Have you ever met one of your heroes? I’m not really one to get star struck and have never had any interest in hanging around to get autographs or anything like that.
Though they always say that you will be disappointed if you do meet your heroes. I came across a picture which was taken in June 2006 in Las Vegas. Several of us had went over for a week (myself and a friend had been in Boston and New York beforehand as well). Fraser, who took the picture, never emailed the pic on. However, I came across it tonight on my bebo profile (I’m not proud of logging in there, someone had messaged me!).
So here’s what happened. We were walking around the Rio hotel in Vegas watching the World Series of Poker. You can walk around a few feet from the tables and check out the action. We are all big poker fans so we were loving it and got some pictures with some poker stars (I also gave my card to a few players in order to interview them later for the poker community I use to run).
We were standing outside in the lobby when Greg Hemphill walked past me. I wouldn’t go as far as saying he was a hero, however I was (and still am) a big fan of his two shows: the sketch show Chewin the Fat and fantastic Still Game.
I was standing myself when he came out and I just approached him and started chatting away asking how he got put out. I spoke with him for about 5 to 10 minutes about poker and he talked about some hands he played. It was a little surreal actually as neither of us introduced each other, we just chatted away as if we were old mates.
I then asked if I could get a picture and he was more than happy to oblige. So I shouted on my mates to come over for a pic. Due to him sporting a beard, no one realised who he was at first; they just thought it was some guy I knew from back home because of how long we spoke.
The penny soon dropped and we got a pic with him.
The tabloids write so much crap in their columns that you don’t know what’s true and what’s not. They paint some stars to be a’holes.
Thankfully Mr Hemphill was not, far from it. He was incredibly down to earth and was genuinely pleased to see some other Scottish people over in the USA. He came across as a really sound guy.
I doubt many people recognised him over there but in Glasgow he undoubtedly gets people approaching him all the time so you could understand if he couldn’t be bothered talking to fans.
All in all that was a really great day. Frasers girlfriend got a pic with the legend Doyle Brunson and we all got a pic with the previous World Series of Poker winners Joe Hachem and Greg Raymer, both of which were really nice down to earth guys too. They were stopping in the hallway every two minutes to give autographs and they were obliging everyone. Good stuff.
We also got a picture with the Devilfish, but he was a bit of a dick!
Have you ever met anyone famous (or remotely famous)? Were you disappointed or did they turn out to be as nice as you had hoped? :)