It’s a quick Lazy Sunday this week as Dr. Wife and I hunker down in the cold. I’m casting my gaze back to two posts from earlier this week, one based in the coolness of the watery depths, the other in the fiery crucible of the modern restaurant industry:
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in America, and tomorrow will mark one year since President Trump’s Inauguration.
It seemed fitting that Trump would be inaugurated for his second non-consecutive term on the day set aside to commemorate King, a man who very likely would have descended into grifter status had he lived much longer. Trump election also continued the rollback of the affirmative action racialist system that King’s successors endorsed.
Most importantly for yours portly, it’s a day off—and a cold one! I’m looking forward to a quiet morning with Dr. Wife before Murphy and I make the frosty trek back to the South Carolina.
With that, here is 20 January 2025’s “Daybreak in America: Trump’s Inauguration, MLK Day, and a New Hope“:
It’s been the week of American imperialism here on the blog, and I don’t necessarily mean “imperialism” negatively. Here are some posts about how the United States is embracing its destiny (and the peaks and pitfalls of doing so):
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
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Apologies for the evening post, dear readers; Dr. Wife and I played a key role in balloon arch construction for a friend’s baby shower, and yours portly took an extended nap after overindulging on chicken wings and fried pickles. Now that all of that succulence has gone straight to fat, I’m slowly rubbing my neurons together to hammer out this post. —TPP
The excellent website Free Speech Backlash ran a lengthy essay of mine this past Thursday, 15 January 2026. “Trump: Nationalist or Imperialist?” is an attempt to place the Nicolás Maduro arrest in the broader context of American diplomatic history, specifically as it pertains to our hemispheric policy. That policy dates back to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which received an overhaul in the first years of the twentieth century during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. The so-called Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine argued that, in order to prevent European intervention in Latin America, the United States would intervene instead.
President Trump is clearly aware of this history—thus his invocation of the “Donroe Doctrine,” his own revival of the Roosevelt Corollary. Chinese and Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere is increasing, and The Donald has to take action. The action in Venezuela was not strictly about securing oil—we have plenty of it—but to prevent China from controlling major oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere. The United States also sought to prevent China and Russia paying for that oil with their own currencies, as the purchasing of oil in US dollars ensures the dominance of our increasingly devalued currency.
China has also sought to make inroads into Panama, where the Panamanians currently run the canal that Roosevelt took drastic steps to ensure could be built—under American auspices. One reason Trump wants to reclaim the Panama Canal is precisely because if we don’t, the Panamanians will likely fold to the Chinese.
Even Greenland, the most memeable of Trump’s neo-Monrovian ambitions, is an application of the Monroe/Donroe Doctrines. The Arctic is emerging as a major trade route for global goods—the fabled Northwest Passage now a reality—and China has already made attempts to bring the Danish colony under its thumb. The Danes lack the will and the capacity to improve and defend Greenland—or even to exploit its vast natural resources effectively—and The Donald sees this island as the key to securing dominance in the Arctic in the Western Hemisphere.
Indeed, it was Greenland that generated the most commentary (and heart-bleeding) in the comments section. The most common refrain from the opposition was that the Greenlanders have the right to self-determination. It’s an argument I’m sympathetic with in principle, but in Reality, Greenland has a population of fewer than 60,000 people—only barely double that of the municipal population of my hometown growing up in South Carolina. If the world were a peaceful place, an independent Republic of Greenland could probably be viable as an extremely small (demographically) nation. In the world of cutthroat geopolitics, with China and Russia on the rise and the Arctic opening up new strategic challenges and opportunities, an independent Greenland is a costly fantasy.
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The past couple of weeks have been quite busy as Dr. Wife and I began the arduous process of moving furniture, personal belongings, and various bits of bric-a-brac and knick-knackery to our new home. As such, I’m playing a bit of catch-up with these subscriber-only posts. Apologies for the frequent delays over the last few months, and thanks for sticking with me. —TPP
Back on 20 December 2025 I wrote “Christmas Gigging,” an optimistic post about how fun, easy, and profitable Christmastime bookings are for musicians. Christmas music abundantly available and instantly recognizable; it’s also fairly easy to learn a lot of it quickly.
I was booked to play saxophone at a Christmas party that night, way down in Summerville, South Carolina. I’d booked the gig through GigSalad, one of several booking services available to musicians, birthday clowns, jugglers, comedians, and all the rest of us carny folk. Over the years I’ve used the service, I’ve only closed 5.4% of all gigs I’ve quoted to clients (or 5 out of 93). To be fair, I’ve received a whopping 776 leads over the years, which means I’m only sending quotes to just under 12% of the leads I actually received.
Many of those unquoted leads are due either to scheduling conflicts (lots of nursing homes booking during the day on weekdays, for example, or gigs too far away to make after work). Some are instances of potential clients never responding to basic questions about their needs (I don’t like to send a quote for events like weddings, for example, without at least touching base with the client about what they want). Still others—more than I’d like to admit—are simply me not responding until it’s too late.
Regardless, even with gigs that are quoted, the vast majority—well, 94.6%, as you can see—go unbooked. Only a handful of those are because the client has booked another professional; they’re mostly due to people never responding to quotes at all—and most of those never even look at the quote (GigSalad indicates when a potential client has seen a quote and/or message).
But I digress. I had a bout of good luck with GigSalad in December, managing to land two gigs within a week of each other. The first client was very pleased—I played for his proposal to his girlfriend—and the client for the Christmas party seemed pretty eager for me to play.
I had a bit of a bad feeling about this gig.
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Christmas is a goldmine for musicians, one I have not cashed in on in any meaningful way in years. Christmas parties mean Christmas music, and a subset of those parties opt for live music.
Yours portly has been a longtime user of GigSalad as a free member, which means there are some limitations on my account. From my experience with the service, it’s not worth the considerable price to upgrade to any of their paid versions. However, lately I’ve been doing a bit better with bookings, landing two gigs within a week of each other.
Last Sunday afternoon, for example, I played for a young man’s proposal to his girlfriend (she said yes). That saw me driving up to Wilmington, North Carolina after church. It was an extremely cold and windy afternoon, and I played outside for about thirty minutes. In spite of the weather, it was an honor to be part of such an important moment (and the client seemed pleased!).
Tonight, I’ll be heading down to Summerville, South Carolina, to play a couple of hours for a Christmas party (indoors, thank God!). I loaded up a binder with copies of alto saxophone Christmas music from 8notes.com, an incredible online resource for music education and free sheet music. It’s a two-hour solo engagement, which can be a bit daunting on sax, but it’s totally doable.
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Good afternoon, my loyal subscribers! Apologies for a late post today; yours portly crashed out after a long but productive day at work yesterday, which included my students’ annual Christmas Concert.
I’ll allow GEOTUS to articulate this sentiment in the way only he can:
Regardless, in the grand tradition of The Portly Politico, it’s time the annual Christmas Concert Postmortem, where I break down the program and how everything went.
For non-paying subscribers, don’t worry—the kids did a fabulous job, as they always do. My Middle School Music Ensemble (MSME) played three pieces:
And my High School Music Ensemble (HSME) played four pieces:
For whatever reason, the HSME played a lot of songs whose titles are questions. Don’t ask me why!
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This past week involved the intensive preparations for the big Christmas Play, which was last night at my little school. It’s a pretty big night from a technical perspective, as the Drama Teacher also conducts the Choir and our Dance classes. As such, all of her students—actors, singers, dancers—all perform as part of a performing arts extravaganza.
It makes for a unique and fun, albeit hectic, experience, and requires yours portly to pull out all of his amateur audio tracks to make it happen.
All of our productions are, out of necessity, staged in the gym, which I call the “Gymnatorium” (at one point, students ate lunch there, too, so it was the “Gymnacafetorium”). Getting good sound quality, especially for plays, has always been a struggle.
Fortunately, our Athletics Department invested in a new sound system, which offers much more complete coverage than the 15″ speakers I’d been using for years (although those speakers are great). The problem is that the system came with a new digital mixer (a good thing) that only has six functional channels (that’s the bad part).
Because our productions often require at least a dozen inputs (and frequently more), I had to get creative with the sound system setup, and came up with this bad boy:
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Today I’m offering up the second(ish) draft of my short story “Tap, Tap, Tap.” Subscribers will have access to the full story; everyone else, enjoy the first part, which sets up the tale of an oddly large beetle with telepathic abilities.
Forgive the odd formatting of the text below; I’m in a bit of a rush and don’t have the time to reformat everything.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Bill woke up, bleary with sleep, to the sound of the tapping.
“What now?” he groused, tossing aside his thin blanket. Bill scratched his face, feeling the scruff. I need a good shave, he thought, stretching as he got up.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
There it was again. Must be the pipes. Didn’t the plumber just fix them last week? Bill proceeded to the bathroom and stared at his eyes, still filled with the crust of restless sleep, in the mirror. They were a peculiar shade of emerald green, ringed with dark bags; Bill stretched one eyelid, then the other, as he peered at the bloodshot veins in the grimy mirror.
He splashed some water onto his face. Well, it’s not the pipes… it’d better not be the wiring. Bill picked up his toothbrush, one that had battled plaque far too many times, its bristles gnarled and flattened like a sheep with too much static electricity had a collision with a garbage truck. Bill tossed the brush into the trash and headed to the kitchen.
Tap. Tap. Taptaptap!
It was getting louder now. “Geeze, I can’t afford another repair,” Bill muttered to himself. The kitchen paid testament to Bill’s frustrated utterance. A forlorn and ancient stove sat in the corner, two burners missing. The stovetop was covered in a thin layer of grime, the accumulation of a thousand hasty, one-pan meals. The counters were strewn with crumbs and old newspapers. The fridge, sitting opposite the stove, chugged and moaned, releasing a death rattle every time its compressor shut down. The sink had a persistent, slow drip, which Bill had tuned out long ago.
Taptap! Tap! Ta-tap!
But that tapping! That was new. Bill pulled a half-washed pan from the sink, gave it a quick rinse, then put it on of the two remaining burners. He grabbed a couple of eggs from the fridge, and cracked each into the pan, tossing the shells over his shoulder and into the garbage.
TAP!
Just one this time, near the kitchen trash can. Bill sighed. “Okay, what is going on here,” he said aloud.
Bill felt a tad sheepish—he was utterly alone. Ever since Mirna split two months ago, he’d fallen into a state of squalor. He’d also developed the habit of talking to himself during the long, lonely hours at home. Bill had given up on finding any decent work in the papers about a month ago, but didn’t have the heart to throw the old rags out. Maybe, he had thought after Mirna left, if I can get back on my feet, she’ll take me back.
He shook away the memory of her leaving—of the months of fruitless job and soul searching—and, in a rare moment of renewed self-confidence, resolved to get to the bottom of this tapping business—and then, maybe, to the bottom of the bottle he kept in one of the fading cabinets.
Tap tap! Tap tap!
Bill walked slowly toward the trash. There was something different about this tapping. It didn’t sound electrical, or like the tapping in pipes. It sounded almost organic. As he reached to move the trash can, a prick of pain seized the ring finger of his left hand.
He cried out a slew of curses, shaking his hand in a vain attempt to exorcise the sharp pain. His ring finger throbbed purple-red. At least the skin’s not broken. Bill heard a rapid series of taptaptaptapping as he stumbled towards the fridge for ice.
As he opened the door to the freezer, Bill felt something on his leg—a tentative, careful tap. Bill whirled around, slamming the door of the freezer, sending a dark object running back behind the trash can.
“What in the world…” Bill trailed off. There was a rustling behind the trash. I have to see what this thing is, he thought, but I’m not about to get bitten again. Bill’s eyes darted across the room, finally spotting a broom, gathering dust more from lack of use than from its intended purpose. He snatched the broom and, slowly—ever so slowly—pushed it towards the trash can.
Whack! He thwapped the trash can aside, and the dark object skittered up the wall. There it is! Bill thought. “It” was about three feet long and moved with astonishing rapidity. Bill still couldn’t quite make out the thing in the dim kitchen, but he swung the broom like a frantic knight, hacking away at the wall.
Taptaptaptaptaptap! The tapping sounded a rapid tattoo as Bill chased the thing with the broom.
Smack! There it was—Bill hit the thing square in its center of mass, and it fell from the wall, stunned.
Bill peered down—and the thing peered back. Bill stared, transfixed, as the thing reached out, slowly, and gave Bill a single, light tap.
Bill collapsed onto the floor, astonished. The creature before him—for it was, indeed, a creature—bore a strong resemblance to a beetle, but one that would surely be the largest such creature of its kind. The beetle stared up at Bill with four large, black, compound eyes. It emitted a light chittering sound from between its two large mandibles, each of protruded six inches from the head. Its belly was a deep, greenish brown, like moss growing on a dark patch of dirt. Its large, dense shell shimmered with a hypnotic luminescence, shifting subtly through the color spectrum with the creature’s movements. Six legs—four from the thorax, two from the abdomen—twinkled with a more muted luminescence, blending softly into the moss brown belly. The creature stood on two legs and reached towards Bill with the other four.
The beetle—Bill didn’t really know how else to identify it—chittered again, its voice rising to a flute-like tone. There was a sweetness to it, like all of Bill’s best memories were swirled together into a single melody. Beneath it was a gentle tap.
Transfixed, stuck in the beetle’s melodious trance, Bill let the creature’s four shimmering, spindly arms touch his face.
Bill.
Is that the bug? Bill thought.
Yes, Bill. But “bug” is not exactly the precise terminology.
Sweet mother of pearl, this thing is talking to me!
Indeed. You and I are, in this moment, joined.
“Joined?” What do you mean? And you’re not a bug?
What I am is of little consequence, Bill. What I can do is what matters.
What you can do? I—
Your life, it is… pathetic, no? Unfulfilled—
Now, wait just a minute here! Sure, things have been t—
I can change that.
Bill paused. Rather, his internal dialogue with the beetle ceased—his mind still raced. Finally, he replied, hesitantly, How?
A thousand images flooded Bill’s mind. Mirna in the dress she wore the night he said he loved her. His tenth birthday, when he finally got the silver-blue ten-speed he’d begged his parents to buy. His first kiss. His first car. His first promotion.
Then new images, images of things yet-to-come, images beyond his wildest imaginings, took the place of the happy memories. Wealth. Power. Success.
Mirna.
The beetle removed his four arms from Bill’s head with a faint tap. Bill set up slowly, holding his forehead, feeling the shallow indents where the beetle had touched him.
“I understand.”
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Last night yours portly had his raucous bachelor party, which consisted of eating pizza and play board games with my friends at my younger brother’s house. The board gaming highlight of the evening was playing Catan: Dawn of Humankind (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you), which my best man purchased as an early wedding gift.
The game can best be described as a blend of the early turns of any Civilization game and Settlers of Catan (more affiliate links), the classic Klaus Teuber game. The map takes place on Earth, with all players starting with camps and explorers (imagine a blend of the scout and settler in Civ) in Africa. Players are encouraged via various game mechanics to migrate out of Africa and to explore and populate the rest of the world.
Like classic Catan, the goal is to reach ten victory points. These points achieved through various means—cultural and scientific development; exploration; and settlement outside of Africa. Like Catan, players gather four different resources, re-themed to fit the prehistoric setting, by rolling two six-sided dice. Players may trade these resources or cash triplicates into the bank in exchange for a single resource of another type.
There are some key differences, however: while Dawn of Humankind is built on the Catan system, it is geared towards exploration and research. Settlement is a key component of the game, but it’s done by sending out explorers. Some areas of the map are blocked off by certain research requirements; for example, reaching Australia requires substantial investments into construction (for boats, presumably) and clothing. Going towards the Arctic requires high clothing investments. Investing in exploration lets explorers move more quickly, and investing in hunting allows players to move the Neanderthal in Eurasia and the Smilodon (saber-toothed tiger) in the Americas and Australia (these tokens act as the equivalent to the thief in classic Catan.
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The Portly Politico 