TBT^2: The TJC Challenge

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Two years ago I issued to my readers The TJC Challenge, a challenge to listen to all of my music on either Apple Music or YouTube/YouTube Music (you can do it on Spotify now, too).  At the time, The TJC Challenge took about three hours to complete.  Last year it took around seven-and-a-half hours.

Now it takes (approximately) eight hours and fifty-five minutes—let’s call it nine (9) hours to listen to my full discography.  Note that only includes the stuff on the streaming platforms (twenty-three releases, although Electrock Music and Electrock II: Space Rock are combined as a double-album on streaming platforms, so technically it’s twenty-four releases); my Bandcamp page has thirty releases (use promo code challenge to get 90% off any purchase there through 11:59 PM UTC on 30 April 2026).

So, need some unusual instrumental jams (plus my singer-songwriter comedy EP, Contest Winner) to get you through the workday?  Then take The TJC Challenge!

Instructions for how to do so are below, but here’s the YouTube instructions, as they’re probably the most accessible for most readers/listeners:

YouTube Method

Don’t use Apple Music?  No problem.  The cheapest method (no monthly subscription to a streaming service) is via YouTube.  The only downside is that there’s no way to play through all albums without having to select individual releases.

Still, here’s the YouTube method:

  1. Follow this link to my “Releases” on my YouTube channel

  2. Hover over one the album you’d like to listen to first and click “Play All”

  3. Rinse and repeat for each album

Whatever you listen to, I hope you enjoy!  If you do listen to my tunes, please let me know what you think.

With that, here is 24 April 2025’s “TBT: The TJC Challenge“:

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Midweek Koi Pond Update IV: Purple Leopard Ramshorn Snails

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Maintaining a koi pond is a hobby that can take on a life of its own.  In learning about keeping koi and maintaining a pond, I’ve learned that a common phenomenon is people getting hooked on buying more fish.  Given that a full-grown koi can go for $50 or even hundreds of dollars, the hobby can get very expensive very quickly.  I’m thankful, then, that the previous owners stocked the pond so well.

What I find myself looking for are not more koi (not necessarily), but more species that I can introduce to the pond to increase its biodiversity.  At least, that’s the rationale—I really just want an excuse to buy more snails and minnows and what not.

So far, I’ve added rosy red minnows, two small butterfly koi, ramshorn snails, and Japanese Trapdoor Snails.  My next planned addition is three dojo/weather loaches, which are a peaceful, eel-like fish that feeds along the bottom of the pond.  In searching for those loaches, I came upon an eBay listing for seven purple leopard ramshorn snails.

These are just a color morph of ramshorn snails.  Instead of the typical dark brown, they have a slightly purplish, speckled appearance.  I would not have bothered purchasing them except that they were eight bucks (with free shipping), so I figured, “why not”?  They should add to the genetic mix of the existing ramshorn population.

One thing I’m learning when purchasing live animals on the Internet (read that out loud and it will sound questionable) is that, like most things in life, you often get what you pay for.

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New Music Tuesday XIIa: WIP: “Japanese Trapdoor Snails”

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It’s a quick installment of New Music Tuesday today, friends.  I’m working on a piece called “Japanese Trapdoor Snails”; I’m attempting to capture a quintessentially “Japanese” sound, although I’m not sure if I’m succeeding just yet.

It’s for flute, oboe, classical guitar, and drums (so far).  I’ll likely continue to add instrumentation as needed.

Here’s a thirty-second bit of what I have so far:

Still a bit static, but what do you think of this odd little piece in its current form?  Does it have legs—or one big, fat, muscular belly-foot?

Happy Listening!

—TPP

Be Back Tomorrow

The Portly Politico1 Comment

It’s been an insanely busy Monday, preceded by an exhausting weekend that only made Dr. Wife and I more worn out than rested.  I’m writing this brief post before hitting the road to go home—to do more work I didn’t get done today.

On the plus side, a shipment of a handful of purple leopard ramshorn snails are waiting on the front stoop, so I’ll get those in the pond tonight.

Be back tomorrow.

—TPP

Lazy Sunday CCCLXXXIV: Education Posts

The Portly Politico5 Comments

The school year is in its last legs, and soon yours portly will be transitioning to his new life of once-a-week chaplaincy and quasi-full-time writing.  After my reaccreditation team visit (see below), I’ve been reflecting more and more about education; it seemed like a good time to look back at some posts on the topic:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

SubscribeStar Saturday: SCISA Reaccreditation Team Visit

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Reaccreditation is the process that private schools go through periodically to assure they’re meeting minimum education standards.  As I explain it to my students, having accreditation gives their diploma value in the eyes of colleges, universities, and employers.  The reaccreditation team makes sure that the school is still meeting and/or exceeding those standards, so that the diploma from those institutions will still mean something.

There are different accrediting cycles.  My school (accredited through the Southern Association of Independent Schools [SAIS], which shares accrediting standards with the National Association of Independent Schools [NAIS]; we’re part of SCISA for academic, athletic, and fine arts events) goes through reaccreditation every five years.  SCISA offers three-year and five-year options, with slightly different standards for the longer term.  SCISA also has separate reaccrediting standards for different types of schools; for example, Montessori schools have their own set of standards, because the Montessori approach is quite different from typical educational approaches.  In the world of independent schools, there is, not surprisingly, a great deal of independence.

That’s something worth bearing in mind, too:  reaccreditation does not mean standardization.  Yes, there is a certain baseline, such as schools needing to maintain adequate safety protocols, or keeping immunization records on file, but the how of teaching and curriculum is left up to the schools.  The reaccrediting team offers recommendations for a school, but the main point is accountability—are the schools delivering what they promise their stakeholders, or making steps to do so?

I am usually not one for bureaucratic paper-shuffling, but apparently I’m good at it, as I take lots of notes and can figure out how to optimize a system fairly quickly.  I possess, too, the capacity for consuming large amounts of information quickly, which includes scanning files for necessary documents and information.  I also love education (even though I have my issues with it), so it was really cool being part of this visiting team.  I’ve heard some horror stories about schools that lacked even basic documentation and that have actively avoided reaccreditation (which is, ultimately, self-defeating, because it likely means you aren’t delivering on your promises to parents and students).

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

 

Phone it in Friday CXXIX: Old World Induced Sleep Deprivation

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Yours portly is running on fumes, and it’s totally self-inflicted.   I usually go to bed around 9:30 or 10 PM for a 5:45 AMish wakeup.  Lately, I’ve been staying up until midnight while still dragging out of bed.  It’s not because I’m losing myself in composing or writing (as today’s ultra-self-indulgent post demonstrates); it’s because I’ve been playing Old World.

Since moving to the new house, my commute is forty-five minutes one way.  I teach lessons most days until about 5 PM, after which I spend about thirty minutes updating my budget, prepping for the next day, and catching up on all the e-mails and comments and such I’ve missed while in afternoon classes.  By the time I get home, it’s already after 6 PM, even later if I have to get groceries.  Then it’s whatever chores and such I need to knock out around the house.

But the bug of late-night gaming has hit hard with Old World.  After everything is done and I’m finally unwinding for the night, it’s around 9 PM.  That’s a dangerous time to start playing an immersive 4X strategy game, because what starts as “I’ll just play for an hour” turns into three hours.  Sometimes “just one more turn” will morph into another thirty minutes of playing, as that “one” turns evolves into four or five (I’ve figured out that a turn in Old World, even in the midgame, takes about five minutes).

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TBT^16: Go to Church

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Any churchgoing Christian will understand that feeling that sometimes hits on Sunday mornings—even though you typically want to go to church, you just don’t want to that Sunday.  The week is long and hard; the weekend is short (and usually full of the stuff you couldn’t get done during the week).

My brothers and I used to joke with our dad—a man who was borderline giddy as he’d wake us up for a marathon session of church (we were Pentecostal in the 1990s and early 2000s, so church was pretty much an all-day affair)—that we would “worship God in our own way” by staying home and playing Nintendo.  Thank goodness he had a sense of humor and understood we were lampooning the milquetoast cultural “Christians” and New Age spiritualists who framed staying home and washing their cars as an act of piety.

But the struggle is real.  I sincerely believe that Satan and his minions attack us the hardest right before church.  Like most things, the justifications are reasonable:  “I really need the rest”; “I have a crazy week ahead and need to get prepared for it.”  Sometimes those things are legitimate concerns; more often, though, they’re just lame rationalizations, and we know it.

I’m preaching to myself here.  I know from experience that missing one week of church makes it that much harder to return the following week; missing two weeks in a row or more is lethal to regular attendance.  Due to our current living situation and Dr. Wife finishing up residency, we often find ourselves out of town on Sundays, but we try to attend one of our churches.  Indeed, there have been times I’ve proposed staying home so we can “rest,” and she’ll insist we go to church.  She’s a good woman.

Again, I understand there are exceptions.  Some people—even here in the South—work on Sundays.  People travel.  Family events and the like sometimes interfere.  Look, I’m not a Catholic—I don’t believe your salvation is contingent upon checking off the “I attended Mass so I’m good for another week” box.  I do, however, believe that Scripture Instructs us to be part of a body of believers.

Going to church is beneficial spiritually first and foremost, but it’s also an opportunity to build Christian community.  In an age of economic isolation and social atomization, folks are desperate to be part of something bigger than themselves.  What’s bigger and better than the Bride of Christ?

Here in the South, there a sometimes more churches per square mile than people.  I know other parts of the country are not so fortunate, but churches are not hard to find.  Find a good one and start going!

With that, here is 17 April 2025’s “TBT^4: Go to Church“:

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The Portly Politico Tax Reform

The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s Tax Day in America, the day when the onslaught of Turbo Tax and H&R Block tax ads reach their fever pitch before the ad buys dwindle away in a desperate attempt to get late filers to pay their taxes.  For months, taxes and tax-related services have carpet-bombed our mental faculties, demanding we make our annual sacrifices to the Imperium.

I did our taxes four times before finally giving up on a potentially large discount (read my tedious, subscriber-only post if you want to know the lurid details).  No software could adequately handle our (admittedly unusual) tax situation, and the federal government rejected our filing three times before I finally [sur]rendered unto Caesar.  I estimate that I spent about twenty hours on our taxes this year, time that could have been spent composing, napping, unpacking, writing, laughing with my wife, researching history, weeding, mowing, showering, cooking—anything more enjoyable and/or productive than convincing Uncle Sam that I did, indeed, teach a bunch of music lessons last year and played several Sundays at a Methodist Church for profit (financial, not spiritual).

I’m not alone.  I’ve seen a number of notes on Substack and YouTube from writers and creators echoing a familiar refrain:  “sorry, no article/video/podcast/interpretative dance tutorial this week, guys:  I’m working on my taxes.”  Sure, the world will keep spinning, and we need some taxes to pay for all those Tomahawk missiles and gender reassignment surgeries for federal inmates—God Forbid we fail to slice up the inmates’ genitalia—but the whole thing is a massive waste of valuable resources.

There’s a reason an entire industry exists around tax preparation—nobody wants to take the time to sit down and go through all that paperwork (except for me and my younger brother, apparently; he ended up handling taxes for not only his family, but for our parents and our elderly, widowed grandmother—God Bless him!).  H&R Block will do your taxes for you!  Even then, you’re paying a few hundred bucks to hand someone else your W-2s and 1099s and what not.  You’re still answering all the same questions as just using the software yourself.  Regardless, you want to spend time not doing taxes, so you shell out the cash.  Some part-time rookie who needs extra cash from January through April looks over your stuff and slaps it together for you, and you get a “refund” (just pre-paid tax back) and feel good.

You shouldn’t!  You gave the federal government a coerced, mandatory, interest-free loan for up to twelve months, and they’re letting you have some of that money back because you maybe loaned them a little too much.  At least split the interest with us!

All of the above is, by now, familiar to every American, to the point that, like most evils (necessary or otherwise), we just grudgingly accept it and try to get through April without the IRS hassling us too much about digging up those shoebox receipts.

My friends, there is a better way.  Or at least a way that would be more convenient for everyone, even if it means Billy Gigeconomy can’t get a few extra bucks doing your taxes for you.  We must end the income tax—or alter it substantially.

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Open Mic Adventures CLXIII: “1979”

The Portly Politico2 Comments

The siren-song of Old World called heavily to yours portly, luring me with its addictive, “just-one-more-turn” gameplay to crash upon the rocks of sleep deprivation.  It’s also drawn me away from artistic pursuits.  My plan is to compose at least one, but preferably two, more tracks for Koi Dance, and then I’ll schedule it for a release.  Given my recent acquisition of some Japanese Trapdoor Snails, I’m brainstorming a composition about these enigmatic, quiet pond dwellers.

That said, I haven’t composed anything since “Sturgeon,” so I’m featuring an “open mic” mic performance of sorts.  The “mic” is my fading second generation iPhone SE; the “adventure” is singing a cappella in my bathroom; the “open[ness]” is my thick, meaty tongue “shalalalalalalalalalala-ing” the riff to The Smashing Pumpkins’ hit “1979”:

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