20.09.2006
USA, San Francisco, Nordstrom Store
Meeting Ali EDUN Event
NTSC
AUD-SHOT
1 DVD
no menu, no chapter

01. Intro [03:00]
02. Q&A [15:00]
03. Autographs [29:00]

Total Running Time: [47:13]

Comments:
Ali Hewson was at the San Francisco Nordstrom store on September 20, 2006, promoting her new One t-shirt from her EDUN clothing line. Naturally, many U2 nuts like us showed up and really enjoyed meeting her. No Bono, unfortunately, but that actually gave us a lot more time to interact with Ali, a person I've been wanting to meet for the past 20 years. As Denise Brodsky writes, "if anyone had any doubts about Ali's radiance and charm, they would have been put to rest seeing and meeting her in person". About 100 people were there, most of whom are longtime U2 fans. At about 6:15pm, they started showing a five minute video about EDUN's work in Africa, followed by Ali and t-shirt designer Rogan Gregory taking the stage to great applause. Ali is seriously beautiful in person, a really gorgeous woman that photos don't really do justice to.  She might have the world's cutest dimples. Ali and Rogan spoke about EDUN's efforts in Lesotho for a couple of minutes, then took questions from the audience. Every one of the questions was interesting and intelligent, and you could tell that Ali appreciated the high level of consciousness in the room... not one question asking "where's Bono", thank goodness!
After about 15 minutes onstage, Ali answered the last of the questions, then waded into the crowd of admirers to sign autographs and take pictures with us. Her skill and graciousness at navigating this type of meet-and-greet was impressive. She came across as very warm and caring, humorous and patient.
Everyone got their One t-shirt signed, and nearly everyone snapped photos of themselves with her.  
Of course, it would have been great to see Bono there, too, but I really loved the calm atmosphere that wouldn't have existed had he shown up. Ali is becoming a major philanthropic player in her own right, and with her name, looks, intelligence and interpersonal skills, I think the sky's the limit for her.
Bono is one lucky dude.

Filmed, edited and uploaded by 4U2Play