Yours portly has been all over South Carolina and North Carolina (and part of Georgia) the last couple of days, so I’m woefully behind on the blog. More updates to come! For now, suffice it to say that it was a good Thanksgiving with my extended and immediate families, and Murphy enjoyed her quiet time with Dr. Girlfriend.
More to come!
—TPP
Pickup my newest release: Leftovers III! Use promo code ziggurat to take an additional 20% off all purchases on Bandcamp! Code expires at 11:59 PM UTC on Tuesday, 31 December 2024.
My tenth album of the year is out today, Leftovers III. Technically, it’s just an EP, but whatever—I’m proud of it, and I think you’ll enjoy it.
It’s just five bucks on Bandcamp, and with promo code ziggurat it’s an additional 20% off (indeed, that 20% off applies to everything on Bandcamp). My entire discography is $59.64; with 20% off, that’s just $47.71 for twenty-two albums, or about $2.17 per release. Dang!
Barring some sudden boost of inspirado, Leftovers III will be my last release for 2024. I set a goal for myself to release ten albums and/or EPs this year, and I’ve achieved it. I don’t know if 2025 will feature ten albums (probably not), but I’ll definitely be releasing more music at some point next year.
If you’re the streaming type, you can find LIII at the following services:
And pretty much anywhere else where music is streamed.
Here’s hoping everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy these leftovers.
Happy Listening!
—TPP
It’s Thanksgiving, which means yours portly is adding another layer of quasi-Talmudic commentary to his classic “It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle” post from 2017. My life is any many ways the same as it was a year ago, but some things have radically changed for the better.
My schedule at work is much more manageable. I’m no longer teaching nonstop most days, and my number of private lessons are down, which makes them much more manageable. Sure, I’d love the extra cash, and I am looking to increase the number of lessons I’m teaching each week, but I’m also appreciating the extra time.
I’ve released nine albums and/or EPs this year, with a tenth (hopefully!) coming out tomorrow, Leftovers III. It’s been pretty cool composing and releasing so much music this year.
Most significantly, I am dating a wonderful doctor. She is currently in her residency, so she is working very hard, but we see each other frequently. She and I connect at a fundamental level, and share the same core values: we’re devout Christians; we’re vehemently pro-life; we’re MAGA Republicans. It’s great. I’d sworn off “conservative” “Christian” women this summer, which just goes to show how much God Has a sense of Humor. I know it will sound like I am a love-besotted fool, but for many reasons, she and I both believe—and know—that our relationship is the work of the Holy Spirit. We did not arrive at the conclusion lightly.
So, yours portly is thankful for a great deal this Thanksgiving. I am excited to see what the future holds. Trump will be back in office soon, and it feels like we’re entering a golden age.
With that, here is 23 November 2023’s “TBT^65,536: It’s a Thanksgiving Miracle!“:
I finally got around to building the LEGO® Star Wars™ 75347 TIE Bomber™*; what a fun build! It’s a very pleasing set with some cool mini figures—and a Gonk droid!
The set is currently (as of 24 November 2024) 20% off on Amazon, or $51.99 (USD): https://amzn.to/4fZz11P*
I particularly loved the pleasing heft of this set. It feels very solid. I think I have done so many of these flimsy knock-off sets, going back to a real LEGO® set was a refreshing reminder of their high quality.
This Friday, 29 November 2024 my tenth release of the year, Leftovers III, will hit all streaming platforms (including Spotify). In advance of the EP’s release, I wanted to feature the composition that is the centerpiece of LIII, “Hanging Gardens.”
Subscribers to my SubscribeStar page received an early sneak-peek three days ago. Now I want to share this lengthy piece with all of you!
Before that, though, just take a moment to appreciate this decadent album artwork:
I think I made that sandwich over the summer, and took a picture of it about halfway through. No wonder my blood pressure and waistline are showing such high numbers!
But onto the piece itself. “Hanging Gardens” is the longest piece I have ever composed, clocking in at about 10:46 (I think the YouTube video has it at 10:47). I actually wanted to make it longer—around twenty minutes—to give it a more symphonic feel, but I reached the point where I a.) had to finish it to meet the 29 November 2024 release deadline and b.) I was out of ideas to pour into this enigmatic suite.
Yours portly is enjoying one of the benefits of working in modern education: ludicrous amounts off time off from work. As such, here I am indulging in Thanksgiving Break, a time-honored tradition that now lasts an entire week.
Thanksgiving Week is an opportunity to catch up on all of the little errands of life. On Wednesday I’ll get an oil change, a haircut, and an eye exam. A properly lubricated car, a properly cut head of hair, and a properly examined set of peepers—what a day! My doctor is apparently out on a much-deserved sabbatical, so he and I won’t see each other until 2 January 2025—the even of my fortieth birthday!
I’m currently spending time with my personal physician, my sweet girlfriend. Doctor Girlfriend and I enjoyed an early Thanksgiving dinner last night, and the girls—Murphy and her pup—enjoyed cans of turkey-flavored dog slop.
I’ll leave Doctor Girlfriend’s house tomorrow morning, leaving chunky old Murph in her capable hands. My parents have a full house of people coming in for the big day, as well as two young kittens, so out of concern that Murphy might maul the kittens (she hates cats) and generally stink up the joint (she’s a smelly dog, what can I say?), Dr. G has graciously agreed to take in the succulent chunk until I can get back this weekend.
Thanksgiving Break is something of the calm before the storm of the end of the semester. When I get back on 2 December 2024, we’ll have two busy weeks: the school play is Friday, 6 December 2024, and my students’ big concert is during the school day on Friday, 13 December 2024 (what luck!). There’s also quite a bit of Town Council-related business to resolve before the end of the year, and I’m unclear what impact that will have my increasingly tight schedule.
But then all the busyness and pressure lifts for about three weeks. Exam week is easy-peasy for a grizzled pedagogical grognard like yours portly. Followed by two weeks of Christmas Break, and I’m barely working for the next month.
Of course, isn’t that the promise of America? I distinctly remembered friends’ parents who didn’t work the month of December. Granted, they worked for the Savannah River Site, the massive Cold War-era tritium processing facility, so they were essentially federal employees. Naturally, the feds believe it’s a basic human right to get five months paid vacation each year. They’re practically Germans!
But I digress. I’m thankful for what I do, and for time to spend with family and loved ones. Doctor Girlfriend has a real job, so she’ll be working on Thanksgiving Day (and Christmas!). For the rest of us societal freeloaders, let the relaxation begin!
With that, here is 21 November 2022’s “Memorable Monday^2: Thanksgiving Week!“:
After the excitement of the election, yours portly has been really phoning it in lately. I am in good spirits and enjoying blogging, but I’m just a bit tired. It’s normal this time of year: work and life get busy, and I find myself craving a break (and a good night’s sleep).
As such, I’ve been writing a lot of “update” posts lately, which always strike me as rather self-indulgent. Of course, blogging is built on the foundation of self-indulgent navel-gazing, as it is a medium that essentially combines journaling with armchair analysis.
Ergo, enjoy these various, vague posts:
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
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It took some rapid, almost-last-minute composing, but yours portly has completed his tenth release for 2024, the EP Leftovers III. It’ll hit Bandcamp and all streaming platforms this coming Friday, 29 November 2024—Black Friday.
While I have many older, unreleased pieces locked between the FAT32 file system and within the confines of Cakewalk 3.0 (which ran on DOS-based Windows 3.1!), I don’t have access to any super old material for this third Leftovers installment. As such, I actually composed some pieces specifically for it, which runs somewhat contrary to the ethos of the Leftovers releases. Leftovers and Leftovers II consisted largely of pieces I’d written (or started to write), but which I abandoned for one reason or another. Some of them I finished for the releases, slapping on endings or tying up incomplete phrases. Others were super old pieces that I’d never distributed digitally, so the only way to hear them was by being one of the few dozen people who received homemade burnt CDs with my tunes on them back in the late Aughts.
For LIII, I composed new works. Some of them are just short snippets that I’d jotted down in my music journal. But I also wanted to write something long and epic.
The result is “Hanging Gardens” a musical fantasy suite for piccolo, flute, trombone, and tuba.
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Yours portly is still playing catch-up this Friday, so I’m really phoning it in. I’m actually writing this hasty post mere minutes before my usual 6:30 AM EST posting deadline, so I’ll doubtless be a tad late with this post.
There isn’t one particular reason why I’ve fallen behind a bit on posting (and several other things!). Life is good and my schedule at work is very manageable. It’s mostly a situation of having several things to get done at once, combined with some long days of lessons and errands.
But I am very blessed. Wednesday evening I was out running some errands—I needed to pick up ingredients for a taco dip I bring to parties, as the teachers had a “Friendsgiving” potluck meal yesterday—and my car battery died in the Taco Bell parking lot (that wasn’t for Friendsgiving; that was for me).
After weeks of indeterminate weather, shifting from wintry frostiness to high summer heat and humidity, it seems that autumn has finally, noncommittally arrived. It’s “noncommittal” because we’re still experiencing these weird snaps of rainy humidity that, rather than lowering the temperature, somehow increase it, and the insufferable mugginess along with it.
This muggy November weather gives me a case of the horribles, but today the low is 38 degrees Fahrenheit, with a high of 57. Glorious! That’s the kind of weather for which this South Carolinian lives.
Longtime readers will know that I love the fall. The heat and humidity break, and I can finally wear nicer clothes without the fear of roasting alive. Most of my career I have basted in dress shirts and sports coats, so it’s refreshing when I can wear those—and even a professorial sweater vest!—and not break a doughy, obese sweat.
Obviously, Halloween is a major highlight of autumn. Another major one is Thanksgiving, that celebratory gateway to Christmas. It is a season for celebrating the year’s achievements—and for settling into cozy hibernation mode.
So I say, bring on the long, cold nights! Bring on the late afternoon cup of decaf! Bring on the quiet mornings with LEGOs and God’s Word.
In short, bring on the hygge.
With that, here is 28 September 2023’s “TBT^16: The Joy of Autumn“:
The Portly Politico 