Cinemorphosis

Author: Jeffrey McMahon

  • Magical Thinking #3: If You Throw Enough Money at a Problem, It’ll Solve Itself

    Magical Thinking #3: If You Throw Enough Money at a Problem, It’ll Solve Itself

    (or, The Fine Art of Buying Your Own Delusion)

    There exists a special kind of self-deception in which people believe that spending money is the same as putting in effort. The logic is simple: if you’re financially invested, you must also be emotionally and physically committed—right? Wrong.

    Take the personal trainers I know—college students making $80 an hour babysitting wealthy clients who stumble into the gym reeking of whiskey and bad decisions. These people don’t actually work out so much as they appear to be working out. They halfheartedly swing a kettlebell, grimace into a mirror, and assume their credit card transactions will magically convert to muscle mass. When their bodies remain flabby monuments to their bad habits, they’re baffled. But I paid for a trainer!

    Then there are the yoga tourists—the ones who drop thousands of dollars on high-end mats, designer leggings, and a Himalayan singing bowl, yet still can’t touch their toes. Their bank accounts scream “devoted yogi,” but their flexibility suggests otherwise.

    And let’s not forget the gym membership martyrs—the ones who proudly drop a cool hundred bucks a month on a premium fitness club, never show up, and yet still expect their abs to materialize via direct deposit.

    Academia isn’t immune to this madness, either. Some students believe that spending two grand on textbooks will guarantee academic success, as if the mere presence of unread knowledge on their bookshelf will seep into their brains through osmosis. The books stay pristine, their spines uncracked, while their owners continue to bomb midterms.

    This is the grand illusion of transactional self-improvement—the belief that writing the check is the same as doing the work. It’s not. No amount of money, gear, or overpriced green juice will ever replace the ugly, necessary grind of actually putting in effort.

  • Magical Thinking #2: If You Fantasize Hard Enough, Reality Will Magically Obey

    Magical Thinking #2: If You Fantasize Hard Enough, Reality Will Magically Obey

    (or, The Art of Procrastinating in Style)

    One of the great lies we tell ourselves is that thinking about something long enough is basically the same as doing it. This is a core tenet of magical thinking—the belief that if you mentally marinate in a fantasy long enough, the sheer force of your yearning will bend the universe to your will.

    It won’t.

    Take, for example, the 10-year hostage situation between me and a pair of skinny jeans. For a full decade, those pants lurked in my closet, whispering false hope: One day, you’ll fit into us. Just wait. And so I did. I waited. I waited through countless failed diets, through the betrayal of metabolism, through years of magical thinking that the mere presence of those jeans in my home would, somehow, sculpt my body into compliance.

    Eventually, I accepted the truth: those jeans weren’t a beacon of future success—they were a fabric monument to my delusion. I finally threw them away, but not before they had spent ten years mocking me from the hanger.

    This same delusion infects all sorts of people in all sorts of ways.

    • A man keeps a fisherman’s hat tucked away in a drawer, convinced that someday he’ll own a boat, sail through the Caribbean, and live off the sea. Never mind that he gets seasick on ferries and can’t tell port from starboard. The hat is proof of intent, and that’s enough—for now.
    • A woman buys an aspirational vegan cookbook, proudly displaying it on her shelf. She has never gone a single day without cheese, but surely, just owning the book puts her on the path to righteousness.
    • I strap a big, chunky superhero-esque watch to my wrist, as if its sheer presence will one day grant me the power to save myself. It won’t. It just makes my wrist hurt.

    Magical thinking is the art of replacing action with aesthetics. It’s an elegant way to do nothing while convincing yourself you’re making progress. And it works—right up until the moment reality finally calls your bluff.

  • Magical Thinking #1: The Wealth Proximity Effect  

    Magical Thinking #1: The Wealth Proximity Effect  

    (or, The Idiot’s Guide to Getting Rich by Osmosis)  

    The Delusions That Keep Us Broke: A Field Guide to Magical Thinking  

    Magical thinking is humanity’s favorite self-inflicted mind trick. We all do it. Why? Because it gives us the illusion of progress without requiring any real effort. It lets us believe we are inching closer to our dreams when, in reality, we are standing still, luxuriating in fantasy while time slithers past.  

    At its core, magical thinking is the belief that wanting something badly enough makes it true. Another term for this is wishcasting—a term as ridiculous as the behavior it describes. And wishcasting comes in many flavors, but let’s start with a classic:  

    Magical Thinking #1: The Wealth Proximity Effect  

    (or, The Idiot’s Guide to Getting Rich by Osmosis)  

    There exists a particularly intoxicating delusion that simply hanging out with rich people will, by some mysterious process, turn you into one of them. Like a low-budget fairytale, this belief holds that being in the presence of wealth allows its golden aura to absorb into your pores, triggering a financial metamorphosis.  

    According to this theory, the very air surrounding the wealthy is infused with prosperity particles. One need only breathe deeply in their presence, and voilà—greatness is imminent. Just be patient. Success is coming. Any day now.  

    This explains why some people strategically position themselves near wealth, convinced that proximity equals inevitability. They take jobs in luxury-adjacent fields—selling overpriced real estate, running high-end boutiques, caddying at exclusive golf courses—believing that if they orbit enough millionaires, one of them will eventually fling a golden opportunity their way.  

    It rarely happens.  

    Instead, they spend years rubbing elbows with the elite, never quite realizing they are the hired help in someone else’s fantasy. They stand in expensive rooms, shake hands with power brokers, sip cocktails at galas—and still leave every night in the same used Honda, wondering when their “big break” is coming. Spoiler alert: it’s not.  

    And then there are the hangers-on, the social parasites who aren’t rich, but know people who are, and assume this entitles them to special treatment. Ask any service worker who their most obnoxious customers are, and they won’t tell you actual celebrities. No, the worst offenders are friends of celebrities’ relatives, those barely-adjacent nobodies who wield their flimsy connection to fame like a scepter. They are not rich, nor famous—but, God help you, they believe they should be treated as if they were.  

    I know real estate agents and mortgage lenders who are constantly broke, yet radiate the delusional confidence of future billionaires simply because they play golf with rich people. They engage in high-energy wealth cosplay, convinced that their friendships with actual millionaires mean they are so close to striking it big.  

    They never do.  

    But that’s the power of magical thinking—it keeps them perpetually convinced that success is just around the corner, even as they sink deeper into the quicksand of reality.

  • The Pillar of Salt

    The Pillar of Salt

    Few things are as dangerously addictive as mainlining nostalgia, that sweet, brain-rotting drug that turns the past into a golden-hued fantasy while reality rots at your feet. One minute, you’re basking in euphoria over a memory that probably wasn’t that great to begin with; the next, you’re sinking into a pit of melancholy so deep you might as well set up permanent residence. Keep it up long enough, and—just like Lot’s wife—you’ll calcify into a bitter, immovable pillar of salt.

    Which brings me to today’s piano piece: “Pillar of Salt.” Watch closely, and you’ll see me gradually ossify into a brine-crusted relic—equal parts tragic and well-seasoned.

  • Deli Boys on Hulu is out; Adolescence on Netflix is in

    Deli Boys on Hulu is out; Adolescence on Netflix is in

    A friend recommended Deli Boys on Hulu, a crime comedy about two Pakistani brothers who inherit their father’s underground empire, fronted by a chain of liquor stores. On paper, this should have been an instant win: the actors are likable, the absurdity flows in generous doses, the style is confident, and the episodes are short and snappy—like a cousin of Barry, one of my favorite comedies of the past decade.

    And yet, something felt off. Four episodes in, I kept turning to my wife and muttering, “I should love this. Why don’t I?”

    Then it hit me: Deli Boys is Barry without the bite. It’s a second-generation clone—talented cast, crisp pacing, solid comic timing—but missing the animating spirit that made its influences great. Worse, it feels dated, an imitation of better shows rather than a fresh take on the crime-comedy genre. Without a real thematic core, it’s just another slick, highly-stylized caper that goes down easy but leaves no lasting impression.

    So, with a mixture of relief and mild disappointment, my wife and I pulled the plug. Instead, we’re shifting gears to Adolescence on Netflix, a show critics are buzzing about—including The Watch podcast’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald: a brutal four-part series about a thirteen-year-old accused of murdering a classmate. A tough watch, no doubt, but at least it promises substance beneath the style. And hey, it’s only four episodes—might as well see what all the fuss is about.

  • Study of Elizabeth Anderson’s Essay “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?”

    Study of Elizabeth Anderson’s Essay “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?”

     

    The Death of God and the Birth of Morality: Elizabeth Anderson’s Scorching Rebuttal

    Elizabeth Anderson’s essay “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” dismantles the common theological lament that without divine oversight, humanity will descend into a chaotic orgy of depravity. Many theists clutch their pearls at the thought, insisting that without a celestial referee to mete out cosmic penalties, civilization will spiral into anarchy. Thomas Hobbes famously argued that without the fear of God (or at least a brutal state to keep us in check), the world would devolve into barbaric lawlessness. Many religious folks echo the same sentiment: God is the architect of morality, and without Him, we’d be adrift in a sea of moral relativism where anything goes.

    Anderson, however, is unconvinced. And she has receipts.

    The Empirical Case Against Divine Morality

    Over the years, I’ve encountered countless students from families who don’t pray before meals, recite scripture, or fear the wrath of an omnipotent sky judge. Yet, somehow, these irreligious households manage to produce people who value love, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. It’s almost as if morality emerges from human relationships rather than from divinely dictated rulebooks.

    Moreover, if belief in God were the key to moral enlightenment, we’d expect religious people to be paragons of virtue. Instead, experience tells us otherwise—history is littered with holy men committing unholy acts. For every saint, there’s a scoundrel who weaponizes faith for personal gain. Anderson, recognizing this discrepancy, launches a blistering critique of the idea that belief in God is a prerequisite for moral decency.

    The ‘Evil Tree’ of Secularism: A Christian Argument

    Anderson begins with what she calls the “Common Christian Argument,” which holds that atheism, evolution, and secularism are the roots of an evil tree bearing the bitter fruits of abortion, homosexuality, drugs, rock music, and general debauchery. The moral panic here is clear: take God out of the equation, and civilization collapses. William Lane Craig, ever the dutiful Christian apologist, insists that without a divinely ordained moral code, we’d have no objective way of distinguishing good from evil. Anderson sees this argument for what it is—an emotional appeal rather than a reasoned position.

    Hell as a Moral Deterrent?

    Some argue that the threat of eternal damnation is the only thing keeping humanity from degenerating into lawless hedonism. Jesus himself, according to the Gospels, encouraged people to love God and fear hell in order to stay on the straight and narrow. But Anderson challenges this premise. She suggests that morality isn’t something to be coerced through fear of divine torture chambers. After all, mature adults don’t need the threat of punishment to act ethically—immorality, by its very nature, is often its own punishment, just as virtue is its own reward.

    Morality: A Human Invention, Not a Divine Mandate

    Anderson argues that morality is not a celestial decree but a social construct, evolving naturally to promote stability and cooperation. Every functioning society—religious or otherwise—has independently developed prohibitions against murder, theft, and deception. These moral codes existed long before Moses chiseled the Ten Commandments into stone. People, it turns out, don’t need divine instruction to figure out that killing each other is a bad idea.

    But Were Pagan Societies Morally Inferior?

    Of course, not everyone agrees with Anderson’s take. Elaine Pagels, for instance, points out that in the ancient world, pagans were known to abandon unwanted infants to die in the streets—an atrocity that Christians condemned. If we accept this historical tidbit, it complicates Anderson’s argument. Perhaps religious morality has provided unique moral advancements. But even so, that doesn’t mean belief in God is necessary for morality today.

    The Big Twist: Religion Isn’t Just Unnecessary for Morality—It’s Often an Obstacle

    Anderson’s essay takes a sharp turn when she argues that religion isn’t just an optional framework for morality—it’s often a hindrance. Not only does atheism not lead to moral rot, but theism, particularly in its more fundamentalist forms, frequently produces moral atrocities. The God of the Bible, she points out, is capricious, cruel, and unrestrained by human moral intuitions. If morality is whatever God decrees, then anything—genocide, slavery, child sacrifice—can be justified as divinely ordained.

    Anderson gleefully catalogs the Bible’s greatest moral abominations: wars, plagues, ethnic cleansings, infanticide, slavery, and stonings—all endorsed by the divine. The Old Testament, she argues, reads less like a guide to righteousness and more like a blood-soaked manifesto for tribal supremacy.

    The New Testament doesn’t escape her ire, either. Jesus’ “family values” leave much to be desired, and Anderson finds the idea of vicarious atonement—Jesus dying for humanity’s sins—particularly repugnant. In her view, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement contradicts the very idea of personal responsibility. If God is all-powerful, why does He need to kill His own son to offer forgiveness? Shouldn’t an omnipotent being be capable of forgiving people without engaging in cosmic blood sacrifice?

    Slavery: A Biblical Blind Spot

    Anderson also takes aim at the Bible’s endorsement of slavery. If the Bible were truly the ultimate moral guide, wouldn’t it have offered an unambiguous denunciation of human bondage? Instead, scripture treats slavery as an ordinary, even divinely sanctioned, institution. If biblical morality is timeless, why does it reflect the ethical blind spots of its era?

    The Rorschach Bible: Faith as a Projection of Our Moral Biases

    In one of her most incisive observations, Anderson compares the Bible to a Rorschach test: people emphasize the passages that align with their existing moral inclinations while ignoring the rest. Whether one fixates on “love thy neighbor” or the mass extermination of Canaanites depends more on personal character than divine revelation.

    She also critiques the way people worship power rather than goodness. Quoting Hobbes, she suggests that religious reverence often stems from awe at raw power rather than admiration for moral virtue. This, she argues, explains why believers have historically tolerated and even celebrated the authoritarian and often tyrannical nature of their deities.

    The Fragile Authority of Religious Belief

    Anderson skewers the self-assured claims of religious certainty, mocking the way different faiths confidently declare themselves the one true religion while dismissing all others as absurd. She sees little distinction between the great world religions and the cults of L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith, or Sun Myung Moon. All rely on unverifiable revelations, dubious miracles, and ancient testimonies passed down through unreliable chains of transmission.

    Her conclusion? These so-called divine truths, so often contradictory and morally suspect, deserve no privileged position in our ethical deliberations.

    So Where Does Moral Authority Come From?

    If God isn’t the source of morality, what is? Anderson argues that moral authority comes not from divine fiat but from us—from human beings negotiating ethical principles based on mutual accountability. Morality isn’t about obeying decrees from on high; it’s about navigating the complexities of human coexistence through reason, empathy, and shared experience.

    Anderson’s argument is as compelling as it is unsettling. I wish I had her unshakable confidence in atheism. While I still wrestle with the vestigial fear of eternal damnation (an unfortunate byproduct of early indoctrination), I can’t deny the force of her reasoning. If nothing else, “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” is one of the sharpest, most relentless critiques of theism I’ve ever read.

  • The Forgotten Song of Misfit Island: My Long, Bitter Feud with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

    The Forgotten Song of Misfit Island: My Long, Bitter Feud with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

    The most exhausting piece I have ever composed—the one that wrings my soul dry after playing its three relentless movements—is called “The Forgotten Song of Misfit Island.” This sonata, a labor of love and obsession spanning forty years, began as something else entirely: my childhood fury at the televised nightmare known as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

    Like millions of children before me, I was supposed to cherish this 1964 Christmas special as a heartwarming tale of holiday spirit and triumphant underdogs. Instead, I watched it with horrified disbelief, my small, traumatized brain barely able to process the cruelty inflicted upon the most tragic figures in holiday television: the Misfit Toys.

    These weren’t just defective playthings with minor quirks. They were abandoned children, exiled to an arctic hellscape, sentenced to a slow death on a barren glacier. They were ill-equipped for survival, dressed in flimsy rags with no food, no warmth, no shelter from the Abominable Snowman, a giant carnivorous beast stomping the ice sheets with the inevitability of fate itself. Who knows how long they had suffered? Years? Decades? An eternity? And for what crime? Simply being different. The authorities of Christmas had spoken: an ostrich-riding cowboy, a Charlie-in-the-Box, and a melancholy doll were abominations, unfit for the joys of holiday consumerism.

    Defenders of Rudolph will no doubt remind me of the “joyous rescue” at the film’s climax, when Santa Claus swoops in to distribute the Misfit Toys to “good homes.” But let’s examine that so-called rescue. These toys, who had only survived through their deep bond and shared trauma, are now forcibly separated and flung into random households. Santa, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that what these emotionally shattered creatures need is total isolation from the only community that has ever accepted them.

    Santa Claus, the supposed symbol of holiday cheer, is, in fact, an unapologetic tyrant—a man who exploits child labor, forces elves into unregulated factory work, and belittles an aspiring dentist for daring to dream beyond toy-making. My paleontologist friend, Dr. Zachary J. Rasgon, once pointed out another moment of unhinged brutality: the scene where Yukon Cornelius casually yanks out every tooth from the mouth of an endangered hominid—and we’re all supposed to be a-okay with that.

    For over fifty years, this grim portrait of abuse and forced assimilation has been celebrated as a beloved Christmas tradition. And yet, I alone seem to recognize its horrors. I have made my case countless times, but the world continues to revere Rudolph as an “iconic” holiday classic. My protestations fall on deaf ears, branding me as something of a misfit myself.

    And so, I have learned to let go of my rage. Or, at least, I have tried.

    Turning Rage into Music

    As a child, unable to rewrite history, I began rewriting Rudolph. I imagined the Misfit Toys as restless insomniacs, huddled together for warmth, singing a song to ease their suffering. It was a song born of necessity—a celestial hymn of comfort, a melody so powerful that it could momentarily trick them into believing they were loved.

    But in my revised ending, their exile ends only to bring a new torment. Ripped away from each other and cast into separate homes, the toys struggle to recall the song that once gave them solace. They catch fragments of it in dreams, in whispers on the wind, but the full melody is lost to them. The song—the very essence of their shared survival—could only exist when they were together.

    The only solution? A reunion.

    In the version that played in my head for years, an older, wiser, and absurdly wealthy Rudolph, finally understanding the true cruelty of Santa’s decree, takes it upon himself to find and reunite the Misfit Toys. He brings them to a sprawling Tuscan villa, where they can feast under the warm Mediterranean sun and, at long last, remember the song in its full glory. The world hears their melody once more, and it becomes legendary—a song of defiance, resilience, and enduring love.

    This imaginary song, the one that saved the Misfit Toys from oblivion, became the foundation for my most demanding piano composition. It took decades—forty years of reworking, revising, and searching for the perfect sequence of notes.

    A Lifelong Symphony of Misfits

    Even now, I cannot shake my affinity for misfits. My mind is overrun with them: Sidney the Elephant, Kermit the Frog, Tooter Turtle, Beaver Cleaver, Kwai Chang Caine (a.k.a. Grasshopper), Mr. Peabody, George of the Jungle, Milton the Monster. They, too, deserve their own melodies, their own compositions, their own forgotten songs.

    Until I write those songs, I will imagine them all gathered together, sipping wine in that Tuscan vineyard, basking in the company of Rudolph and his long-lost misfit family. And in that imagined paradise, I, too, find a place to belong.

  • Claustrophobia Reveals Your True Soul to the World

    Claustrophobia Reveals Your True Soul to the World

    There are many ways to expose your raw, unfiltered self to the world. Some people achieve this through a near-death experience, a public meltdown, or a bout of food poisoning on an international flight. For me, claustrophobia is the great revealer, an unrelenting force that strips away every ounce of composure and leaves me flailing like a man trapped in quicksand. It doesn’t matter if I’m in a dentist’s chair or strapped into a sadistic amusement park ride—when the walls start closing in, I become the star of my own public humiliation showcase.

    The first great revelation of my soul came at Universal Studios, where I made the tragic miscalculation of sacrificing my personal comfort for my wife and twin daughters. A father’s love is boundless, but so, unfortunately, was my terror. The very air of the place reeked of Las Vegas grift, stale churros, and desperate cash grabs. Every corner had some overenthusiastic performer in mothball-scented epaulets or a handlebar-mustached imposter butchering a French accent for a paycheck. But nothing could have prepared me for the medieval horror that awaited on the Harry Potter Forbidden Journey ride.

    After standing in line for an eternity, I found myself wedged into an airplane seat designed for a malnourished Victorian child. A heavy metal harness slammed down on my 52-inch chest like a bear trap, and within seconds, my body entered full-blown rebellion mode. My lungs went on strike, my heart pounded out an emergency evacuation order, and my brain whispered, You are about to die in the most embarrassing way possible. As the conveyor belt dragged me toward a dark, swirling vortex of Hogwarts-themed doom, I did what any reasonable person would do—I began screaming like a man being lowered into a pit of snakes.

    “STOP THE RIDE! I’M HAVING A HEART ATTACK!” I wailed, flailing like an air dancer outside a used car lot.

    At first, no one in charge seemed to care, but the fellow prisoners trapped beside me picked up on my panic and began chanting my cause like a medieval mob: “STOP THE RIDE! STOP THE RIDE!” Finally, a burly security officer in an FBI-grade sport coat emerged, walkie-talkie in hand, and surveyed my meltdown with the practiced patience of a man who had seen worse. I looked up at him, sheepish and sweaty, and asked, “Do you need to take me to a debriefing room?” He chuckled, helped me out of my restraints, and sent me shuffling out of Universal Studios, a broken man.

    But the universe was not done exposing my fragility.

    The Dentist’s Chair: A Torture Chamber Disguised as Healthcare

    Around the same time as the Universal Studios fiasco, I had a similarly catastrophic loss of dignity at Dr. Howard Chen’s dental office. The appointment started out fine—numbing shots, ear-splitting drills, the usual dance with mortality. But then the bite block came out. For those blissfully unaware, a bite block is a rubber wedge designed to keep your mouth open during dental procedures, but in my case, it may as well have been a medieval jaw clamp designed by Torquemada himself.

    The second it locked my mouth open, my brain fired off the same claustrophobic distress signal as it had on the Harry Potter ride. I couldn’t swallow, which meant I couldn’t breathe, which meant I was about to die, right there, in a flannel shirt, under a fluorescent light, to the soft rock stylings of The Carpenters.

    Before I could stop myself, I ripped off my shirt, launched myself out of the dental chair, and began gasping like a shipwreck survivor.

    “Are you going to be okay, Jeff?” Dr. Chen asked, his voice dripping with the calm patience of a man who has dealt with neurotics before.

    “I CAN’T HAVE THIS RUBBER THING IN MY MOUTH,” I announced, holding the bite block aloft like a relic from an exorcism.

    Dr. Chen nodded, his eyes a mix of concern and professional detachment. “Okay, we’ll do it without the bite block.” He gestured toward the chair. “Go ahead and sit back down.”

    I obeyed, heart pounding, and the rest of the drilling continued without further catastrophe. But the damage to my dignity was irreversible.

    Sensory Hell: The Dentist’s Office Smells Like Death

    The claustrophobia is bad enough, but what really pushes me over the edge is that I am what some might call a “super smeller.” Lying in the dental chair, I am forced to marinate in an unholy stew of:

    • Clove oil
    • Formaldehyde
    • Acrylic
    • Glutaraldehyde
    • Latex gloves
    • The lingering decay of other patients’ tooth dust

    It is the aroma of death itself. I am not a dental patient—I am a cadaver in the early stages of embalming.

    And while I fight off nausea, my mind spirals into a full existential crisis. Something about lying prone, mouth pried open, surgical tools scraping at my enamel, makes me contemplate my soul more than any other moment in my life. The sheer vulnerability of the position mimics some prelude to the afterlife, and I am left with only my own morbid thoughts for company.

    Morbidity Hits Different with 1970s Soft Rock

    As if my anxiety needed any further provocation, Dr. Chen’s office plays 1970s easy listening on a continuous loop. The Carpenters, Neil Diamond, John Denver—songs that transport me straight back to my early years as a melancholic prepubescent. Suddenly, I am ten years old again, scribbling dramatic diary entries about my unrequited love for Patty Wilson, the rosy-cheeked blonde girl from fourth grade who never knew I existed.

    But before I can fully dissolve into a puddle of nostalgic despair, Dr. Chen interrupts.

    “You’re brushing too hard,” he warns. “You’re murdering your gum line.”

    “But I don’t trust the Sonicare to do the job!” I protest.

    “You need to have faith in the Sonicare, Jeff.”

    “But I am a man of doubt.”

    Dr. Chen sighs, shaking his head. “I can see that.”

    Final Humiliation: The Dentist Knows I’m Crazy

    During my latest visit, he threw a new horror into the mix: the possibility of a root canal.

    “What can I do to avoid it?” I asked, racked with dread.

    “Relax, Jeff,” he said. “All this stress is hurting your immune system. You need a strong immune system to fight decay.”

    Great. Now I have to worry about stress-induced tooth rot.

    As I staggered out of the office, I nearly reversed into an angry SUV driver, who honked with the force of a nuclear siren. But what truly shattered me was the sight of Dr. Chen, peering through his office window, watching the entire debacle unfold.

    And in that moment, as our eyes met, I knew—I was, without a doubt, the most unhinged patient he had ever seen. There would be no coming back from this.

    Claustrophobia, once again, had revealed my true soul to the world.

  • Gilded Cages and Bourbon Hangovers: The Tragicomedy of Southern Charm

    Gilded Cages and Bourbon Hangovers: The Tragicomedy of Southern Charm

    Gilded Cages and Bourbon Hangovers: The Tragicomedy of Southern Charm

    There’s an old saying: declaw a cat, and it can’t survive in the wild. But what happens when the cat doesn’t want to leave its velvet-cushioned cage? Welcome to Southern Charm, a reality show that parades a peculiar species—the overgrown man-child, trapped by privilege, mediocrity, and the reassuring hum of an ever-flowing bourbon decanter.

    These men, ranging from their thirties to their fifties, are not so much participants in life as they are well-dressed relics, embalmed in their own vices. Work is an abstract concept, something dabbled in between brunches and boat parties. Women are recreational pastimes, sampled and discarded like seasonal cocktails. And the ultimate validation? The cooing, slurred approval of their doting mothers, who, in between vodka tonics, assure their progeny that they are, indeed, true Southern gentlemen.

    But Southern Charm isn’t just about individual arrested development—it’s about a collective one. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the show’s occasional detours into the grotesque theater of old-money delusion. Take, for example, the time disgraced politician Thomas Ravenel dined with his father, Arthur, a former U.S. Representative. Over lunch, Arthur casually revealed his habit of quickly getting rid of five-dollar bills because Abraham Lincoln’s face still irks him. That’s right—Lincoln, the president who ended slavery, remains a personal affront to this withered artifact of the antebellum South.

    If I had to sum up Southern Charm in a single word, it would be imprisonment. These men are locked in a gilded purgatory, shackled by tradition, vice, and a desperate fear of anything beyond their insular Charleston bubble. They know their world is suffocating, yet they can’t—or won’t—leave it. And that’s what makes Southern Charm such a mesmerizing trainwreck: watching these men wriggle and rationalize, making their slow-motion deal with the devil, one bourbon at a time.

  • Bill Burr’s Drop Dead Years: Rage, Reflection, and the Long Road to Emotional Literacy

    Bill Burr’s Drop Dead Years: Rage, Reflection, and the Long Road to Emotional Literacy

    At 56 years old, Bill Burr strides onto the stage looking like a man who hasn’t just survived middle age but has trained for it—lean, sharp, and decked out in a blue sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers, the unofficial uniform of a guy who’s seen some things but hasn’t yet gone full sweatpants. His latest special, Drop Dead Years (streaming on Hulu), finds him at a crossroads: He’s entered the danger zone—the phase of life where men his age can drop dead at any second. And so, standing before a Seattle crowd, a city he awards first prize in rain-soaked despair, he does what any man staring down mortality would do—he takes stock of his life.

    Burr has baggage, and he knows it. Anger issues? Check. Outdated, offensive language? His wife is on him about it. Emotionally repressed male conditioning? Oh, absolutely. For decades, he’s kept his demons on a leash by staying busy, but when the work stops, his personal hellscape begins. He decides to test a theory: After returning from a tour, instead of distracting himself with projects, he sits in a corner, stares at the TV, and marinates in his own misery. His wife, alarmed, asks if he’s okay. For the first time in his life, he admits the truth: I’m sad. A historic moment for a man raised on the doctrine of shut up and push through.

    But does Burr actually offer any solutions for his emotional demolition derby? Not really—at least not in the special. While he drops breadcrumbs in radio interviews about his self-improvement quest, including the occasional reference to psilocybin therapy, the special mostly stays in the realm of self-awareness rather than self-help. And don’t worry—the fangs are still sharp. Burr unloads on racist conservatives and hypocritical, self-congratulatory liberals with equal fervor, and despite the obvious political leanings of his Seattle audience, no one seems too offended. Maybe that’s part of Burr’s charm—he’s an equal-opportunity agitator, and the crowd knows they’re getting a sermon with a punchline, not a TED Talk.

    Here’s the thing: While I love Burr, I found Drop Dead Years a little… safe. The premise—that wisdom comes with age, that unchecked emotions can consume us, and that kindness and patience improve relationships—is undeniably true but hardly groundbreaking. The performance is solid, his honesty is refreshing, and his intelligence undeniable, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was more compelling when I heard him on Terry Gross’ Fresh Air a couple of weeks earlier. There, in a rare good-natured sparring match with the NPR icon, Burr revealed more of himself—and in funnier ways—than he did in his actual special.

    That said, Bill Burr is always worth watching. Even when he’s not at his absolute peak, he’s still one of the sharpest, most brutally honest voices in comedy. So, do I recommend Drop Dead Years? Absolutely. But if you want peak Burr, you might want to queue up that Fresh Air interview right after.