Hey Babe, Wanna Increase My Downline?

Hey babe wanna increase my downline

This wouldn’t be the first time someone “posted” a “blog” on their “website” while having nothing to say. Well, not nothing exactly, but certainly not being sure exactly what he wants to say. But then that’s part of what a blog is, or was. Or maybe that’s just the bad kind; definitely it’s the old kind … nowadays I read posts and while I might still question the timing — why am I reading this right now when I should be reading Flannery O’Connor for the apologetics seminar I have to record, for instance — the value is often pretty decent.

Blogging has matured, which might be one of those “tallest building in Topeka” designations (or, if you grew up in the 1980s, this, at the 3:25 mark) but seriously, it’s improved. People with something to say are managing to say it, and find people who want to hear it. Focused blog posts, with calls to action, the array of sharing options, and followers in some cases in the 10s of thousands.

In other words, many elements absent from this particular post.

Because I feel pretty good about starting to figure all this out. Yes. Starting. Blogging has changed — and so have I, because at one time I would never even have used the word blogging. And just when I’m starting, maybe feeling like I’m already a pretty good writer and won’t just talk about myself all the time, but will find ways to connect with people … with you … something else starts happening.

I’m getting serious about my writing.

’bout time, huh?

Several authors are to blame for this, including Walter Brueggemannm, as well as Craig Barnes, and the above-mentioned Miss O’Connor. There is also the work and example of Rich Mullins and a book by Lawrence Thornton on what telling the truth actually is.  Just as I begin “blogging,” I find that I shouldn’t be writing any ol’ thing.

Blogging itself has moved forward
I am daily getting older and older
Now comes seriousness to afflict

Long story short, if it’s not too late, the last 24 months, and particularly the last 2-4, have conspired against me to say to me that the things I really want to say to you are the things I should really try to say … which is to say, the things I should write.

God is in it, too.

I am certain.

Still tempted, and have succumbed, to the desire to tweet every time I learn a new word, or string a few hundred of them together in a blog post, or a few thousand of them together in an eBook. But today I saw this, on Twitter, from Rich Tatum:

Asking ‘How can I use Twitter to market product?’ is like asking,
‘How can I use your dinner party to grow my downstream network?’

There is still too much of this, hence my title on this post. We’re all out scrambling for dates and trying not to look desperate. Kings of the Dipshits one and all, and far more kings than subjects, it seems like. Well it’s not the truth but yeesh, c’mon people … do we even want it to seem like it is?

All this together means, roughly, find a way.

But why shouldst thou care? This post, while offering value, including relevant and helpful links, and not going on too terribly long, is it anything that should matter to you?

If you are a true fan, or going to be, then yes.

This could end up very good indeed, for you.

For starters, I’m interested in what you think.

Please write and tell me.

Recent

Coyotes and Christians

I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,

Read More »

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

Read More »

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.]   One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Read More »

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Read More »

Random

No Prizes for Subtlety

It was the sort of place you wouldn’t be found dead in; the guy on the floor didn’t agree. Didn’t seem to like the floor — but it was in better shape than his face. Then someone had gone duck hunting on his chest. And either another guy was standing in front of me, or the

Read More »

All You Can Eat Adultery

I get all the adultery I want. It’s true. Ask Michele. Thing is, I don’t want any. You may have guessed this, but others may have thought Wha — ? Aye, and there is the (naked back) rub. I don’t want any adultery because I love my wife. This is true, and it’s the main,

Read More »

How Long O Overlords?

How many more evangelical celebrity figures have to shoot themselves before the church industry stops putting men and women on stages and the rest of evangelical fandom stops putting them on pedestals. This time it was Darrin Patrick. Eight months ago — the news broke on Suicide Awareness Day — it was Jarrid Wilson. Which itself

Read More »

Finding Level

Relationship finds its own level. Generally it looks like we [and others] choose — a boy’s entreatment rejected, an attorney makes partner, 158 million of us vote — but there is a finality to much that we ostensibly do. This is how such absurdities as determinism gain purchase, how authors can talk and be misunderstood

Read More »

Related

Cursing With God

More battle scenes please Once teaching a high school American Literature class — and let me tell you, once is enough —a student he says, “I don’t understand The Red Badge of Courage.  It’s a war book, but there are hardly any battle scenes.  I don’t get it.” So we did a little Socratic dialogue, and

Read More »

Shock And Ow

I’ve had many exchanges over the years where my statement about something was taken as surprise at the event rather than what it was — which is anger over human inaction facing it. Having worked 1.75 teenage males through the household over the last dozen years this has often been a thing one or the other has

Read More »

Who They Are

The poet felt injustice in calling it Fancy Ketchup. The priest said the most grievous sins can be forgiven. * The priest wondered if anyone changed. The poet said he’d seen it often, depending on who was paying. * The poet would punish evil by making them hated by all. The priest would in having

Read More »

The Smart Young Student

Then a student came up to Him and said, “Teacher, what must I do to get an A?” And the Teacher said, “Now you want to know? Now you care — and you think I can help? Look, to get an ‘A’ just do the things that get an A: think critically, run the spell-check, yes, you need

Read More »