“Say goodbye, say goodbye to the way I was before…”

Am I Idyll? Or am I Wild? How about neither! My stay in the mountains lasted longer than I originally intended – Idyllwild’s a beautiful place, who can resist it’s charm? But as of this week I’m officially back to civilization, and loving it! Up in the mountains I had no cell phone reception, I got snowed in for days on end, and I was two-and-a-half hours outside of LA. On the upside I saw more deer than I could count and I made friends with at least one squirrel – we’d chatter back and forth at each other, and he told me stories. I may not have understood the details, but I understood the underlying emotion. Really! Get the right squirrel, and you’ll get an earful!

So onto the new!

First, I shot a new/redux band last week in LA – one of my favorite things to do! I think they’ll be debuting the images soon in a couple of different ways.

Second, I got an email this week from a fan who noticed some of my images on The Alexus Records site at http://alexusrecords.com. Some of the images have been enlarged and/or stretched, so it’s not the best place to see my work, but even so, I always love seeing my images show up in new places! If you want to see the original images, go to http://www.cherylspelts.com/blog/2008/08/la-guns-live-at-key-club-in-hollywood.html or http://www.rockbandlounge.com/news/2008-08-la-guns/ for the slideshow.

Third, I’m getting ready to debut my new web site AND a new site dedicated just to high school senior portraits. I’m really looking forward to working with seniors soon!

And finally, I wanted to mention Michael Jackson, and how sad I am that he’s gone, and that I never got to see him perform live. I always meant to…

I was making the final trip from Idyllwild to Riverside on Thursday, my car packed with my computer, cameras, and my cat – the three big “C’s” in my life – and I texted a Tweet that read: “Say goodbye, say goodbye to the way I was before. Say hello, say hello to a new way…” Just some lyrics to a song I blogged about earlier this month, referring to my move, and my very happy, fresh-start mood at that moment. Then a few minutes later the DJ on the radio blurted out that TMZ was reporting that Michael Jackson was dead, but that it hadn’t been confirmed by any other source at that point. So I pulled over, and went directly to Twitter on my iPhone. Later it occurred to me that two years ago this week I would have raced home to jump on the computer to learn more – since the iPhone didn’t debut until the very end of June 2007 – and I would have gone straight to a news source. And a year ago, I would have been able to pull over, and check right then, but I would have still gone to a news site to look it up. But this week? This week Twitter was the choice, and it didn’t even require any thought. I just knew that if something was happening, then Twitter was the place to be, and it was the right choice. I got immediate confirmation, along with disbelief, great grief, and straight from the heart sadness. When bad things happen, as humans we want to connect, and the immediacy of Twitter was the perfect vehicle. At first I felt guilty that my last Tweet had been so happy and frivolous – I hadn’t known when I tweeted – but still, it just felt wrong. But then I noticed that people assumed it referred to Michael, and I realized that while I hadn’t meant it that way, but that it could indeed refer to him too.

So Michael this is for you! “Say goodbye, say goodbye to the way I was before. Say hello, say hello to a new way…”

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