This announcement is no April Fool’s joke: next Thursday, 1 April 2021, I’ll be releasing my first-ever book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot, available as a digital eBook (available 1 April) and a physical paperback (available now!).
Inspector Gerard is an absurdist, postmodern, film noir private investigator who always solves his cases—sometimes before he’s even seen the clues!
In maintaining this blog, I write mostly for the fulfillment and enjoyment of writing. It helps clarify my thoughts, and the act of writing—especially in the mornings—is calming (oddly, even when I’m writing about something infuriates me). The blog is not a moneymaking venture (though it has started bringing in a few bucks a month thanks to SubscribeStar).
That said, I often use the blog to push my music and merch—and, often, to straight-up beg for donations and subscriptions. It seems like I’ve been making more of these appeals lately, so in the spirit of self-indulgent self-promotion, I decided to dedicate this Lazy Sunday to a solipsistic sampling of sales pitches:
So, if those posts don’t convince you to give me your money, well, it’s a lost cause. But thanks for reading!
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***
It’s another Bandcamp Friday, which means if you buy my music today, Bandcamp doesn’t take their cut, which means I’m dedicating yet another post to pitching you my tunes and my merch (and my SubscribeStar page).
I make this appeal once a month or so, so I don’t want to sound like a broken record (no pun intended), but The Virus has really hit musicians hard over the last year. My royalty payments from ASCAP in 2021 (based on performances in 2020) will be virtually non-existent (I usually bring in around $200-300 in performance royalties annually from my writer and publishing accounts—not much, but it helps), because there were virtually no performances last year. Besides lost royalty payments, there’s the lost revenue from gigs, tips, and music lessons (the last of which is, thankfully, picking back up considerably—praise the Lord!).
Last May readers responded to the call and bought my tunes (you can pick up the entire discography for $19.98—a 35% discount, my biggest discount yet). If you’d like to support independent musicians, today is a great day to do it, as I’ll take home (nearly) 100% of the purchase.
I also have some interesting merch available. I’m currently offering two completely original doodles, “Bird of Paradise” and “Bleeding Heart,” for just $10 each. There are no other physical copies in existence, so you’d own these lovingly doodled marker pictures—and no one else. They make great “bathroom art”—the kind of thing that would look good in a guest bathroom, or maybe a tacky beach house.
I’m also clearing out the last few remaining “Flamin’” t-shirts for $15 (plus $5 shipping; the featured image for this post is on the shirt). These shirts are rare and I won’t be making any more of them.
An easy (and free) way to support me is to “follow” my Bandcamp page. I post updates about new merchandise, new music, and other interesting offers about once a month. It’s a good way to keep up with the latest news on my musical adventures.
Another free way to support me is to turn off your ad-blocker. The site delivers several thousand ad impressions monthly, but most of those are blocked, which means they don’t pay out. You can usually find the ad-blocker as a little widget or icon in the upper-right-hand side of your browser; click on it and it will usually give you the option to “pause” or stop the blocker from running on this site. I know ads are annoying, but seeing a few DuckDuckGo ads helps out in an incremental way.
Of course, you can always take the plunge and subscribe to my SubscribeStar page. It’s very affordable and grants you access to exclusive posts on Saturdays (and bonus content for $5 and up subscribers). It’s also the easiest way to support the site on a recurring basis.
Finally, you can send a one-time tip as well; thank you to those of you who have done so.
If you can’t afford to support the site, no worries! I’m thankful to have you here. You can always share my posts with friends, family, and other like-minded folks. And I always love comments and words of encouragement—as well as suggestions about the kinds of content you’d like to see.
Thank you again, as always, for your support.
Happy Listening!
—TPP
It’s another Bandcamp Friday, which means if you buy my music today, Bandcamp doesn’t take their cut; ergo, yours portly pockets a few more dimes.
Those dimes add up. Regular readers know that I’m a major advocate of sensible financial planning and reducing unnecessary spending (at one point, I would have been an “extreme budgeter,” but now some hedonic adaptation has kicked in and I’m enjoying the fruits of my labor a bit more). I also promote hustling—working hard and spinning different side gigs—to generate extra income.
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.
Last April I wrote a detailed review (preview) of the Hammer Films Collection. I’m currently making my way through Volume II of the collection, both of which feature Hammer Studios films that Columbia Pictures distributed.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to complete the second volume in time to review it today, but I will do so in a couple of weeks. However, Christmas brought a bumper crop of films from the famous Hammer Studios, including a collection of four Dracula films distributed by Warner Brothers and an eight-film compilation of Universal Studios horror flicks.
I’ll be reviewing the first four films on the Universal Studios-distributed collection, The Hammer Horror Series, and reviewing the second four next Saturday. At the time of writing, the collection is only $17.21 on Amazon for the DVD ($34.99 for the Blu-Ray edition); at that price, I’d definitely recommend picking it up to enjoy these flicks yourself.
The collection includes eight films in total: Brides of Dracula, The Curse of the Werewolf, The Phantom of the Opera, Paranoiac, The Kiss of the Vampire, Nightmare, Night Creatures, and The Evil of Frankenstein. Today I’ll be reviewing Brides of Dracula, The Curse of the Werewolf, The Phantom of the Opera, and Paranoiac.
To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.
Seeing as it’s Christmastime, I’m taking a more light-hearted approach to posts this week, focusing on Christmas and the fun and music surrounding it. To celebrate Christmas (and Festivus, which is today), I decided to share some of my favorite Sunday Doodles with you.
Normally Sunday Doodles are exclusive for $5 a month and higher SubscribeStar subscribers (and $3/month subs get doodles the first Sunday of the month), so think of this retrospective as a small Christmas present to you, my loyal readers. If you want the full commentary on each doodle, though, you’ll have to subscribe.
The Very First Sunday Doodles – “Rose-Tinted Glasses” & “Cheeks”
These two doodles were from the first Sunday Doodles, dated 11 November 2019 (Veterans’ Day!). “Rose-Tinted Glasses” has appeared as the “featured image” on posts before, but the Peter Griffin-esque “Cheeks” is new to the free site.
Sunday Doodles II – “Disco Dracula” and “The Hardcore Monsignor”
You can tell early on I was still going strong with my doodling A-game, as this second Sunday Doodles—from 18 November 2019—suggests.. “Disco Dracula”—who looks like a character from a 70s Blaxploitation film—and “The Hardcore Monsignor”—derivative of Monsignor Martinez from King of the Hill—are both awesome looking dudes. “The Hardcore Monsignor” has been on the free site before, though I can’t remember the context. “Disco Dracula” looks particularly spooky—and funky!
Sunday Doodles V – “Sophisticated Baby” & “The Toxic Drooler”
These doodles from the fifth Sunday Doodles (8 December 2019) feature two chunky babies of wildly different backgrounds. “Sophisticated Baby” cracks me up every time I see it, especially the martini and the cigar. “The Toxic Drooler” is what happens when I find a green pen on the ground and have time in a faculty meeting.
The Latest Sunday Doodles – #58!
As you can see, dear reader, you’ve missed out on a lot of Sunday Doodles. The most recent edition, from this past Sunday, 20 December 2020, features some Christmas cheer, so I figured closing out on “Snowman” and “Christmas Tree” would be a fitting end to this post:
There you go—a small taste of the fun you’re missing. I love a good doodle, and I’d love for you to get more of them every Sunday.
Subscribing is a great Christmas gift to yourself—and to yours portly! ‘Tis the season, after all. *Ding!*
Merry Christmas!
—TPP
Tip The Portly Politico
Support quality commentary on politics, education, culture, and the arts with your one-time donation.
$1.00
[Note–after reviewing my accounting, I realized I double-counted some tip money as also a private lesson payment, so I’ve adjusted numbers down $50. That caused some minor changes in my calculations. Those should be updated and correct now. —TPP, 18 December 2020]
Regular readers will know that since March 2020, Bandcamp has been waiving its commission on sales through its platform on the first Friday of each month. The company even dedicated a webpage to answering the burning question “Is it Bandcamp Friday?“
The promotion has been a real boon for musicians—myself included—who have seen a major reduction in revenue from gigs, lessons, merch sales, and other sources of income. I just ran the numbers, and I grossed around $4976.18 this year from lessons, gigs (including a play I was in), merchandise sales, streaming payments (only $10.15—and it took five years to accumulate that much!), and Bandcamp sales (around $159.03 after payment processing fees and Bandcamp’s commission from purchases not made on Bandcamp Fridays). That’s compared to roughly $9099 grossed last year from the same sources, so about 54.69% of the revenue in 2020 vs. 2019. My lesson revenue fell to 45.34% of its value in 2019, from $7465 to $3385 (but I also only drove 1941 miles for lessons in 2020, versus just over 6000 miles for lessons in 2019).
Christmastime always puts me in a musical mood, as blog posts this week suggest. Christmas is the perfect season to illustrate the power of music, as so much wonderful music has been written about Christ’s Birth.
In The Before Times, in the Long, Long Ago, before The Age of The Virus, it was also a lucrative season for musicians. Other than wedding gigs (a market I haven’t managed to crack into yet), nothing pays better than a Christmas party. They’re fun, full of free food, and they pay well. The spirit of free-flowing generosity (and the generosity of free-flowing spirits) results in some warm winter paydays.
Of course, this year has been particularly tough for musicians, as I’ve detailed many, many times before. Revenues from private lessons and gigs seem to be bouncing back (at least for me), and the struggles of The Virus brought forth a burst of generosity. Bandcamp Fridays really helped inject some much-needed cash into the coffers of independent musicians (myself included).
Musicians have also had to get creative. That’s why I hosted my annual Spooktacular from my front porch. Venues are constrained by various local and State laws (and sometimes dictatorial edicts) limiting their capacities, and many eateries have been slow to resume live shows. That’s created real limitations on venues and artists, but it’s also opened up opportunities. My Spooktacular was mildly profitable, but it also brought people together for desperately-needed fun and camaraderie (and put a few bucks into the pockets of the musicians involved). I don’t know if that model will endure once The Virus is defeated, but it’s something for musicians to consider in this strange new world.
But for all I’ve written about the damage The Virus has caused to musicians’ finances, I haven’t looked at the impact on venues at all. That’s an unfortunate oversight on my part, because a venues’ success or failure can directly impact that of an artist. Many musically-inclined venues are coffee shops or small restaurants, so they largely cut live music as they went to take-out-only and delivery formats.
It’s that time of year where every vaguely commercial enterprise capitalizes on the the post-Thanksgiving Christmas season build-up to beg for your hard-earned dollars. We’ve had Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday (is there a “Tithing Sunday” in there, too?). Now it’s “Giving Tuesday,” the day designated for giving money to this or that charitable organization or dubious non-profit.
Prepare to have your inbox deluged with solicitations from various (and variably worthy) 501(c)(3)s, playing on the cheerfulness and generosity of Christmas in the hopes that you’ll pony up $25 or $50. They’ll all claim they’re worthy causes—but how do you know?
Instead of running the risk of giving your merry moola to some Left-leaning charity, let me advise you on where to donate. As much I’d love for you to support my blog (which, of course, I encourage you to do), here are some of bloggers, creators, and institutions that could really use your support:
Other than Roosh V, probably the greatest influence on my deeper red-pilling was Gavin McInnes. McInnes’s commentary is funny, lively, and fresh. I have consumed hundreds of hours of his popular podcast, Get Off My Lawn, so I’ve heard a lot of his thoughts on a broad range of topics. Even when I disagree with his assessment of some event, his perspective is unique and interesting.
Milo is also a part of McInnes’s world, and his sharp, erudite, biting commentary—and excellent journalism—routinely inspire posts on this site, such as Monday’s piece “What is Civilization?“
Back in Summer 2019, McInnes—who, like Laura Loomer, has been banned from multiple platforms—launched Censored.TV, which at the time was FreeSpeech.TV (thus the brackets in this post’s title, and in the original post below; the service changed its name after another company threatened a trademark suit against McInnes). The service, which is just $10 a month or $100 for a year, features about a dozen different personalities and shows, ranging from “Gary’s Mailbag”—a homeless man who wanders around outside the studio and reads letters—to Milo’s raucous “Friday Night’s All Right.”
The main message of the original post was to encourage readers to support content they like (myself included!), especially conservatives. Platforms like SubscribeStar help give conservatives and dissidents a voice, but those platforms are oases of freedom in a desert of techno-tyranny.
With that, here is 2019’s “FreeSpeech.TV Lineup Announced“:
Thanks to my brother for this nocturnal news update: Gavin McInnes’s new subscription-based service, [Censored.TV], is ready to launch. Listeners to the excellent, hilarious Get Off My Lawn podcast know that Gavin has been planning this platform for some time now, so it’s exciting to see the lineup. The most exciting part of that schedule: the twice-monthly sit-downs with Milo Yiannopoulos to talk about the news. Talk about throwing gasoline onto a raging fire of awesomeness.
The service is $10 a month, or $100 a year, which is on par with Steven Crowder’s Mug Club or Ben Shapiro’s subscription. I just don’t think it comes with a Leftist Tears Hot-or-Cold Tumbler, much less a far superior hand-etched mug. But with McInnes’s crazy, controversial, humorous observations about life and culture, I can live without a drinking vessel tossed in (although it would be hysterical to drink coffee from a mug made to look like McInnes’s bearded mug).
Because of constant censorship from techno-elites and their ever-shifting “terms of services,” conservative and Dissident Right voices have fewer and fewer options to raise funds. Some sites, like immigration patriot website VDare.com, can’t even use PayPal anymore. As such, more and more content creators are turning to alternative or free-speech-friendly services, or undertaking the cost of creating their own infrastructure, so they can continue to get their work to fans.
I am definitely a small fry in this game of commentary, but that’s why I’ve setup a page with SubscribeStar. My goal isn’t too live off of subscriptions, but just to supplement my income slightly to make blogging more on a daily basis more feasible (and to reinvest some of the funds into maintaining and improving the experience).
For guys like Gavin McInnes, who has been hounded from even supposed safe havens like his old employer, CRTV (now BlazeTV), reliable income streams aren’t a passing lark—they’re absolutely crucial.
In a better timeline, McInnes would be hosting Red Eye. But he’s a fighter, and I have no doubt his new service will continue to deliver the laughs.
Free speech isn’t free. Support creators like McInness, Crowder, Shapiro, and Milo to the best of your ability to keep their content alive.
If you’d like to support MY content, consider signing up for a subscription to my SubscribeStar page. New, exclusive content every Saturday, starting at just $1 a month.
Donate to The Portly Politico
Support quality commentary on politics, education, culture, and the arts with your one-time donation.
$5.00
The Portly Politico 