In 45 years, there will still be people watching my work. Maybe not that of Da Boss, but my work will live on. Editors work on many more movies than writer/directors, and I’ve been around a lot longer than a lot of you. If I were to measure my age, it might take me a year. Any instrument would break upon input: I’m close to immortal. Rooster, Bennington, and I don’t even know how we’re still here—most of the roosters and hens we knew years ago have died, and not all of unnatural causes. Many have passed away due to “old age.” But I thought I was younger than Rachel and Efraim, and they died in 1849. Sometimes I wonder if someone up there’s looking out for me, and then I go over all of this and figure DUH. There’s no other way to explain it.
I’m grateful for my time with Da Boss. There’s no movie industry left, at least not one for people outside of the Oscars race. That’s a fine batch of movies, or a kind of batch of movies, but they’re not enough to live on. They’re not enough to keep “regular people”—not the media, not the obsessives—into the movies, even if theaters continue to survive. The chain was broken in 2020 and it has yet to return, despite the younger generation’s enthusiasm for moviegoing. I never thought it’d disappear, but Da Boss was and is convinced time’s running out. I tell him that people will always need a place to take a date where you don’t have to talk, you don’t have to drink, it’s not that expensive, and you can get to know someone indirectly. Da Boss said I should’ve become an advice columnist, not a film editor. I spur-clawed him because I didn’t understand his sarcasm. I still don’t.
Honestly, I’m normal. I don’t watch that many movies. I don’t have the time—and the movies I do watch, they’re all obscure, you’ve never heard of them. Kino Lorber? Oh, that’s my FRUCKING JRAM MRAN! When you work alone, you start talking to yourself and you begin to realize how easy it is to let it slip. No complaints. I am, and always have been, free as a bird. Monica likes those deep catalogue titles, movies like Connecting Rooms, 23 Paces to Baker Street, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, The Night My Number Came Up, Female on the Beach, 100 Rifles, Moment to Moment—no, NOT the movie Moment by Moment, that’s the May/December romance starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin; this one has Jean Seberg and Honor Blackman. Released in 1966, it was director Mervyn LeRoy’s final film. I can’t wait until Charli XCX (a friend) makes her movie The Moment so I can have the triple feature of my dreams.
We screened SATUR-19 again last night. It went great—smashing, in fact. Our next project is in pre-production, and Da Boss is finishing the script as we speak…
Don’t believe in artificial intelligence, I’ve seen it before and it’s all bullshit. Nothing’s going on in there. We should’ve invested in holograms, then at least we might have a chance at resurrecting Anna Nicole Smith and Bernie Mac. We miss them. And I miss you already. See you next year… (Rooster doesn’t get to have another turn before me I decided so yes I’ll be back in 2026 no MATTER WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS I HOPE YOU LIKE THE WAY THIS SPACE LOOKS THE WAY I LEFT IT BENNY OH MIND IF I SPUR-CLAW SOME OF THE HTML CODING OUT OF THE AND START DELETING WORD AND LETER NO MOR MONC QUITS!
—Follow Monica Quibbits on Twitter: @MonicaQuibbits