#29: EEEEEEEEEEEE!!! It's really happening!

[merrieeee]

Hee, Heidi! For our trip at the end of April we'll have 3 rooms (at least) for the 9 of us: You can have the Baby Bear temperature, I'll have the Mama Bear (and I'm keeping Solo & PerusingOne) and KAndre will have the Papa Bear one... Couchie? 00lsee? Hot or cold?

Boo Hoo....I am snowed under at work (yes I've been here an hour already and it's only 5:30) and already I am forgotten, not there, unaccounted for, left out, dismissed and am no more. It's a sad sad situation!!!! Hey where's keepingfaith?

[FromClaygary]

Well, the AC here in my office has been at 72 all day... (and I'm not paying for it).

FromClaygary, how about coming for the International Quilt Show?

Ansa, welcome back!!! How was the weather?

Hee, Heidi! For our trip at the end of April we'll have 3 rooms (at least) for the 9 of us: You can have the Baby Bear temperature, I'll have the Mama Bear (and I'm keeping Solo & PerusingOne) and KAndre will have the Papa Bear one... Couchie? 00lsee? Hot or cold?

Ooohh.....tempting! "Doing the show" with you would be a blast! And Nuvember here....not so much! I'll have to look at flights out of Buffalo and see how expensive they are; and, of course, see what's up with our boyfriend and his tour! But thanks for mentioning it! That might take me through the rain today!

[aikim]

Good Morning Everyone,

Sunshine here this morning and it is going to be in the 50's; I can just feel the warm weather right around the corner!

32 Days until The Closing Night of Spamalot!

34 Days until "On My Way Here" is Here!

89 Days until The Summer of Clay (maybe?)

Everyone have a great day!

Kim

[ldyjocelyn]

From the CH:

Boston Herald.com

Errand boys: Petty wish, our command

Is money and power a free license to act like a spoiled brat?

Always has been and always will be.

In a goofy fantasy moment on reality TV last week, singer Trace Adkins was given a taste of the asinine demands that celebrities routinely dictate to hotel workers and service staff.

<snip>

The most comprehensive collection of celebrity contract riders is posted at TheSmokingGun.com (click on the “Backstage” icon).

Some requests, such as buckets of “clean” ice, seem reasonable. Luxury hotels must occasionally get rusty water in the ice machine for this stipulation to be so common. Others, such as the mandatory cereal schedule for Clay Aiken’s backup band, go off the silliness charts.

In case you want to sync up your breakfast menu, the Claymates are fed Kellogg’s Raisin Bran (Mondays), Lucky Charms (Tuesdays), Life (Wednesdays), Oatmeal Raisin Crisp (Thursdays), Honey Nut Clusters (Fridays), Cream of Wheat (Saturdays) and Honeycomb (Sundays).

First of all, I "eeeeeeeeee" at the fact that Life cereal is one of the choices -- one of my favorites. Secondly -- backup band? Jesse and Sean are a backup band? OK, I suppose if you add Q&A to the mix as well. And finally, people are suggesting (and I think this might be true) that this is the way to keep everyone remembering what day it is -- if they are eating Cream of Wheat, it must be Saturday. Hee!

ETA: I just went to The Smoking Gun, and this rider is actually the one from the NAT in 2004. I remember seeing it before, but never noticed the cereal demands. Heh. I was also actually hoping TSG had found a new rider....

[KAndre]

Ha! I've been sleeping with PerusingOne for the last three years - my exact right temperature room (pbbbth to all you polar bears!) will keep her where she belongs...and with merrieee for the last two! Ha ha!

Clay's "backup band" are now the "Claymates"?

HA! BWAH HA HA HA HA!

[Couch Tomato]

Ha! I've been sleeping with PerusingOne for the last three years - my exact right temperature room (pbbbth to all you polar bears!) will keep her where she belongs...and with merrieee for the last two! Ha ha!

Clay's "backup band" are now the "Claymates"?

HA! BWAH HA HA HA HA!

bwah... wait...wasn't there another cereal Clay had the nation eating... I don't see it on the list. hee... what was it again? cinamon toast crunch or something like that. As for cereal...growing up we got rice krispies, cheerios, and corn flakes. When we ever got a treat and got something else it got eaten up in one day.

[aikim]

That cereal list reminds me of my Aunt; she had her kids on a breakfast schedule the whole time they were growing up...Mondays was waffles, Tuesdays was hot cereal..etc., my cousins hated it.

Kim

[keldanker]

Nice banner!

The cereal schedule is . Didn't know the band was called The Claymates.

[00lsee]

Hee, Heidi! For our trip at the end of April we'll have 3 rooms (at least) for the 9 of us: You can have the Baby Bear temperature, I'll have the Mama Bear (and I'm keeping Solo & PerusingOne) and KAndre will have the Papa Bear one... Couchie? 00lsee? Hot or cold?

Boo Hoo....I am snowed under at work (yes I've been here an hour already and it's only 5:30) and already I am forgotten, not there, unaccounted for, left out, dismissed and am no more. It's a sad sad situation!!!! Hey where's keepingfaith?

I cannot sleep in a hot room...so, yes, I'm so determined to sleep in the air conditioned space that I'm considering bringing along an air mattress...if all the beds are taken, I can then sleep on the floor. Can't sleep hot. Nope. Can't.

[atinal]

Yeah, that Clay Aiken, he sure is a spoiled brat, demanding 5 or 6 different types of cereal at about 4 bucks a box for his band. I know they said it was silly, but geesh, TSG didn't have riders for any other band that was more outrageous than that? Oh wait, it probably wouldn't have gotten the attention that Clay Aiken's name did.

Also, that they still use this rider from 4 years ago, I think someone pointed out that a lot of the items on that rider were still the same from the IT and some things were Kelly's requests, like any kind of water except Evian, and I think that is because it gave her headaches.

Of course this article is no big deal, but it kindof leaves me scratching my head, in the context of The Celebrity Apprentice where the Back Street Boys were sending a star with equal or better "star power" than them out to find black nail polish and wheat grass juice for them, it doesn't seem to compute.

[playbiller]

Well, if you go to the smoking gun, which I should not have, you would see that the write up is a tad insultin and that Clay andRuben afre listed under....ready for this????.... Boy bands SO from the start they still had an AI mindset, kind of, except, where were the other 3 singers?

Here is the thing with Clay's rider, it did not specify that any alcohol was required, most riders, includingthe old one for Ruben listed what they wanted to drink in assortment, both alcoholic and non. The volume of booze listed on some was rather expensive and amazing. Sometimesthe riders include fast food of certain brands and I wonder what happens in an isolated area where you would haveto fly it in or something. I guess that all these riders are reviewed for the possibility of meeting the needs by the venue, I am sure many could not meet the requests.

[ldyjocelyn]

playbiller, I remember when the rider was first discovered in 2004, and more than a few of us actually had to laugh at the whole thing. So, to me, the AI connection wasn't all that far-fetched. The Boy Bands thing, of course, was kind of silly -- but then Clay had pretty much gotten out of that "teen magazine" phase that they tried for a while with him.

Besides -- I thought we wanted the teenies to be in the front row of his shows? Doesn't that make him cool? [/snerk]

[cha cha trusty]

Yeah, that Clay Aiken, he sure is a spoiled brat, demanding 5 or 6 different types of cereal at about 4 bucks a box for his band. I know they said it was silly, but geesh, TSG didn't have riders for any other band that was more outrageous than that? Oh wait, it probably wouldn't have gotten the attention that Clay Aiken's name did.

Also, that they still use this rider from 4 years ago, I think someone pointed out that a lot of the items on that rider were still the same from the IT and some things were Kelly's requests, like any kind of water except Evian, and I think that is because it gave her headaches.

Of course this article is no big deal, but it kindof leaves me scratching my head, in the context of The Celebrity Apprentice where the Back Street Boys were sending a star with equal or better "star power" than them out to find black nail polish and wheat grass juice for them, it doesn't seem to compute.

One thing - how often are they at a show for breakfast??

But I was thinking about the Back Street Boys. did they realize how ridiculous they looked demanding all that stuff? I think they may have lost some fans over that. Now I am also wondering if they are always that much trouble or if they were instructed to make a stink to make things hard on Trace.

Speaking of Trace - he blew me away with that song "You're Gonna Miss This" -- So true!! It brought tears to my eyes!

In case you missed it ...

[annabear]

Where's bottlecap?

[wandacleo]

Well, I feel a WHOLE lot better about the nuts in the Clay Nation after reading the comments under Trace's "You're Gonna Miss This" on YouTube. My God, what is wrong with people????? There are some real sickos out there.

[Claygasm]

Where's bottlecap?

Good question! I thought all my talk in my recap of Clay's tongue action would have brought her out of hiding!!

Bottle - come out, come out, wherever you are!!

[Couch Tomato]

Clay's Spamalot interview will air on Idol Extra (Fox Reality Channel) this Thursday.

I read some of those comments Wandacleo ...makes the claynation/hatahs dukefests look positively cherry.

Yeah, where the hell is bottle!

Hey didn't LdyJ mention tongue too...Bottle may be out cold in her home from all that stimulation!

[luckiest1]

The USA Weekend interview is up:

Clay Aiken talks music, acting and talk

I have some disappointing news for all the true Clay Aiken followers out there — the man is going to take some time off. His run in Spamalot comes to an end May 4 and his new album, On My Way Here, comes out May 6. He'll do some album promotion and, yes, he will eventually tour in support of it, but not anytime soon. Because my time with him was limited I did not take all the specific questions I got from you (we got more than 350 posts). So I organized the relevant ones by topics.

edited to fix url, sowwy

[ldyjocelyn]

luckiest1, I couldn't get your link to work, so I'm bringing the blog over here. Very interesting stuff...

Clay Aiken talks music, acting and talk Posted by Lorrie Lynch

I have some disappointing news for all the true Clay Aiken followers out there — the man is going to take some time off. His run in Spamalot comes to an end May 4 and his new album, On My Way Here, comes out May 6. He'll do some album promotion and, yes, he will eventually tour in support of it, but not anytime soon. Because my time with him was limited I did not take all the specific questions I got from you (we got more than 350 posts). So I organized the relevant ones by topics. Here's what he said on:

ACTING: "I enjoy being myself more than I enjoy being somebody else." In other words, he has enjoyed working in Spamalot but he's not looking for another Broadway role, nor is he looking to do movies, as some of you wanted to know. Clay always leaves the door open — so he says that if the right opportunity came along he would look at it — but made clear he is not actively pursuing acting.

TOURING OTHER COUNTRIES: Those of you who want him to come to Australia, Norway, Singapore and more are out of luck. Why? Clay says his record label doesn't release his albums in those places. He is actually surprised he has fans in some the places he does. He laughed and said folks can call the Sony-BMG offices in their region to tell them they want Clay's records released there. Or, "They can spam them like they spam you," he said in a nod to the internet following he has.

TOURING IN GENERAL: "I'm taking a break," Clay said. He knows that you all want to see him again, and acknowledged that there were some press reports that he would tour this summer but "we never said we were planning on touring this summer. Do we plan on touring for this (new) album? Yes. But not this summer." Clay says he hates to be "a bubble-burster" for those of you looking forward to it but, for one thing, "there hasn't been enough time to put (a tour) together."

PRODUCING OTHERS: He knows that those even younger than he have produced the work of other talented people and he admires that but "it's not necessarily a plan."

TALK SHOW: Now, here is something he clearly would like to do. "We put feelers out for this, that or the other...we make known what we think we're interested in doing," Clay says, using We meaning He. And he says they've made it known that talk is something he's interested in doing. But, like Spamalot, he says, sometimes it's a matter of ideas and opportunities coming together at the right time. Bottom line: nothing in the works right now.

NYC vs. N.C.: "NO," he says, when I ask if he would like to relocate to New York permanently. "I prefer New York to a lot of other places. But living here, I don't think I could do. Living here for short spurts of time is fine." He says, "I need my back yard," and then we got into how he had to send his two dogs back to Raleigh because "New York is not a place to be a dog," and how it's never quiet in NYC and rents and mortgages are outrageous and...you get the picture.

THE NEW ALBUM: "I know a lot (of the fans) like to like everything I do," Clay says, but on the new album there will be something everyone won't like, but also something everyone WILL like. A lot of you want Clay to rock out, or as he calls it "do rockin' songs" — and he says on the new album he does — but it's hard for him to find such songs. "I can't find one I'm comfortable with." He was reluctant to pick a favorite or signature song from this album but eventually said the song Something About Us could be it.

MUSIC VS. LYRICS: For Clay, it's all about the words. He says 90 percent of the songs on the new album were chosen for the lyrics: "In some way, on all of those, I connect." But he's not going to tell us how or why he connects to each specific song. Why? "Because you want people to connect for their own reasons." In other words, he doesn't want us reading into each song the possible applications to his life when we should be finding meaning in them for ourselves.

Look for my shorter print piece on Clay in the May 11 issue of the magazine, and you can read about my previous interview with Clay here.

[annabear]

Good grief! I want to sit down & talk with this man. He's so verra, verra interesting. And CUTE!

Tour in the fall. I can live with that. My checkbook can definitely live with that! Whenever, wherever, I'll be there.

[playbiller]

Oh, Look! Clay doesn't define himself as a rock!star! - who could have guessed that?

Idon't think he should assume taht no one will like the entire album. he would have to get pretty much out of line for me to not like something, but i don't own too many albums where I like everything. So far, ballad-lite rock-soulish-cheery guy singer is fine by me. I am not sayng that I went into listennig to ATDW expecting to like some specific songs, but they were changed up enough to drag me into liking them kicking and screaming.

I do see where some people like to define Clay, but I believe he hasthe right to define himself and that is the least we can let him do.

h, yes, Clay does deserve a break and a chance to sleep in his own bed for a while, he has worked very very hard for a long time now.

[luckiest1]

There was a lot of info packed into that little interview! I know there'll be some disappointment about no summer tour, but it's already April and other than those couple of press articles that mentioned it, we'd heard nothing, so I can't say I'm all that surprised. The guy needs some time off, to kick back with his dogs and friends and family at home, no doubt! He'll be busy enough with the album promo after Spamalot, I'm sure. He needs to recharge his batteries. I'm up for a fall or winter or even spring 2009 tour! Whenever he's ready, I'll be there.

Man, I'm looking forward to this album. Hee, Clay says there'll be something on it I won't like. I find that hard to believe, but I guess we'll see.

[Couch Tomato]

Thanks for posting that Lucky/LadyJ. Well I think he deserves a break as much as I would love to see him tour. I'll be there whenever he's ready. I do like that he'll be available for album promotion. Clay is so interesting. Who is this man?

There are 50,000 channels..somebody give that man a talk show. Glad he's putting out feelers for it. I hope it bears fruit.

[KAndre]

The man has been working like a dog for the last 9 months - he's entitled to take a break. And frankly, I think it's been clear forever and a day that Clay actually really likes "slooooow songs" - the schtick this summer was just that - a schtick.

Ah well - let me save a bit for a trip to Japan this summer instead of following Clay around - but I'll be there in high heels come fall!

[ncgran4clay]

I liked the blog- her writing style was sort of cryptic but we got a lot of information. I was not disappointed about no summer tour. I really think the man needs a break. Some time to feed his soul & keep those creative juices flowing- We will reap the rewards of that in the end. Glad to hear there are "rocking songs"- but I like ballads as well so I'm easy when it comes to what Clay sings. Can't wait to get my hands on this CD I know I'm going to love it!!