If you’ve been reading my blog and watching me speak you’ve heard me say that there is no Community without Unity and there is not Unity without U.

You can watch lots of my speaking videos easily on this very site!

Where Do You Fit in Your Community?

Here I am again talking about – U – Unity and Community again.  But this time in a fun, helpful and a quick 50 bucks giveaway way. It all started with Kerry over at HouseTalkN.com (see how she got that pretty url and how you can take that .blogspot off or yours too).

Anyhoo, Kerry brought me into a new community.

“There is no Community without Unity and there is no Unity without U.”
Click to Tweet That!

She also got me into Link Parties before I had any idea what that was. Now I’m addicted to YeahWrite and post every Tuesday that I can. I’m on there this week, read all the writers (and me me me) and vote (for me me me).

A New Community

Then Kerry introduces me to Anna from My Life and Kid’s and Anna asked me to be a  Community Leader with a bunch of other bloggers – in this bizarre bazaar community of the Internet. Mommy Bloggers too, which gets me excited since I would really love to adopt that term if you know what I mean. (as in pregger!)

Of course I have to do what Kerry says since she’s so funny and even more persuasive. I’m even going to give her a first look exclusive at our house. Yes…

Did you know I was the one she called when she wanted to start her blog and didn’t know her RSS from her URL? Now she’s got her big girl blogger pants on and is teaching me things about how to be more a part of the blogging community. Imagine that!

Now I’m in!

I’ve become a Community Leader, starting conversations  from weddings and babies and homes to careers and writing and social media!

What’s In It For U?

Now, You  (yes U) can and should join the conversation HERE or below.

Wen you do you are entered to win a $50 Amazon gift card. WHAT? I didn’t get one of those!

Now I’m chatting up a storm (without my 50 dollar Amazon card) and I’m loving it. Kerry, bless her heart, has injected some super fun into my blog just when I was shifting from life in Malibu to Maybury. Perfect timing!

Come on in, it’s easy. I started a conversation asking advice about weddings btw – get in there and answer! Mine is quickly approaching.

The winner will be drawn on May 1. You have until April 30th to enter.
Each person has a chance to enter 11 times. WHAT?
That’s like me voting 50 times for Phillip Phillips on American Idol. Yes…

Enter to win and enter the community –>

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Related posts:

1. Pray the Devil Back to Hell with the Unity of Community

You’re pretty – you need a pretty url, you blogger, you!

If you have a blog on Blogger.com here is how to have your own url!  I was talking to my friend Kerry (you’ve noticed I’ve done that lately) about her site http://housetalkn.blogspot.com/ and how it would be so much prettier as housetalkn.com so I made a video to show her how to do it and I’m sharing it with you so you can do the same!

Be a pretty blogger.  You’re pretty.

Make Your Own URL on Blogger!

Hope that helped!

Related posts:

1. Make Your Twitter Profile Shine
2. How to Make Your WordPress Blog Post Look Prettier
3. Evolution of the Blogger

Do you have an awesome Facebook Page like @HouseTalkN does?

Then you need to make sure it looks fancy and nice so you can share the link with everyone under the sun.  Be sure the link to your Facebook Page is – your own URL!  The definition of URL is “Uniform Resource Locator”  aka your internet address.

This is how most new Facebook Pages look:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/someawesomecoolhardtofindpage/0956589104120099333

This is a pretty Facebook Page that is easy to share:  http://www.facebook.com/AngelaSheltonFanPage  (hint hint hint)

Get your own URL on Facebook!

There are no excuses not to have a pretty URL link to add to your email signature.  Yeah, I’m looking at you, Kerry. I’m looking at you.  It seems like only a moment ago that she called me to ask me for blog advice.  And now look how the world has changed.

Want to start a blog?

Start Your Website or Blog right now this very minute.

If you haven’t seen this video, you need to geek out because let’s face it – you’re brilliant.

Now it’s your turn!

Comment by sharing your website and your Facebook Page!

Kerry, I want you to share your new pretty Facebook Page URL.  I’m watching and waiting.

Related posts:

1. NY Times – Front Page
2. Ode to Facebook on Comedy Nation
3. Protect Your Facebook Photos

In these very social times we live on from our Facebook pages to our Twitter to good ole fashioned email, most of us are living in the digital age. If you aren’t, you certainly see it all around you.

Tues 10am Pacific Time

My friend Cathy Brooks has a Blog Talk Radio show called The Conversation.

The Conversation focuses on the way technology is changing our lives and the stories of the people making it happen. Cathy Brooks has a rotating cast of characters every Tuesday at 10am PST for lively discussion and debate that tackles the way in which technology is impacting, infiltrating and otherwise engaging business and society. Sign in and chat with her. When I’m online at the same time, I do. She’s awesome and there is always valuable information and new ways to get involved or to unplug too.

After healing from a broken leg, dealing with a very messy butt surgery on my sweet dog Norma and finally welcoming Spring, I am up writing, walking and beginning new adventures. One of those adventures is finally integrating my various sites and going mobile. Let’s see how it works out as I take my IPhone to the garden.

There is a bunch of hooting and hollering about Apple allowing Exodus International’s app promoting “conversion therapy” (which they idiotically say cures gayness) to be added to the iTunes library.  I’m not even going to link to them since I think they are crazy, go google them yourself.

1. People are Dumb (bless their hearts and livers)

No, really it’s true, people are dumb, but that’s not Apple’s fault!  Ranting at Apple about this ridiculous app is a fundamental misunderstanding of business.  In a vast store, you will find books, CDs and DVDs you don’t like.  That’s not the store’s fault. That’s like a born-again Christian getting mad at the store for having books on astrology. Go shop somewhere else!  Don’t attack the messengers.  Go to the sources.

Why attack Apple?  That’s like burning every Bible because some idiots interpret it to fit their own dumb ideas.  Those are the same people who would kill their beloved messiah because they wouldn’t recognize him.  People are dumb, don’t burn books or shoot the messengers, educate the people!  Really dumb people are like zombies. Lock your doors and don’t let crazy zombies in!  Zombies are not smart, and usually you cannot talk rationally to them because they are extremely irrational.

Why not go after the actual looney toons who created the app instead of taking up space on the web hating Apple? Why blog about Apple being horrible?  It’s an app!  There are apps for just about everything. I bet there’s ones out there about how to kill someone.  If there’s an app out for where to find the best meat in town, do you think Vegans should attack Apple for it?  No!Go teach people about your beliefs.

Just because there are crazy Bible thumping freaks who would just as soon kill Jesus then actually listen to his teachings. doesn’t mean the platforms or the books are bad.  Just like I wrote in the piece about Amazon, don’t blame the messenger – listen to the message.

Here’s a question:  How and Why in the World do these groups continue to exist?  Why are there still ”God Hates Fags” people out there?  Because people are dumb.  Really.  They are.  And dumb people love to have something to raise their fists at that is different than they are and that - they can’t explain.

God bless their hearts and livers.  And PS: Usually those who are soooo anti gay ah, hello, are gay and can’t face it.  I say embrace it!   Be gay!  You’d be a hell of a lot nicer.  And cleaner too.  Plus, you’d make much smarter apps.

2. Laugh at People, Instead of Freaking Out

Why not send the makers of the app boxes of Gay Away if you’re so upset about their app.   Blaming Apple is like blaming amazon for that freako perp and his book being self-published – read my rant about that here: http://angelashelton.com/amazon

Get Gay Away!

3. Make Your Own Apps and Fight the Right Battles

Seriously. There are enough smart people out there that can build smart things instead of wasting time and energy making something filled with hate, violence and abuse.  The smart people may not out number the dumb ones but they are certainly smarter than huge groups of zombies.   Save us!!!    Make smart apps.  Educate Educate Educate!!

Now, are you sending out petitions to angrily raise your fist to Apple?  Are you Facebooking about how horrible corporations are for permitting these things to come into existence.  Are you killing the messengers?  How can you go to the source of what upsets you so much?

I think this Exodus group is hiding deep rooted abuse and violence against something they don’t understand (or secretly are) behind an app People are scared of what they don’t understand and many times attack instead of learning or having any bit of an open mind and heart.

I used to hear loads of people say how horrible it was for gay couples to adopt kids.  Oh my!  Oh my God, they’ll become gay!  They’ll cook them and eat them!  Oh no…   Good lord in heaven help us.   I hadn’t been around too many gay couples with kids until I went on the R Family Vacations Cruise that Rosie and her wife Kelli started.  It is a vacation cruise for gay couples and their kids. I was invited by Rosie to go and I went three times and had the time of my life.  One, because people thought I was gay and that just made me giggle.  I wish I was gay sometimes!  Second, because I have never in my life seen such happy well-behaved children!  There were no tantrums, no freaked out stressed parents, there were no spankings, no kids on time-outs or running rambunctious by the pool.  I asked quite a few of the parents, “Wow, what is up with these kids? How are they so happy and well-behaved?”  The answer I received was:  ”They’re loved and they were wanted.”   Ah, ha!  When I asked the kids what they thought about others hating their lifestyle, they said:  ”People just don’t understand, so they hate.”   Ah ha again!   Smart kids! (please go up and make smart things, like smart apps!)

May there be many more Zachs in the world:

How can you be smart about what you may not understand?

Do you meditate?

My mom taught me how to meditate when I was very young. She called it contemplating. I have had some pretty profound experiences meditating that still blow my mind – literally. (see the picture below) I’ve practiced my whole life, although I do get totally lazy and either forget or do it or do my version of quick fix meditating with my eyes open when I’m in the car or standing in line somewhere.  I’ll share more about that if you’d like – let’s get wackadoodle – one of my favorite made-up words to cover all that is well, wackadoodle.

While I was brainstorming a theater piece where I wanted to use my brain waves as an element in it, I discovered Brain Paint!

I had a meditation experience in the desert of New Mexico on the last day of shooting Searching for Angela Shelton that so blew my mind, literally, that I wanted to see what it would look like if my brain had had a paint brush.

So I had my brain hooked up and recorded by Brain Paint to see what kind of art my brain could create.   This technique is usually used as a healing tool for people to think about their issues and then literally see how their brain draws it.  It helps people heal.  But I wanted to use it from the artistic stand point.  I wanted to see what the best meditation experience I’d ever had looked like as an art piece.   So I got hooked up and I tried my best to get back to that place where I had felt a sense of total connection, peace, love and enlightenment.  I wasn’t able to completely get to where I had gotten in the desert of New Mexico, but I got pretty close.

This is my brain on meditation:

I love my beautiful mind!  This is just one still frame of a moving image too.  It looks exactly like how it felt – a dance party with Spirit.  Seeing that picture makes me want to meditate more.   Using my brain waves in an art project just proved to me that I’m damn clever (pat myself on my back) because the person there to meet with Brain Paint after me about an art project was only the head of Cirque de Soleil!  That made my day knowing I was on the same wave length with Cirque de Soleil!   Of course they have a hell of a lot more funding than I do, gosh darn it.  But alas, it showed me that I was ahead of my time, and ahead in line too!

I’m still working on how I can get what’s in my brain onto the stage, and it may take me ten more years but it’s a pretty cool I idea if I do say so myself.   I’m still brainstorming – literally.  In the meantime, I’m finishing the first draft of a science fiction book and my brain is buzzing about it.  The entire story came to me during a meditation.

Do you meditate?  If so, how?  What’s your favorite mediation?  What’s your most wackadoodle experience?

Related posts:

1. Your Brain on Negative Thought Patterns

Seems like we all love Facebook (well, most of us) and even our parents have profiles!  But there are many ways to use FB that you may not know unless you read the many how-tos or follow the Facebook news like any good tech nerd does.  I happen to be a nerd, but even better than that I know many other nerds so I get to learn little tricks usually right when they happen.  One that has been available for awhile is linking to another Facebook profile or a page in your status.  It’s a great way to do a shout-out for someone or something you love.  When you do that, it shows up on both your wall and the wall you love.   It’s very simple and you only use @ in front of the name.

I noticed a few of my friends were asking about how to do that so voila, here’s a video for you.

http://www.youtube.com/angelashelton

Feel free to message me about other things that may trip you up like How in the world do you use Twitter?

I certainly don’t know everything, but I’ll share what I do.

Related posts:

1. Ode to Facebook on Comedy Nation
2. Protect Your Facebook Photos
3. Facebook & Zuckerberg Folly?

Is it Blogger Evolution or Blog Revolution? I say it’s -

Bloggerevolution

Where are you on the map?

You may be a reader and not a blogger and if you are – share!

Flowtown – Social Media Marketing Application

I saw this post on Techi.com and had to repost this great graphic.   Look how far we’ve come since the grand ole’ 90′s!   There are some blogs that I truly love for their information and creativity and some that seem full of spite and rage – just like people. Even on the great graphic above there is everyone from emo to angry.  Our thoughts, ideas and private journals were once only shared up in tree houses with the selected few who had the password and now you can be cyberly stalked and read by people you’ve never met from those who love you and hate you.

BTW:   People will love you, people will hate you, and none of it will have anything to do with you. Abraham-Hicks

But since we’re all out there in the open, exposed to all eyes, what’s the end goal?   I still say the Internet is like a Bizarre Bazaar and we all have a booth.  The question is what are you doing at your booth?  Hopefully you are contributing to the greater good.

Definition of REVOLUTION

2
a : a sudden, radical, or complete change You mom starts blogging and tweeting!

b : a fundamental change in political organization; especially : the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed A surge of blogs affect the election or resignation of someone in office

c : activity or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation Bloggers make or break a new business, movie, CD or other idea.

d : a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something : a change of paradigm Bloggers open people’s minds to a new way of thinking since you can read them for free at the library and not get caught by the person feeding your old lies and dogma.

e : a changeover in use or preference especially in technology Suddenly everyone is telling their story on the internet.  Everyone really does have a booth.

If everyone has a booth then collectively we can all destroy the whole Bizarre Bazaar or help it function as a living organism benefiting all.  Is that too altruistic?  I’ve been accused of being a pie-in-the-sky daydreamer before, trying to be a do-gooder so I’ll leave it in your court.  Do you blog hate, love or indifference?

Some of my personal favorite booths:

It’s Jerry Time -  http://itsjerrytime.com/

Scientific American – http://www.scientificamerican.com/

Welcome to Legs – http://www.welcometolegs.com/

Hubble Site – http://hubblesite.org/

Glendon Mellow – http://glendonmellow.blogspot.com/

Please share yours!

Related posts:

1. Friends, Fans, Followers

Geeks, Nerds and Techies are highly valuable in our world. You need to love and care for them well.  Many of them are by nature cranky and though some claim the title of social media experts, they are far from social.  Here are some ways to care and feed your geek so that your life can be a tad easier.

1. Feed Your Geek Well -

   The best way to keep geeks working is to feed them.  Don’t load them up on too much sugar and carbs since that will make them sleepy.  Feed them protein.  They like shakes. Bring them food instead of asking them to come join you for a meal. They can eat and work at the same time.

2. Smoke Your Geek Out -

   Many geeks are addicts, it’s just a cold hard fact.  They are pot heads. If you’re in California, you are safer since it is legal.  Be sure to recommend your geek get his card and don’t judge him for his issues.  I recommend not working with those who are wake and bakers but good luck finding one.  If you find a geek who is not a pot head please ping me.

3. Don’t Fall in Love with Your Geek -

   Although they are very cute, it’s best to not get romantically involved with your geek.  You will get your work done for free for a brief moment but when you break up they will stop working on your project and you run the risk of them vindictively taking your sites down since they know all of your passwords.  Flirting is better than falling.

4. Pay Your Geek -

   Money is better than love to many a geek.  Many geeks disappear once they are paid though, so it’s best to give a little bit up front and then the full amount once you have your full site or project done.

5. Don’t Bug Your Geek -

   Too many questions, comments and concerns freak geeks out.  Don’t send them too many emails or texts with various questions.  Send one email with simple bullet points as if you’re talking to a computer.

6. Don’t Get Emo with Your Geek -

   The last thing you want to do is get emotional with your geek, especially through email.  The long drawn out paragraphs of what you need, expect, are missing and disappointed with will only make your geek crawl into their cave with your passwords.

7. Don’t Call Your Geek a Geek -

   Geeks, nerds, techies and the like are very special people.  Although I personally love the term geek and I have an attraction to nerds myself, the geek is royalty.  Treat him or her as such.

8. Become a Geek Yourself -

   Save a lot of pain and heartache by taking classes and learning to do your own site and internet work.  You won’t be perpetually waiting on your geek or have a site that is perpetually “coming soon.”

Related posts:

1. Ways to tell your story
2. Bazaar Language

What commitment are you going to make to your own genius?  Are you a genius?  What are you doing to be a creative vehicle?

PS I love Ted.

Related posts:

1. The Reluctant Genius
2. Elizabeth Gilbert: A different way to think about creative genius

The time has come! I’m working on new movies after years of traveling with Searching for Angela Shelton.  Plus, many of my supporters, friends and fans are ready for some more humor and have even started a Facebook Page to get me to host Saturday Night Live.  That made my day. I had a dream to host SNL when I was young and thought I was going to be acting in comedy movies by now. I didn’t suspect that I’d be bring humor into the trauma and recovery movement!  After being a speaker for years, I’ve seen a great need for joy and humor.  I think that’s why I’ve spoken at so many places, because I bring levity to a horrible topic.  Though I do not and will not make fun of abuse and violence, I have used humor to make it easier for more people to hear the truth about horrible subjects.  The movies that I’m working on also address social issues because I can’t help myself but they will be funny.

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you. Oscar Wilde

Now I’m in my hometown of Asheville, NC seeing about how I could bring movies here and thus bring work home and highlight this amazing town. I had a sit down with Gary from Askasheville.com last night to talk about the power of social media:

Please let me know if you like Online Dating for Food!

I thought it was interesting timing that the video that showed up right after this one on YouTube was this interview I did years ago when my book came out:

After supporters shared the first movie I directed and my first published book via Facebook and Twitter and even Myspace, it showed me the power of social media and having direct contact with your audience and listening to them.  At my speaking events over the past year I’ve mentioned working on a few comedy movies and so many people have come up to me afterward and asked me to please make more movies and make them funny and then can I please write their life story.  I love that.  Everyone has a life story.  I encourage you to write your own stories and I’ll make more movies.

Related posts:

1. Angela Shelton is funny on Tuesday