Ok, so I said I would take a couple days before revealing who my beer bud would be.  The answer will probably be different depending on where I am in my life.  But presently I would pick CNN’s Anderson Cooper to guzzle some suds with over conversation.  I’ve always liked AC even back in the day when he was a correspondent.  His demeanor has always come off to me as being very business like and yet very sincere and distinct.  I’ve never seen him with an air of taking himself too seriously.  But he brings with news just enough personality where you at least get the feeling you can see a part of his makeup.  He is so relaxed and unconventionally fresh in front of the camera.  It makes me that much more comfortable digesting the news as he reports it.

Added to the intrigue is the fact that I just finished with his book, “Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival.” The book is a moving memoir of Cooper’s life as a child of celebrities, his family and life as a war and disaster correspondent.  There is no doubt that his ventures have shaped his life in ways that I can only imagine.  And from what I’ve gotten from the book, he’s always been cool with that.  I get the impression that Anderson’s life is an adventure and a discovery all at the same time.  I feel the same about my life.  I’m sure many others do too.  The thing with Anderson is that he seemed ready to admit that all along.

I would talk to Anderson about his experiences in Sri Lanka after the tsunami, as well as some of the nations in Africa like Niger and Somalia during the wars there.  Of course we would have to hit more on what went on in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  This seemed to have affected him the most of all the places he had seen.  This was because he never thought his own nation would respond to a disaster with what appeared to be the same level of  ineptitude as he had seen in several third world nations.  That just messed him up.  I would try to get more details than what he shared in the book.   Things he feels people should know even if they don’t think they want to. 

I believe this would be a fascinating, disturbing and enlightening experience.  I know I would come away from a conversation with him better than when I started.

Now as for a beer choice.  Well I’m buying so Anderson can have whatever he wants.  For me, it’s Widmer Hefeweizen on tap; tall cold and frosty with an orange.