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…
By Zach Selwyn
I can vividly picture the scene taking place on a Newark, New Jersey street corner in 1922… Prohibition is hanging heavily over every boarded up bar and single family household on the block. The streets are full of the penniless, making bedding out of old jackets on the grey and crunchy dirty sidewalk snow. Children are wrapping up nightly stick ball games to return home for dinner as the streets darken with denizens of the nightlife and small time hoods…
And then suddenly, out of the darkness, trotting up in a horse-drawn buggy, appears Rabbi Levi Zalman, who is suddenly swarmed by scores of men from these homes looking to procure the finest bottle of bootleg wine they can get their hands on. Money is exchanged, prayers are said and the men race home to their families. With every sale, Rabbi Zalman mutters, “Baruch Hashem.” (Blessed be the name of the lord). When it’s all over, Rabbi Zalman rides away a very rich man…
Of course, Rabbi Levi Zalman is not a Rabbi at all. In fact, he is Jack Joseph Brauer, an out-of-work shoe peddler from East Jersey City who has just unloaded his Government-relegated weekly supply of booze for a shade over $5,000.
He is also my great-great grandfather. This was his “congregation.”
Ratified in 1920, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution – which is America’s only Amendment to later be repealed – federally prohibited the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol. Of course, this was one of our biggest failures in our short history, and led to the golden age of organized crime, corruption and sheer madness across the country.
Doing some research (And I am not the first to report this – just giving you some background) Jewish households were allowed a certain amount of wine per household per year. To top that off, if you were a Rabbi, and you lead any type of “congregation” (12 members or more) you were allowed to get as much wine as you wanted for religious purposes at any time you desired… So guess what happened? A lot of “new Rabbis” suddenly started showed up.
“There were fake Rabbis everywhere,” my grandmother told me years ago before she died. “If you knew 12 people, that was a congregation… why do you think so many people started converting to Judaism during the 20’s? FOR BOOZE.”
So, when Jack Brauer’s shoe business got hit with hard times in the early 1920’s, he bought some religious robes, sported a fake beard and marched up to the proper Governmental distribution center and bought as much alcohol as he needed… He flipped it in two days and kicked off a successful six-year-run as the biggest “Rabbi Bootlegger” in Newark, New Jersey.
A few years later, when the American Jewish Committee began cracking down on the large number of fake Rabbi’s, my great-great grandfather Jack was NOT on the suspected fraud list. In fact, he continued to support his family until 1931, just before the Amendment was repealed. How? He had the third largest congregation in New Jersey at the time. (Even though it was 95 percent FAKE.)
Now, according to the three part documentary Prohibition by Ken Burns, other religions had these loopholes as well. In fact, Priests were ALSO able to purchase liquor for religious ceremonies. Of course, the government could actually reference records to determine if someone claiming to be a Priest actually was a Priest. But Rabbis? There was NO WAY OF TELLING WHO WAS A RABBI.
Starting to see why I’m obsessed with this stuff…
According to writer Daniel Okrent, “Rabbis were suddenly showing up everywhere. Irish Rabbis, Black Rabbis…” Nobody ever doubted their religious claims.
As is turns out, my grandmother was correct. In the 1920’s, Jewish congregations increased in membership by like, 75 percent. In short? BOOTLEG LIQUOR BUILT MODERN DAY JUDAISM. In fact, I don’t think you can reference a time in history when more NEW Jews suddenly showed up out of the woodwork to embrace Judaism in our nation’s history. No wonder we say prayers over the wine…
A few years ago, my grandmother Florence passed away. Readers of my stories should be familiar with our adventures together in her later years, which included a trip to the Ace Hotel, smoking medical marijuana and leafing through her old photo albums so she could announce who was presently, “Dead.” When she passed, it was a sad moment, and a week later, our family went through her home to get rid of old useless items…(My grandfather’s 5000 VHS tapes of classic movies) and save valuable ones… (My grandma had always claimed that she had hidden “thousands of dollars in cash” all over the house and that it was our job to find it when she died.)
Of course, knowing this, we tore open her home like Jesse Pinkman looking for hidden cash in that drug dealer’s condo in the film El Camino…
My mom and I found some money, but the “thousands of dollars” my grandma promised turned out to be something more like 220 bucks. We also uncovered a lot of jewelry and a stamp collection valued at about $39. So, if you’re the new couple that bought the place? If you ever find some ungodly wad of $100 dollar bills in a crawl space, hit me up…
Aside for a few of my grandma’s stray Vicodin, which I squirreled away in a jacket pocket, the only other item in the home that really intrigued me was my grandmother’s birth certificate. On it was listed her parent’s names and occupations – (Ruth Brauer-Kaplan – housewife. Jacob Kaplan- Dentist) – as well as her GRANDPARENT’s names and occupations… What intrigued me was the job description as reported to the state of New Jersey by JACK JOSEPH BRAUER –
His job: RABBI.
“Wow so Grandma’s story was true?” I asked my Uncle Steve who was helping my mom go through Florence’s old belongings.
“Yes indeed,” he answered.
“So was he really a Rabbi?” I asked.
“Do you know what a ‘Rabbi’ was back then?”
“I’m guessing a bootlegger?”
“It’s great getting to know your family, isn’t it?”
I went into the kitchen and poured myself a large glass of wine. I toasted my grandma on her final journey and raised my glass up to Jack Joseph Brauer – my great-great grandfather who kept so many families buzzed during the dark years of Prohibition…
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…
MIGHT BANG IS COMING BACK! DOWNLOAD THE NICOLE SULLIVAN LIVE BONUS EPISODE BELOW!
Zach Selwyn has begun hosting a comedic “Real Fake News” Podcast for www.Audioup.com called AUDIO UP NEWS NETWORK or AUNN. Download EVERYWHERE and SUBSCRIBE!
Secondly, Zach is working on the script for Warner Brothers COuntry Artis UNCLE DRANK’s new Podcast. Follow him on IG @uncle_drank
see below! Zach brings his worldwide knowledge of slang words to Sirius XM/ Shade 45’s hip-hop radio show “THE ALL OUT SHOW” once a month. Make sure to listen in and hear Zach and Jude play origin games and chop up the English language… on SHADE45 Sirius/XM
10 years ago last night – on April 23rd, 2003, Zachariah and the Lobos Riders took the stage at the KING KING in Hollywood to release one of the world’s first country-rock rap hybrid albums.
It garnered interesting reviews from a few magazines and newspapers and led Z and company (Dan, Jeff, Jim and Scott) down a long glorious road trip of friendship, partying and music.
If you’d like to listen to this album, which still holds a very special place in the band member’s hearts, please check it out HERE…
Here’s the video for one of our most well-received songs, “Tucson Afternoon…” Enjoy and RIDE ON! NEW ALBUM COMING SOON! WE PROMISE!!!
Watch “America’s Secret Slang” Sunday nights at 7pm 10 est on H2!
A typical trip to the store for the author. Pacifiers, Organic diapers. And a 30 pack of Natty Light.
Based on my calculations, I have probably nursed more than 3500 hangovers in my adult life. Most of them have been passable- usually unraveled before 10 a.m. with some coffee, greasy food and copious amounts of water. Others have traveled into the afternoon, unable to be defeated by all the old tricks – like boxes of coconut water, bottles of Kombucha and the occasional trip to the steam room.
Then there are those hangovers that creep into the next day. Those hangovers that have you seriously considering a treatment program or moving out to a deserted island- far away from the temptation and distraction of the real world… A place where you can dry out and kick the need to party every time your favorite team scores a run, you watch a film like Pulp Fiction or read a rock-n-roll autobiography.
As I have grown older, those 2-3 day hangovers happen a lot less frequently. My body just can’t recover as quickly as it used to, and I can barely recall the last time I even had a head-splitting, mind-crusher that took me out of an entire day. However, on October 27, 2012, my screaming two-and-a-half-year-old daughter woke me up at 5:42 in the morning to the largest mule-kick, thunder-fuck of a hangover I have ever had in my 37 years on planet Earth.
It was one of those “I’d rather just die here” hangovers. One of those “I’m considering just vomiting in my bed” hangovers. A shrieking anguish pulsated throughout my brain as I attempted to focus on any inanimate object in my bedroom. It was useless. I was as useful as a deflated pool raft. I felt like a moppish blob of failure.
It was at that moment that I remembered it was Saturday morning, and I was expected to fulfill a laundry list of activities throughout the day. Activities I had no memory of agreeing to.
At 10 am, my family was scheduled to meet another family at the Los Angeles Zoo for a Halloween-themed afternoon where there was supposed to be all types of fun activities, free candy and spooky decorations… The event was called Boo at the Zoo, and my wife had planned it a week earlier. Unfortunately, my wife had forgotten that she had to work all Saturday, so I would be hanging with both kids by myself.
Then, at 3 o’clock, we had RSVP’d to a one-year-old birthday party at a park in Sherman Oaks.
It should be noted that my six-year-old son had broken his foot a week earlier by jumping off of a jungle gym and was sporting a massive, immobile cast, so I was dreading any activity that would take place outdoors and make him feel useless. Unfortunately, both of these plans were outdoor events.
To top it all off, I checked the demonic weather forecast for the day… 90-plus degrees in late October.
Fuck me.
The piercing screech of my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter demanding a bowl of Cheerios was a fierce reminder that I am no longer able to drink like I used to. In fact, I could barely walk when I carried her downstairs into the living room, where I promptly did what any terrific, hands-on parent who cares about his children’s future would do…
I turned on the TV and crawled beneath a blanket.
Beneath the din of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I was able to quickly re-discover my sleep pattern and I drifted in and out of consciousness as Mickey and Goofy talked about calling some freak named “Toodles” for help with their project. I figured I was good to go. The blanket was a little thin, but the couch never felt better – and I was convinced I could skate by another two hours and be in fine shape to take the little ones to Boo at the Zoo. Unfortunately, then my six-year-old son woke up.
“Are we going to the zoo yet, daddy?” He asked.
“Uhghghg… I think the zoo is closed today…” I said.
“No… mommy said it was open… Can I have Frosted Flakes?”
When my wife woke up, she was bounding with ebullience over the fact that she was set to be spending the day interviewing orphans for a documentary film she was producing. Even though her project is important, understanding and impressively daring, I managed to insult the entire thing by moaning an insensitive bad joke from beneath my shield of a blanket.
“I’m real glad you care more about the orphans than you do your own kids,” I remarked.
And with that, she was gone. Out the door for her interviews, obviously pissed off at me – not only for my immature comment – but also for my Jurassic hangover.
As I hobbled myself into an upright state, I tried to piece together my activity from the night before. I tried to remember exactly where it all went wrong. What moment the tables had turned and I had blacked out. For some reason, I was running a lot of blank tape…And then it hit me… it was my trainer Tony’s fault!
Tony and I had met at the gym a year earlier. He was solely responsible for transforming my body from doughy, out-of-shape 36-year-old into the only slightly less-doughy out of shape 37-year-old writing this essay. (Truth be told, Tony has helped me shed 10 pounds and get into my best shape since high school…but that’s another story). Bottom line is, Tony is a beast. At the gym he throws me into gravity strength training classes, punishing me with his signature moves called “Burpees,” “Oil-wells” and “Gorilla Thumps.” I leave the gym in pain every time we work out together, but I have also seen incredible results and I look at the guy not only as a trainer, but as a new friend. However, up until the night before, we had never been out drinking together…
Tony had texted me that he wanted to have a beer somewhere in Hollywood. Feeling a little loopy following the bottle of wine my wife and I had split during bath time with our kids, I was motivated and intrigued to go and join such a healthy athlete like Tony on a pub-crawl. My wife told me to have fun and specifically warned me not to drink too much.
“Please,” I said. “He’s a trainer, I highly doubt he likes to drink excessively…”
Oh, how wrong I was.
The thing with Tony, was that he has the same sort of mentality in a bar drinking, that he does in a weight room or a gravity class. He is a leader. The kind of guy who pushes you to do the kinds of things that don’t make you feel good… So, as easily as he made me do 20 pull-ups in the gym, he just as easily made me do nine shots at the bar. It was his trainer mentality. The mentality that said, do it or you’re a pussy.
So, I did it. And I did it a lot. Convinced I could easily dust him in any kind of drinking contest, I was shocked when he continued blasting through shots of Jameson whiskey as I casually switched over to light beer. His constant ribbing of my “weak liver” only fueled me to turn my attention back to doing shots, and by the time midnight rolled around, I was so hammered, I stumbled outside and bummed at least two menthol cigarettes from a black prostitute named “Mouse.”
The last thing I remember was having a final glass of red wine at the bar down the street from my house before walking home to my awaiting bed, where I promptly knocked over a shelf full of books upon barely making it under the sheets. I slept in my contact lenses, and my wife said my breathing was so beleaguered, that she feared I might asphyxiate during the night. To top it all off, I tried to listen to music on my iphone as I went to sleep, but I ended up dropping it and extending a small crack in the face of the phone all the way down across the home button. And then, 5:42 am arrived and I was carrying the little girl downstairs.
After my wife left, I tried another tried-and-true father maneuver to try and divert children from wanting to go to a Boo at the Zoo celebration… I bribed them.
“Listen,” I said to the boy. “If we skip the zoo today, I’ll buy you any Skylanders toy you want.”
“What?
“Either that, or I’ll take you to get ice-cream sundaes later…”
“Can’t we have both?” He asked.
I rubbed a moon-rock of sleep from my eye.
“Sure,” I relented.
Roughly 30 minutes later, the cereal was all over the floor and the kids were fighting over what channel they wanted to watch. Feeling somewhat guilty, I informed them that we were going to not watch anymore TV and that we were going up to the park.
“But what about the zoo?” The boy yelled.
Raising children is not an easy thing. Especially when you are an aging almost-rock star who once released an album called “Alcoholiday.” You get used to the night life for so long, it is a 180 degree wake-up call the first time your kid jolts you up in the early morning ruining what was once uninterrupted sleep. I am not the first person to write about this type of stuff, but I may be one of the first to try and do what I used to do whenever things didn’t go my way in life: Drink through it.
The author’s 2007 outlaw country-rock album “Alcoholiday”
I managed to put together the most comfortable outfit I could, compiled from a dirty floor-sweatshirt and cargo shorts with flip flops, and I loaded up a bag full of kids snacks and bottles for the zoo. 10:00 was quickly approaching, and I thought that perhaps, with a little more water and a power bar, I could get through the 20-minute drive to the zoo for what was sure to be a fun day for my kids. After all, my wife would absolutely kill me if I kept them at home to nurse a hangover, so I sacked up and decided that a little fresh air might do us all some good. (By the way, if you are wondering why I have yet to pop an Advil or Tylenol, it’s because I am afraid of pain-relief medicine. Yeah, I know. I will take nine shots of Jameson, but I am afraid of the physical damage two Advil might have on my body.)
I admit it. I am an idiot.
I should have turned the car around when I saw the traffic entering Griffith Park. We were backed up for 25 minutes. The number of cars going left seemed endless, and I immediately knew that the zoo would be a madhouse. Still, I turned up the volume on the back seat TV and let the kids watch the final half hour of Monsters Vs. Aliens. I also took the time to begin texting the other family we were going to meet at the zoo. Scott and Joely weren’t close friends, but they had a six-year-old who my son enjoyed playing with. Besides, I thought, another two sets of eyes would make the day go by a lot faster.
I texted Scott.
How close are you guys?
He didn’t reply.
After we successfully made the left turn into Griffith Park, we followed the winding road around past the golf course and up towards the Gene Autry Museum and the Los Angeles Zoo. I slouched forward and noticed the alarming number of cars already parked in the adjacent lot. Families of four all pushed strollers towards the entrance, roughly 2000 feet away from the nearest parking space. It was massively crowded. I should have turned around. Instead, I passed through the barricade and committed to the afternoon. I looked at my phone… 88 degrees and rising.
My headache only worsened as I wrestled the stroller from the back of my car. Sometimes, trying to maneuver a stroller into position is like attempting to fold a 30-pound Origami napkin. Wheels get turned sideways, diaper bags get caught in bottom carriages… it truly sucks. Of course on this day of hangover hell, everything you can imagine was going wrong. When I finally straightened it out and prepared for the half-mile hike to the entrance, I carried my daughter towards the stroller, praying she’d take a nap for the majority of the zoo adventure. Instead, she wanted to walk. The boy, already lame in his foot cast, wanted to go in the stroller. Realizing that it would probably be a better idea for him to not put as much pressure on his foot, I let him ride. Of course, this made the girl want to ride as well.
The brother-sister battle began. As I strained to push the stroller with a 55-pound boy inside, my daughter screamed that now she wanted to be inside. I compromised by carrying her in my left arm while pushing the boy with my right. Impossible to steer on a straight line, we made it roughly 25 feet before I had to readjust and try another tactic. This continued for the rest of the walk. Her only other desire was to be carried .It was finalized. I would be carrying my daughter the entire time we were at the zoo.
The boy, unable to stay mobile with his cast. Hiding out in a stroller, clutching a bag of Doritos for comfort..
I think it was the minute we made it up to the entrance when Scott finally texted me back.
Dude, waaaay to crowded and hot. We’re not gonna make it. Beer later?
Fuck you, Scott.
Boo at the Zoo was one of the lamest things you could choose to take your children to. In the newspaper ad, kids were promised trick-or-treating and huge bags of candy. Upon arrival, they were handed a tiny paper bag with five treats inside – sponsored by 99 Cent Stores. The giant pumpkin maze turned out to be about 7 bails of hay arranged in a small stack surrounded by random jack-o-lanterns. The “spooky crafts” they had been promised was a table where you could paint a stick. Finally, there was a lame attraction where zookeepers fed chimpanzees pumpkins and let the crowd watch. Not exactly a fascinating thing to witness.
At one point, while leaning over the Tapir cage, a father standing next to me sniffed near my body and made eye contact.
“Dude, I didn’t want to say anything, but you smell like booze,” he said.
I slowly turned my head towards the sober-looking instigator.
“Walk away,” I said before slumping my way down the railing.
The boy seemed to get heavier as the day wore on, possibly because I let him eat his entire treat bag, and he simply refused to get out of the stroller. The girl and I actually saw most of the animals, which was somewhat enjoyable – especially when she called the giraffe a “firaffe” and the zebra a “webra,” but mainly, it was just another day at the zoo with a ferocious hangover… and 2000 families in Halloween costumes jockeying for position to watch a Brazilian rodent called a “Red-Rumped Agouti” eat pumpkin seeds.
For many, the highlight of the zoo day was watching the “Red-Rumped Agouti” nibble on pumpkin seeds.
Having nursed mild hangovers everywhere from Disneyland to farmer’s markets, I have to say the LA Zoo has one terrific feature about it. It serves booze. At first, I didn’t notice it, but as the day dragged on, more and more moms and dads were nursing 12 dollar beers in the now 91-degree heat. I even saw a kiosk offering up red and white wine, and toyed with the idea of a little hair-of-the-dog, but my stomach pains eventually won out and I kept swallowing water at a feverish pace instead. About two hours into our zoo journey, I broke a natural sweat. It felt terrific. I let the girl run around near the elephant display as I soaked up the sun like a Jersey Shore cast member in a tanning booth. I finally felt, for the first time all day, alive.
I bought the kids some chips and a hot dog to split, but neither of them seemed interested. Frustrated with the lack of enthusiasm for the fact that I just dropped 15 dollars on a hot dog and bag of Doritos, I decided that I would be eating them myself. I wheeled the stroller to the edge of the “Gorilla Grill” and proceeded to wolf down a nitrate-blasted chemical dog, a bag of Doritos and even went back inside to order a chocolate-dipped churro. The boy sulked that I wouldn’t let him have any of the churro, but I felt that my health was more important to surviving the afternoon than his was. I told him he needed to eat something healthy before he could have a treat. This coming from a guy who just poisoned his body with 30 gallons of liquor and a frankfurter made out of pig lips, intestines and assholes.
The next sign of humanity came when I had digested the food and washed it down with a soda. Some color returned to my face and I felt less pekid. I wheeled the stroller around the lion display (which was closed) and past another Halloween activity – the pumpkin-carving specialist – before announcing that this day at the zoo was over.
I steadied myself for the nearly mile-and-a-half walk back to the car, and threw my daughter up on my left arm while navigating the boy in the stroller with my right. All I cared about was getting home, putting the girl down for her nap and turning on any college football game on TV. I could blame her nap schedule for us missing the one-year-old birthday (everyone does it) and I knew that if I didn’t lie down soon, things might get really ugly. My wife wasn’t due home until 7:30, and it was approaching 1:30 – so I figured that some coffee and some TV might help me drift through the rest of the day. I limped off towards our ride home.
30 minutes later, I struggled with the stroller again and climbed into the wretchedly hot interior of my 2005 Honda CR-V.
I sat and let the air-conditioning pulsate through the car. The boy looked miserable, and was jamming a pretzel stick into his leg cast as a way to scratch an invisible itch. Of course, the pretzel broke off, and I spent the next 14 minutes trying to dig it out. My daughter repeatedly asked for a bottle, and since we were out of milk, I tried to pass her a half-water concoction instead Of course she could tell the difference right away and threw it back at me in the front seat.
The author saw this license plate in the parking lot. The author hates this woman.
My head still pounding, I pulled out of the parking lot and turned the wheel towards home. I knew the day was only half over, but the worst part of my hangover had passed… or so I thought. My head was still pounding and now, following my disgusting lunch, my stomach had kicked itself into high gear as well. As it rumbled through the 20-minute drive home, I did my best to text Scott back and curse him out for skipping the zoo altogether. At this point, I had two choices. I could tell Scott how lucky he was that he had skipped it – and give him the sense of satisfaction that he had made the right decision to stay home instead – or I could talk up the experience as one of the best we as a family had ever been a part of… I went with the latter.
Boo at the Zoo RULED! Best day ever – we missed you guys… it was amazing and not too hot!
Evil, I know, but it made me feel a little better.
Five minutes from the house, I nearly puked in my car. I realized that it was probably going to happen within the next 30 minutes or so – so I did my best to hold it in as we rambled down Franklin Avenue. As I fought back the acidic demons in my stomach, I looked back at my kids and hoped that they had at least a morsel of fun. I know the boy was too injured to do much, but he at least got to see a few neat things – and for that – I felt proud of myself as a dad. I had braved the crowds, the heat and the zoo and even had a little laugh about the entire experience. I asked my daughter what her favorite part was, and she responded with, “The firaffe.” My heart nearly melted.
When I proposed the same question to the boy, his response was a little different. Aware that he had just been wheeled around a 91-degree zoo with a broken foot, he threw back something that only a six-year-old could hold onto after nearly half a day spent surrounded by strange families in costumes eating bags of treats from a 99 cent store…
He scratched at his cast and the bits of pretzel stick still hanging around the itchy part of his poor leg and caught my eye in the rear-view mirror. He squinted his eyes back at me before responding…
“Dad?” He said. “When are going to get ice cream sundaes?”
By Zach Selwyn
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Zach Selwyn 