Who are some of your personal heroes?

This is going to seem shallow but almost my heroes are artists really - there's something safer about it to me, like I can find something heroic in their work only. There's a lot of people who fit that in some way but these are the big three I usually mention.

Paul Westerberg - A definitive guy for me, not just a guy who made great music, lots of people do that, but for a time a guy whose very existence was a sort of an act of humorous defiance, whether anyone got it, understood it, embraced it or cared about it (they didn't).

Francis Ford Coppola - In the 70s he achieved something through his Art that I really do find heroic - the peak of artistry in the form (still) and he did this in American genre films - mystery, crime films, war film, and each in some way subverted or revised each and forced me to reconsider my country too. All 4 of his 70s films end the same way

Wayne Gretzky - Who was a great sports figure to me and inspiration because he was so great despite (almost) not having one single "normal" attribute within his sport that made him stand out - he was like the 5th best skater on his team, he wasn't tough, he was small and borderline frail..........he sucked at breakaways not a great one on one player............his shot wasn't especially hard ........but what he had was seeing the ice and his mind so he could skate and pass and find shots. You could actually live your day to day life like him and try to outfox or out-think others the way that he did.