bottlecap

ldyj, I thought of you as soon as I heard about the tornado near Peoria. Glad you are safe and were able to check in.

I messaged Vanessa to ask about the status of refunds for the Detroit tickets purchased via the OFC. Here's her response:

At least Ticketmaster was quick to refund the ticket price and even fees from tonight's Concert That Wasn't. Let's see how long it takes the OFC to do the same... Trying not to be too jealous of those of you who have concerts this week-end.

Read at the other boards that Ticketmaster is showing the Detroit concert is cancelled. Sucks since that was my only show this tour.

I just don't think very many of the closer seats for Detroit are available during this pre-sale. I never got offered any of the highest priced seats and I fished long enough that Ticketmaster kicked me off. It was a very frustrating experience. (Finally got on my co-worker's computer and got Row M seats, which will be good enough.)

I had been waiting for Denhart's take on Celebrity Apprentice. Denhart has definitely not been a fan of Clay in the past, so if Clay has won him over with his genuine personality, I count that as a huge win. I hope many in the industry came away with the same new perspective and admiration for Clay as an individual.

Popsicle stick crafts #HOLLA

^^^ The picture is of the Miami Heat, showing support for Trayvon Martin. Link

Rosie tweeted it originally and Clay retweeted it. Cindi Berger is a high-powered publicist who has worked with both Rosie and Clay.

If you go into your profile on Twitter (I think it's the Mobile section), you can turn off the text notifications between certain hours. I have mine turned off between 11:00pm and 6:00am, so overnight tweets from Clay don't ping my phone.

I stream Celebrity Apprentice on hulu.com.

MD = musical director, I think. Like Ben is for Clay when he tours.

I would bet in Lisa's real life performing career, she doesn't have collaborators - she has employees. (As Clay has said: "My name's on the ticket.") I would also bet those employees are either mostly or even all male. Working with an all female team that think of themselves as equals was probably not in Lisa's frame of reference. I also feel like Lisa is very insecure at heart. Victoria, on the other hand, is just plain delusional.

Do you feel like it would be a professional thing to do to lose your temper and lash out at X in a public way? Or do you accept that that is just the way X is and roll your eyes and get on with your day? In my opinion, that's what Clay should have done: Recognize the complaining is going to happen (Opinions are like a-holes, everybody's got one, especially in this fandom), so ignore it and let it burn itself out. And maybe rant offline to a friend about your pain-in-the-neck internet fans. Diving into the fray on the spur of the moment with the very people who you're trying to sell your product to when you're frustrated or hungry / tired / angry at traffic is probably not the best idea in the world. I recognize I'm being unfair and inconsistent in wishing that Clay was more tolerant of his fans' snippiness than I am of his, but he's the one with the bigger platform and his words carry more weight in the wider world than do those of some random message board posters.

I have come to the realization that you just need to let people vent for a bit and work out their feelings. If left alone, the boards would have churned over their various reactions to the track list for a day or two and then moved on. To me, the tweets came across as impulsive and poorly-timed on Clay's part. That sentiment cuts both ways. Clay's online fans have always been highly vocal and opinionated group. Does Clay expect or want any dissenters to feel like they have to shut up or move on? If Clay wants the freedom to be who he is, he should accept that his fans need that same freedom to be who they are, which is sometimes bossy or 'negative' or whatever. I don't expect anyone to agree with me on this - just wanted to offer my personal perspective on it.

It didn't help matters that Clay said in his blog that there would be additional songs on Steadfast that hadn't been released before, and besides BBML there isn't anything new on that tracklist for his fans. For me, it's a case of a little hope going up in smoke. I'm dying for some new, contemporary-sounding music from Clay and BBML didn't fill the bill for me.