Tonight, to kick off 4th of July week, I bring to you some quotes from a barrage of great American patriots — George Washington, Justice Potter Stewart, Missile Command Champ and former Playgirl Centerfold Roy “Mr. Awesome” Schildt. From there, we get onto the idea of “underground” postal systems, which Thomas Pynchon talks about in his Crying of Lot 49, and how the Internet was kind of a natural successor to the Trystero system…until it got infiltrated by, among other sinister agents, your mom.
Music Break: “Morning, Noon, and Nite” by Daddy Long Legs (CC-BY-NC-ND) “Nature Boy” by Harpo (CC-BY-NC)
Video Street Video Store: ?“Mr. Awesome — Roy Shildt”? ?“Waffle House Training — Harassment”?
Check out the video for this show over on Spotify and Youtube | ?@the_themidnightcitizenpodcast? …and be sure to join the ?Facebook page? and find me on ?Instagram?! …”True pornography is given to us by vastly patient professionals.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike US License. Attribution by Mike Boody. Released June 2025 on ?mikesbonfire.substack.com? and ?The Overnightscape Underground?.
Join Mike in the studio late (and LIVE!) on a stormy Saturday night…
Tonight, on the eve of Fathers’ Day, and in the absence of having kids of my own, I pass onto you some sage advice handed down to me by my dad…or maybe it was the funny coach from Teen Wolf:
“Never get less than 12 hours sleep… never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city… …and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body.”
Anyway, the second week of Camp was smashing. I taught the kids how to write plays using tried-and-true methods for creating conflict given to us by that Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling trucker movie Over the Top. It all went real well, which I know because the kids wrote a song about throwing me down a well. (Don’t ask, you just have to listen to the show and it’ll all make sense.)
Later… The job hunt continues…poorly. I kind of lose it on this episode when it dawns on me that Nazi Scientists were able to get gainful employment so quickly after Nuremburg…yet I continue to go unemployed. Honestly, it’s getting real desperate these days — like posting-on-LinkedIn and attending “Networking Events” desperate. I even emailed back a podcast spammer to ask if he had any jobs going.
Well, enough of that… After I play you some music, I invite you to take a toast with me to Brian Wilson, who passed this week at 82. Kick on back in the proverbial sand as we remember the great creative genius, his fraught relationship with the jolly Svengali Dr. Landy, and the woman who saved him — all depicted in the excellent, underrated film Love and Mercy (2015). Along the way, we’ll enjoy some memorable television moments with Brian and his late brothers…and, yeah, even Mike Love.
And finally… We take a look at Sammy’s Gentlemen’s Club, the infamous house of ill repute in the button-down Birmingham suburbs, that closed last year after the dancers united over unfair tipping practices…and will soon be holding its grand reopening as something called “The Pony Lounge” …Oo-la-la… I wonder if they’re hiring.
Music Break: ?“Belmont Jail Song”? by Crete Boom (CC-BY-NC-ND) ?“When You’re Gone”? by Bombay Laughing Club (CC-BY-NC)
Listen on Spotify and Apple Music: ?https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast…?
Video Street Video Store ?“Tom Savini on ‘Friday the 13th’ 1 & 4”? ?The Beach Boys on ‘Good Morning America!’ (early 1980s)?
This was one jam-packed show that was recorded live before an Internet audience. You can watch the whole thing on Spotify and also over at Youtube | ?@the_themidnightcitizenpodcast?
…and be sure to join the ?Facebook page? and find me on ?Instagram?! …”You stick to that and everything else is cream cheese.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike US License. Attribution by Mike Boody. Released June 2025 on ?mikesbonfire.substack.com? and ?The Overnightscape Underground?.
1:56:06 —Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night.
Tonight, I’m wondering why my generation has gotten such a bad rap for so long. Is it really just our love for Avocado toast, or something much deeper? Maybe we’re all looked down on because all the 80s and 90s pop culture we’re so nostalgic for was kind of vapid and banal, or it’s simply the fact that we never claimed to not wanna sell out? Whatever it is, we’re tired of taking it, and I dedicate a large portion of this episode to my kid sister, born in ‘84, who went viral recently for turning her middle school history classroom into a “Museum of the Millennial”, making the case that we did have a unique culture that, like so many generations before us, is totally antiquated and wholly mysterious to the kids of today.
I play some music before I tell you about the new movie I saw — Friendship, starring I Think You Should Leave‘s Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd (who has a mustache in this one, which means it’s kind of artsy — but not really; it’s just darkly funny and demented in a very non-mainstream way). Anyway, I give a sort of review with no spoilers, but mostly talk about what the movie has to say about adult men, loneliness, and also the whole “A24” thing…
And lastly…I relate the particulars of my latest existential crisis — this one happening over paying too much for a donut at the Circle K. Kind of dramatic, I know. But really… Why are we all so cool to live in a world where a day old donut costs the same as a gallon of gas? The answer, I guess, lies in the work of post-war Critical Theory and that ultimate Debbie Downer, Michel Foucault.
Tonight, a real experimental episode as we cross over into June, and I do my first live show in over 2 years! Of course, you’re downloading it, but still… Witness the drama as I attempt to engineer a livestream while clumsily monologuing about bullies, 90s self-help videos for kids hosted by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Teddy Roosevelt, and memes from World War II featuring Kilroy, the perpetual schlemiel of late 20th century pop culture. You know the drawing — I didn’t until yesterday, but everybody else I talk to seems to.
Later, I drink a toast to Loretta Swit, “Hot Lips” Houlihan on “M*A*S*H”, who died this week at 87… and two more toasts to other recently passed folks George Wendt and Simpsons composer Alf Clausen leaves me a little too flighty to talk about Thomas Pynchon’s first novel V…but I do it anyway.
Also…we’re bringing MUSIC BREAKS back to the show! Tonight, enjoy a back-to-back serving of music by Caühaüs and our favorite band from New Jersey, Forget the Whale!
And…I’m excited to take you back down to the Video Street Video Store, where we’ll check out a double feature of tapes on how to get a date in the 90’s!
After fighting a long, drawn-out battle to some stubborn window blinds, I give in and just get on with the show. Starting with listener comments about their absolute worst job interviews. Then an update on my continuing job hunt gets me thinking about how my lifestyle lately is fitting for these palindrome days of May — the same forwards and backwards: Drinking coffee, job hunting, delivering food, job hunting, drinking coffee.
Also: thoughts on the new “Mission: Impossible” (Spoiler-free because the plot’s too complicated to spoil)…and how my dad and I came close to being pariahs in the theater for ratting out a lady and her granddaughter.
Then we wrap up the show by watching an instructional video telling us all how to talk cool in the 90’s, and read some more listener comments about Tetraphobia. A true palindrome experience. Sit back and listen with your favorite after-dark drink — but be careful not to get bucked, y’all!
This week: some audience participation! What was your worst job interview ever? For me, it was that time I got detained for peddling coupon books in a federal building. I should’ve done more to heed the number 4, a bad sign for good fortune.
The interviews lately haven’t been that bad on my most recent run of unemployment. I mean, there’s no job yet, but at least no police have been called.
Meanwhile, I keep on yo-yoing around town, delivering food for food, and doing the best at it I can, despite, well… Let’s just say that when you make house calls, ordinary customers are not ordinary people.
Also, thanks to audience participation, I find a likely answer to why there’s no 4th floor at the university hospital. In true click bait fashion, it’s not what you think!
Join Mike on a rainy night in the suburbs of Birmingham, AL, as he sits in his parents’ garage, freshly unemployed, and ponders the next big move.
Really, instead of making any definite decisions, I get hung up on spotting “The Club” security bar on the steering wheel of somebody’s late model POS in a Walgreens parking lot — probably the first time I’ve seen one since the 90’s. Gets me thinking about why they stopped making them, or why they apparently still do, given their inherent security flaws — like, for instance, being ridiculously visible.
Also, didn’t Heather Graham have a Club in that movie Swingers? I investigate.
Join Mike in the studio for another late night ramble.
Tonight, we explore life after the rat race in Margaritaville, FLA, where a flock of 55-and-up Parrot Heads and coastal grandmothers are wastin’ away in an oasis by the sea. Also, Katy Perry and Gayle King go to space, and to all our chagrin, come back; meanwhile, back on Earth, I pay my taxes and cause a car accident, consider taking a job teaching homeschool for a Christian company that sounds like a soap opera, and check out the upcoming Thomas Pynchon novel, “Shadow Ticket”, which sends me further into the bottomless pit of trying to understand postmodernism.
Listen on Spotify and Apple Music: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast…
Watch Video of this episode over at Youtube | @the_themidnightcitizenpodcast
…and be sure to join the Facebook page and find me on Instagram! … “You got your Tony Lama’s on/your jeans pressed tight/You take a few tokes make you feel alright/Rockin’ and a rollin’ on a Livingston Saturday Night”…
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial Share-Alike US License. Attribution by Mike Boody. Released April 2025 on mikesbonfire.substack.com and The Overnightscape Underground.
Join Mike in the studio for another late night ramble.
Tonight, it’s all about looking for a new business to get into, like maybe buyin’ a drone and selling my services as a “droneprenuer”. It seems to work for all those folks on Youtube infomercials, and as far as shady enterprise goes, it’s really no more sketchy than any other classified ad on LinkedIn.
Later, I have a religious epiphany over a box of frozen ravioli, give my final thoughts on “The White Lotus”, and play you a clip of a white nationalist who sounds like Ned Flanders. It’s boss-diddly-oss!
Join Mike in the studio late at night for a free-flowing ramble.
On this episode, he recounts the Friday night scramble of his first job — racing to close down the dollar theater lobby in time to make it to the video store before they locked the gates. Thankfully, Christy, the night manager, would keep the lights on just a little longer, giving rise to their own unofficial after hours film society.
Also: Irishing up my coffee to make a toast to Val Kilmer, browsing the classifieds again in my ongoing job search saga, and just when you thought Pulp Fiction had given up all its secrets… new theories emerge…
