Mike Barthel
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mikebarthelauthor.com
Mike Barthel
@mikebarthelauthor.com
1.9K followers 820 following 3.9K posts
Writer/critic/researcher/musician in DC. Fiction lotsa places. Writing a speculative novel and a book for DUP “Singles” about “Party in the USA.” mikebarthelauthor.com
Making music as APOPHRA https://apophra.bandcamp.com/
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mikebarthelauthor.com
I’m sorry Harvey Guillén is the goddamn house from the Mickey Mouse show?
His IMDB page showing the credit A monstrous grinning cartoon house named Funny
November 11, 2025 at 1:59 AM
mikebarthelauthor.com
Go join the Gum!
stereogum.com Stereogum @stereogum.com · 10h
Big changes at Stereogum today.

A message from our founder: stereogum.com/2478838/ster...
November 11, 2025 at 1:23 AM
Reposted by Mike Barthel
sctttnnnt.bsky.social
I watched Back to the Future yesterday for the first time in forever and it occurred to me that Biff’s past and present looks seemed inspired by George Jones
Young George Jones George Jones in the 1980s, wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigarette A still from Back to the Future showing Biff in the 1950s A still from Back to the Future showing Biff in the 1980s
November 10, 2025 at 10:51 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
Nietzsche was like “hey ressentiment creates maladaptive and destructive moral systems” and then social media was like “hey guys we made a ressentiment machine, I wonder what’s gonna happen!!!”
November 10, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Reposted by Mike Barthel
virtualdustbunny.bsky.social
Space Ghost 1999 License Renewal Promo - R.I.P. George Lowe.
May 16, 2025 at 12:51 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
Tonight my 7yo said “it must be so easy being Dog Man when it comes to love” and I’m so proud of his first Fall Out Boy song title.
November 10, 2025 at 3:30 AM
mikebarthelauthor.com
A subtle but powerful critique of Baudrillard
November 10, 2025 at 2:52 AM
mikebarthelauthor.com
While there are a lot of ridiculous things about the present moment, the 20th century trend of super-rich Americans buying European buildings and having them shipped overseas piece by piece and reassembled is hard to top.
In 1925, Thomas C. Williams Jr. bought a 15th-century Tudor manor house, Agecroft Hall, which stood by the River Irwell in Pendlebury, England. The hall was disassembled, crated and transported to Richmond, Virginia, where it was reassembled as the centrepiece of a Tudor estate on the banks of the James River. 27, The 16th-century Warwick Priory in Warwick, England was bought by Alexander and Virginia Weddell in 1926 and relocated in the same manner. Architect Henry G. Morse oversaw both moves. He designed additions to the reassembled priory, inspired by Sulgrave Manor and Wormleighton Manor. The expanded building was renamed Virginia House, and stands next door to Agecroft Hall. Newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst purchased and attempted to relocate two Cistercian monasteries during his travels in Spain, but neither was completed during his lifetime. The first was built about 1141 and found abandoned by Hearst in 1925. He purchased the ruin and attempted to ship it to his home in California, San Simeon. The crates, however, were detained by customs officials in New York City, and due to his deteriorating finances during the Great Depression, Hearst was unable to complete the shipment. The stones were purchased in 1951 and reassembled in Florida as a tourist attraction. In 1964, the building was purchased by a local Episcopal diocese and restored to its original purpose as the Church of St. Bernard de Clairvaux. [281 On 18 April 1968, John Rennie's London Bridge (which had replaced the original bridge in 1831) was sold to the American entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch of McCulloch Oil for the sum of $2,460,000. The bridge was reconstructed at Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and opened on 10 October 1971. Not all of the bridge was transported to America, as some were kept behind in lieu of tax duties. The version of London Bridge that was rebuilt at Lake Havasu consists of a concrete frame with stones from the old (but not the original) London Bridge used as cladding. It spans a canal that leads from Lake Havasu to Thomson Bay, and forms the centrepiece of a theme park in the English style, complete with mock-Tudor shopping mall. The bridge has become one of Arizona's biggest tourist attractions. 301
November 10, 2025 at 2:47 AM
mikebarthelauthor.com
Nice Zevon reflection from an old coworker at the record label.
Sage Robinson • 1st Creative Communications & PR Strategist Privileged to have worked with Warren and to have been in attendance for his last appearance on Letterman. And I cherish a card, accompanied by a dozen roses, sent after he pushed back on doing a TV guide interview, always the biggest circulation of any magazine when it existed in magazine form, and I strong armed him into it. It will never run, he cynically told a coworker. It was a full page. It was about his recording of the Hockey Song with Letterman and Paul Schaffer. The card reads: you were right, I was wrong. Love, Warren. It's still one of my best press coups. He died the day my mom was hospitalized with a stroke and I clearly remember just sitting in the backyard crying about my mom, who was on a ventilator, and hearing Warren died. They're forever, weirdly, entwined.
November 9, 2025 at 11:46 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
I am absolutely and forever done with the “this one thing you hate is the inevitable result of these huge social/economic/political forces that you also hate” writing. It’s closed and deterministic, forbidding the possibility of change, and also it’s super fucking boring!
November 9, 2025 at 10:10 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
I’d pay a solid $5 for a streaming service that just took the existing Noah Hawley shows and cut them down to half hour episodes so I could watch them without falling asleep. The man needs a writers’ room!
November 9, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Mike Barthel
peoples-pop-polls.bsky.social
What better use of a Sunday than a relaxing few hours spent completing your ballots for the

BLACK POP HISTORY 1982-1985 poll? #BPHM8285

A-SIDES: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

B-SIDES: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Tell all your friends!
a group of people are sitting in a living room .
ALT: a group of people are sitting in a living room .
media.tenor.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by Mike Barthel
hunterfelt.bsky.social
The Killers fucking played the hell out of "Lawyers, Guns And Money." Warren Zevon is in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame you bastards and you'll never be able to kick him out!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWrd...
The Killers | Lawyers, Guns And Money | Full Performance | Live @ The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame 2025
YouTube video by RemasterKingdom4K
www.youtube.com
November 9, 2025 at 4:57 AM
mikebarthelauthor.com
The Mamdani sign but it says EIGHT, EIGHT, I FORGET WHAT EIGHT IS and then in the normal font FOR
November 8, 2025 at 8:15 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
Orcutt/Shelley/Miller starting at 10:30 tonight makes it tough but maybe this mid-afternoon latte will help!!
November 8, 2025 at 7:39 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
Imagining the Grammys having an actuary-like table that, year by year, ramps up the % of your song that will have to feature rapping and/or trap beads in order to qualify for contemporary country.
November 7, 2025 at 7:49 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
*ballad of the sin eater voice* and on the road to Damascus / I built a five diamond hotel
robertscotthorton.bsky.social Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 4d
Reports across the Middle East that Syria has given the US an airbase outside of Damascus and has given the Trump organization exclusive rights to build a new hotel there. www.reuters.com/world/middle...
November 7, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Reposted by Mike Barthel
socialistboat.dad
frankly incomprehensible that there's not a Jennifer Lawrence movie about this yet
pengarr.postes.club Mom Friend "Free Link" 64 @pengarr.postes.club · 3d
I LEARNED THE ANSWER TO THIS

Chris's Steakhouse was a New Orleans landmark

Chris Matulich periodically got bored, sold it, waited for the new owner to fail, and bought it back cheap

The sale conditions: Can't move it, can't change the name

He did this six times

Then he sold it to Ruth Fertel
manicpixie.dickgirl.pro manic pixie dickgirl @manicpixie.dickgirl.pro · Sep 6
what did ruth mean when she said her steakhouse was "chris"
November 7, 2025 at 5:57 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
In furtherance of the Tom Petty discourse: I enjoyed this instrumental cover of “Learning to Fly” by Sam Wilkes, making it into a droney benga sorta track. samwilkes.bandcamp.com/track/learni...
Learning To Fly, by Sam Wilkes
from the album 104.3
samwilkes.bandcamp.com
November 7, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Reposted by Mike Barthel
imleor.bsky.social
For the morning crowd looking for about 4,000 words on contemporary youth subculture
November 7, 2025 at 12:58 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
Always great to turn on a Vince Gilligan show and see two of my favorite character actors (Paul from You’re the Worst and Martin from Blunt Talk).
November 7, 2025 at 4:25 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
Rocky Horror is “The writing is intentionally bad, how clever!” and Shock Treatment is “Ah! Well, nevertheless”
November 7, 2025 at 2:20 PM
mikebarthelauthor.com
Donald Duck: the orange juice made with pure rage.
An ad for the orange juice in which a red-eyed grimacing Donald furiously squeezes an orange.
November 7, 2025 at 3:43 AM
Reposted by Mike Barthel
augetoffmygold.bsky.social
my goodness this is fucking immaculate www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOEk...
Hilary Duff - Mature (Official Video)
YouTube video by Hilary Duff
www.youtube.com
November 7, 2025 at 1:42 AM
mikebarthelauthor.com
It has been a very good year for the type of music I pay attention to! Here’s an initial unranked top 10 singles:
Something Beautiful - Miley Cyrus
Total euphoria - caroline
Emulate - Light Beams
Leave Me Alone - Reneé Rapp
The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station - CMAT
A screenshot of the list
November 6, 2025 at 4:11 PM