The Midnight Citizen

Join Mike in the studio on a Saturday night… …where he rejects the notion of having a mid-life crisis despite all the warning signs. If anything, with all the advances in modern medicine, he’s having a quarter-life crisis. *Music Break: “Star Wars Saloon” by John Lopker (Album: “Spaceship Earth” ; “Twenty-Five” by Delay 77 (Album: “Don’t Stare at the Sun”) . All music is played under a Creative Co...

Join Mike in the studio at night… …where he hobnobs with movie stars, runs afoul of bandits and gentlemen conmen, and shotguns Coronas with Mexican gangsters. Check out the website over at mikeboody.com/themidnightcitizen , with links to old episodes on Archive.org , and join the Facebook page ! …“I’m not the phone company. NO ONE’S the phone company anymore.” This work is licensed under a Creativ...

Join Mike in the studio on a Saturday night… …where he wonders if the self-esteem movement of the 80s made him a millennial snowflake? Nope – he watched the sick entertainment of Jim Henson. Also, anti-antiwork, and VR’s last play. Will we all end up cartoons in a cartoon graveyard? *Music Break: “I’ll Almost Get us There” by Derek Clegg; “Citizen’s Arrest” by Dazie Mae. All music is played under...

Join Mike in the studio on a Saturday night… …where he navigates through a haze of confusion and paranoia, egged on by high gas prices, noises of flatulence, and misunderstood song lyrics. Also, an ordinary trip to the drug store results in an accidental time trip back to middle school. *Music Break: “Hipster Girls” by The Spin Wires ; “That’s a Beat” by Ketsa . All music is played under a Creativ...

Mike's out of the studio this week, but enjoy this oldie from March 2016. Show Notes: Join Mike in the basement on a rainy Saturday night. Topics include: porch podcasting plans destroyed; making coffee; doing a show in the basement with the garage door open and looking out on the rainy night; stormy night nightmares and dreaming this week that I was trapped inside an 80s dead teenager movie with...

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night… …where he wonders if he really learned anything in kindergarten – since life is so tough, and recites a better credo to live life by: the repo code. Check out the detailed show notes here. *Music Break: “Bellweather” by Man Woman Child ; “Get Me a Job” by the Riptones . All music is played under a Creative Commons License (Attribution, noncommercia...

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night… …where he recalls the time he scammed himself a free pizza from Domino’s (unsuccessfully), and talks about “Inventing Anna”, a Netflix series showcasing the millennial scam culture. Also, more scams of the rich and famous, and another trip to the Video Street Video Store! Check out the detailed show notes here . *Music Break: “Slipping Away” by Jac...

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night… …where he tearfully looks back on his long-lasting relationship with his bank, and how he regretfully had to break it off. Also, Mike attempts to yodel, and remembers Cousin Cliff Holman, Birmingham’s own “Kansas City Star”. *Music Break: “The Machine Stops” by The Miseryslims ; “The Milky Way” by HolinzaCCO (album: “An Ocean in Outer Space”) . All...

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night… …where he discovers new uses for the Zippo, as the American military did during Vietnam, and contemplates the long, complicated history of sentence diagramming. Also, will the kids take over when they realize the adults don’t know what they’re doing? *Music Break: “Blackout Romeo” by the Spin Wires; “Hawaii 5-0 (CB-203)” by Checkie Brown All music...

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night… Where he burns a bourbon-whisky scented candle he made, and wonders when the American “boy” becomes the American “man”. Perhaps it’s when he gets his first Boy Scout Handbook? Or maybe when he finds out the Boy Scouts are a sham?  Also: memories of the Boy Scouts (all I got from it was a first place medal for the Pinewood Derby, a competition I che...

Join Mike on the balcony of his hotel room in Florida and on the steps outside his apartment after a very long and fulfilling trip to Savannah, Georgia and Amelia Island, Florida. Also, enjoy some bonus audio of the complete tour of the Sorrel-Weed House, reportedly the most haunted house in America*. Listen, if you dare! Show Notes: Sitting on the beach in Florida with my wife, testing a makeshif...

Join Mike in the studio on a Saturday night… ...wondering about where all the tapes of dads getting hit in the testacles with whiffle balls went after they were sent into Bob Saget in the late 80’s. Were they destroyed, or put in a warehouse somewhere, along with the Ark of the Covenant? Also: how America’s Funniest Home Videos (1989-present) may be the most prophetic show of the last 50 years; th...

Join Mike in the studio on a Saturday night, and also on the porches and streets of Birmingham, AL. Topics include: Happy 4th of July!; interviewing fireworks; the Dick Tracy Watch story; sarcastic Americanism; got a new coffee percolator; podcasting and misconceptions; awful movie trailers; “Jurassic World” review, and much more! Music for this episode is from the  New Midnight Cassette System  b...

Join Mike in the studio on a Saturday night… ...talking about a trip he took to the beach with the church youth group in 1996, and how most of the time was spent not on the sand, but in the cold conference room of the Holiday Inn, praying and reading the bible. Yikes. He should’ve just skipped the preach and gone to the beach. Also: I finished teaching summer camp this week; working alongside my s...

Join Mike in the studio on a stormy Saturday night… ...talking about how he became a hero in the Dunkin Donuts for dealing with a “Karen”, and got a free donut. Also, a toast to Actor Ned Beatty, who died this week at 82, and gave us one of the most horrifying scenes in the history of cinema (it’s not the one you think). Show Notes: Dealing with an entitled “Karen” at the coffee shop, who wouldn’t...

Show notes: What happens when you call the past? Do you get a “disconnected” message?; Stephen King’s “The Langoliers” shows us that the past is a dead place; survey on where people would rather travel: the past or the future?; the Baha Men; Why I would never survive in prison; Alabama is falling behind heavily on Covid vaccinations; “The Conjuring: the Devil Made Me Do It”, and why these films ab...

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night. Show notes: My dream about exploring an old house, haunted by the ghost of Bill Cosby; adult dreams vs. childhood nightmares; it’s scary being a kid because you never know what you will see that will scar you for life; Lucid Dreaming; Music Break*; a toast to a new summer of Midnight Citizen shows; yoga is allowed back in Alabama public schools, bu...

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night, where he reflects on becoming a Trump supporter (briefly) after a dream he had of attending the President’s Christmas party at the Plaza Hotel, and how the theory of meeting a President in person -- or, even, in a dream -- can greatly improve your chances of voting for him. Also, is Ellen Degeneres done for, and does anybody care?, and we drink a t...

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night. Show notes: Why does improvisational theatre get such a bad rap? Two improv-themed shows on Netflex: “Middleditch and Schwartz” and “Don’t Think Twice”; the history of improv and negative impressions; the time I embarrassed myself in an improv class with the Second City (it still makes me cringe to this day); lightning struck a tree outside my hous...

Show notes: Kids drinking from glass bottle cokes elicit angry reactions from the old guard; generation gaps; it seems like my friends and I are just grown-up children, or maybe not; Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which I visited last year and thought was so beautiful,, is otherwise known as “Helltown, USA” due to urban legends of monsters and satanic cults; Music Break*; “Unsolved Mysteries” retu...

Join Mike on the porch late on a Tuesday night. Show Notes: Sitting on the porch at 11:55 pm, waiting for my paycheck to come in; doing podcasts this summer; going to the Grand River Drive-In and seeing Jurassic Park , the number 1 film at the box office this week, 27 years after its release; the amazing films of 1999; my strategy for seeing “R” rated films before I was 17; Criterion Collection sa...

I'm away from the microphone on this July 4th, but enjoy an episode from the archive from July 2014. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikesbonfire.substack.com

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night. Show notes: Gary Puckett of the 60’s band, “Gary Puckett and the Union Gap”, is a perv; anti-vaccers and anti-maskers may be plants by mysterious organizations to keep us distracted; Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon; saw a guy in my neighborhood walking around like a dog, trying to sniff out some pot that he could buy; travelers from Alabama must se...

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night, where he recalls the time he got kicked out of a Chuck E. Cheese, and reviews the stuff he bought off Amazon during quarantine. Exciting stuff. Show Notes: why nostalgia will destroy us all; people are pretending the pandemic is over, when the data says otherwise; burglars used masks during the pandemic of 1918 to disguise themselves when robbing b...

Join Mike in the studio late on a Saturday night. Show Notes: Exciting things are going down at the Piggly Wiggly, now that the machines have arrived; witnessed a sad old lady shouting at a self checkout kiosk; why do we trust machines more than humans?; this week is the eighth anniversary of the Downtown Drive-in, my pop up theater that succeeded before it failed horribly; are drive-in’s making a...