Embracing the Dark Side… with LEGO

11 January 202210 January 2022 The Portly Politico16 Comments

Regular readers will have surmised that, in spite being thirty-seven-years old, I am very much a kid at heart. Often, I am also a kid in practice.

I was blessed to receive two incredible LEGO sets for Christmas: the Imperial Shuttle (#75302) and the Darth Vader Helmet (#75304). These sets are 660+ and 800+ pieces, respectively, and are probably the largest LEGO sets I’ve done. I did have the legendary Black Seas Barracuda (#10040) as a kid, which is nearly 900 pieces, but I never built it—my older brother did.

Both of these builds were deeply satisfying. I was sick with a low-grade fever and a sore throat (but tested negative for The Virus, no worries) the week after Christmas, and was generally enduring some low times besides the sickness, so I had plenty of time to dive into both of these kits—and was eager to do so.

Here, I’ll share some pictures of the builds, and discuss a bit of what it was like constructing them.

Monday Morning Movie Review: The Wicker Man (1973)

10 January 20229 January 2022 The Portly Politico24 Comments

I watch quite a few movies, and most of them come and go without leaving much of a mark. Indeed, I pretty much only watch movies now, with the exception of a few shows (like Bob’s Burgers). Some of them probably deserve more attention than I give them, as I’m usually multitasking—poorly—while watching them.

But for every eight duds there is one film that will stick out. These are usually the ones I write about. Typically they stick out in a positive way, though Ponty has encouraged me to write some reviews of movies I don’t like (you can read one such review here). This week’s selection really made an impact on me, and it’s one I heartily recommend.

The flick is 1973’s The Wicker Man, based on a 1967 novel by David Pinner called Ritual. The film is, perhaps, one of the most Christian (and pro-Christian) movies I have seen in a long time. I don’t think its creators intended it as a Christian film, but I’ll make the case for it in this review.

That said, if I’m correct, The Wicker Man probably has the most nudity of any Christian film ever made.

Lazy Sunday CXLVII: More Movies, Part XIV: Movie Reviews, Part XIV

9 January 20228 January 2022 The Portly Politico17 Comments

It’s another Lazy Sunday and I’m at a loss for a theme, so how about looking back at some more movie reviews?

Even with writing a review a week, I’m beginning to catch up to the present when it comes to these Lazy Sunday retrospectives. As such, the day is coming where I won’t be able to rely on this “out” to avoid a modicum of creative thinking.

But that’s Future Port’s problem. Here are three reviews from October 2021:

“Monday Morning Movie Review: Lifeforce (1985)” – Outer space energy vampires invade London in the 1980s. What’s not to love? I really enjoyed this movie, with its great practical effects and its outrageous premise. But the premise works.
“Monday Morning Movie Review: In the Earth (2021)” – In my review for this odd film, I noted that I would not recommend it to the vast majority of viewers. I still wouldn’t recommend it, but I really enjoyed it. The first half is much stronger than the psychedelic second half, as you’re trying to figure out what is going on in the world the filmmakers have created.
“Monday Morning Movie Review: House (1986) and House II: The Second Story (1987)” – I really enjoyed these horror-comedies, especially House, and admire their creature effects. Regular reader Audre Myers watched them on my recommendation and hated them. Well, there’s no accounting for taste, especially when my tastes run so low-brow.

Well, that’s it for this Sunday! Enjoy some tasteless viewing of your own this weekend.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Behind the Songs: “Hipster Girl Next Door”

8 January 20227 January 2022 The Portly Politico4 Comments

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.

Today I’m beginning a six-part miniseries for SubscribeStar Saturday called Behind the Songs. In this series, I’m going to reveal the stories behind each of the six songs on my debut EP, Contest Winner EP. I’ll go track-by-track, in order, detailing the inspirations behind these songs.

Naturally, that means the best—or, at least, the fan favorite—will be first: the lead-off single “Hipster Girl Next Door.” To this day I close 99% of my live shows with this song, which is probably my most-requested tune.

So, what inspired this catchy little sendup of the early 2010s hipster subculture and 1950s rock ‘n’ roll? And why do fans love it so much?

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

The End of Bancamp Friday

7 January 20222 January 2022 The Portly Politico25 Comments

Well, all good things must come to an end: much to my readers’ relief, I’m sure, Bandcamp Friday has come to an end.

Since March 2020, Bandcamp has dedicated the first Friday of most months to Bandcamp Friday, a day when the service waived its share of proceeds paid for musicians’ music. That meant that musicians got almost the full value of the sale, minus whatever PayPal takes out. In other words, a musician who sold his entire discography for $19.98 (like yours portly) would receive almost all of that amount, as Bandcamp waived its customary 15%. That’s $3 more going to the musician; over, say, ten transactions, that adds up to real money.

For now, though, it looks like it’s over. Bandcamp introduced Bandcamp Friday as a way to help musicians during The Age of The Virus, when most venues were shuttered and musicians couldn’t play gigs. No gigs, no merch and CD sales. No sales, no money. My performance royalties—never a huge source of income, but a nice extra couple of hundred bucks, dried up almost completely in 2021 (royalties are paid on such a long delay, it wasn’t until 2021 that I experienced the effects of having not played my original music live in 2020).

TBT: Supporting Friends Friday: Audre Myers

6 January 20225 January 2022 The Portly Politico22 Comments

A little Welsh birdie told me that today our dear Audre Myers is turning twenty-nine for the forty-first time. Therefore, in lieu of my originally planned TBT—which will appear next Thursday—I’ve done what any decent blogger would do and hastily and have revived this classic post about Audre, one of the most popular posts of 2021.

As far as I can tell, this will be the first edition of Supporting Friends Friday to enjoy the TBT treatment. Who more fitting to receive such a dubious honor than Audre? Audre’s been a constant source of encouragement, amusement, and inspiration, and is one of those folks who keeps me writing.

So, before I get overly mushy, here is 27 August 2021’s “Supporting Friends Friday: Audre Myers“:

Midweek Mad Scientist Movie Madness I: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920) & The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

5 January 20224 January 2022 The Portly Politico20 Comments

For Christmas I received a couple of box sets, each containing fifty films from their respective genres. The first collection I cracked open, Mad Scientist Theatre, consists of, well, fifty films about science and scientists gone wrong (or mad, I should say).

I’ve decided to write reviews of the films from these collections throughout the course of the year semiregularly. Son of Sonnet is taking a bit of a hiatus from writing for the time being, so these midweek reviews seemed like a good way to fill the void his pen has left. I don’t plan on writing these reviews every Wednesday, but maybe once or twice a month.

Also, I’ll be making the meat of these reviews for subscribers only. That’s not to cut out my lovable band of regular readers, but to further sweeten the pot for existing subscribers. I thought about doing these posts for $5 and up subscribers, but as of this past weekend, I finally have a subscriber at the $3 level. Because I think she will enjoy these oddball film reviews, I’m going to make them available starting at that level.

That said, I will still provide a substantial portion of these reviews for non-paying readers, as their energy and enthusiasm in the comment sections really keep the blog alive and fresh.

So! With that lengthy preamble out of the way, the first two flicks on the first disc of Mad Scientist Theatre are both silent films from 1920: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. You don’t need Mad Scientist Theatre to watch these films, either, as they’re both in the public domain (indeed, they’re both 102-years old, which is wild to contemplate—film is a young medium, but it was around and commercially viable a century ago). You can view both on YouTube:

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (with the original color tinting, which is not on the Mad Scientist Theatre collection):

These are quite different films, but each interesting in their own way. The themes and situations explored in each are eerily prescient for those of us living through our own “Roaring Twenties,” with all this decade’s excesses, licentiousness, and absurdity.

The Hermit’s Life

4 January 20222 January 2022 The Portly Politico9 Comments

During the long week between Christmas and New Year’s, I found myself struggling against some manner of illness (not The Virus, it seems, thank goodness). I ran a low-grade fever for a couple of days, then suffered with a sore throat and some fatigue for a few days afterwards. Fortunately, with the week off, I was able to hole up in Port Manor in Lamar, and regular reader and neighbor Bernard Fife brought me some homemade Christmas treats (and an at-home COVID-19 test, which came back negative).

I typically spend the holidays with my parents, or at least surrounded by family. That was the case leading up to Christmas, but my mystery malady thwarted my plans to return to my childhood home. Instead, from Tuesday (when the symptoms started coming on) through Sunday, I largely stayed home, with some occasional outings for groceries and the like as my condition began to improve (and once I realized I’d avoided the scourge of The Virus).

Needless to say, that is a lot of time at home. I am very much a homebody, and like being there, but the demands of work, lessons, family, friends, and all the other social and professional obligations I get myself into mean I rarely get days alone at home.

Be careful what you wish for: I had six days at home thanks to illness. Had it not been for being sick, though, it would have been glorious. Even so, it was pretty great.

Monday Morning Movie Review: Boys from County Hell (2020)

3 January 202231 December 2021 The Portly Politico41 Comments

Today is my birthday. I’m thirty-seven today, and am on the downward slide towards forty.

But even on my birthday, I must deliver the goods. Since it’s Monday, that means a movie review, and this flick is really quite fun.

The film is Boys from County Hell (2020), a comedic vampire movie that takes place in rural Ireland. My family and I had the opportunity to visit Ireland in 2006, and the film’s setting really reminded me of that trip.

The premise is straightforward: in the small, dying town of Six Mile Hill, there is a stone cairn in the middle of a farmer’s field. The cairn is said to be the grave of Abhartach, an ancient Irish vampire who is said to have been the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

The cairn—indeed, the entire town—is threatened by a proposed new bypass. The bypass will route so much traffic away from the town, it will kill the struggling local economy. Naturally, the construction will also move directly through the cairn.

You can probably see where this is going.

Lazy Sunday CXLVI: 2021’s Top Five Posts

2 January 20225 January 2022 The Portly Politico31 Comments

It’s officially 2022, but this Sunday I’m going to cast one more look back at 2021. As is tradition, in addition to my annual “Worst of” lists, I always do a “Top Five Posts” retrospective as well.

Like the “Worst of” lists, I don’t base these posts off of their quality, but by the number of views they received. Some of them probably are very high-quality posts; others just got a lot of eyeballs.

I’ve also included the next three highest posts, which serendipitously worked out to be unique in their own ways, with two being of particular significance to the growth of the blog this year.

While I did not have any huge breakthrough posts in 2021—those garnering quadruple digits, like “Tom Steyer’s Belt“—my posts on average had more views, and my WordPress subscriber count increased substantially. It turns out that if you keep at something for a thousand days, you start gaining some traction! I also had substantially more commenter participation, thanks to folks hopping over from The Conservative Woman and Nebraska Energy Observer.

With that, here are 2021’s Top Five Posts:

The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

Month: January 2022