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Um, hello everyone.
When I finally set Top5 aside after 23 years of helping provide daily original humor to the teeming online masses, I was sure that was it. Done. Finito. We'd had a good run, but it was past time to step away. I was exhausted, and the relatively new hyper-partisanship of the American political landscape meant a steady flow of complaints and threats when we stepped on the wrong toes. Sometimes it was the righties, sometimes the lefties, and sometimes it was those goddamn can't-pick-a-side Libertarians (I kid, I kid). Anyway, I eventually reached the breaking point and hung up the humor cleats to move on to greener pastures.
Then along came COVID.
Suddenly, there was a desperate need for comedy. There were ample targets in every direction to practically mandate new attempts to ridicule, mock and lampoon. So Top5 kind of zombied up from the dead for a few months, and to my surprise, the response was overwhelmingly positive (albeit not in a COVID-test way). Still, there was no strong desire on my part to once again subject myself to the rigors of sifting through hundreds of submissions from Top5's often-brilliant writers to produce a finished product on a regular basis. Eventually, the epidemic waned, and Top5 went back into hibernation.
Fast forward to December of 2022.
My longtime comedy buddy Danny Gallagher DMed me. Danny was a raw teenaged humorist when he was introduced to Top5, and over the years had gradually become a respected (unlike the rest of us) writer whose work can be found all over the Internet. Not content with his success, Danny floated the idea of re-animating Top5, this time splitting the workload.
And oddly enough, I found myself agreeing. Maybe it was the positive response to COVID-Top5, or possibly I was just a little bored and missed the audience Top5 had built over the decades. Then again, it could be that I'm no longer of sound mental health. The smart money's on the latter.
Anyway, to make an already long story slightly less lengthy...
I've officially put my modeling career on hold so I could get the band back together. A brand new list will be published March 1, and after that every weekday we will have original humor for you in one form or another. Some of the old favorites will be back ("top 10" lists, Ruminations, Mitch Kobriger's largely inane ramblings), and some new ideas will be tried out as well. The biggest difference is that while Top5 will still be sent out via email, the newsletter will be hosted here at Ghost.io, our new home. The Top5 List itself will be our Wednesday feature and available to all subscribers. Other daily content will be for the subscribers who support us with a subscription, which will cost less than a single Frappuccino.
Thanks again to everyone of you who has made this absurdly long journey possible, and Danny and I look forward to breaking up the monotony of your jobs, remote and otherwise.