Well, here we are. It took some nine-plus years, but The Obelisk has finally hit its 10,000th post. This, as it happens, is it.

I told The Patient Mrs. the other day it was coming up and she very reasonably asked me what I was doing to celebrate. My answer: I’ll probably put up a post with a big number 10,000 at the top of it, maybe throw in a “thanks for reading” and then go about my business. That’s pretty much what I plan to do. Today’s a pretty busy day.

But before I dig into the rest of it, I just need to take a quick second and of course say thank you to everyone who has made this possible over this succession of years. The Patient Mrs. first and foremost. My family. To Slevin. My friends and the people in bands and readers who’ve become my friends. The label and PR folks. I’m crass and impatient and opinionated to a fault, and accordingly not the easiest person to get along with. To anyone who’s ever reached out to send me a record to review or even just to hear — “Hey man, I don’t even need a review, I just want you to listen if you have time” — thank you.

And it’s kind of become a tagline at this point, but really, thank you for reading. I’m going to try to be merciful and keep this short, but it means so, so, so much to me to think that when I put something like this out there into the vast ether of the internet, it catches eyes. Maybe you don’t read every day. Maybe you think I suck at this and I’m a punk. Maybe you don’t even think about the fact that there’s a person behind this stuff, or you think there’s a staff of writers (nope: no staff), but please know how grateful I am for every comment, every share, every like, every retweet, every screenshot that shows up on Instagram. All of it. It’s everything to me at this point. As outlets go, it’s all I’ve got.

But rest assured, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. This past week, The Obelisk page on Thee Facebooks also passed 7,000 likes and my personal account, in addition to the 5,000 friends that’s the max they allow, also passed 2,000 followers. I’m over 3,000 on Instagram and coming up on that on Twitter too. Thank you for all of that as well.

Will there be another 10,000 posts? I don’t know. In nine years, I’ll be 45 years old. Not to say it couldn’t or wouldn’t happen, but I’ve said all along that I don’t know what the future will bring, and I still feel that way. This is still an ongoing project, and I guess it will be until it isn’t anymore. Whenever that is, I assume I’ll know.

Oh, and my only regret about the last 9,999 posts before this one? That more of them weren’t about how much Acid King kicks ass. Because, man oh man, Acid King kicks some ass.

Thanks so much for reading. We go onward. Head down, keep working.

All my best,
JJ Koczan