#11 I love me some Clay Aiken! He (soft) rocks *g*

[keepingfaith]

... However, as ambitious as he may be (and I do believe he is), I get the impression that he's unwilling to sacrifice his soul and sense of self for instant popularity.

And that's why I think Clay is already a superstar in the eyes of many. Some people don't know about him yet and may have to catch up, like I did, but just because I wasn't aware of how he killed on the JBT, he did it in spite of my ignorance and the fact that I first saw Clack of it last summer doesn't diminish the excitement of that tour for me right now. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the 21st century mindset eventually defines success in a way that encompasses selflessness, giving and joy because Clay is in the vanguard of that movement. It's not new, and he's not alone, but he seems to me to be living a real, true life of meaning and usefulness generously mixed with laughter, and that's a message for the world no matter who we are or what we do.

Yes, I could do my Mary Catherine Gallagher now ... Clay Aiken ..... SUPERSTAHHH!!!

Or, I could do the woman who is proud to be 50 years old ... I can kick, I can stretch, and I can KICK! Oh, and Clayzorback, are you planning on getting me all liquored up in Tulsa? :Tour3:

[Clayzorback]

Clayzorback, are you planning on getting me all liquored up in Tulsa?

Not only that, I plan to OD you on clack. I'm bringing a shi* load. No sleep for you....... or ldyjocelyn.

Thanks to whoever for the PSA on sun tanning. Hee However, I didn't just fall off a turnip truck. I know all about sunscreen, and I don't smoke. Except when I'm having sex with Clay Aiken...........

The pool felt mahvelous today. I had Clay playing in my ear........Taaaaaaaaaaake these Broken Wings

If You Don't Know Me By Now, you will never know me you will never never never know me.....

What Do I Gotta To Do To Make You Love Me, What Do I Gotta Do To Make You Care?

It was thudding at it's finest.

Edited June 16, 2007 by Clayzorback

[laughn]

ldyjocelyn Hug back at ya! And sorry I got your name wrong. Thanks for pointing it out, because I think I would have continued to see it as starting with an "I".

Don't worry about it. I just realized that every once in a while, I need to point it out, especially as newbies show up. For the record -- I used to be part of a group called the Society for Creative Anachronism, that recreated the Middle Ages. My name in the society was Lady Jocelyn (Jocelyn also being my real middle name). When I first signed up for a free email account so many years ago, I tried for ladyjocelyn, but it was taken. So, I took the first "a" out. Little did I know it would cause such confusion later on, especially as I chose it as my universal screen name on the net. I too love hearing screen name stories....

Totally off topic I know, but I promise not to make a habit of this...I have a dear friend who is a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. She kicks ass....literally, she used to be my husband's police partner. She later went on to become a teacher...She'd let me borrow her Society clothing and jazz to take to my classes at the museum where I teach, they were that authentic. The woman makes her own mead for god's sake! (anyone who can make alcohol out of bee poop gets my undying respect, btw)

There's probably no way to turn this into anything Clay related other than to say Clay has been known to visit museums now and then and I really wish he would come visit mine!

[Totally]

Jenna: Personally, I may not have agreed with all his choices over the years. However, I like to give him the benefit of the doubt 1) because I'm not aware of all his options and 2) because these choices are part of who he is. If I just wanted to follow someone popular, I could be Justin Timberlake fan. But I don't find him half as fascinating as Clay.

Someone needs to show me how to do quotes properly. After almost four years on fansites, you'd think I would have learned by now.

Anyway, I used to like Justin Timberlake - my husband even took me to a N'Sync Concert way back when, and then I bought his first solo album. But he is SO boring compared to Clay, and his voice doesn't even begin to compare. I dropped him like a hot potato the moment I saw Clay....okay maybe not THE moment. But by The Wildcard Show, Clay had me. I was HIS.

And yes, Clay's choices are part of who he is. I never know what to expect with him. He's constantly changing, and is as much a chameleon in his personality as in his looks for me. It's part of what makes him fascinating. There's silly Clay, serious Clay, articulate and intelligent Clay, 14 year old acting Clay, sexy Clay, singing Clay, in charge commanding Clay, compassionate Clay, teacher Clay, hyper Clay and so many other Clays. My favorite is the smiling, twinkling eyes Clay that KeepingFaith fell in love with on AI5.

laughn What kind of museum do you work at?

ldyjocelyn Loved your name story!

Edited June 16, 2007 by Totally

[muskifest]

Checkin' in....Carrie's team looked like some aliens had taken over! Hardly recognized them! Lost to two teams we crushed time we played them, then tied an inferior team that we were leading 6-2 until we let them catch up. Weird. On the way home, Kenny said, "Well, it looks like you won't have to worry about the Nationals, huh?" indeed.

Got at least one more game, though, tomorrow....we'll see if the girls can 'get it back'.

Undefinable instrument, you say? Oh, I don't know. I can think of quite a few ways to define Clay's instrument. One of my all-time faves, though, is how my naughty but lovable female fanfic character--Amelia--liked to refer to it...

Lots of good stuff to read lately on FCA, huh?

Oh, while waiting for the agony of defeat to stop at the last game, I put on my headphones and listened to CLay. One of hte women making the trip to LA for their first Clay concert was sitting next to me. I asked her if she'd bought ATDW and she said NO!

WELL! I put those headphones over her head so fast! THen I turned my iPod to IYDKMBN...and let her take him in (heh)...When it was over she looked at me with that....look---YOU know the one--and smiled and said, "Wow...he really does a good job with that, doesn't he?"

At that moment I think she was thinking of ways to define the man's instrument.

I'm pooped (oh, and it was FREEZING! couldn't believe it...this is an area that's usually an oven, but the fog was dense and didn't burn off for hours and hours. Now I'm so sleepy...gonna take a snooze... :F_05BL17blowkiss:

[keepingfaith]

My favorite is the smiling, twinkling eyes Clay that KeepingFaith fell in love with on AI5.

You rang?

Hello Gorgeous! And your name was .....

Best haircut ever, baby ....

That suit and tie ... OMG!

head to toe ...

And now for some Clay Aiken to die for ....

Okay, it was really good for me ... hope it was good for everyone!!!

Edited June 17, 2007 by keepingfaith

[laughn]

Someone needs to show me how to do quotes properly. After almost four years on fansites, you'd think I would have learned by now.

<snip>

laughn What kind of museum do you work at?

To quote someone Totally, you hit the little quote tab at the bottom of that post. If you want to quote more than one person at a time, hit all the quote tabs on those posts as well. When you then open up the window to respond in, those quotes should appear there already. I hope that sounds clearer to you than it does in my head right now. lol

...and it's a fine arts museum. Not the biggest, but it has some fine pieces and a good rep.

Okay, it was really good for me ... hope it was good for everyone!!!

(the rush was much appreciated. thanks! )

[bottlecap]

Okay, it was really good for me ... hope it was good for everyone!!!

Thanks for not including any examples of poor Michael's unfettered bits of junk, which flailed around as he jumped up and down with excitement. Yeeks! I still have to watch that segment of the video with my eyes half closed.

[Claygasm]

Okay, it was really good for me ... hope it was good for everyone!!!

Thanks for not including any examples of poor Michael's unfettered bits of junk, which flailed around as he jumped up and done with excitement. Yeeks! I still have to watch that segment of the video with my eyes half closed.

You mean you were looking there??? There??? Why were you even looking there??????

Did you have to bleach your eyeballs?

Thank goodness I never looked there! I was having a hard enough time with Clay's goth hair. I think if I had had to see Michael's unfettered bits of junk I may not have survived!

In an effort to get that vision out of my mind.....

ETA: I have become obsessed with that black and white picture I posted earlier from PuddinsJoy montage. Its my desktop wallpaper and now it my new avatar!

Edited June 17, 2007 by Claygasm

[Couch Tomato]

OMG I have slept the day away in 2 four hour shifts. WTF I guess I really needed it. Off to catch up!

[clayzedover]

Clay is Clay.

His instrument is undefinable.

Playing with the quotes but wanted it to be meaningful.

That post sums it so clearly....on SO many levels!

Hee.

[Couch Tomato]

I just wanted to tell everyone about a travel Horror story i had. This is a Clay Aiken concert that i went to a couple years ago. enjoy.. i sure did not. lol

What a horror story. I don't think I have any horror stories from all my clay travels. The closest I can come is overcoming two of my fears (driving in unfamiliar territory and in the dark) to drive to the Sacramento IT (favorite concert ever until AC JBT). I literally floated hom that night. I was just really in my happy happy place and what do I get when I get home? CH has turned into Pen Boi heaven..it was April Fools Day

Phew. Just back from my first ever real life meeting with a "Board" person. [Waves wildly at laughn.] I met her online first, so I wasn't totally sure that someone wasn't going to come around the corner of the restaurant with a full camera crew in tow and say: "I'm Dateline NBC's Chris Hanson, and this is 'To Catch a Clay Fan'..." I so wouldn't want to have to explain some of my posts to a national tv audience.

Instead, I spent a fun-filled couple of hours with someone who has great Clay stories and who speaks my language. What a treat!

you are hysterical. heee. Yay for meeting a real life online Clay fan. It's fun to have a partner in crime and look, no intervention was planned for you at all. heee

I think that if all Clay wanted was superstardom, he might have made different choices. More standard pop songs, for example, even if they required no range or emotion. Less time spent on humanitarian causes and more time spent on cultivating his music and image. A greater emphasis on what's hip and current, rather than on the older songs he loves. However, as ambitious as he may be (and I do believe he is), I get the impression that he's unwilling to sacrifice his soul and sense of self for instant popularity.

Interesting point Jenna. I agree. I think he would not give up 2 to months of his life every year to a Xmas concert. After the first two I was even going..he needs to skip this year and concentrate on ATDW or just putting his face out there. I'll not be so presumptious again. I think this also is the feed his soul part and we already know, Xmas concert number 4 is on the way.

Checkin' in....Carrie's team looked like some aliens had taken over! Hardly recognized them! Lost to two teams we crushed time we played them, then tied an inferior team that we were leading 6-2 until we let them catch up. Weird. On the way home, Kenny said, "Well, it looks like you won't have to worry about the Nationals, huh?" indeed.

Sorry about the Blaze Muski. Hugs to Carrie.

ETA: eeeek how could I forget my Salt Lake City to Vegas in a totalled car with no back window? Well for me it was a big of an adventure...the horror part probably came for Agape who was the one who drove off a cliff avoiding a rabbit I think. It would have been road kill had that been me.

[ldyjocelyn]

Oh. My. God. I distinctly remember that moment -- I first was doing a WTF over the hair, but on repeated viewings....this walk out on to the stage was so freakin' hawt. At that very second, he OWNED the place, even if practically no one in the theater (or watching on TV for that matter) knew that it was Clay Aiken.

And then...he laughed. That beautiful grin that he has (or had, depending on how you feel about the teeth, I don't really care). That smile lit up a thousand days for me. Amazing moment in history.

Now this picture, though -- I just have to repost again because he was so amazingly cute that day.

My chameleon. I wuv him.

[merrieeee]

God I am so weak! My DH told me he was not going to be home for the 4th! Quicker than that I had emailed my enablers about Frisco and within ten minutes had a reply about tickets, hotels and car ride. How could I not go? I mean I don't even celebrate the 4th being a Brit and all but for Clay I will!

Frisco here I come!

Edited June 17, 2007 by merrieeee

[Couch Tomato]

God I am so weak! My DH told me he was not going to be home for the 4th! Quicker than that I had emailed my enablers about Frisco and within ten minutes had a reply about tickets, hotels and car ride. How could I not go? I mean I don't even celebrate the 4th being a Brit and all but for Clay I will!

Frisco here I come!

heee how nice of your husband to make things so easy. He's a keeper. And I can only imagine who the other little enablers are. HA.

Ya'll made me go watch that AI moment again!! It's been awhile since I've seen it.

[Totally]

laughn Thanks for the quoting info. I should have been more specific, cause I know how to quote a whole post. It's quoting just part of someone's post that I don't know how to do. I always just copy and paste and stick it between

s, but then it doesn't have the name attached.

Awesome pictures. The one of him on AI5 with the huge smile is one of my favorites, but I've never seen that GMA one before and it's gorgeous! I do miss the old teeth.

[Couch Tomato]

Totally, I go a page at a time, hit quote under every post I want to respond to. Then at the end of the page hit ADD REPLY. Don't hit reply under a specific post but use the ADD REPLY button on the very bottom of the page. Then what happens is that all of the posts you want to quote will be on your reply form.

It does get hairy and I've had trouble more than once assigning words to the wrong person. But you get better at it after awhile. Start at the top..and after the name/quote... delete everything that person said leaving only the particular thing you want to respond to. You have to make sure you have the end quote at the end of their quote. Add your comment, then go to the next person's response. It gets easier over time. Practice responding to 2 or 3 posts.... we won't laugh promise.

[atinal]

Totally, I'm glad you asked that question, I'll have to give it a try on one of my next posts. Edited June 17, 2007 by atinal

[muskifest]

Ever since the first video clip on the internet, I still find comfort and all kinds of positive things whenever I watch Clay. No matter what's going on in real life...just randomly clicking on some video of a concert or tv appearance or interview...it just doesn't matter. I always feel better afterwards.

He's really amazing....what he brings, what he 'puts out there' in the world. I've been lucky enough to see him many times, be pretty close to him more than once and even have had his arms around me briefly in an unexpected hug. And I can tell you that he really is...special. THere's something uniquely wonderful about that man. Like an aura...

In the chaos or emptiness that real life sometimes offers, he's never failed to lift me up.

I love that man.

[PuddinsJoy]

Speaking of getting excited.....

I meant to comment on that beautiful montage PuddinsJoy posted yesterday. It was gorgeous. Love using the black and white, AND my God, where did this picture come from?It is mesmerizing! And its also now my new desktop.

Jumping in here late - was clacking with Clay friends all day - rough day lol

Thanks to everyone for the compliments on the montage - I'm glad you liked it!

Glad you like the pic Claygasm - it's one of those that had gone through several transformations even before I found it on the Clayboard. Here's the version I snagged, which was created from one of KarenEh's gorgeous Grand Rapids pics gahhhhh

and here's the same pic after I took it to b&w and played with the contrast

Sometimes I surprise myself - it did turn out nice didn't it?

I know not everyone cares for the b&w effect montages, but it's definitely my preference. B&W let's me see Clay as stark and stunning - you don't have to focus on the pink or orange lighting, or what color his hair was (pink or orange? *g*) or his clothes - you just see the man. He's so freakin' beautiful he makes my heart hurt - I cannot get enough of him - stark and stunning.

and because I know it's a sensitive subject, as it should be, I want to make sure everyone knows that KarenEh's tag was already removed before I snagged the pic. I am really careful to never remove tags when I work with pics - I have way too much respect for the photographers to ever do that.

[laughn]

Ya'll made me go watch that AI moment again!! It's been awhile since I've seen it.

See...CouchTomato started it with this ^^^ YouTube...and then muskifest finished me off with this...

Ever since the first video clip on the internet, I still find comfort and all kinds of positive things whenever I watch Clay. No matter what's going on in real life...just randomly clicking on some video of a concert or tv appearance or interview...it just doesn't matter. I always feel better afterwards.

He's really amazing....what he brings, what he 'puts out there' in the world. I've been lucky enough to see him many times, be pretty close to him more than once and even have had his arms around me briefly in an unexpected hug. And I can tell you that he really is...special. THere's something uniquely wonderful about that man. Like an aura...

In the chaos or emptiness that real life sometimes offers, he's never failed to lift me up.

I love that man.

...now I am a total sap...It's 4 am. I should be sleeping, but here I am...and it's like Pavlov's dogs or maybe more like the fact that when you sneeze your eyes go shut. It just happens. You can't stop it. It's physical. Every time I see Clay Aiken I smile....big and wide. I can't help it...nor do I want to.

Thanks muskifest for the words and CouchTomato for the half dozen viewings of AI5 Clay (I simply refuse to look at 'Michael's unfettered bits of junk' bottlecap...lol) and it's back to bed for me now. I need to at least carry on with the trappings of normalcy.

ETA...agh! PuddinsJoy, thanks for that picture...Damn normalcy is so overrated!

He is so freakin' beautiful!!

Edited June 17, 2007 by laughn

[Ansamcw]

MUski...you gotta hug Clay too!!! you CA gals are sooooo lucky...and ya have to elaborate on that story!!!

Puddings joy I love B&W too.

[bottlecap]

Thanks for the youtube link to the AI5 finale. What a week that was. Clay's going to be on the finale- No, it's just a rumor - Nigel said no - There are pictures of the finale rehearsal on this radio station's website. If that guy in the sweatshirt Clay? No, I think it's a crew member. Then the OFC finally posted a confirmation that Clay would be on late in the afternoon.

Much speculation and nervousness ensued. Some of us were online here, snarking on the show as it progressed and wondering when Clay would be on. When the Golden Idol Best Impression thing started, it was a big Ruh-Oh moment because of Michael Sandecki's audition footage. I can't speak for the other posters, but the air in my living room was turning increasing blue as I loudly questioned the parentage and choice of sexual partners of the AI TPTB, because I could see what I thought was coming. THE HAIR was an enormous shock, and I kept thinking Clay was going to rip off his wig at the end of the song and go back to being his normal spiky self. Obviously, that didn't happen, and with time, I learned to embrace THE HAIR. Anyway, that bit could have really gone south - instead, Michael adorably lost every freakin' bit of his sh*t, Ryan couldn't stop grinning, and Clay made a triumphant return that dominated the entertainment news about the finale. Good times!

=========================================

My Dad died 14 years ago this month, and I still miss him very much. Like Clay, Dad didn't have the benefit of a father that loved him unconditionally, and he also had some tough times in his childhood. However, also like Clay, he had women who loved him, and who helped him grow up to be a loving man with a strong sense of integrity and compassion.

:F_05BL17blowkiss: For you, Dad.

[Clayzorback]

AI5 Hair was the best. I watched his confident, sexy, self stroll out on that stage and fell in love all over again. Everything about him was perfection. My favorite tie to this day. I want it so badly.

I thought I would share some Clangela this morning. :eusa_whistle:

Clay goes down July 30th at Darien Lake, NY, JBT.

Angela reciprocates July 31st Chevrolet Amphitheater Pittsburgh, PA, JBT.

[Clayzorback]

August 5th, Cary, NC, he started his New WDC move here.

Please........