#13 The Aiken Experience. There's nothing else like it.

[cha cha trusty]

well....... those CRAZY BEAR-TRACKERS were supposed to be at the airport 2 hours before their flight this morning, and they were 10 minutes late. They wouldn't let them on the flight. There was also the added annoyance of the Ecuadorians wanting $40 apiece to let them exit the country, which they did not have, didn't even know about!

They're coming tomorrow about midnight if all goes well. Keep praying!!

I am beginning to process my photos...... here's a taste!

I played with it a bit.........

. :TourExcite:

[laughn]

I played with it a bit.........

Damn, I wish I could play with it too.

Wishing better luck for the bear-taggers tomorrow, cha cha!

Jenna wrote:

But I think this matters more to us than to him. And quite frankly, he may never be "cool" in the sense that Jimmy Hendrix, Nirvana or even Kanye West are "cool." But you know what? I think Clay can be very, very popular. He's talented. He's funny. He's sexy, smart, big-hearted, and extraordinarily and unusually complex. But I believe that if superstardom happens, it will be on his terms, in his own unique style, for better or worse.

[playbiller]

Someone at the CB (poClay) wrote Nokia and got this reply

I sent an e-mail to Nokia last week asking them to please get Clay for his Christmas concert! Here's the answer I got!

The offer is out and it's up to his management. We move on to other

acts and other dates

Sounded a bit testy to me, but then agaon, it is just words and up to interpretation.

Edited August 15, 2007 by playbiller

[Couch Tomato]

Ah Muski..I get google alerts for Clay but I get them all bunched together once per day. And I scan them quickly and only open what interests me or what I haven't seen already posted earlier in the day here. :F_05BL17blowkiss: I don't bother clicking on most things. Clay running for senate was interesting

Bwah, isn't that the venue that had Clay penciled in for this summer. I'm sure they are sick of Clay fans. With the current schedule I don't see Clay making a stop in Dallas, but we'll see. Fingers crossed for eHP.

[jmh123]

I never got google alerts, but I used to google Clay every day. Not anymore, and I'm much happier for it!

[Ansamcw]

wow...beautiful chacha...loved what you did to it....hope you get your travelers home by tomorrow. that must be so stressful for you

YAY...more WORD for JennaZ..thats why i like to call her my brain twin...only she is smarter.

and yeah I can see lots of fans would want to interpret the classics medley that way...I just shake my head at that because if he wanted to show how much better he can do it himself...then he wouldn't go all campy on it...oh well... to each his own I guess.

[KAndre]

Stupid Tropical Storm Erin...

[muskifest]

Stupid Tropical Storm Erin...

Huh? This has nothing to do with Florida, does it?

[KAndre]

No, this one is right off the coast of Texas - fellow eHPers are bailing out of town tonight but I have family obligations. I'm gonna try and leave, but I don't know if I can - I'm hoping the bastard magically disappears.

[luckiest1]

No, it looks to be affecting the Texas coast....

{{{Texas folks}}}

While we are on the topic of weather, tonight's concert looks to be another hot one! According to the weather network, it is going to be around 93 but feel more like around 102 with the humidity. So is this the last outdoor venue of the tour?

Edited August 15, 2007 by lickiest1

[Ansamcw]

No, this one is right off the coast of Texas - fellow eHPers are bailing out of town tonight but I have family obligations. I'm gonna try and leave, but I don't know if I can - I'm hoping the bastard magically disappears.

good luck Houston peeps...take care.

[jmh123]

No, this one is right off the coast of Texas - fellow eHPers are bailing out of town tonight but I have family obligations. I'm gonna try and leave, but I don't know if I can - I'm hoping the bastard magically disappears.

Hope you get out in time, if you need to!! And especially hope you don't need to.

ETA: Those frozen strawberry lemonade thingies were great!!!

Edited August 15, 2007 by jmh123

[muskifest]

Yikes! Grab the bling, KAndre! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

[keepingfaith]

Words from the late, great rock writer and moralist Lester Bangs (b. December 14, 1948, d. April 30, 1982). I'm feeling the need to spread some Lester around today, just because he's always worth it, in my opinion.

The first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious.

The ultimate sin of any performer is contempt for the audience.

Style is originality; fashion is fascism. The two are eternally and unalterably opposed.

Grossness is the truest criterion for rock ’n’ roll. The cruder the clang and grind the more fun.

Lou Reed is my own hero principally because he stands for all the most fucked-up things that I could ever possibly conceive of. Which probably only shows the limits of my imagination.

The only questions worth asking today are whether humans are going to have any emotions tomorrow, and what the quality of life will be if the answer is no.

But as far as this stuff being really new, really different, that's something else again. Even the Sex Pistols were playing old Chuck Berry licks.

Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.

In fact I think now we've reached a point where the powers that be really have sort of vested interests in all of us being stoned out as much as possible all the time so we don't know what's going on, and we don't care.

That's one reason why it's pretty worthless, it's things like the Phil Spector records. On one level they were rebellion, on another level they were keeping the teenager in his place.

Don’t ask me why I obsessively look to rock ’n’ roll bands for some kind of model for a better society. I guess it’s just that I glimpsed something beautiful in a flashbulb moment once, and perhaps mistaking it for prophecy have been seeking its fulfillment ever since.

And the dialogue Cameron Crowe wrote in Almost Famous around a real conversation with his mentor, Lester Bangs:

Lester Bangs: Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.

William Miller: Well, it was fun.

Lester Bangs: They make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You are not cool.

William Miller: I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't.

Lester Bangs: That's because we're uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don't have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we're smarter.

William Miller: I can really see that now.

Lester Bangs: Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love... and let's face it, you got a big head start.

William Miller: I'm glad you were home.

Lester Bangs: I'm always home. I'm uncool.

William Miller: Me too!

Lester Bangs: The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool

And finally, this short excerpt from Lester’s last interview: April 1982:

Everybody wants to be so hip ... I had a Grateful Dead album out that I was playing for a while, and people would come in here like this writer from the NME and they'd be like, "Are you listening to the Grateful Dead?" You know what I mean, you're not supposed to say you like something by the Grateful Dead, you're only supposed to like Public Image, Ltd. until somebody else tells you you're not supposed to like that anymore. And that's just shit. I hate that kind of stuff. The NME is like the king of that. They were political for like a year and a half when it was correct to be, and then they were into fashion. Fuck that. You have to go by what you believe in, what you feel. That's the only way anybody ever accomplished anything. I'm sure there'll be some kind of renaissance of rock ‘n' roll again as a backlash if anything against all this electronic computer stuff. There'll probably be a backlash of people doing things with acoustic instruments or just the human voice unadorned.

Edited August 15, 2007 by keepingfaith

[bottlecap]

Yikes! Grab the bling, KAndre! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

Don't worry about the bling - get all of Scarlett's unposted Clack out of Dodge safely!!! Priorities, people!

Seriously, y'all be safe.

[KAndre]

Who do you think I called first?

Some of her stuff from Knoxville is up at the vault and Clack Unlimited...now y'all can see what I was talking about...that's some good stuff!

[luckiest1]

Wheeeee! And I asked her how it was going in Knoxville, her response was "don't count on me". Riiiiiiight.

[JennaZ]

Aww... Y'all are making me blush!

Nice photo, cha cha!

I loved those quotes, keepingfaith. I especially liked this:

Everybody wants to be so hip ... I had a Grateful Dead album out that I was playing for a while, and people would come in here like this writer from the NME and they'd be like, "Are you listening to the Grateful Dead?" You know what I mean, you're not supposed to say you like something by the Grateful Dead, you're only supposed to like Public Image, Ltd. until somebody else tells you you're not supposed to like that anymore. And that's just shit. I hate that kind of stuff. The NME is like the king of that. They were political for like a year and a half when it was correct to be, and then they were into fashion. Fuck that. You have to go by what you believe in, what you feel. That's the only way anybody ever accomplished anything.

To me, that's the problem with trying to conform to whatever's "hot" in the music industry. What's hip now will be unhip in minutes, and no matter how hip you may think an act is, someone else will find them "bourgeois." That's why I have to respect Clay for remaining true to himself, cheesy goodness and all.

So the situation is serious in Texas? Scary. And I'm supposed to fly to Houston next week! I hope everyone stays safe. (Better call my mom...)

[muskifest]

This has nothing to do with here or there, but it suddenly washed over me like a freaking tsunami while I was sitting here trying to focus on work things with Clay singing Run To Me through my computer speakers.

I believe every single one of us is meant to express herself creatively in some way. I mean...I think it's a human NEED. Maybe it's photography or sewing or singing or writing or painting or something that doesn't really have a name or fit into a category.

But I've been uneasy for a while...just feeling off balance or unable to truly concentrate on any one thing for a respectable amount of time. (Yes, it COULD be menopausal...heh)...I'm getting some pretty inconsequential things done and doing an even better job of procrastinating on the more important things. I'm daydreaming and flitting from one idea to another, stewing over one 'issue' or another...

It's a lousy feeling. Like I'm waiting for some magic wand to sweep over my head and I'll suddenly have a 'purpose' or the initiative to pursue one.

And it occurred to me. I haven't written anything but board posts for a helluva long time. Now quite honestly I've not been "filled with the spirit!" (tmCHA) to write CLORN since I finished Southern Heat. I've THOUGHT about a number of non-fiction pieces re: Clay, but haven't put fingers to keyboard to flesh them out. But I've not done the creative exercise/outlet of actually WRITING anything that asks more of me than reactions to others' words.

So I've decided that it's the absence of this creativity that is causing my malaise.

DOes this make sense to any of you?

[keepingfaith]

I understand exactly what you're saying, Muski. Hmmm, maybe this coming weekend will inspire your creative juices!

Just watched the Knoxville Classics and .... it's still Houston hands down for me. The Classics section of the Houston DVD that Spotlightlover put together does it completely for me, edited for the best camera angles and eyefucks. It's an authentic hot performance all the way around and includes my favorite Yeah because he does that wild thing with his legs, and OPP is the best period. I love the way the audience reaction cracks him up in Sexy Tractor, and the way SexyBack is just sexy. The only thing I miss in the Houston Classics is snapping his fingers to Beat It, but other than that, it's perfection for me. It's an authentic WOW, not a musical comedy skit. As a musical comedy skit it works with the excessive emoting, but I like it better when he was doing it at the beginning of the tour and you could see how thrilled and excited he was with the audience reactions. He was shining.

[ldyjocelyn]

I simply HATE being on the reference desk -- I can read stuff but not post! AAAAGH!

keepingfaith, thanks for the Lester Bangs stuff. What a great trip down memory lane, and a good reminder that "cool" is fleeting at best.

I hope KAndre and the rest of the eHP make it out of Houston safely!

{{{{{{muski}}}}}} I hear ya on the creative thing. For me it's cooking. Kind of unfortunate, actually, as I then tend to EAT as well. *sigh* But whenever I feel down, I find myself in a cooking and baking frenzy, and it feels so good! So yeah....indulge that writer in you. You'll find your muse.

I stopped getting my daily Google Blog alerts a few months ago, but I still get a daily Google NEWS alert for Clay. It's usually pretty easy to skim the few sentences that Google provides me to figure out if I want to click the link or not. What troubles me, though, is that many of the NEWS alerts seemingly come from BLOGS now. I don't understand that.

I'd love to compile a DVD of nothing but the pre-classics banter, the classics medley, and then the post-classics banter for each different show, all on one (or probably two) DVD's. Watching the progression of that would truly be fascinating. I find that I just can't compare them though -- to me it's like picking a favorite child. Again, that's the "rose colored glasses" thing with me though. *shrug*

[muskifest]

I understand exactly what you're saying, Muski. Hmmm, maybe this coming weekend will inspire your creative juices!

Just watched the Knoxville Classics and .... it's still Houston hands down for me. The Classics section of the Houston DVD that Spotlightlover put together does it completely for me, edited for the best camera angles and eyefucks. It's an authentic hot performance all the way around and includes my favorite Yeah because he does that wild thing with his legs, and OPP is the best period. I love the way the audience reaction cracks him up in Sexy Tractor, and the way SexyBack is just sexy. The only thing I miss in the Houston Classics is snapping his fingers to Beat It, but other than that, it's perfection for me. It's an authentic WOW, not a musical comedy skit. As a musical comedy skit it works with the excessive emoting, but I like it better when he was doing it at the beginning of the tour and you could see how thrilled and excited he was with the audience reactions. He was shining.

WOW. This is bizzarre because this morning I got a wild hair to watch the Houston Classics clip I had downloaded onto my laptop long ago. And while I did notice things like him looking at the cheat sheet on the floor pretty often and how there were a number of times when he and the girls didn't seem to know quite what to DO with themselves while singing, I'm with you keepingfaith! I LOVE the way he did SexyBack....yep. This was a cool Classics! And re: the finger snapping on Beat It? BWAH! I remember that I showed Carrie this clip when I got back from teh concerts then. She thought it was cool and all but said, "He should do that finger snap thing that Michael Jackson does."

:medium-smiley-070:

[keepingfaith]

No, this one is right off the coast of Texas - fellow eHPers are bailing out of town tonight but I have family obligations. I'm gonna try and leave, but I don't know if I can - I'm hoping the bastard magically disappears.

Well, I'm not bailing out of here until Friday, but then I'm not going to the first Florida show like the rest of the eHP. Color me not worried about Tropical Storm Erin, which will bring some rain, but not much else to the Houston area. Dr. Neil Frank better not be lying to me!!!! Apparently the real weather worry will be next week with the soon-to-be Hurricane Dean coming up from the Caribbean. But Erin will come in somewhere around Corpus Christi or Victoria, or south of there, and will hit land too quickly to gather any strength.

Nah, I'm not worried about that at all. My biggest fear is getting on the plane Friday morning because while I don't have many fears or phobias, flying is a huge one for me. I left a job and changed careers to stay off of airplanes. Only Clay could give me the courage to get back on, because I'm getting on an airplane for the first time in over ten years to see Clay this weekend. Yes, Clayzor, I'm doing it!

ETA Questions:

(1) Where is Karen Eh? And will she be in Florida? and

(2) LadyJ, why don't you and the hubby hop over to the Sunshine State this weekend. You know you want to.

Edited August 15, 2007 by keepingfaith

[laughn]

I believe every single one of us is meant to express herself creatively in some way. I mean...I think it's a human NEED. Maybe it's photography or sewing or singing or writing or painting or something that doesn't really have a name or fit into a category.

Reading this made me think of my favorite Van Gogh quote:

“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people”

It has always reminded me of Clay. Some see him as a singer, some as an entertainer....I've always thought of him as an artist.

I hope the muse slaps you upside the head muski. I love me some good fic.

Edited August 15, 2007 by laughn

[jmh123]

Working backwards, my Cary recap:

I was excited all over again, like a first date, even though I'd just seen Clay a few weeks before. This was the first concert ever that I'd gotten in my car and driven to see Clay all by myself. Musikfest was probably closer, in terms of miles, and I saw Clay three times in Raleigh while I was living in PA, but this felt really different to me.

I was supposed to meet the FCA'ers at 3, but my mom had worn me out the day before with her hot, hot house, and I felt almost sick when I first got up. I drank lots of water and ate a bit, and eventually started to perk up. I decided to go the long way over country roads so as not to challenge my old car too much in the heat, and for the fun of driving off the Interstate. I also hoped to find an N&O with a poster at some little store along the way, but the one I bought didn't have a poster in it.

I arrived at Lucky32 around 4, and there were lickiest, NCDonna, and mandmlady, and they'd even saved me a seat. Crimsonice and DisneyKid were off getting tattoos. I was right next to sassafras from CH, who was at the next table with a couple of NJU friends. After we ordered I went and introduced myself to playbiller and FearofH20, and playbiller gave me a pack of glowsticks for later. Dreamlarge from PA was there too!! I also went over and spoke to Divayenta, CantGoADayWithoutClay, and Salamander, and waved at geekette, but there were so many more I didn't get to meet. Usually parties kind of freak me out, so I was pleased with my ability to be as social as I was, but sorry not to have met more people. We had a delicious dinner and I talked lickiest1 into getting grits so I could have some. She wasn't impressed, but I thought they were great.

Here's some stuff I wrote the next morning:

The concert was amazing--major Aiken fog took over. Was feeling bad for lickiest that he didn't sing RHW--haha--and ran into her after the concert where she said DUH, he did, where were you? Heh. ATD was hawt--I'm glad he did it again. The banter was hilarious, as always. I think the classics was the best I've seen--live or on clack. He really did become "cool." He played everything but SexyBack pretty straight once Angela had taught him to dance during "Bills," and the later numbers were amazing. The "I'm cool" walk was across the full stage, and fantastic to see as he was headed our way.

I saw Cindilu at the venue--*waves*--and crimsonice and DisneyKid. Sat with lyndolphin from CH, who was excellent company. Went off smoking with Brandilyne, goatlady, and crew. (Apologies for forgetting sns.) Goatlady was a few seats down from me at the venue too.

It was hot, but honestly, not that bad considering. It seems like the temperature went up 10 degrees as soon as the concert was over. Clay is cool, y'all.

Hope someone got a picture of that cello Clay was admiring. The spotlight guys weren't doing so well. They couldn't manage to light Clay on our side of the stage at all. Quiana got two spots. Heh.

It was hot, but it was bearable. I had one of those frozen strawberry lemonades between sets, and that was yummy. Sorry you didn't get to keep yours KAndre.

After the concert I hung around for awhile till the crowd cleared and then headed back to my car. Getting home was funny; I don't drive much after dark and my only correct prescription is my sunglasses, so I thought I was lost briefly. I drive that road every week and I didn't recognize it, but apparently the directions took me the opposite way past my mom's house in Raleigh on US1N and then back again on 40W, so that was confusing, but I wasn't lost, so it was all good. I did much better after I took the bad glasses off.

It wasn't til I got home that I heard about the drama, and I learned in Asheville that I was apparently very near the creepy one--same row, next section. Like I posted earlier, the situation was mentioned to me that night (isn't xx supposed to be here?) but I chose to immediately forget about it. So I guess in retrospect I probably saw the creepy one, as I can now picture the people in those seats in my mind's eye, but it didn't register with me at all. Clay didn't come to our side much, but I assumed it was because when he tried at the beginning, the spotlight didn't follow him over there so he was in complete darkness. I watched jojoct gathering clack, and I have to say it was really impressive. She was very relaxed and steady, and was in full view of Jerome and venue security the whole time. I was way off to the side where I could see the backstage area. There was one security guy I didn't recognize, and he and Jerome were vigilant as always, but I got absolutely no sense that there was anything unusual, from them, or from Clay, or from anyone around me. Well, except that his family was there and he was happy about that. He loves his pappa, and it was cute when he filled in the "hell" for Clay, and I also recognized Faye, of course, and his grandmother from the Martha show, and Jerry Aiken from the recent TV appearance. They were all front and center, which was cool for them and him, even if he did joke about how they wouldn't stand up. All this "he was so brave" stuff seems a bit OTT to me; the man's a consummate performer under any circumstances and from my own brief experiences, you pretty much forget everything else once you're on stage. He definitely didn't seem at all vulnerable to me. I do congratulate the fans for not engaging in any way.

Somehow I never seem to see KAndre or Scarlett, missed them in Asheville and Cary, and I was looking for them too. Sigh.

On the Cary venue survey, I told them the best thing about the venue was the bathrooms. The woman's bathroom was huge with many stalls, so there was hardly any waiting. Asheville, on the other hand, had a much smaller bathroom in the next county, so there would be no drinking of any beverage during that concert.