Month: January 2023

Ponty’s Pen: Road Trips in the USA

The Portly Politico10 Comments

Every now and then we get something for Christmas that really sparks our imaginations, allowing them to run—or, in this case, drive—wildly to other lands.  For a young Portly, it was receiving a copy of Sid Meier’s Civilization II from my aunt one Christmas.  That game opened up vast new worlds and incredible historical “what-ifs,” and was partially responsible for my decision to study and teach history for a living.

For Ponty, it’s an annual copy of Fodor’s Best Road Trips in the USA.

Travel guides have always been one of my favorite genres, too.  Sure, travelogues are more engaging and adventurous, but travel guides let us learn about places without a great deal of authorial embellishment.  We get the basics about an area, and then can put ourselves immediately into those places, imagining visiting the great sites and destinations—or the backwater burgs and forgotten byways—of the world.

Ponty captures that spirit of adventure and fun in this touching, personal, and engaging little piece about his imaginary—and, let us hope, someday real!—travels around the United States.

With that, here’s Ponty with some reflections on Christmas and road trips:

Read More »

Open Mic Adventures XVII: “L’il Divertimento in C major”

The Portly Politico2 Comments

It’s been a bit since I’ve been able to get back to an open mic, between school, Christmas, and illness.  Belting out the tunes is pretty tough when your voice is a froggy mess of croaks and squeaks (although I’m sure some people are into that kind of thing).

As such, I decided to cast about through the Portly Video Archives and pull out some golden chestnuts from yesteryear—or, in this case, something I recorded about eleven months ago.

Readers might recall my modern classical piano project, P​é​ch​é​s d​’​â​ge moyen, which I released on 4 March 2022.  It was a frivolous and fun little project that, like most such things, was born of “an absurd, self-indulgent inside joke,” according to the album listing on Bandcamp.

The recordings were pretty lo-fi, but some of the pieces are actually quite good (others are self-indulgent experiments in multimeter quasi-tonality).  I also loaded the digital Bandcamp album with tons of extras—including the video you’re about to see—like scans of the handwritten manuscripts and scores for each piece.

Read More »

Monday Morning Movie Review: Portly’s Top Ten Best Films: #4: The Cable Guy (1996)

The Portly Politico22 Comments

The 1990s were the golden age of comedy films, churning out one classic, genre-defining masterpiece after another.  It was also the moment of Jim Carrey’s rise to comedy superstardom.

For a kid in the 1990s, Jim Carrey was a demigod.  His films were hilarious, cartoonish, madcap, irreverent, ribald, raunchy—and all must-sees.  Jim Carrey could do no wrong.

Then, in 1996—when yours portly was at the ripe old age of eleven—Jim Carrey made his first career misstep with The Cable Guy.  It still had all the great Carrey-esque antics we’d come to love, but the film’s dark comedy threw audiences and critics alike a curveball, and they weren’t quite sure what to make of it.  The flick was panned at the time, and the consensus is that it was a potential career-killer for Carrey.  Even The Simpsons decried the film as the one that “nearly ruined Jim Carrey’s career”:

But as is often the case—like with wearing masks in elementary schools and forcing toddlers to take experimental gene therapy injections—the general consensus was deadly wrong.  The Cable Guy (1996) was the best film of Jim Carrey’s 1990s output, and it’s my pick for my best film.

Read More »

Lazy Sunday CLXXIX: More Movies XXXII: Portly’s Best Films, Part I

The Portly Politico1 Comment

This cold, wintry season always makes me want to bundle up with a hot pizza and a cool flick.  What better way to kick back after a long day of mind-molding than with a classic gem (or a B-flick schlock-o-rama) and piping hot pie, drizzled in olive oil and dripping with cheese.  Oooooh, baby….

Erhem—but I digress.  That got me thinking that it’s time to start going back through the best films lists that Ponty and I now halfway through compiling.  Since I started off the list, I figured I’d look back at my #10, , and #8 picks first, then jump over to Ponty’s next week.

With that, here are the first three from my list:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Break Travels, Part II: Grand Canyon

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

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.

As our plane took off from Indianapolis in dead silence—everyone was quiet, and the only sound was that of the jets roaring—my older brother loudly exclaimed, “my wallet!,” which elicited some stifled chuckles from yours portly, and I think I heard one other person react. Otherwise, no one bit on his hilarious joke about leaving his wallet in the airport.

After a very brief layover in Detroit, which saw us running to the next gate for our flight to Phoenix, we enjoyed a quiet flight to Phoenix. I’ve grown accustomed to airlines abusing passengers, but Delta is a great airline and my older brother has achieved a status where he gets some actual respect from the flight crew, so it was a welcome change. The snacks and soft drinks flowed freely, and I discovered that the chess app in the Delta entertainment console is impossible to beat, even on “Easy” mode—something that people who are actually good at chess have discussed at length online.

We landed in Phoenix and made it to the rental car area, where we managed to score a sweet Kia Niro, a car so laden with technology, it was difficult to figure out how to turn on the heat. Yes, despite being in Arizona, it was unseasonably cold, with temperatures comparable to those in South Carolina at the time (we arrived the evening of Monday, 19 December 2022).

Our AirBnB was a cool little duplex in downtown Phoenix, decorated in the Southwestern style. It sported an impressive fireplace, though we didn’t mess with it. The interior reminded me of smaller homes built in the 1920s, although I don’t know how old this home was. It had a cute (if tight) breakfast nook, where my brother and I were able to get some writing done during our stay, and a good, powerful shower. The host left us some coffee from a local roaster, which we tore through in a couple of days.

One of our major goals for the week was to visit Grand Canyon National Park. I’ve always wanted to see Grand Canyon, and this trip was the perfect opportunity to do so. We decided to knock out the visit—which took the entire day, as it’s roughly four hours to the north of Phoenix—on Tuesday, 20 December 2022, our first full day in Arizona.

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

Phone it in Friday XXIX: Epiphany, Patriots, and a Birthday

The Portly Politico20 Comments

It’s the end of the first workweek of the year, which really ended up being something like three-and-a-half days for yours portly.  While I enjoyed Christmas Break—and even my sick day—I’ll begrudgingly admit that it’s good to get back into a routine.

But today is significant for other reasons.  Most importantly, it’s Epiphany, the traditional last day of the Christmas season, commemorating the Wise Men’s visit to the Christ Child.  The “epiphany” celebrated is Christ Revealed to the Gentiles for the first time.

Besides celebrating The Birthday—the most important birthday!—of Christ, we here at TPP are also celebrating Audre Myers‘s birthday!  Audre is a regular reader, commenter, and contributor here, and her writing is feature on a number of other sites.  She’s also a Bigfoot enthusiast, and TPP‘s source for all the latest updates on the big fellow.  Audre is a rare, beautiful gem of a person, and her spirit and energy liven up the blog considerably.

For more glowing, mushy sentimentality about our dear Audre, read last year’s birthday tribute.  It’s my meager attempt to honor her contributions.

Read More »

TBT: The Hermit’s Life

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

I’ve been writing this blog for so long now, it’s amusing to see how cyclical life is.  Apparently, I was running a low-grade fever right after Christmas 2021; this year, I was running a higher-grade fever around New Year’s 2023.

I’d completely forgotten that I rang in 2022 by going to bed at 10 PM after nearly a week of puttering around my house in a sickly fog.  My Christmas Break in 2022-2023 was much more action-packed, but that just meant the “slow down there, sport” illness hit right when I was supposed to go back to work.  D’oh!

That said, I do enjoy—in limited doses—the life of a hermit.  I’m very thankful to have a supportive family, and a strong support network of neighbors and friends nearby who can help me out in times of trouble.  But there is something appealing, especially during this dark, cold months, about holing up in my warm little house, eating frozen pizzas and watching horror movies.

For those that read my Tuesday post, here is a quick health update:  I think I am on the mend.  I went back to work Wednesday, as my fever broke.  I’m still coughing a bit and have some gnarly congestion, but my voice is back, which makes teaching possible—hurray!  Here’s hoping that as my health improves, I can use some of this slower wintry time to get crackin’ on several long-delayed book projects.

With that, here is 4 January 2022’s “The Hermit’s Life“:

Read More »

Myersvision: Shaun of the Dead (2004)

The Portly Politico13 Comments

Audre Myers is offering up an unusual-for-her pick in this week’s edition of Myersvision—a comedy horror flick!  Given the time of year, it’s even more unusual, but who says yuletide can’t become ghoultide? [I originally had this review scheduled for the week leading up to Christmas, but pushed it to January due to the various Christmas movie reviews Audre, Ponty, and I wrote in December.  I liked my “ghoultide” pun too much to revise it, and it is technically still the Christmas season through 6 January 2023, Epiphany (and Audre’s birthday!). —TPP]

Ponty picked Shaun of the Dead (2004) as his Number 9 Best Film, so it’s interesting to compare his review to Audre’s.  Ponty (and myself, I should add) loves this film; Audre’s take is altogether different.

I don’t want to spoil too much of her—let’s call it “scathing”—review, but I’m going to chalk up the difference of opinion to the generation and gender gaps.  While I have known plenty of women who enjoyed Shaun of the Dead, it definitely has more of a “guy” vibe to it.  I find Pegg and Wright’s antics hilarious, and am a big fan of their so-called Cornetto Trilogy, of which Shaun is the first installment.

I also think that the title character does show some growth and transformation, going from being little more than a shuffling zombie himself to rising to the occasion to help save his friends.  The duress of a zombie outbreak forces this loser to change his ways to protect himself and his loved ones, even if he makes mistakes and reverts to old habits along the way.

But I digress.  Audre offers up a good counterbalance to the fanboyish enthusiasm of Ponty and myself.

With that, here is Audre’s review of 2004’s Shaun of the Dead:

Read More »

It is My Birthday

The Portly Politico10 Comments

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

Growing up, school always started back on my birthday, and this year is no different.  I’ll be ringing in my thirty-eighth year with a long day of mind-molding, followed by a few after-school lessons.

I’m also sick, with the same mysterious respiratory malady that struck me last year.  I can tell that I am on the mend—at least somewhat—at the time of writing, and I hope to wake up today breathing free, but I’m thinking it’s going to be a long day of popping cough drops and chugging water.

^Since writing that earlier on the day on Monday, my fever worsened.  Here’s hoping it breaks overnight and I can get to work, but it’s possible yours portly will be sick on his birthday—and at home.  I hate missing work if I can’t help it, so for me to contemplate taking a day off is a huge deal.  An at-home test for The Virus came back negative, but I’m running a fever of 102.5-102.9 degrees Fahrenheit (Ponty, convert that into Celsius).

I was going to write a bit more about goals and aspirations for my thirty-eighth year, but I’m going to stop here.  It’s time for a hot shower and some Vick’s Vapor Rub.

—TPP

Monday Morning Movie Review: Ponty’s Top Ten Best Films: #5: Rear Window (1954)

The Portly Politico4 Comments

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly two months since Ponty’s #6 pick in our countdown of the Top Ten Best Films.  A combination of Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday, and Ponty struggling through a gnarly sinus infection pushed back our foray into the halfway mark of his reviews until now.  We also went into reviews of two classic Christmas films across three different authors, but now we’re back!

I grew up in a house full of Alfred Hitchcock.  My mom has always been a big fan of the portly director, and issues of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine still clutter bookshelves and spare crannies all over my parents’ Queen Anne-style home (built in 1901!).

It’s a tad remarkable, then, that I have not (yet) considered any of the director’s films in my own list.  That is a massive oversight on my part.  Thanks for Ponty for expanding beyond my 1980s myopia with a classic Hitchcock gem.

As always, he delivers.  Just reading his review reminds me of how intense this thriller is—and makes me eager to watch it again.

With that, here is Ponty’s review of 1954’s Rear Window:

Read More »