Monoplex is changing.

Me & the movies, starting over.

Hey y’all. Things are different now.

2025 is the year where most weapons formed against me started prospering. Like, OD prospering. I got laid off in February and it kind of threw my entire identity into a downward spiral. It took months in therapy for me to start the real work of recovering from nearly 20 years of tethering my self-worth to my job. Not even a particular job, just having a job.

The nightmarish hell realm of the American job market (particularly for marketers) and my own personal allergy to the energy-killing, AI-encumbered maximalism of 100-apps-a-day job searching also did a number on my self-worth. Couple with that my tragic millennial aversion to asking for help or advice, for fear of betraying the idea of myself that doesn’t need help and “is okay,” and you’ve got one-way ticket to burnout. Just as I had started healing from the Wicked-(among other things)-induced round of burnout that made me run crying to the therapist to begin with! To be quite honest, the whole experience has made me a little paranoid and I’m trying to work through it all without regressing.

All that said, this process has not been wholly negative. I was (for lack of a better, less loaded word) blessed with a nice severance (that I could have been way more responsible with). I got time to spend with my friends and family, complete with excess energy I could devote to mindful quality time with them. I got to explore some volunteer opportunities like planting trees and local health ambassadorship, in addition to the occasional work I get to do on behalf of my mom’s lupus non-profit. I got the freedom to see what life was like, unburdened by line-go-up capitalism for just a moment. And it changed me.

It feels like everything is changing. Everything about me and my relationships to things, to the world. My relationship to movies is changing. Not for the first time, mind you. The original run of Monoplex posts is almost a shrine to how the pandemic broke my brain and, with it, my perception of film as an art form, business and cultural institution. I became an appreciator of schmaltz and everything made me cry. I started a bad movie podcast, where appreciating what a lackluster film had to offer eventually made every good movie great, every great movie a revelation, and every revelatory movie change my life.

Now, like I said up top, it’s different. That brain-breaking experience of film has awakened in me a desire to give of my own mind and my own soul to help preserve it. To take my (very simple, but maybe that’s a good thing?) idealism about it, find like-minded people and create the movie world that I want to live in. To start over and become bullish on passion to see where it leads me.

The first place it led me is back to writing. My relationship to writing is changing. Mostly because I’m reading more. I’m reading more articles, more essays, more comics and even books. I used to be a voracious reader but, like many others, life, technology and general interest in other things got in the way and the muscle just atrophied at some point. This isn’t to say that it’s no longer a lift. It still takes me way too long to even pick up a book, let alone finish it. The act of reading, however, is rewarding. It helps unlock my curiosity and gives clarity to thoughts I’ve had for a long time but couldn’t bring myself to articulate.

I’ve got new reasons to write. This spring, I came back to this space with a couple of new essays on Novocaine and Warfare. It felt less like having a take, which I felt dominated some much of those first Monoplexes I pumped out, and more like asking questions and following threads. Like I was writing for myself, rather than writing at people.

Later, in the summer, I started a zine! The central conceit of Gosh! I Love Movies. came to me after ~ making my screen debut ~ as an extra on a no-budget, KC-made indie comedy feature called Opening Night at the Aztec. For years, I’d heard about the burgeoning film community in Kansas City but never had the energy or time to check it out for myself. Or so I thought. The truth was that, like my own politics, my perspective on film was focused on national institutions (see: Hollywood). And, like those Hollywood institutions, I’d largely forsaken the very idea of independent film — especially the idea of it outside of the coasts or Austin, TX.

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In talking to actually local artists who use their passion and the tools at their disposal to bring their ideas to life, I started to feel something that I hadn’t felt in a long time. Something that I couldn’t even imagine feeling a year prior (and definitely not in the wake of a layoff): inspiration. Ideas came flying out of me. Questions I hadn’t asked myself in years, like “what kind of film would I make?” More exciting, however, were the questions like “how can I assist?” Or “what can I contribute?” The answer to the last one hit me like a freight train: awareness.

So, Gosh!, ideally, is basically that. My own little local film magazine that I use as an excuse to chat with filmmakers in my backyard and to aggregate everything movie related that I would like to know about KC. I’m inspired by the film culture that folks like Robert Rodriguez and Tim League were able to build in Austin, TX. I’m inspired by all the local filmmakers I’ve met via the Independent Film Coalition of Kansas City and the passionate film enthusiasts that I’ve encountered like the KC’s Mainstreet Movie Club. I want to harness that and help it grow; build connections and help foster a city-wide film community.

With that, my capacity for ambition is changing. I haven’t ever really followed any passion before, let alone one as nebulous as this one. I’m starting over, much in the way that author (and my endlessly challenging and frustrating fave) Jason Pargin describes in the video linked below: It’s scary but a little exhilarating and feels a little like the death of my old life.

Right now, it’s one step at a time. It’s Gosh! It’s cutting my teeth developing marketing for local filmmakers. It’s leaning in and writing every day.

This isn’t to say that I think this will be easy. It’s all kind of confusing and hard. I missed publishing an issue of Gosh! in August because life happened and I’m doing it for free. But I want to continue on with it because I believe in it. I believe in it so much that I want Monoplex to be a part of this whole journey. To that end, like the headline says, Monoplex is changing.

To help me with my goal of writing something every day, I’ll be publishing Tuesday Takes every week, reacting to the movie (and movie industry) news of the previous week.

The film essays will continue, beginning with a full (work) week of new pieces I’m calling The Summer the Movies Changed with Us, starting Monday, September 22:

• The Ravenous Curiosity of Ryan Coogler's Sinners

• What did we want from Materialists?

• 28 Years Later, the first COVID blockbuster

• How Superman weaponizes your inner child for good

• Freakier Friday is a warning. ‘Girl-stalgia’ is here.

The biggest update, though, is that I’ll be using this space to chronicle my journey into local independent film in Kansas City (and beyond? Maybe, but let’s focus). I’m looking to build with artists, support them and find ways to hyper-localize and hyper-regionalize this medium and industry that I love. And maybe even inspire someone the way these filmmakers I’ve met have inspired me.

Thanks for supporting me this far and I hope you’ll join me on this new journey.

See you at the movies.