Man, I hate when I get this far behind in blogging, because I know I end up glossing over some good stuff in order to catch up.  Before I get to the Clay Aiken shoot, I should mention that Jamie got some free tickets through work to Cirque du Soleil's Varekai.  It was pretty awesome, though less awesome than it could have been had I not already seen parts of it on TV.  As it was with the last Cirque du Soleil show I saw, it was the juggler that amazed me the most.  I can't describe it, you just have to go see it.  After the show we went to eat with the manager of Quiksilver and his wife.

The next morning I had a 7 a.m. call for the video.  Clinton and I rode together wearing our neutral, solid colors, parked his huge truck in a parking garage that could barely fit it, and then walked down to Hollywood & Highland where the shoot was going down.  Extras holding was in the empty lot next to the Chinese Theater that you may remember from the story about going to the premiere of Grind.  We filled out some paperwork, and then we sat and waited with all of the other extras.  Before long, one of the casting people called Clinton over to another area, and I was really worried that he was going to be doing something else the rest of the day, and I was going to be alone in the sea of extras, bored out of my mind for the next 10+ hours.  After he left, I turned my attention to eavesdropping on a couple girls that were sitting across from me.  It turns out that they are in an all-girl punk band called Switchblade Kittens.  One of the girls was clearly less experienced than the other and was asking a lot of questions about how the release of their CD would work if they got picked up by a label.  The one being asked was very knowing, and explained that their 'hits' would all get put on to the first CD, but that you never knew what would be a 'hit', because 'the people' always chose something different.  Like, for instance, who would have thought that their song 'My Dad's a Janitor' would be so popular.  More conversation like this but with a serious tone ensued until a PA called us to the set.  I was quite relieved to find Clinton already at the set, and that we would not be separated the rest of the day.  Not that I didn't want Clinton to get his big break as the bike messenger in the video.

When Clinton was called away, he was put in a line of about 8 guys, and the director and casting people studied them to figure out who would be the best bike messenger for the video.  Two things were funny about this.  One, the director came right up to Clinton, made a circle with her fingers, and looked through the circle at him.  Needless to say, he had a hard time keeping a straight face.  The other funny thing about all the deliberation that went on to select a bike messenger is that the bike messenger is really just a guy who rides by the concert on his bike.  I guess they could have shot some other stuff with him later.

For the next 5 hours or so, we would walk up to this spontaneous Clay Aiken concert that is supposed to be set in NYC, but is actually happening on Hollywood Blvd, and act like we are really enjoying the music.  I must say, I acted more that day than any other day of my life.  More to come...