SubscribeStar Saturday: Myrtle Beach

6 March 20215 March 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 weekend I’m down in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with my family. With the exception of last year, we visit Myrtle Beach every March because it coincides with the Myrtle Beach Marathon, which my older brother flies down to run (after running the full marathon one year and starving while we waited for lunch at Sea Captain’s House, he has since decided that the half-marathon is a more reasonable distance).

Even before my brother’s career as an amateur long-distance masochist, we have been visiting Myrtle Beach as a family. We used to come every summer for a big South Carolina Public Works convention, so Myrtle Beach’s tacky neon charm holds a certain nostalgia for me. These annual visits are not just a wonderful opportunity to spend time with family, but to relive the glow of childhood nostalgia.

The rest of this post may be delayed, as I am—as the preview noted—in Myrtle Beach with family. Don’t worry, subscribers, I should have it finished soon. —TPP

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

More Hustlin’: Another Bandcamp Friday

5 March 20213 March 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

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

Midweek SubscribeStar Exclusive: Sloshing through Lee State Park

3 March 20211 March 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar exclusive for $5 and up subscribers. $5 and up subs periodically enjoy bonus content, in addition to Sunday Doodles every Sunday. They also gain access to SubscribeStar Saturday posts like $1 subscribers.

With the warm weather and sunshine this past weekend, my girlfriend and I decided to check out Lee State Park. Lee State Park is just ten miles up the road from Lamar, and while I’ve driven on Lee State Park Road numerous times heading to the Interstate, I’d never visited the park.

Lee State Park was constructed in 1935 as a Civilian Conservation Corps project during the Great Depression. It is bounded on the west by the Lynches River, and features a number of easy-to-moderate hiking trails, as well as several equestrian trails. Most of the park’s 2839 acres is hardwood forest wetlands, and the park features four artesian wells that flow continually.

To get to the park, we loaded into my ancient, busted up 2006 Dodge Caravan—now with a fresh battery!—and buzzed up there with the windows down. My girlfriend’s German shepherd seemed to enjoy the ride, and turned out to be a real trooper on what turned into an unexpectedly arduous adventure.

When we got to the park, we grabbed a trail map, and merrily headed into the forest, attempting to follow the white-labeled Floodplain Trail, a five-mile, moderate hike. Unfortunately, the Floodplain Trail does not make a neat loop, and we headed towards the shorter end, which overlaps with the orange equestrian trail.

That decision would ultimately result in soggy, sloshing bit of amateur trailblazing through some of the muddiest terrain in Lee State Park.

This post is a $5 and up SubscribeStar exclusive. To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $5 a month or higher.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Authoritarian Creep

27 February 202126 February 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Something with which I struggle to wrap my mind around is the authoritarian impulse. I’m not pretending I’m immune to this impulse—this desire to tell others how to live their lives, backing it up with the threat of force for non-compliance—but the older I get, what little appeal the tendency held continues to diminish.

What I struggle to comprehend is the apparent need to boss people around. I understand needing to be authoritative with children and students—setting clear boundaries, understanding actions have consequences, molding the child to become a self-governing adult—but this desire to boss around perfect strangers is increasingly foreign to me.

This impulse manifests itself in virtually every facet of our lives. It creeps in bit by bit. Modest policy proposals and laws suddenly becomes weaponized Karenism, empowering authorities and otherwise normal people to swagger about with impunity, assured of the righteousness of their cause du jour.

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

SubscribeStar Saturday: Blue State Secession

20 February 202119 February 2021 The Portly Politico4 Comments

I’ve written several times about the possibility of secession—of a (hopefully) peaceful dissolution or separation of the United States. To be clear, I do not want that to happen, and I fear such a separation would be anything but peaceful. But if it means a world where the progressive crazies can test out their wacky theories and policies in their own land with its own borders—and I am well outside of those borders—then it may be the best possible of all options.

I tend to disagree with Daniel Webster’s assessment that “Liberty and Union” are “now and forever, one and inseparable.” While I think the Union of the States did at one time strengthen the defense of liberty, it increasingly seems that the Union—as manifested through the power of the federal government—is trampling those liberties. I prefer John C. Calhoun’s rejoinder to Andrew Jackson: “The Union, next to our liberty, most dear. May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States and by distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union.” The Union is great, but only so far as it preserves liberty and the rights of States.

Quoting John C. Calhoun favorably, of course, is dangerous in these woke times, as he was an evil slave owner (per the social justice warriors) and argued that slavery was a “positive good.” Of course the man wasn’t right about everything, but he was right about States’ rights and the importance of liberty. I can acknowledge that Truth without accepting his other beliefs.

But I digress. It seems that secession or peaceful separation is not merely a conservative pipe dream, a distant hope for some second chance at liberty. The progressives are getting in on the action. The ultra-progressive publication The Nation has a long op-ed published entitled “The Case for Blue-State Secession.” Most of the piece is ridiculous Leftist dogma, but the fact that the totalitarian Left is toying with the idea is intriguing.

H/T to Brion McClanahan of The Abbeville Institute and McClanahan Academy for this piece; below is his YouTube podcast explaining the op-ed:

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

SubscribeStarSaturday: Reflections on Local Government

13 February 202112 February 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

I’ve had my first Lamar Town Council meeting and am slowly learning the ropes of the Town and its needs. I’ve grown up with local government—my father worked in municipal government for thirty-seven years, doing everything from reading water meters to managing human resources, and now is the town administrator for a small town in his semi-retirement—but I’m learning how little I really knew going into it.

As such, I thought I’d share some of my initial reflections, and what I’ve learned so far. Note, I won’t go into anything that’s not public information (to my knowledge, I haven’t learned anything confidential as of yet), but just offer up some of my observations as I’m learning the lay of the land.

That all said, it’s been an overwhelmingly positive start, and I’m excited to dig in, learn as much as possible, and help out however I can.

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

SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films V: Hammer Films Collection, Volume II, Part II

6 February 202126 January 2021 The Portly Politico2 Comments

This weekend I’m wrapping up my review of the Hammer Films Collection, Volume II. Compared to the first volume, the selection of flicks aren’t nearly as good on the second volume, but there are some good moments (and you get a Peter Cushing Frankenstein picture with 1958’s The Revenge of Frankenstein, my narrow favorite from the first half of the collection).

Like the Hammer Films Collection, these are all Hammer Studios movies distributed through Columbia Pictures. The collection includes the following films: The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Snorkel (1958), Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1960), Maniac (1963), Die! Die! My Darling! (1965), and Creatures the World Forgot (1971). For this second part, I’ll be reviewing Maniac, Die! Die! My Darling!, and Creatures the World Forgot.

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

Hustlin’ Towards Financial Independence

5 February 20214 February 2021 The Portly Politico2 Comments

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.

SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films IV: Hammer Films Collection, Volume II, Part I

30 January 202126 January 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

This weekend I’m continuing my series of reviews of various Hammer Studios films. Last year I had the pleasure of reviewing (preview) of the Hammer Films Collection. While writing that review I discovered that there is a second volume, which I immediately added to my Amazon Wishlist.

My family members came through (God forbid I spend $9!), and I finally made it through this six-film collection. I’ll say the real gems were on the first volume, but there are some good flicks on this collection, too. Like the Hammer Films Collection, these are all Hammer Studios movies distributed through Columbia Pictures. The collection includes the following films: The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), The Snorkel (1958), Never Take Candy from a Stranger (1960), Maniac (1963), Die! Die! My Darling! (1965), and Creatures the World Forgot (1971). For this first part, I’ll be reviewing The Revenge of Frankenstein, The Snorkel, and Never Take Candy from a Stranger.

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

SubscribeStar Saturday: Hammer Films III: Universal Horror Films, Part II

23 January 202123 January 2021 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Last week I wrote some reviews of the first four films on the The Hammer Horror Series, a collection of Hammer horror flicks.

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 the second four films: The Kiss of the Vampire, Nightmare, Night Creatures, and The Evil of Frankenstein.

The rest of this post on SubscribeStar might be a tad delayed; I’ll have it completed as soon as possible.

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