#47: That's not just any man... That's OUR man! You're a GOOD MAN, Clay Aiken!

[djs111]

Note to self, after perusing the internet - if I have any interaction whatsoever with Clay, I will not say one fricking thing about it on the boards.

The snippyness is getting, well, embarrassing.

Especially from people who have neerner-neenered about not being able to spill things from RCA.

[merrieeee]

Especially from people who have neerner-neenered about not being able to spill things from RCA.

ETA: CV Main post # 2784 has new pics of Clay/UNICEF Can't bring them at work.

[ldyjocelyn]

From the CH:

ONE.org

Believe in Zero

Believe in Zero

January 22nd, 2009 at 1:10 pm | posted by Margaret McDonnell

Our friends at UNICEF just passed along this great blog post written by Clay Aiken. Enjoy!

I’m Clay Aiken, and I am a UNICEF Ambassador.

The U.S. Fund for UNICEF is proud to be a partner of ONE. ONE has mobilized millions of Americans to speak up about the importance of tackling global poverty – saving and improving lives around the world.

I’ve had a chance to see many wonderful children, full of laughter and hope, in even the poorest places around the world. And I’ve seen the incredible work of UNICEF to help those children and their families survive and thrive. But I have also seen children sick and dying from lack of basic nutrition and medicines. And I cannot forget that despite UNICEF’s work, 25,000 children die every day, mostly from preventable causes. I believe that number should be “zero”– no child dying unnecessarily.

All of us can help to save children’s lives – individuals, nonprofits, corporations, and governments.

So I am asking President Barack Obama to launch a Presidential Initiative to Accelerate Child Survival. And I am asking YOU to join me, by signing a petition to the President.

ONE supporters care about helping the most vulnerable people on our planet. Please join me in telling the next President of the United States that Americans want him to make global child survival a top priority. For more information and to sign the petition, go to:

http://volunteers.unicefusa.org/activities...tiative-to.html.

-Clay Aiken, UNICEF Ambassador

[Lotus]

This from CH is toni7babe's response to some of the criticism she and the CV10 received after that first report after the dinner.

You know we came back to the hotel grabbed my laptop and headed to the bar. We had driven in two cars so it was the first time we were all together after the dinner. There were multiple conversations going on at the dinner table at Maggianos with Clay that everyone in our group had not heard and we wanted to share them with each other.

For example I sat next to Jaymes so we talked and sometimes others could not hear, others talked with Faye or Cheryl or Jerome and I could hear none of that...and so forth. So we all wanted to share with each other and to be honest yes we wanted to EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and enjoy some wine and drinks and talk with each other, but No we didnt really do that at all as we logged on to CV and saw over 300 people online waiting for a recap from us.

Now CV is our home board and we are a pretty close bunch over there, like we are here. That board and those fellow fans mean the world to me and the other CV10' ers. So we felt OMG we need to post something as so many are waiting. So as a group we wrote & posted a quick brief recap and we felt we needed to say that the dinner conversation was going to stay at the table. It was requested that it be left there and all of us respected that and have and will continue to do so.

If we had not done that we would have been asked a zillion questions, received a zillion PM's about everything. We felt we needed to say that.

Could we have had maybe added more or said things differently?? Yea, maybe we could have. We did the best we could at that moment and our hearts were in the right place...believe it or not. There is absolutely no neener neener attitude with this group.

Here we are after having the most wonderful night of our Clay fandom sitting in the bar trying to celebrate and share our moments with each othere BUT we werent doing that. We were all trying to put something on the board for the 300 folks at CV. We tried doing the best we could. Try putting yourself in our shoes.

We are trying as hard as we can to share things and impressions but we will not discuss private conversations. We needed a bit of time to decompress and had said in the intital post we would share our signed items and stories about that & pics when we get them.

We are also trying to share our impressions and other tidbits as you have seen by my post earlier and the ones merrieee has been bringing over. We also yesterday wanted to wait and let claym8 address somethings since she won the auction and was so kind to invite us to be her guests and join her. That was one reason for the delay in the types of posts your receiving now.

I don't feel we or I owe anyone a explanation but you know this is MY home board so I wanted to attempt to explain.

I hope this helps explain things a bit.

Thanks!

[tribeca]

ldyjocelyn

thanks for posting the UNICEF blog & pictures

Love it

[Lotus]

And from WinkAtMe at CV

Okay…now for the fun part! Dinner with Clay!!! confetti2.gif

I had been dancing on air at the prospect of being with Clay at the Celine concert and the fact that it turned into dinner with Clay because of the weather was just as exciting. I had no expectations on what would happen in either scenario so I was basically “along for this amazing ride”. dancing.gif

We walked into the restaurant and Faye greeted us…she is so sweet and just a beautiful woman. We remained gathered in the foyer, pinching ourselves as to what would happen. When the hotel staff brought us to the area where we would be having dinner, there was no clue as to how to sit. It was a very long table with 16 seats dressed in red and white checkered linen cloths and filled with a bounty of appetizers. Huge bowl of Caesar salad and garden salad, bread with little plates of olive oil for dipping, platters with fried mozzarella, and platters of onions with mozzarella and tomatoes dressed with basil and olive oil. This was all set as one for each four people. OMG!

We stood around the table a bit because Faye didn’t want to sit since she didn’t know where to put Clay when he arrived. I stopped walking around the table at a spot halfway through just in case he sat at either end. We all gathered in but remained standing. Then Faye selected 4 seats together in the middle of the other side of the table for her family and we sat. We were told to begin serving ourselves and drink orders were taken. No one wanted to eat until the rest of our party (Clay) arrived. Jerome came in smiling and giving us the little rules about cameras and recording devices and had Claym8 sign a waiver accepting this dinner as a replacement for the original prize of the Celine concert. She happily signed and off Jerome went to get Clay. I think that may have been when I began pinching dear Angelty’s leg. ( sorry…hope you don’t have bruises). I was beside myself with joy.

Jerome, Clay & Jaymes strolled in and took their seats. Clay sat right across from me…..EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! I am never that lucky. The table was so narrow, I could have reached out and touched him. (Again angelty…sorry about that leg squeeze too).

He asked us each of our names and shook our hands before sitting down. He is an amazing looking man. Dressed casually and very clean looking….shaven and hair combed but not styled. He was so cute and relaxed right away.

One cute thing….As he was looking over everything already out on the table, he was encouraging us to start eating. He looked at the fried mozzarella in front of the two of us and wanted to try it. They were in squares and cut diagonally across and meant to be able to take a triangle at a time. He tried to pick up a piece but the melted cheese had started to gel together and it was tough to pull a piece off. I reached my fork over and held the part that he was trying to pull away from but only the little corner of his piece wound up on his fork. He placed it on his plate and didn’t try to retrieve the rest. Now, what guy does that?

His first batch of sweet tea was the best….the rest he needed to add more sweetener to. I think he left that straw in his glass as a stirrer but didn’t want to drink out of the straw, thus the bending it over to drink from the glass. And a chance for us to see those long, clean-scrubbed fingers. thud.gif

He was so gracious. As he was talking, he made sure he faced Claym8’s way a lot who was diagonally across from him. But he would look around to all of us and make eye contact.

He enjoyed his spaghetti but actually ate little since he talked a lot. He doesn’t talk with food in his mouth but as he swallows, covers his mouth with his fingers as he thinks about what he wants to say when he is finished.

He certainly admired the yummy cheesecake several times but refrained from taking any. hug2.gif

As we got up from the table, Claym8 went over to Clay and spoke quietly asking if he could make a phone call to our dear friend who was unable to attend. Clay was quickly happy to do it and was so sweet. As he spoke with xxx, I began tearing up. It is an image I have frozen in my brain…he was standing sideways from me so I could see his profile and he had on a nice smile, as if he was actually seeing her as he spoke. I will never forget that special glimpse.

I don’t want to repeat what others have already shared so I guess that is it.

When the last picture was taken, the reality that it was over was coming over us….no one wanted to leave. But it was clearly over.

The restaurant staff offered for us to take a rose from a huge display and I did…I think he knew it was a special time for us.

I cannot thank Clay, Kristy, Faye, Jerome and Cheryl enough for making this happen. Kristy worked very hard and was involved in making arrangements for hours. They are all truly remarkable. When they could have easily said that they needed to stick with the prize offered, they tried hard to make us happy with a resolution to the problems. They went against their fears to go out in what for them was bad weather to meet us. Clay is a man….the man…and while he still has his sweet quirks and can look boyish at times, he is a MAN who looks content and is just plain gorgeous inside and out. I admire him more every time. This of course was a once in a lifetime but I am so impressed I could just cry. He is not a celebrity to me anymore, just an amazing man who happens to be given a gift from God to share with many people. He is a very special man!

To my fellow CV10, I love you all and hope we can spend some time together again along our journey.

[smittenwithclay]

I am in love with Larry Fitzgerald of the Cardinals. He is a fine figure of a man... board shoulders, narrow waist, and great bootie... and he has long hair. He makes the most acrobatic catches ever. So last night I saw a video of him after the last game. All dressed up in a suit with a nice topcoat and GLASSES... O.M.G. He is gorgeous!

hehe dont worry, while Clay owns and set up camp in the major portion of my heart, I have other men holed up in corners here and there...TR Knight from greys anatomy, Dr Wilson from House, and Benji from 2 years ago SYTYCD nobody do I love as much as Clay, but I enjoy looking at these guys too

[canfly172]

Thanks for bringing over the recaps.

I was askeered to go back to the CV thread.

[muskifest]

He is not a celebrity to me anymore, just an amazing man who happens to be given a gift from God to share with many people. He is a very special man!

Love this....although for me, Clay has always been more of "an amazing man" than a celebrity...

[Claygasm]

I don't think it was fair of Clay to ask that of the fans there since he has to know how much the poor underprivileged fans who can't afford to spend $26000 for something would want to share in that evening and what a bad position it would put them in and since I doubt he revealed anything too super-seekrit or personal, I don't see why he asked that of them.

While I agree that Clay would not have shared anything secret or personal, I think it's been adequately explained why he asked that of them - so he could have a relaxing evening where his every word (and those of his guests) did not have to be parsed or examined. IMO. Good enough for me.

I didn't say it wasn't adequately explained. I was just giving my opinion of the whole thing. And I stand by what I said.

Funny how you took my one criticism of Clay in my post and commented on it with your usual if Clay did it/said it/sang it/looked at it cross-eyed/etc. its good enough for me.

Oh well. The recaps are fun but you know what? They are starting to feel TO ME a bit like bragging and "we're so special because we're special to Clay". But that's ok because I can always scroll!

[Couch Tomato]

well to me it's one of the sorry risks people take when they do anything in this fandom or if clay singles them out... they will be accused of being a fameho or thinking they arespecial. So pretty much damned if they do or don't. I can't really think of an instance where that hasn't happened. I think anyone who has been in the fandom for any length of time know to expect that. Nasty emails to these ladies are downright pathetic and like I said, I'd expose every single email I got like that.

[tribeca]

I know I should know this but what is the CV?

any other Clay news?

[Lotus]

I know I should know this but what is the CV?

any other Clay news?

CV = Clayversity

CH= Clack House

CB= Clayboard

[tribeca]

I know I should know this but what is the CV?

any other Clay news?

CV = Clayversity

CH= Clack House

CB= Clayboard

thanks i am a fan of Clay's but half the time I have no clue what people are talking about (especially some name's that are posted).

[Clayzy]

I know I'm going to be bow tie girl if I keep bringing it up, but can you imagine the furor if Clay had been wearing a bow tie as he asked the CV 10 not to flapping their jacks off about every little thing that was said at the dinner?

I don't know why this amuses me so...

I, for one, am in the camp that believes it was the right thing to do. I mean, if I had a three-hour dinner with someone (especially someone famous that I adored) there'd be no way I could accurately remember any details. And even if I thought I could, all the other people I was with would be going, "He didn't say that! He said this! NO, what he really meant was this! *huge brawl*"

[justclay12]

I didn't see anyone bragging about being there and feeling like special fans. What I saw is that Clay made them feel special for that one night and I love him all the more for that. They are happy and their happiness and the impressions that they are bringing to us makes me better about not being able to hear all the news. That, and time. Sometimes its better to take a step back. That's why I don't like going to the boards, usually the bigger ones, when negative stuff is going on because it just adds stress. And I'm not blaming either side for this because both those who were happy and those who were disappointed had a right to their feelings, but then one side starts attacking and then the other side feels they need to defend themselves, and you wind up with a war.

Loved Clay's Unicef blog and the pictures. I really liked his hair that way. Now I'm going to start looking forward to the GFI thing and wondering what he is planning next. And working on my portfolio for juncture and lots of reading and planning for my classes.

[luckiest1]

I didn't say it wasn't adequately explained. I was just giving my opinion of the whole thing. And I stand by what I said.

You said you didn't see why he asked them not to tell. I was just paraphrasing what I'd read about the CV10's feeling as to why. I didn't expect you'd agree.

Anyone else watching Bones? I think they've hit a new low. It's sad, because this used to be a pretty good show.

[FearofH2O]

I just have this funny feeling that a group of posters were just waiting around to jump on the dinner party in order to get out their anger. At what or whom I'm not sure. I truly don't understand why someone would want a blog that was demanded. It's so unorganic. I'm not worried about fans leaving, but rather some kind of blow up.

Am I the only one with this feeling? It may be a result of seeing that someone I used to be very close to started a thread at the OFC --Will you renew if nothing changes, even though there are about 10 threads talking about just that already. I guess you can never have too many.

I think I'll go into hiding for a few days. I'm also feeling bad about going to see my neighbor in such pain today at the hospital that she was throwing up. She is 81 and was always helping anyone and everybody.

ETA: Sorry I had the thread name wrong.

[tribeca]

I didn't say it wasn't adequately explained. I was just giving my opinion of the whole thing. And I stand by what I said.

You said you didn't see why he asked them not to tell. I was just paraphrasing what I'd read about the CV10's feeling as to why. I didn't expect you'd agree.

Anyone else watching Bones? I think they've hit a new low. It's sad, because this used to be a pretty good show.

I am

there are uncover at the circus it is really pretty bizarre.

my dad is in love with the Doctor

[smittenwithclay]

Am I the only one with this feeling? It may be a result of seeing that someone I used to be very close to started a thread at the OFC --Will you renew if nothing changes, even though there are about 10 threads talking about just that already. I guess you can never have too many.

I was just saying that..that they were starting a thread in each forum, the "men who dont blog and the women that love them" was my idea, and was meant to be snark, because i was trying to find out a name for one to go in "get aquainted"

yeesh, even though it doesnt matter so much to me..I do understand wanting more blogs, and even more content..I dont understand people who are making it so personal..someone even said he must be depressed..he is pulling away...he doesnt care about us..he doesnt need us...

I need a drink, and I dont drink! why do I go there then...I have no idea lol believe me, Ive asked myself that very question.

[tribeca]

Well my niece signed up for the OFC about 2 weeks ago and gave me the membership because she is 12 and it said something about it in the rules.

There seem to be many people unhappy with the fan club in general. About the blogs I don't know the last one was only to a group of people who were going to that Broadway talks thing. I wonder if that is what bothers some.

Not saying anyone is right or wrong just wondering.

[luckiest1]

I think there are some fans who are overly invested and need to get a life. Seriously. I mean, I love when Clay blogs, and I'd love it if he'd blog more often, but my life doesn't revolve around it. Heck, it's only been a couple of weeks since the end of Spamalot. You'd think he'd been missing in action for a year the way some fans are behaving.

I will be distracted over the next couple of weeks - my brother, SIL & niece will be arriving from Taiwan on Sunday for two weeks. We've never met Amanda, who is 10, and she doesn't speak much English....so its going to be an interesting experience. I went out and got her a used snowsuit & boots today (she's never seen snow!) and I also picked up a cute Mandarin/English picture dictionary. I have booked a few days off work next week, so we will be driving back and forth from here to Toronto, splitting our time between my son's exam schedule and visiting with family. I hope to be online for GFI, though!

[Scarlett]

Not quite caught up yet but just wanted to post my Eeeeee! over the Unicef blog!!!

[tribeca]

I will be distracted over the next couple of weeks - my brother, SIL & niece will be arriving from Taiwan on Sunday for two weeks. We've never met Amanda, who is 10, and she doesn't speak much English....so its going to be an interesting experience. I went out and got her a used snowsuit & boots today (she's never seen snow!) and I also picked up a cute Mandarin/English picture dictionary. I have booked a few days off work next week, so we will be driving back and forth from here to Toronto, splitting our time between my son's exam schedule and visiting with family. I hope to be online for GFI, though!

how cool. She is going to love the snow

want to hear all about it after

if you can share the details of course

not that I can afford anything but does anyone have a link of what is being auctioned for GFI?

Thanks Merriee

and good luck with your golfing

[merrieeee]

http://www.bubelaiken.org/GFI2009Auction/t...35/Default.aspx

Here you go.

That's just the online auction. There will also be a silent auction with smaller stuff that will be in a lot more people's price range.

Hee tribeca I don't do golf! I work on the admin side in the golf industry and never have time. Beside when you are dealing with tournaments all day the interest in actually playing tends to wane.