I made posts here promising that “I’ll be back,” but I won’t be, not in podcast form, anyway. Aren’t there enough podcasts already? That’s a rhetorical question. There are.

When I started THIS IS NOT A TEST in 2015, podcasting was a little more niche, you could say. There were about 200,000 podcasts, which is already a lot, but only about 80,000 of those were active. In a sea of 80,000, it’s pretty easy to be seen, noticed, and get the word out about what you’re doing. It reminded me of the early web: all possibilities, no interference.

Now there are almost five million podcasts, or so I’m told, and the form has kind of been set and established. I love Marc Maron’s WTF (RIP, WTF, BTW), but not every podcast has to be an imitation of it. Just a suggestion. But that’s just another way that the evolution of podcasting mirrors the evolution of the web. Both started out wild and unpredictable, and both became tame and repetitive.

Which is cool, that’s what happens to everything, so it’s to be expected. But me, I just don’t care to foist my unsolicited opinion about everything onto whoever will listen anymore. That need kind of disappeared along with my testosterone. Draw your own conclusions from that; I know I’ve drawn mine.

Five years is a long time to do something like a podcast, and to do 130 episodes is pretty impressive for a weirdo punk trans freak of nature. In the first year, I did a new episode every week, which seems ridiculous in retrospect, because it was. They say if you do what you love as a job, you’ll never work a day in your life, but I think a rich person who never had to work a job wrote that.

Everything becomes work eventually. We can rationalize work-type work because someone usually pays us to do it. Unpaid work is the realm of the bourgeoisie, you know, those who can afford to dabble, and I ain’t that. So I bid you fond adieu and will spare you any more French words. See you on the flip flop.