Tag: original works

Phone it in Friday XL: YouTube Roundup II

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June is nearly over, and July starts tomorrow.  I’ll be hitting the road for a week in Indianapolis to visit my older brother, which means I’ll probably get another poorly-selling travel book out of the deal—maybe something like Midwestern Musings, Washingtonian Woes.  Of course, I need to finish my series on the wild, stressful trip to Washington, D.C., from this March.  For whatever reason, I just haven’t had it in me to continue writing that saga, even though the best (and, at the time they occurred, the worst) parts are yet to come.

But I digress.  In the spirit of shameless self-promotion, here’s another edition if YouTube Roundup, in which I showcase some of my recent YouTube uploads.  Feel free to follow my YouTube page.  Watch a video, like it, leave a comment—whatever you’d like.  I upload approximately once a week, sometimes more.

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Lazy Sunday CCVIII: Original Music, Part I

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Ah, the glorious summer.  I can already feel it slipping through my Vienna sausage fingers like the grains of sand in an hour glass, or the metaphorical sandbags I’m desperately stacking up against the inexorable tide of the new school year.  I love teaching, but having mornings free to write and the like is glorious.

One perk of summer is that I can actually get out to open mic nights again.  I’ve missed playing live, and I want to find sustainable ways to play during the school year.  It’s difficult, though:  I typically don’t get in from an open mic until 10 PM.  That’s doable during the summer months, but during the school year, I’m usually zonked out by 9 or 9:30 PM, not hanging out with hipsters in some coffee shop.

Regardless, here are some recent posts featuring original pieces, two of which are open mic performances:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Supporting Friends Friday: New Works from Robert Mason Sandifer

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Two years ago I wrote “Supporting Friends Friday: The Cinematic Compositions of Mason Sandifer” about the composing work of one of my student, Robert Mason Sandifer.  Mason (as I call him) started distributing his music to all the major platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, etc.) earlier this month, and he is directly responsible for inspiring me to put my old instrumental music on the same platforms.

Mason is currently undertaking an ambitious project to compose instrumental music that tells the story of the Bible, from Genesis through Revelations (or, as my friend Steve O would say, “from Genesis through Maps”).  It’s an amazing concept, and he has executed it beautifully so far.

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TBT: More Little Paintings: Hearts and an Octopus

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My passion for bizarre, Primitivist artwork has been reignited of late, thanks in part to my setting up a hokey artist page on Society6.  I’ve had a great deal of fun uploading some of my paintings and doodles as designs to the site, and the idea that someone could purchase a duvet cover with a doodle of Roger Stone saying, “MAGA, baby!” tickles me to no end.

I’m also toying with the idea of getting a stall at the upcoming Egg Scramble Jamboree here in Lamar—and, later in the year, getting on at the South Carolina Bigfoot Festival in Westminster, South Carolina—to see if I can, y’know, actually sell some of these paintings.  If I try and fail, then I’ll know it’s little more than a self-indulgent hobby that I can keep to myself.

So I thought I’d throwback to a post from last March, one in which I showcase some of my wacky paintings.

With that, here is 1 March 2022’s “More Little Paintings: Hearts and an Octopus“:

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Open Mic Adventures XXIII: “Gabbi’s Gavotte”

The Portly Politico6 Comments

I’m a tad pressed for time this week, what with the big Music Festival coming up for my students on Thursday.  It’s a flurry of activity for yours portly, so I have a very short little snippet for this week’s edition of Open Mic Adventures.

Regular readers will know of my red tardy slip composing project.  My students have largely been showing up to school on time lately—drat!—so I haven’t had occasion to pen many more miniatures, but I do have a short one that is a bit lively and fun.

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March 2023 Bandcamp Friday—and Artwork!

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