Note from Shannon: I'm just copying my post about the Clay CD Release Party from the Clay board I post at, because there's really no point in writing it out again. I've clarified a few things, but the strange user names are just people I know, so deal.

The Night We Followed Fred Bronson to Virgin

-or-

The LA CD Release Party!

Clay dropped by. Fred Bronson (from Billboard magazine; he writes the "Billboard Number One Hits" books) told us to all run outside, so we did, like a bunch of good little meerkats. A white van drives by, and a good quarter of the crowd start screaming. Some rather confused teenaged boys get out. We wait. A ginormous black limo monstrosity pulls up, and Clay sticks his little head out. We cheer. He stops. People swarm. Clay leans out of the window so that everything from the waist up is outside the limo (I start worrying about overzealous fans pulling him completely out of the vehicle), thanks us for supporting him, apologizes and explains he has to get on a plane to NY. Clay leaves. We all return to the hotel.

Fred's Q&A was very cool. I will point out, however, that there are many stupid people who happen to be Clay fans. One woman very seriously asked Fred if Clay was happy. Zuh? He's not his therapist, people.

We had door prizes, and zakaroni won several Billboard magazines. If we could only bottle her happiness...she bounced the length of the ballroom, hugged Fred, and came back to the table shaking. It was honest-to-God the most adorable thing I've ever seen in my life.

We're all dispersing to go over to the Virgin Megastore to get Ultimate Clack. zakaroni, Halos, LG and myself (along with my roommate) are some of the last out of the door. LG is following the rest of us over. First, zakaroni gets a little turned around in the parking lot. We come up to the correct exit, and one of the lanes is empty. So she zooms to the front, to find out that it's for people with keycards. We need to get over to the right lane to pay the parking, so we have to cut someone off. We turn around, and it's Fred Bronson. We just cut Fred Bronson off.

We figure, hey. He probably knows how to get to Virgin. We'll just follow him. So we let him pass, and we start to follow. We drive a bit, and he drifts over to the side of the road. Doubt sets in. Is Fred lost? Does Fred not actually know the way to Virgin? We pull up beside him, and we're all, "Dude? You lost, man?" No, he's just dropping someone off, and we're dumbasses. I think we flustered him, because he took off, offering a half-hearted "goodbye" to whomever it was he gave a ride to. Halos starts laughing. We keep following Fred. We realize we cut the guy off, started following him, pulled up beside him and questioned his driving ability, and are still following him. We are all laughing. Halos hits the dashboard so hard the Clay Demo CD skips.

Halos: Now he's going to stop and get a burger, and we're going to have to stop and get a burger too, because we need him to lead us to the Virgin Store.

Fred Bronson: *pulls into the In-N-Out Burger parking lot next to the Virgin Store*

Car: *dies*

Fred Bronson was able to hear us laughing through his own rolled-down windows. We are as losers.

Virgin! Krispy Kreme! Cinnamon Toast Crunch! Someone brought along their three-inch black and white TV and we all watched the Invisible performance. We buy CDs. We come outside. It's Fred! He's talking to the party coordinators. Will Fred sign our album liners? I mean, we did follow him here. And he does. Mine reads: "To Shannon-I'm so glad we met-this is the night for Clay! Love, Fred."

I got Frack! Woo!

'Twas a great night. tanandae and her husband were there, and I heart them. It was great sitting around and snarking on all the weird people who were there. (And y'all, there were some weird. ass. people. there tonight.) Permaswooned took people out to her car to listen to JoJo. She has the cutest picture of them all sitting in the car, enrapt. Briefly got a chance to talk to ncgurrl but apparently missed a few other PRoCers in attendance since I didn't even know artquest was there. And...I'm spent. No snappy conclusion to this post. We are tired, we have the precious, we're signing off.

End of Clay CD Release Party post. Yes, good times were had by all. Fred Bronson kind of has a reputation in the Clay fandom, because he's been very complimentary of Boyfriend. It was the uber-cool that he came to the party.

Caroline and I watched the most boring movie in Boringonia last week in Maltin's class. It was called "My Life Without Me." The lead character was one of the most unlikeable characters I've ever seen on screen that is ostensibly a protaganist. She's 24, with kids, and finds out she has terminal cancer and has a few months to live. So she decides to do boring, insipid, selfish things with her remaining days, while keeping her family in the dark, and having an affair with some random guy she meets in a laundromat. Dude. It was so boring. I was like, "Die! Just die already! Die of cancer noooooow!" Ordinarily, I do not feel this way about cancer patients. But man oh man did this film suck out loud. This is what I will now call an Anti-Movie Recommendation. Don't go see it, yo.