Forget winning a medal - the toughest challenge in the known world is to walk up to a BIG TIME celebrity and introducing yourself. Tougher than tough.
At the women's skeleton event yesterday in Whistler, a true star was hanging out at the Secret Special Lounge. Actually two stars: Sir Steven Redgrave and Sir Richard Branson.
I had met Steven Redgrave years before, on the starting line at Henley Royal Regatta just before he cleaned my clock in the finals of the Diamond Sculls. (Who knew he even sculled? Yep, he competed in the more challenging side of rowing, but only long enough to spin my head around like a rag doll before we'd gone the length of Temple Island. Ouch. ((Thank ph-ing god the result wasn't 'easily' which it just as easily could have been.)))
So, I'd already met Sir Steven. But Sir Richard... if we civilized humans still had panoply of gods, then Richard Branson would be a god. He leaps from success to success, Virgin Records, Virgin Air. He's the 261th richest person on the planet. And he did it all in his spare time, applying his real energy to goofing in boats, balloons, kite sailing, private islands, etc.
Last night in the Secret Special Lounge, Sir Richard was minding his own business, sitting on a comfy couch, a few acolytes at his elbow, watching some obscure Olympic event on TV. (The sport with the skates and curved sticks... hockey?)
From across the room, I approached him, then backed away; approached again, getting a foot closer (although still 35 feet from Sir Richard), then backed way. Clearly I need more nerve. The woman behind the bar pouring drinks (Nadine from Germany), said to me (after I explained my 5th trip to the bar in the course of 50 minutes): "if you don't introduce yourself, you'll never have another chance for the rest of your life; you'll feel bad about it for the rest of your life; you'll have let yourself down." Germans... perhaps Nadine is the daughter of Gunter Abel, the great German philosopher, here in Whistler tending bar as a ruse to gathering data on kooky Canadians and their southerly neighbours.
Time running out, the stick-match almost over, I approached Sir Richard one last time. Hand outstretched, heart rate spiking, head fogging, I stammered out: 'Hi, my name is Brad and I'm you're biggest fan.'(Corny, yes. Cliché, yes. But honest and harmless.) 'Well, thanks,' he said. 'Glad to meet you.' We shook hands and I backed away, the magic effervesce that surrounds him already knitting itself back together.
And that was that. Into the cold night, gloves falling out of pockets, stumbling down the steep hill towards the waiting busses. It all sounds pretty straightforward and easy, but until you've attempted such an introduction, you've haven't really felt the burn. Next time you see a celebrity, give it try.
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02/21/2010 11:54:41 AM