Welcome, Clay Nation

I got a few unusual hits during the night, which is how I found out that Technorati has my site tagged with the keywords "Clay Aiken".

I only have one post that mentions Clay, although I now see that posting pictures of him may have been a trigger for the Clay Nation to keep an eye on my site in case I showed signs of being a latent Claymate.

We actually own one of his CDs. Yes, this is unusual for us in this day of downloaded music. Michael went through a period of obsession and is still quite a fan. We were in Wal-Mart right after his first single came out (Michael has helpfully posted a clip in the post below this one) and Michael grabbed it and wouldn't let go. He kept kissing Clay's picture and did not want to part with it at all, even to let the checkout girl scan it.

We didn't watch the first American Idol and somehow we completely missed all of the hype that summer. We started watching the show during the second season. During the early days the contestants are a blur, but we remembered Clay: it was startling to hear such a big voice coming out of a scrawny, geeky-looking guy. He didn't get through on the first round: they chose the top two from each group, and his group had the eventual top three from the entire competition. He got fewer votes than the other two, but we watched him a few weeks later on the Wildcard round. I remember that I had a meeting at the time they announced the winners from that round; when I got home, I asked Steve if Clay had made it through. I thought he was ROBBED when the series ended.

So yes, I am a Clay Aiken fan, sort of. He has a nice voice and I liked watching him on TV. And no, I don't mind his musical-theatre style. In fact, I kind of like it.

Clay Nation, you are welcome to stay and look around, but this is not a blog about Clay.