Believe me, I’m almost as surprised to be sitting her typing this as you are sitting here reading it.

I hardly even know where to begin. Everything is different now and yet…it’s all still the same. Let’s go back to April of 2016, to where the original incarnation of this website met it’s demise. I was still working as a 911 and LifeFlight dispatcher in Worcester, Massachusetts. I worked a bizarre two week schedule that was a combination of 8 and 12 hour over-night shifts. All things told I was gone from the house anywhere from 10 to 14 hours a day. Trying to keep up that pace as well as keep up with family and keep a website running on top of that was becoming near impossible.

My father’s health was also declining and everyhing came to a head on Memorial Day of 2016. My father fell at home and shattered his hip. I was at work (as usual) when my sister called me to tell me what happened. I immediately became inconsolably upset. I knew that this was it…I could feel it. There was no way that my father could recover from this level of damange. Everyone tried to tell me that I was just over-reacting and that he’d be fine.

At this point, I can hear Morgan Freeman in my head, as if he is narrating the movie of my life: “It was not fine.”

On Thursday, July 7th, my father passed away in a hospital bed with his family around him. Call it what you want…complications from surgery, call it Lewy Body Dementia, call it a lifetime of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, even after four heart attacks and despite having emphazema so bad that even at rest, for him, breathing was like trying to suck air through a tiny straw. Unfortunately, for my father, sometimes, you just can’t fight the demons that you’ve had for a lifetime.

My mother was also in failing health and I didn’t like the idea of her living alone, so my wife and I decided to find a house in the country with plenty of room and have her move in with us.

The first couple of years were good and we had a great time together. Mom and I watched tons of movies and old TV shows together. Things felt like they were really getting back to normal for a while. But, I’m sure that you’re already way ahead of me and know where this is going:

Morgan Freeman: “Things did not stay that way.”

No, they did not. My mother’s kidneys went into failure, she developed MDS, which is like a precursor to Leukemia and to top all that off, she had a stroke when she went into surgery for heart failure on February morning. She was one of those people who truly believed that if you’re going to do something, go big or go home. On July 31, 2022 my mother passed away in her bed at home with her children by her side.

Yeah, I know…this is all really heavy stuff….but growth and evolution hurt like a bitch. Think of this as my current dark origin story.

I couldn’t handle working in EMS anymore. Being in the house that we shared was too painful. Everywhere we looked was a reminder of all we had lost. I told my wife that I wanted to go back to a 9 to 5 job. I had spent 20 years in EMS and missed so much family time and so many family events. All things that I now deeply regretted not being there for. And so I set about starting to look for a “regular” job while still working as a dispatcher. One evening, while at work (SURPRISE, SURPRISE!) my wife texted me and said “If you’re going to switch careers….let’s change everything.”

She proposed that we move to Virginia, which is where we always said we wanted to retire to.

I’d get a day job and she has the ability to work remotely from anywhere she wants. So that is exactly what we did. I started getting excited about the idea of being able to go back to performing music and magic again…my first two loves!

We landed down here in Virginia in December of 2023.

I got a job locally (working almost literally nine to five!) and we set about starting our new lives.
Being the incredibly charismatic couple that we are, it didn’t take us long to start making friends and we started to build a real life down here. I met some incredible people and before I knew it, started playing music gigs fairly regularly. I felt that itch to perfom magic still nagging at me. Nagging…nagging…like a monkey on my back that just wouldn’t relent. And so I started to shake the rust off there too. I even starred as Brad Majors in a Shadow Cast showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with a local theater last October!

Through all of this, of course I still watched tons of films and constantly would try to get other people to watch them too.

But then, I started to feel like I was being pulled in too many directions. Music. Magic. Theatrical productions. Voice work for animated films. Hell, I’m in the middle of working on a musical burlesque show based on the Universal Monsters for too! I missed podcasting and started to toy around with ideas for new shows (one of which was a ficticious paranormal talk show called The Ridgeline Nexus, the other a music exploration show called Midnight Frequency…more on that one in a bit). Still, I felt like I was pulling too many different ways and felt like I just couldn’t focus.

Then about two weeks ago it hit me: I wasn’t going in too many directions and trying to do too many things…the fact of the matter is, I wasn’t pulling them all in towards me as I should have been. It was in a fit of inspiration (at about two in the morning, when all true fits of inspiration happen) that my World of Midnight took shape. It was all connected. The music. The magic. The films. The Shows. All of it….because my taste runs the same no matter what I’m doing: I love the strange, the forgotten, the esoteric, the unknown, the fringe, the things that fell through the cracks.

Sure I love me some Marvel flicks and I’m still a giant Star Wars nerd. I love Tom Petty and U2. I love Super Mario Bros. But more often than not? You better belive I’m watching, listening, reading, playing and writing about the stuff that no one else ever seems to notice.

Then it hit me: the show I was working on is called Midnight Frequency. The magic show that I’m working on is called The Midnight Archive. I RAN THE GAWDDAM MIDNIGHT CINEPHILE FOR YEARS! It’s all connected. And I realized something else: Midnight doesn’t necessarily mean spooky. Midnight for me now has become more of a state of mind. It’s that place where you are alone and can explore unencumbered while the rest of the world sleeps. It’s discovering that David Fenton (former front man of The Vapors) put out a 45 single for Razor Records in 1983 and that the A side song, “Fresh Air” is not only one of the funkiest things you’ve ever heard, but the B side, “Buried in Snow” is just as good! It’s discovering a lost noir film on The Criterion Channel. It’s watching episodes of the original Transformers cartoons from the 80’s and discovering tha the Decepticons actually made a dance club called DISKOTRON at one point to cover their communications with other Decepticons on Cyberton! It’s discovering that you can watch all of the old Yan Can Cook episodes on YouTube. It’s reading a pulp horror paperback from the 1970’s about alien centipedes living in a barn and mind controlling people and chickens. It’s wanting to share a sense of wonder with people, but wanting to wrap it in real sense of mystery rather than just telling them to “pick a card.”

And so, my beautiful World of Midnight started to take form.

Midnight Cinephile: This very website, which I’ve conveniently titled Midnight Cinephile: Part II – The Next Reel….it’s not a reboot. It’s not a remake. This is very much a continuation of what I’ve started before, and as such I’m including the old website’s archive for your to peruse at your leisure. In addition, I’m in the processes of launching some LIVE Midnight Cinephile events, including honest to goodness Midngiht Movies and I’m doing my damndest to bring the old Spook Shows of the 50’s and 60’s back! Just call me Professor Midnight!

Midnight Frequency: A one hour(ish) music show where i can share deep cuts, forgotten tracks, b-sides and songs that have slipped through the cracks. Sure there may be artists that you heard of on the show…but it’s not going to be the songs that you hear on the radio! In addition I’m starting to lean my live performances towards that Midnight vibe as well. I’ll play familiar songs, of course as well, but even those will have a more chill, relaxed late night vibe to them.

The Midnight Archive: This is where the magic lives. Live shows of varying sizes. Need a magician for a house party? Allow me. Need someone to come over and tell you spooky tales around the campfire punctuated with magical effects? Got you covered. Want an evening out at an honest to goodness magic show? That’s in the works too.

The Midnight Dispatch: A place for all my strange writings. Did you know I’ve got a published book of Halloween poetry? True story. I’ve got stories published in various anthologies as well. What will I come up with next? Who knows! But you can bet that it will be something unusual. I’m currently at work on my magnum opus: A film reference book that I can only hope will somehow be on par with John Stanely’s Creature Features. That book has been my cinematic bible for the better part of 30 years.

These are the four pillars of my World of Midnight. Where will they take me? Where will they take you? You just never can tell, because if there is one thing that I’ve learned in all my years taking the roads less taken and dwelling in the places that are widely unknow: you just never know what’s going to be around the next bend…and NOT knowing is half the fun!

So my friends, welcome back. I’ve missed you all more than you could ever possibly know. The sun is starting to set and things are about to get very interesting.

-Matthew