2010 – Page 6 – Cheryl Spelts

January 26, 2010 by Cheryl Spelts

Going Away…

My Mom is moving to Seattle and I’m sad! Seriously, I hope she hates it and moves back soon! But I sort of doubt that will happen… She’s on her way to start her dream job – preschool teacher to a class of four-year-olds. And perhaps even more importantly, my seriously cute nephews just happen to already live in Seattle, and I’m way too old to compete with their cuteness. Just click here to see what I mean. Seriously cute!

So to celebrate her going away, we threw her a little party tonight. It was especially small since the aforementioned nephews are already in Seattle and my other brother and his family are way down in San Diego, and my other nephew is far far away on a big adventure in Kentucky – so it was just Mom and Grandma and me! But that’s okay, we had dinner and cheesecake and we laughed a lot. It was a good night!

Me, as shot by my Mom – she’s getting pretty good!

Chocolate Cheesecake makes any party better…

And this one was taken by the hostess. And yes I really am that much taller than my Mom and Grandma – they’re both under 5’3″ and I’m a little over 5’9″ – I have a tall Dad!

I’ll miss you Mom!

January 12, 2010 by Cheryl Spelts

Most Popular Posts

As I blogged a little over a month ago, one of the reasons I redesigned my blog was because I wanted to showcase my Most Popular Posts – and if you scroll to the bottom of the page and look in the footer, you’ll now see exactly that!

The rankings are determined by a combination of factors – like how many times a unique visitor views the post on the front page of the blog, how many times a post is viewed on it’s own page, and how many times a post is viewed in a feed reader. I wish it also took the number of comments into consideration, but right now it’s not – but that’s okay, it’s still a pretty good representation of what is popular on my blog.

Since the feature is so new, and it’s only been collecting data for a little over a month, newer posts of course have an advantage. Every time a unique visitor views the front page, all the latest posts collect some points.

But are the latest posts really the most popular? Actually not. Because I can see my traffic stats, I’ve known for a long time that there are some older posts that get a lot of traffic. One old post in particular gets twice as much traffic as any other post on my blog.

Here are the top ten posts on my blog, if you only look at single post views – not front page views or feed views.

Single Post Views

So what’s so interesting about that list? Well it’s heavily weighted toward celebrities, and nine of the top ten are posts with mostly photos and very little text. In other words, my visitors would rather see my photos, than read my thoughts – which I guess isn’t all that surprising!

The top slot is taken by my backstage documentary of MTV’s Rock the Cradle – and it generates twice as much traffic as any other page on my blog. Why? Well the show featured the children of Olivia Newton-John, Kenny Loggins, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, and other celebrities – and if you google for images of some of those celebrities, you’ll find the images from that post – which leads to traffic.

Next up is a post about the Fallbrook Film Festival, specifically the event with Adam McKay, who is an A-List writer and film director. His first big gig was as a writer on Saturday Night Live and he eventually became the head writer. Then he moved into films with writing partner and actor Will Ferrell, with Elf in 2003, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy in 2004, Talladega Nights in 2006, and Step Brothers in 2008. And once again, if you google for images of him, you find my images. Cool!

The number seven slot is also from the Fallbrook Film Festival. Why? Well it features photos of Chase Masterson, who was on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for five years and General Hospital for four years.

There are also three posts about Marty Casey (1) (2) (3), one about Lukas Rossi, and one about Quietdrive – which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, since they’re also some of my own favorite posts.

Perhaps a little surprising is how high my post on the 2007 Fallbrook Christmas Parade ranks – but the 30 days measured were the end of December and the beginning of January, so that post is more likely to do well during that particular time period – and there are sites linking to my image of the Budweiser Clydesdales and to the image of the guys in the Mini Cars. Who knows? But it’s popular!

The last post, number ten, is the only recent post and the only one that’s all text and no images – so it will probably drop out of the top ten soon! But I love that it’s there now, because it’s cool to think that a few people are reading my words, as well as looking at my images!

So what does all this tell me? And how will it impact what I do in the future? Well actually not much. I mean, is it really all that surprising that people Google the names of famous people? Not really!

But that doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s fascinating to find out what other people look at on my site. I love seeing what’s most popular!

January 4, 2010 by Cheryl Spelts

Um, artists are different…

Everywhere you go this time of year, the talk is all about resolutions and goals. Some of it has been reminding me, once again, how fundamentally different artists can be from non-artists. Not always, but sometimes…

Over the holidays I overheard a conversation between two non-artist friends, about one of my artist friends – someone they admire – and they were saying how hard the last year must have been on him, since “X” project didn’t work out quite as hoped, and “Y” project was on hold, and who knew about project “Z” – since he hadn’t talked about it in months? Such a rough year, hopefully the coming year would be better!

Honestly, I was baffled – they never even mentioned projects A, B, and C – which were all wildly successful – and if you’re going to measure someone else’s year, shouldn’t you consider the really big successes too? That seems sort of basic – right?

But the part that really got me was the way they wrote off X,Y, and Z as disappointments, when in reality, my friend produced some damn fine work – work he’s proud of – and just because it somehow didn’t connect commercially, or the project is on hold, that means it’s a disappointment? No! Absolutely not.

Damn fine work is damn fine work. If you stretch and grow and create something new and wonderful, and evolve as an artist that counts. Not all projects connect in the same way with the public. Or end up financial successes. Sometimes brilliant work never even gets completed – it gets stalled for some reason. But does that make it less brilliant? Shouldn’t you still be proud of brilliance, even if it’s in an unfinished state at present?

It’s called artistic fulfillment – and it’s a driving force for some of us – more so than money, or status.

But here’s the thing, measuring worth based on something other than money or status isn’t limited to artists. I’m sure if you talked to real estate agents, some of them would be irritated if they were judged solely on the number of houses they’d sold that year – what about their impact on the families they helped in finding that perfect new home? Doesn’t that count? Or what about teachers? It’s not the number of students they taught. There’s more to it – right? What about software engineers? Isn’t it better for them to write fewer lines of code that do more, and fight bloat? Bottom line, it’s ridiculously difficult to evaluate the “goodness” of someone else’s year, if you don’t really understand their world.

These two non-artist friends are good people, and they care about our artist friend – they just have no clue what’s important to him, and how he evaluates success. He actually had a phenomenal year in 2009 – and more of that kind of “goodness” is lined up for 2010. If only they could see that…

January 2, 2010 by Cheryl Spelts

Quitting the band?

I’ve never played Rock Band, or Guitar Hero – but I’m deeply interested in the whole phenomenon of music video games. If you know me, you know why. I used to own a domain name – ROCKBAND.COM – and I had a great site that promoted indie and unsigned rock bands for nearly ten years. Then in early 2007 I got an email from a video game maker, about to debut a new game, and you can read about what followed, here. It’s a good story!

So yeah, I’m interested! Especially interested in the huge sales numbers… In 2008 music video games collectively made 1.5 billion dollars – that’s a staggeringly large number! Trouble is, in 2009, that collective number was less than half what it was in 2008. Evidently, once a customer buys a unit, there’s not much incentive to buy another – even the latest version of Rock Band, The Beatles: Rock Band, has sold less than 800,000 units since debuting late last year.

But Mike Schuster on Yahoo Finance had an idea I liked on what might take the place of plastic guitars and drums on gamers’ wish lists. What did he suggest?

“Hopefully, actual musical instruments.”

I think I could learn to like that! Very, very much!

And the photo? It’s my nephew Josh, from last summer – with an actual musical instrument… and he knows how to play it!

January 1, 2010 by Cheryl Spelts

A Big New Decade

I’m still not sure how we’re supposed to talk about this new decade – are we saying twenty-ten or two-thousand-ten? My friends seem evenly split on the issue – I polled them in person, on Facebook, and on Twitter… so clearly, I want to know! The best suggestion I got was just to say it in French… “Deux mille dix” See, instant sexiness, bound to make the year better!

But going into a new decade demands more than just knowing how to talk about it – it also demands a new plan – right? Do you really want to go into a brand new decade doing the same old things, thoughtlessly? Isn’t it sort of important to reflect and evaluate and evolve? I think so.

The thing is, I’m a little scared.

Don’t get me wrong, I think you have to push sometimes to make things happen – and that can be scary – so I’m used to embracing a little bit of fear. And honestly, when I break it down, nothing I’ve got hovering on the horizon is all that scary – but add it all together and it becomes a great big intimidating plan that honestly feels just a tiny bit overwhelming.

I remember where I was at the turn of the last decade (and last century!), and I really only had one goal. I wanted desperately to go from feeling like a girl with potential, to feeling like a full-blown artist, who could make things happen. And guess what? Somewhere in the last decade that happened – beautifully – and effortlessly. Like it was meant to be. But really, how could it not be meant to be? It was my heart’s most honest desire at the time…

My heart’s desire going into this decade though is a little more complex. I want more. As in more, more, more! Not just a little bit, but a lot.

Artistically, I want to build my body of work, with new images that really challenge who and what I am. I don’t just want more of the same, I want evolution as an artist.

Financially, I want success. At least some success in the financial arena. It’s not something I was much interested in previously, but after the last couple of years watching so much financial turmoil in the world, I’m suddenly wanting more success and more money.

And lifestyle-wise, I want a home. Something permanent and forever. I’ve flitted and floated and had lots of wonderful adventures over the years, but I’m feeling a desire to settle in one spot now and grow some roots.

See, none of that is all that scary, and I am talking about a whole decade – not just a year – right? Well yes and no! I’ve got plans to move forward in all three of those areas really soon. Lots of plans. Big plans. And yeah, it’s just a little bit scary. But scary can be good – it’s a sign that something big is about to happen – and in my opinion, that’s a very good thing!

So what have you got planned for this big new decade? Whatever it is, I wish you lots and lots of good luck! Especially, if it’s just a little bit scary…