lilyshine

Right now Spamalot is selling about 80% of its seats and you can get discounted tickets for most weekday performances. I wonder if that will hold true for February or March? I'm tempted to get one full-price ticket and then see if I can't pick up a cheap seat for a second show. Hotels frequently have weekend specials or great last minute deals in mid-winter. Last year at GMA, room rates dropped by almost 50% the week after I was there. Sigh, decisions, decisions!

Thanks for the link! I hope you can do it next year too, because I could (and would...) go! I'm just up here up topaya! If you don't mind my asking, what are volunteers used for? In my experience, the vendors all have their own "staff" (friends and family) who deal with sales at the studio etc. [ That would be so neat! A Clay open studio tour! I'll make sure it's Clay all the time in the Gallery. The volunteers are basically the organizers and do all the PR. Just getting a dozen artists to agree on date is like herding cats. We design and print all those pretty brochures, do the marketing, write the press releases, make the signs and maps, gather sponsors and a dozen other tasks nobody thinks about! Like putting on a big party, it's fun, but a lot of work to make it come off smoothly.

I'm glad to hear that so many of you enjoy the Open Studio tours. My local Arts Center (I'm on the Board) runs one of them. It's a lot of work to organize and put on. We didn't do it this year because I couldn't get enough volunteers to pull it off. We usually do it around the time of the grape harvest and some people enjoy going to the wineries at the same time. I hope we can do it next year. Here's the url for the Yates County Arts Center if you are interested.

I love enigmatic Dylan lyrics. They take my mind to another place. Leonard Cohen has done some interesting stuff too, like Suzanne But then there's always, "Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!" or "Don't you step on my blue suede shoes." Direct and to the point!

I'll be at Williamsport and Albany.

Totally trivial literary obscure reference. John Bunyan wrote Pilgrim's Progress (1678) and in the section on Vanity Fair, he lists "...delights of all sorts as whores, bawds, wives, husbands, children, masters, servants, lives, blood, bodies, souls, silver, gold, pearls, precious stones, and what not?" How's that for esoterica?

djs, I love your story. Send it in!

YSRN said It's OK, some people just don't do change well. </snerk> I can't win Clay's contest. I don't do holidays. I'm a equal opportunity Bah! Humbug! kind of person.

YSRN asked Yes, I didn't watch the whole thing again - that would be cruel & unusual -- but most of the clips I listened to were the same. For example with the two girls with the same boyfriend, the original voice-over is, "Coming up the fur continues to fly with a good old-fashioned catfight." Same as Clay. and "So Kristen has the boyfriend, but does she have the talent?" Again it's the same. There are differences in the beginning, but I'm not enough of a masochist to detail them all! No I didn't remember them all. I downloaded the AI2 auditions and watched them again after getting a feeling that they were the same. There's a process movies use to re-record dialog with the actor reading lines while watching a cut of the film to get the timing exactly right and have the mouth movements sync up and I suspect that's what they did with Clay. There's more leeway with a voice-over since there's nothing to sync to, but the pacing of the comments have to fit the video.

I finally had a chance to listen to parts of the original New York auditions. Obviously, it has been shortened, but most of the script read by Clay was exactly the same as was used in the original, corny jokes and all.

I just saw the beginning and Clay did really well on the longer voice-overs. I'd only heard the shorter snippets before and I didn't think they were very engaging. The insipid writing doesn't help! I still hope he gets some face time. ETA Thanks play downloading now.

I just spent wasted a half-hour trying to get my disk of the original AI2 New York audition to play. It's officially dead. I'd really like to compare scripts. Anyone know where I can download it? It's not at CU and the CV vault is still being shifted so it's not there.

Well, that was interesting. I didn't see the first 20 min., but the only time I saw Clay's name was in teeny tiny script with the rest of the credits while Frenchie was doing her 2007 interview. Main comment I have is that the tone of auditions has really gone downhill since the first seasons. It has become much more common for the contestants to yell back, for judges' shouting matches, escalating insults etc. or at least it's now edited to look that way. Controversy sells. As usual, I can't wait for AI to get out of the auditions and on to the "real" stuff.

I'm not sure that I want to sit through all these awful auditions to hear Clay read trite comments, especially when I've heard them before . does that get me branded as a bad fan???????????????????? Just saw Frenchie's audition for the first time. She could sang! Clay sounds more engaged talking about Frenchie & Julia!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I hear Clay!! Just got in and heard two Clay voice-overs. The first was exactly the same as was done before by ??? maybe Ryan. Julia DeMato was up and her voice-over was changed, but not really Clay speaking - just reading. I almost don't recognize the voice because it doesn't have Clay's rythyms or phrasing. I'm going to have to listen to the original tapes to see how much they've changed Clay's script. Some of it sounds very, very familiar.

I just found out I have to "work" today 9-12. The volunteer who does the morning Sat. shift is out of town and after they've tried everyone else, I'm the ultimate fall-back. Rats!!! That means I'll miss the beginning of AI Rewind. IF the afternoon person comes in on time and IF there are no crises that "only" I can handle, I should be home and in front of the TV by 12:15. Is there anyone else who is getting the show at noon EDT? This thing must be obsessing me more than I realize. I dreamt about watching AI Rewind last night, but the people I was with were talking over it and I couldn't hear. What was on the TV were long shots of the contestants just hanging out and AI, dorky, green plaid shirt Clay was all over the place. Since I couldn't hear, I have no idea what the story line was, but Clay was visible all though it! Yeah, only in my dreams. I really don't want to go into the Gallery today, not only because of Clay, I just DON'T. Sigh, well it's community arts - Clay told me to do it.

I still think we'll get face time with Clay. AI knows which guest appearances brought the viewers and the water-cooler chat. Voice-overs won't bring that kind of attention from anyone but people who are already fans. I don't expect onmipresence or even seeing him every week, but I think we will see him often enough to cause buzz. And I stand by him not wanting to get within a hundred miles of Corey. Of course, he may have been forced to by the evil AI machine /snerk Yesh, great to be single again.

Now there's a thought for an alternative universe. But would he have sold 613m copies the first week without the underdog push? My take on "Clay narrating" - that means he'll be on screen. I just don't think AI is going to have artsy voice-over narratives. In fact, I think Clay and Ruben will be on screen together with Ruben smiling & chillin' and Clay talking a mile a minute, just like the post-AI interviews. I've only seen bits of AI Rewind 1, so I don't really know the format, but I think the old footage of the show was pretty sliced up with commentary. Slaps down a tenner that Clay doesn't do the Corey interview.

According to the TV Guide schedule, my area will be getting AI Rewind on Saturday at noon and again at 7pm. Does anyone else have it at that time or earlier? If I'm home, will people want spoilers? ETA That's EDT

Hi Sylvie, beautiful grandbaby! Congrats. Thanks to ldyj, I'm back to being lilyshine. Just a dumb confusion of screen names, login names, display names and what the kid down the block calls me. School reunions? I avoid them like the plague. I much perfer the person I am now to the person I was then, don't want to be reminded. :Tour4: I got my tickets to Williamsport!, not Row A like some people, but not bad for me who has the worst ticket-luck in the world. :nature-smiley-014:

I'm sorry to have missed the chat tonight. I was at a performance by The Capital Steps (the political satire group) and had a really strange moment. They were doing a skit with Bush and Cheney and they started singing, "I like big butts." I totally lost it, especially on the "sprung" part. The person with me was giving me very weird looks, but then I doubt she had ever heard the song and certainly didn't have the associations with it that I did. Off to check on the chat.

For those of you worried about using your credit card online, my Visa card has a neat solution. I can have them generate a new card number for me with any amount of credit and any expiration date. For example, if I know I'm going to make a purchase, I'll get one that's good for a max of $100 for one month. The number is tied to my "real" card and purchases on it show up on my bill as a normal purchase. The advantage is that the low credit limit and the quick expiration date mean that it's useless to thieves. I now do most of my online shopping with these "Shop Safe" numbers. It feels a lot safer than putting my "real" cards numbers out there.

I had lunch today at a Brugger's Bagels and all of a sudden I heard "spinning balls"! It was Clay on their musak system! First time I've ever heard Clay anywhere in a public place. The woman with me kept giving me very strange looks. I guess that's the price of Clay fandom. JMH. I'll go to Shanghai with you! When's the best time?

I'm pretty sure they aren't. She had moderated the chat that Greg had at RHT and I think they met at some Clay function. As I remember, Greg went to something like a CD release party and had a great time.

Jacks and merrieeee - that's just where I am/was. I had just moved and knew no one in town when I decided to go to the AI2 tour by myself in a city 5 hours away. I had a blast all by myself. Next came the IT and I decided to go to Philly (6/7 hrs drive) I was on a Board with the generous Shady and she insisted I stay with her. She even left her house open for me, really a complete stranger, since I would arrive before she got home from work. The next day I spent an hour walking up and down a block in Philly looking for a Clay friend. Of course, she was walking up and down the other side of the block looking for me! Complete strangers with very little in common became fast friends. For the NaT, Shady opened her house again and a dozen or so of us piled in, sleeping on floors, in hallways, in the kitchen even. This year I was able to reciprocate and had a bunch of people sharing my house for the New York 3-fer from far-flung locations, England, Calgary, Toronto, Raleigh. Alas, Shady didn't come. I can't think of any other group I would do this for. My normal routine is strictly by myself and I love it that way. Once or twice a year is plenty for me and I'm so glad to be able to do it. I'm sorry you had a bad first experience and I hope you'll find a Clay friend or two that you really enjoy hanging with. Of course, I think Clay should come and give a concert in my back yard. I'd even let him ride my tractor!