Cinemorphosis

Author: Jeffrey McMahon

  • When the DJ Lost His Mind & Played The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” for Three Hours Straight

    When the DJ Lost His Mind & Played The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” for Three Hours Straight

    It was a sweltering summer night in 1970, the kind of heat that melts your popsicle before you’ve unwrapped it and turns your family barbecue into a gladiator pit of passive-aggressive banter and steak smoke. Somewhere between my dad arguing about grill temps and my aunt trying to turn potato salad into a personality, the true spectacle of the evening wasn’t the charred meat or the mid-century familial dysfunction—it was what erupted over the airwaves.

    KFRC 610 AM, the mighty Top 40 beacon of San Francisco, had apparently been hijacked by a disc jockey teetering on the edge of reality. This radio shaman, perhaps emboldened by a bad acid trip or simply possessed by the spirit of Lennon and McCartney, played The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” on an endless loop for three solid hours.

    Not once. Not twice. Dozens of times.

    It was as if he’d discovered a wormhole in the Na-na-na-na-na-na-na dimension, and he was determined to drag the entire Bay Area through it, kicking and screaming—or, more likely, humming along with mounting psychosis. By the 12th replay, “Hey Jude” didn’t sound like music anymore; it was a mantra, a chant, a psychological experiment conducted in real time on unsuspecting citizens.

    At the time, DJs weren’t expected to be sane. Sanity was a liability.

    In fact, if your grip on reality was too tight, you probably worked in banking. Radio was for the unhinged, the beautifully deranged, the guys who played 9-minute prog-rock odysseys just to go smoke a joint or use the bathroom.

    One DJ at a rival station had a nightly tradition: every time he had to take a leak or inhale an entire bag of Cheetos, he’d cue up The Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin.” At nearly ten minutes long, it was the perfect alibi for sloth and snack breaks. And get this—listeners loved it. They called in and demanded it. That song didn’t just chart; it ascended like a slow-moving fog of existential poetry and flute solos.

    Suddenly, the 3-minute pop single was passé. Listeners wanted long, indulgent, vinyl-drenched feasts of music. “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” wasn’t a song—it was an epic. It was our Ninth Symphony, a sprawling, self-important masterpiece that dared to be longer than your average sitcom episode.

    This was the golden era of the musical buffet, where DJs weren’t just tastemakers—they were lunatic conductors of cultural excess. Every drawn-out bridge and psychedelic outro was a sign that we had transcended the 45-rpm world of bubblegum pop and entered a new, freeform temple of indulgence.

    And if your DJ didn’t go off the rails every now and then, frankly, what the hell were you listening for?

  • The Great, on Hulu, is your TV Mount Everest

    The Great, on Hulu, is your TV Mount Everest

    So, you’ve just finished watching the complete 3 seasons of The Great on Hulu, and now you’re a broken shell of a human being. This “anti-historical” comedy about Empress Catherine the Great, penned by the devilishly talented Tony McNamara, is hands-down the best thing you’ve ever seen on television. And now, you’re plunged into a depression so deep that not even Elle Fanning’s radiant smirk or Nicholas Hoult’s glorious, sociopathic wit can pull you out of it. Why? Because you know, deep in your soul, that you’ll never see a script with such biting humor, impeccable cadence, and penetrating insight again. Ever.

    The Great is your TV Mount Everest, and the air up there is so thin that coming back down to the ground feels like an existential freefall. Desperate for solace, you decide to drown your sorrows in another “costume comedy,” because clearly, nothing soothes the soul like more ruffles and wigs.

    Enter The Decameron on Netflix—a comedy about the bubonic plague in 14th Century Italy. Yes, someone thought it would be a good idea to wring laughs out of a pandemic that killed a third of Europe. And the shocking part? They actually pulled it off. You’re impressed. Sort of. But at the same time, let’s not kid ourselves—the writing is not even in the same universe as The Great. It’s like comparing a Michelin-starred meal to the tastiest TV dinner you’ve ever had. Sure, it’s good, but come on—it’s not The Great. But here’s the kicker: you can’t trust your judgment anymore. You’ve entered a full-blown Post-Masterpiece Meltdown. On one hand, you’re bending over backward to be generous toward The Decameron, because you know deep down it’s unfair to compare anything to the sheer brilliance of The Great. On the other hand, you’re haunted by the suspicion that your generosity might be blinding you to the show’s actual merits—or lack thereof. You’re like someone who’s just lost the love of their life and is now attempting to date again by swiping right on Tinder with tears streaming down their face.

    Can you really trust your post-Great heart to judge anything properly? To make matters worse, The Decameron features the enigma that is Tanya Reynolds, an actress whose face is a bafflingly delightful conundrum—one moment goofy, the next serenely beautiful, as if she’s somehow tapped into a facial time machine that can travel between awkward adolescence and timeless beauty at will. Her intoxicating, elastic pulchritude is the final nail in the coffin of your short-circuited judgment. Your critical faculties, once sharp as a chef’s knife, now resemble a spoon trying to slice through steak. And you used to take pride in your TV criticism! Now you’re floundering in a sea of existential doubt, questioning everything—your taste, your standards, your very identity as a TV aficionado. So here you are, a once-confident critic, now reduced to a quivering mass of uncertainty, all because you stumbled upon Tony McNamara’s masterpiece, The Great. It’s like finding out you’ve been living in Plato’s cave all along, and now you’ve seen the light, you’re doomed to spend the rest of your days in the shadows, longing for the brilliance you can never unsee. Welcome to your new life in the Post-Masterpiece Meltdown. Enjoy the view—such as it is.

  • How I dealt with an overrated restaurant in Mammoth Lakes

    How I dealt with an overrated restaurant in Mammoth Lakes

    While visiting Mammoth Lakes last summer, we made the mistake of visiting a so-called “celebrity chef” Italian restaurant in downtown Mammoth, housed in a lodge so stunning it looked like it had been airlifted straight from the Swiss Alps. The place was dripping with rustic charm—vaulted ceilings, crackling fireplaces, and oversized windows offering a view of the mountains that could bring a tear to your eye.

    But all that ambiance couldn’t hide the fact that the food was an absolute trainwreck. The chef, once a big deal on some cooking show a decade ago, was now milking his fifteen minutes of fame for all they were worth. He strutted around the dining room like a peacock, soaking up the adoration of diners who clearly had no idea they were about to be served what could only be described as gourmet garbage.

    We only had one good dish, the ratatouille pizza. Feeling a newfound sense of duty, I took it upon myself to warn other diners. I went from table to table, declaring that everything on the menu was a culinary disaster except the ratatouille pizzas. To my surprise, the customers were delighted with my advice, nodding in appreciation as they changed their orders. Meanwhile, my wife and daughters were absolutely mortified. They sat there pretending not to know me, faces buried in their napkins, probably wishing they could vanish into thin air.

  • I found my true life purpose at a McDonald’s in Mojave

    I found my true life purpose at a McDonald’s in Mojave

    Coming home from Mammoth last summer, I had naively believed that my children would be sated from their breakfast at the McDonald’s in Bishop, allowing us to drive straight home without further interruptions.

    But by the time we reached Mojave around noon, my daughters swore they would perish on the spot if they didn’t have lunch immediately. So, we found ourselves pulling into yet another McDonald’s in Mojave. The thought of visiting two McDonald’s in a single day felt like a deep plunge into the abyss of self-debasement, a loss of dignity on par with other legendary acts of self-humiliation. I began to think this might be the modern-day equivalent of wearing a sandwich board that reads, “I have given up.” Yet, amid my indignation, I secretly thanked the universe for my daughters’ insatiable appetites because I desperately needed to use the bathroom.

    However, fate—or rather the cruel architects of this establishment—had installed combination locks on the bathroom doors, and the workers guarding these sacred numbers were about as generous with them as a dragon hoarding gold. I had to persuade them that my family of four would be forking over more than fifty dollars for the world’s most lackluster cuisine, and thus, I was surely deserving of the golden code.

    After securing the coveted combination, I made a beeline for the bathroom, practically kicking the door open like a cowboy in a saloon. The relief was so immense that it felt as if I had just liberated a small nation from tyranny. Afterward, I returned to the counter to wait for our food, feeling light as a feather. As I stood there, I observed dozens of men rattling the bathroom doorknob with the desperation of someone who had just spotted an oasis in the desert, only to find it locked. Their faces were contorted in pain, and their eyes begged for mercy but the cruel workers were unmoved.

    Seeing their plight, I realized I had the power to make a difference. I could be their savior. In an act of defiance against the oppressive bathroom code policy, I began shouting the combination with a gusto that could only be described as revolutionary. “Two-four-six-eight!” I bellowed, as if each digit was a bullet in the war against bladder injustice. The relief that spread across their faces was almost spiritual. I had become a mythical prophet, a modern-day Moses leading the oppressed to the Promised Land of Bladder Relief.

    Meanwhile, as I basked in the glory of my newfound role, my wife and daughters sank deeper into their chairs, their faces a mix of horror and embarrassment. They pretended not to know me, as if I were some wild-eyed lunatic who had wandered in from the Mojave Desert. But I didn’t care. I had found my spiritual calling, even if it was in the unlikeliest of places—shouting bathroom codes at a McDonald’s in Mojave.

  • My Disenchantment with the Hyped “Bed-in-a-Box”

    My Disenchantment with the Hyped “Bed-in-a-Box”

    Recently, my wife and I embarked on a perilous expedition to the mall, determined to sample the mystical, much-hyped “bed in a box” phenomenon. These mattresses, made of memory foam and gel, promise to unfurl from their vacuum-sealed cocoons like majestic, overpriced butterflies, transforming into full-sized California Kings. All you need is a steady hand with a box cutter and the courage to avoid slicing into your thousand-dollar slumber investment.

    We lounged on mattresses priced between three and nine thousand dollars, letting the sales pitch wash over us like warm chamomile tea. They were fine. Soft, supportive—sure. But the experience was more “meh” than mind-blowing transcendence. As I lay there, staring at the ceiling, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone, somewhere, was having a good laugh. Thousands of dollars for glorified memory foam? I half expected Ashton Kutcher to jump out and yell, “You’ve been Punk’d.”

    Once home, I consulted the digital oracles—various AI platforms—to confirm what I already suspected. Their verdict was swift and merciless: “Bed in a box? Cute. Overpriced. Flimsy.” The collective AI wisdom aligned—luxury does not arrive folded like a quesadilla. I was told that traditional mattresses—those stalwart hybrids and innerspring titans—deliver the same materials, often at half the price, and outlive their boxed-up counterparts by years.

    The harshest critique? Longevity. You can fork over four grand for a slab of compressed foam, and in five years, that bed will be about as supportive as a wet sponge. Meanwhile, a conventional mattress, purchased for the same price, will still be cradling you like the loyal workhorse it was born to be.

    Armed with this knowledge, I basked in smug, streetwise satisfaction. I had danced through the minefield of marketing spin and emerged unscathed, my wallet intact. To celebrate, I collapsed onto my overpriced sectional and binge-watched a Netflix comedy special—content, victorious, and perched atop a couch that cost far too much but, at least, wasn’t pretending to be something it wasn’t.

  • The Los Angeles Wildfires Reconnected Me to Radio

    The Los Angeles Wildfires Reconnected Me to Radio

    The Los Angeles fires, blazing with apocalyptic fury, prompted me to do something I hadn’t done in years: dust off one of my radios and tune into live local news. The live broadcast brought with it not just updates but an epiphany. Two things, in fact. First, I realized that deep down, I despise my streaming devices—their algorithm-driven content is like an endless conveyor belt of lukewarm leftovers, a numbing backdrop of music and chatter that feels canned, impersonal, and incurably distant. Worst of all, these devices have pushed me into a solipsistic bubble, a navel-gazing universe where I am the sole inhabitant. Streaming has turned my listening into an isolating, insidious form of solitary confinement, and I haven’t even noticed.

    When I flipped on the radio in my kitchen, the warmth of its live immediacy hit me like a long-lost friend. My heart ached as memories of radio’s golden touch from my youth came flooding back. As a nine-year-old, after watching Diahann Carroll in Julia and Sally Field in The Flying Nun, I’d crawl into bed, armed with my trusty transistor radio and earbuds, ready for the night to truly begin. Tuned to KFRC 610 AM, I’d be transported into the shimmering world of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” Tommy James and the Shondells’ “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” and The Friends of Distinction’s “Grazing in the Grass.” The knowledge that thousands of others in my community were swaying to the same beats made the experience electric, communal, alive—so unlike the deadening isolation of my curated streaming playlists.

    And then there was talk radio. Live conversations on KGO 810 AM with Jim Eason and Ronn Owens held a spellbinding charm. In the 70s, my mother and I would sit in the kitchen, enraptured, as they dissected controversies and gossip with the vigor of philosophers at a cocktail party. It was conversation as an art form, communal and vital, like cavemen telling stories around the fire. Contrast that with my podcasts: cherry-picked for my biases, carefully calibrated to affirm my tastes, locking me in an echo chamber so snug it could double as a straightjacket.

    The fires aren’t just devastating to the city—they’ve exposed the cracks in my own longing for connection. The nostalgic ache sent me down a rabbit hole of online research, hunting for a high-performance radio, convinced that it might resurrect the magic of my youth. But even as I clicked through reviews of antennas and AM clarity, a voice nagged at me: was this really about finding a better radio, or was it just another futile errand from a man in his sixties trying to outrun time? Could a supercharged radio transport me back to those transistor nights and kitchen conversations, or was I just tuning into the static of my own melancholia?

  • FOMO and the Mythical Past Can Ruin You

    FOMO and the Mythical Past Can Ruin You

    I remain haunted by three men who, decades later, are still gnashing their teeth over a squandered romantic encounter so catastrophic in their minds, it may as well be their personal Waterloo.

    It was the summer of their senior year, a time when testosterone and bad decisions flowed freely. Driving from Bakersfield to Los Angeles for a Dodgers game, they were winding through the Grapevine when fate, wearing a tie-dye bikini, waved them down. On the side of the road, an overheated vintage Volkswagen van—a sunbaked shade of decayed orange—coughed its last breath. Standing next to it? Four radiant, sun-kissed Grateful Dead followers, fresh from a concert and still floating on a psychedelic afterglow.

    These weren’t just women. These were ethereal, free-spirited nymphs, perfumed in the intoxicating mix of patchouli, wild musk, and possibility. Their laughter tinkled like wind chimes in an ocean breeze, their sun-bronzed shoulders glistening as they waved their bikinis and spaghetti-strap tops in the air like celestial signals guiding sailors to shore.

    My friends, handy with an engine but fatally clueless in the ways of the universe, leaped to action. With grease-stained heroism, they nursed the van back to health, coaxing it into a purring submission. Their reward? An invitation to abandon their pedestrian baseball game and join the Deadhead goddesses at the Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Festival—an offer so dripping with hedonistic promise that even a monk would’ve paused to consider.

    But my friends? Naïve. Stupid. Shackled to their Dodgers tickets as if they were golden keys to Valhalla. With profuse thanks (and, one imagines, the self-awareness of a plank of wood), they declined. They drove off, leaving behind the road-worn sirens who, even now, are probably still dancing barefoot somewhere, oblivious to the tragedy they unwittingly inflicted.

    Decades later, my friends can’t recall a single play from that Dodgers game, but they can describe—down to the last bead of sweat—the precise moment they drove away from paradise. Bring it up, and they revert into snarling, feral beasts, snapping at each other over whose fault it was that they abandoned the best opportunity of their pathetic young lives. Their girlfriends, beautiful and present, might as well be holograms. After all, these men are still spiritually chained to that sun-scorched highway, watching the tie-dye bikini tops flutter in the wind like banners of a lost kingdom.

    Insomnia haunts them. Their nights are riddled with fever dreams of sun-drenched bacchanals that never happened. They wake in cold sweats, whispering the names of women they never actually kissed. Their relationships suffer, their souls remain malnourished, and all because, on that fateful day, they chose baseball over Dionysian bliss.

  • Dealing with ChatGPT Essays That Are “Good Enough”

    Dealing with ChatGPT Essays That Are “Good Enough”

    Standing in front of thirty bleary-eyed college students, I was deep into a lesson on how to distinguish a ChatGPT-generated essay from one written by an actual human—primarily by the AI’s habit of spitting out the same bland, overused phrases like a malfunctioning inspirational calendar. That’s when a business major casually raised his hand and said, “I can guarantee you everyone on this campus is using ChatGPT. We don’t use it straight-up. We just tweak a few sentences, paraphrase a bit, and boom—no one can tell the difference.”

    Cue the follow-up from a computer science student: “ChatGPT isn’t just for essays. It’s my life coach. I ask it about everything—career moves, investments, even dating advice.” Dating advice. From ChatGPT. Let that sink in. Somewhere out there is a romance blossoming because of AI-generated pillow talk.

    At that moment, I realized I was facing the biggest educational disruption of my thirty-year teaching career. AI platforms like ChatGPT have three superpowers: insane convenience, instant accessibility, and lightning-fast speed. In a world where time is money and business documents don’t need to channel the spirit of James Baldwin, ChatGPT is already “good enough” for 95% of professional writing. And therein lies the rub—good enough.

    “Good enough” is the siren call of convenience. Picture this: You’ve just rolled out of bed, and you’re faced with two breakfast options. Breakfast #1 is a premade smoothie. It’s mediocre at best—mystery berries, more foam than a frat boy’s beer, and nutritional value that’s probably overstated. But hey, it’s there. No work required.

    Breakfast #2? Oh, it’s gourmet bliss—organic fruits and berries, rich Greek yogurt, chia seeds, almond milk, the works. But to get there, you’ll need to fend off orb spiders in your backyard, pick peaches and blackberries, endure the incessant barking of your neighbor’s demonic Rottweiler, and then spend precious time blending and cleaning a Vitamix. Which option do most people choose?

    Exactly. Breakfast #1. The pre-packaged sludge wins, because who has the time for spider-wrangling and kitchen chemistry before braving rush-hour traffic? This is how convenience lures us into complacency. Sure, you sacrificed quality, but look how much time you saved! Eventually, you stop even missing the better option. This process—adjusting to mediocrity until you no longer care—is called attenuation.

    Now apply that to writing. Writing takes effort—a lot more than making a smoothie—and millions of people have begun lowering their standards thanks to AI. Why spend hours refining your prose when the world is perfectly happy to settle for algorithmically generated mediocrity? Polished writing is becoming the artisanal smoothie of communication—too much work for most, when AI can churn out passable content at the click of a button.

    But this is a nightmare for anyone in education. You didn’t sign up for teaching to coach your students into becoming connoisseurs of mediocrity. You had lofty ambitions—cultivating critical thinkers, wordsmiths, and rhetoricians with prose so sharp it could cut glass. But now? You’re stuck in a dystopia where “good enough” is the new gospel, and you’re about as on-brand as a poet peddling protein shakes at a multilevel marketing seminar.

    And there you are, staring into the abyss of AI-generated essays, each more lifeless than the last, wondering if anyone still remembers the taste of good writing—let alone craves it.

    This is your challenge, the struggle life has so graciously dumped in your lap. So, what’s it going to be? You could curl into the fetal position and sob, sure. Or you could square your shoulders, channel your inner battle cry, and start fighting like hell for the craft you once believed in. Either way, the abyss is watching.

  • Why you should let your students turn in rewrites for a higher grade

    Why you should let your students turn in rewrites for a higher grade

    When it comes to grading, if you want to encourage your students to be authentic and not hide behind AI, it’s essential to give them a chance to rewrite. I’ve found that allowing one or two rewrites with the possibility of a higher grade keeps them from spiraling into despair when their first submission bombs. In today’s world of online Learning Management Systems (LMS), students are already navigating a digital labyrinth that could produce a migraine. They open their course page and are hit with a chaotic onslaught of modules, notifications, and resources—like the educational equivalent of being trapped in a Vegas casino with no exit signs. It’s no wonder anxiety sets in before they even find the damn syllabus.

    By giving students room to fail and rewrite, I’m essentially throwing them a lifeline. I tell them, “Relax. You can screw this up and try again.” The result? They engage more. They take risks. They’re more likely to produce writing that actually has a pulse—something authentic, which is exactly what I’m fighting for in an age where AI-written drivel is a tempting shortcut. In short, I’m not just teaching composition; I’m running a support group for people overwhelmed by both technology and their own perfectionism.

  • Why ChatGPT Will Never Replace Human Teachers

    Why ChatGPT Will Never Replace Human Teachers

    Over the past two years, I’ve been bombarded by articles predicting that ChatGPT will drive college writing instructors to extinction. These doomsayers clearly wouldn’t know the first thing about teaching if it hit them with a red-inked rubric. Sure, ChatGPT is a memo-writing marvel—perfect for cranking out soul-dead reports about quarterly earnings or new office policies. Let it have that dreary throne.

    But if you became a college instructor to teach students the art of writing memos, you’ve got bigger problems than AI. You didn’t sign up to bore students into a coma. Whether you like it or not, you went into sales. And your pitch? It’s not about bullet points and TPS reports—it’s about persona, ideas, and the eternal fight against chaos.

    First up: persona. It’s not just about writing—it’s about becoming. How do you craft an identity, project it with swagger, and use it to navigate life’s messiness? When students read Oscar Wilde, Frederick Douglass, or Octavia Butler, they don’t just see words on a page—they see mastery. A fully-realized persona commands attention with wit, irony, and rhetorical flair. Wilde nailed it when he said, “The first task in life is to assume a pose.” He wasn’t joking. That pose—your persona—grows stronger through mastery of language and argumentation. Once students catch a glimpse of that, they want it. They crave the power to command a room, not just survive it. And let’s be clear—ChatGPT isn’t in the persona business. That’s your turf.

    Next: ideas. You became a teacher because you believe in the transformative power of ideas. Great ideas don’t just fill word counts; they ignite brains and reshape worldviews. Over the years, students have thanked me for introducing them to concepts that stuck with them like intellectual tattoos. Take Bread and Circus—the idea that a tiny elite has always controlled the masses through cheap food and mindless entertainment. Students eat that up (pun intended). Or nihilism—the grim doctrine that nothing matters and we’re all here just killing time before we die. They’ll argue over that for hours. And Rousseau’s “noble savage” versus the myth of human hubris? They’ll debate whether we’re pure souls corrupted by society or doomed from birth by faulty wiring like it’s the Super Bowl of philosophy.

    ChatGPT doesn’t sell ideas. It regurgitates language like a well-trained parrot, but without the fire of intellectual curiosity. You, on the other hand, are in the idea business. If you’re not selling your students on the thrill of big ideas, you’re failing at your job.

    Finally: chaos. Most people live in a swirling mess of dysfunction and anxiety. You sell your students the tools to push back: discipline, routine, and what Cal Newport calls “deep work.” Writers like Newport, Oliver Burkeman, Phil Stutz, and Angela Duckworth offer blueprints for repelling chaos and replacing it with order. ChatGPT can’t teach students to prioritize, strategize, or persevere. That’s your domain.

    So keep honing your pitch. You’re selling something AI can’t: a powerful persona, the transformative power of ideas, and the tools to carve order from the chaos. ChatGPT can crunch words all it wants, but when it comes to shaping human beings, it’s just another cog. You? You’re the architect.