March 2023 Bandcamp Friday—and Artwork!

3 March 202326 February 2023 The Portly Politico2 Comments

Here we are—the second Bandcamp Friday of 2023!

The first Friday of a bunch of months this year—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%.

Currently, my entire discography of ten releases is $9.50, a savings of 45%, which is not bad for ten releases. That’s $0.95 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.

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.

But here’s the exciting news: I’ve 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 (which again, is just $10 for the one-and-only original). 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 haven’t done any new painting lately, but I do have two new doodles for just $5 each: Robo Talk 23 No. 1 and No. 2. I’m also working on quite a few more doodles for Society6, which will also end up here.

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

Thanks again for your support!

Happy Friday!

—TPP

Hustlin’ with Private Lessons

7 September 20225 September 2022 The Portly Politico6 Comments

The school year is back in full swing, and with the brief respite of Labor Day behind me, it’s a long stretch of mind-molding from here until Thanksgiving.

Fortunately, the school year means music lessons, and music lessons—as one former colleague, now retired, frequently reminds me—mean money.

I don’t love money, but I certainly need it. And I love teaching music lessons, so it’s a happy way to bring in some extra bacon while also teaching kids (and adults!) to make music. There are few things I enjoy more than nurturing a love of music; if I make a few quid in the process, well, all the better!

The Lord has blessed me with an abundance—perhaps an over-abundance—of lessons. At the time of this writing, I am sitting at twenty-six lessons a week across twenty-four students. Scheduling has been a bit of a nightmare, but I think I have it largely figured out (of course, whenever I think that, some conflict arises and I have to play scheduling roulette—ha!).

TBT: Summertime Schedule Begins

9 June 20225 June 2022 The Portly Politico19 Comments

As of about 8 PM EST last Thursday, I’ve been living the Summer Break Lifestyle. Other than camp and lessons, I’ve been enjoying a much more leisurely pace of living.

Summer is already filling up fast. While the first week of Minecraft Camp is in the books, I have another session next week. I’m attempting to run my Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for the second year, but as of the time of writing, it looks like I might just have one student, so that may get axed.

Nevertheless, it’s a good time to knock out some projects, especially when I wrap up camps. I’m hoping to get back—finally!—to wrapping up the first volume of my Sunday Doodles book, which will go through the first fifty editions of the feature (over at my SubscribeStar page). Indeed, I may do the first 100 editions, as I am currently at 144. That will require more editing, but will make for a beefier book.

It’s also time to get cracking on some short stories. I’ve been sitting on one story about a guy who eats an undercooked frozen pizza with bizarre consequences; now I need to write it!

With that, here is 8 June 2021’s “Summertime Schedule Begins“:

Minecraft Camp 2022

7 June 20225 June 2022 The Portly Politico10 Comments

Yesterday (Monday, 6 June 2022) marked the beginning of Minecraft Camp 2022. I’ve been doing Minecraft Camp since 2014, when a former colleague of mine created the camp and brought me on as his assistant. That first camp—eight long years ago!—was announced on Friday, 6 June 2014 (it started on Monday, 9 June 2014) so there’s a nice symmetry there. The cycle of time—and Minecraft—marches on.

My former colleague created a little blog for Minecraft Camp, Minecrafting at 5001, way back then, but I did not do a great job of keeping it updated last year. That’s in part because we had something like sixteen campers, which made keeping up with the blog difficult.

I’m hoping to keep it updated a bit more frequently this time around. I’m actually running two sessions of camp this year: one this week, and another next week. At the time of writing, I have eight campers confirmed, with a possible ninth. I just have three campers for the second session, but I look for that to change—Thursday of last week I just had five campers enrolled in the morning; by that afternoon, I had three more last-minute sign-ups. One of my campers is doing both sessions.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Yuletide Mania

4 December 20214 December 2021 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.

The Christmas season is upon us, and nary did Thanksgiving end did the insane scrambling of the season commence.

Regular readers know I’m a hustler—I’ve always got some moneymaking schemes going: primarily private music lessons, but also gigging, writing, calling sporting events, staging concerts, selling t-shirts, hawking weird art, etc. These are all fun activities in addition to being lucrative, but it’s easy for them to get overwhelming, especially when they all hit at once.

Well, Christmastime—at least the first couple of weeks of December—seems to be a time when everything comes to a head at the same time (thus today’s later-than-usual post). This past week was particularly grueling, with a number of events requiring my attention, sometimes nearly at the same time.

For those interested in the opportunities of perils of juggling different side gigs and responsibilities, today’s post will detail how I managed to teach almost all of my lessons for the week and setup lighting and sound for a pageant; reset that lighting and sound for a play; attended play tech and dress rehearsals; played a dinner at church and will play a longer Christmas set today; rode in a parade; and successfully made it through two stagings of the aforementioned play.

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

Lazy Sunday CXIX: Summer Camps

27 June 202126 June 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Well, my two summer camps for the season are all wrapped up, so the rest of summer vacation is a combination of private music lessons, blogging, gardening, and loafing around the house. I’ll also get in some family time, and will help schlep my girlfriend’s stuff to Athens. I hope to get a little fiction writing done in there, too.

With my camps done for the summer, I thought I’d dedicate this Sunday to looking back at some posts about my various summertime endeavors:

“Hustlin’: Minecraft Camp 2019” (and “TBT: Hustlin’: Minecraft Camp 2019“) – This post was, perhaps, one of my first about Minecraft Camp. In it, I detailed the ebbing and flowing of Minecraft’s popularity. We seem to be in a flow right now, with one of the most well-attended camps since 2014.
“SubscribeStar Saturday: Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp Review” (post on my SubscribeStar page) – This lengthy post details my first Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp. We had a small enrollment of three campers, but it was a perfect group for the first run of the camp. I’m excited to do it again next year.
“Minecraft Camp 2021 Begins!” – This post marked the beginning of last week’s Minecraft Camp. In it, I go into a bit of the details about how we run camp.
“SubscribeStar Saturday: Minecraft Camp 2021 Review” (post on my SubscribeStar page) – This post gives a very detailed rundown of last week’s camp, going into the financials involved, as well as some of the tech details. I even breakdown the daily schedule for camp, and the kinds of issues and opportunities that present themselves.

That’s it for this Lazy Sunday! Take a moment to leave a comment about your favorite summer camp.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Tip The Portly Politico: Support quality commentary on politics, education, culture, and the arts with your one-time donation.

***NOTE: This link is NOT a subscription to my SubscribeStar Page; it is for a one-time donation/tip via PayPal. To subscribe to my SubscribeStar page, use this URL: https://subscribestar.com/the-portly-politico***

SubscribeStar Saturday: Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp Review

19 June 202117 June 2021 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.

This past week I hosted the first of two summer camps I’m putting on in June. Next week is the ubiquitous, ever-popular Minecraft Camp, but this week saw the first inaugural Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp at my little school.

I’m not sure why I didn’t conceive of this idea sooner. It’s not an original one, as rock ‘n’ roll fantasy camps have been around for awhile. I’m not Ted Nugent teaching middle-aged yuppies how to play “Stranglehold” in the woods, but porting that concept to rockin’ out with kids is not difficult to do.

But last summer my headmaster kept forwarding me e-mails from a local country club, which was itself hosting a summer rock camp. He did not include any commentary or suggestions along the lines of “you should do this camp,” but I got the message. So when it came time to put together our summer camp catalogue, I tossed Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp into the mix.

My headmaster’s implied suggestion was a good one: the camp was really wonderful. Indeed, it exceeded my expectations, in large part because of the small but talented group of campers who attended. We only had three kids sign up this year, but I’ve had semester-long ensemble classes with that few students, so I knew we could make some musical magic even with a small group. Indeed, we had the perfect number for a classic garage rock band: four (including myself).

Here’s some of the details about the camp—how long it lasted, a breakdown of our days, and the songs we played. Hopefully it will provide a useful blueprint for other music educators looking to host their own camps.

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

Summertime Schedule Begins

8 June 20218 June 2021 The Portly Politico4 Comments

After a long school year and a whirlwind trip to Universal Studios, I am finally settling into my summertime schedule. My History of Conservative Thought course did not “make” this summer, as I only had one student enroll (the course really needs a minimum of three students to work well), but my dance card is full enough with lessons and other obligations and engagements.

Next week I’ll be running my first ever “Rock and Roll Camp” at my little school. It will essentially be a condensed version of the Music Ensemble class I run throughout the school year, squeezed into four three-hour days. The plan is to end the final day with a short concert. I’m waiting to hear back on who is enrolled and what kind of instrumentation we have, as that will determine the song selections, but I think it will should be a fun camp.

After that it’s the return of Minecraft Camp, a perennial favorite. At last count I have either ten or eleven campers signed up for that camp, which is quite good. Minecraft Camp is the most lucrative camp of the summer, and accounts for a good chunk of my supplemental income this time of year. I missed out on it last year, as I was very sick, so here’s hoping I’m good to go this summer.

TBT^2: April Fool’s Day: A Retrospective

1 April 202122 March 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

The Kindle version of The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot goes live today! If you pre-ordered the book, it should pop up in your Kindle app today. At $5, it’s a very easy lift, as is the paperback at $15.

It’s April Fool’s Day, a holiday for mirth and merriment, but one I dedicate to remembering the day twelve years ago when I faced unemployment during the worst job market since the Great Depression.

In rereading last year’s TBT and the original “April Fool’s Day: A Retrospective,” I’m reminded how good God has been to me. Last year I’d lost most of my private lesson students due to The Virus; now, I’m back up to seven students (six weekly, one twice a month), and I’ve just released a book (the Kindle version goes live today!). Gigging still hasn’t really picked back up, but Bandcamp sales have been decent (and another Bandcamp Friday is tomorrow!), and my front porch Spooktacular was a blast.

I’m still hustlin’, but I’m also taking more time to appreciate life. Perhaps the hard slog of my twenties has finally paid off here in my mid-thirties.

With that, here are “April Fool’s Day: A Retrospective” and “TBT: April Fool’s Day: A Retrospective“:

The Portly Politico

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

Tag: hustling