Month: November 2021

Midweek TPP Update

The Portly Politico10 Comments

This past weekend I attended my girlfriend’s brother’s wedding in Mississippi.  I’d intended to write about the trip (and the long drive), but the combination of the eleven-hour trip home; a busy Monday; and catching up on schoolwork put the kibosh to that plan, especially after Murphy and I fell asleep on the couch last night as I was beginning to write it.

Oh, well.  I’ll have that up next week, more than likely.

Instead, I decided to write a short update post on what is going on with yours portly, the blog, and the like.

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English Sunrise

The Portly Politico7 Comments

My good online friend and photographic contributor 39 Pontiac Dreamer has sent in some lovely pictures of an English sunrise.  To my discredit, he e-mailed me these photographs two months ago, and I am only now finding the time to post them, after repeated apologies, delays, equivocations, and plain excuses.

It’s been so long now, it escapes me what the genesis of these pictures were.  I believe Ponty and I were carrying on a conversation in the comment section of a post about rising early in the morning, and that it’s the best time to get work done.

Regardless, here are some gorgeous photographs of a hazy English morning, just as the mighty sun peeks itself over the horizon:

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Wait Until Dark (1967)

The Portly Politico19 Comments

A quick note of apology to Audre Myers, one of my regular readers:  Audre mailed me a DVD of the film Bell, Book, and Candle (1958) at the beginning of October.  I have been waiting for opportunity to watch it with my girlfriend, then was going to review it.

Well, it turns out when you live four hours apart from each other, your weekends get filled up pretty quickly with fun activities and/or family obligations outside of the house—or catching up on a shared television series.  Poor BB&C has fallen by the wayside.

As such, I’ve yet to watch what appears to be a wonderful film, sent by a very wonderful friend.  I do apologize, Audrey, but I will make time this week to hook up the Blu-Ray player and watch the film solo.  Expect a detailed, lovingly handcrafted review in one week!

As I’ve noted many times before, Shudder has some of the best (and so-bad-it’s-the-best) content of any streaming service I’ve ever encountered.  Something I appreciate about the service is that they don’t just stick to slashers, but really take an expansive approach to “horror” as a genre.  They go out of their way to deliver some excellent classics that probably don’t show up anywhere else.

One such film—one that I would not strictly classify as a “horror” film, but which certainly deals with a horrific scenario—is 1967’s Wait Until Dark, starring Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman living with her photographer husband in a basement apartment in New York City.  Hepburn’s character, Susy Hendrix, has only been blind for a year or so, the result of a tragic accident, so she is still learning how to attend to everyday tasks without sight.

That said, she is fairly capable, and manages well enough, though the film clearly demonstrates that she is vulnerable due to her disability.  The stage is set for conflict when Susy and her husband come into the possession of an old-fashioned doll.  Unbeknownst to them, the doll is filled with heroine smuggled from Montreal, and a trio of crooks are intent on recovering the stash.

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Lazy Sunday CXXXVIII: Friends, Part V

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Another month has passed, meaning I have three more editions of Supporting Friends Friday to bring back to your attention.  Coming on the heels of yet another Bandcamp Friday sales pitch, it only seems fitting to go in the other direction and highlight friends, rather than my self-indulgent work.

So, without further ado, here are some writers you should check out:

  • “Supporting Friends Friday: Whipped Owl” – Whipped Owl is a blogger from New England who appears to have gotten started in September of this year, and has since been churning out posts frequently.  He describes himself as a writer, musician, historian, sportsman, and loner, and his recent posts attest to some of these qualities:  he has a band, Blabpipe; he writes book reviews of historical works; and every Monday he reviews heavy metal bands.  He also writes quite a bit of poetry.  Check him out!
  • “Supporting Friends Friday: Helen Liptak” – Mrs. Liptak is a former colleague of mine, and she is a lively writer (and teacher!).  She recently published a piece of fiction  entitled “The Vicar or the View,” and the story is indicative of her charming, engaging writing style.
  • “Supporting Friends Friday: Son of Sonnet” – Son of Sonnet is a poet friend of mine who writes, well, sonnets.  His work will now be featured on this blog the first and third Wednesdays of the month (you can read his first contribution here).  His sonnets are subtle, insightful, and biting.  Some readers detect a certain noted of cynicism in them.  Perhaps.  What I do know is that they’re quite good.

Well, that’s it for another Lazy Sunday.  Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Spooktacular 2021 Review

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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.

Last Saturday was my annual Halloween Spooktacular, marking the third Spooktacular and the second hosted from my front porch.  I hit upon the idea of doing a front porch concert around Halloween last year, when most venues were still closed to live music, or only very slowly bringing it back.  I’d heard of other musicians doing outdoor gigs, and though, “Hey, why not turn my front porch into a stage?”

That first at-home Spooktacular was wildly successful—far more so than I thought—and I followed it up with my Spring Jam in May 2021.  That event was also successful, though the turnout was slightly lower than the Spooktacular.

This year, I suspected that the success of the first two front porch concerts might be diminished somewhat, especially as the concert was on the Saturday before a Sunday Halloween, which meant most people were trick-or-treating and throwing parties that night instead of on Halloween proper.  Several of my biggest patrons, who usually drop some serious coin at these events, were unable to attend due to other plans.

Still, I was excited for the evening, and while my concerns about lower attendance were confirmed—and the event resulted in a substantial but not debilitating loss, at least in the short-run—it was a fun night, one that also carried with it some important lessons.

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

November Bandcamp Friday

The Portly Politico1 Comment

It’s the first Friday of November, which means it’s another Bandcamp Friday! That means it’s the best possible time to purchase my music.  Indeed, my entire discography (seven albums!) is just $19.98, a whopping 35% discount (just £14.64 as of 1 November 2021, according to Bing, for my British readers).  That’s $2.85 (£2.09) per release, the kind of deal you only get on cassette tapes at the gas station (or from yours portly!).

I’m also sitting on a lot of great, but unsold, Spooktacular merch, including my shocking original painting “The War on Halloween.”  If the price tag is too rich for your blood, contact me and we’ll work something out.

It’s also a great time to pick up my debut book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot.  It’s just $10 (and available in Britain, too).  Christmas is approaching, and it’s a great time to read absurdist, ludicrous detective stories by the fire (or to give as gifts—why not buy four or five copies to hand out as stocking stuffers to your friends?).

Bandcamp began doing Bandcamp Fridays during The Age of The Virus, when most musicians (myself included) witnessed a catastrophic drop in their revenue.  Venues closed or stopped live music; parents withdrew students from one-on-one lessons; and private parties were cancelled, meaning fewer of those lucrative gigs.  Also, fewer live performances meant fewer royalties for songwriters.  It’s only $10

Fortunately, that situation is improving, and people are eager to get out and hear live music again.  Still, pitching in a few bucks helps immensely—and you get some good music in the process, too!

So, on with the sales pitch!  Here are my seven releases, in chronological order:

  • Electrock Music (2006, $5) – Twelve tracks from my senior year of college, all instrumental MIDI tunes.  I gave physical copies to my Fiction Writing Workshop class; I wonder if they still have those little homemade copies.
  • Electrock II: Space Rock (2007, $7) – I’m obsessed with the idea of the sci-fi rock opera (I actually tried to write one for piano and vocals back in 2012-2013, but never finished it)—it’s the most decadent, self-indulgent form of musical expression.  That was the driving spirit behind this rockin’ collection of out-of-this-world jams.
  • Electrock EP: The Four Unicorns of the Apocalypse (2012, $4) – My younger brother introduced me to a song call “Biomachinery” by some melodic death metal band, and the rhythm of that word inspired the lead-off track of this four-song cycle, “Cyborg Unicorn.”  Of course, the instrumental chorus of that track is basically Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” so it’s true what they say:  composers swipe from each other all the time.
  • Electrock Retrospective, Volume I: Dance Party (2013, $3.60) – I had a number of tracks stored up for a never-completed Electrock III, so I thought I would begin dribbling them out as part of repackaged “retrospectives.”  This first one, Dance Party, features “Robobop,” which is also a perk for $5 subscribers to my SubscribeStar page.
  • Electrock Retrospective, Volume II: Technological Romance (2013, $2.14) – Technological Romance features “Pwrblld (Ballad II)“—with apologies to Chicago’s “You’re the Inspiration.”
  • Contest Winner EP (2015, $5) – This album is my tour de force.  I recorded it in a real-life studio, overdubbing my vocals with my piano part.  It was an amazing experience, and these tunes are staples of my live shows (especially fan favorites “Hipster Girl Next Door” and “Greek Fair“).
  • The Lo-Fi Hymnal (2020, $4) – I started playing piano at my little Free Will Baptist Church a couple of years ago, and I began taking little recordings of offertory, invitational, etc.  I compiled the four very lo-fi recordings into a short compilation.  I’m hoping to record a second volume at some point.

An easy (and free) way to support me is to “follow” my Bandcamp page and my Amazon author page.  I post updates about new merchandise, new music, and other interesting offers about once a month to the Bandcamp page, and new books will pop up on my Amazon page as they’re published.  It’s a good way to keep up with the latest news on my musical adventures.

Another free way to support me is to turn off your ad-blocker.  The site delivers several thousand ad impressions monthly, but most of those are blocked, which means they don’t pay out.  You can usually find the ad-blocker as a little widget or icon in the upper-right-hand side of your browser; click on it and it will usually give you the option to “pause” or stop the blocker from running on this site.  I know ads are annoying, but seeing a few DuckDuckGo ads helps out in an incremental way.

Even if none of that entices you, no worries!  I’m just glad to have you here, reading my self-indulgent garbage and my lengthy advertisement posts.

Happy Friday!

—TPP

Halloween in England

The Portly Politico36 Comments

Good ol’ 39 Pontiac Dreamer, one of my regular readers, is as big a fan of Halloween as I am.  To that end, he e-mailed me a TON of Halloween pictures over the weekend, including his and his wife’s Jack O’Lanterns.  He says hers is the more elaborate one, while he goes for a simpler, more classic approach (like me).

Per Ponty:

We had a few trick or treaters over the evening but, thankfully, not at a crucial point in any of our films…. The films in the pictures by the way are Ringu and the Romero classic Dawn of the Dead.

Ponty also sent me some excellent photographs of an English sunrise—in September!  I’ve been so slammed, I keep forgetting to upload them.  Look for those next Tuesday.

For now, here are the pictures of Ponty’s British Halloween:

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TBT: The Morning After

The Portly Politico9 Comments

It was one year ago today that The Z Man wrote that “America died” on 3 November 2020.  I don’t think he meant it melodramatically, and it certainly encapsulated what a lot of us were feeling as we watched the fraudulent votes magically appear in the middle of the night.

The 2020 election woke a lot of people up, but even blatant fraud across multiple States has, sadly, gone largely ignored.  The silver lining is that folks seem to have abandoned national politics and are focusing on what’s happening at the local and State levels.  Indeed, there seems to be a general disengagement from politics, something that in the past I would have decried, but that now I think might actually be healthy—provided people are willing to make tough decisions for themselves.

Regardless, it’s hard to think about the 2020 election.  Since then, we’ve been stuck with a old man who is essentially a corpse dangling from the strings of invisible hands.  I thought a year ago that The Usurper Biden would be tossed from office at the first opportunity, but it’s occurred to me that he is too perfect a patsy for the radical elitists performing the marionette.  For one, Kamala Harris somehow manages to be less likeable and more phony than Hillary Clinton, and progressives don’t like her.  For another, it’s better to have a hollow man like Biden than a strident floozy like Harris, who might occasionally make a decision on her own.

Well, this topic is depressing.  You can see why I’ve switched over to writing about music and the weather.

With that, here is 4 November 2020’s “The Morning After“:

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Son of Sonnet: “The Gemini Sonnets #1”

The Portly Politico9 Comments

Today I am pleased to introduce a new, twice-monthly feature from Son of Sonnet, a poet friend of mine.  SoS has agreed to contribute two sonnets each month to the blog, which will be posted the first and third Wednesdays of each month.

Your generous subscriptions to my SubscribeStar page have made it possible to patronize Son’s work.  As a community of artists, readers, and pundits, we should work together as much as possible to cultivate and support one another’s talents.  I can’t pay Son much—yet—but I’m able to offer him something for his talents because of your generosity.

Every artist as dedicated to his craft as Son deserves both recognition and support.  I would encourage you to consider a subscription to Son of Sonnet’s SubscribeStar page as a way to encourage the growth and development of an eloquent voice on our side of this long culture war.  Conservatives often complain about not holding any ground culturally; now is the time to support the culture that is being created.

You can read Son of Sonnet’s poetry on his Telegram channel, on Gab, and on Minds.

Enjoy!

—TPP

The Gemini Sonnets
By Son of Sonnet

What form do spirits take outside the mind?
You bear yourself in such a subtle way,
but you and I are in one heart entwined.
To know you is the purpose of my day.
Don’t keep yourself a secret frommy eye,
but choose a picture that would you define.
Are you a creature, hiding his reply?
Or woman, seeking meaning in your sign?
Two pillars hold the roof aloft in twain,
but are they twins? Who says that they are kin?
All partners know each other for their gain;
Reveal what lies behind your subtle grin.
In order to depict the light, to grow,
one must be mindful of where shadows go.

Lamar Election Results 2021

The Portly Politico6 Comments

About forty minutes after polls closed, poll workers posted election results to the front door of Lamar Town Hall.

Here are the receipts for Lamar Precinct No. 1, which is south of Main Street, and Lamar Precinct No. 2, which is north of Main Street (I live in the latter district).

Those don’t include the absentee ballots, which a poll worker announced aloud.  Here are the final vote totals (winners in bold green):

Mayor’s Race

James Howell – 164

Inez Bess Lee – 155

Town Council (2 Seats to Fill)

Tyler James Cook – 162

Mary Ann Mack – 176

Jerry Shull (Write-In) – 111

Here is a picture I took from a lady’s phone; she managed to get a photo of what I think is the sheet the poll workers used to tally everything:

Lamar Election November 2021 - Totals

The numbers on the left are the vote totals.  The first number to the right of each name represents the absentee ballots, which is what the Darlington News and Press is reporting at the time of this writing; the second number represents votes from Lamar Precinct No. 1; and the third number represents votes from Lamar Precinct No. 2 (cut off in this photograph).

Barring any chicanery, these look to be the official numbers.

Thanks to everyone who came out and voted today.  I appreciated your support!  Congratulations to all of the candidates for putting themselves out there to serve the public.