Lend A Hand

What would you think if I sang out of tune
Would you stand up and walk out on me
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key

Act 27:

“It’s never too late… To Help Someone

It brings joy to both parties. It makes you a better person and gives the receiver hope and faith. It’s usually reciprocated. It give life greater purpose.” – Patrick Lindsay

Quote in book: “The good is the beautiful” ~ Plato

Go out there and help someone! YES…seriously do it! I can’t tell you how amazing it feels to know you put a smile on someone’s face just by lending a hand. To all of you who have donated to my “Plant A Forest” Campaign, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Thank you for putting a smile on my face. Thank you for helping the earth. Thank you for helping me. I really really appreciate it. I can’t tell you how exciting it is every time I see the number go up. Here’s the update: We are currently at $1661 (how awesome is that number?) and are $339 away from my goal and have a little over 1 week left. SO AMAZING!!! I never thought we would raise this much money. But enough about me and this effort… this is supposed to be about helping someone else.

So, for anyone that hasn’t been reading or hasn’t talked to me lately… Besides trying to help the Nature Conservancy Plant A Billion trees in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, I’ve been helping writer/director Katherine Brooks with her new project, Face2Face. I donated money. I’ve tried to entertain her on the road. I’ve given little shout outs here and there on this blog, but I’m gonna do more and dedicate this blog to her and Face2Face. Here’s my push for you, Katty Brooks…

I originally thought I was introduced into Kat’s world by watching her movie Loving Annabelle. When I did a little research on her, I found out that I was wrong (I know it’s a shocker…that “never” happens haha). Anyway, that wasn’t my first introduction to her work. She used to direct “reality” TV. Here are some of the shows she’s directed. (I know most of you have watched at least one of these…) The Real World, The Osbournes, The Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, The Simple Life, Meet The Barkers. I know there’s more, but I can’t remember right now. You can wiki or IMDB her.

Kat is the coolest chick. She's so open and honest. She's so generous and has one of the biggest hearts I've ever seen. For someone who barely knows me.. it's been only a month...and keep in mind she hasn't met me...she still took the time to send me a Happy Bday message and Sing me a song to make my day better (I blogged about both of these). Kat has the innate ability to tap into your soul and inspire you. In just this short amount of time, she has entered my world and she's changed my life. She's inspired me to be a better person. A more positive person. She gave me a reason to get up and live again. After my dad died, I was just going through the motions, but not anymore. Kat wants to affect change in the world. I wanna be by her side when she does it. I will never be able to thank her enough for changing my life and making me a better person.

Right now she’s driving across the country meeting 50 of her facebook friends Face to Face. She’s filming her experiences and will be turning it into a full length documentary. She tweets and puts updates on FB every day. She posts pictures, videos, talks about her experiences, does video chats. It’s awesome. I wake up every morning and the first thing I look at is my twitter to see if she posted anything about Face2Face (F2F). Her journey is so fascinating. She's gotten to meet interesting people and done some really cool things and it's only been Week #1. She started this journey because although technology allows us to connect to each other very quickly, are we really connecting? Do you really know who I am by my facebook status updates or tweets? Do you really know me by reading my blog? Kat's mission was to set out to prove that we really don't know someone until we connect w/ each other Face to Face. After reading her updates, I'd be willing to bet that after just a week of shooting (started June 5th) and meeting 6 of the 50, she'd say she's proving her point. We really can't connect with someone until we've met them Face to Face. One day I hope to be lucky enough to meet Kat. Although she has completely invaded my life and we tweet each other almost every day, I know we won't be truly connected until we are Face 2 Face.

I think F2F is the coolest project ever! How could you not? You need to join in on all the fun! I've actually done a little F2F action of my own and had lunches and dinners w/ some of my friends I haven't seen in a while, in an effort to reconnect with them. Even the act of reconnecting and connecting w/ someone is helping them out (bringing it back to today's Act). One example is I reached out to all my friends and family for my Plant A Forest Campaign and one of my friends was doing a walk this weekend for Cystic Fibrosis and I got to help her raise money for the cause. Shout out to JGilmore. If I didn't try to reconnect/email her I would've never been able help her reach her goal!

Everyone just do me a favor... help me help Kat. Go support and help Kat Brooks on her amazing journey. Check out the Face2Face website. Check out the trailer. Check out the reason why she started F2F. I’ll let Kat’s work and vision do the talking. She sucked me in and I know you’ll get sucked in, too. Or go support her in another way. Go watch Loving Annabelle. You can stream it on Netflix. Better yet go buy it on Amazon or Wolfe Video! Go pre-order her new movie Waking Madison. It stars Sarah Roemer and Elisabeth Shue! Kat let me get a sneak peak at it… It’s phenomenal! I plan to have a screening of it at my place after it comes out (July 12^th mark your calendars). Go follow her on twitter @thekatbrooks. Go follow F2F on twitter @Face2Face_Movie. Follow her and her F2F journey on Facebook. Check out some of her videos on YouTube, evolutionseeeker. Forward her F2F project out to friends/family who you think might be interested in it. Come hang w/ her and me on Monday nights at 630PDT. She does a live chat every Monday with us. She calls us the “KAT PACK”. You can even go check out some of the past ones online. I know the first one I watched is up...May 9th. She yells my name out at some point. I can’t believe that was only a month ago. Shout out to Kat and the KAT PACK! F2F Rocks!

If Kat’s project is not your thing, there are lots of other ways you can go help someone. Here are just a few that I can think of right now

• Volunteer at a soup kitchen or hospital
• Help at church or a shelter
• If you’re a work-a-holic like me and don’t have time, the next person you pass asking for $1 or change give it to them
• Buy some of those oranges or flowers from those people on the corners
• Sign that poor person’s petition outside the grocery store
• Help the elderly or a mom w/ little children w/ their groceries and/or put away their cart for them (I actually did this the other day)
• Buy magazines or candy from that poor kid that's going door to door
• Offer to babysit for a parent(s) that you know, so the hard working parent(s) can go out for a few hours and have some fun of their own
• Go be a Big Brother or Big Sister
• One of my favorite charities is American Red Cross… The next time there’s a blood drive, donate blood
• Sign up to be a driver for Meals On Wheels – Deliver food to people who can’t go get some
• Help someone move
• Better yet – be a shoulder to cry on. Listen to their problems.
• Bring someone who’s sick chicken soup (I’m sick right now… hook me up)
• Go pass out flyers for a company
• Go bring some water to those poor people on the corners waving those huge signs that point you to some housing property for sale
• Go read a book or spend time at a Senior Citizen Center
• Read a book to a child
• Go pick up trash
• Go walk a dog or offer to walk someone else’s dog for them
• Adopt a dog or cat

So, please go out there and help someone. Anyone! Connect with someone. Make someone smile. Make someone’s day. For any of you that haven’t donated to my campaign, you can help me. =) Here’s the link. Sorry I had to shamelessly plug one more time…. =)

http://support.nature.org/goto/lilfaust

Trivia Time– I’ve never done a Trivia all about one song… so, here we go. Only, because it is one of my favorite songs of all time! - I can’t believe I got 10 questions out of this… yeah that’s right, baby. Who rocks??

10 Points: Name the song

10 Points: Name the original artist

10 Points: Name the original title

10 Points: Name the original album it was released on

10 Points: Name the writers of the song

10 Points: Approximately, how many times has this song been covered?

A) 20 B) 35 C) 50

10 Points: Name the TV show that had this song as it’s Theme Song

10 Points: Name the artist that sang that version

10 Points: Name the famous 1969 festival and documentary of the same name where the artist above covered the song

10 Points: Name the other two bands (besides the artist above) that brought this song to #1 on the British singles charts. (Hint: One did it in 1988 and One did it in 2004.)