Zach Selwyn

Actor. Musician. Host. Writer. Dinner Guest.

  • 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.

    @nerdist basketball Comedy David Stern NBA NBA Draft sports sports writing tim duncan
  • This morning I drove past two skinny homeless men with multiple missing teeth who were smoking cigarettes before nearly running over a mangy stray dog panting in the street. I made a left turn at the Hustler Hollywood store, narrowly averting a woman who was squatting and urinating into a discarded water bottle. I eventually parked and walked around my car, side-stepping two discarded needles some dog crap and a used condom. I dodged a speeding Hyundai that was being driven by a dude vaping and texting at the same time before opening the passenger door… and helping my kid get out of the car.

    “Ready for school?” I asked.

    Welcome to Hollywood.

    1221098_1280x720
    A scene from our nice little walk to school

    I was raised in a peaceful, quiet corner of the desert where coyotes and jumping cholla cacti were my biggest fears while walking to school. I didn’t see a homeless man until I was about 13. Hustler was a magazine that only prisoners and truckers read and needles were something only a doctor could get a hold of. Yesterday, my son asked me why the guy who lives in the dumpster across the street from his carpool pick-up lane is always shouting, “Ho ass bitch” while shuffling down Selma Avenue.

    I am raising my children in Gomorrah and it’s starting to freak me the fuck out.

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    Nice little bottle of urine found by the carpool pick up

    This school year, my son’s entire fifth grade class was moved to a new school campus – about 10 blocks north of the previous campus where they had been since kindergarten. The new campus is on Selma Avenue and is a stone’s throw from the Hollywood YMCA. It’s also a block south of Hollywood Boulevard, nearly 10 medical marijuana dispensaries, six seedy bars, smoke shops, two run-down hotels, a vintage street clock that has been permanently set to 4:20 and about nine tattoo parlors.

    Back in my 20’s, when I was stumbling out of the bar Boardner’s (a block away from the school on Cherokee), I could never imagine that someday my son would be taking “Beginner Spanish” 50 yards from where I once puked after a night of Vodka – Red Bulls. I never thought I’d be raising my kids anywhere but some pristine little tucked away school with manicured lawns and open fields and morning sing-a-longs. Little did I know that barbed wire fences, metal detectors and cement soccer fields were going to be the norm for my children…

    At a back-to-school meet and greet two weeks after the first day, some other parents expressed their concerns as well.

    “We just don’t like the way the school feels,” an angry parent offered.

    “We are striving to make everybody comfortable,” the principal, a 40-something man named Reggie replied.

    “It’s hard to be comfortable when I smell marijuana every day when I drop my kid off,” another mom piped up.

    Hustler+season+to+be+sexy+billboard
    This nearby billboard has all the kids very excited for Christmas

    Hollywood has changed immensely since the rundown 1990’s. Tourism is up, souvenir stores are making great money and people from all over the world are still traveling here to take photos of the sidewalk where an actor’s name is etched into a star. Of course, when the tourists come, so do the hustlers. You’ve seen them selling rap CD’s, trying to get you to take the TMZ Tour and drunkenly swaying into your photos while dressed up in a piss-stained Spider-Man costume demanding five dollars.

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    This guy smells like beef and wants $5 a picture.

    Look, my high school was no picnic. I witnessed a shooting, a lot of fights and certainly saw my share of LSD and dirt weed from Mexico, but I was in high school… Not fifth grade. Being raised in the desert certainly shaded me from the inner city realities of gang-ridden America, but I was also lucky enough to travel to places like New York and LA to see how other kids were growing up. Ultimately, their fast-paced lives had a strong effect on me because I headed for college in Los Angeles the minute I turned 18. Thinking back about my childhood dreams, I turned my son one day after school.

    “Hey dude, where do you want to live when you grow up?” I asked him.

    “Probably the beach… or New York I guess.”

    Obviously he hadn’t thought this one out. Not me. By the time I was ten, I had it narrowed down to Los Angeles and Los Angeles.

    My son is also already planning out his first tattoo, based on a conversation we had last week. After pouring over NBA star Brandon Ingram’s arms as we were watching a basketball game, he asked me a question.

    “Dad, if you could get a tattoo, what would you get?”

    “Oh wow, I dunno – probably your name and your sister’s name,” I said. “Something small and hidden and meaningful.”

    “I’d probably get Savage in cursive across my eyebrow,” he said.

    “You’re not getting a tattoo,” I told him.

    “Why not? All the sickest rappers have face tattoos now…”

    Oh boy.

    1116-lil-peep-getty-4
    The late rapper Lil Peep had the type of facial tattoos my son is craving.

    As we listened to my kid’s Spotify playlist, I heard no less than ten “N-Bombs”, three songs about abusing Xanax, Percocet and Molly and over ten about Gucci, 80,000 dollar watches and ‘Lambos. Every song featured sound effects like “Skrrr” for a cool car or “Skrrrrratatatatata” to mimic an assault rifle peppering an enemy with bullets… Look, I love rap music. I chased a rap career myself at one point… but no 5th grader should be asking his dad what Codeine, Mountain Dew and Jolly Ranchers taste like together.

    Alas, the reality of this situation is that I can’t afford to shell out 35,000 dollars to private academies like Campbell Hall or Oakwood… Although from what I remember from college – most of the heaviest partiers came out of these schools. Which gives me some hope… And truthfully, other than the dead guy who was wheeled away from the apartment down the block last week, the school is fun, diverse and growing and I’m actually proud to be a part of the community.

    So, as the years roll along, I’ll just have to deal with the syringes, homeless guys and Hustler Hollywood foot traffic for a few more years until junior high. Luckily, that campus is located downtown in a much more secure location…

    It’s across the street from an outpatient clinic for opioid addicts…

    GOT ZACH’S BOOK YET?

    TENTS

     

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  • DISNEY XD 8:00 pm March 16!

    also starring the man – Zach Lavine… !!!

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    Jacob Bertrand photo bombing Zach And Zach #kirbybuckets

    Zach LaVine will guest star on Disney’s ‘Kirby Buckets’ this week

     

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  • By Zach Selwyn

    My wife and I once hired a hippie nanny named Sioux who hid little bags of weed for me around our house. I remember the day we interviewed her – she was about 19, naturally slender with long blonde hair and she was wearing a skirt that looked like it was stitched out of the AIDS quilt… She had on Birkenstocks. She smelled like lavender. She was gorgeous. My first thought was, “I would have totally dated this girl back in college.”

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    I would have totally dated this girl back in college.

    When you’ve been married as long as my wife and I have, the best way to say you think somebody is attractive is to say that you would have dated ‘back in college.’
    Of course, I told my wife this very fact.
    “Well keep your hippie dick in your jorts,” she responded.

    I laughed. I love my wife. Meanwhile, after a few conversations, I was sold on Sioux to become our nanny for our then five and two-year-old kids… but my wife wasn’t so into it.

    “I don’t know – she seems flighty,” she remarked.

    “Cmon, what’s the worst that can happen?” I asked. “She gets high and eats all of our ice cream?”

    My wife agreed, mainly because we had a wedding that Saturday night and our other go-to nannies were already busy.

    “If she fucks up, that’s on you,” she said.

    She didn’t fuck up. At least that first night. In fact, when we came back from the wedding a little buzzed from the wine, we stayed up late with her and talked about the kids, how hard it was to meet guys in Los Angeles and eventually, she secretly told me that she hid a tiny bag of weed for me underneath the sage candle she had lit to ward off bad spirits on the coffee table. As she left, I thanked her and imagined that if she was my age in 1995, we would have been one of those hippie power couples that I was always jealous of at Phish concerts.

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    My 1995 hippie dream.

    The second time Sioux babysat, I casually came downstairs wearing my old Grateful Dead 1992 Spring Tour shirt. She went ape shit. Told me it was the coolest thing she’d ever seen. I immediately felt like Phil from Modern Family, pretending that I didn’t even know I had the shirt on… even though I had been calculating the move since the week before. From the corner of my eye I saw my wife shaking her head while watching my pathetic attempt to connect with Sioux over a t-shirt.

    grateful-dead-spring-tour-1992-reonegro-vintage-concert-rare-t-shirt-xl-3c6197b4da3b7f90b81571a1af5625aa
    “Nice shirt, babe,” she said.

    “I guess I’ll go get ready,” I added before running upstairs to change.

    When I came back downstairs, Sioux had prepared some food for the kids (all macrobiotic) and smiled one of those young hippie smiles at me – as if we were college sophomores peaking during a Run Like an Antelope solo. My wife smiled at me. I smiled at my wife. She smiled at Sioux. I kissed my kids. Sioux leaned in and hugged Wendy. They separated. The kids ate. My wife watched me as I leaned in and hugged Sioux. As I did, I stupidly whispered a single word into her ear…

    “Candle?”

    Sioux smiled. My wife looked confused. I brought myself out of this fantasy hippie love triangle and said, “OK, bath at 7:15 and bed by eight.”

    My wife and I walked outside to catch our Lyft.

    In our ride to the birthday party that night, my wife cleared her throat and calmly asked me exactly what “candle” meant.

    I told her.

    “Last time she babysat, Sioux left me a part of a joint underneath the candle on the coffee table and I smoked it.”

    “Oh great, so she’s high around our kids?”

    “Well, I mean… so what? Sometimes I’m high around our kids.”

    “This is her last night babysitting,” my wife said.

    I could understand her frustration. It wasn’t because Sioux was this macrame Goddess with rings on her fingers and bells on her shoes… but face it – if your nanny was sneaking joints around your two-year-old daughter, you might think about getting rid of her too.

    Still, I argued that we had nothing to worry about and that by the time we returned home, we would be thrilled to find our kids in bed and that maybe we could even split the little bag of weed I was expecting to find underneath the sage candle on our coffee table.

    Until we got back around 11:45 p.m.

    As it turns out, Sioux had started a bath for the kids upstairs… and forgot that she began running it. She turned on the water and then came downstairs to get the kids and somehow got distracted… By what, nobody knows – food? A text? A documentary on YouTube about the benefits of Dr. Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar? Whatever the case, she suddenly remembered that the bath was on just as drops of water began seeping through our living room ceiling and landing on the floor. The puddle stain on the roof was large and substantial and we knew we were looking at some serious water damage and mold repair.

    Sioux was in shambles.

    water-damage
    Our ceiling

    As she tried to explain how she forgot to turn off the water, we examined the damage and quickly lost the hippie buzz we had all generated earlier. I informed Sioux that we would pay her for her time, but that we fully expected her to be responsible for the damages once we had the roof inspected. She agreed and left, her head hung low, embarrassed and ashamed.

    “OK, so she was probably high and forgot about the bath,” I said.

    “Ya think?”

    Stupidly, I checked beneath the candle for some weed.

    There was nothing.

    The damage came to over 1000 dollars. Sioux was broke and we felt bad charging her, so she offered to babysit for free until she could pay us back. Amazingly in Los Angeles, that’s only like, five nights of work…

    However, my wife and I chose to not use her again.

    The last I saw on Facebook she was living in Oregon with a Spanish guy named Pau.

    Lucky bastard… He was living my hippie dream…

     

    Preview an upcoming song from Zach’s new album!

     

     

     

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  • 18calo3y70z0hjpg  Lakers are For Fakers * 2015 By Zach Selwyn

    The following is an email chain I exchanged with my Hollywood agent, who I have paid 10 percent of my income to these past ten years. In that past decade, he’s brokered a deal or two for me and has also bought me lunch three times. His agency is a big one, but I am a lowly peon in the cable TV hosting game, dwindling way beneath the Seacrests and Trebeks of the world. However, I am undoubtedly the biggest sports fan on the roster. Which is why, as a die hard NBA fan, I began asking him for tickets to the agency “luxury suite” four months ago to watch the Los Angeles Clippers play the Cleveland Cavaliers at the Staples Center on January 16, 2015…

    Oct. 12, 2014.

    From ME: Yo – Looking for Clippers – Cavs tickets on Jan 16 2015. I think the Cavs are gonna be great this year – and their new coach is a mastermind. Clips look strong too. Both teams will be in top playoff mode around January. If possible, might I be able to get into the agency box seats that night? Asking early to make sure… Thx – Z

    From AGENT: Z! Of course buddy. Emailing tickets guy. You need two, right?

    From Me: Yes Thank you so much.

     Nov. 8, 2014.

    From ME: Checking in on Clippers – Cavs tix for January. Has anyone asked about them? Thx – Z.

    From AGENT: You’re #1 on the list. I got you covered big Z.

    From Me: U Rule. Thx.

     

    Dec. 9, 2014.

    From ME: Hey brother – any news on those tickets? It’s getting close and I want to make sure I get in here before the office shuts down for holiday season.

    From AGENT: Thank you for your email. Our offices have closed until January 7, 2015.

    Jan 7. 2015.

    From ME: My dude. Zach here – Hope your holidays were awesome… I was in Seattle with the fam. Checking in on Clippers – Cavs game for January 16. Wanted to see if you could email the tickets to me? Or maybe messenger them? Very excited – thank you sooo much.

    From AGENT: Hey Z. Checking in with tickets guy again today.

    nba-houston-rockets-los-angeles-lakers
    When the Lakers lose, this is often what the Staples Center looks like…

    Jan 8. 2015.

    From ME: Any news?

    From AGENT: Hang tight.

     

    Jan. 12, 2015.

    From ME: Hey man, sorry to bother you – but game is in 4 days – trying to figure out babysitter and all that stuff… Looking forward to seeing LeBron.

    From AGENT: (No reply).

     

    Jan 16, 2015.

    From AGENT: Hey Z, so sorry bud but we had an overflow of ticket requests for this game… Apparently both teams are playing really well. Matthew Perry snapped up a pair this morning and Giuliana Rancic is top of the list for the other pair. Sorry bud. We’ll get you into a game. I know we have seats for the Lakers – Nuggets on February 10… Chace Crawford just turned them down.

    In the world of celebrity, free stuff is king. Matthew Perry and his 500 million dollars does not need free basketball tickets… Plus, he’s sober, so all the free booze in the luxury box was going to be ignored anyway. Giuliana Rancic? Or DiPandi or whatever her name is? Are you kidding me? She makes fun of celebrity dresses for a living. She probably heard the word “Cavs” and thought it was a leg workout. And Lakers – Nuggets tickets? The Lakers are led by a guy who is famous for being Iggy Azaleia’s boyfriend. Kobe is out for the year. They’re not exactly a hot ticket. The point was, I was not considered successful enough to snag the Clippers tickets. I was looking at some washed up pretty boy from Gossip Girl named Chace Crawford’s rejects… Perry and Rancic were gonna be on their iphones in the suite the entire time and most of the so-called Hollywood celebrities who were going to the game probably think “Chris Paul” is a type of champagne.

    article-2054384-0E8FA56300000578-757_468x630
    Although Im a huge Matthew Perry fan, he doesnt party and look like this anymore…
    giuliana-rancic-skinny-body-2
    WTF is this? Maybe a few hot dogs is exactly what she needs…

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    When I first moved to Los Angeles, the Lakers were all that mattered. They had Del Harris, a young Kobe, Van Exel was being name-checked in Jay-Z songs, Eddie Jones and huge NBA stoner Sam Perkins. (Who looked blazed in 99% of his games). My friends and I would drop $25.00 to sit in the nosebleed section of the Forum just to catch a fading glimpse of what the legendary teams of the 80’s left behind. They were likeable underdogs who fought hard and always battled. Then came Shaq. And Phil Jackson and Kobe became Kobe. Those were the last years I liked the Lakers. Kobe lost his appeal when he shaved his mini afro and faced his legal troubles. Still, going to games was fun because, hey – going to the games are always fun. Still, these last ten years I stopped rooting for them and began just appreciating all professional basketball in general.

    Now, Los Angeles is all about the Clippers. A recent text from a buddy read: Lakers are for Fakers… I’m going to the Clips game. The abundance of Lakers flags that people used to display from outside of their car’s windows are long gone. The sea of purple and gold has been replaced by red, white and blue. And let me tell you, I have never seen anyone play pick-up basketball while wearing a Carlos Boozer jersey.

    Still, the luxury box is indeed, luxurious. I emailed my agent back a few days later and accepted the Lakers – Nuggets tickets. At least I could see Arizona Wildcat-alum Jordan Hill and possibly watch a few Jeremy Lin up–and-unders. Plus, my brother is a huge hoops fan as well and neither of us are Matthew Perry – sober. Watching two out-of-the-playoff race teams loaf up and down the court over free hot dogs and Stella Artois isn’t a bad way to spend a Tuesday night.

    I emailed my agent a week before the game to make sure he could send the tickets over.

    Feb. 3, 2015

    From ME: Hey man – excited for Lakers – Nugs game on Tuesday… Can you messenger the tickets or email them? Thx brother – Z

    From AGENT: Yo, Z – Hey man… looking into this. Looks like Chace Crawford might want the tickets after all… but it depends on if we can get him seats on the floor or not.

    From ME: You’re fired.

    When it was all said and done, Chace Crawford ended up not going, so I snagged the tickets. The game was poorly attended and didn’t even get exciting until the 4th quarter. Jack Nicholson wasn’t there. Neither was Leo. Or any other familiar celebrity face that we have all come to associate with the Lakers. Instead, it was my brother and myself, sitting amongst a bunch of 22-year-old agent assistants in the luxury suite, sipping Stella Artois and filling up the stat sheet with junk food.

    bieber-bored-phone
    Bieber texting and missing Kawhi Leonard dominating the 2014 NBA Finals last year.

    I looked long and hard down at the floor as the game wound down. I was having the time of my life. I guess watching LeBron James would have been a lot more entertaining, but this was still a pretty awesome way to see a basketball game. As a sports lover, sometimes it doesn’t even matter who is playing. And after Swaggy P made a three-pointer and did the eye goggles gesture with his hands, I suddenly became a Lakers fan again for the first time in ten years.

    And as I squinted hard at the row of folks seated on the floor, I believe I recognized a celebrity typing away into his iphone three seats down from the Lakers bench.

    It was Chase Crawford.

     

    Buy Zach’s newest album “Skywriting” on itunes NOW!

    https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/skywriting/id910266624

    Skywriting

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  • Dir. by Lauren Banuvar

    Cloud Road EP streaming everywhere now!

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  • Eli Braden humor lonely Island mightbang Missi Pyle Music rap parody sketch SNL standing desk Zach Selwyn
  • CREDITS…

    In the Presence of God *

    Firing Squad $

    New Suit for My Hangin *

    Honky Tonk Saloon @

    Bartenders in LA @

    You Built me a Ghost Town (Gia Ciambotti) #

    The River (With Bobby Joyner) $

    Gower Bridge #

    Dellmus Colvin @

    Last Country Road $

    City of Angels #

    Executive produced by The Pale Ryda

    All songs 2021 Desert Hobo Music (Ascap) written by Zach Selwyn

    Papago Records.

    MUSICIANS:

    (Acoustic, Steel, Lap Guitars) Dan Wistrom, Jesse Siebenberg, Leroy Miller, Zachariah

    (Drum Programming) Leroy Miller

    (Bass) Mark Antoleonos, Jeff LeGore

    (Keys) Brian Lapin

    (Fiddle) Lucy Clearwater

    (Harmonica) Bobby Joyner, Zachariah

    (BG Vocals) Lucy Clearwater, Leroy Miller, Bobby Joyner, Zachariah, Gia Ciambotti

    MIXED and PRODUCED BY:

    • – *Jesse Siebenberg
    • $ – Leroy Miller
    • # – Dan Wistrom
    • @ – Justin Jay
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  •  

  • funny-tinder-profile-chickshorrible-tinder-profiles-0   kern-dergs-tinder 

    My Wife and I Spent a Week on Tinder and it Almost Wrecked Our Marriage * 2015 by Zach Selwyn

    Having been lucky enough to fall in love at the dawn of the internet dating era, I was never able to partake in the highly sexually charged world of apps like Tinder, Plenty O’Fish and Match.com. I have never sexually texted any girl – besides my wife – and certainly will never be able to type in the words Let’s Netflix and chill to anyone – unless all I truly want to do is come home and, well, watch Netflix and chill. My Facebook profile has always said, “married.” I have never “swiped left,” “matched” with anybody or desperately called the It’s Just Lunch girls in any airline in-flight magazine. Some might say I’m extremely lucky. Others can’t believe how much fun I missed out on by not being able to explore the overtly sexual side of the smart phone.

    Last week, while scanning my Facebook page, I noticed an advertisement for a new Jewish dating app called JFIIX that had posted to my page. Not being sure how or why a singles ad would appear on my page, I glanced at it for a brief moment, silently shocked at the pure magnificent beauty of the girl being featured as a lonely Jewish single. She was mesmerizing. Beautiful and stunning with green eyes and perfectly structured face. My first thought was, after years of dating and befriending hundreds of Jewish women – was that Jewish girls do NOT look like that. Not to sound like a jerk, but looking back at the girls in my life – and according to my friends who had experience on JDATE and other apps –very rarely did a Jewish supermodel with eyes like the girl in that photo show up in synagogue.

    JewgirlSure, there are your ScarJo’s and your Mila Kunis’s and of course Bar Rafaeli, but to tell you the truth, the majority of Jewish girls I remember dating in the 90’s did not resemble Scarlett Johannsen – in fact, most of them looked more like David Johannsen.

    So, I had an idea. I was going to write a true, investigative article into the world of online Jewish dating apps – or as some call it, “Jewish Tinder.” I decided to register as a single man in his 30’s on JFIIX with the intention of seeing what type of Jewish women were out there in the dating world today as compared to the swimsuit model featured in the ad. The hard part would be convincing my WIFE to let me do this.

    “I think you’re an idiot,” she said immediately.

    “Why? This is going to be hilarious!” I responded. “I’ll only go on a few dates, get my material and delete my account.”

    “What if I registered on Tinder and went out with a few dudes, would you be cool with that?”

    She had a point. No, I didn’t think I could handle my wife hitting the town with some Los Angeles business owner who might just sweep her off her feet with his Tesla, Clippers tickets and full head of hair. Still, I argued that a Jewish dating site would not offer me any temptation. After all, I was, in general, not attracted to Jewish women. My wife then made me a deal.

    “If you do a week on your Jewish dating site, I get to do a week on Tinder.”

    It was the hall pass agreement for the screen generation. Here we were, two middle-aged married people agreeing to explore the dating world as a social experiment for one week. The goal for me was nothing more than a good story and maybe a few laughs. What transpired was a total nightmare.

    I began by creating my online dating profile. JFIIX uses Facebook as your homepage, so I had to alter nearly every detail on my personal life. I considered naming my profile “Guns ‘N Moses…” but I didn’t. I used a photo from 9 years earlier, described myself as a “working musician” (Only 24% true… half the time) – and listed my religious affiliation as “Casual.” At further glance on the Jewish dating apps, other options to the user are to declare themselves, “Orthodox,” “Reform” and my favorites, “Willing to Convert” and “Not Willing to Convert.” There is also something called “Frum,” which did not stand for “frumpy” but for someone who lives by the strict laws of the Torah.

    Having known plenty of women who have converted to Judaism over the years for marriage, I never made my wife convert because, well, frankly she was raised Athiest and I just didn’t care. Judaism has always been more about a culture than a way of life for me anyway, so I listed myself as ‘Casual’ – which I hoped just revealed that I was happy to sit around the house in sweatpants and watch Woody Allen movies.

    Meanwhile, my wife was busy setting up her Tinder profile in the other room. I heard her giggling as she uploaded a photo. I was immediately losing my mind. I texted my buddy Adam, who is one of those guys who crushes on Tinder, and told him to look out for my wife’s profile. Within an hour he sent me screenshots of her online details, revealing that she had used a past bikini modeling photo, listed herself as ten years younger than she is and put her age-dating window between “21 and 32 years old.” After all, my wife is a little older than me – and when we met, when I was 26, she said, “Funny, ever since I was 18 I have been dating 26-year-olds.”

    Well, now I was 40 and way past her window. Which is maybe why she agreed to do this horrifying but exciting experiment with me in the first place.

    54bd1d52674e0
    The kind of cheesedick I imagined asking out my wife

    Once our profiles went online and we were invited to “start searching,” I quickly became aware of the reality of online Jewish singles. Most of them were better looking than I had expected, and I initially matched with one reformed girl named Sadie who was only on my feed because we both liked The Allman Brothers Band. A second match came an hour later when a fairly cute girl named Heather approved my photo and said I looked like a rock star. One half-Asian girl who said she, “loved Jewish guys,” said she was simply looking for a good time. It was then that the Jewish guilt kicked in pretty harshly. I felt like I was in a brothel or some lascivious red light district. I felt like I was betraying my kids, my wife my existence. I hated myself. I quickly signed off and decided to pull the rip cord on this entire story.

    And then my wife got asked out on a date.

    “You’re not going, “ I screamed.

    “Bullshit I’m not,” she said. “This was your stupid idea… You go out with your Jewish girls and I’ll go out with Dante.”

    “Dante? His name is Dante?” I exclaimed. “You can’t go out with a Dante!”

    “Sorry, you’re watching the kids Saturday and I’m going out to dinner at some place called Craig’s.”

    She slammed the door and left me in the living room, gutted. I was a pile of nerves. Lord knows what type of animal this Dante was. Date rapist, swindler… talent agent. It was as if I was awaiting some horny high school guy to take out my daughter and I was a frantic ball of tension and stress. I immediately called Adam to find out what to expect.

    “Do you know anyone named Dante?” I asked.

    “No, why?”

    “Because he’s taking my wife out on a date Saturday night.”

    Adam did not know Dante, but he knew of the bar Craig’s. According to Adam, Craig’s was a scene, full of beautiful people, celebrities and rich guys who have trophy girls on their arms everywhere.

    He described it as, “the kind of place that David Spade brings a Playmate to.”

    Oh crap.

    worst-tinder-profile-pics-1-2-s-307x512
    How I imagined ‘Dante.’

    I asked Adam if he would spy on my wife this coming Saturday, hanging in the bar and stealing glances her way to make sure nothing creepy was going on. I even offered to cover his dinner and drinks if he did it. He agreed.

    Meanwhile, the next few days, I didn’t sign onto JFIIX at all. I spent my time in the gym, getting my aggressions out and dreading the Saturday night when my wife would Uber to the restaurant to meet Dante, who at this point, I had decided was either African American or Greek – based on the hundreds of Google searches I made for “Dante- images.” The one rule I made was that he could not pick her up at our house, and she agreed. However, the anxiety-ridden toll of this experiment was already hanging over my head pretty heavy. It wasn’t as if I expected my wife to sleep with this guy, but I worried about someone we knew seeing them or Dante’s reaction when my wife informed him that she is married and has two children.

    I decided to get back on JFIIX. Amazingly, 29 girls had requested a chat. Maybe it was the photo I was using. One of them was named Perla, and she claimed to be new in town from the Ukraine. I broke down and sent her a message. She asked for more photos. I uploaded a few more. I was feeling ashamed and guilty and almost began searching for apartments to rent in Koreatown following what was to be my impending divorce.

    worst-tinder-profile-pics-1-3-s-307x512
    I really hoped Perla didn’t look like this.

    Perla wanted to get a coffee. She uploaded an attractive photo of herself in a bikini standing near the Dead Sea in Israel and I suddenly found myself typing, “Have you ever been to the Bourgeois Pig on Franklin Avenue?”

    It was on. Saturday morning I was meeting Perla for a latte in the darkest coffee shop I could think of. My wife ignored me as I dressed myself conservatively and strolled out the door to go on the first date I have been in since 2001.

    Perla looked a little different than her photos. For one, her long black dress covered what appeared to be an increasing paunch in the stomach area. Not that I’m some David Beckham-like specimen, but at least I didn’t post a photo of myself with Photo-shopped abs. Perla had played me. She was at least five years older than her listed age of 33, her hair was wiry and curly and had stray greys everywhere. After ordering two coffees and a muffin, Perla revealed that she was recently divorced and had two kids. One was named “Absalom,” which meant “Father of Peace” in Hebrew, and the other was “Raananah” which meant, “Unspoiled.” She said she was pretty religious and ultimately wanted five children. She also mentioned she was working on a children’s book. I told her I was a touring rock star with lots of girlfriends and that I was due back on the road in three days to open up for My Morning Jacket. That sealed it. The rest of the date was pretty much silent and I shook her hand good-bye, promising to call her soon.

    Meanwhile, back home, my wife was hours away from her date with Dante. It was then that Adam called me and told me that he had a hot date that night and that there was no way he could spy for me that night. Crushed, I begged him to make it work. He told me to relax and I went home and started drinking.

    My wife took off at 7:30, as I was bathing the kids. Before she left, I instructed them to say in their cutest voices, “We love you mommy,” and it was a success. The last thing I wanted my wife to have on her mind before submitting to a stranger’s bedroom was the angelic voices of her kids saying good-bye.

    After they went to bed, I paced the house like a maniac. One bottle of red wine led to some beers and eventually I was passed out drunk on my couch with the baseball playoffs on in the background. When I was startled awake by a fire engine, it was 11:30. She still wasn’t home.

    I called Adam, who was out in the valley with his Tinder date. He said not to worry… he said Craig’s was a late night place anyway. I called Craig’s, and asked if a beautiful woman was making out with “a Greek or African-American man at the bar.” They put me on hold and never returned. I frantically texted my wife and got no response. I went to bed. At around 12:45 the door opened and my wife ascended the stairs, skipped brushing her teeth and passed out.

    “How was Dante?” I asked the following morning.

    “A perfect gentleman,” she responded.

    “What did you do?”

    “Not much,” she replied. “He took me to dinner at Craig’s, where I ran into Tony Halvarr – remember him from my acting class? And then we had a glass of wine at the bar with these hilarious guys who were in town training for the US Olympic volleyball team – then we went to some club – oh my God I can’t believe I even went to this place – where it was that model Amber Rose’s birthday celebration… She used to be married to Wiz Khalifa – and then some DJ – DJ Premiere? Do you know who he is?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Anyway, he was spinning. Then there was a fight and then we left because the bottle service was waaaay too expensive and I noticed it was 11 so I came home.”

    “No – you came home at 12:45,” I said.

    “Oh, really? Wow! Whatever the case, it was nice to feel 25 again! He’s super cool – 25 – and sells edibles for a THC company. He wants me to go to some basketball games with him this year, so we might keep in touch… Amber Rose was really nice by the way!”

    Amber-Rose-Booty
    My wife’s new friend, the extremely talented Amber Rose.

    The rest of the day was full of uncomfortable silences and me inaudibly moping around the house. I had nobody to blame but myself. As per our agreement, my wife and I deleted our respective accounts and agreed to never do something like this again.

    What I derived from this social media experiment is that there are a lot more men than women trolling for quick hook-ups and conquests on these apps, and unless you can find a stunning photograph of yourself in a bathing suit, you can almost forget being asked out by anybody. Then again, this is Los Angeles, the most image-conscience town in the world. Perhaps out there in America, say in Des Moines or Peoria, there are actually decent people looking for significant others and not relying on a 10-year-old photo to stir their loins into a sexual frenzy. These apps might be effective for folks out there who can’t find the time for dating or casual meet and greets. If you are currently finding love and interesting conversation through dating apps like Tinder, JFIIX, Zoosk, Christian Mingle or even the fascinating Farmers Only – I can only wish you the best of luck.

    And if you get sick of looking for love in all the wrong places, you can always move to Los Angeles. I know where Amber Rose is having her birthday party next year…

    Buy Zach’s Book “Talent Will Get You Nowhere” at Amazon.com!

    TWGYNSlidehttp://www.amazon.com/Talent-Will-Get-You-Nowhere/dp/0983723737

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Tag: basketball

Fake Doctors, a Torn ACL and a Dead Man’s Knee… a Short Story by Zach Selwyn

  • December 20, 2019
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Comedy · Hero · Homepage · Short Story · The Writer · Uncategorized

59832510211__913EF14E-489B-4ACE-9F6C-AAE81F0EB896When I came down with the rebound and heard my right knee explode and pop, I knew something was horribly wrong… I looked up at the faces of my basketball teammates looking down at me lying on the court writhing in agonizing pain. I somehow managed to verbalize what was going through my mind…

“That’s it, amputate my leg… just cut the fucker off.”

Turns out my injury wasn’t bad enough to turn me into an amputee, but it was bad. Torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Partially torn medical meniscus. Partially torn medial collateral ligament (MCL). If you’re not familiar with this medical terminology, in layman’s terms… I blew out my whole fucking knee.

Before I was given the official medical report by my doctor, I had four days to figure out what the hell I had done to myself. Why? Well, in America, with health care as bad as it is, getting in to see an Orthopedic surgeon for an official diagnosis takes time… Like, a lot of time. Which means, after Googling “knee injuries” over 3000 times, I had to make my own medical diagnosis on myself until a doctor appointment could be set up.

Based on my online research, I had concluded that one of three things had happened to me:

1. I tore my ACL.
2. I tore some other knee ligament.
3. My bones were deteriorating from early onset kidney disease and I would be dead by August.

My father and sister are both doctors, so their advice to use the RICE method, (Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate), helped a lot. They recommended getting crutches to get around, so, I quickly called my friend Scott, another basketball friend who had suffered numerous leg injuries over the years. Sure he had a pair… he said. But they were for people 5’10” and under.

After searching for cheap crutches online, I called the Hollywood Goodwill and was told by an employee that they had a set that they would hold for me. As I limped through the parking lot of the store, praying that they would fit my 6’2” frame, I went over certain decisions in my life that had lead me to this point… Why had I turned down the professional path to pursue this artist life? If I hadn’t, would I be staggering through a Goodwill parking lot in Hollywood on a Thursday afternoon in my pajamas trying to save $15 on crutches if I only had I taken that job at FOX SPORTS all those years ago? What had I done to my life? The last couple months had been tough… Air BNB disavowed my house from renting it out, so my income had been roughly slashed in half. My latest voiceover residual check I had received in the mail was for .08 cents… My only solace of late had been in playing basketball… and now that dream, like my right knee, was CRUSHED.

I felt like I was on the verge of being homeless.

Of course the girl at Goodwill had made a mistake. They had a WALKER, not crutches. It also happened to have a blood stain on it, which is why it was SLASHED to $2.00. I passed.

7F3CE290-9069-411B-BDC2-218F8B063F3E
Finding crutches in this town is nearly impossible.

I went to Walgreens next, where the crutches were at the back of the store. I hobbled all the way in only to find that they were “on sale” for $59.99. Excuse me? 60 bucks? FUCK OFF. I was about to go fasten myself a crutch out of an old tree branch and a bicycle seat when I looked on my phone and noticed that Home Depot sold them… I called, but got no answer. When I showed up, I was told that their crutches were not available in-store. They were online deals only.

“Go to Urgent Care,” my friend Alex told me. “They’ll be able to tell in five seconds if you tore something… and they’ll give you crutches for free.”

Urgent Care it was. I found one with a five star rating on Yelp and went down. I paid my $25 co-pay and was treated by a 20-something female who claimed to be a doctor, although I noticed that her name tag did not say “M.D.” It had a bunch of other letters that I’m sure were placed there to confuse naive patients… Hers said A.P.R.N. C.N.M.

I texted my sister – a doctor down in Newport Beach – to see if this lady was, in fact, a doctor.

ZACH: Hey – What do these abbreviations mean and is she a legit doctor? A.P.R.N. C.N.M.

She wrote back immediately.

AMANDA: NO! That stands for Advanced Practice Registered Nurse – Certified Nursing Midwife – What are you, fucking pregnant? get the hell out of there and see a real doctor!!!

Since I had already paid the $25.00, I stayed. The young “doctor” felt my knee. She moved it around. She stretched it. It actually felt pretty good… And then, she gave me her official diagnosis:

“You did NOT tear anything,” she said. “This is a bad sprain at worst.”

“Really!” I exclaimed. “A bad sprain? Thank you sooo much! If I ever need a midwife, I’m calling YOU!”

She took some X-Rays of my knee, (which I later learned were completely unnecessary for a ligament injury and cost me $125) and I asked them to provide my free crutches. When they explained that they did have crutches – but that they cost $39.99, I bit the bullet and bought them. Finally, upon checkout, the manager told me that I could earn a $5.00 gift card to a Starbucks if I simply gave them a 5-Star Review on YELP.

“Hell yeah!” I said. “You guys made my day.”

I put in the 5-Star review, snagged my gift card and Uber-ed home to elevate my “bad sprain.” Wow, no tear, no surgery, no problem. I was elated and texted everybody I knew that I’d be back on the basketball court within weeks.

Screen Shot 2019-12-20 at 10.03.35 AM
Better days…

And then I got an appointment with a real doctor.

Dr. Weiss was recommended to me by my primary care physician. I had my leg up on his exam table the very next day, confident that he would walk in, slip me an ACE Bandage and wish me happy holidays… Instead, within 30 seconds of looking at my knee, he casually offered the following.

“Wow, you tore the shit out of your ACL… Hopefully you didn’t do too much damage to the other ligamants,” he said.

“Wait, what?!” I reacted. “Tore my ACL? But the Urgent Care said it was a bad sprain…?”

“Well, if by ‘bad sprain’ they mean a ’completely annihilated anterior cruciate ligament,’ then… yes.”

Oh fuck.

Dr. Weiss scheduled an MRI for that afternoon and told me I had wasted my money on X-rays and my entire Urgent Care appointment.

“Lemme guess,” he said. “They offered you a Starbucks gift card?”

Following the MRI, which is when you go inside one of those huge claustrophobic X-Ray machines to examine all of your inner workings, I was back in Dr. Weiss’ office for my evaluation two days later.

He broke down my injury and began planning out my recovery. Since I was set to travel with my family for the holidays, I was concerned I’d be missing out on my trip… He assured me that since my swelling was so immense, I would have to wait at least four weeks for surgery. He then explained how it would work.

“Based on the fact that you’re 44-years-old, I’m gonna replace your ACL with a cadaver ligament.”

“I’m sorry, what? A CADAVER LIGAMENT?”

Doctor Weiss smiled. He went on to explain that younger “athletes” can replace their torn ACL’s with their own ligaments, but for older guys like me, the best option is to take an anterior cruciate ligament from a DEAD BODY and put it into my destroyed knee.

“Can you make the ligament from like some Kenyan distance runner or something?” I joked.

“Haha,” He said. “It’ll most likely be from a car crash victim.”

Wonderful.

Dr. Weiss also told me that 20 years ago, patients my age wouldn’t even be ELIGIBLE for ACL replacement. As if men over 40 were considered beyond repair or something… Luckily, the outlook on knees had changed since the late 90’s.

IMG_0388
My torn ACL

Eager to get to my rehabilitation, I bought a $300 knee brace from the doctor (Of course, not covered by insurance) and got instructions on how to put it on. After it was affixed, I had the look of a hydraulic half-man/half-Cyborg. I felt like Darth Vader.

“Will I be ever able to play basketball at the level I was playing again?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “But you might want to join an elderly league.”

Limping out of Dr. Weiss’ office on my crutches, the first glimpse of my mortality had hit me. Knees crumble, ankles snap… ligaments are torn. Age is forever out there hunting us down. Luckily, with this type of injury, full recoveries are entirely expected and at worst, I would lose 4-6 months of my life to inactivity.

On the way home, I stopped at Starbucks to spend my $5.00 gift card on a cup of coffee. When I presented it to the cashier, he told me news that at this point, I was not surprised to hear.

“Sorry, sir,” she said. “This card only works at certain Starbucks… Not this one.”

I logged onto Yelp and changed my review…

*Ed Note: Zach is set for ACL replacement surgery in Mid January. Stay tuned!

CHECK OUT/BUY ZACH’S DEBUT NOVEL NOW!

Image 2-8-21 at 11.11 AM

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Re-Examining the 1997 NBA Draft – If I Had Been Selected.

  • March 9, 2019
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Hero · Homepage · The Writer · Uncategorized

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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Will NBA 2K19 Finally Kill My Son’s Fortnite Addiction?

  • August 25, 2018
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Homepage · The Writer · Uncategorized

By Zach Selwyn

Special to Nerdist Sports

gian

Following my epic journey to New York City last September to cover the launch of NBA 2K18 – the most highly anticipated game of any sport title in recent years, my son dove head strong into the game with a fervor and passion like I’ve never seen before. He had become a beast at 2K17, but perhaps it was the 2K18 backpack and hat I was given at the event had made him want to earn virtual currency to upgrade his player and to finally “run the neighborhood.” As an out of touch dad, I had just become familiar with the controls for 2K17, so when I found out how much different the shooting controls were in the new game, my son’s LA Clippers quickly disposed of my beloved Phoenix Suns in a 120-65 drubbing. (Granted, playing as the Suns in 2K18 pretty much guaranteed an L, but he didn’t need to take me by 55 points…)

I vowed to get my game up and running, and I eventually did and our Win/Loss board, which started out with him and 11 straight W’s to kick-off the season slowly started tipping in my favor… I had become a beast, taking him off the dribble, throwing alley-oops and setting perfect screens for my man Devin Booker to pull up and yell, “water…” A father-son battle royal was officially born.

BUT, suddenly, a new game arrived and our father-son bonding was brought to a halt. All rise and welcome Fortnite. Suddenly, the screams of “Montrezl” Was replaced by my son yelling “Rez me” (resuscitate me) to his friends over a headset. Dad was suddenly no longer welcome in the TV room where the gaming console was set up. Llamas had taken the place of Lonzo’s. Skins took the place of Scalabrine and “Legendary Weapons” referred to something other than Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.

I was angry, at first, annoyed that seemingly an entire generation of boys had abandoned sport games for the Fortnite phenomenon. Suddenly, I was making him earn $25.00 to buy V-Bucks just to get a new battle outfit, or “rare skin.” Before, I was happy to have him build teams by opening packs on 2K, because as a lifelong sports nut, I loved building up my teams with him… Now, I was disappointed that this weird game about storms shrinking, Slurp Juice and Rockets… but not “James Harden” rockets… Just, well… rockets blowing people up.

I hated Fortnite.

fortnite-switch

The only thing that kept my son’s NBA addiction in the picture was the fact that non-stop videos of Gordon Hayward, Josh Hart and Karl Anthony Towns playing the game kept him aware of the game. We also went to an E3 Fortnite event where Paul George and Terrence Ross took some selfies with them after a 3 hour group battle with professional gamers who have made more money with a joystick than I have in my entire adult life.

“Llamas had taken the place of Lonzo’s. Skins took the place of Scalabrine and “Legendary Weapons” referred to something other than Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.”

But September 7th is right around the corner… and NBA 2K19 may just be the game that finally kills my son’s Fortnite addiction. Not only that, the number one draft pick is my man on the Suns, DeAndre Ayton… Might this be the year they make the play-offs for the first time since 2003?

deandre-ayton-03132018-us-news-getty-ftr_kwk22x75al351sejenmzw0eas
Long suffering Suns fans finally have a new hope…

“The Suns suck, dad,” my son said before loading up another game of Fortnite.

So, it is with great pleasure that I got invited to the NBA 2K19 launch event this year in Brooklyn. At a recent event in Los Angeles, I was able to preview the game and interview game designer Mike Wang who explained the small changes in the upcoming version… like a little red line that detects the defensive presence during an offensive player’s shot (letting you know it was a good shot). Wang also explained the overhaul of the one-on-one on-ball defender against a ball handler matchup which he said will make this “more of a game of skill from here on out.”

“People do appreciate that we are moving towards a skill-based game,” Wang explained. “You can now brag to your friends that you beat them with your moves, and that it wasn’t “the game” that beat them.”

The lay-ups have shot meters, the lucky shot factors are down and the days of pressing buttons and hoping for an easy three are over. Of course, it goes both ways and after enough game play, a 2K player can improve his skills the better he gets to know the game.

“There are a lot of big changes that I can’t really talk about today, but I think you guys are going to be really happy with it,” Wang teased.

My son is extremely happy. Since 2K19 was announced, he has been back to watching his heroes, Jesser and Cash Nasty preview the games and yell obscenities at air balls and bad pack openings… He’s back on the real court as well, and he constantly talks about how he is counting the hours for when he can pick up his pre-ordered $100.00 LeBron James edition of the game and start dominating me once again.

Then, as I chose to play with the other 2K cover athlete, Giannis Antetokounmpo, my son told me to expect Giannis to change teams the following year.

“It happened with Paul George on the Pacers, Kyrie on the Cavs, then LeBron… it’s the curse of 2K… every cover athlete changes teams the next season,” he said.

“Damn, man, maybe the Suns will sign him in 2020,” I said.

“Dad, the Suns suck,” he said.

“Not this year,” I said.

On September 7th, we can finally settle this…

IMG_5757
Me with CJ McCollum at last years 2K event

*Zach Selwyn is currently hosting the TV show “Postcards From History” for the History Channel premiering in late 2018

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NBA 2K Sent Zach to New York to play 2K18 early – Watch this Video Vlog!!!

  • September 6, 2017
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Comedy · Hero · Homepage · NBA Rapdates · Uncategorized

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Read Zach’s New Short Story: Why Did I Buy an Autographed Lamar Odom Basketball at a Charity Auction?”

  • July 8, 2017
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Homepage · Short Story · The Writer

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Browsing the silent auction table at my kid’s Little League baseball charity day, I was prepared to put my money down on all the usual stuff. The $60 restaurant gift certificate that was available for half the price… The one-on-one baseball training sessions with an ex- Major Leaguer for my son… Even the autographed script of the cast of Stranger Things was appealing. But instead, I was drawn to the one seemingly out-of-place item in the auction… An autographed Lamar Odom NBA basketball.

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I have never really been a Lamar Odom fan. I thought he was a gifted ballplayer in college and had some incredible years in the NBA – even winning two titles with the Lakers in 09-10 and taking home Sixth man of the Year in 2011… But he never really lived up to his potential. (A few marijuana busts, suspensions and even a weird incident where he disappeared before his final exams at the University of Rhode Island always made him a high-risk player…) However, due to some horrific family tragedies and the fact that he had to play with Andrew Bynum, I was always willing to give Lamar Odom a pass. Yet, I was just never really a fan.

Still, something about a Lamar Odom-autographed basketball was appealing.

Obviously, these days, Lamar Odom is more known for his Kardashian marriage and his drug-fueled exploits at a Las Vegas sex ranch than he is for his fairly respectable basketball career. His now legendary two-week hooker bender, drug coma and relapse made the covers of every tabloid magazine and for a minute, Lamar Odom entered that Charlie Sheen level of debauchery that most celebrities never seem to come back from…

That’s when I figured out exactly why I wanted that basketball.

 

I love celebrities and especially athletes who PARTY. I loved Sheen’s Two and a Half Men meltdown. I rooted for Josh Hamilton, worshipped the entire 1986 New York Mets cocaine-fueled roster and I may be the only person who truly respects Johnny Depp’s savagely impressive admission that he spends 30,000 dollars a month on wine. When Lamar Odom was found in that brothel in Vegas, I was immediately a bigger fan. Not because he had divorced a Kardashian, but that he bounced back from it with a massive orgiastic adventure that average men living average lives can only dream of… Somewhere, deep down inside, every man in America looked at Lamar Odom’s drug-and-sex-capades and thought to themselves, “Oooh, that sounds fucking fun.”

My winning bid was for $75.00. Online, Lamar Odom autographs range from $8.00 basketball cards to $399.99 official game used basketballs in designer glass cases, so I basically paid market price. This ball is not game used, but it is in a case that probably runs for about $50.00 retail. It looks great even though the only certificate of authentication is in the form of a handwritten Post-it Note sadly just reading, “Lamar Odom.”

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A ‘Post-It Note’ is my only proof of authenticity

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One question remained… Who donated the ball to the Little League charity in the first place? Was there a Little League dad who worked with the NBA? Or was a sober companion? When I inquired deeper, nobody came forward with the admission, and I was left to assume that the ball was donated from a private collection by a dad whose wife was furious that her husband had collected such a womanizing drug-addled autograph… Meanwhile, my wife looked at it as it entered our house and commented, “You didn’t bid on the restaurant gift certificate?”

So now, in my very modest collection of NBA memorabilia, I have a Lamar Odom-signed basketball. Amazingly. More people comment on this souvenir than anything else I have collected since I was a kid.  My Shaquille O’Neal signature? YAWN. The autographed Gronk jersey? Snooze. Even the Charles Barkley signed ball gets a fervent ho-hum from my friends when we have a few beers and look through the pathetic corner of my house that I refer to as my “Man Cave.”

But the Lamar Odom ball sparks conversation…

“Woah! Did it come with a hooker and blow?” is a common response.  “Dude, hilarious – remember when he went on that bender in Vegas? I’d KILL for one night of that!” is another.

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Lamar Odom made married men across the world long for just one night like he had…

So as men, we drive the Little League carpools, do our best to support our families and every once in awhile we get together to drink beers and live vicariously through Lamar Odom’s signature… He may not be remembered for his Michael Jordan-like career or his Hall of Fame potential, but he will forever be respected by the members of the “live life by the rules” folks who will never have the balls to head to the Bunny Ranch with a bag of blow and a suitcase full of Viagra.

Here’s to you Lamar. I know you’re a survivor. As long as you’re out there living it up, men like me will toast your praises. Even if my wife is still bummed that I didn’t get the restaurant gift certificate…

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All new NBA Rapdate with Father-Son battles!

  • March 6, 2017
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Homepage · Music · NBA Rapdates

THE RETURN OF THE REAL…

 

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The NBA Rapdate returns! Father-Son Edition! ENJOY!!

  • February 23, 2017
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Homepage · NBA Rapdates · Uncategorized

Zach and the new MC Ry$er break down the first half of the NBA Season!

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Read Zach’s Latest Story for Nerdist Sports! Getting Crossed Over by Vader.

  • July 14, 2016
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Short Story · The Writer · Uncategorized

http://nerdist.com/darth-vader-basketball-court-domination-hayden-christensen-anakin-skywalker/

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Watch Zach’s New NBA Rapdate Week 17: Dunk Contest!

  • February 18, 2016
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Homepage · NBA Rapdates · Uncategorized

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Watch Zach’s Latest NBA Rapdate “80’s Basketball Shorts”

  • January 4, 2016
  • by zachselwyn
  • · Comedy · Comedy Music News · Homepage · NBA Rapdates · Sketch Comedy

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