Monday, October 30, 2006

Soap Me Up Clay!

Claymates, take note: Your guy is now a soap opera star.

Clays of our Lives.

Clay Aiken Gets Soapy.

Aiken to Sing on Days of Our Lives, Officially Marking the Slowest Days of the Year. (Huh?)

Attention Claymates! Clay Aiken will perform on NBC’s ‘Days of our Lives’

What, like only Claymates would want to hear Clay sing? Honey, please.

This is just a sampling of the recent headlines from entertainment news pages around the world, linked at over 100 sites on Yahoo at this writing, and found in every single Yahoo and Google news alert for the past week, and mentioned on every entertainment show, national and local.

What could be so mind blowingingly important to rate such publicity? A presidential appointment? A UNICEF trip?

A new album?

None of the above. The event that is garnering all this publicity is the taping of a single appearance on a daytime soap opera. In fact, it rivals the publicity that swirled around us before and after the AI5 surprise party featuring Clay's New Hairstyle.

Don't get me wrong; it's great when Clay Aiken gets good publicity of any kind. But when the PR for a new haircut and a soap opera performance overshadows anything that has been printed about his recent presidential appointment to the Committee for Individuals with Disabilities, and his trips to Africa and Banda Aceh for UNICEF, not to mention his brand new, beautifully produced showcase of pop love songs from the past twenty years or so, which opened in the number two spot behind the ubiquitous Justin Timberlake, and which has sold over 350,000 copies in just four weeks, well, that just ain't right my friends.

The obsession with such pop culture frivolities as haircuts and soap operas (not to mention sexuality) is a sign to this Claymate that something is amiss in our society.

Now, I'm no stick-in-the-mud, far from it. Nor am I a prude. (Very far from that.) I'm sure the pop culture obsession that is rampant right now has something to do with fantasy, escapism, denial, and possibly even politics.... but I'm not tackling it at this time.

Maybe later though.

touchstone (n) a basis for comparison; a reference point against which other things can be evaluated









©touchstone 2006

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Too funny! Well, you have to admit one thing - he sure does draw the headlines, no?

I just wish it was about his music more!

Great blog!

Dianne Barbee said...

Hello,

Excellent blog about the status of society's priorities, as well as the amount of publicity these extraneous frivolities -- new hairdo and appearance on a soap -- have garnered. It's as if no one wants to read about the important "stuff" anymore.

Like you, I am grateful for any publicity Clay receives. Too bad the new CD didn't rate this much interest.

Thnx for another thoughtful entry!

Caro