It's an open forum
Been reading a lot of comments about the post from Mike Maritz, the electronics store manager who chronicled the odd behavior of Clay fans. My apologies if it's bogus -- and Mike, feel free to chime in here and defend yourself and establish your bona fides vis-a-vis these posts -- but as I've said before, we're not about censoring viewpoints. The only comments I don't publish are obvious spam, overly crude content, spectacularly irrelevant or pointless remarks, and repeats. Obviously I'm not thrilled if people misrepresent themselves here, but it certainly can happen. I appreciate everyone's efforts in staying honest and alerting me to possible violations of the trust this blog's built on.
On a much less serious note, apologies to elliottfan for inadvertently transgendering her. It's corrected in the post now.
The same could be said about any fans. I know of a guy that works for a huge department store that has caught an overly obsessed Kelly Clarkson fan hiding CDs of Clay Aiken and Evanescence, as well as breaking them. It's so unfair to attack just Clay's fans, as a whole and not other fanbases.
Perhaps Groucho er...Mr. Maritz should do his research
http://archives.kceforum.com/msn/Thread.aspx?ForumId=1&ThreadId;=530797&LastPost;=157
Boy, am I naive! I did not have a clue what the deal was with Mr. Maritz.
Oh, that's just Groucho, Ken... well known to Clayfans everywhere. He's so transparent, it isn't even funny anymore. So this past weekend, I went to WalMart where Clay's Soundcheck is supposed to be playing all over the store's TVs. Of course, it was not. And the clerks didn't even know what I was talking about. Wouldn't have mattered anyway, coz there was not a Clay CD to be found anywhere. Tons of Fergie, Justin, Chingy, Beyonce... this was a large Superstore in a suburb of Boston. According to the manager, they had none stocked in back & they'd had Clay on reorder since he sold out there within the first days. Still waiting, nearly 2 weeks now for a reorder to come in. This is becoming an unfortunately very familiar story within the fandom. I told the manager he was missing a big sale because a friend of mine whom I had gifted with the CD now wants to make it a party favor at her upcoming wedding shower. 50+ units to be sold & no one can fill the order! We checked several stores & felt lucky when we found some that had a couple of copies each (now they have none). So we ended up ordering from Amazon & are just praying they arrive in time. If Clay's sales drop drastically, this is a big reason why. No single, no video, no stock, no promotion other than the first week of release..... my God, if anyone else had this problem, they never would have sold nearly 300,000 albums in 2 weeks. Clay's sales despite all the obstacles he's faced, including the Clive Davis Cover Concept & press fascination with his love life, have been AMAZING! Look at the RCA poster boy, Mario Vasquez.... a Top 10 hit song & his CD debuts at #80. Or the reigning queen of hype, Fergie-liscious, with a huge fanbase from her band, a huge #1 hit single, & she can't even outsell a Clay Aiken covers album. All of this points to the star that Clay is, was & remains, even when his product is less than his talent warrants. Still haven't heard what you think of LOVER ALL ALONE, Ken, if you can open up your mind enough to give it a fair listen.
Interesting, Shannon. From that link, 1 Kelly fan bought over 50 CDs and lots more bought 7, 8 or more. I read on a Justin Timberlake board that they were multiple buying in week 2 to try to stop Clay getting to #1. It amazes me that fans of anyone would multiple buy like this. I have 1 copy of Kelly's current CD and I'll admit to buying 2 of Clay's because I ended up downloading it from i-tunes as well so I could get the bonus track - but I ended up giving the bought CD away to a friend who couldn't find it in the store last week, so it doesn't really count I think.