30 Years of Teaching College Writing in the Greatest City in the World

Yesterday, in my college critical thinking class, I played a clip from Liza Treyger’s Night Owls set, where she spirals into a monologue about her addiction to animal videos. The class erupted in recognition—Treyger’s bit was less comedy, more collective confession. We then compared the insidious grip of food addiction to the death grip of smartphones, two habits nearly impossible to break because, unlike more glamorous vices, they’re baked into the daily human experience. You have to eat. You have to communicate. And thanks to Pavlovian conditioning, the mere buzz of a notification or the scent of a cheeseburger can hijack your willpower before you even know what hit you.

At one point, I noticed one of my students—a professional surfer—had a can of Celsius energy drink perched on his desk like a talisman of modern endurance. I mentioned that my daughters practically mainline the stuff, to which he casually replied that he was transitioning to Accelerator, as if he were upgrading his addiction to something with a more explosive name. This led us down a delightful rabbit hole about the marketing committee responsible for naming that monstrosity, the raw aggression of Costco shoppers jostling for bulk energy drinks, and how smartphones are turning my students into exhausted zombies. They shared their chosen comfort foods, each confession tinged with equal parts nostalgia and shame.

The discussion was sharp, lively, and deeply engaging. And yet, in a moment of brutal self-awareness, I admitted to them that I felt pathetic. Here I was, sitting among the chillest students in the world, having a profound conversation about addiction—and all I could think about was ditching class to speed down to Costco and buy a case of Accelerator. They cracked up, and we carried on dissecting addiction for their essay on weight management and free will.

After thirty years of teaching in Los Angeles, I’m convinced I’ve won the academic lottery. There’s no better place to teach, no better students to challenge my tomfoolery, and no better city to fuel my own ridiculous, completely relatable compulsions.