Goodbye 2004! Merry Christmas!

MERRYCHRISTMAS

No more ads for 2004, so see you all in 2005!

Be sure to check out Clayscience's new site featuring all her amazing Amazon charts.

A Very Clay Aiken Christmas, 12/24

Congratulations Clay on a Fantastic Year!

New XMas CD Ad!

General Christmas Promotion

Christmas CD Promotion

General Promotion Dec. 8/2004

CDD Holiday Flyer!

This is the special project I have been working on. A flyer advertising everything Clay!
CLICK ON THE COVER TO START!

2nd Christmas Special Ad

Clay Aiken Christmas NBC Promo

Christmas CD/DVD Ad! 11/30

LTS Ad- Nov. 27

NBC Clay-Mania Ad 11/24

LTS/Christmas CD Ad- 11/21

LTS Ad- 11/19

McDonalds is Sponsoring Clay's Joyful Noise Tour!

GOING ONCE... GOING TWICE... GOING TO MEET MULTI-PLATINUM SUPERSTAR CLAY AIKEN COURTESY OF McDONALD’S® CORPORATION

"Aiken" for Clay? Winning eBay Bidder on Exclusive Clay Aiken Handprints Will Receive Framed Piece in Person During Aiken's Holiday Concert Tour Sponsored by McDonald's. Clay's handprints have generated so much buzz and funds for Ronald McDonald House Charities® that McDonald's Corporation is announcing today that the winning bidder of the Clay Aiken handprints will be awarded the signed cement handprints from Aiken personally at one of his holiday concert tour stops this year. Aiken's Holiday Concert Tour, sponsored by McDonald's, kicks off November 21 and goes through December 23, 2004. The winning bidder will be contacted after the auction to make sure all their information is verified.

Clay Talks About his book on the Today Show

The many chapters of Clay Aiken's life
02:14 PM EST on Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Watch this story
Clay Aiken has come a long way since his days on 'American Idol.' His debut album "Measure of a Man" went double platinum and a new holiday CD "Merry Christmas With Love" just hit store shelves on Tuesday. Now Aiken can add author to his list of his accomplishments with his new book "Learning to Sing." Aiken turns 26 on Nov. 30.

Fighting a cold, Aiken appeared on NBC's Today show to talk with Katie Couric:

Why do you think this was the right time to tell your story?
I don't know that I would call it an autobiography. It was more of an opportunity for me to tell different stories that happened to different people I met, different experiences I had in my life and just talk about what I learned from it. The "Idol" experience itself is such a big lesson. It taught me a lot about myself, a lot about what I’m doing. But there’s so many other things that have happened that it took sitting back and looking at what I’ve gone through to kind of know how I became who I cam today.

What did the whole "American Idol" experience teach you, other than it’s fun to be famous?
It didn't even teach me that! Sometimes it teaching you that it's not so fun. You know it taught me a lot about believing in myself and having a lot of confidence in who I am and what I believe I'm good at. There are a lot of other things that happened before that that I didn’t realize taught me that I’m good at certain things. So it was an opportunity to look at being picked on in middle school and how that helped me identify myself and what it took to be proud of who I am.

In the book you write, "I was dubbed a loser throughout most of my childhood. As a kid I was an insult magnet, a nerd who loved his grandparents, who wore the wrong clothes, who liked the wrong things, who had goofy hair and glasses, who didn’t smoke or drink. It made for a very lonely childhood."
I think it's about accepting who you are. It's not about whether you wear the right clothes. I mean, there are plenty of people who do wear what's considered cool and buy the most expensive things and they’re not happy with themselves. I think it's about knowing who you are and believing in yourself no matter what you wear, what you look like, how you do your hair, or even if you do it on your own.

How did these things that you experienced in your childhood scar you? Clearly it must have been tough and it must have had some type kind of lasting impact for you.
I think that a lot of the bad stuff – my mom always said it's not worth going through anything if you're not going to learn something from it – and I've always come from family where we were told to laugh things off. We always laughed things off. We're not confrontational; we don't really let things get to us. That's one of the things I've always been taught.

Is that good or bad?
I don't know that it's necessarily great, but it hasn't proven to be bad for me. As I sat down and wrote about things like my biological father, my estranged relationship with him and the death of my sister and my relationship with my stepfather, it was very therapeutic to actually have to think about what I learned from each experience. My relationship with my stepfather was kind of strained throughout my teenage years and it took his illness for me to really see him in a more human light. I think one of the things that made his death so difficult is that sting of regret that I never actually formed a better relationship with him. It was actually very draining to go actually go through some of that stuff. So I think that holding some of my feelings about that in and not expressing it beforehand made me regret the fact I didn’t have a relationship with him more.

I know that you were a special ed teacher before this whole crazy ride began. You've said once this is all over you're going to go back to Raleigh. Do you really think that's possible to go back? Can you go home again?
It's tough to even go back now. I don't know if I'll be able to be a teacher necessarily. I don't think I'd garner much respect as a teacher right now, but part of what I want to do with the foundation that I helped set up is maybe be able to teach on a larger scale. I kind of still see myself as a teacher. I see this as an opportunity to do the same thing. I don't know if this book will change anyone's life, it will probably give them something to rest their coffee on.

Clay's CD and Book Go on Sale Today!

News 14 Carolina

Clay Aiken's Christmas CD goes on sale11/15/2004 8:47 AMBy: News 14 Carolina Staff

Attention Claymates - Clay Aiken's Christmas CD, "Merry Christmas with Love", goes on sale at midnight Monday.

Aiken's memoir, entitled "Learning to Sing: Hearing the Music in Your Life" will also go on sale Tuesday.

Tickets for his December 12th show at the BTi Center in Raleigh went on sale Friday morning and sold out immediately.

A second show was scheduled and those tickets sold out just as fast. This will be the only stop in the Tar Heel State for Clay's “Joyful Noise” Tour.

Clay on KBIG!

Rumor that Clay might be on KBIG 104 in Los Angeles Wednesday

UNICEF Article

Press Release Source: U.S. Fund for UNICEF

Musical Artist Clay Aiken Appointed UNICEF Ambassador
Tuesday November 16, 8:26 am ET
Aiken Takes Message of 'Education for All' Center Stage


NEW YORK, Nov. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, multi-platinum artist Clay Aiken became a National Ambassador for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. A budding philanthropist and long time education advocate, Mr. Aiken will use his Ambassador status to help ensure that children everywhere are afforded a primary education.
"Education is the best investment any society can make for the health and well-being of its children," said Charles J. Lyons, president of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. "Clay Aiken, like all of our National Ambassadors, was chosen based on his compassion and deep commitment to helping children around the world. We're very pleased to have him join the UNICEF family."

Long before his current singing career, Clay Aiken's life ambition was to work with individuals living with disabilities. Mr. Aiken intended to pursue a career in special education. Although his time and energy has turned toward the music industry, he remains passionate about assisting individuals with developmental delays, specifically children, to live full lives in the real world.

There are currently 121 million children not in school around the world. Ensuring that all children everywhere are given the opportunity for a solid education is one of UNICEF's highest priorities. Universally, education is the number one conduit for children's health, wellbeing and longevity. It also helps transform villages, communities, and nations, ultimately leading the world towards greater health, prosperity and stability.

Within the umbrella of education, UNICEF supports programs that train teachers, fortifies teaching curriculums, delivers school supplies; create emergency schools in conflict zones and emergency settings, and uses education to help prevent the global pandemic of HIV/AIDS.

"Everyone deserves the best start in life, which is what UNICEF is working to provide the world's most vulnerable children," said Aiken who is a native of Raleigh, North Carolina. "Education is essential to a child's development. I hope that as an Ambassador I can encourage people to join UNICEF's mission to make education a reality for children throughout the world."

Since his ascendancy on America's Pop Charts over a year ago, Mr. Aiken has founded his own foundation, the Bubel/Aiken Foundation. It will provide grants and other one-on-one services to individuals living with disabilities so that they may participate in programs and work environments that are normally designed for persons without disabilities. The foundation will encourage and facilitate community inclusion and the empowerment of individuals with disabilities.

ABOUT UNICEF

Founded in 1946, UNICEF helps save, protect and improve the lives of children around the world through immunization, education, health care, nutrition, clean water and sanitation. UNICEF is non-partisan and its cooperation is free of discrimination. In everything it does, the most disadvantaged children and the countries in greatest need have priority. For more information, please visit www.unicefusa.org or call 1-800-4UNICEF.

ABOUT THE BUBEL/AIKEN FOUNDATION

The mission of The Bubel/Aiken Foundation is to provide services and financial assistance to facilitate fully the integration of children with disabilities into the life environment of those without. The Foundation will create awareness about the diversity of individuals with disabilities and the possibilities inclusion can bring. Through collaborations with the disability, education, entertainment, and media communities, the Foundation will recognize those whose commitment to breaking the stereotypes attendant to the developmentally disabled has broken barriers and extended the boundaries of the human experience for all.