Celebrate this: sleeves are bad!
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/06/art.time100.ac360.jpg caption="AC360° staffers Ella Perlis, Chuck Hadad, Mary Anne Fox and Kay Jones at the Time 100 "]
Kay Jones
AC360° Coordinating Editorial Producer
It was a night of celebration. Hundreds of journalists, publicists, authors and celebrities turned out last night to recognize those who made the TIME 100 Most Influential list.
First Lady Michelle Obama gave a moving speech. And for those of you who pay attention to this kind of thing, she had on a floor length sleeveless black dress with a lot of long necklaces and her hair was in an updo. Bottom line: she looked awesome.
Oprah Winfrey was there, talking to fellow honoree Suze Orman. When our own Dr Sanjay Gupta walked in, Oprah stopped, gave him a hug and said loud enough for most of us to hear, "Look, it's Sanjay"!
Moments later, The View's Whoopi Goldberg practically ran over people to get to Dr. Gupta. It was a great to see the response to him. Unfortunately he had to run, so he could make his live appearance on No Bias, No Bull.
The View's Barbara Walters walked around on the arm of Executive Producer Bill Getty as celeb publicist Ken Sunshine caught up with Van Jones, the President's new Green Jobs coordinator. CNN's John King was seen chatting with 360 producer Mary Anne Fox and with Jeff Han, a Time honoree and creator of CNN's Magic Wall.
Honoree AR Rahman, who won an Oscar for the song Jai Ho in Slumdog Millionaire, began the entertainment after the brief dinner break, singing his Oscar winning hit. 360° producer Chuck Hadad was spotted in the overflow room doing – and I'm not kidding here – a dance he learned on a recent trip to India. Words cannot describe what we witnessed.
Soon afterward, honoree Oprah Winfrey took the mike, and as fellow honoree Michelle Obama looked on from the next seat, Oprah toasted her former teachers and all the teachers of the world.
Jimmy Fallon took the stage, guitar in hand, singing what can only be described an original song that I believed was titled "Car Wash For Peace." Afterward he took the mike and talked about Michelle Obama's greatest enemy: sleeves. It got a great response from the crowd and I missed his next two jokes – thanks to the laughs of Team 360.
Fashion designer, daughter of Paul McCartney, and honoree Stella McCartney, gave a toast to her parents and told Mrs. Obama to "never wear sleeves, ever."
The final act was honoree and Grammy award winning John Legend. I stopped blogging to listen while sipping champagne. I'll admit it: I am nothing short of enamored by him. Hopefully I can get him and Anderson together later this year to talk.
Post show consisted of dessert, cocktails and mingling. Suze Orman sat down at the Team 360 table and chatted with our newest Associate Producer Ella Perlis, while I managed to sneak away and meet Biz Stone, one of the co-founders of Twitter.
Mary Anne and I then ran into Pres. Obama's speechwriter and honoree Jon Favreau. It was a great way to end the night.
And now I am working on making sleeves my enemy, as well.
|
|
Filed under: Behind The Scenes • Kay Jones |
About this Show:
Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Tune in weeknights at 8 and 10 ET on CNN.
Questions or comments? Send an email
Want to know more? Go behind the scenes with AC361°
Subscribe to the podcast
On Twitter
Search the AC360 blog
Fun read. Anderson interview with John Legend would be marvelous. Would love to be in the same room as Michelle Obama and Oprah. The wisdom those two women have….would love to crawl into their minds and read their thoughts.
Great job!
The party seems it was great!
First Lady Michelle was very elegant yesterday!
The question is, would be appropriate for a woman with 45 years show the arms? Even more for the woman of the President?
But First Lady Michelle is able, huh!
The very CNN.com/Health has made article a "How to get toned arms Michelle Obama's"
For what to exercise the arms, if not to show them? 🙂
A nice reporting ,which induces every reader to take part in the merriment.
sounds like a great night
Chuck Hadad must be encouraged to put together a dance number with the 360 dancers. Looking at his pic, it's obvious anything he did for the camera would be entertaining.
Anderson and John Legend on the same small screen - boffo! Work night and day to make this happen.
Sanjay Gupta deserves all gushing and enthusiasm! Dad to 3? Who cares, the guy's super smart, wonderfully understandable when talking about medicinme, and hot, hot, hot!
Thank you for bringing us the flavor of an event most people could only dream about attending. Good Job.
ohhh-what't wrong with the darn sleeves?? just because the First Lady is a 'sleeves enemy', it makes all women one?
I have nothing against 'sleeveless garbs' but it will show off my 'chubby arms'!!! - and chubby is an understatement! lol --
As they say, if you have it, flaunt it! Anyways, clothes doesn't maketh a woman, it's how she carries herself that counts! 🙂
Hi Kay. Sounds like you had a great time. I'd love to see Anderson interview John Legend and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs about the Show Me Campaign. Loved your last line. Good luck!
"Night of a hundred egos," is more like it. There are more educated, compassionate, influential people left off this list. While some of the recipients are deserving, it's mostly a shallow list compiled by CNN's cousin, TIME.