So, it’s a little intimidating to start my first blog when the great writers of the Clackhouse have already assembled here. And I really didn’t know what I should write about but they say write what you know. So, I read through the others and noticed themes and decided to just copy that idea with absolutely no shame. I figure Jemock has made shame obsolete anyway.

So I shall have two themes to this blog along with other “as they happen” adventures. Like yesterday when I was driving home from work and had to a stop for a light changing red at the intersection near my house. The light for the other side of the intersection turned green and I noticed an 18 wheeler was going to be taking a left in front of me. There were a few things I noticed right away.

1. I live in the boondocks. There was no reason for an 18 wheeler to be there. Forget Where the Streets Have No Name, here the cows have no name because there would be too many to remember. I figure this guy was lost.
2. He didn’t look too confident in his ability to make this turn-neither did I, so I tried to back up a little without hitting the guy behind me.

He started swinging wide to make this turn and all I saw was a lot of truck headed straight for my Clackmobile with the six speakers which will blare Son of MoaM as soon as Clay and mystery producer decide to release it. I turned my car and swung out to my right and thank goodness I did. I’m afraid all they would have found of me was my “I’d Rather be at a Clay Aiken Concert” license plate and my Clackhouse keychain gripped in the right hand of what was left of my crunched body.

Oh yeah, Did I mention this 18 wheeler was bright ORANGE. I thought I saw the words HAHA written on the side before I moved out of the way.

Oh yeah, back to themes. (You will find I am the queen of tangents). My first theme is the adventures of Sgt. CB. Who he is, you ask. Well, CH will tell you that he claims to be my husband. He is a Dick. No really, he is even a Dick Sergeant. HEY! Maybe he will be in that new Bewitched movie! (For all you young Clay fans, Dick Sergeant played the husband in Bewitched. I know Nanjeanne, if you have to explain the joke, it wasn’t funny)

OK, by Dick I mean DEE-TECTIVE. He works homicide, he’s the real CSI. (We can’t watch CSI at home; he thinks it is supposed to be a comedy.) He is very good at his job, he even trained with Dr. Henry Lee. That’s the guy who helped OJ beat the rap. Yeah, yeah, OJ was innocent. If I believe that one, I’ll also believe that Clay Aiken writes to his fans. Oh wait, he did!!! EEEEEEEEEEE! I guess I’ll need another comparison. (BTW, great first blog entry Clay. Loved it.)

Anyway, for such a smart guy with a serious job, he really does some off the wall things. CH members have heard them but I’ll be happy to bore the rest of you too. I’m dragging him to Mohegan Sun so that should be interesting.

Theme #2 of course is marketing…..

I'm trying to develop the marketing plan for Clay's CD Release parties. The thing is Clay, I need a date! (Well, I'm married but I'll still take a date with you....). OK, I mean a CD release date. Virgin Records or Barnes & Noble aren't going to hold those stores open until midnight for just anyone…I mean who do you think you are-Harry Potter?

Anywhooo, I thought I would follow Jemock’s lead and have a word of the blog sort of thing. I’ll take a marketing term and tell you what it means and then I’ll redefine in relation to all things Clay and the Clay fandom.

Today’s word is NICHE. Now, I pronounce this word Nich like itch but some high fallutin’ people might say neech. The word is an English word of French origin so whatever floats your boat. (Note that when Jude had me drowning in one of her skits, she floated a boat right past me.)

Now in marketing terms, niche is a slice of a given market that has specifically defined characteristics that are often unique. There’s the obvious niches like married marketing executives who live in Massachusetts. I wish Clay would spend a lot of time focusing on this niche.

In all honestly, I really don’t think Clay should do niche marketing. It might paint him in a corner and nobody puts baby….. oh forget it, even that is too much of a cliché for me.

Now let’s examine other uses of the word niche.

Generally, a niche is a special place within the scheme of things. It sometimes denotes the function or position of a thing within a structure.

Clay has a lot of niches. My favorite niche of Clay’s is that area from shoulder to shoulder as viewed from the back. It seems to form lots of nice positions, especially when he was prowling during WDC.

Now jojoct and momo were able to capture another niche that had a special position within a structure but this is a PG board. The nice thing about that niche is that it seemed to take so many special positions.

Since a niche is a special place within the scheme of things, I’m thinking that Jerome has a niche or two with lots of names on it. Let’s hope none of us end up in Jerome’s niche. Well, I’m not being honest. I can think of a few folks that should go to the head of THAT class.

Now my favorite non –marketing definition of niche comes from ecology:

"The niche is defined by the classes of interactions into which an organisim can enter……

I think that’s a nice thought to end this blog.

Stay tuned for how your husband can back into you in an unmarked police cruiser and blame you. Also, our next marketing term of the blog will be SPIN.