*Warning – the following story contains sexually graphic and disgusting situations
My wife recently bought a $300 vibrator. It’s called a stingray. It pulsates. It’s waterproof. And it does everything but make sandwiches. My wife swears by it and they have a special relationship that extends beyond the bedroom. This throbbing beast has been brought up consistently at dinner conversations since she purchased it… I believe she even told her mother about it, as if she was introducing her to her new boyfriend.
Women have been celebrating the vibrator for hundreds of years… It’s universally acceptable and widely acknowledged that most sexually healthy females have some sort of throbbing stunt penis hiding beneath a pile of T-shirts in their dresser drawers.
However, if I came home one day with a $300 sex toy, it would be considered taboo. Men who do this sort of stuff have long been labeled as perverts and sexual deviants. And, men don’t really discuss masturbation details over wine and pasta at a group dinner.
But why?
Maybe men and sex toys do not go together because most men are seemingly easier to please. After all, all we need is a magazine, a free hand and some “me time.”
The famous Australian man caught “beating it” at work in 2013
I have never used a sex toy on myself. I am not saying that I haven’t been intrigued by the molds of “Jenna Haze’s Pussy and Asshole” that I have seen for sale at an adult store, but shelling out hundreds of dollars for a rubber vagina has never been high on my priority list. Plus.” Real Dolls” are like, five grand. Plus, in humble my opinion, nothing could really beat the time-honored tradition of good old fashioned jerking-off.
But then someone sent me a free “Fleshlight.”
Holy shit.
I had heard about the Fleshlight forever. It was an early podcast sponsor and was the rage of the Adult Video Awards when I covered them for a TV show back in 2007. But still, I had never tried one, and I wasn’t exactly running out to make a purchase without knowing that it would be worth it… Then again, it’s not exactly the type of thing you borrow from a buddy…
Opening the box, I was amazed to find that there are like, 25 different types of Fleshlight models ranging from any body orafice to Jenna Haze to an actual weird blue ALIEN vagina that I assume is supposed to make you feel like you are fucking Neytiri, Zoe Saldana’s character from Avatar…
You can choose the between Jenna Haze model…
And the strange blue “Alien” option…
You are able to choose from a bevy of porn star clitoral replicas and adjust the suction level by twisting the back of the casing. It came with lube (necessary to simulate female wetness) and a cleaning cloth. It also had extensive directions about how to “wash your sleeve of remaining fluids” once you were done with it. This was a no-nonsense operation.
I settled in one day after work before my wife and kids had come home from baseball practice. I opened up my Fleshlight and examined it. This particular model was not a signature porn star version, it was a “Stamina Training Unit” – meaning it was supposed to help you train to maintain an erection longer should you ever have a real life sexual encounter… This was the “elliptical” of Fleshlights.
My first touch of the thing was unsettling. I felt weird. Deviant. I was fondling with an artificial body part. You know those weird people you see on TV who dig up corpses and have sex with them? For a second I wondered if I had stooped to their level.
Until I inserted myself.
It had been 15 years since I had felt any sexual pleasure with anyone other than my wife. I’m not sure how, but I suddenly became engorged and remained rock hard for the next seven minutes of thrusting, adjusting my technique, rhythm and stroke to this Fleshlight as if I was trying to give it an orgasm. Throughout this blissful and pure rubber sexual adventure, I felt as giddy as a 15-year-old learning how to unhook a bra strap in high school. It was something new and exciting…
As I approached climax, I was wondering if it was a customary rule to finish inside the device – or if the recommended method was to jizz onto any nearby available tube sock. While deciding to pull myself out from the sensual erotic vagina, I grabbed and looked at the manual… It did not offer any “jizz directions.”
I found myself climaxing into the sleeve. I immediately doubled over onto my bed as if I was 17 again and in the back of my Dodge Lancer. I was feeling pretty satisfied.
And that’s when the guilt settled in.
I had a large device on my penis. I had just cum into it and I was immediately dreading the moment when my son or wife would walk in. I began wondering if I had somehow caught an STD from the Fleshlight. Worst of all, I had to eventually pull out… which was a feeling that was so hauntingly real, that it reminded me of all the dorm rooms I had left at two in the morning in college after drunken sex romps… In my mind, I felt like I had somehow cheated on my wife with a Pi Beta Phi sophomore.
My friend Mark, who works in virtual reality calmed my fears when I called and told him that I was not feeling very good following the encounter.
“Dude, I’ve gone through, like – six Fleshlights!,” he said. “I get one every year… I had the Jesse Jayne model last year, bruh, that shit was nice! You should change them every six months or so.”
Woah, six Fleshlights? The Jesse Jayne model? Change them every six months? Obviously I was not living up to my masturbatory potential.
“Wait til you see this virtual reality shit we’re coming out with in a few years,” Mark explained. “Dude, you’ll be able to fuck Jessica Biel on a beach while Justin Timberlake is tied up to a nearby palm tree, crying.”
Virtual Reality porn is about to change out lives…
“Are you serious?” I responded.
“Dude, sex is about to go so virtual, we’re gonna all turn into a world of jizz monkeys shooting 9 to 10 loads a day.”
“Dude, in the future you’ll be able to fuck Jessica Biel on a beach while Justin Timberlake is tied up to a nearby palm tree, crying,” my friend Mark told me.
I did some research. If Mark’s prediction, and the internet is correct, the world will enter the virtual porn sex space in the next few years. People will put on their devices and set up a “scene” where they can have sex with a digital female while they pleasure themselves physically. At first, the sex models will be outrageously priced and unaffordable, but eventually, both men and women will all be pounding away at any number of virtual lovers through the power of visual stimulation.
That’s on some Westworld level shit right there.
Feeling less guilty about my Fleshlight encounter, I read the manual about how to clean it out. I learned that Fleshlight makes a special soap that I would now have to buy if I wanted it to stay in pristine condition. I would also have to double up on my lubrication as the sample pack they included was quite small. And then there is the washing of it. Running warm water through a fake vagina isn’t the most comforting part about using a Fleshlight, but it’s a necessary one if you want to keep it in good condition.
It’s like cleaning your bar-be-cue after every use.
When my wife got home, I shared my experience with her and she actually was proud of me. She told me that she thought men should be able to experience the heightened pleasure of something other than just your hand once in a while. Hearing this got me thinking…
“Well, look,” I said. “Pretty soon there’s gonna be a virtual reality device where I can have sex with Jessica Biel on a beach, can I get that too?”
“Sure, if I can get one where I bang DeAndre Jordan,” she responded.
“Oh, uhmm, let me think about it,” I responded.
I went upstairs and hid my Fleshlight beneath some t-shirts in my dresser…
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’sNetflix 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.
Sure, 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.
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.
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.
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!”
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!
In the late 90’s I was lucky enough to sleep with a Playboy
Centerfold. For the sake of this story, let’s call her “Miss July.” She
wasn’t the current centerfold by any means, in fact her issue had
already been off the racks for nearly seven years at the time of our
tryst, but she had been a popular Playmate in the 90’s… and one that I
had admired for years. For some reason, the planets aligned and she
and I shared a three-night fling at our respected apartments doing all
we could to pretend that we had anything in common outside of our bed
sheets.
Following our little hook up, I rifled through a used bookstore for
her back issue, buying at least six copies to give to my high school
friends. I called nearly every guy I knew to share in my glory and
walked on air for a good three months after our encounter, knowing
that I had achieved one of the ultimate male fantasies. I even sent a
back issue to my dad. After all, Playboy was my bible growing up and
bedding one of the world’s most beautiful women suddenly made me feel
like I could accomplish anything in my life.
Last week, while walking through a grocery store with my 10-year-old
son, I ran into Miss July in the produce section. At first, I stopped
and stared at her, like every man in the store had been doing since
she walked in the vicinity. She was still gorgeous and shapely and
wearing an outfit that only a Playmate can get away with.
Her breasts were still high and on display. He hair still blonde and
bountiful, with ringlets cascading beneath her shoulders – as if she
was currently in the middle of a photo shoot. I ogled for a minute,
before coming to the realization that she was, indeed, Miss July. My Miss July. The girl I had slept with all those years ago. I hadn’t
thought of her in so long, I assumed she had moved to the other side
of the country where I would never see her again.
And now here she was fondling a pair of avocados.
“Why are you staring at that girl?” My son asked, snapping me out of
the coma my 40-year-old mind had drifted into.
“Oh, I think I know her,” I said, secretly hoping that he might
recognize her beauty and high-five me after we left the grocery store.
“Cool,” he responded. “Can I play on your phone?”
I gathered my thoughts and strolled around to the coffee aisle. I
wasn’t sure if I was going to say hello to her, afraid that she would
think I was some stalker from her Playmate days. I also didn’t want
her to blurt out something stupid, like “Oh my GOD! You were that guy
I slept with in the 90’s!” Worst of all, I thought, she wouldn’t
remember me at all. I let my son pick out some cereal as I mulled over
my next move.
Like most happily married men, I still harbor the memories of my
single years when one-night stands were so daring and fun and
whimsical. After all these years, they hold a nostalgic place in my
heart as something fantastic and perfect – when in reality they were
normally panic-riddled and led to health concerns and loneliness.
My week with Miss July began at a nightclub in Hollywood. She was
gorgeous, fending off the masses with her icy stare and constantly
turning down drinks from potential suitors clamoring to be in her
airspace. I had no idea she was a Playmate at the time, but she
certainly had the look. She was dressed to the nines in a fur jacket
and sipping on a vodka drink when my friends dared me to go speak to
her. As I was in my cups, I waltzed directly up to her and began
rubbing her jacket.
“Interesting. A New Zealand back country field rabbit coat… Very
rare,” I said.
She laughed and stared me deep in the eyes.
“Are you on ecstasy?” She replied.
“No,” I exclaimed. “Not at all… why?
“Normally when I wear this coat out a bunch of druggies just want to pet it.”
I laughed and thought of a quick comeback.
“I’d rather pet you,” I blurted out confidently.
She actually laughed and wrote her number down on a bar napkin. I told
her I’d call her and I did – the next day – breaking any rules which I
had learned from popular movies like Swingers. She was surprised to
hear from me. We made plans to go out to a Casa Vega, a Mexican
restaurant in the valley for margaritas the following night. When she
cancelled on me two hours beforehand, I thought I was doomed. When I
asked her why she had to cancel, however, my eyes lit up.
“I have to fly to Iowa for a Playboy convention in the morning, I’m so
sorry,” she said.
“Why? Do you sell advertising for them or something?” I inquired.
“No, silly – I was Miss July a few years ago! I thought you knew…”
I didn’t know. Now I did. I immediately called my friends and sang
them J. Giels Band lyrics through the receiver. Yes. My baby was a centerfold.
A week later, we hit Casa Vega. At one point she went outside
to smoke and I let her go alone. (I was trying to quit at the time).
When a guy at the bar saw this, he motioned to me and said, “Dude, you don’t let a girl that hot out of your sight for any amount of time.”
I ignored him, assuming she would brush off any potential creeps and
return back to our bar stool where we’d finish our drinks and continue
our evening. After 20 minutes, however, I began to grow nervous.
I went out to the smoking section, and sure enough, there they were:
MEN. All kinds… Guys who had intended to come inside for dinner but
were so mesmerized by her beauty that they decided to hang outside a
little longer. Guys who didn’t even smoke were bumming cigarettes from
her and chain smoking. One guy even flipped her a business card and
said, “I scout for Playboy, if you ever want to be in the magazine,
let me know…”
She laughed and to my surprise grabbed me by the arm. All the men’s
faces dropped as they saw this 23-year-old kid with a Strokes haircut
coyly slip his hand around the top of her waist. Dejected, the guys
all walked inside with their heads down, preparing to settle for
baskets of chips and salsa and not the ravishing creature who I was
lucky enough to be spending the night with.
We went to another bar and then went to my place. Two nights later, I
joined her at her place. We went out once more, on a Saturday, but she
got swept up in a crowd of famous actors and I stood around waiting
for her to return to me, feeling like the unpopular kid in junior high
who can’t muster up the balls to ask a girl to dance. Eventually, when
she began partaking in their bottle service vodka, I grew frustrated,
knowing my time was up. Without even saying good-bye, I grabbed my
jacket and made a quick exit, calling my buddies to meet me for a
heartbreak beer at Coach and Horses, my old favorite dive bar.
“So what if it’s over?” My buddy said. “You were with a Playmate!”
“Yeah dude, my last hook up was with the hostess at Yankee Doodles in
Agoura Hills,” said another.
As the drinks flowed, my confidence returned and I quickly got over
the fling with the help of some good friends. The next day Miss July
and I exchanged a few phone messages, but never reconnected.
Even though it was over, I was still waking on air, feeling as if I
had done all I could and was now exuding an air of confidence that
nobody could touch. I even kept two of her back issues for myself. One
to put on the coffee table, and one to put in a pristine cellophane
folder where it would remain intact on my bookshelf until the end of
my days… It still sits there today.
As I rounded the bread aisle, I saw her again. As luck would have it,
we were approaching the check out line at the same time, inspecting our carts and reaching into our wallets for ATM cards. I purposefully took the spot in line directly behind her and noticed as she unloaded
an unusual amount of dog food onto the conveyor belt. She also bought butter, apples, avocados, bananas, Kombucha and a pre-made tray of
sushi. I was still staring. My 10-year-old took advantage of my distant
gaze and slipped two packs of M & M’s into my cart. I didn’t care. I
had butterflies in my stomach as if I was back in that Hollywood
nightclub 17 years earlier… But then it hit me: I was married. I was
standing with my child. I had no reason to not say something. If
anything, I thought, it would extend the memory a few more years. I
decided to go in for the kill.
“Is your name Taylor? (Not her real name)” I asked.
She looked up at me and smiled.
“Yeah, who are you?”
“My name is Zach,” I said. “Not sure if you remember me, but we sort
of dated about 17 years ago… we met at a nightclub and went to Casa
Vega…?”
She looked me over, perplexed.
“Were you that drummer?” She asked.
“No, but I play music…”
“Oh, you were the guy who knew Green Day!”
“No,” I said.
“Oh. Did you know Quentin?”
“Nope,” I responded, realizing that I was barely a flicker of memory
in her mind all these years later – whereas she had held the top spot
in my gallery of former flames for close to two decades. I was a bit
embarrassed.
“Oh, wait!” She said. “Did you used to have long curly hair? And you
lived on Harper Avenue and you played me Crash into Me by Dave
Matthews Band on your guitar?”
The cashier chuckled.
“Uhh, yeah, that was me,” I said, blushing.
23-years-old with a Strokes haircut…
She hugged me as if we were long lost siblings. I felt my wobbly arms
go around her body once more, immediately wondering what would have
happened if I hadn’t been so stubborn at that bar all those years ago.
My chest pressed against hers and for a brief moment I was 23 again,
stupidly running around Hollywood with a group of horny friends
worrying about nothing but a 10 a.m. commercial audition and where I
was going to be drinking that night. She pulled away and paid for her
groceries and stood behind the bag boy waiting for me to pay and
rejoin her. When I did, we caught up briefly and I introduced her to
my son… who seemed to not have any interest in this beautiful woman
that his dad was talking to.
As it turns out, Miss July still did Playmate conventions. She was
living in the valley, had been married for a year but was divorced and
was raising her 3 small dogs, Gucci, Dorito and Mr. Farts-A-Lot. She
didn’t go out anymore, was disappointed with Tinder and loved The Big Bang Theory. I felt like she was reciting her “Turn-On” list
from her Centerfold interview page – but had updated it as a
middle-aged woman.
We exchanged numbers and she remarked on how handsome my son was. I
told her I’d invite her out to see my band if we ever played again and
I watched her speed off in her Prius. I thought back to the nights we
had shared together and then looked back at my son, blissfully playing
on my phone, seemingly unaware of what had transpired between his father and
that mysterious girl in the produce section 17 years earlier.
As we drove home, he handed me back my phone and stared out the
window. As I watched his eyes dart around the city, I thought of his
future and how he was still so young and innocent and had the entire
world ahead of him. I realized how happy I was to be spending my life
with my wife, my daughter and him, and not a smelly pug named Mr. Farts-a-Lot.
And then, after a few minutes of driving, he broke the silence.
“Dad, I wanna learn some Dave Matthews Band songs on guitar,” he said.
I could have fucked one of my teachers back in high school. I didn’t. But I could have. She was into me… She told me I made her ‘quiver…’ She said I looked like a movie star. She tried to kiss me. This was 25 years ago… I still think about it.
Nowadays these stories are everywhere. Open any internet browser and you are greeted by a photo of a young teacher who was recently arrested for seducing their 16-year-old Biology student with marijuana and booze and throwing group sex parties and shit. Their mug shots get splashed all over websites and people everywhere shame these women for fucking underage boys…
A Texas Teacher recently arrested for having sex with an underage student
Back in the day you never heard about this type of shit. If you did, it was always a creepy male Phys Ed. teacher who wore New Balance sneakers and sported a filthy Don Mattingly moustache. Now it seems these sex-starved teachers are women who look like Charlize Theron with John and Kate Plus Eight haircuts.
In the early 90’s, these women didn’t exist.
Except in my high school.
My boyhood hero Don Mattingly definitely had a ‘Molester ‘stache.’
During my senior year, a really cute teacher’s assistant/college student named Debbie joined my AP English class. She was responsible for grading our shitty essays about the “Grapes of Wrath,” and helped with our teacher Mrs. Kelly’s syllabus… and she also happened to give me ‘fuck me eyes’ nearly every single day.
One day after school in the parking lot, Debbie caught me by my Dodge Lancer as I was preparing to roll a Mexi-shwag joint to smoke with my boy Adam.
“Zach, can I talk to you for a second?” She asked.
At first I thought she was going to criticize my schoolwork or something, but instead she ended up asking me on a date.
“Look, Zach – so I know you mentioned that you want to be an actor when you are older… and uhmm… Well, Les Miz is coming to the U of A next Saturday and I actually have an extra ticket – so if you want to go…?”
She smiled at me. The ‘U of A’ was the University of Arizona… and I had been hanging around the campus since I was a kid. I had always noticed the frat guys and the cute girls, but here was one of them actually… hitting on me. Or at least I thought she was. She was confident and she certainly had something none of the high school
girls I had been dating had… a MAJOR.
I wasn’t sure if this invite was a come on, but I liked it. I felt invincible and dominant. Typical 17-year-old shit. I nodded my head, told her, ‘sure’ and we made plans to meet around seven at Centennial Hall on the Arizona campus to see the show. She even gave me her phone number just in case I got lost. Cell-phones weren’t a thing yet, but she promised to check her answering machine from a payphone.
I went back to see Adam.
“What was that all about, dude?”
“Dude, I think I might fuck the English T.A.”
Another cute teacher’s “underage sex” mug shot from 2016.
I went home and told my mom that I had plans to go out on Saturday night. My mom went ballistic. My mom can read anybody. Especially back then. She immediately began getting suspicious of this woman’s intentions.
She wanted to know who she was, how old she was, what exactly this teacher wanted with me, etc.
“Mom, don’t worry, she’s like, 22, and she just knows I want to be an
actor – that’s it!”
“Don’t kid yourself, Zach, this woman has ulterior motives… don’t be so naïve.”
Amazingly, I somehow convinced my mom that this could be my only chance to see Les Miserables, and since my mother is a Broadway Theater geek, she relented at the last minute and let me go. But with a warning…
“Keep in mind, Zach, you have way too much going for you to
impregnate a teacher.”
I ignored her and drove off to meet Debbie at the show.
Debbie was waiting in front of Centennial Hall as I walked up from the free parking spot I found six blocks away. I had no interest in dropping $4.00 on the valet… although today, that seems completely reasonable. Meanwhile, Debbie had dressed up for the occasion, much differently than her usual school jeans and sweater. She was wearing an above-the-knee dress and a leather tank top with fringes angling from them. This was no high school girl…
Meanwhile, I wore Banana Republic jeans and my favorite striped shirt from a long extinct mall fashion store called Structure.
During the show, Debbie ‘accidentally’ grabbed my arm a few times as if we were watching a horror film like Nightmare on Elm Street. The thing was, the show wasn’t that scary… It also wasn’t that good.
It may have been the touring company, or the Centennial Hall acoustics, but I was lost for most of the performance. About the only thing I remember about it was that I was hiding a massive chubby in my pants and that New York Yankees pitcher Tommy John had a kid who was performing in the show… I thought that was pretty cool. (Taylor John RIP).
After it wrapped and we stood and applauded, Debbie suggested we walk around the university for a little bit. She actually asked me if I would be interested in getting a beer. I was 17. I rarely drank in high school, but I did have my stepbrother’s fake I.D. He was 5’9”. I was 6’2”. It only worked at one liquor store on Columbus Avenue where the clerk actually believed me when I told him I had, “A big growth spurt last summer.
“I could have one, I guess,” I said.
Debbie smiled and we walked over to U of A Liquors and she bought a six-pack of this relatively new beer called Icehouse.
Remember this?
Growing up in Tucson, you spend a lot of time drinking beer in the washes and deserts hidden off the sides of the streets. She found her little familiar spot where she liked to drink with her college friends and we drank and talked for quite a while… about my Hollywood dreams, our English class and movies we liked. Eventually, near the end of beer number two, she told me that she thought I have “it” and told me that she was confident that I will absolutely make it as a huge movie star.
She then leaned in and began kissing the side of my neck for roughly four seconds.
“Woah,” I said, pulling away and hiding my awkwardness behind a weird laugh.
“I…I…I’m so sorry!” She blurted out. “I thought you wanted this!”
Debbie turned deep red. My stomach twisted. That sinking feeling in the stomach where you just don’t know what the right words are.
“Look, I’m only 17, ya know?” I said.
She wasn’t comfortable. She began rocking back and forth.
“I’m so stupid, this was – this was so stupid,” she said.
“No, no, it’s fine – I just – I’m not sure it’s… right,” I said.
“You’re really sexy, Zach, you know that, right?”
“Uhmm, Thanks,” I said. “I mean, you’re sexy too but…”
And then we sat there in silence for close to ten minutes. Those awkward high school silences…
If Debbie had looked like this, the night may have gone differently…
“Listen,” she said sometime later. “Can we please never tell anybody about this – especially Mrs. Kelly?” She said.
“I will never tell anybody,” I promised. Another five minutes of silence followed before I suggested it was time to call it a night.
As we made the walk back to my car, I began to feel somewhat guilty. I was sort of one of those high school make-out kings – the guy who always loved kissing almost more than anything else… I thought, that when we got to my car, I would grab her and kiss her – just to lift our self-esteem and make the night less disappointing and more epic… But when we got back to my Dodge… I just couldn’t do it.
I looked at her. She seemed confused. She seemed lost, most likely feeling guilty. I told her that Monday morning would be no different than any other day. I told her she shouldn’t worry and that I wouldn’t tell a soul. I thanked her for the ticket to Les Miz and I drove home and masturbated into my pillow.
25-years later, a big part of me wishes I would’ve had sex with her… This was the pre-internet world. Nobody would have cared. She would have not been able to ‘friend me’ on Facebook or post pictures of us in that wash posing with beers in the Tucson night… There would have been no mug shot… She probably had an apartment nearby the campus and life would have just rolled along so easily back then… My God, it would have been so simple to get away with it and I would have a killer story for my friends when I got to college…
Alas, the moment faded, much like my movie star dreams… and my adolescent fantasies. That following Monday morning in class was far less awkward for me than it was for her, although we never seemed to even acknowledge one another.
I recently typed Debbie’s name into Google and found out that she was newly divorced and a mother of three… She was in Scottsdale. She looked old.
It’s funny how life speeds up and people come and go from your lives – I often think back… What if we had fucked? Maybe she gets pregnant and I have a 26-year-old son in Scottsdale right now? Luckily, I don’t. Life is pretty fucking crazy.
I never saw Les Miz again.
I’m not sure if they still make Icehouse beer.
I haven’t smoked Mexi-shwag in decades.
But you’re God damned right I got an ‘A’ in Mrs. Kelly’s AP English class…
Please watch Zach’s NBA2k Vlog from New York City!
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’sNetflix 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.
Sure, 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.
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.
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.
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!”
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!
The author, circa 1999 – in a cheesy DJ/EMCEE promo pic. Note the inscription “The Fun Lovin’ Outgoing Party Guy” (A line from “Swingers”)
I have to Emcee a Bar Mitzvah next week.
No, not as a favor to a relative… This is a job I am contractually obligated to do. A job I consented to nine years ago. A job that will pay me to slow dance with a 95-year-old great-grandmother as “What a Wonderful World” careens throughout the ballroom of the Calabasas Marriott Hotel. A job that is part of an occupation so nerve-wracking and terrifying, that I once swore I would never do again. Here’s the deal…
Apparently, I did such a good job of emceeing Goldie Thalberg’s Princess Fairy Tale Bat Mitzvah Celebration in 2003, that her father – Alan – had booked me to be a part of his youngest child Max’s Bar Mitzvah – for the upcoming date of September 29, 2012… According to my old boss, Mike, I took a $1000 booking fee in 2003 – and signed a contract. I have absolutely no recollection of this event whatsoever, but Mike said that if I returned the1000 bucks, I could get out of the commitment… Unfortunately, thus far in 2012, I have made a grand total of 329 dollars.
Looks like I’m doing the Bar Mitzvah.
My career shifted right around the time of the Goldie Thalberg party, I was given a small break on television and I began working somewhat consistently – for channels like ESPN, G4 and Discovery Channel. I have not emceed a Bar or Bat Mitzvah since. I actually thought I was out of the game forever. I have not thought about Bar Mitzvahs at all – and in fact – I haven’t even been to a Bar or Bat Mitzvah since 2003. And I couldn’t be happier…
For seven years, it was my only job.
See, from late 1997 to December 2003, I was a part of one of the biggest Bar/Bat Mitzvah/Wedding party planning companies in the world. We controlled the party business in southern California, sending out charismatic party emcees and hot female dancers, adequate young DJ’s and aging cheese-meisters with grease-pan hairdo’s to turn boring parties into the greatest celebrations of a family’s life. The company was called You Should Be Dancing – and at one point, I was a high-ranking performer, desired and requested by Jewish families alike across the expansive California landscape. I sacrificed my Saturday nights for paychecks soaring well into the low four-figure range – all while making a fool of myself in front of a bunch of smiling Jews and their awkward offspring. From Candlelighting ceremonies to mother-son dances, I witnessed it all. The stories are endless and the experience was invaluable, but in 2003, the minute I saw even a slight crack in the window to try and escape, I did – and I never once looked back. Until my old boss called me last week.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” I said to Mike, my onetime supervisor. “When did I do this kid’s sister’s party?”
“2003, Zach,” Mike responded. “You need to call them and start working out the details… unless you just want to return the thousand bucks.”
Hmm. Return the 1000 bucks? The bottom line is, that thousand dollars was spent long ago when I used to have something called “money” in the bank. Long before kindergarten cost 25 grand per year – and way before I knew that “escrow” was an actual thing – not Sheryl Crow’s “hip-hop name.”
Did I have the thousand bucks? Are you kidding me? My wife and I are currently scrambling to refinance our house with some bullshit 2009 Obama-bank Re-Fi that we have been rejected for nine times already. I owe my kid’s dentist $847 for my son’s eight – yes EIGHT – cavities he had filled last month… (For the record, I have never had a cavity in my life, and my kid has brushed his teeth twice a day for 5 years… I am sending this quack to the board for review). I even owe my 90-year-old grandmother five grand because she executive produced the last CD my band put out. (According to my itunes sales, it has netted me negative -3,988 dollars since its release in 2010).
Right now, it’s looking like I am going to have to emcee Max Thalberg’s Bar Mitzvah… And I am scared shitless.
Back in the day, I had a pretty impressive Bar Mitzvah routine. It was cheesy and full of feigned spontaneity, but it worked almost every night. It always started with a traditional Jewish Horah, and went into me leading a choreographed dance to Think by Aretha Franklin -which was then masterfully mixed into the YMCA and The Time Warp. Then, I’d drop the CD in the tray for a hip, new rap dance song like Gettin’ Jiggy With it before closing the set with a popular funny jam like Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne. Then came the obligatory Sinatra send-off to get people to their tables for their salads, before I would toss on James Taylor’s Greatest Hits and hit the open bar for about 5 double bourbon and ginger ales. I’m guessing that the scene may have changed a bit since then.
“Look, Zach – I’ll send you out with our hippest DJ and some glow-sticks to give away,” Mike promised. ”It’ll come right back to you, you’ve always been a natural performer.”
“I don’t know, Mike, I’m so off on the new music and everything,” I said. “Is Mase still popular?”
“I doubt it… But don’t worry, we have a bunch of Lil’ Wayne and Kanye West and Fun and all that new stuff… you’ll be fine.”
I took a deep breath. Who the hell is Fun?
“How much am I making again?” I asked.
“Well, since you already took the advance, I’ll pay you what all the emcees get these days… $250.”
250 bucks. Not bad for a night’s work, but the pressure and anxiety I used to face preparing for and executing these parties was already beginning to creep back up on me. I wasn’t sure if it was worth it. I opened a bottle of red wine before stumbling upstairs to give my kids a bath. As I soaked them in the tub, I sipped the congenial, crimson liquid and leaned back… wondering how the hell my life had led me back here.
The first time I had to emcee a Bar Mitzvah was when I was 22-years-old. It was a Saturday night, the first summer I was spending in the real world after college, and most of my friends were out at the beach, sucking down Mexican beer and talking to beautiful women, deciding between playing the Rolling Stones or Snoop Dogg on some jukebox. I was stuck in a $50 tuxedo talking to a 13-year-old girl about which song I was going to play next: Barbie Girl by Aquaor MMMBop by Hanson. That night, as the familiar words to “Hava Nagilah” crusaded off the back wall of the party room at Temple Adat Elohim, I nervously took the microphone and was forced to direct the Horah dance as best I could. I had the men grasp hands and come to the middle, circle to the left, stop and clap, circle to the right… I even had to bring in a chair on which to seat little Joshy Schnozzleman as he was hoisted into the ceiling by a bunch of inebriated uncles and proud parents. I was 22 and nervous, breaking a debilitating sweat and completely unable to grasp the concept that I had graduated USC two months earlier with a Broadcast Journalism degree – and was now officially a “Bar Mitzvah Emcee.” I gave myself three months at the job, thinking in the back of my head that some great acting job would come along and take me away from Bar Mitzvah hell…
Little did I know, this would be my profession during my 20’s. Mike even coined a phrase for all of the employees. We had to refer to ourselves as the “Pied Pipers of Party People.” I am not kidding.
The author’s own Bar Mitzvah invitation. A baseball card. Unfortunately, he hit .223 that season.
By my second year into the job, I had made some good friends. We were all actors and musicians, and we had a job that allowed us to get to auditions during the week and make a decent living on the weekends. Plus, once we figured out a way to have bartenders serve us alcohol during parties, the job eased up and became a lot more fun… And then the incredible stories started coming out.
At a wedding in 1999, a DJ named Ronnie Jacobs had sex with a bride ten minutes after her first dance in a broom closet.
Rick Freed slept with a 45-year-old mother of the Bat Mitzvah girl while meeting her to organize the slide show.
Brad Billings got paid $1000 to show a woman his dick at a wedding.
It went on and on.
The name that was thrown around the You Should Be Dancing offices nearly every day, was Paul Rudd. Apparently, in 1994 or so, Paul had worked at the company as a DJ and emcee before getting his break in the film Clueless. We all aspired to be Paul Rudd, and looked at this job as a launching pad to our acting careers. (Years later, when I interviewed Paul Rudd, I mentioned to him that I used to work at the same company he did… He laughed and asked me how I “got out.” – Like I had broken out of a Civil War prison camp or something). I even saw Paul on a late night talk show spinning stories from his days on the Bar Mitzvah circuit, and even those yarns were entirely inspiring to every one of us.
If he could get out, we all could…
Paul Rudd leads a LIMBO contest circa 1993
After overdrawing my bank account for a Trader Joe’s purchase, I realized that there was no way out of the party. Thankfully, it was then that I realized that this could, in fact, be a great opportunity. After all, I had met plenty of Hollywood folks at parties over the years – maybe someone would like my dance rendition of Greased Lightning and offer me a walk-on role on Two Broke Girls? Heck, I used to DJ Bar Mitzvahs that Jonah Hill attended… back when he was the funny fat kid who ate all the dreidel-shaped sugar cookies. Maybe this party would open an unexpected door that I hadn’t even considered? I immediately called Mike and told him I was on the job. He gave me the Thalberg’s number and I dialed it up, preparing to fill out the typical Bar Mitzvah worksheet I used to live my life by all those years ago.
Here goes… I thought to myself.
“Hello?” Alan Thalberg said as he picked up his phone.
I promptly hung up.
Nervous and anxious, I decided to look up my old friend Rick Freed on Facebook and see if he was still working in the business. Sure enough, he was. He had branched out and started his own company called “FREED YOUR MIND” and was doing quite well. I messaged him and gave him my number. He called me within two minutes.
“Zach!” He screamed. “Dude! I saw you on TV last month! You’re killing it, dude! How’s life?”
“Not bad, Rick, how are you?” I asked.
“Still sleeping with Bar Mitzvah moms, bro!”
I was taken aback. Was he serious? Was he still in the game of Bar Mitzvah MILF hunting? He must be 42 or 43 by now… hadn’t the whole novelty of that all worn off?
Rick updated me on some of our old friends from the business: Good old Ronnie Jacobs got fired in 2005 when he hit on a girl who turned out to be 16-years-old. He thought she was 25. Turns out, she was a high school junior with an Accutane prescription. Last he heard, Ronnie was DJ-ing at the Spearmint Rhino strip club in the valley.
Brad Billings was a weatherman in Piggott, Arkansas. He had 5 kids.
Rick was, indeed, still sleeping with Bar Mitzvah moms.
“Wow, man… that’s crazy,” I offered. “Listen… I have to do a Bar Mitzvah next week and I’m a little rusty… can you help me out?”
Rick greeted me with silence. His heavy breathing sounded beleaguered as he slowly let his voice drop to a whisper.
“Are you serious, man? I don’t have any positions to hire you…”
“No, no -it’s not like that, man – I made a promise to a family nine years ago that I’d do their son’s party and, well… it’s been nine years. I have to emcee a week from Saturday. I was hoping you could give me some tips.”
Rick proceeded to break it all down for me. He was a lifesaver. His main point was that nothing had changed but the pop music. The dance moves were all the same, the Candlelighting ceremony and mother-son dance hadn’t changed – and they even still played Donna Summer’s Last Dance to close the night. The only thing I might need to do is help the dancers lead a choreographed routine to “All the Single Ladies” by Beyonce.
“Watch the video on YouTube and learn the moves,” he said. “Kids LOVE it.”
You have got to be kidding me.
After thanking Rick profusely and promising him I’d meet him for a beer in the next couple of weeks, I felt somewhat relieved that I might still be able to pull off the YMCA and Grease songs, but that All the Single Ladies idea scared me blind. I quickly Googled the video and began yelling at my wife across the house as I witnessed Beyonce and her dance partners do things the human body was never supposed to do.
“White people aren’t supposed to move like this!!” I screamed.
I finally called Alan Thalberg, who it turns out, had been shocked that I was still available. He promised me a fun night – and said that his kid Max was trying to get him to throw a Playboy Magazine- themed party. He wanted to hire actual Playmates to walk around and dance the Horah in a throne rather than a chair – all while wearing a monogrammed Hugh Hefner-inspired bathrobe instead of a suit.
Max was my kind of dude.
Over the next week, I organized a musical playlist and rented a tuxedo. I learned maybe 4 moves by Beyonce and just accepted the fact that my performance was going to suck. I asked Mike to have the DJ bring the equipment so I didn’t have to lug it all around, and he told me that it was all done on laptops these days. The 350-pound equipment I used to have to carry around was long gone. Everything could be run off of an amp and a MacBook Pro. I cursed the hernia I got from this job in 1998.
When Saturday came around, I avoided drinking beer and watching football during the day so that I would be on my game that night. I combed my hair, brushed up on some Travolta steps from Grease and left two hours early to guarantee I wouldn’t be late.
When I got to the Calabasas Marriott, it was as if had entered a time warp. The same worrisome caterers were arguing over how to plate the chicken. The uptight party planner stressed out over where the chicken fingers and pizza would be stationed during the kids dinner. Even the photographer, who had long given up his dream of becoming the next Walter Iooss, jr. in favor of party photography – looked the same. It was a black hole into 2003… Except now, I had less hair and no idea what these kids were listening to anymore.
When I got to meet Max, I didn’t remember him. After all, he was four-years-old when we had first met. He took me aside and told me how he had originally wanted a Playboy-themed party. Instead, his parents had forced him to have a Hunger Games theme.
“Totally gay,” Max said, the way only a 13-year-old can. “I hated that lame movie.”
“Ladies and Gentlemen…” I began, my palms sweating as the first crowd entered the room. “Welcome to Max’s Hunger Games! Please choose a weapon from the guest table and proceed to your local DISTRICT… also known as your TABLE!”
These are the exact moments why I quit the business for good.
Max’s Hunger Games poster welcomed anxious Bar Mitzvah guests to the celebration.
The DJ I had been assigned to work with was named Gus. He was 23 and told me he was really an actor – but was only doing this job for a few months until “his career took off.” I laughed and wished him luck. I made sure he knew the routine… How to transition from the Horah into the YMCA, etc. and he told me not to worry. In fact, he had cued up every song on his laptop to play back-to-back.
“All I have to do is press one button, and we can coast until the salads are served,” he said. “It’s what all the big DJ’s do too, like Skrillex and David Guetta – it’s all total show. They get pad two million dollars to play a pre-recorded EDM track on their laptops.”
Even though I had no idea what EDM was, I thought back to how miserable we used to have it. I used to make sure I had a WALKMAN on stand-by with cassettes in case of emergencies. I dealt with CDs skipping, levels dropping unexpectedly and bad beat mixes between songs. Occasionally, music would come to a complete stop in the middle of a pulsating dance set… It was a DJ nightmare, and we dealt with it all the time. I used to have anxiety dreams about it the night before parties… Now, all Gus had to worry about was pressing one button. Spoiled little prick.
As Max and his friends took their seats at the Katniss Everdeen Table I suddenly caught the eye of a fantastically stunning brunette in a blue ball gown. She was probably 21, and her flirtatious gaze caught me off guard. What was this girl doing at a party like this? It was Saturday night! She should be out hitting the clubs… dating Charlie Sheen… whatever! She was radiant and young, sexy and enticing. And she was walking towards me…
“Hey Zach,” She said, coyly.
It was then that I realized. This sparkling gem of a female was none other than Goldie Thalberg. And she was smoking hot.
“Remember me? Goldie?”
I took a step back. Here I was, 37-years-old and married, staring at a perfectly shaped young woman whose Bat Mitzvah I had emceed nine years earlier.
“I go to UCLA now,” she continued. “I kept up with your career! You did some cool stuff on TV! It’s so cool that you’d come back to do Max’s party. Can we take a picture?”
“Uhh, sure,” I said, even though she had already snapped it with her iphone.
She turned back towards her table. I caught her looking over her shoulder a second later.
“Hey, save me a dance, will ya?”
Keep it in your pants, Selwyn…
As the evening rolled along and I found myself having no problem with the old routine, I did notice one peculiar thing about the kids. They weren’t interested in glow-sticks and flashy novelty giveaway rings anymore… All they did was TEXT. Every 13-year-old kid had an iPhone and was tweeting, updating a Facebook status and occasionally taking photos. At one point, a group of young girls asked to take my picture. I happily posed for them. They asked if they could “tag” me, and I said sure. For a moment, I actually felt kind of cool! Like I was back relating to the youngsters again, the way I used to do all those years ago…
And then, three minutes later, I got a Facebook update. They had tagged me on their page as “The douchey emcee at Max’s Bar Mitzvah.”
The Facebook post referring to the author as “The Douchey Emcee at Max’s Bar MItzvah”
Following my terrible rendition of “All the Single Ladies,” where I just gave up halfway through, I found myself leading a “snowball” dance amongst the kids, where everyone changes partners. It was then that Goldie Thalberg asked me to dance. I obliged, and we awkwardly embraced in that junior high way that hormone-ravaged‘tweens often do. As I spun her in a swing-dance pattern, as a way to keep things lighthearted, I happened to catch Alan Thalberg’s eye. His furious squint said it all. He gave me a signal that I quickly read as “Get the fuck away from my daughter.”
I turned to Gus and told him, “Play anything fast – NOW!”
He did. Goldie went to eat dessert and I snuck off to the bar for a double bourbon and ginger ale.
“Dude, you’re not allowed to drink at parties,” Gus told me nervously.
Two drinks later, the party was in full swing. Max shot fake Hunger Games arrows at his family during the Candlelighting ceremony and Goldie got sick and apparently puked up champagne in the bathroom. As the four-hour extravaganza came to a close, I was relieved when I turned to Gus and announced, “Play Last Dance.”
Moments later, the party came to a superbly happy end. The guests sauntered back to their cars and into the San Fernando Valley night as Gus and I went to the bar for a beer before leaving. As per tradition, Alan Thalberg came up to us with cash tips in an envelope.
“Gentlemen, terrific job tonight,” he said.
“Thanks so much,” I responded.
“Zach, at least three of my friend’s have kids Max’s age and were asking if you’d be available in the next few months… I’ll pass along your number if you like…”
I swallowed my beer and looked at Alan. Was he serious? Suddenly, I was back on top! The one time king of the Bar Mitzvah had returned! I was in demand! For the first time in about nine years, I recalled that feeling of accomplishment and recognition after a live performance… That sense that I had brought happiness to the family and had been admired by the crowd… It felt good. Almost like I was willing to step back in the Bar Mitzvah emcee game once again… And after all, you never get cash tips after you nail a take on TV.
“Uhm, you know what, Alan… sure!” I said. “Give my number to whoever you want!”
Alan thanked us again and walked away. I watched Gus gobble an olive from the bar tray before looking up from his iPhone.
“Can I ask you a question?” Gus said.
“Sure,” I responded.
“How old are you?”
“37.”
“37, wow! I hope I’m not still doing parties when I’m your age!” He said.” No offense, but I’m like, with the best agent now… and I’m doing a sketch show at UCB…”
“You sound a lot like me when I was your age,” I said.
Gus rambled on about how a girl from his acting class had co-starred on “Rules of Engagement” and how he hated reality TV – and then he said something that made me want to punch him in the nose.
“Did you know that Paul Rudd used to work at the company?” He blurted. “Can you believe that? He’s like, a comedy legend, bro!”
I slammed what remained of my beer and patted Gus firmly on the shoulder. I sauntered back to the DJ booth to gather my car keys and jacket. As I strolled out to the parking lot, I took one look back at the cracked façade of the one-time famed Calabasas Marriott Hotel.
A familiar thought rushed over me…
I am never doing one of these fucking parties again…
