SubscribeStar Saturday: SCISA Music Festival 2023

18 March 202312 March 2023 The Portly Politico1 Comment

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T.S. Eliot begins The Wasteland with the memorable line “April is the cruellest month….” It is, indeed, one of the busiest times of the year for yours portly, and while I love work, I love intentional, deliberate work. Hasty, panicked slapdashery is not my cup of coffee, but for many years, it was—by dent of necessity and my own personal shortcomings—a necessity.

In order to minimize that panicked rushing, I’ve forced myself to become incredibly organized. That, too, is born of necessity: with over twenty lessons each week, ladled atop my normal schedule of classes and my Town Council duties, requires that I keep a detailed schedule—and do a great deal of prep work in advance.

It took me into my thirty-eighth year of life to get it down—finally!—but I seem to have some semblance of a grasp on my schedule. If I could just find time to do the dishes, I’d be thrumming along like a well-worn-but-maintained performance engine, stretching those oil changes out a bit longer than proper, but getting the job done.

As for April, yes—it’s a hard month. March, however, is something of the rapid build-up, the grand accelerando into the end of the academic year. After the drowsiness of January and the yawning indolence of February, March, indeed, comes in, roaring, like a lion.

For you see, dear reader, it is in March that I embark—along with forty-odd students—on an annual pilgrimage to the University of South Carolina to engage in the South Carolina Independent School Association (SCISA) Music Festival. It’s an event that tests the very limits of my organizational and logistical skills (such as they are), but that work and preparation reap dividends in terms of musical experience for my students. It is an event that does more to sharpen their musical skills than any other throughout the year, and is second only to our major concerts in edifying their confidence as musicians.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Myrtle Beach 2023

11 March 202310 March 2023 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

In a time-honored tradition dating back to 2016—what glory days those were!—my older brother flew in from Indianapolis to run the Myrtle Beach Marathon. He ran the marathon in 2016, and in subsequent years ran the half-marathon. He was back in a big way in 2023, ready to conquer the race.

In the olden days, the whole family would make a weekend of it, but with my parents exhausted from our family trip to Disney World and my younger brother and his brood cash-strapped from the same, it ended up just being my brother and me (even his wife couldn’t make it!).

With our adventuring party thus reduced, my brother and I resolved to make the most of it—even in the midst of the gnarliest stench a Myrtle Beach condo could muster.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Break Travels, Part VI: Home for Christmas

4 March 20232 March 2023 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Trapped in the blizzard in Indianapolis, pipes bursting across the land (including in my older brother’s house), there was little to do besides sleep and let the responsible adults take care of things.

There are few things more reassuringly cozy than sleeping under heavy blankets in sub-zero temperatures. It’s akin to the feeling of being inside with power during a torrential downpour or powerful thunderstorm—the sense of safety and warmth is experienced palpably in those moments. In some ways, it’s even better to get soaked first, then to come into the dryness of the indoors.

But sleep can only forestall reality for so long. Driving to South Carolina on Friday, 23 December 2022 as I’d originally planned was out of the question, given the frozen roads. Tales of major wrecks and traffic snarls echoed across the land, so it seemed best to stay put.

That said, I desperately wanted to get home for Christmas. The weather, it seemed, had other plans, but I soon hatched a plan that, if all went well, would get me South in time for at least some of Christmas.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Break Travels, Part V: Snowbound

25 February 202324 February 2023 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

As my older brother and I enjoyed our visit to Arizona, a massive polar vortex was making its way ominously towards the United States. We had some cool weather in Arizona, but reports were coming from back East that temperatures were dangerously low. My brother and his wife live in Indianapolis, so they were facing subzero temperatures, but even back in South Carolina, family and friends were reporting busted pipes and bitterly cold conditions.

There was some discussion between us about whether or not we should extend our trip another day or two, but the lure of Christmas and family was strong. We decided to head to the airport as planned to take our chances.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Star Wars Fans

18 February 20238 February 2023 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

One of the highlights of my family’s recent trip to Disney World was the large Star Wars area in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Disney may have wrecked the franchise with the sequel trilogy, but the silver lining of The Mouse’s acquisition is that fans can now walk around an area that looks like the films’ dingy alleys and byways.

They also hosted two incredible rides, one which allows flight crews of up to six to operate the Millennium Falcon as pilots, gunners, and engineers; and another immersive experience that sees riders taken captive by The First Order (for old fans, this organization takes the place of the Empire in the sequel trilogy).

This area also attracts a lot of Star Wars fan. Observing their behavior in this grown-up fantasy world was quite interesting—and humorous.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Break Travels, Part IV: Scottsdale and The Whale (2022)

11 February 20236 February 2023 The Portly Politico7 Comments

After our trip to Grand Canyon National Park and Prescott, my brother and I indulged in a more leisurely start to our second day in Arizona. His idea of leisure is a ten-mile run; while he did that, I walked further into downtown Phoenix to pick up some sundries at a local CVS.

Downtown Phoenix feels a great deal like most mid-major American cities: some tall buildings, often with scaffolding; a few historic sites; and a general sense that public transportation is the preferred method of travel, even if everyone still drives. There was also an ubiquitous homeless population, which makes sense: why spend your winters in North Dakota if you don’t have shelter?

Like most mid-major American cities, Phoenix also had its commercialized outdoor shopping mall area, with the kinds of higher-end chain stores that one tends to see in more tourist-y areas. This zone held the CVS, but it felt like a scaled-down version of City Walk at Universal Studios. I picked up our vittles and stopped in at Bad Ass Coffee Company of Hawaii, which has apparently colonized the mainland, and picked up a beautiful souvenir tin for my mom (it did not featuring a braying jackass, but rather a woman in a sun hat tending to her coffee plants).

Resupplied and refreshed from our morning, we set out for Scottsdale, the tony, artistic suburb of Phoenix, for more Southwestern culture.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Disney Adventures

4 February 20232 February 2023 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

After two Saturdays of ripping off my subscribers with a lack of substantive content, I’m back! Rather than continue the saga of my yuletide trip to Arizona, I’ll be diverting briefly to an overview of my family’s big trip to Disney World.

The last time I went to Disney World I was around fifteen- or sixteen-years old—it’s a bit murky—so it was over twenty years ago. I remembered some things, naturally, but I’d forgotten quite a bit (the irony of spending four figures to visit a theme park—a video game provides more entertainment-per-hour at a far lower cost, but it’s a lonelier endeavor), so it was fun being back and experiencing Disney World anew.

It was especially fun experiencing it through the eyes of my niece and nephews, who are all old enough to appreciate the experience.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Break Travels, Part III: The Shirt in Prescott

14 January 202314 January 2023 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

On our way back from visiting the Grand Canyon, my brother and I stopped in Prescott, Arizona. Despite it’s spelling, “Prescott” is pronounced almost like “press kit.” For my Central Savannah River Area readers, it’s akin to Martinez, Georgia, which is not pronounced like a Mexican’s surname, but as “Martin-ez.”

Anyway, Prescott is an Old West town—it used to be the territorial capital of Arizona, from 1864-1867—that has now turned into something like a yuppie outdoor shopping mall. That sounds facetious, yes, but it’s actually a pretty cool little town. The entire town square was bedecked in Christmas lights, and as it was unseasonably cold for Arizona in late December, it actually felt like Christmas in a cowboy town.

Prescott really plays up its heritage as a bustling town of the Old West: Western wear stores line the main shopping area, and bars and restaurants play up the legendary Western folk heroes and villains who frequented the establishments (or the spots where those establishments now stand).

It was in one of those Western wear stores that I came face to face with sartorial destiny.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Break Travels, Part II: Grand Canyon

7 January 20236 January 2023 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

As our plane took off from Indianapolis in dead silence—everyone was quiet, and the only sound was that of the jets roaring—my older brother loudly exclaimed, “my wallet!,” which elicited some stifled chuckles from yours portly, and I think I heard one other person react. Otherwise, no one bit on his hilarious joke about leaving his wallet in the airport.

After a very brief layover in Detroit, which saw us running to the next gate for our flight to Phoenix, we enjoyed a quiet flight to Phoenix. I’ve grown accustomed to airlines abusing passengers, but Delta is a great airline and my older brother has achieved a status where he gets some actual respect from the flight crew, so it was a welcome change. The snacks and soft drinks flowed freely, and I discovered that the chess app in the Delta entertainment console is impossible to beat, even on “Easy” mode—something that people who are actually good at chess have discussed at length online.

We landed in Phoenix and made it to the rental car area, where we managed to score a sweet Kia Niro, a car so laden with technology, it was difficult to figure out how to turn on the heat. Yes, despite being in Arizona, it was unseasonably cold, with temperatures comparable to those in South Carolina at the time (we arrived the evening of Monday, 19 December 2022).

Our AirBnB was a cool little duplex in downtown Phoenix, decorated in the Southwestern style. It sported an impressive fireplace, though we didn’t mess with it. The interior reminded me of smaller homes built in the 1920s, although I don’t know how old this home was. It had a cute (if tight) breakfast nook, where my brother and I were able to get some writing done during our stay, and a good, powerful shower. The host left us some coffee from a local roaster, which we tore through in a couple of days.

One of our major goals for the week was to visit Grand Canyon National Park. I’ve always wanted to see Grand Canyon, and this trip was the perfect opportunity to do so. We decided to knock out the visit—which took the entire day, as it’s roughly four hours to the north of Phoenix—on Tuesday, 20 December 2022, our first full day in Arizona.

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The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

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