USVI-On-Line

Yes, Anderson Cooper was here. I saw him and acted like a star-struck nerd. I am a big admirer of his work and when I looked up and unexpectedly saw him with Kenny I stopped dead in my tracks and saluted. I'm not kidding.
I have subsequently heard that Anderson and Kenny were at one of our local schools and that Kenny gave an surprise concert and that the kids were thrilled.
I discovered online that Anderson is now a contributor to CBS News' 60 Minutes, so maybe that's what they were working on. I think the Country Music Awards are on November 6th, so maybe it will air around then.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/ ... 1628.shtml
-Ruth
P.S. For those of you who might be curious, I have lived here 11 years and have seen Kenny exactly twice. Well, maybe three times, but one of the times I'm not sure about. A few years ago (before I had heard "Be As You Are" and before I knew I was a fan) a guy helped me carry a bunch of heavy boxes of kids clothes up the stairs to my old office and I was so thankful I offered him five dollars. He gave me a really funny look and declined, so I offered him a water, which he accepted. It only occurred to me a few months ago that it might have been Kenny. I was watching a special on TV and something struck me as kind of familiar and I remembered the feeling I had that I had done something dumb when I offered him five dollars for helping me. I'm kind of hoping it wasn't him. For obvious reasons.
At any rate, if you think you're just going to run into him all the time here, you will be disappointed.

That's what I try to tell myself as well, but I think I'd still prefer for it to have been someone else.

Great info. Ruth! I love the $5.00 story!! Thanks!

ah ahhaahhaa

Ruth, you're killing me!

You crack me up Ruth! I miss your humor and can not wait to see you in 178 days!

Wow. I can't imagine that Anderson could be paid by both CBS and CNN at the same time. Wouldn't his contract with CNN have a non-compete clause or something? How cool that was there! I wonder how squeezed in the trip between Lebanon, Darfur and everywhere else he ends up.

I thought the same thing. Wouldn't you like to have HIS Frequent Flyer Miles?!

Anderson Cooper...I would have been starstruck too, definitely. Not only is he an excellent reporter, he is dreamy looking!

Too funny on the KC story, Ruth. At least he (if it was indeed he) is a helpful fellow!

Dang but that Anderson Cooper is a hottey!!! I would have saluted as well!!

I first remember Anderson Cooper from "The Mole." Anyone here ever watch that show?? He's cool--I really like him.

Anderson Cooper was great on the Mole! The Mole was great, but it didn't even make it thru the second season.

Ruth - your story about the possible Kenny and the $5 has relieved me because of a similar thing that happened to me.

I was hired to train the dog of this guy (Trent) who dressed like a bum but had a secretary call me to set up the initial appointments. While in his house, I asked him what he did because he had all kinds of musical equipment (don't normally ask my clients what they do). He told me he was a musician. I said, "Oh" and chuckled a bit and went back to training the dog.

The reason I chuckled was because I thought he was a street corner musician in the French Quarter or something based on the way he looked and dressed.

Later, when I was talking about this guy with a younger person, who realized that I was training Trent Reznor's dog. I still didn't know who he was until the person told me that he was the lead singer of the Nine Inch Nails. I didn't know their music but had heard of them.

I was humiliated when I found out who he was and that I kinda laughed at him when he told me that. Talk about embarrasing (sp?).

So Ruth...don't feel bad about offering a rich person $5 - you probably gave him a story to tell to his buddies.

nothintolose

Re: Anderson Cooper

Doesn't hurt to have lineage originating with Cornelius Vanderbilt. His mother is Gloria Vanderbilt.

I'm sure that was a bit of a career starter.

Maybe you're right. Obviously the guy's brilliant and motivated and that certainly comes from somewhere.

From wikipedia:

"After Cooper graduated from Yale University, he tried unsuccessfully to gain entry-level employment with ABC answering telephones. He instead took a job as fact-checker for the much smaller Channel One, which produces a youth-oriented news program that is broadcast to many junior high and high schools in the United States.

After six months, Cooper decided that he wanted to switch to reporting, but

"figured if I told anyone, they wouldn't give me the chance [...] I quit my job and moved overseas and started shooting with my own video camera. I figured if I put myself in situations where there weren't many Americans around and I shot little stories, then I could sell them to Channel One. I wanted to make it impossible for them to not put me on air. [...] I had a friend of mine make a fake press pass on a Macintosh, and I snuck into Burma and hooked up with some students fighting the Burmese government. I had met the person who was involved in the Burmese student movement in New York, and they gave me the name of a contact in a town in Western Thailand. So I found my way to this town that was like a Wild West border town, and I contacted the person and said I was a reporter. We met in an ice cream parlor, and then they agreed to take me in, and they smuggled me across the border into Burma."[3]

After reporting from Burma, Cooper lived in Vietnam for a year and then returned to filming stories from a variety of war-torn regions around the globe, including Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda. Haunted by his brother's suicide, Anderson explains, "The only thing I really knew is that I was hurting and needed to go someplace where the pain outside matched the pain I was feeling inside." Cooper describes himself as having become "fascinated with conflict" during this dangerous period of his life in which he was occasionally shot at. While "witnessing history" was an incentive for him to report from such locales,

"I also found that I felt that the molecules in the air were different. In all the places where there was conflict it was sort of a highly charged atmosphere and there was something about it that appealed to me. I found I was very interested in issues of survival and why some people survive and others don't. I wanted to see first-hand. I felt very comfortable in those places.""