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

He Built That

They say of Jim Brown — When he got to the end zone he acted like he’d been there before. They don’t say this of those who make it there today. There’s something to be said for this, and Vince Lombardi said it — If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with

Read More »

The Fat Guy And Food

The Fat Guy does not particularly like food. There are gourmands, who also are likely to be massively obese — think Mario Batali, who can be easily envisioned in one of those old “Faces of Death” videos, hammering the monkey trapped in the middle of the dining table and scooping brains out of the not-yet-dead

Read More »

Do Piece — Community (Barth)

They crucified him with the criminals. Do you know what this implies? Don’t be too surprised if I tell you that this was the first Christian fellowship, the first certain, indissoluble, and indestructible Christian community. Christian community is manifest wherever there is a group of people close to Jesus who are with him in such a

Read More »

Whither Tebow?

So the question now is whether the future holds a place for Tim Tebow in the NFL. Well my goodness they didn’t think he belonged there before Peyton Manning signed with the Broncos … so who cares what they say now? When he was succeeding, they said he shouldn’t be. He just shouldn’t. Why not?

Read More »

Related

Jesus FAIL

They killed him yesterday and it was awful, as you might expect. Crucifixion, like a common criminal — but he wasn’t common, though now he’s a criminal. He broke their laws, which I guess are our laws. No. He confirmed our Law. Justice: fulfill the Law. But the Romans didn’t want justice; they wanted quiet.

Read More »

Make No Mistake

When I played baseball in 10th grade, our coach was forever admonishing us to Give 110% — often prefaced by a forlorn C’mon fellas … [In 11th grade, the coach would line us up against the chain link fence in front of the dugout and hit baseballs at us. He said this was to train our

Read More »

Jesus All The Way Down

The other day I wrote about having no hope. More specifically no hope in this world, more specifically because the hopes we had have been hammered against hardened sand and dirt and clay, that is, against the rocks. That may be the basic choice in life: Heart hardened … or Hopes hammered … And then

Read More »

Metered Sins

Poetry’s a sneaky bastard. All the time sidling up to one on false pretenses — ‘It’s just the one’ … ‘We won’t intrude’ — and they’re all lies damn one’s eyes! Lies-damned-lies and no need for statistics and the pile of warm laundry does not diminish and soon loses its warmth and begins to glower

Read More »