I’ve got a grab bag of juicy YouTube Shorts for you this Friday, my friends. It’s a bit of something for everyone: a cute dog, some weird ceramics, and a coffee grinder:
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Tag: video
Lazy Sunday CCCXCI: Saxamophone!
Yours portly has been noodlin’ on the old sax a good bit over the past couple of weeks, so for lack of a better topic—and, uh, to catch you up on my latest adventures in noodling!—here are some recent posts featuring a total of six saxy jams.
The title for today’s Lazy Sunday comes from this classic scene from The Simpsons, which I probably think about every time I pick up the saxophone:
Now—onto the list!
- “Phone it in Friday CXXXII: YouTube Roundup CXCII: Saxophone Solos, Part I” – a fun mix of Wagner, sacred music, and video game tunes.
- “Phone it in Friday CXXXIII: YouTube Roundup CXCIII: Saxophone Solos, Part II” – this time it’s Henry Mancini, Beethoven, and some more video game music—this time for Ponty.
Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!
—TPP
Phone it in Friday CXXXIII: YouTube Roundup CXCIII: Saxophone Solos, Part II
Want to play sax like me? Check out my updated guide on getting started with a budget sax!
I had a gig a couple weeks back, and it’s gotten me practicing my sax a lot more. It’s also been an opportunity to churn out some sweet, sweet YouTube content. Indeed, last week I featured three quick sax pieces; check them out if you missed them.
This week, here are three more videos of my saxophonic noodling, curated for your listening pleasure:
“Moon River” by Henry Mancini
Just a quick rendition of the classic tune from the classic film.
“The Way of the Ghost” from Ghost of Tsushima
A sax arrangement of “The Way of the Ghost” from the classic Ghost of Tsushima; I play it a bit faster than the original. Good old Ponty requested this cover, so I took the opportunity to arrange it for solo alto sax.
Indeed, you can purchase my solo sax arrangement at the following online retailers:
- Sheet Music Direct: https://www.sheetmusicdirect.com/se/ID_No/2021268/Product.aspx
- Noteflight: https://www.noteflight.com/music/titles/6ca26a9a-47ea-49c0-95b0-873b58cf8231/way-of-the-ghost-feat-clare-uchima
Here’s the score embedded for easy listening to the digital sax version:
Ludwig von Beethoven’s “Für Elise”
A saxophone rendition of Beethoven’s ““”Für Elise”; my only regret is that my man-nips are protruding; very disrespectful.
There you have it! Three more delicious saxophone tunes. Which did you enjoy the most, dear readers? I know Ponty’s answer!
Happy Friday!
—TPP
Phone it in Friday CXXXII: YouTube Roundup CXCII: Saxophone Solos, Part I
Want to play sax like me? Check out my updated guide on getting started with a budget sax!
I had a gig this past Saturday, so I took my practice time as an opportunity to churn out some sweet, sweet YouTube content. Here are three videos of my saxophonic noodling, curated for your listening pleasure:
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Phone it in Friday CXXXI: YouTube Roundup CXCI: Simon, Garfunkel, and Urkel
Today’s edition of Phone it in Friday / YouTube Roundup could really be an Open Mic Tuesday, even though there was no open mic involved. Dr. Wife was having a tough day Tuesday, and I’ve learned that offering actionable advice is never what a woman wants during difficult times.
No, lads, women want absurd covers of creepy old songs with images of your childhood Steve Urkel doll (sans glasses, because I took them off when I was a kid).
So, to cheer here up, I compiled this creepy-cute montage set to me singing a butchered, bowdlerized version of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence,” interspersed with eerie closeups of Urkel and pictures of some of the family dogs:
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Phone it in Friday CXXX: YouTube Roundup CXC: Breakfast
Yours portly is pro-breakfast. Yes, yes, it’s not the most controversial take; if you grew up in the 1990s, commercials and classrooms bombarded you with the mantra “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” Our teachers always told us to eat a good breakfast before standardized tests (advice I repeated to my own students).
Breakfast offers so much. It can be sweet (like the breakfast featured in today’s video). It can be savory. It can be a glorious mish-mash of both.
For quick breakfasts, I prepare one of two simple meals:
- An English muffin with a layer of crunchy peanut butter, a layer of plain Greek yogurt, and a layer of sliced bananas (very filling)
- An English muffin with spinach, a little lunch meat, and a boiled egg chopped on top (also filling, but much lower-calorie than #1)
Sometimes Dr. Wife will make a glorious breakfast of scrambled eggs, sourdough bread, and turkey bacon on Saturday mornings. She puts spinach and sometimes onions in the eggs, too, so they’re really tasty.
Growing up, breakfast was the classic bowl (or, in my case, multiple bowls) of cereal. Cereal is a problem food for me, as I will keep pouring more because “I need to use up the milk in the bottom of the bowl.” Next thing I know, I’ll have eaten half a box of Golden Grahams. I’m The Portly Politico for a reason.
Also, in the days of penny-pinching and fear of staleness (and, by extension, food waste), my mom would pay us a quarter if we finished a box of cereal (and we were soft-locked from opening a new box until the current one was consumed). Being both food- and money-motivated, that incentive presented a dangerous scenario for a budding chubster. Keep in mind, too, that these were the days when the government assured us that eating a ton of grains and very little red meat was supposed to be the key to good health. Of course, I’m sure Kellogg’s and General Mills loved that (and probably paid for the “research” that resulted in the food pyramid). It was not a good time to be a little fat kid (or it was the golden age of childhood obesity, depending on your perspective).
Regardless, today I’ve got a very short Short showing my breakfast unfold in two seconds:
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Phone it in Friday CXXIX: YouTube Roundup CLXXXIX: Video Absurdism
Yours portly possesses an abiding love for absurdity. Chalk it up to years of watching [adult swim] in the early 2000s and growing up watching The Simpsons, but my artistic output visually—which consists almost entirely of unskilled doodling—leans heavily into the cartoonish and absurd and weird. Indeed, I wrote an entire book based on that premise (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of all purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you).
YouTube provides an outlet to unlock that visual and aural absurdism, and today’s Shorts are indicative of the kind of ridiculous, sometimes contextless, silliness that I like to tart up and present as some kind of philosophically abstract absurdism, when it’s really just me being a goofball.
Phone it in Friday CXIX: YouTube Roundup CLXXIX: Winter
It is the deep midwinter, and even the Carolinas are getting their share of the white stuff. Murphy and I were up at Dr. Wife’s house in North Carolina this past weekend, and there was a little bit of snow on Sunday afternoon!
This weekend brings Winter Storm Fern, which is supposed to dump lots of snow and/or “wintry mix” and/or ice all over the Southeastern United States. Gulp! We’ll know more by Sunday.
In the spirit of wintry frostiness, here are a couple of recent videos from North Carolina all about the cold.
Phone it in Friday CXVIII: YouTube Roundup CLXXVIII: Rococo
My YouTube uploads have been a bit barren lately, so I’ve got one quick video this week, featuring a Lipper & Mann dish or container in a flamboyant Rococo style:
Phone it in Friday CXVII: YouTube Roundup CLXXVII: The Eggcraticus Duology
Yours portly is a little wacky. I like to play with my food—or, at least, my food containers.
That’s the setup for today’s videos, both of which feature the fearsome Eggcraticus, the villainous, ravenous egg crate who is out for eggs: