Tag: Rainbow

TBT^16: Reclaim the Rainbow

The Portly Politico15 Comments

It seems that last year’s trend of major corporations downplaying gayness is continuing.  Yes, a recent iPhone iOS update mentioned including a “Pride” background or wallpaper or some such nonsense, and I’m sure all of my phone’s apps will turn into rainbows until July, but the more blatant and outrageous stuff seems less prevalent.

As I noted last year, I could be wrong, but the general tenor of the times have changed.  The essential problem with all of corporate America and our governments celebrating homosexuality is that, eventually, all of these people will die off.  You’re already engaging in a form of behavior that makes procreation impossible, and even the heterosexual fellow travelers (“allies”) are pumping themselves full of birth control and/or anti-human ideology.  The demographic reality favors religious traditionalists, not men in assless chaps engaging in buggery.

I don’t think that demographic implosion has occurred yet, but maybe we’re witnessing the beginnings of it.  In twenty years, I would not be surprised if Target quietly pulled all “Pride” celebrations and began marketing baby diapers to conservative Christians aggressively.

Regardless, let’s pray for all of those lost in the quagmire of sin; we’re there, but Christ Redeems and Saves—even the guys in assless chaps.

With that, here is 6 June 2024’s “TBT^4: Reclaim the Rainbow“:

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PRISM Out Today!

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My new album, PRISM, is out today, Friday, 7 February 2025. Use promo code “photon” to get 20% off this release, my biggest and longest to date!

PRISM follows the journey of a single photon through the spectrum of light, flashing from darkness through the dazzling light and color of the rainbow.

The entire album clocks in at fifty minutes, and features my longest composition to date, the title track, “PRISM.” It also comes packed with bonus material, including the following:

  • Full PDF scores of each piece!
  • Unique artwork!
  • Original, handwritten manuscript scores!
  • Original music videos for nine of the eleven tracks!

PRISM is a conceptual musical journey that encourages deep, meditative listening. It also makes for good background music if that’s more your speed.

PRISM is available on the following platforms:

Remember, use promo code “photon” for 20% off!

Happy Listening!

TBT^4: Reclaim the Rainbow

The Portly Politico7 Comments

Perhaps it is my own ignorance of worldly affairs, but it feels like the gay stuff has been toned down dramatically this June.  After many years of insufferable degeneracy masquerading as “tolerance,” the “pride” people went too far, and people who didn’t want their kids stuffing dollar bills into gay men’s leather thongs or getting secret gender reassignment surgery through their local elementary school’s guidance office rose up and fought back—by withholding their spending.

Conservative efforts at boycotts have always been iffy, but now they actually seem to be working.  Target saw a substantial reduction in its business after displaying kid’s clothing that came equipped with wiener-tucking compartments for all those “trans” kids out there.  Budweiser—the most American beer, perhaps the most American product, period, after maybe the Ford F-150 and Levi’s—lost so much market share that Modelo—a Mexican beer company!—dethroned it as the king of beers.  In this case, I don’t think you can chalk that up to mass Mexican immigration.

Of course, I could be wrong.  In spite of these clear messages that most Americans don’t want to be forced to “celebrate” a tiny minority’s sexual peccadilloes, I suspect that we’re going to keep having public homosexual erotica thrust into our faces (perhaps quite literally) whether we like it or not.

All the more reason, then, to reclaim the rainbow.  What was once a symbol of God’s Promise to Moses—and, thereby, humanity at large—has been co-opted to represent the government’s promise to emasculate and depopulate all of us.

With that, here is 22 June 2023’s “TBT^2: Reclaim the Rainbow“:

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TBT^2: Reclaim the Rainbow

The Portly Politico4 Comments

In our age of identity politics, where every individual’s personal peccadilloes are deemed a political statement and therefore there is, ironically, no division between the individual and the state, we are forced to celebrate “pride,” one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  Apparently, partaking in casual buggery with one’s demiqueer otherkin is cause for public celebrations and live sex acts performed before children.

That said, all the “Pride Month” foolishness seems more toned down this year.  There’s no doubt it’s still there, sashaying its glittery sinfulness through corporate America, but the rainbow is more muted.  Readers have probably heard how Target shuffled its Pride displays in Southern locations away from the fronts of stores after backlash from kid’s clothing with wiener-tucking abilities.  Anecdotally, while strolling through PetSmart, I saw one tiny display of “Pride” dog toys in the far back portion of the store.  Modern dog owners are already kind of weirdos (gulp!) who seem like they’d be into any alternative lifestyle, so even here in the South, it seems like PetSmart could get away with more flamboyant displays.  Instead, they’re sticking to what they do best—selling overpriced pet supplies.

The backlash seems to be from the increasingly overt efforts to force “Pride” onto children.  When it was just adults being forced to watch two men make out on television, or vague proclamations that “love is love,” we might wince, but it was hard to get over the (disingenuous and flawed) argument that “it’s just consenting adults; we’re just raising awareness.”

Now that there’s the clear grooming of children going on—an active effort to indoctrinate and seduce children into highly inappropriate and unnatural sexual relationships with adults—people are finally waking up.  The quest for homosexual “rights” was nothing but a Trojan condom horse to prey upon the vulnerable and the innocent.

Thirty years ago, it was, “we just want to come out of the shadows.”

Twenty years ago, it was, “we just want to get married, too.”

Ten years ago, it was, “we want to become another gender.”

Now it’s “we want to force your child to become a gender, then we want to have sex with it.”

Sin surely sends us down a slippery slope.

With that, here is “TBT: Reclaim the Rainbow“:

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Reclaim the Rainbow

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Orthodox Christian, America Firster, former US Senate candidate for Delaware, and current babe Lauren Witzke posted a meme to her Telegram page a few days ago featuring a rainbow with the Cross emblazoned in front of it, with the captions “June is Christianity Month” and “Reclaim the Rainbow.”

It’s a clever meme, of course, because June has become Pride Month, a month dedicated to forced corporate celebrations of abiological and immoral lifestyles.

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TBT: Hard Rock Reviews on Orion’s Cold Fire

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Every year my school puts on an over-the-top Christmas concert, which is just eight days away (yikes!).  Since Christmas is the most important holiday of the year (second only to Easter in its theological significance for Christians), my belief is that we should honor Jesus’ birth with an epic rock concert.

We do all the heartwarming holiday classics (including the best Christmas song ever written, “O, Holy Night”).  We also will take a timeless 70s or 80s hard rock classic and either a.) put it into a medley of Christmas tunes and/or b.) change the lyrics to Christmas ones.  For example, one year we took Dio’s “Holy Diver” and linked it to “Joy to the World.”  We then changed the opening lyric of “Holy Diver/You’ve been down too long in the midnight sea” to “Merry Christmas!/You’ve been down too long in the Arctic Sea.”  And so on.

Anyway, in the spirit of the Christmas season, I thought I’d dig up a real deep cut:  my review of Rainbow’s Down to Earth that I wrote for Orion’s Cold Fire, when I was contributing to photog’s website more regularly.  Once I started on this year of blogging, I lacked the time to do these reviews, but I’ll hopefully write some more this Christmas (if photog will have me).

This TBT features two posts:  the post on this blog about the review, and the review itself as it appears on Orion’s Cold Fire.

Enjoy, Merry Christmas, and rock on!

—TPP

Post on The Portly Politico Linking to the Album Review

Blogger photog has graciously agreed to publish some of my short music reviews on his blog, Orion’s Cold Fire. Specifically, I’m contributing reviews of classic hard rock and heavy metal albums, genres that I believe represent the artistic and technical pinnacles of rock and roll.

My first review, of Rainbow’s 1979 album Down to Earth, is available now on OCF. Check it out—and rock on!

Review of Down to Earth on Orion’s Cold Fire

Link:  https://orionscoldfire.com/index.php/2018/12/19/the-portly-politicos-review-of-rainbows-down-to-earth/

The good folks at Orion’s Cold Fire have generously allowed me the opportunity to contribute to the site.  I write primarily about politics, economics, and history at https://theportlypolitico.wordpress.com, but as a “semi-pro” musician (and a full-time music teacher), I enjoy occasionally critiquing music.  The purpose of this feature is to review classic 70s and 80s-era hard rock and heavy metal albums.  Why such a specific genre and time period?  Essentially, I believe this genre represents the pinnacle of rock music.  With its confluence of blues, acid rock, country-western, and all the other distinct musical “flavors” of the mid-twentieth century, rock and roll reached its greatest artistic and technical summits during the “classic rock” era.  I’ll write further about that contentious claim at a later date; but now, let’s boogie!

When considering an album to review, I more or less use this criteria:  does it sound like hard rock/heavy metal?  Have I listened to it enough to comment upon it?  And does it rock?  That’s not the best criteria, as it predisposes me to writing glowing reviews of every album, but there you have it—the highly unscientific approach I take to writing about music I generally love.

All that aside, my first album review for Orion’s Cold Fire was a no-brainer:  1979’s Down to Earth by Rainbow.  This album perfectly encapsulates the direction of rock music at that crucial turning point between punk and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

Down to Earth was the first and only Rainbow album to feature Graham Bonnet on lead vocals, who replaced legendary metal vocalist Ronnie James Dio.  Rainbow’s guitarist and mastermind, Ritchie Blackmore, was notorious for sacking musicians on a whim, so most of the album’s personnel was wildly different than even the previous Rainbow release.

Regardless, this album rocks.  While he’s no Dio, the songs on Down to Earth are uniquely suited for Bonnet’s vocals—probably because he wrote the melodies after the band had already recorded all of the tracks.

The album’s big hit—and Rainbow’s first hit single—is “Since You Been Gone,” a Russ Ballard-penned tune that strikes the right balance between rock and pop.  The chorus is catchy as the flu, but like any good hard rock song, the pre-chorus build really sets up the triumphant release of the chorus beautifully.  Listen to the bass and guitar after the line “Your poison letter, your telegram” and you’ll see what I mean.

That said, my favorite tracks are the opening and closing numbers, “All Night Long” and “Lost in Hollywood,” respectively.  Musically, they rock, and “Lost in Hollywood” passes what I call the “drive test”—I drive much faster when listening to it.  It also features some of Rainbow’s signature neoclassical embellishments, pointing to the rise of neoclassical metal.

Lyrically, they’re fairly depressing commentaries of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, not to mention the Sexual Revolution.  “All Night Long” is sung from the point of view of a jaded, lonely rocker, searching the crowd for a babe to spend the night with him (the most poignant line, from the third verse: “I know I can’t stand another night on my own”).  “Lost in Hollywood” describes a man so dedicated to rock, he’s lost the woman who makes it all worthwhile.

There are some less memorable tracks—the neoclassically-inflected “Eyes of the World” is a commentary on humanity’s rapacious capacity for violence and waste, but is a bit ponderous; “Makin’ Love” has its moments, but is forgettable—but, from start to finish, Down to Earth is as good an introduction to classic hard rock as I can conceive.  Crank it up!