19 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i have generally found meeting your heroes to be an excruciating waste of time/source of anguish/disillusionment. (especially cartoonists.)

― jess, Monday, 19 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The only one I ever met to leave me gasping was Mr Peter O'Toole. Sigh...

― suzy, Monday, 19 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have met Stuart Murdoch a few times and been ok. Robert Forster walked past me and I couldn't breathe.

― Ally C, Monday, 19 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The ones who fell in love with me I approve of, the ones who seemed to think I was a drunken idiot with embarressingly obvious ideas I now see as lacking in fashion sense

― maryann, Monday, 19 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I never embarrass myself

― maryann, Monday, 19 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've never really met anybody I've seen as a hero. Simon Reynolds maybe, but I'm annoyed by as much of his writing as I love so I don't suppose I can really consider him a proper hero. I was probably no more awkward around him than I am with anyone else, so that is to say that I was completely awkward.

― Nicole, Monday, 19 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

my heroes are my friends. so yeah, i've met them.

― di, Monday, 19 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I met Elvin Jones. I don't really expect my heroes to be nice people in addition to being awe-inspiring at whatever it is they do, but he was.

― Jordan, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I met Momus and he was a gentleman , more then a gentleman really. Hes not a hero persea that would be like meeting JAmes Merrill but hes dead.

― anthony, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I could have met Tim Gaines but I was too shy.

― Mike Hanle y, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Aphex Twin came and chatted crap about my car and rabbits, I was asleeo on the other side of it so he only spoke to my housemates not me.

― Ed, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

me and RickyT got to interview Kristin Hersh once and we babbled like fools, though she was lovely. i also got to interview Brian Molko and at the time i was dead excited because i really loved Placebo. i don't anymore and, looking back on it, he was a bit of a tosser. remembering the Kristin thing though, is still guaranteed to make me and RT grin like loons. WE WUV HER!!!!

― katie, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am going to a Stephen Fry book-signing today. What should I ask him?

― Sam, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ask him if he ever wishes his name was spelt with a V so people could call him Steve. Or even Stevo.

― Pete, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What is the most unacceptable thing to ever come out of your ass?

― Madchen, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What's weird is having all these hero/ines from being a teenager and then meeting them in a work capacity. I'd met many of them in high school because of the necessity of approaching them so me and friends could go watch soundchecks as were not able to contravene over-21 regulations at First Avenue (they would invariably play little shows for us and once, after letting us show him around for the day, Julian Cope smuggled us into the *real* show). I've met a lot of people now through work or because they date my friends, or because I've had to commission work from them (stand up Mr Cope and Ms Hersch). When some of them wind up being friends it feels really schizoid at first, but then wears off. A common mistake made by fledgling music journalists is thinking that the people you interact with are Instant Friends, but the irony is that the second you get over that eagerness to be accepted by people you admire, they find things to admire about you and you do make friends.

I did have a bit of a head start in cool-keeping in some respects. My uncle was responsible for sorting out stars' security arrangements for the Minneapolis police and we were invariably taken down to meet people (when I was away at college my cousin was too shy to go have tea with the Gorbachevs, silly girl). This is cool when it's Sophia Loren and very uncool when it's the Osmonds and you're in Junior High. Also I went to a college with a very high density of Famous People's Kids, so if you buttonholed Paul Newman on the way to class it would be *very* uncool and all over the dorms by the end of dinner service.

― suzy, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Actually, it should be "What is the most unacceptable thing ever to come out of your ass?" because Fry looks like the type to pick up on a split infinitive.

― Madchen, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And picking up on same would be a very good way to dodge the question!

― suzy, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well as Pete and Tom witnessed, I gave Basement Jaxx 2 fags outside Sainsbury's Local on Hornsey Road one Friday night.

― Emma, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I met Barry Sheene. I went to school with one of Leicester Tigers.

― Peter Miller, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah dinnae huv any heroes. Heroes are fir wee boys. Ah'm a grown man 'n' that.

― Arnold Clark Quality Used Carts for legal reasons, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I went to school with no-one famous at all although Stephen Tomkinson apparently left my school the year before I joined.

I drunkenly got Stephin Merritt to light a cigarette for me and then had to hide the fact that I wasn't a very good smoker and to be honest IT WAS A FEEBLE EXCUSE to get CLOSE TO YOU I wuv you Stephin but you're very small aren't you....

Perhaps in the "who famous have you met" type questions we get here, Suzy should just tell us which famous people she's met who are REALLY smaller than you would think in theee reality.

― Sarah, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i went to school with tim booth, but i only found out this summer

― mark s, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sarah, because the Napoleon complex is probably something that helps people get fame, just assume they're all shortish unless I tell you someone is TALL AS FUCK.

― suzy, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I met John Malkovich, but although I liked his work, I was slightly too young to really appreciate it. He's become more of a hero since.

Stuart Murdoch is the one I've talked to most often; Nick Hornby (who I know lots of people here don't like, but I thought he was great when I briefly worked for him) was a lovely, quiet and generous bloke. Jane Horrocks was just gorgeous and smashing - I spent several hours getting heartily smashed with her and a mutual friend, who that very night got it on with Jane and they now have two kids. Aaw.

So I've done quite well in hero-meeting - they've been pretty cool. Gordon gano from the Violent Femmes was completely stand-offish, but that's the only example I can think of.

― Mark C, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Heroes, heroes...well, my interview with one K. Shields was on the phone, so never mind.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

um this sounds a bit high-brow, but at college i got to ask one question of a philosopher i was really "into" (i was doing a dissertation on him) and i asked the most inane question ever to and he quite rightly questioned the question. i then backed out by trying to explain what i was saying with something ripped off straight from one of his books. grrr. and i bloody recorded the whole thing. i really should throw those tapes away... oh i have. good

― Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Did he say the question was cuntish?

I dont have heroes really - people I admire and yeah I tend to be a bit awkward at first. The nearest I came to meeting one I suppose was when I went at age 10 or so to a Dr Who convention at Longleat, and missed meeting Dr Who (at that time Peter Davidson) because Dad and I had gone off to find a toilet. I'd have wet myself anyway probably. My brother got to shake his hand, grr.

― Tom, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

on a dr who tip, i know a lot of people that know actual dr who peoples, but the *one* time i was at a party and Sophie Aldred (aka Ace) was there I bottled out of being introduced by a friend cos i knew i'd just go to pieces (i mean more than usual) cos i had such a crush on her.

― Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Are you the real Arnold Clark?

― Ally C, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

snuh?

― Alan Trewartha, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I sort of met Dr Who Jon Pertwee, but he was dressed up as Worzel Gummidge at the time and consequently couldn't shake hands becasue, "I've got twigs". He was totally in character, what a pro!

Mark, I like Nick Hornby much more than I did five minutes ago. Not that I disliked him, mind.

― Peter Miller, Tuesday, 20 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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