Month: September 2023

Lazy Sunday CXIX: Sandwiches

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With school back in session, I’m enjoying sandwiches on a semi-regular basis again.  I am a great lover of the sandwich, perhaps the most ingenious form factor for delivering vegetables, proteins, carbs, and fats in a handy, handheld package (pizza and burritos also deserve kudos in this regard).

So it was that I thought I might look back at some sandwich related posts:

  • “Supporting Friends Friday: The Sandwhich Press” – The Sandwhich Press (and, yes, it’s spelled with the extra “h,” although the URL for the page spells “sandwich” the normal way) is the Telegram chat of Goth Kilts, an influential and humorous Telegram poster.  Her chat partially inspired Péchés d’âge moyen, my collection of short piano miniatures, as I began composing again in part to take part in the online joking taking place at that fortuitous time.  It boasts over 500 subscribers, all of them richly deserved.
  • “Bologna” (and “TBT: Bologna“) – I don’t understand the hate for bologna.  It’s a delicious use of all the reject parts of the various animals, delivering flavor and calories (and, unfortunately, now heartburn for yours portly) in a cheap package.
  • “Myersvision: ‘Ode to the PB&J’” – Audre Myers‘s poem celebrating America’s Lunch.

Happy Sunday—and Happy Eating!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Compose-a-thon: Cryptids

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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.

Yours portly has been composing like a madman lately.  I’ve also been extremely busy with work, so I’ve had precious little time for writing, so I figured I’d treat my subscribers to some of the work I’ve been churning out lately.

Earlier this month I released Spooky Season, a collection of autumnal and Halloween-themed pieces.  After selling a couple of copies—thanks you two!—I was motivated to write a sequel, Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids, which is nearly finished (Bandcamp release is tentatively set for Friday, 6 October, with general release to streaming services on Friday, 13 October).

I’ve been putting together little videos of the pieces from both albums.  Here’s one of my favorites from Spooky Season, “Bavarian Bop“:

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

Supporting Friends Friday: Son of Sonnet on Substack

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Longtime readers might remember the thoughtful, moving poetry of Son of Sonnet.  In addition to being a skilled poet, Son is also a gifted orator, and his readings of poetry are always a special treat.

Now you can enjoy his poetry and recitations on his Substack page.  He has a consistent schedule of regular posts, so you won’t be wondering when the next post will arrive.

A subscription is just $7 a month or $70 a year—well worth the price of admission.  Son possesses an extensive theatrical background, which he uses to great effect in his recitations. He even takes requests, and will frequently write poems on themes that subscribers submit.

I bang this gong a lot, but as conservatives and/or Christians, we need to support our people.  The Left gets most everything wrong, but they get this right—they support their creators.  On the Right, we’re often too pragmatic, and dismiss art, culture, and literature as impractical playthings.

We couldn’t be more wrong.  No one remembers early nineteenth-century German tax policy; everyone remembers Beethoven.

So, consider a subscription to Son of Sonnet’s Substack page.  He is worthy of your support.

TBT^2: Road Trip!

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Right after the start of the new school year, I had the opportunity to hoof it down to Orlando for a day at Universal Studios with my family.  After going way too many times in 2020, I haven’t been back much since, so it was good to get back into the parks, even if for only a day.

Before school resumed, I found myself driving all over South Carolina to dine with an array of beauties.  That also provided ample opportunity to explore the highways and byways of my beloved State.

There is a beautiful drive through the countryside between my home of Lamar, South Carolina, and I-95, which GPS always recommends when I head to the Charleston/Mount Pleasant region of South Carolina.  It winds south of town on US-401 to the unincorporated community of Elliott, South Carolina, then veers off onto SC-527 for several miles before hitting I-95 South.  There’s a beautiful old church in Elliott with stained glass windows; across from it is a postage stamp-sized post office, proudly flying its American Flag on a mostly empty street corner.

Along SC-527 is an abandoned middle school, overgrown with weeds and brambles.  While I’m sure there is nothing there now but raccoons and spiders, I’d like to poke around in those remains.  I also wonder what it was like attending classes at this brick-and-concrete edifice in the middle of corn fields in a remote corner of the State, and what devastating depopulation had to occur for a school to find itself, empty and abandoned, so far from anything.  What must it be like for a school to die?  If a school dies, it means the community has already died much earlier.

I’ve come to enjoy these little trips.  There’s a great deal to see, and I enjoy the quiet drives.  After one (quite successful—fingers crossed!) excursion to Summerville, I found myself driving back during a massive storm.  Fortunately, the driving was easy, but the lightning was terrific—blasting out in huge bursts that turned night into day.  I was listening to A Flock of Seagull’s hit “I Ran,” and the lightning would sometimes hit in time with the constantly moving synthesizer part, creating a cinematic effect that could never be duplicated.

My advice to readers:  hit the road!

With that, here is 1 September 2022’s “TBT: Road Trip!“:

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Myersvision: “Ode to the PB&J”

The Portly Politico16 Comments

On my post about my new song “1001 Arabian Nights,” regular reader, contributor, commenter, and controversialist 39 Pontiac Dream/Always a Kid for Today—or “Ponty” around here—commented that he could not understand the appeal of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  He even expressed disgust that such a sandwich exists.

It seems that the British Empire really has collapsed.  But what can you expect from the English, the people whose greatest culinary triumph is boiled beef?  No wonder they conquered the world—they needed to find better cuisine!  Chewing on boiled shoe leather would motivate anyone to go out and subjugate a foreign land.

Having thrown the gauntlet, I threw my own, and challenged Audre Myers to write a pro-PB&J piece, and for Ponty to write one against.  Ponty demurred—how very French of you, m’boy!—stating that he’d never eaten one, so he couldn’t comment.  Sounds like a cowardly excuse to me!

All joking aside, Audre rose to the occasion, but instead of submitting a wild-eyed, pro-PB&J polemic, she wrote a stirring, poetic ode to America’s Lunch.

With that, here is Audre Myers’s “Ode to the PB&J”:

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Open Mic Adventures XLVI: “Canon Event”

The Portly Politico5 Comments

As I’ve delved deeper into YouTube, I’ve discovered the platform has a little blog for creators that points out the major Internet trends of the moment.  The Internet is constantly evolving, with new trends and memes coming and going the shifting tides—but faster!  Apparently, Gen Zers are running around calling charisma “rizz.”  We have always been at war with Eurasia!

One meme doing the rounds is the “canon event” meme.  The meme comes from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), where multiple Peter Parkers (or their equivalents) from multiple universes all experience certain “canon events,” which are (allegedly) unalterable:  the bite from the radioactive spider; the death of a beloved family member; the loss of the love interest; etc.  In meme form, YouTubers and TikTok(k?)ers will feature milestone or rite-of-passage events as “canon events,” often remarking, “I cannot interfere.”  These events are typically something cringe-inducing or silly, like picking a weird name for PlayStation online.

I find the concept of “canon events”—what we used to call a “rite of passage”—interesting, and thought I’d hop on the Internet bandwagon with a little piano piece called “Canon Event.”

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Memorable Monday: Happy Labor Day [2023]!

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Another Labor Day—another day for eating hot dogs and chilling out around the house.  Other than some half-days and a professional development day, it’s the last holiday for yours portly until the insanely good Thanksgiving Break that I get now.

I’m on mild dog sitting duty for my neighbors, so I’m keeping it local this weekend.  I did quite a bit of driving (most of it floozy-related) in early-to-mid-August, so I’m looking forward to a little time at the house.

Looking back at prior year’s LD posts, it seems I did not make it to Florida as predicted last Labor Day.  It ended up being a weekend for some South Carolina-based adventures.

There are more adventures to come, just not this weekend.  This weekend is for the dogs—both canine and hot.

With that, here is “Memorable Monday: Happy Labor Day [2022]!“:

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Lazy Sunday CXVIII: Monarchy

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I’ve been on a British monarchy kick the past month thanks to the excellent biographies over at The People Profiles.  So, as we enjoy the very American Labor Day weekend, let’s also look back at some recent posts about monarchy.

God Save the King—and Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Behind Every Great Man

The Portly Politico2 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.

We’ve all heard the expression “behind every great man, there’s a great woman,” or some permutation of it (my personal favorite is Groucho Marx‘s:  “behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife”).  It’s a familiar expression because it’s generally true, even if not quite as universal as the word “every” suggests.

Just as a bad woman can lead to a man’s swift downfall—or, worse yet, years of misery and then a swift downfall—a good woman can support a man through his trials, and even make him king.

Such was the case of Margaret Beaufort, who, through a combination of skill, diplomacy, wealth, and mother love, guided her son Henry through the complicated and dangerous War of the Roses to emerge as King Henry VII, the first monarch of the Tudor Dynasty.

Her bravery, tenacity, and sheer luck safeguarded her son through a lengthy exile, and ultimately to the height of power.  Her grandson, Henry VIII, would become the most powerful English monarch of his age, so much so that modern historians frequently regard him as a tyrant.

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

September 2023 Bandcamp Friday; NEW RELEASE!

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Ah, yes, Bandcamp Friday has returned, which means I hope you will consider pitching in a few bucks to buy my music—or my second book!  After a long hiatus over the summer months, this celebration of indie musicians is back.

The first Friday of a bunch of months in 2023—February, March, April, May, August, September, October, November, and December—will feature this pro-indie music observance, a day on which Bandcamp waives its usual 15% commission on sales.

In other words, when you buy my music, almost 100% of it goes to me, instead of almost 85%.

To celebrate, I have a brand new release:  Spooky Season!  Spooky Season is a collection of seven new compositions with a spooky, autumnal vibe, perfect for pumpkin-spiced living and ghostly vibes.  These tracks won’t hit streaming platforms until October, but you can purchase them now via Bandcamp!

Spooky Season is just $5, and includes full scores and individual parts for every track—a $28 value!—plus a bonus track.  It’s also crammed with videos, handwritten manuscripts, and other goodies.

Currently, my entire discography of eleven releases is $18.39, a savings of 50%, which is not bad for eleven releases.  That’s $1.67 per release—not too shabby!  To purchase the full discography, click on any release, and you’ll see the option to purchase all of them.

You can also listen to a ton of my tunes on YouTube (and it’s free to subscribe!).

I’m also selling all of my paintings for $10, with free shipping in the United States, regardless of how many you purchase.  They’re one of kind, so once a painting is purchased, it’s gone.

I’ve also joined Society6, a website that lets artists upload their designs, which can they be printed onto all manner of products (like this throw pillow, or this duvet cover).  Why not get a bookbag with a mouthy droid on it?

I only get 10% of the sales made there, but some of the stuff looks really good—I really want these notebooks with my “Desert View” painting on it (now SOLD!).  Some of them are straight-up goofy, like this church doodle I made celebrating the presidential pardon of Roger Stone (the description for the piece is “Anger your friends with this doodle commemorating the presidential pardon of America’s most dapper political operative“).

I have a few new paintings in the works, and hope to be attending the South Carolina Bigfoot Festival to try to hawk some of my works.  We’ll see how that goes!

My first book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot, is $10 in paperback, and just $5 on Kindle.

My second and newest book, Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams: And Other Adventures, is $20 in paperback and $10 on Kindle.

Finally, after I finish Offensive Poems: With Pictures, my planned third book, I’ll be uploading those doodles to Society6 as well.  I have high hopes (perhaps naïvely) for this book, but we shall see.  The doodles are some of my best work—and in glorious color—and without notebook paper lines!

Thanks again for your support!

Happy Friday!

—TPP