Zachariah & the Lobos Riders are set to release their newest 6 song EP “Cloud Road.” Z details how this surprise record came about…
Cloud Road EP * 2020 By Zachariah & the Lobos Riders
In December of 2019 I blew out my knee playing basketball. I vowed to return to the court within a year and elected for surgery in January of 2020 – Following the surgery came the Norcos. As a decent wine drinker, painkillers were never my thing and I have been able to avoid them after major surgeries – of which I’ve had my share… But this time, things were a little different. Lying in bed, unable to walk or barely get up to use the bathroom, I would play a lot of music and drift off into the spacial tranquility of a few pain pills. At first it was 2, then it became 3 and I was pretty soon out of my bottle… The doctor had told me it would take about three days to not need them anymore, I was on day 11. What came to me during these lost moments was a lot of lyrics about childhood memories, dreams dying, and the main street that I grew up on in Tucson Arizona in the 80’s and 90’s… Cloud Road. The first song is the raw file you hear “Cloud Road Painkiller Freestyle.” That was done in one take off the dome. I quickly understood why so many artists get involved with Vicoden, Percoset etc. These five songs came to me in three days. The sixth was written for the TV show “Breaking Bad” but ultimately not chosen. CLOUD ROAD (CLICK FOR SAMPLE)
A different approach for me for sure. A nod to my teenage years in Tucson dying to go anywhere… now looking back and realizing I have gone everywhere. What’s next? I need another motivating factor to push me into whatever is next…
PRAY TO THE LORD
Back in high school, my friends and I would drive around all night and break into unlocked cars and steal stuff. We then took the stuff to Zia Records for trade money, Play it Again Sports for cash and second hand shops… One night a few guys broke into my old football coach’s truck and he was watching us from his window. At one point, one of the guys said he saw him flash a gun. We ran. The part about dropping my high school ring at the scene of the crime is based on a separate incident involving a girl’s bedroom when her boyfriend stopped by – but combining these two incidents into this song made sense.
MY MIND GOT MIXED WITH WANDERING
Yeah, where does the motivation go? I think I speak for a lot of young people here when I talk about how we all want to find that one comfortable place but then see something else a little more appealing just around the corner. I wasted a lot off my 20’s looking for something else and not recognizing what was in front of me.
JUST A LITTLE INTERMISSION
Again, painkillers had me rapping to myself a lot. And for some reason I was doing it in a Humpty Hump – Special Ed voice… This is a nod to the 90’s hip-hop I loved – and it’s really just a joke – as most of my rap songs are.
CLOUD ROAD PAINKILLER FREESTYLE
When putting this EP together, I came across this a week before releasing it. It is the seeds that grew into the title track of the record as well as the “Intermission” song. I was rapping into my phone on a galaxy of pain meds… In a studio this might actually be dope.
THE BALLAD OF JESSE PINKMAN
Since I rhymed about Jesse Pinkman in “Intermission,” I felt like this fit on this record as well. I wrote this before a season of breaking Bad and sent to the EP’s, tweeted about. And had a lot of show fans RT it as well. Ultimately, someone heard it and said they did not need any new music. So FUCK THEM. This song deserves to be heard, even if the show hasn’t been on for six years.
Yesterday, while nursing a mild hangover brought on by my reckless quarantine red wine intake, I found myself fondling myself in the middle of a 14-person ZOOM business meeting.
Ohhh boy. Hang on… Let’s analyze this for what it is…
The team I am currently working with was all in pajamas, hats and glasses – sporting unkempt beards and yelling at their kids to stop interrupting their video calls. Our hair had been laid to waste by weeks of barber shop closure. The ladies passed on their morning makeup and contact lenses for more natural headbands and eyeglasses… Others had pets jumping around living rooms and husbands yelling about burnt toast from other rooms… and one guy did not mute his video microphone when he yelled, “FUCK OFF I’M ON THE PHONE” at his six-year-old.
I understand. These are tough times.
Anyway, as we were discussing a podcast I am currently working on for our company – I noticed that for a good majority of the meeting I had been sort of… playing with my penis beneath the camera lens.
Yeah. Not sure why I was doing it, it was just one of those “personal moments” where I probably was up way too early, taking advantage of my comfortable sweatpants and recovering from some weird dream where I fantasized about maybe LEAVING my house during the day… I wasn’t focused on the meeting at all, in fact I was muted (thankfully) and just sort of having one of those “moments” that I’m sure we have all had recently… I wouldn’t call it a weakness, necessarily – it’s just a need to FEEL SOMETHING.
After realizing what I was doing, I quickly discontinued my Zoom video stream claiming I had a “parent-teacher conference” and did 25 push-ups.
During this quarantine, like most fathers, I have two kids in my house fighting over bandwidth and laptops and TV and all I want to do is watch The Last Dance on ESPN and drink until I pass out and somehow do some sort of coherent podcast episode the next day.
Whatever the case, those preceding paragraphs you just read were all I have managed to come up in regards to my short stories… The thing is – I am not that concerned. Why? Well, look… I used to be a pretty prolific short story writer. I have published (Online) over 250 stores since about 2001. But recently, I just haven’t felt the passion… I mean, I HAVE been writing, but it’s not like I really have any actual ‘put together’ or ‘completed’ short stories as of yet… but in my mind they are coming. At least I think they are… Well, maybe.
What I have really been writing somewhat prolifically are TITLES to stories I would love to write should this quarantine ever end …and I ever feel like putting the written word out to the public again.
Now, my old writing professors would have asked me why I haven’t been writing and finishing these short stories… Of course they would have been asking me that question in the 90’s when people still paid for the written word… But the answer is mainly – for one – that nobody cares or gives a shit about anything but survival right now. Also? in reality, every time I post a new story it hits the internet and about 500-1000 people read it. Maybe 40 of those readers comment on it and tell me how great it is and then nothing happens until I get a cease and desist lawsuit threatening to sue me for $900 because I used a photo of a mushroom that I borrowed off of Google Images in a blog post. (Yes, this is true. A company tracked me down, demanded $900 and threatened further legal proceedings for using an image of a fucking image that some Danish photographer took in the first in 1998. )
This was before quarantine, when I had maybe $750 in the bank. I never paid the company. I’m now guessing that Covid-19 furloughed those cockroaches back to the unemployment line where they now search for answers to explain to the Government how they worked as Soul Sucking Jizz Stains for living… and now they need a bail out.
They’re probably asking for $20 million, like Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse received. (By the way – maybe Ruth’s Chris will spend some of that money to change the horrible name of their restaurant. I mean what is a “Ruth’s Chris?” It sounds like a toothless kid asking for her teeth back on Christmas Day. “All I want for Ruth’s Chris is my Two Front Teeth…“)
I discuss this more on my podcast “Audio Up News Network”
Look, I consider myself very lucky. In my life – writing has actually worked for me on occasion. I recently optioned one of my short stories as a screenplay to a pretty fantastic independent film company… but in the end it ended up resulting in two years of work on a film that never got made, which is really what you hear in Hollywood all the time, but I’m not upset about that- I’ve been in this business a long time. I mean listen… The first script I wrote in college was called Wedding Crashers. It had been read by a lot of people, but when the Owen Wilson/Vince Vaughn film came out I had my first taste of “What-the-fuck-is-this-town?”
Another time, a website that published first person essays offered me $250 for a story about the Great Wolf Lodge that I still feel is the funniest thing I have ever written … The thing was, they told me to cut 400 words out of it. I told them to fuck off and retained my rights to the story. By the way? A grand total of 47 people commented on that post.
But fuck it, it’s a new world, a new normal… whatever the fuck this is. I’ve been busy writing scripts for podcast comedies, jokes for projects and animated sitcoms that may never see the light of day. But, as I said – I have also been writing titles for a book of QUARANTINE ESSAYS…
‘
And as of today – here is my working list of titles.
ENJOY
…And Other Quarantine Essays by ZACH SELWYN
“I Thought I had Enough Booze for Three Weeks… I Said on Day Four.”
“I Dunno, a Wife Swap Might Not be the WORST Idea, and other Reasons I’m Sleeping on the Couch…”
“Don’t Trim Your Toenails While Inebriated.”
“My Conspiracy Theory Friend Explains it All”
“My son is 13. We had “the talk.” It wasn’t about sex or pregnancy…. It was about “How to hide your porn history using private browsing.” #NewNormal”
“Divorce on Pause… One Friend’s Living Hell Awaiting a Legal Separation”
“Why am I Googling My Exes?”
“Finding’ a Jerkin Window… an Impossible Task”
“I’m Committing Suicide, Dad… And Other Things I heard When the WiFi went Out.”
“Fuck if I get Sick. I’m Going to the Store for Beer and Easter Candy… One Dad’s Adventure.”
“Alexa, Play Anything but Ed Sheeran.”
“My Kid Goes to School on the Same Laptop I Googled ‘Hot Girl Gets Blasted by Stepdad’ on Yesterday.”
and finally:
“Yeah, it’s a Breakfast Beer… Big Deal…”
Oh…. By the way. I’m Repped by WME.
Reach out if you’re interested in reading the rest of my essay collection…
48 hours into a nine-day cruise on the Baltic Sea, I successfully traded a first season DVD of the TV show SMILF for a bottle of French wine.
Confused?
About two weeks ago, my friend Dan asked me to help punch up some scripts for a new live music/theatrical show he was producing on the Lightdream Cruise Line – a ship that is the size of some small cities – with 4000 passengers aboard and over 1200 staff members… Always one for an adventure, I took the gig, fondly recalling the last time I was on a cruise back in high school… I bathed in crystal blue waters, ate unlimited five star food, seduced beautiful women and sipped tropical cocktails by the pool… I was hoping this would be the same thing.
Ehhh, not so much.
Following a 17-hour travel day, Dan, the show’s producer Mark and I boarded the ship in Brest, France. Following our long trip, I was craving a glass of red wine and some Netflix. We met our cruise liasion, Sarah, and she gave us the lay of the land…
“So where’s like, the best bar on the ship?” I asked.
“Oh honey, there’s no alcohol until we reach Copenhagen in four days,” she said.
“Excuse me?” I replied.
“Yep. And all the restaurants are closed. Oh, and be aware that there’s no internet or facilities open now… This is called ‘Dry Dock.’”
“And where can I jump overboard?”
As I contemplated learning how to make “toilet merlot” in my cabin, I got the rundown on what exactly “Dry-Dock” is.
“Dry-Dock” is when the ship is being refurbished, rebuilt and cleaned. For weeks, it is in a state of disrepair and thousands of contractors from over 50 countries tear up carpets, put up stages and gather for their three meals a day in the makeshift dining room. People are monitored, allowed 45 minute meal windows, told to avoid sexual contact, can be kicked off board if they have weapons or contraband and nobody is allowed off the ship once they are on…
Sound familiar? Yeah, that’s because it sounds exactly like prison.
The view during ‘Dry Dock.’
If I was going to write a Yelp review about the makeshift dining room where we were forced to eat, I would describe it as “Just a cut below Cracker Barrel…with all the ambience of a shopping mall Red Robin.”
Still, it was our only option and Dan, Mark and I became our own little prison gang, talking under our breaths about Broadway shows and musical theater as massive Scottish, Irish and Croatian guys cursed in their own languages, swallowed gallons of coffee and made us feel like we had to kick one of their asses to establish our dominance in the jail yard…
“I guarantee you we’re the only guys in this dining room right now discussing The Greatest Showman,” Mark said.
The food was constantly recycled and turned into a “new dish” the following day. For instance, the leftover “Breaded Chicken and Peppers” from the night before suddenly showed up again the next morning in the “Breaded Chicken Veggie Scramble.” At one point, I counted four meals in a row featuring a fish called branzino.
Enjoying my 5th Branzino dish of the week…
Common Mistake
One day in the slop line, I chatted up one particularly nice Irish pipe-fitter named Lochlin as we were served what was being passed off as “Lamb Stew.”
“Hey man – where’s the booze on this ship?” I whispered. “Somebody’s gotta have something?”
“Booze? You gotta cohme to Deck One,” he replied in a thick brogue. “We smahggled in everything… booze, dihrty mags, DVD’s.”
And just like that, my trip was saved.
“Wait – why do you have DVDs?” I inquired.
“Shite – with no intehrnet – DVD’s are our only fohrm of entertainment. They’re in high demahnd… Unless you have a thumb drive with pornahgraphy on it – that’s what everybady wants.”
He wasn’t lying. As it turns out, thumb drives with porn on them were traded among the contractors like cigarettes at Riker’s Island. If I could only download my weekly browsing history on Redtube.com, I’d be a very rich man.
“So how much are DVD’s worth?” I asked.
“Depends,” he said. “I just traded seahson one of Stranger Things for four pahcks of smokes… it was fookin’ brahlliant.”
It was then that I remembered I had a few DVD’s with me in my backpack. With any luck, I’d have something valuable on me… I also had a thumb drive that, if I recalled correctly, had Toy Story 3 on it from a family trip a few years back. I ran to my cabin to assess my stash.
In my bag, I had brought DVD’s of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Why I had this I have no idea.) Major League and Major League 2 (Research for a baseball comedy I was writing) and the first season DVD screener of the Showtime TV show SMILF – about a single mom who dates the wrong guys in Boston. It didn’t look very good, but the actress was hot. (I was sent the screener by the Emmy nominating committee, fyi).
I then checked my thumb drive, for Toy Story 3. It was gone. The only thing on it was my latest acting “demo reel.”
That night, Dan and I went downstairs to Deck One to see if we could get our hands on anything… a sip of wine, a beer… something to take away the endless jet lag and long nights of rehearsal.
Lochlin vouched for us – and the DVD’s were thrown on a table. About nine guys came and glanced at them, seeing if any of these films seemed appealing. Sadly, nobody was interested in Benjamin Button or the Major League movies.
“The Benjamin Button movie is too sad and we all fookin hate bahseball,” Lochlin informed me.
SMILF however, had some people intrigued. They wanted to know if the girl got naked, had any sex scenes, if it was funny, etc. I told them I wasn’t sure because I hadn’t watched it yet, but a small bidding war began.
My SMILF DVD’s started a crew-wide bidding war
One guy offered up a German porn magazine and two Heinekens. A Croatian guy said he had two packs of cigarettes and homemade Rakia – some type of homemade alcohol. Finally, Lochlin offered me a bottle of Bordeaux he had paid a Phillipino busboy 5 euros to smuggle on.
Lochlin took me to the bowels of the ship. These were the DiCaprio cabins from Titanic and the party going on down there was exactly what you think it would be. A guy was DJ-ing off a laptop, people were dancing and drinking… and there was even a guy giving makeshift haircuts using what I would refer to as my “pube clippers.”
10 Euros got you a trim.
In Lochlin’s room, he showed me how he and four other guys slept in the same room and shared a “Shoilet” – which is a combination of a shower and a toilet. I looked in the bathroom and nearly had a panic attack. These guys were living like pirates in the 1700’s but without barrels of rum, wenches and chests of gold.
He also told me the ship’s morgue was only two doors down the hall.
“The morgue?” I cringed. “For what?”
“About ten fuckers a year die on this ship,” he said. “Someone will prahbably die before we set sail tomorrow.”
Jesus Christ.
I urgently prodded Lochlin to produce the wine and I swiftly stuck it in my bag. I also noticed a couple of other bottles in his room as well. With two more days until Copenhagen, I offered up my thumb drive for another one.
“OK, look my friend – I’m actually an actor – on this drive is a three minute demo reel of a bunch of TV shows and movies I’ve been in… it aint much, but maybe worth at least a glass of wine?”
“Hmmm, “he said, actually contemplating the trade. “What mowvies have you been in?”
“Uhmm… A couple Disney shows, a Jim Gaffigan movie … I dunno – nothing you’ve probably ever seen…”
“Fuck that, Ill just take SMILF.”
I handed it over to him, and with that, I had my hands on a mediocre bottle of French Bordeaux.
Dan, Mark and I savored every pour of that wine that evening. As we giddily went off to bed, hoping to finally have a decent night’s sleep, we passed three contractors casually walking from the top deck somehow holding six beers in their hands.
“Woah, what the fuck?” Dan said. “Where’d you guys get that?”
“At the contractor bar upstairs,” the guy said.
What? A contractor bar? We ran up and caught the last five minutes of a ship regulated “pop-up bar” for the workers. It had been here the whole time and nobody had told us. As it turns out, all of the ship contractors were allowed to come to this bar for a two hour drink window… It was like when the caddies are allowed an hour in the swimming pool in Caddyshack.
Beers were $1.00 and a mini bottle of wine was $1.75. Mark bought the entire bar a round for $14.50.
$1.75 for a Mini Bottle of merlot? HELL YEAH.
The following night we were back up with the contractors, who were amazed that a couple of Americans had actually gone down to Deck One and made a wine deal with a Irish guy. One guy from Warsaw informed me that I had been ripped off. He would have given me three bottles of wine for SMILF.
We finally sailed towards Copenhagen and I was reminded of how beautiful the world can be outside of Los Angeles. The contractors left and the passengers got onboard and the drinks flowed and a lot of overweight older couples explored the ship and bought things that nobody in their right mind should ever buy.
At an onboard art auction, I watched two 75-year-old women violently bid on a 72 x 36 painting of a unicorn walking through Times Square… The lucky winner paid $2875 dollars for it.
Meanwhile, the cruise sailed on. We helped establish the flow and structure of the show. After a few days, you start to learn a lot from cruise employees. Most of them are on board for nine months at a time, and many of them are running from some dark, hidden past. It’s almost like the porn industry mixed with hotel management… Which often leads to bad decisions.
Sarah explained it further.
“Everybody sleeps together at first,” she said. “But then you realize you’re gonna have to see them every day for nine months. One night you have sex, the next day you’re fighting over the last box of Frosted Flakes in the buffet.”
“So I’m guessing you’ve stopped sailing your boat in company waters?” I joked.
“No way,” she said. “I banged a sushi chef last year.”
Another thing about cruise employees is that they are obviously extremely removed from current pop culture. At one point, Sarah told me that her favorite film of the past five years was “That amazing Ben Affleck move The Accountant.”
“You have to get off this ship,” I said.
The final night of the cruise and our show was up and running. I had befriended a bunch of new people and watched the show come together. One of the stage directors actually told me that I’d make a great cruise employee as I enjoyed talking to everybody and having a good time.
“I’m flattered, man – but I gotta get back to my family,” I said.
“Oh, you’re one of them…” he said with a sense of disappointment.
I had just been “Family Shamed” by a cruise ship employee.
He apologized for the way he reacted and just said he didn’t know a lot of people who were married with children. I told him not to worry about it and we wrapped up the show for the night.
He then excused himself and went to the shoilet…
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It was around 2:15 in the morning when a hammered single mom of three kids with a very visible C-section scar approached me following my music gig at a place called Peri’s in Marin County, California.
“Hiiii Mr. Talented…” She slurred. “I live two blocks away and my kids are prolly asleep – D-ya wanna come have a drink and smoke and hang ouuuuut?”
I looked this woman over. She was about 40, had a swollen and (possibly) fractured purple ankle and was heavily puffing on an e-cigarette…. From behind, half of her dress had hiked up and lodged itself in her butt, revealing a horrifying leg tattoo of a dragonfly that started mid-thigh and ended probably just above her Va-jayjay.
She also had one dreadlock.
“Uhhh… Well, the thing is…” I stumbled. “I’m married – sooo I don’t think it would be a good idea, ya know?”
“Fuck you! You’re an asshole for leading me on!” she snapped.
Wait, what? Leading her on? How was I leading her on?
A few seconds later, it hit me… When I was performing on stage a few minutes earlier, I recalled saying:
“Who’s the hottie in the back/Nice body, nice rack/
Meet me outside in five – My name is Zach.”
Oops.
Look. If you have ever seen me or my band perform live, I often jokingly flirt with girls in the crowd with improvisational freestyle rap lyrics from the stage… This, however, was one of those rare moments when the girl actually stuck around and thought I was serious… I felt terrible. (Here’s a sample of a freestyle from NYC in 2017)
“Sorry, it was a joke, – like a part of the show??!??!?” I tried to explain to her.
She threw a drink at me, turned around and stopped at the door to say good-bye.
“Your music fucking sucks anyway,” she screamed.
By the way? I never made it home that night. Since I was too drunk to drive, the bartender let me sleep in the back seat of my Prius in the bar’s parking lot…
Did I mention it was a Tuesday?
What the fuck am I doing?
I am 44-years-old. I have two kids and a wife. Most men my age are in bed by 8:30 every night, binge-watching Netflix and thinking about some meeting they have at work the next day with Nancy from H.R.
Not many dudes I know are living like me this summer… touring bars in their mid-40’s trying to sell 20-something kids t-shirts and CD’s of their country hip-hop band that – in most people’s eyes – peaked when they opened for Jason Mraz in 2008…
For the record? On this tour I sold ZERO CD’s.
But let’s go back a few years…
In the 2000’s, every bar I played in was always PACKED. Friends, fans and industry folks lined up outside awaiting new songs – or a 10-minute freestyle rap where I might drop their names into a verse… They bought CD’s and shirts and sang along and I would walk out of the bar with $400 and a thousand business cards… My band played across the country and stayed in fine hotels, sipping top shelf whiskey and partying with rock stars…
But, then came adulthood. People had kids and a lot of my musician friends got real jobs. Some band members moved out of town… Most guys gave up or got into real estate. Even I took a break from it for a while to be around the family and work in the TV business. However, the thrill of performing live was always missing…
So, this past summer I decided that a 9-venue mini music tour of Northern California would be the best thing for my mind, body and soul.
Tour posters from the road…
As the days rolled on, I sort of forgot about the ways of the road… Late nights, uncomfortable beds… bad habits reintroducing themselves… When you’re out driving down I-5 at 9:30 at night – a restaurant like Subway suddenly becomes a solid option. The Yellow American Spirit cigarette suddenly becomes “healthy” decision… Not to mention that most bars where I play like to avoid paying musicians – and instead – offer up FREE DRINKS instead – which ultimately leads to me drinking $4.99 mini bottles of Sutter Home Cabernet – guaranteeing a foggy and painful morning.
Oh, and most bartenders who hear me ask for “the best red wine in the bar” often think I’m joking and laugh in my face.
In all honesty, I quit drinking hard liquor ten years ago…. Waking up in a Super 8 Motel with two lines shaved into your eyebrows like D’Angelo Russell will do that to anybody…
But that’s a whole ‘nother story…
The “Zachariah: Backyard and Wineries” tour began in San Francisco, at a private party where some tech geniuses of the world dug my music and my improv songs about how expensive the city had become… The host had somehow procured 25-plus bottles of the legendary Pliny the Elder beer from Santa Rosa and he was extremely generous with his liquor cabinet. However, as people got more sloshed, a supremely drunk friend of theirs named Kelly demanded I sing Shallow by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga.
“Are you gonna sing it with me?” I asked her.
“Fuck YESSS!” She screamed as the party encouraged her.
A few chords later and she was warbling through the “Wooooaaaah – ohhh – h ohhh ohh ohh oh AWWOWOHHHWHWHWH” section of the song. Let’s just say she didn’t nail it, but it didn’t matter. The vibe and energy was fantastic and I assumed every gig would end up this beautiful and natural.
But the next night I drove up to gig at Peri’s Bar in Marin County. It was certainly a success, but I was definitely under-paid and over-served awful tiny bottles of Sutter Home… (Thus the reason why I slept in a parking lot).
When I woke up in the back seat of my 2008 Prius at six the next morning, having sweat through my clothes on stage the night before, I decided that a shower was indeed in order. I quickly Googled “YMCA Marin County” on my phone and found one 10 miles away where my Hollywood “Family Membership” would let me use their facilities. This is also a practice that HOMELESS people participate in.
I ended up spending 45 minutes in the sauna listening to two men talk about their new tech venture that would “change the dumpling game forever.” After they noticed me listening in, they began whispering and eventually left the sauna altogether, protecting their billion dollar dumpling idea.
A billion dollar dumpling idea? What I derived from this moment was that I am definitely in the wrong business…
That night, I performed at the Lagunitas Tap Room in Petaluma. The venue was amazing and they even offered up cash ($80) for the gig. Plus, per usual, they served me all the beer I could drink. Initially I had planned on having one or two beers because I had to drive to meet my wife and kids up north in Cloverdale once the night ended…
However, after my show, I quickly found myself 8 beers in. Since my head was spinning, I asked my new friend Pete (who booked me there) if he had a better idea than drunk driving to Cloverdale.
“Yeah brother… my buddy Andy has an Airstream in a forest that he rents out – it’s $45 for the night,” he said.
“Uhh… like, HOW in a forest?” I inquired.
“It’s desolate, man… super chill and quiet and you won’t hear anybody’s voice for like, 9 hours straight!” Pete replied.
OK. Look. I enjoy nature. I love converted Airstream trailers. But 9 hours alone in one in nature? Yo, I’m not trying to live that Into the Wild life… I am a social person. I need conversation. Shit, I need some WiFi, ya know?
“I don’t know Pete,” I explained. “I sorta need a bed – I slept in my car last night.”
“They have a killer Aerobed,” Pete said. “I’ve slept there sooo many times, you’ll love it – I’ll even drop you off!”
And with that, Pete took me to a beautiful house with 40 acres of land in the woods, where we knocked on the door and met Pete’s buddy Andy who was extremely tired and reluctantly thrust the trailer keys into my hand. He also passed me a Romancing the Stone-like treasure map explaining how to find the forest Airstream… Pete left and I slugged through the dark forest, absolutely fearing for every second of my life, before coming across what was a beautiful 1950-something converted Airstream “Cabin.”
This was terrifying.
I unlocked the door and went inside. It was about as rustic as you could expect.
There was an Aerobed with a blanket on it…
On the wall hung a calendar from the year 2013…
And there was a shovel in the corner next to a roll of toilet paper beneath a sign that said, “Use Nature’s Facilities.”
Holy shit. What? So no bathroom? Was I gonna have to re-learn the “One-armed tree hang” I had been taught at summer camp as a kid?
I decided to just crash and wake up as early as possible to split.
30 minutes after I went to sleep, I woke up on the floor. The Aerobed had deflated. It was about 45 degrees in the trailer. With no visible air pump nearby, I turned the deflated Aerobed into a pillow and did my best to sleep for the next six hours.
A couple of hours later I woke up to the sound of what must have been two bears humping in the woods… I also swear a mysterious light flashed across the sky and for two hours I panicked about being abducted by aliens and anally probed above the Redwoods. Eventually, around 6:30, I awoke with a stiff neck and took a $20 taxi back to my car at Lagunitas.
Up in Cloverdale I met my family and began thinking that perhaps, the road life was no longer for me… I took the family to the local trampoline park and hit up some small town burger place and I was amazed at how comfortable the safe and respectable family life felt again… For a minute, I almost cancelled my final three gigs…
But, since I can rarely turn down a chance to perform, I decided to carry through on my commitments.
As I was playing the night at an all ages restaurant, the local town drunk “Banjo Bob” (yes, his real name) taught my 13-year-old son how to best hold a pool cue if he was ever to get into a bar fight.
(His advice? Hit the guy with the skinny end, that way if it breaks off – you’re left with the more dangerous thick end of the stick as a weapon.)
To quote my late grandmother: “That’s wonderful?”
The following night, I played at a pretty cool bar in Healdsburg where I ate pizza that a guy had made from an oven that he dragged behind his bicycle… I know what you’re thinking: Bike Pizza? Trust me – It was absolutely delicious.
On the last night, we drove down to San Francisco and the tour ended at a bar in the Marina called Jaxson for a friend’s fundraiser party in the city – where, as I was playing live, a man and woman dry-humped each other on the dance floor in front of me…
Now look, I’m all for dancing, but this was kind of ridiculous… I actually didn’t care. They were wasted and they loved my music and I felt at home for a few minutes with the young Marina area crowd of San Francisco…
Here – watch the video and make your own assumptions:
For the record? That girl dancing did not ask me to come back to her place after the gig.
But the guy did…
“Hi Mr. Talented,” He said… “Wanna come party with me at my place?”
“I’d love to, but, the thing is… I’m married,” I said.
I woke up the next morning in the back seat of my Prius…
ZACH IS NOW BOOKING VENUES FOR HIS SUMMER 2020 TOUR!!
From April 25 – 28, ZACH will lead a band featuring Nashville legends -while performing LIVE at the world famous Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville during live tapings of the hit NFL Network show “Good Morning Football”Zach’s band Zachariah & the Lobos Riders recently released their new album “Hacienda” to high praise Lead singer Zach Selwyn, a former ESPN personality and digital sports content talent for TBS currently hosts the new interactive game show “Stacks” – Returning fall 2019. Stay tuned for more NFL Draft information! Show airs 6am-10am – prepare for NFL FREESTYLES, COUNTRY REWRITES, COVERS, EPIC CLOTHING and Zachariah ORIGINALS!
An able bodied Rihanna look-alike strolls through Hollywood
There is a small stretch of road about five minutes from my house that is known as “Tranny Alley.” The section I am talking about exists on what used to be the most famous highway in America: Route 66. Nowadays, it is known simply as Santa Monica Boulevard and it famously runs the length of the city, cascading into the Pacific Ocean at its conclusion.
“Tranny Alley” gets its name from – you guessed it – the number of transsexual prostitutes working their trade up and down the boulevard. Situated directly between Highland Avenue and Las Palmas, the majority of these prostitutes seem to use a shop called “Donut Time” as their home base. It was here, at this Donut Time, that I found myself picking up a 28-year-old prostitute named “Honeysuckle.”
Any man who has lived in the city of Angels for any period of time has found himself staring at a tight pair of denim shorts walking down the street only to be surprised when the person turns around and reveals him/herself as a guy. Santa Monica Boulevard is usually the place where it all goes down. Sometimes, they catch you staring and send an awkward wink your way at which point you react by either looking the other way or thinking to yourself, Wow… Dude or not, I still got it!
Last week, when I was on my way to pick up my six-year-old son from school, I noticed a pair of those exact denim shorts parading across a parking lot directly in the heart of Tranny Alley. When the person turned around, she had caught my eye – and sent a gorgeous and flirtatious look my way. I watched her cheetah-strut her body towards Donut Time, where she adjusted her top and threw me a salacious wink. I was stunned. She was by far the prettiest girl I have ever seen in Tranny Alley in the 19 years I have lived in this city –and there was even something familiar looking about her… but I couldn’t quite place it. Needless to say, she had an incredible Rihanna-like body with a face like a younger Sage Steele. (ESPN anchor). If she was, in fact, a man – I didn’t care… She was worth making eye contact with.
As I scooped up my six-year-old from school and we began driving home, I decided to take Santa Monica Boulevard again, risking a Donut Time drive-by, knowing fully well that my son often screams out “Donuts!” whenever we pass a shop serving up the fried, round, sugary treats. Giving your kid a donut at 3:30 in the afternoon is a terrible idea, as it often leads to a sugar crash, Lego’s being thrown all around your house and a dinner time screaming match between me and my wife… However, the moment I passed the shop, I noticed Rihanna again… She noticed me as well. She gave me a subtle nod and caught my eye in a flirtatious way, just as my son yelled out at the top of his lungs,
“Donuts!”
I flipped on my blinker and made a left turn into the parking lot.
Donut Time at Santa Monica Blvd. and Highland. (Borrowed form madatoms.com)
My initial intention was not to speak to her. I wanted to get inside the shop, pick out a donut, maybe get a closer look and then speed off towards the park to make my son run off the 550 calories he just inhaled. Instead, she approached me like a long lost girlfriend just as I walked through the door.
“You go to the Hollywood YMCA, don’t you,” she asked as I cradled my son so he could get a better look into the donut case.
How the hell did she know that?
“Uhhm, yeah?” I said quizzically. “Are… you a… member?”
She laughed. I took a quick gaze at her throat. It was Adam’s apple – free.
“I shower there sometimes,” she continued. “I’ve seen you and your kid walking around.”
It was then that I put it together. She was a member of the Hollywood YMCA. I had seen her before, striding around the ground floor, making every pasty-white mother of three uncomfortable by flaunting her ferocious curves and Olympian build. I always had assumed she was a personal trainer or a professional fitness model or something… Looks like she was simply, just a professional.
“Are you a…” I started, before looking down at my son, knowing that no six-year-old should be conversing with a prostitute ten minutes after leaving Math Workshop.
She smiled and rubbed the side of my shoulder.
“I can be anything you want me to be.”
Now I have never been one for talking dirty, but for some reason, her comment uncoiled some inner beast in my loins that had been lying dormant for way too long. I noticed a boulder-like erection burst into my boxer briefs that felt like a Sumatran rhino giving birth. I wasn’t quite sure what it was… but this girl’s voice and body and face were so searing, for that one fleeting moment I truly, deeply in the back of my head, considered throwing away a perfect marriage to the love of my life – consenting to spending the rest of my adulthood couch-surfing in Van Nuys. I felt contented with the fact that I would rarely be allowed to see my children again… And if my wife wanted to take half of all my finances? FINE. These all seemed like worthy sacrifices for one night of rapture with this thunder-bodied beautiful sex bomb who looked like she could break my penis off.
And who may or may not be a guy.
I paid for the donut and did my best to shake off the fantasy. As I allowed my erection to lower itself to half mast, I eeked a smile her way and raised my hand, showing her my wedding ring, as if to say, “Sorry, I’m married.”
She laughed and whispered into my ear.
“Single men don’t walk into Donut Time,” she said. “Most of my regulars are married… But you’re the first guy who actually brought his kid along.”
Yeah, about that… I looked over at the boy, eating his chocolate sprinkled donut, unaware that his father could be 20 minutes away from making the biggest mistake of his life. Unaware of “Tranny Alley.” Thinking only of toys and ninjas and the Angry Birds Star Wars toy on his Hannukkah list. Just innocent, pure and happy…
“It’s 50 bucks for a blow-job,” she whispered.
“We should go,” I yelled out to the boy. “C’mon, dude…”
I loaded him up into the car and didn’t even buckle his seat belt. His face was smeared with chocolate. Within six minutes, we were up in the park and he was climbing a play structure as I found myself perversely Google–searching “Sexy Rihanna Photos” on my iphone. Had anybody seen some of the half-naked images I came across, I would have been arrested and thrown in prison for lewd conduct. Looking at soft-core porn on your phone in a public park is probably a bigger offense than actually picking up a prostitute… (I looked that up by the way… It’s not.)
Paranoid, I cleared my history, turned off my phone and did 10 pull-ups on the monkey bars as a way to release some unbridled energy.
I believe I first realized that I didn’t have my wallet about 45 minutes later. We had come home from the park and the Rihanna incident was way beyond me – because by that point, other concerns popped into my head. What time was his soccer practice? Did I forget to email the bank about the house Re-Fi? Why did I forget to buy printer ink? But now, something even more horrifying had crossed my mind: My wallet was gone, and the only place it could possibly be was sitting on the counter at “Donut Time.”
When my wife came home, I told her I had left my wallet at my son’s school and I had to go get it. She called me a dumb-ass and told me to hurry up. After all, we had Nick and Marcy coming over for dinner. I jumped in the car and raced towards Santa Monica Boulevard as fast as I could, praying that Rihanna was nowhere to be found and that my wallet was safe and sound behind the counter. The drive over there shared the same nerve-wracking feeling of a first date in high school… It was mortifying.
As I began creeping along towards Tranny Alley, I noticed that there were a few more ladies of the night walking the street. Most of them were obviously men, and I avoided their looks as long as I could. I managed to find a parking spot at a meter, hoping my presence would go unnoticed. I crossed over the sidewalk and ran towards Donut Time at a swift pace. When I got there, I grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. Before I could slide inside, a familiar voice turned me around.
“Looking for this?”
There was Rihanna, holding my embarrassing tri-panel Velcro piece of shit wallet with a clear sleeve for my driver’s license and a change purse zipper. My driver’s license was in her left hand.
“Zachary Stephen Selwyn, huh?” She said. “You look younger than 37.”
“Uhm, thanks,” I said, not knowing if she really meant it or if it was her way to talk a potential john into dropping 500 bucks on life-ruining sex.
“Where’d you, uhh – find it?” I asked.
“I can find a man’s wallet anywhere. Now you want it back, or what?”
“Yes please,” I meekly answered.
“You can have it — if you run me up to the YMCA – I have to take a shower.”
The first thing that popped into my mind was the Hugh Grant – Divine Brown incident. Back in 1997, Grant was a superstar who was arrested for receiving fellatio in his BMW just north of Tranny Alley from a prostitute named Divine Brown. Following the arrest, Grant’s reputation went from ‘irresistibly charming leading man’ to Mickey Blue Eyes. Divine Brown, meanwhile, has allegedly made close to two million dollars from personal appearances and pornography and is now raising her three well-off children in Beverly Hills…. Advantage: Prostitute.
Hugh Grant and Divine Brown’s careers went in completely different directions following their arrest in 1997
The other famous incident at the time was when Eddie Murphy was pulled over with a tranny prostitute in his car in the same neighborhood. Although never charged with anything, Eddie has been dragged across the floor by the press since then as well. By offering Rihanna a ride, I was risking my career and more importantly, my marriage. It seemed like a no-win situation…
“Sure, I can give you a ride,” I said.
I wasn’t sure why I had agreed to do it. Part of me believed it was a moment of weakness where I felt like the character “Mr. Incredible” from the film The Incredibles. Downtrodden, bored and eager to find adventure again, he takes on paid missions without his wife knowing -which, at first – get him his mojo back. Of course he ends up nearly dying until his superhero family arrives and saves his ass with superpowers and they all live happily ever after. I wondered to myself if my superhero family would come save me should I get arrested with a prostitute in the front seat of my car… My initial thought was, probably not.
Rihanna handed me my wallet and tried to hold my hand as we walked back to my car. I pushed it away and kept my eyes peeled for any sign of police. At the moment, everything looked clear. We got in and I quickly lowered my radio so she wouldn’t know I had been playing the Rihanna song “What’s my Name” on my ipod for the past 30 minutes. We slowly pulled out into traffic and headed up towards Vine, where I would shuttle her to the awaiting, lucky, pulsating shower beads of the Hollywood YMCA.
“OK, you know my name… what’s yours?” I asked her. After all, I couldn’t keep referring to her as “Rihanna.”
She took a moment to fiddle around with a pair of my sunglasses I had resting against the center console. She put them on her eyes and turned towards me.
“You can call me Honeysuckle,” she said.
Perfect. Honeysuckle? Could there be a more appropriate name for this fiery African-American fuck machine than “Honeysuckle?”
“Is that your real name?” I asked.
“Is Zachary your real name?”
“Uhh, yeah.”
“Than my real name is Honeysuckle.”
“Wow!” I said. “Like the Willie Nelson film Honeysuckle Rose!”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
As she lowered the passenger side mirror to apply lipstick, I found it odd that she was on her way to take a shower and was applying make-up 10 minutes beforehand. She pursed her lips and laughed at her face in the mirror in a way that exuded more self-confidence than any woman I feel I had ever encountered. It was the last thing you expected a “soiled dove” to be doing. I dug deeper. Fascinated by this workhorse of sexual pleasure. I have always been obsessed with those who spend their lives this way… I love their back-stories and their ideals and hearing about the unique way they view the world. Her story was enthralling
As it turns out, Honeysuckle was born and raised in Oakland by a single mother who was also a prostitute. Honeysuckle had dropped out of high school at 16 when she got pregnant, and had lost the baby during childbirth. Disenchanted with everything, she moved to San Francisco were she began turning tricks for as much as $1500 a night. By 21, she was well known throughout the city and pleasured star athletes, politicians and businessmen from all over the world. She had even once been flown to New York for a convention with top brass at a massive electronics company that we all know about. Finally, she settled in LA, where she heard she might be able to work as a high-class call girl and not a “streetwalker.” Unfortunately, most of the girls in Los Angeles who were in that racket were five to ten years younger and from foreign countries. Honeysuckle claimed she was too street savvy to get caught up in that business and she now walks the boulevard three times a week, doing what she can to keep her lights turned on, her weave silky and her body in shape. It was a story straight out of a terrible movie. A hooker with a heart of gold… I wasn’t sure what I believed.
I had one more question I had to ask her. I took a chance.
“So, by any chance… are you a transsexual?” I boldly proposed.
“Honey, please – I am all woman,” She exclaimed. “You know what my father once told me before he split on me and my mom? He told me the best piece of advice I have ever heard. He told me “As long as you got a pussy, you will never go broke.”
I took that in. I have absolutely no plans of ever sharing that advice with my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
We drove in silence for a few blocks as she applied more makeup and drank from a mini bottle of grape Five-Hour Energy that was tucked away in her purse. I was only hoping I could make it to the destination without being pulled over by any flashing red and blue lights. As we made a left onto Selma near the new Trader Joe’s, I finally broke the silence.
“So, why do you belong to the YMCA?” I asked.
“The Y lets homeless people in on a 10 dollar -a-month discounted rate,” she explained. “I’d say 50-100 YMCA members are homeless people or hookers… it’s true. Trust me, do NOT go in the jacuzzi.”
All I could think of was the fact that I had taken my six-year-old boy in the Jacuzzi two days earlier.
The Hollywood YMCA apparently offers discounts to homeless people and hookers.
When we wound up pulling up to the front of the YMCA, it suddenly dawned on me that I had seen a number of toothless men in the locker rooms, shady looking women emerging from the massage rooms and occasional clove-smoking dope fiends shuffling in and out of the front door. Maybe Honeysuckle was telling the truth… The Hollywood Y was as much a gym, a gravity strength pilates class and a Kids Klub, as it was a homeless shelter… I was about to cut my engine when Honeysuckle instructed me to pull to the side of the building.
I did as I was told, now fully aware that the earlier rhino boner I had set fire to had now completely retreated inside of my body. I pulled my car into a metered space and watched her smooth out her shorts so they wouldn’t bunch up. She casually stared back at me with her hazel-ish eyes and put a tethered hand on my upper right thigh.
Most ladies at Donut Time resemble this gal. Honeysuckle was a cut above.
“The best thing about a woman like me, Zachary, is that I don’t kiss and tell,” she said.
I looked deep into her pooling retinas. She was marvelous. A physical specimen. Probably no older than 27 or 28. Any man with 100 or 200 or 500 dollars was sure to have the time of his life with this woman – but I was simply not going to be that guy. All I could think of was my son and the chocolate smeared across his face and his Hannukkah list and my wife’s smile and my daughter’s growing Hello Kitty collection. I was even looking forward to a small argument about getting the boy a donut at 3:30 in the afternoon.
I just wanted to go home.
Honeysuckle kept her hand on my thigh. I thought long and deep about how I was gong to let her down… I didn’t want to crush her. I mean, her life had been so hard, could she handle my rejection? How would she react? I was nervous. I took a deep breath and reached down into the depths of my soul for what was the honest-to-God truth.
“Look, I’m flattered… but I – I can’t – I could never live with myself,” I said.
Without flinching, her hand was gone from my leg. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and opened the door. Within eight seconds, she had dismounted my car, tossed her weave back over her shoulders and buckled her purse.
So much for her having trouble taking rejection, I thought.
As she walked in front of my car towards the YMCA, I was watching her denim shorts again. It was then that she turned around and ran back to my window. I knew it… I thought. She couldn’t stand to think about how this 37-year-old father and husband had turned down her advances… She couldn’t fathom being rejected or humiliated like that… I KNEW IT! In fact, what I was thinking was, I still got it…
As she persuaded me to roll down my window, I expected another come-on. After all, getting hit on by any woman at my age is flattering, even if they turn out to be a prostitute… I zapped down the pane and awaited her final cry for my love…
“Hey, Zachary,” She began. “You had 50 bucks in your wallet when I found it, so I took it as a finder’s fee… OK?”
She pirouetted and slinked towards the awaiting doors of the YMCA.
I’ve driven by Tranny Alley a few times since, but Honeysuckle seems to have disappeared. I hadn’t seen her at the YMCA either, until earlier this week. I caught her bounding out of the locker room, midriff showing, with micro-beads of sweat glistening just above her belly button. As usual, all the YMCA moms stopped and stared, aghast at her sheer physical presence and beauty, and the older dudes working out on the machines snuck glances as she sauntered towards the door. As she passed by my son and I, she caught my eye and gave me a silent nod. It was all unspoken and perfect and it made me feel comfortable and happy knowing that she was still around and had no intention of changing who she was to appease the eyeballs of others. Only one thought entered my mind as I watched her move through a crowd of bewildered onlookers.
Best 50 bucks I ever spent…
COME SEE ZACH PERFORM LIVE AT THE HAYRIDE! Tues. Dec 11 – 7:30 pm. BOOTLEG THEATER!
By Zach Selwyn
Zach’s band 
