Jackson Hole Weekend Highlights

Back in 1994, just three weeks into a relationship that I swore would last forever, my hippie Phish-loving girlfriend “Rainbeaux” announced that she was, “giving up toilet paper” as a way to preserve the environment.

“I’m sorry, what?” I responded.

“Look at the facts,” Rainbeaux said. “Every time we use a pre-fab product like toilet paper, we are destroying not only the rainforest, but the redwoods and like, all the natural resources of our planet… It’s a no-brainer for me.”

“Well, it’s a boner-killer for me,” I thought to myself.

If Rainbeaux wasn’t so fascinating and beautiful, I would have run away immediately… Instead, I did my best to question her plan.

“So… like, what are you gonna use when you…uhh – you know, go to the bathroom?” I asked her, calmly.

“It’s called Hmong Hill Hemp Cloth from Thailand,” she explained. “A guy who I met on last Phish Tour introduced me to it. It’s made from undernourished plant cloth and hemp fibers and It originated with the Hmong Hill Tribe…and for like 2000 years – their community is like… the healthiest in the world.”

I nodded my head in solitude, looked into her green eyes – and smiled vacantly.

“Sure, whatever you want,” I said.

She smiled and went back to drawing octagonal prisms in her sketch book.

Rainbeaux’s genius “save the planet” idea was to purchase 100 cloth swatches as her permanent toilet paper – and to just simply wash them at a laundromat whenever everything got dirty… I was secretly disgusted by this entire hippie dream of hers, but I went along with it for the time being because, well… she was cute and we were 19-years-old… and that’s just the kind of shit you do at that age… Especially when your “Are you a REAL hippie?” status is in question by a beautiful woman wearing patchouli and a tie-dyed sundress.

Not the way to start your day

So, after I announced that I would support her toilet paper protest, she made me promise her I would give up toilet paper myself.

I promised her I would.

A minute later, she told me that I was “a real mystic” and then for the next 30 minutes, we made love listening to her $750 dollar Natural Sound Machine from The Sharper Image.

Of course, around 3:30 a.m. I woke up and rushed to her dorm’s community bathroom because I had to take a massive crap… And when I was done, I had torn through about a half a roll of Charmin Double Ply…

“Rainbeaux,” of course, wasn’t her real name. She was born “Hannah Gurlin” and she had grown up rather wealthy in Highland Park, Illinois, beneath the tutelage of a father who encouraged horseback riding as a a hobby and an older brother with a weed connection and a penchant for the Grateful Dead. After turning down offers from multiple respectable schools in the midwest, she had decided to attend UCSB (UC Santa Barbara) as a way to major in creative writing while enjoying the Southern California party lifestyle. We first met at a Big Head Todd and the Monsters concert during our freshman year, in one of those moments when the cute girl next to you singing along to the song Bittersweet made you feel like anything on the planet was possible…
Our eyes met as we sang together: “We work our way arouuuuund each other… as we tremble and we bleed…”

These were the deep connections that could make any lovelorn college kid in the 90’s soul fall head over heels.

After the show, Rainbeaux and I exchanged phone numbers – and we eventually met up again at a Dave Matthews Band show that spring…

A month later we went to a Phish concert… and that night we ended up sleeping together while listening to Mazzy Star Fade Into You. As we laid in bed, we discussed my theory that “The 90’s were just the 60’s Upside Down…” It seemed real, it seemed perfect and we both thought we had a once in a lifetime connection.

Of course, no long-lasting relationship that begins at a Big Head Todd concert can ever be expected to last.

Our relationship peaked when we embarked on an epic five-city West Coast Phish Tour – where we exchanged words of “LOVE” following a post-show Shoreline house party that as I recall, was crawling with ecstasy and Parliament Lights.

And then, a week later… was when Rainbeaux gave up using toilet paper.

Rainbeaux was the type of woman that you fell in love with in your 20’s. She had a zest for life, could party with anybody and it didn’t hurt that her dad was always sending her money. (Back then rich trust-fund hippies like this were referred to as “Trustafarians.”) But eventually, the hippie dream, much like it did to our parent’s generation, turned on us.

My main concern was not flunking out of school. (I wanted to make sure my dad’s tuition checks were going towards something besides my social life).

Rainbeaux’s main concern was how she would be able to make the type of money her parents made to support her lifestyle… She claimed she was a “writer…” yet she barely wrote anything. I was the one always writing. She could never seem to get anything down on paper… and it became awkward when she becoming jealous when my short stories, as dumb as they were, began appearing in the pages of my local college humor magazine.

As the used Hmong Hill Hemp Cloth began piling up in a wastebasket near her closet in the dorm room, I stopped wanting to come over. It was … sadly… disgusting. After she noticed that I had not been taking any cloth with me when I went to the bathroom, I came clean and was forced to admit that I was actually guilty of using “pre-fab” toilet paper. She was unhappy. I told her that after spending a few days on the Hmong Hill… I needed to hike back DOWN to reality.

She cringed, asked me to consider “her feelings” and I told her I didn’t think I could continue following her experiment. A few days later we broke up.

That was it. College went on. I drifted into my dreams and she did the same. We lost track of each other.

It had been nearly 20 years since I had been in touch with Rainbeaux, even after doing some embarrassing social media stalking…

I could never find her… Not online, not on Facebook… I even checked obituaries. There was no sign of Rainbeaux’s or Hannah Gurlin’s existence anywhere.

Until last week – when DEAD AND COMPANY came to the Hollywood Bowl right by my house here in Los Angeles.

My brother and another friend, Mark (Who was once arrested for dealing nitrous balloons at a Grateful Dead concert in 1989), had all gone to the Dead and Company show hoping to relive any slice of our youth that had faded as quickly as adulthood had arrived. John Mayer was playing Jerry Garcia’s parts and the band I fell in love with as a kid was playing better than ever.

Amazingly, Mark revealed to me that he had a fake business license for about five years in the late 80’s that let him pass as a FROZEN YOGURT SHOP OWNER – Basically, he would take his fake yogurt license into a legitimate NITROUS DEALER and procure as big of a nitrous tank as he could, claiming that his “Chocolate/Vanilla Swirl” was super popular and that he needed to buy the max amount of nitrous to get back to Sacramento.

It worked for a while, but eventually, his drug dealing days caught up with him and Mark was arrested at an early 90’s Grateful Dead show in Irvine. For his crime, he paid a thousand dollars and did 100 hours of community service.

To this day, he fucking hates frozen yogurt

Lotta these dudes in the parking lot

Anyway, the three of us jumped out of our Lyft around Highland and Hollywood and embraced the free flowing beauty of the “Shakedown Street” parking lot scene where I quickly spent way too much money on a collectible “Arizona Dead Pin” and some $5.00 bootleg t-shirts…

After vaping and laughing and walking around for a minute, Mark pointed out about 100 plus “balloon dealers” openly distributing the gas on the premises – as if we were at a dental convention and we all needed emergency root canals…

All of this was shocking, not only because of the notorious Grateful Dead parking lot trouble that has existed in the past – but because when Mark was arrested 20-years-earlier, he had merely sold one balloon and was caught, cuffed and carried out…

Back then, the cops didn’t believe his story that he owned a Frozen Yogurt shop. Maybe it was because when they asked for the name of it, he replied “IKO IKO FROYO.” (Apparently the cops giggled at this before arresting him).

Discarded balloons everywhere

At the Hollywood Bowl, the cops didn’t seem to give a SHIT about anything going on. I counted 15 nitrous dealers, countless weed dealers, girls offering K, shrooms, molly… there were even makeshift pop-up bars operating on picnic tables where you could buy any mixed drink you wanted. It was insane. About the only thing I didn’t see for sale in that parking lot was a black market kidney.

And then, through the crowd, I saw RAINBEAUX.

I wasn’t sure if it was her at first, but I certainly remembered her eyes. Green, maybe a bit grey now, but still gorgeous. I watched her flit about some friends for a second in a yellow sundress before realizing that YES, it was her… the only obvious difference I noticed, was that she now had two little children wrapped around her legs.

No matter what, when you see an ex-girlfriend with their children, it makes you think about a lot of shit…

I decided to say hello, and walked up to where she was standing.

“Are you RAINBEAUX by any chance?” I said to her as she was least expecting a conversation.

She lit up. She turned around. She stared at me…

“Oh my God… Zach Selwyn?” She said.

I felt like Al Pacino in Carlito’s Way when his ex recognizes him after getting out of prison.

Charlie? Hello Gail…

“Hi,” I mustered… “I knew that was you.”

We hugged for a while – one of those “what could have been” hugs… and she quickly introduced me to her kids – Saffron and, her youngest – a kid named… ZACHARY. She said he was not named after me.

Secretly, I didn’t believe her.

We hugged again. Deeply. She told me that she hadn’t been “Rainbeaux” for a long time. She was back to being known as… “Hannah.”

She asked me about everything – especially how my writing was going.

“Yeah, it’s fine, I guess,” I meekly admitted. “I just post stuff online and write songs and, whatever, it’s a long story.”

I asked her about her writing career. She said she never had the guts to pursue it. She had been teaching Neo-natal yoga in Poway and was married to a dermatologist.

“Wow, didn’t expect that,” I said.

I thought Rainbeaux would marry a guy like this…

We rambled on for a moment, talking about what songs we were hoping to hear that night. I was hoping for Estimated Prophet.

“You know, Estimated was my official battle cry/anthem when I moved to LA – telling all my friends and family not to worry about me,” I said before singing out the lyrics, “California! Preaching on the burning shore…”

She smiled. “I remember… Do you remember how much I loved that song Bittersweet by Big Head Todd and the Monsters?”

I stared into her eyes as her daughter ran back up and hugged her.

“Of course I do,” I said. She smiled.

After I introduced her to my friends, she said good-bye, scooped up her daughter and began to walk away. As she was 10 feet or so up the sidewalk, I had to ask her one final question that had been bugging me for years…

“Hey, Hannah…” I said. “Are you still on that ‘Toilet Paper Protest’?”

She stopped, turned towards me and flashed kind smile before responding…

“Haha – NO,” she laughed. “I’m going through about, like – a box a half of baby wipes a week.”

I raised my beer in her direction and nodded my head.

“Me too.”

As I watched the concert that night, I thought often of the days I spent with Rainbeaux, and I began to think that I should have brought my own children to the show with me…

Until some guy behind me passed me a Nitrous balloon and said it would make me feel like “God was licking my ass.”

I’ll just let my kids have their own experiences…

STREAM ZACH’S NEW ALBUM “HACIENDA” EVERYWHERE NOW!

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Re-Examining the 1997 NBA Draft – If I Had Been Selected…
(Originally published @Nerdist Sports 2017) At the end of my senior year in college – despite having not played organized basketball since high school and maintaining a 1.8 blood alcohol level for four years straight, my friends dared me to declare for the NBA draft. I wrote an official letter the NBA commissioner David Stern and presented my accolades: Six-foot-two. 3.8 G.P.A. Fraternity scoring leader and dunk contest winner on the 8-foot hoop in the parking lot. I wasn’t selected. Looking back now, I have to argue that I might have been a better pick than 75% of the players in the 1997 NBA draft. Sure, the draft produced perennial all-stars Tim Duncan (#1), Chauncey Billups (#3) and Tracy McGrady (#9), but for every one of those guys, there are three Ed Elisma’s (#40), Bubba Wells’ (#34) and Ben Pepper’s (#55). Who’s to say that if I was chosen in the late second round I wouldn’t have made a better impact than a guy like 44th pick Cedric Henderson? I was too short to be a forward, my high school position. My handle wasn’t strong enough to compete for a point guard slot, so basically, my only shot was to be drafted as a shooting guard – and my guess is I would have been picked somewhere around 46 – where Orlando took Alabama marksman Eric Washington. (Whose best year came with the Idaho Stampede in the NBA D-League in 2010). Due to some late garbage time minutes, I estimate I would have averaged roughly 1.2 points a game… Which is more than draft picks C.J. Bruton (#52), Roberto Duenas (#57) and Nate Erdmann (#55) ever averaged in their careers. The 11th pick of the draft was a guy named Tariq Abdul-Wahad. Nobody past the top 10 picks truly ever made a big statement in the NBA. Sure, Stephen Jackson (#42) was a key piece to the 2003 Spurs, Bobby Jackson (#23) was a sixth man sparkplug and Mark Blount (#54) was a dependable center for a few teams – but overall, 1997 was pretty mediocre… Even though I once bought into the ESPN theory that Jacque Vaughn (#27) would be the next Allen Iverson. My own personal draft journey began after a two-game playoff run in the annual 1997 fraternity basketball challenge. It was in a game against Pi Kappa Alpha. Their starting point guard tried to take me off the dribble to the left. I stuck my arm just above his bounce and poked the ball free into the open court. I ran after it, scooped it up and laid it in for the victory. My fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi had won our first play-off game in 10 years. In our next contest, we gave the brothers of Sigma Alpha Epsilon a good run, and I poured in 21 points. Ultimately, we lost on a late technical foul call when I got kicked out for calling the referee a “dickbag.” It was after that game, while consuming a lot of Natural Light beer, that I decided to declare for the draft. On draft day 1997, I sat on my mother’s couch with baited anticipation as the others had their moments. I ordered some pizza for my family. My mother thought I had lost my mind. As the evening progressed, I had seen enough of the long, tailored mustard and pinstriped suits making their way to the podium to shake David Stern’s hand. I watched as guys like Tony Battie (#5), Danny Fortson (#10) and Antonio Daniels (#4) put on those crisp new NBA caps. I accepted the inevitable as the first round telecast came to an end. The second round was only on the radio, so I sat in my Civic, listening in. “And with the 48th pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, the Washington Bullets select Predrag Drobnjak from KK Partizan, Serbia.” Really? A guy named Predrag was taken? Nobody could even pronounce his name. So what if he was a six-foot-eleven three time Euro League National Champion? I played on the frat tournament second runner-up team! Most of the players from the ’97 draft ended up overseas, injured or, in Ron Mercer’s (#6) case, involved in a strip club assault or two. I was no different – except for the fact that I never played one minute in the NBA. Then again, neither did Serge Zwikker (#29), Mark Sanford (#30) or Gordon Malone (#44). I still think I would have had a shot. Ed. Note: Zach Selwyn currently averages 15.2 points per game in his over 40-YMCA league.
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By Zach Selwyn

THE CONCEPT:

Recently, as a creative experiment, I decided to commit myself to sitting in the Hollywood YMCA sauna for 20 minutes every morning for ten straight days in a row.

My plan was to arrive at the same time every day… roughly 9:45 a.m. and see what different characters I would meet from all walks of life. After all, as a longtime YMCA member, the sauna has always offered up a diverse cast of dreamers, stars, trust fund kids, drunks and Hollywood failures and I was hoping that maybe this little adventure would lead to a fairly decent piece for Los Angeles Magazine. So, I re-upped my monthly membership and sauntered down through Hollywood at the beginning of May for my first documented YMCA sauna adventure.

DAY 1:

A toothless man wearing jeans and a hoodie with a bandage around his head just told me that he was currently recovering from a Samurai sword attack…

As he began unwrapping his head bandage, I quickly noticed a large raised scar that slightly resembled the laces on a football running across the crest of his cranium.

“Holy shit,” I said. “Is it – SAFE for you to be in a sauna?”

“I dunno,” he chucked. “After the attack, the YMCA let me join for free for a month so I figured I’d try it out.”

I soon came to find out that this man’s name was Ray and he had moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s to make it in “fuckin metal, man!” He claimed that he had some minor success but got derailed by the drugs and now he was pushing 65, missing a few teeth and living just outside of the park next to my kids’ old middle school.

I asked Ray if the jeans and hoodie thing was some sort of extreme weight loss plan – like when wrestlers jog with garbage bags on to cut weight.

“No – I just don’t get naked around other men since I was released from prison,” he said.

“Oh,” I eeked out. “I’m gonna go.”

Before I could go, he wanted to explain the scar on his head.

“Some guy was swinging a Samurai sword over by the Pla-Boy Liquor Store,” he explained. “I tried to stop him – but that was a bad move. Luckily the clerk called the hospital and I got stitched up. This town has changed since I opened for Faster Pussycat, man.”

That was day one.

DAY 2:

In the 30 years I have been going to gyms, I have never walked into a sauna and found a guy playing with himself while sporting two nipple clamps on his chest… However, on only my second day in my sauna quest, I was met with a dude who looked like that Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuerrmann proudly fondling himself.

“Uhmmmm,” I said as I walked in.

“Sorry, saunas make me horny,“ he said. “What about you?”

I have been hit on by men before. Christ, I was a 22-year-old actor in Hollywood back in the day… But this was excessive. I was staring at a grown man’s penis, and was solicited with the fact that saunas ‘turn him on’ within 30 seconds. I crouched in the corner for a few beats, praying that somebody I knew came in, but I told myself that I would commit to a full sauna session – especially since my day one experience had ended so abruptly.

He then asked me if I wanted to retreat to the steam room because, “The smoke provides better cover for hand jobs and stuff…”

“What?” I said, horrified.

“I feel like a zoo animal here because everybody can walk by and look at us inside.”

Jesus Christ. I proceeded to tell him that there were other dudes at the Hollywood Y who would fuck him up for even suggesting a sexual favor in the sauna, but he just scoffed. He did not seem at all intimidated by my threat in the slightest… He then followed up with another line that made me laugh.

“Have you ever had an orgasm in 180 degree heat? It’s fucking mind blowing”

“Well… I did grow up in Arizona,” I said.

He laughed. Shit… Why did I make him laugh?

I finally told Rex that I had to go pick up my kids. I had lasted four minutes and 30 seconds… So far my 20 minutes a day goal has been limited to nine minutes in total.

DAY 3:

I have never taken my cell phone into a sauna, but for some reason a lot of people do. And today, a younger guy was in the sauna taking selfies of himself while wrapped in a beige towel.

“Do iPhones even work in this heat?” I asked him, just happy that he wasn’t playing with himself or showing me a scar on his head caused by a katana that was once used in feudal Japan.

“The new ones do,” he said. “It’s great for Influencer stuff.”

So are you a ‘Sauna Influencer?’” I asked, hoping that he was so that this sauna piece would really have some legs…

“No – I’m a Sober Influencer. Follow me @soberguy1989 on Insta.”

Ugh. Sober influencers. Due to my regular IG posts about bars and drinking, I get a ton of suggested sober influencers placed into my algorithm… and most of them tell me that I definitely have cirrhosis and that I have been dead since I was 32. No shade, but I hate sober influencers… I do love sober people, and I have hundreds of good friends who are clean and sober – but just don’t try to preach your way of life to everybody who might still be able to handle a few cocktails every once in a while.

“So you get paid to talk about how great it is to be sober?” I asked him.

“Sometimes… I mean, I used to drink a lot – like 4-5 beers a night!” He explained. “But then, when I hit 30 I couldn’t do it anymore.”

I’d chuckled knowing that I was currently sweating out two bottles of Trader Joe’s Campo Viejo Rioja onto the floor at that same moment. Which is when he began spreading his gospel.

“Have you ever asked yourself the addiction questions? Like… Are you employed? Are you happy? Are you single or broke? Are you in massive debt?”

“Yes,” I said. “Well, in reality – I’m happily married and fairly happy overall – but I am definitely unemployed and in massive debt – but I guarantee you that I would be the same way even if I was sober.

And that was that. He took some more photos of himself. I did my 20 minutes and went on with my day.

DAY 4:

The Hollywood YMCA sauna used to be a creative cocoon for industry veterans, actors and mainly…screenwriters. I knew dozens of guys with past TV deals and feature films who often discussed how they were optioning some comedy series to NBC. Of course, this was back when Hollywood was still functioning.

I met writers, directors and first AD’s from all walks of life in that sauna – and heard fantastic stories. One I recall in particular was from Randy Carter, who was Francis Ford Coppola’s Assistant Director for decades, who would spin Apocoalypse Now Martin Sheen stories that would make any film junkie feel like they were losing their minds in the jungles of 1969 Cambodia.

Today, however, I sat in the sauna with two young kids who called themselves screenwriters. They ran off a string of complaints about how selling your original script would never happen and I laughed under my breath at their naivete. Still, they kept on about “established IP” and began complaining about the fact that they were writing scripts for a vertical platform called ReelScreen – and how they should both be the next Tarantino.

“Wait… So you guys are actually currently employed as writers?” I inquired.

“Yeah, but it’s like, bullshit vertical soap opera stuff,” one kid said. “It like… barely covers my rent.”

What? I thought to myself… Rent? Writing? A possibility?

“So – Sorry to pry,” I said. “But – are they accepting writing samples – or looking for writers?”

The kid studied me for a few seconds. I was the epitome of middle age… Dad bod. Beer belly. Thinning hair…

“Uhm… It’s a pretty young platform,” he said. “So probably not.”

I decided not to pitch them my sequel to Splash and I finished my 20 minutes in silence.

DAY 5:

Today was one of those rare days where I found myself alone in the sauna. It was beautiful… and the wood was dry and it just felt safe and peaceful. I let the sweat drip down my body and fall onto the surface where I made a little Rorschach Tests for what shapes I found. It was a parade of dragons, butterflies and weird silhouettes of men scooping ice cream… It felt like I was on mushrooms… More days like this please.

DAY 6:

Reid, an old pal of mine from the basketball courts, was in the sauna today and asked me if I heard about the old guy who got kicked out for regularly soliciting hand jobs in the steam room.

“Holy shit, that dude hit on me!” I said. “Did he look like that Gilgo Beach Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann?”

“Yes! He tried to lick my nipples last time I was in here – turns out he was 64!”

Suddenly, I didn’t feel as special, knowing that this dude was basically chasing every dick around the sauna. I took some pride in the fact that I was 15 years younger than him, so for a second I considered myself a “twink.”

Wait. What?

DAY 7:

Big delay upcoming. The sauna was closed because somebody had defecated on the rocks. I think I may be done with this experiment. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was the Samurai Sword guy…

DAY 8:

It’s been two weeks since the sauna reopened after being scrubbed and sanitized. I have certainly missed my daily trips but was looking forward to getting back to a nice schvitz following a quick jaunt to New York where I slept for a total of nine hours in three days.

So, imagine my surprise when three fully naked old Korean guys and a moss of white pubic hair greeted me on a random Thursday. The three guys were laughing about something I was not privy to, but there were no towels or clothing ANYWHERE. I mentioned that this YMCA demands that you wear some sort of covering, but they didn’t understand me. All I heard was that the Koreatown YMCA was temporarily closed, so a bunch of members were coming here now…

I walked out early, but was pleasantly amused when fifteen minutes later I saw the same three naked men try to walk into the co-ed jacuzzi area buck fucking naked.

They were politely asked to leave… I waved at them before going to do 40 crunches.

DAY 9:

Look, I never liked the guys who use the sauna as their “gym.” They use it to do crunches and squats and shadowbox and shit. Today – some dude was getting after it. HARD. I am pretty sure that there is an unspoken rule that you are not allowed to exercise in the sauna, but I’ll be damned if this guy, who was wearing a pointy felt hobbit hat, wasn’t taking up the entire room with jabs and push-ups…

“Dude, what does that elf hat do?” I asked him.

He threw a few crosses before alerting me that it keeps the heat closer to the head and therefore you can stay in the sauna longer.

“Yeah, but you look like Frodo Baggins.”

He stopped and looked at me. He was larger and had some bad tattoos and I immediately regretted commenting on his Lord of the Rings hat. He didn’t even respond. He just took the towel from around his neck and wrung it out over the electric sauna… right in front of the sign that clearly states “Do not put liquid on the electric sauna – it will short fuse.”

Frodo then walked out and left the door open… About two minutes later he came back, soaking wet from what I assumed was a trip to the shower. His hat was gone – and he started doing push-ups on the floor. I walked out a few seconds later, 11 minutes short of my goal.

DAY 10:

My final day of this experiment was somewhat heartbreaking… especially because Reid was back – and he informed me that his mother was recently conned out of her life savings by a
“man” she met online who claimed to be Van Halen lead singer Sammy Hagar.

Now, apparently Sammy himself had reached out online and told his mom that he was in debt and needed some money for surgery… He also tossed in that he thought she was very attractive. (For the record, she is currently 82-years-old).

Well, the next thing Reid knew, his mom was on her way to Los Angeles to meet the famed Red Rocker at the Sunset Marquis Hotel… Of course when she got there, Sammy Hagar was nowhere to be found and her $450,000 dollar nest egg was gone.

“Jesus, that’s heartbreaking,” I said, flabbergasted. “That’s like that one girl who thought she was married to Brad Pitt.”

“Exactly,” he said. ”Apparently this fake celebrity thing online is a new scam on the elderly… It’s happening everywhere – My cousin’s dad just sent 200 grand to Chilli From TLC.”

“What the FUCK!,” I said. “Who could be that stupid?”

“Dunno. The world is full of online scammers. By the way, are you hooping today?” He asked.

“No, I’m writing a story about the sauna.”

“Ew.”

Reid high-fived me and mentioned a future beer together and I nodded and smiled knowing that my ten day experiment had finally come to a close.

I also made a mental note to not return the email I recently got from Stevie Nicks…

So there ya go. 10 days. One sauna. Many stories. I’m sure there have been more lascivious tales, steamy stories and 180 degree orgasms in the days of sauna past but these were my encounters over the past month… But do me a favor and check back next week…

I’m thinking of doing 15 days in the steam room…

Read “Blood on the Floor” – Zach’s Latest Short Story for Hiii Magazine

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Out of Touch at The Dream Hotel * 2015 By Zach Selwyn

It was two-o-clock in the morning and I was standing on the street outside the Dream Hotel in New York City when a slick looking hustler in a Panama hat sided up to me.

“You looking for girls tonight?” He said.

“Naah man, I’m just trying to get some air.”

“You sure? Just up those stairs across the street is all kinds of hoes… I’m talking Thai girls, Russians, Mamis… You ever bang a bad bitch?”

“What exactly is a bad bitch?” I asked.

“If you don’t know, then you’ve never banged one…”

I have been in New York City for roughly 36 hours. In that time, I have averaged 4 hours of sleep a night, eaten 7 street hot dogs and drank close to 19 cups of bad deli coffee. I have also realized that I am the most out of touch loser in the city. The average Manhattan man around my age is sporting a hundred dollar undercut and a long beard – which is eerily similar to L.A. (With only a few less Man-Buns). The difference is, these guys are also rocking 3,000 dollar Ted Baker suits and wingtips. As for me, I am wearing a 1970’s – era Wrangler cowboy shirt, some Lee Riders from the early 80’s and a pair of ¾ boots I scored from a TV show wardrobe department about 4 years ago. My hair is pretty tame and I still have Beverly Hills 90210-era sideburns. I’m also wearing a trucker cap that reads “Roy Clark” on it, bellbottoms and a belt buckle that features Chester the Cheetah riding a Harley motorcycle beneath the inscription “Cheesy Rider.”

I feel a little like Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy because NOBODY is dressed like me. Funny thing is, this is how I have been dressing for 15 years. A few years back, in the early 00’s, everybody started dressing like this. Now, those days are long gone and I’m the only guy on 8^th Avenue wearing a shirt that unsnaps when you tear it apart and a turquoise ring.

And apparently, I have no idea what a “bad bitch” is.

According to the web, this is a “Bad Bitch.”

Apparently, “Bad Bitches” like rolling around in one dollar bills.

I realized I was grossly under-dressed when I attended the first business dinner with the company I am working for. I figured it would be a quick bite at a local bar, but it turned into the type of place where they asked me to remove my hat as I sat down. The next day, at the company’s request, I made my way to a J. Crew to try and find something respectable that I would feel comfortable wearing. I settled on a checkered red, white and blue button-down and some horrendously skinny jeans. The price? $254.

When the sales associate asked me “how my sock game” was, I told him, “Fine. I buy all my socks at Ross: Dress for Less.”

He grimaced.

“How’s your shoe game?” He asked.

“I have these nice ¾ boots,” I said.

“Uggh, please – nobody is wearing ¾ boots anymore,” he retorted. “You need some wings!”

I walked out of the store.

I couldn’t place my finger on it, but Manhattan had begun to seem too cookie cutter. I guess I was aware of the Duane Reade explosion and the Starbucks on every corner, but I was not prepared for the fashion clones that had sprouted up everywhere. Sure I was ten years older than the average guy out on a Wednesday night, but even I could sense a lack of originality. New York City, which was once full of punk street kids, trendsetters and Mapplethorpe-worshipping leather daddies sticking whips in their asses and walking into a Saks Fifth Avenue, had become somewhat tame.

The Business Hipster. Everywhere in New York City.

I recently read an interview with AdRock of the Beastie Boys talking about how the “New York of his youth had disappeared.” I was beginning to understand what he was talking about. Manhattan in the 70’s and 80’s – before the crackdowns and the $8200 a month rent – was an artistic and fantastic place to be. These were the days before the smelly Times Square Jack Sparrows. Before Hell’s Kitchen was a gentrified hipster paradise. In the late 80’s I would visit my second cousin and roll down Canal Street to buy fake Gucci jackets, leather African medallion necklaces and a bootleg cassette of LL Cool J’s Walking With a Panther. The tape-dealers would offer me “smoke,” which scared the crap out of me. At one point, my mom dragged me away from a couple of black guys who were standing around Washington Square Park discussing the new Bobby Brown On Our Own song from Ghostbusters II. I tried to inject some white boy wisdom by saying I thought Bobby should’ve written a second rap verse instead of repeating the “Too hot to handle, too cold to hold” line and they ignored me as if I was “Chester the Terrier” following around the bigger “Spike the Bulldog” in the Looney Tunes cartoons.

I bought a bootleg tape of this for $5 in 1989

The only exception I could find was in the Dream Hotel. The first couple of nights I was in town, I took it easy, stayed in my room, watched TV and had sex with the full-length pillow. However, a hotel room can only hold you captive for so long and eventually I came downstairs to find out where the notorious dark side of this fantastic city had wound up. I now believe it all centers around the Dream Hotel. Within an hour of hanging in the lobby, I was propositioned by more pimps, hustlers, hoes and drug dealers than I have seen in 20 years in Los Angeles. Methy looking skinny teenagers were offering me weed, cocaine and what they claim is “Government pure MDMA.” The lobby was crawling with hookers and late night denizens of the rooftop nightclub, which is named “PDH.” An acronym for what I can only imagine is “Pimps, Drugs and Hoes” based on the army of thick women standing around comparing 9 inch Indian weaves and elastic black twat-length skirts that barely cover their clitori. (Is that the plural for “clitoris?”)

The new Manhattan underbelly had become what Jay-Z sang about in Empire State of Mind. “Ballplayers, rap stars, addicted to that limelight…” Everywhere I went folks were talking about money, cars and rap music. If Los Angeles is supposedly a vapid, material city full of superficial idiots, New York City has embraced a lifestyle full of flashy watches, bottle service, velvet ropes and hangers on… So much so that when I tried to get access to the PDH nightclub on the top floor, the bouncer looked at my “shoe game” and instructed me to “please wait in the other bar.”

I didn’t really want to go up to PDH, but it did seem like it had to be part of my Dream Hotel adventure. So I waited in the bar drinking 17 dollar glasses of shoddy tempranillo wondering how anyone can listen to this much house and trap music in one day. The hotel sort of felt like Miami, but it was 40 degrees cooler and Pitbull wasn’t here singing some shitty song about how “white girl got some ass.”

Club PDH. $2500 bottles. $12 beers.

Finally a large Puerto Rican man came over and told me that since I was a guest of the hotel, all I needed to do was show my room key and I could gain access to the club. I sauntered up towards the door, bypassing the line of desperate gold diggers and club kids and flashed my hotel room key. It was the first time in my entire trip that I had felt somewhat cool.

The nightclub was everything I always hated about nightclubs. Expensive drinks, a DJ mixing Calvin Harris with Blondie, hairy men pouring vodka-cranberry drinks for girls who were most likely being paid to hang around them and intimidating looking security guards who mad-dogged anybody ordering a single beer instead of a 2500 dollar bottle of Grey Goose.

I stayed for 8 minutes.

On my way downstairs, I decided I had to get outside and just see the street. I was sick of the lines, the attitude and the fact that a cast member from Real Housewives of Atlanta had demanded to cut the line… and was placated with a free bottle of vodka. I had to walk to a deli and buy some water and eat a sandwich and try to get some sleep before my work event the following day.

I came back to the hotel with my snacks and drinks – which, by the way, were shoved into about 11 plastic bags by the deli owner as if the plastic problem doesn’t exist in New York – and stopped to listen to the sidewalk pimps do their thing. They were like the dude selling Eddie Murphy’s gold hair dryer in Coming to America. I heard some remarkable stuff:

“You wanna table shower my man?”

“I got one tranny but she visiting her brother at Riker’s right now.”

“Playa, I can get you three at once, but you gotta wear three rubbers.”

I guess Manhattan hadn’t changed that much. Instead of bootleg tapes, men were looking for the booty. These hipster hotels had become infidelity dens and the cops just seemed to look the other way. And as for the falling crime rate – well – as this night was coming to a close, NBA player Chris Copeland was actually stabbed in an altercation outside of 1OAK nightclub just a few streets away from where I was staying.

As I strolled towards the entrance, I passed by my friend in the Panama hat one last time.

“Yo, son – I got you. I know you wanna find out what a bad bitch is,” he propositioned.

“I’m good, man,” I said. “I gotta get to bed.”

I went up to my room and had sex with the full-length pillow.

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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!

Zach Selwyn Photo by Brie Childers

Watch the band’s newest music video HERE

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