Heroes

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Do you have any? If so, who are they? Would you like to meet them?

― Johnathan, Thursday, 28 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

None...I remember answering something like this a few years back for some newspaper poll, and my answer remains the same: I don't have heroes per se, but I do have friends and relatives I look up to as role models, people far more generous in the end than I am, on many levels. I keep that in mind as both a check and a spur.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 28 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Was this something that we were talking about on this thread, or was this something I was asked in an interview, because I distinctly remember wracking my brains, and coming up with the slightly lame answer that the strong-willed, independent, intelligent women of my family- my mum, my grannies, and my great granny were my *true* idols and role models.

When it comes to pop star and pop culture idols, I've invariably been disappointed whenever I actually meet or get to know my idols, as they always turn out to be all too human. Besides, when you meet them, what the heck are you supposed to say? I avoid the situation.

That said, speaking of musical heroes, Strange Fruit has just booked Sonic Boom to play in October. I will be an utter mess. I mean, it's going to take every bone in my body not to blubber "OK, soundcheck is at 3, you're onstage at 10 and... I LOVE YOU!!! I LOVE YOU!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!"

― masonic boom, Thursday, 28 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

George Monbiot.

Delia Derbyshire.

Tove Jansson (RIP, once again).

― Robin Carmody, Thursday, 28 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

George Monbiot's a marvellous chap.

Mine: Leonard Cohen and William Blake. Maybe John Lennon. Maybe Stan Laurel.

― Johnathan, Thursday, 28 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My dad, who taught me many things in life, all of them good, sound useful things to know, and he imparted many wisdoms to me which I heed to this day. He also gave me a great repetoire of dirty jokes and taught me how to drink shots of Tequila.

In the category of people I do not know but admire almost to the point of being a hero, it would be Neil Gaiman. Or maybe Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.

― michele, Thursday, 28 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Heroes...Mick Foley and J Mascis...it'd be cool to meet them both, but not essential!

― james e l, Friday, 29 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Frank O'Hara :
one of the best lyrical poets of the twentieth century: Heart breaking in his clarity of vision. Can be whimsical and serious at the same time. Used teh venaculor but rose it up so it didnt seem precious or cheap. As well curarted MOMA for 10 years, populrizing both alot of the New York School of Abstract Expressionists ( Franz Kline,De Kooning) and some of the very early Pop Artists ( Joe Baird, Larry Rivers). This does not include a huge amount of people he found that were outside these catorogies or how much he helped his poet friends ( inculding John Ashberry and Kennth Koch) He was loved by his friends, his exlovers commented on his genoristy of spirit . He was one of those men who lived his life with purpose. Treated those who he came into contact with the same way. Both the art world and the liteary world are inscentous and suckle petty greviances. Evryone manages to have at least one charchter assianation written . No one has ever wrote anything negative against Frank .

― anthony, Friday, 29 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'd love to meet all my heroes. off the top of my head: Bruce, Germaine Greer, Lou Barlow and Will Geer.

― chris, Friday, 29 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nestor Makhno (juvenile "man of action" type thing)

Dolly Collins (music)

Katharine Hepburn (general kewlness)

Simon House (music again)

xoxo

― Norman Fay, Friday, 29 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Michel Platini.

― the pinefox, Friday, 29 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I know virtually nothing about him, but Antoni Gaudi must have been quite a man.

― Johnathan, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

He was beatified sometime earlier this year.

― anthony, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I admire people for certain reasons but I've never really had a hero. All through grade school for some reason I was continually asked to have one in various situations so I ended up settling on Steve Wozniak, who invented the first Apple computer in his garage with that hoser Jobs, because I was sick of all the bullshit baseball players and stuff that my friends picked. I didn't actually think he was my hero, though, just a cool guy. Since leaving Apple he's spent most of his time and a lot of his money in education, and trying to improve people's experience with computers, which I think is a fine use of his talents and a fine way to help people.

― Josh, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

hey Norman - Simon House - i did meet him , sorta.(already told you - played before hawkwind in auckland) like i didn't actually speak to him but he seemed like a spooky acid burnout & 1 of his eyes sort of wanders off looking in another direction when he looks at you. so DON'T MEET HIM , it's creepy!

― duane, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

music heroes - met 'em all already(all obscure NZ people so no point in droppin names). literary & art heroes - don't wanna meet 'em (what'm i gonna do, *talk* to 'em?).

― duane, Sunday, 1 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I used to be way into having heroes. Bobby Hurley was always my hero, but so were John Kruk, Bill Lee, and Sean McDonaugh. Ty Cobb, also. Heroes are great, I wish I still had heroes. I don't know who to worship anymore. Allen Iverson, in a couple more years, maybe. That Liu kid who guarded Iverson in the playoffs, possibly. Hank Von Helvete if he wasn't crazy. Eminem if he was crazier (or if all his songs were like "Fight Music"). Sean Penn. Vin Diesel.

― Otis Wheeler, Monday, 2 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

eight months pass...

I've never been much good at having heroes. I don't really understand the concept. But recently, I have come up with a few:

Louis Theroux - just cause I kind of want to be him

Leonard Rossiter - prob. a bit of a nightmare but there's something lonely and individualistic and brave and bloody funny about him that gets me

Orson Welles - the opposite kind of hero to Louis Theroux. I'm just in awe of the size of his personality. I will never be a collosus and I think he's the archtypal one to admire

Michael Landy - 'The Man Who Destroyed Everything'. The one who destroyed all his personal possessions in Oxford St for 'Breakdown' last year. I was mildly interested at the time but watching a documentary about him the other day made me realise how multi-faceted and interesting a project it was and I now curse myself for having not gone along. Watching the programme made me almost fancy him. There was just something about him. The way he had been thought more highly of than Damien Hirst et al. at art school and had seen himself subsequently dismissed as 'dead wood' by his dealers was a powerful pull too.

― N., Tuesday, 12 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think I've any heroes per se.

I guess from time to time I'll be watching some DJ and be like "HE'S A HERO" but then I go home to bed and think better of it the next day. I have my own little canon of course, of people I think are fantastic at what they do. Jon Carter, Jason Pierce, Johnny Cash, but I mean if they do something crap I'll say it's crap.

― Ronan, Tuesday, 12 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Although I did and still do like Let It Come Down : )

― Ronan, Tuesday, 12 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Nick, Michael Landy = friend of mine. A lovely, lovely, lovely man, make no mistake. And Scrapheap Services is one of my favourite artworks of all time.

He was supposed to come out with my posse to see Peaches play on Friday but instead stayed in to draw for the first time in ages.

― suzy, Tuesday, 12 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"stayed in to draw" = favourite phrase of the day

― mark s, Tuesday, 12 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

my heroes is my bandmates. thgey is talented fucksores. so yeah i met em.

― di, Tuesday, 12 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one year passes...

I forgot Bill Drummond

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 6 April 2003 14:04 (twenty-two years ago)

four months pass...

Robert Rodriguez, for making great movies for his kids and everyone else that cost fuck-all.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 6 August 2003 11:25 (twenty-two years ago)

four years pass...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1400/921567415_22ae3c00e9.jpg

― Dom Passantino, Monday, 24 March 2008 13:22 (seventeen years ago)

ASIAN DOM

― Electronic Bugaloo, Monday, 24 March 2008 20:54 (seventeen years ago)

Has ken c been working out?

― nickalicious, Monday, 24 March 2008 20:57 (seventeen years ago)

one year passes...

Well, Ken, have you?

― StanM, Tuesday, 27 October 2009 10:48 (fifteen years ago)

When I was growing up, MLK, Jr. was alive and doing his non-violent-standing-up-in-the-face-of-racism thing. He was a genuine hero to me. Always will be.

Behind him were hundereds of thousands of ordinary folks who marched, took Freedom Rides, got beat on and spat on, but kept going and kept the faith. Many thousands are still alive. Not all survived the ordeal. Heroes all, and it doesn't matter I don't know their names.

― Aimless, Tuesday, 27 October 2009 18:05 (fifteen years ago)

two years pass...

One of the things that troubles me about the current American militaristic vibe for everything is the call to automatically treating every dude who hates his backwater town so much he enlists just to get out as a hero without doing anything more, and how reductionist that felt that only heroes were dudes who joined up with military authority.

(also that Atticus Finch ain't automatically held up as an icon of heroism and manhood.)

And then I think about WWII vets and the thing is, if giving your life or repeatedly putting it on the line to fight the Wehrmacht ain't heroic, what is? I mean, the armies of darkness really were stalking the land then, and good people(and assholes mixed in) really did throw in and head off to die in the jungle or a field or the desert or the air to try to stop them.

(note: thought inspired by watching this vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMaMc7D6Nng )

And also, my grandpa, who dropped out of high school to head out to sea and wound up getting shot at in the Coral Sea and Midway, and yet came home to become a fireman. He wound up risking his life to save two people from a burning building, and lost part of a lung in the process.

― Steam Sale Jonesin' (kingfish), Friday, 13 July 2012 04:41 (thirteen years ago)

one year passes...

von Neumann invented the theory of duality in linear programming, after George B. Dantzig described his work in a few minutes, when an impatient von Neumann asked him to get to the point. Then, Dantzig listened dumbfounded while von Neumann provided an hour lecture on convex sets, fixed-point theory, and duality, conjecturing the equivalence between matrix games and linear programming

― CSI BONO (darraghmac), Monday, 3 March 2014 02:39 (eleven years ago)

three years pass...

http://i.imgur.com/2AnsRS4.jpg

― rip van wanko, Sunday, 20 August 2017 04:57 (eight years ago)

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