Hiya stranger. Nice to be talking to you again after a ridiculously long break of nearly eight weeks. And I’d like to assure you that a gap of this length between shows on a podcast that appeared to be weekly, is in no way the norm. Rest assured that during every one of those eight weeks I was thinking about the show, but just not doing anything about it. The reason for this is as boring as it is true: too much work – the paying kind – and too little time. I know, it sucks to lose sight of what really matters while trying to make a buck, but hey, it’s the same shit we all have to deal with. Or is it?

The great thing about doing a show with no listeners, no sponsors and no income is that, if you decide to take a break, for whatever reason, the chances of public outcry are minimal. And sometimes a break is just what you need, even if you have only done six shows for an unappreciative audience that doesn’t exist anyway. This was certainly true in my case, but it took it took me some time to twig it.

I have learned over the years to eventually recognise the signs that my body and mind produce in order to tell me “Step the fuck back dude, and take a break!” Taking breaks is a hard thing for me to do because, as outlined in previous shows, I am militantly goal oriented and live only to fulfill whatever objective I am pursuing at the moment. Because my sneaky mind and conniving body know this, they concoct cunning plans to trick me into chilling out and re-evaluating my situation – something I would not otherwise do.

The first mental trick comes in the form of imagined pressure. This would be that load of income earning work that I mentioned earlier. The truth is that, while there was rather a lot of work, I could, in fact, have continued doing the show by making the kind of superhuman effort that single-minded psychopaths and megalomaniacs routinely execute. But what happened instead was that I used the work as an EXCUSE to not do the show. Of course I didn’t realise this at the time as I was too busy pickling myself with alcohol every night in an effort to “unwind”. This behaviour inevitably led to a lack of clarity during the day which prohibited serious concentration and thus any work on the show. The second mental trick had been sneakily accomplished. Honestly, I should have caught this one way earlier than I did because it’s happened before. But no, this is all part of the trick you see. The whole point is that if I were able to realise shit on my own, those clever bastards living in my subconscious would have no reason to trick me in the first place.

Eventually I got the picture. I needed to back off, think about what I’m doing, regroup and then move on. So I did.

And that brings us to the present and to the future of this podcast. In the last installment, lo those many weeks ago, I set you up for two future shows of the kind of shameless pontification you’ve undoubtedly come to expect from me. Well I hate to disappoint any of my non-existent listeners who liked that kind of stuff, but I’ve decided to say fuck it and move on. What I’m now going to do is pontificate a bit less and talk a bit more about my actual life, the people I know and the things that thrill and annoy me. Ironically this format will probably allow for plenty of pontificating anyway, because at the end of the day, it’s kind of hard to stop me. But hopefully this new format will be a bit more entertaining and a bit less preachy. Perhaps it will appease the thousands of my invisible listeners that have complained about my “bad attitude” and have demanded my head on a pike. At the very least it should be an easier format to produce, seeing as it will require less of me putting my actual feelings into words. And that’s gotta be good news for everyone.

So ultimately, this particular podcast you are listening to now is simply here to let you know that the show will be different from now on. And now that I’ve told you this, I shall take my leave in order to go figure out how the fuck I’m going to do it.