Tag: blogging

Blog

It’s not the big that matters

Post author By soulcruzer
Post date July 2, 2018
No Comments on It’s not the big that matters

The blogging game has changed so much since I first started blogging back in 2003. Blogging these days has been relegated to the content marketing game where folks are pimping their wears trying to position themselves as thought leaders in the hopes that they can either become social media influencers or marketers disguised as “passionate” experts in something. As Tom Critchlow explains

…much content on the web is designed for scale, for sharing, for gloss and finish. It’s mass media, whether it’s made by a media company or an individual acting like one. So when people think of blogging their natural reference point is create something that looks like the mass media they’re consuming. Content designed for pageviews and scale.

That’s big B blogging.

I’m much more interested in small b blogging.

Small b blogging is learning to write and think with the network. Small b blogging is writing content designed for small deliberate audiences and showing it to them. Small b blogging is deliberately chasing interesting ideas over pageviews and scale. An attempt at genuine connection vs the gloss and polish and mass market of most “content marketing”.

It was Seth Godin who inspired me to move back in this direction. I listen to his akimbo podcast episode on blogging. Seth has been at the game for something like 16 years without a break and pretty much sticking to the same format. Seth is much more into go for the small audience directly and then let that handful of “true fans” spread your work and your ideas for you because they love what you do and what to share it with their friends.

Here’s the episode if you want to listen to it:

Speaking of Seth, I feel moved to re-read Purple Cow. I’m feeling like being remarkable on some level.

Tags blogging, purple cow

Blog

Movement on my mind

The more you move the better you feel.

One of my intentions this year was to move more. I started off well, as you tend to do, but as T.S. Eliot wrote:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

Now it’s time to shine some light back on the subject, get my ass in gear and move more!

And since movement was on my mind, I threw on my walking shoes and headed out the door and the Universe let me know it approved with this:

Let me see if I can find this pot of gold. #morningwalk pic.twitter.com/Q8sJi6j3YA

— clay lowe (@soulcruzer) September 15, 2017

Some words from Thoreau:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”#FF0000″ class=”” size=””]I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks — who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre, to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, “There goes a Sainte-Terrer,” a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea.[/perfectpullquote]

I’ve been living in the UK long enough to know that the weather is a moveable feast:

I’m leading a rear guard action to bring back the personal blog – the sacred space to rant and rave and be yourself and express yourself.

So look, if you’re thinking about starting a blog, do it! You can be up and running in minutes. WordPress.com is free and so is blogger.com. Personally I’d recommend WordPress. If you already have a blog and it’s been gathering dust for months, pull that puppy out of the mothballs and get back in the game. In either case, hit me up with a tag when you make your first or next post.

Viva la blog!

Here’s micro poem I wrote today: We Could Have Lived

And now it’s time to get on with the weekend. The tunes are on. The games are out. I would say the beer is flowing, but I ran out of beer. I may have to hit the hard stuff. I have plenty of whisky and gin and vodka and ouzo and all sorts of other spirits on the top shelf (not that to shelf).

Soundtrack:

Tags blogging

Blog

Are you feeling ok?

I can’t believe how excited I get about a book. I found a package on the stairs that had this in it:

I could feel my face light up like a little school boy with a new toy. And of course I was suppose to be doing something else, but I had to stop and flick through the pages, turn it over in my hands and read the introduction.

After Morrison wigged out on alcohol and was on the run from music, he returned to writing poetry. And the two official volumes that came out of that were The Lords and The New Creatures, and Jim Morrison became James Douglas Morrison the poet. Of course the publishers, with one wicked eye on making money, wanted to capitalise on his rock star status and didn’t honour his request to keep James separate from Jim.

I feel a little back like that. I’ve been considering returning back to Clayton which is my real name. It was my friends who got tired of calling me Clayton and reduce me to Clay. I eventually adopted the name and started introducing myself as Clay. I think Clay and Clayton are fundamentally different. If you’ve met me in person, you most likely only know Clay. If you know me only through the Net and you’ve read some of my darker more introspective writing, then you will have had glimpses of Clayton. When nobody is around I’m more Clayton than Clay. I have to get into character when people are around. Every now and then somebody will catch me still in Clayton mode and they’ll inevitably ask, “are you feeling ok?”

I’m a little late to the party with Parks and Recreation. My son kept banging on about how I’m like the Ron Swanson character (when it comes to food) my wife thinks I’m unlike him (when it comes to handling tools and DIY). I see both their points. I think I’m like the Chris Traegor character (at work anyway). Parks and Rec is a great series once you get past season one, so if you haven’t watched it, do so.

Long live the blog.

Like rock and roll, blogging has died a thousand deaths, yet here we are. I must admit, I don’t like the state of blogging today with it’s emphasis on listicles and usefulness and productivity and how to’s etc. I want to start a retro movement and bring back the blog as the place to dump the contents of your mind or rant about something only you care about or slit your wrists and bleed on the page (screen). Raw stream of consciousness stuff, talk about whatever the freaking dog’s bottom you want to talk about, writing like nobody’s listening (’cause they aren’t), but who cares?! If you’re reading this, God bless, and welcome to the club. Say some shit as well (by that I mean say what you want to say in the comments (remember the days when people used to comment in the comment section of blogs, now a lot of blogs close their comments sections because of the spammers (which I never really understood anyway (now let’s see if I close all my parentheses)))) Hehe..

I want to bring back the personal blog, blogrolls and blog comments. If you don’t have a blog, start one (WordPress has a free service and Blogger is still around). If you have a blog but it’s mainly collecting dust, brush that bitch off and get to blogging (ping me if you do).

On another note…

It was podcast day today. We talked all about breathing. Who would have thought there was so much to say about breathing?!

Ok so,

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does the sound exist? By extension, if God speaks and nobody hears him/her…

And lastly, before I go watch the SciFi series, Zoo, here’s the draft of a new poem I’m working on:

She is beautiful.
Everything about her looks tasty.
The lips, the hair, the brown eyes
and small tits.

She’s not mine though.

But mama says I can
look at the menu so

I salivate (like Pavlov’s Dog),
rub my tummy and imagine
what she tastes like.

But mama I can’t get full
from a menu though.

You can’t get burnt either so

Look. See it burns if you touch.
She’ll cut your heart out and drink
your blood from a dark river.

You didn’t notice the wedding ring?

No. My lawless heart was hunting me.
A thousand deep kisses drowned
in self-pity. She’ll wake up tomorrow
and not remember how bizarre the
pills were we took last night.

Soundtrack:

Tags blogging, Jim Morrison, Parks and Recreation

Blog

Chew the bottom of my shoe or blogging like it’s 1999

Post author By soulcruzer
Post date March 9, 2017
No Comments on Chew the bottom of my shoe or blogging like it’s 1999

Is it retro to go back to personal blogging like it was back in the days of LiveJournal where I started with my very first blog, chew the bottom of my shoe Talk about about #ThrowBackThursday, I made my first entry on that blog on Sunday, 10 December 2006 at 0:932 AM.

These were my first blogging friends:

__hibiscus, _yourotherleft, amativus, aoristic, ayden79, bobdylanforprez, burning_candle, curlymac, girlgoddess09, leahbobet, licoricewhipped, mmmgood, peterlake, quitespecial, sweatfunkgroove, thegreatmissjj, writer_space

I’ll have to go see what they’re all up to these days.

Thursday has come too quick. As I get older, I hate how time flies. Reminds of the lyric on the Pink Floyd song, Time:

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I’d something more to say

It’s podcasting day, which I love because I get to have coffee in town and wax lyrical about things of the mind, body, and soul with my good friend Sarah Beth Hunt. Today, we were in the funky realm of fantasy and talking about what Jung called the Active Imagination. It’s something that’s a natural inborn process, but we let it lapse once we move into adulthood. I mean play acting and fantasy is for kids right? Well wrong, according to Jung. He used it bring himself back from the brink of a mental breakdown after his split with Freud.

As J.C.F. Schiller said, people are completely human only when they are at play.

And here’s the thing, the great joy of play, fantasy, and imagination is that we can be utterly free and spontaneous. In fact, we’re free to imagine anything. We can think the unthinkable because nothing is unimaginable in this pure state of being.

It’s not like I really needed an excuse to embrace my inner child, but at least now, I can cite science to back up my child-like play. Ruth got these for me:

Oh and I met Charlotte of Leamington Joy Jam today. She stopped by the studio (which is really the first floor of the Havana Cafe) and shared a moment with us. She has an interesting story which I’m hoping too capture next Friday in audio format.

Speaking of audio format, have you had a chance to check out the new Anchor app. Yesterday they released Anchor 2.0. The app has changed so much that it might as well be another app. It’s structured now to be like an audio version of Snapchat. You record audio clips straight to the app along with up loading sound clips and music from Spotify and iTunes. Basically you now have a radio station in your pocket. A lot of people who were diehard users of Anchor 1.0 are having really hard time adjusting to the new version. Change is a big brown bear. Before it was much more like a conversation with people now it’s more of a radio talk show. Anyway, if you find yourself over there, look me up.

Here are a couple of drawings, or fine art funnies, that I drew yesterday. I posted them out on social media, but here they are in case you missed them: