#28: The man's a joy magnet!

[ausdon]

Happy Birthday Gibby! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

Happy Belated Birthday, Gibby!!! How come we didn't know this yesterday??? Were you holding out on us?

I can outdo you on angst over birthdays... my oldest daughter turns the big 4.0. this May! I am not old enough to have a 40 yr old kid, sorry, I'm just not. Really! Gibby, I have learned not to worry about the number of birthdays I have had. I feel a good ten years younger than my age and I'm having more fun than I did ten years ago, so who cares. Congrats on your camera!!!

Thanks, liney! I wasn't holding out on you; I just forgot to put my birthday in my profile. It wasn't until the end of the day that I realized that I hadn't told anyone here it was my birthday. And I totally agree about having more fun now than ever before. I've found that I've become more confident, carefree and spontaneous as I've gotten older, which results in more fun!!

Ditto that Gibby and Liney!

I had a bit of an epiphany/crisis a couple of years ago and that, along with the natural wisdom that comes with age (BWAH!!), has made me more open to fun wherever I may find it and more willing to demand sweetly insist upon my needs/wants sometimes being met. It's hard to remember to do it after mumblty-something years of "putting my happy face on."

Gibby here's wishing that your "happy face" is coming from within!

[aikim]

Good Morning Everyone,

6 Days until Spring!

49 Days until The Closing Night of Spamalot!

51 Days until The New CD!

Everyone have a great day!

Kim

[ldyjocelyn]

Actually, to me, it does look like he's had a haircut....and I think I hear 00lsee sobbing. I don't see any "curls at the nape of the neck."

*sob*

[merrieeee]

Ausdon wrote:

I had a bit of an epiphany/crisis a couple of years ago and that, along with the natural wisdom that comes with age (BWAH!!), has made me more open to fun wherever I may find it and more willing to demand sweetly insist upon my needs/wants sometimes being met. It's hard to remember to do it after mumblty-something years of "putting my happy face on."

Years ago I finally figured it out (duh) that I was always doing for someone else! My whole life seemed to have been spent trying to please others. I know it wasn't 100% true but at the time it sure felt like it. Do for my DH, do for my DD and always go to England on my holidays because of my Mum and Dad! I loved going home but it was always staying with them and kind of catering to what they wanted when I was there. My Mum resented it if I went anywhere without them. So you know you keep the peace!

I made my mind up that I was going to do stuff for me! It is funny that this came to be around 2003 and I began to be a little more self serving. So in 2005 when I had the oppportunity to go to the JNT I jumped at the chance. Best decision I EVER made!

It was totally for me and I had a blast!

I still plan my trips around my DH's schedule but I don't say no any more....unless the finances come into play*g* I have more fun than I could possibly have imagined. I adore the girls I travel with. They are some of the most caring ang generous people I have ever met. I consider them my friends and not just Clay buddies.

I am doing things that I did not have the chance to do when I was younger. The folks at work think I am crazy and I agree with them............. I am crazy (about Clay) and loving every minute.

[liney23]

CU-UUUTTTEE!

bottle... thanks for these.

I think those boots are new and totally hawt! He's clean shaven, too, so the man is so going somewhere after the show! Hope it's fun and stuff!!!

Speaking of the boots... they don't look quite as long as his boots/shoes usually do. I wondered when I heard about him doing the play if he would learn to wear footwear that fit better. He would need shoes to fit better in order to dance well, so his usual size/size and a half too big shoes would not work. Would he get used to shoes that fit right? Well, one pair of new boots that are not quite as over long as his usually are does not a case make, but maybe.

The things I ponder!!!

merrieeee.... glad you found a balance for yourself. I found out the importance of that the hard way. Taking care of others' needs/wants before ones' own is considered loving, but you can't take a back seat to others at your expense forever or you become burnt out and resentful. You will be able to meet others' needs/wants better and with a better frame of mind if you take care of own wants/needs first frequently. Easier said than done, tho, that's for sure. [/end of sermon on this Sunday morn]

[merryclay]

What gorgeous pictures. What a handsome man. I love everything about them. I hope he got to go to a St. Patrick's Day party.

[KAndre]

brushes herself off after rolling around on the floor at the idea of being a "girl"...

I, for one, am excessively glad that merrieeee discovered her "selfish" side! It's always worked for me!

[FromClaygary]

Ahhhh, thanks for bringing those pics over, he looks wonderful! Does look like he's had a bit of a trim, but that's it. Notreallyafan....hangs head in shame...of the sideburns, but hey~it's my leftover Elvishate kicking in!

Wouldn't stop me from snuggling up without a momen't hesitation, if given the invitation!

Just thinking...do you suppose when Jamie hits NYC she arrives with 4 suitcases of new, ie clean, clothes for Clay and leaves with 4 suitcases of dirty ones? I wouldn't be a bit surprised. I have sons Clay's age.

ETA: I'm thinking that could be the reason for Clay's lack of Tshirts in the days just before she arrived as well.

[playbiller]

Just thinking...do you suppose when Jamie hits NYC she arrives with 4 suitcases of new, ie clean, clothes for Clay and leaves with 4 suitcases of dirty ones? I wouldn't be a bit surprised. I have sons Clay's age.

ETA: I'm thinking that could be the reason for Clay's lack of Tshirts in the days just before she arrived as well.

Well, makes sense to me.

Ummm, Gibby

[cha cha trusty]

But the best thing for me today was running some errands and hearing the entire 1970 Live at the Fillmore East version of Cowgirl in the Sand on the radio . Talk about a blast from the past -- a 16+ minute song on the radio!

I watched Rewind and nobody compared to Clay. He owned Billy Joel week, vocally and physically. He does look exceptionally hot in blue and black! KAndre, I too loved that "tick" at Simon you mentioned -- he was showing his goods!

Catching up here - we went out last night to a St Pat's dinner/dance and today I'm a little worn out!! (ooops - it's not even morning any more!)

I haven't seen AI Rewind yet - I don't think it's been on here yet unless it recorded at 3 am or some weird sh---stuff. But I recall the whole show esp from KAndre's recap and coincidentally, I forgot my ipod in the car for a couple days and ended up listening to a disk of all Clay's AI performances! Peachy Keen!!

Is this the "Tick"??

Looks a little like Elvis there!!

Cowgirl in the Sand?? Wow - that really takes me back!! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

[annabear]

CU-UUUTTTEE!

Oh YE-EESSS!

I'm ridiculously in love with his profile.....mussed hair....sideburns....eyelashes.....nose....cheekbones....lips.... *whimper*

[Couch Tomato]

Happy Super Belated Birthday Gibby!

[muskifest]

G'mornin', FCA! :F_05BL17blowkiss:

Again, please allow me to say how much I enjoy checking in here each morning. I know that I won't be falling into some tiresome list of 'expert' posts on this or that (well, with the obvious exception of KAndre--whose posts are never tiresome, fo' sho'. Expert? Goes without saying...but never tiresome... ) I also know that if there IS a topic that's eliciting some disagreement, the discussion will be just that---DISCUSSION---and not cheap shots flying here and there.

Ok. That's done.

Still coughing and whatnot. Keeping my fingers crossed, however, since this is the first morning in a while that I didn't open my eyes to an immediate sinus headache. Maybe after four days the antibiotics might be kicking in?

Oooh...boyfriend's got a hot date, it would appear from his duds and clean shaven (and a bit irritated, too!) face....hope it wasn't just 'coss Jamie was in town. Maybe he and Hannah...

STOPTHATMUSKI! :medium-smiley-070:

Nah...he wouldn't shave for her. She strikes me as the kind of woman who might like it a bit scruffy....

[bottlecap]

6 Days until Spring!!

HALLELUJAH!!!

This has been the first weekend without snow in weeks! I'm ready for spring!

I'm unreasonably in lurve with the new BOOTS! I'm even willing to overlook the mandals as a bit of a sartorial slip.

[Claygasm]

GAH!!!!!

He's the purdiest leprechaun ever!!!!!

Ok, now that my printer is working again, I am determined to get my taxes done. Should I just tell the IRS to send my refund directly to Clay? I mean, he'll get it all anyway!

[liney23]

GAH!!!!!

He's the purdiest leprechaun ever!!!!!

Ok, now that my printer is working again, I am determined to get my taxes done. Should I just tell the IRS to send my refund directly to Clay? I mean, he'll get it all anyway!

CG... Maybe we all should just send out tax refunds to Clay. I'd better have more taken out, dang it!

Ok, he's clean shaven at the end of the play and he's got hawt boots on and I think he even shaved his nose hairs... The man ain't jest goin' out with just anybody, he's goin' out with someone special! Hope you had fun, Clay, and whoever you were with did, too!

[Claygasm]

Nice review I saw at the CH posted by Scarlett AT CV!!!!!!

CV??

Clearly she just doesn't love us any more......

What a joy it's been to watch Clay/Sir Robin grow by leaps and bounds over the last 2 months. Opening weekend was impressive and if things had stayed that way I would have been simply happy and proud of ocb being on Broadway. But more than that these past couple of months Clay/Sir Robin wasn't just learning, he was coming into his own. It was like watching Harry Potter after he realized that he was a wizard. Clay tinkers, experiments, explores his characters. Sir Robin started off as an innocent sweetheart of a knight and now is more of an enthusiastic though still easily scared performer.

The facial expressions, gestures, pauses and irreverently bored tone of Robin as a tower guard make that exchange more impressive. People have already talked about his use of his helmet strap in many parts of the conversation -- to show boredom, to illustrate how 2 swallows would need a line to carry a coconut between them, to point out where the dorsal guiding feathers are, etc. The last change I saw on this scene was the way he pointed at his own face and gestured at all the dirt while saying "he hasn't got shit all over him".

In "Not Dead Yet", Robin is more insistent on not allowing a non-corpse to get on the cart. He faces Lancelot instead of the audience while discussing how being a knight involves lots of fighting and not just dressing up and dancing. He clears his throat before saying "Good" to agree with the fighting part, and this makes people notice the change in pitch a bit more. The smudges on his face do not evoke Oliver-style cuteness a much as before; we still find it cute but to the NJU's it'll be dirt.

In "All For One", he's practically hopping with excitement to be singing before every battle that I was worried that he might pee on himself and do some premature armor soiling.

In Knights of the Round Table, he's thrilled to no end to be in Camelot, not in a "what is this place?" wonderment but a "wheee! I want to plaY" excitement. The group number here is seamless. There's no impression of "here's one performer who's trying to belong". Others have written about this but I've also been asked by non-Clay fan seatmates, "So which one of them is Clay Aiken? I explain patiently and then they say, "Really? I didn't he was that tall!" and they keep repeating that. The part when he's at the center of the stage in the group number is sensational!

While God is telling the knights of the quest and the grail image is clunking down through the clouds, he's the one who covers his head in case the thing falls on him. When he leaves on the quest he waves goodbye. He's got the "scared of heights" part down pat. I think toni and I have already talked about the magnificent slo-mo horse a couple of weeks ago. He changes it every night and the deep knee bends are getting even deeper. My favorite dance from Clay is the part after the slo-mo horse particularly the "You won't fail. Find your grail" move. His horse dismounts have been even more fun lately because he doesn't do it in one smooth motion as like he were the lone ranger, but makes it look like he gets stuck in mid leg-throw. It's cute that he ties up his horse carefully and pats it before facing the french taunter.

When they bring out the secret weapon, he's been knocking at it to see if it's hollow. He often does the milking action with his hands when the other knights wonder how useful a cow would be used. At the end of Act I he screams "Wait for me!" at Sir Bevedere.

... stopping for the Intermission

[bottlecap]

I thought that picture cried out for a little focused cropping. The lovely lobe just screams .

Nom, nom, nom. Slurp.

[aikim]

Beautiful day here in the Midwest, just came in from pruning my rose bushes and cleaning the yard up a little...definately feel Spring fever coming on!

Loving all the pictures from the stagedoor...he is looking very good and his hair looks the same to me as it did as the matinee.

Kim

[Couch Tomato]

Nice review I saw at the CH posted by Scarlett AT CV!!!!!!

CV??

Clearly she just doesn't love us any more......

hee you're very dramatic CG.

Anyway, I read all the recaps with great interest but I can't wait to see this for myself. I have 3 tickets so far. Doesn't sound like that's quite enough. LOL.

OK about the hair...I guess I'm used to the color now but I have to say every time I see those close ups I think he has a "kitchen." KAndre will know what that is. Sometimes it doesn't seem as soft as it usually is. But I like the windblown I don't have time to bother with this hair look.

Any reports from the Liney/Perma get together did I miss it? Did they like each other --smile and share clack or pull each other's hair

[aikim]

From Toni:

Clay is adorable!!!

Great crowd and great reception. Looks to be sold out. Mezz and balcony look full and it is SRO.

Some fans but mostly NJU. A couple of NJU near toni commented on seeing him on Idol and thought it was so cool that fans seemed to all know each other. They thought Clay was great!

Clay is "spot on"!

He was doing his shimmy during the "Knights of the Round Table" and got lots of Ooos and Ahhhs.

Clay has had more dirt on him today and yesterday during the guard in the tower and "Not Dead Yet" scenes. He was moving his hands like a bird when he was talking about the swallows.

Clay took forever getting off his "horse" and held his leg up in the air for a very long time.

Just as he was about to break into "Lovely Spam, wonderful Spam", he was jumping up and down, so excited to be singing. He was very animated.

Tom is back and all the cast is there.

Lots of tongue during the slo-mo horse scene and lots of different, funny faces.

The weather when they went into the theater was windy and raining so toni isn't sure there will be stage door today. Maybe the weather will clear up.

She'll call me back after the show.

[Claygasm]

Clay took forever getting off his "horse" and held his leg up in the air for a very long time.

Show off!!

Lots of tongue during the slo-mo horse scene and lots of different, funny faces.

He is obviously practicing for when bottle comes!

So I go to do my taxes and discover one of the W-2's (from my new job) is incorrect. I have a local tax that is taken out of my check. It ALWAYS is shown on my W-2, but when I went to put in the info from my new W-2, it showed no local tax! It has been taken out of my check, though, but without it showing on the W-2 they will expect me to pay again! I got out a check stub from my old job and one from my new job and it seems one is listed under "Taxes" and one under "Adjustments". Of course the one listed under "Taxes" shows up on my W-2 and the other does not. The ironic thing is, the same damn company did payroll for my old job as for my new one! So now I guess I will have to get them to issue me a new W-2. Can they even do that?

So annoying! Clay I need my money!!

[ldyjocelyn]

The Playbill write up that someone asked for earlier is FINALLY up on playbill.com!

It Takes Two

It Takes Two

By Andrew Gans

15 Mar 2008

Two time's the charm for "American Idol" runner-up and Spamalot star Clay Aiken.

Two may be Clay Aiken's lucky number. After all, the former "American Idol" contestant placed second during the second season of the hit Fox TV series, and that runner-up status has not affected his career in the least. In fact, he has long outsold that season's "Idol" winner, the affable, velvet-voiced Ruben Studdard. It also took Aiken two viewings to realize that Monty Python's Spamalot was just the right vehicle in which to make his Broadway debut.

When Raleigh, NC, native Aiken first saw the Tony-winning musical at the Shubert Theatre, he admits with a laugh, "I thought it was the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life." But on his second visit he revised his opinion when he realized "there is zero plot. I sat down and I watched it that way, and . . . understanding what it is and that it's making fun of traditional musicals with silly British humor — it's hilarious."

In Spamalot Aiken has assumed the roles of Sir Robin, Guard and Brother Maynard, which were created by Curtains Tony winner David Hyde Pierce but most recently played by Broadway veteran Martin Moran. And, it turns out that Moran was one of Aiken's earliest inspirations. "When I was in seventh grade, my mom took me to see Big River. It was the very first time that I looked onstage and I thought, 'Wait a second, people can make a living singing!' That kind of excited me — it was the first time I really thought to myself, 'Maybe this is what I'd like to do, something with music.' Ironically, the person who played Huck Finn in that production of Big River was a guy named Marty Moran."

Although he does get the chance to display his beautiful, rangy, crystal-clear voice in a few numbers, Spamalot doesn't offer the gifted tenor as much opportunity for vocal acrobatics as several other Broadway musicals might. "We had other shows approach us," Aiken says, ". . . but the reason we were interested in Spamalot was it was completely different than anything I had done in the past, and it was something that I don't think people would have expected me to be interested in. That was kind of a draw, the fact that it was opposite of typical Clay Aiken stuff."

Aiken — whose best-selling recordings include "Measure of a Man," "A Thousand Different Ways" and "Merry Christmas with Love" — says he's also working on another studio album, which he hopes will hit stores when he finishes his run in Spamalot. "It'll be out in May, hopefully. Of course, no album I've ever done has come out on schedule, so that doesn't mean anything! Then, we'll see where that takes us, whether it'll get us back on tour . . . who knows?

"I've always said that I try to look at [show business] as an interesting summer-camp experience. I don't know how long it's going to stick around or how long it'll last, so I'm going to have fun and do what I can while I'm here and not try to foresee ten years down the road and be disappointed — because ten years down the road I could be working at McDonald's."

[Couch Tomato]

So I go to do my taxes and discover one of the W-2's (from my new job) is incorrect. I have a local tax that is taken out of my check. It ALWAYS is shown on my W-2, but when I went to put in the info from my new W-2, it showed no local tax! It has been taken out of my check, though, but without it showing on the W-2 they will expect me to pay again! I got out a check stub from my old job and one from my new job and it seems one is listed under "Taxes" and one under "Adjustments". Of course the one listed under "Taxes" shows up on my W-2 and the other does not. The ironic thing is, the same damn company did payroll for my old job as for my new one! So now I guess I will have to get them to issue me a new W-2. Can they even do that?

Yes they can file a corrected W2 with the feds and of course send you a copy. Get on them....you need your Clay money.

[bottlecap]

OK about the hair...I guess I'm used to the color now but I have to say every time I see those close ups I think he has a "kitchen." KAndre will know what that is. Sometimes it doesn't seem as soft as it usually is. But I like the windblown I don't have time to bother with this hair look.

This pasty white chick was curious, so I had to look up "kitchen". I think you were referring to this definition: "The hair on the back of your neck that is nappy, un-tameable", and not an alternate definiton: "The ass or general crotch/rear area, generally well-formed and at least partially concealed by clothing." Although I wouldn't disagree with the second one, necessarily... :lmaosmiley-1:

Lots of tongue during the slo-mo horse scene and lots of different, funny faces.

He is obviously practicing for when bottle comes!

OMG!

Oh wait, you mean "comes" as in "comes to the show." Never mind....