Tidbits 3/2

• Salisbury Daily Times - community group planning trip to Spamalot in NYC -

  REHOBOTH BEACH -- Clear Space Productions in Rehoboth Beach will sponsor a bus trip to New York City to see "Monty Python's Spamalot" on Broadway starring American Idol's Clay Aiken on Saturday, April 12.

• Tulsa World - American Idol 7 bids farewell to Alaina Whitaker... "Take heart: Plenty of people who did not win "American Idol" have gone on to great careers -- Clay Aiken, Jennifer Hudson and Chris Daughtry, just to name a few. "
• ConnieTalk - leave Clay Aiken alone; response to Washington Post's report that Clay has been absent from meetings of "Presidential Committee For People With Intellectual Disabilities".

  I like Clay Aiken fans. They are so innocent and pure of heart. Yes, that's a generalization, but that's just what I've found to be true. On Wednesday, the Washington Post's "Reliable Source" published an article on "Clay Aiken Playing Hooky." Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post - which is usually one of our favorite publications - picked it up, with the header "Clay Aiken Shirks High-Level Government Duties As Wikipedia Nerds Go Ballistic."
  
  The whole schtick was that Aiken - who's currently starring in Broadway's rendition of Monty Python's Spamalot - has, according to The Reliable Source, only made it to one of his quarterly meetings for the Presidential Committee For People With Intellectual Disabilities. Aiken was given the position by President George W. Bush in September of 2006.
  
  I find it silly that this is even making news - enough so that Claymates are in a tizzy. If you were appointed to a position by the current administration (Bush, Cheney and the gang)...would you still want to be associated with them? I wouldn't! Unless that means being given the power to magically heal by touch - and I personally don't think Bush is close enough with old JC for that to happen.
  
  After all of this, if I were Clay, I'd be making myself too busy with other things, too! After all, his position was within the administration - an assistant to the President, essentially. I'm not a Claymate - I hardly have time to be my own mate these days (wait, that sounded weird) - but my vote is: leave Clay Aiken alone!

• FloridaToday.com - local musicians perform with big names -

  Area professional musicians have been hired to perform with acts such as Josh Groban, Johnny Mathis, Bernadette Peters, Bobby Vinton, Styx, Clay Aiken, Anne Murray and Mannheim Steamroller, which comes to the King Center on Tuesday.

• Carolina On My Mind - Clay Aiken "spills the beans" on details of new CD, backstage Spamalot secrets.