Actor. Musician. Host. Writer. Dinner Guest.
By Zach Selwyn
THE CONCEPT:
Recently, as a creative experiment, I decided to commit myself to sitting in the Hollywood YMCA sauna for 20 minutes every morning for ten straight days in a row.
My plan was to arrive at the same time every day… roughly 9:45 a.m. and see what different characters I would meet from all walks of life. After all, as a longtime YMCA member, the sauna has always offered up a diverse cast of dreamers, stars, trust fund kids, drunks and Hollywood failures and I was hoping that maybe this little adventure would lead to a fairly decent piece for Los Angeles Magazine. So, I re-upped my monthly membership and sauntered down through Hollywood at the beginning of May for my first documented YMCA sauna adventure.
DAY 1:
A toothless man wearing jeans and a hoodie with a bandage around his head just told me that he was currently recovering from a Samurai sword attack…
As he began unwrapping his head bandage, I quickly noticed a large raised scar that slightly resembled the laces on a football running across the crest of his cranium.
“Holy shit,” I said. “Is it – SAFE for you to be in a sauna?”
“I dunno,” he chucked. “After the attack, the YMCA let me join for free for a month so I figured I’d try it out.”
I soon came to find out that this man’s name was Ray and he had moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s to make it in “fuckin metal, man!” He claimed that he had some minor success but got derailed by the drugs and now he was pushing 65, missing a few teeth and living just outside of the park next to my kids’ old middle school.
I asked Ray if the jeans and hoodie thing was some sort of extreme weight loss plan – like when wrestlers jog with garbage bags on to cut weight.
“No – I just don’t get naked around other men since I was released from prison,” he said.
“Oh,” I eeked out. “I’m gonna go.”
Before I could go, he wanted to explain the scar on his head.
“Some guy was swinging a Samurai sword over by the Pla-Boy Liquor Store,” he explained. “I tried to stop him – but that was a bad move. Luckily the clerk called the hospital and I got stitched up. This town has changed since I opened for Faster Pussycat, man.”
That was day one.
DAY 2:
In the 30 years I have been going to gyms, I have never walked into a sauna and found a guy playing with himself while sporting two nipple clamps on his chest… However, on only my second day in my sauna quest, I was met with a dude who looked like that Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuerrmann proudly fondling himself.
“Uhmmmm,” I said as I walked in.
“Sorry, saunas make me horny,“ he said. “What about you?”
I have been hit on by men before. Christ, I was a 22-year-old actor in Hollywood back in the day… But this was excessive. I was staring at a grown man’s penis, and was solicited with the fact that saunas ‘turn him on’ within 30 seconds. I crouched in the corner for a few beats, praying that somebody I knew came in, but I told myself that I would commit to a full sauna session – especially since my day one experience had ended so abruptly.
He then asked me if I wanted to retreat to the steam room because, “The smoke provides better cover for hand jobs and stuff…”
“What?” I said, horrified.
“I feel like a zoo animal here because everybody can walk by and look at us inside.”
Jesus Christ. I proceeded to tell him that there were other dudes at the Hollywood Y who would fuck him up for even suggesting a sexual favor in the sauna, but he just scoffed. He did not seem at all intimidated by my threat in the slightest… He then followed up with another line that made me laugh.
“Have you ever had an orgasm in 180 degree heat? It’s fucking mind blowing”
“Well… I did grow up in Arizona,” I said.
He laughed. Shit… Why did I make him laugh?
I finally told Rex that I had to go pick up my kids. I had lasted four minutes and 30 seconds… So far my 20 minutes a day goal has been limited to nine minutes in total.
DAY 3:
I have never taken my cell phone into a sauna, but for some reason a lot of people do. And today, a younger guy was in the sauna taking selfies of himself while wrapped in a beige towel.
“Do iPhones even work in this heat?” I asked him, just happy that he wasn’t playing with himself or showing me a scar on his head caused by a katana that was once used in feudal Japan.
“The new ones do,” he said. “It’s great for Influencer stuff.”
So are you a ‘Sauna Influencer?’” I asked, hoping that he was so that this sauna piece would really have some legs…
“No – I’m a Sober Influencer. Follow me @soberguy1989 on Insta.”
Ugh. Sober influencers. Due to my regular IG posts about bars and drinking, I get a ton of suggested sober influencers placed into my algorithm… and most of them tell me that I definitely have cirrhosis and that I have been dead since I was 32. No shade, but I hate sober influencers… I do love sober people, and I have hundreds of good friends who are clean and sober – but just don’t try to preach your way of life to everybody who might still be able to handle a few cocktails every once in a while.
“So you get paid to talk about how great it is to be sober?” I asked him.
“Sometimes… I mean, I used to drink a lot – like 4-5 beers a night!” He explained. “But then, when I hit 30 I couldn’t do it anymore.”
I’d chuckled knowing that I was currently sweating out two bottles of Trader Joe’s Campo Viejo Rioja onto the floor at that same moment. Which is when he began spreading his gospel.
“Have you ever asked yourself the addiction questions? Like… Are you employed? Are you happy? Are you single or broke? Are you in massive debt?”
“Yes,” I said. “Well, in reality – I’m happily married and fairly happy overall – but I am definitely unemployed and in massive debt – but I guarantee you that I would be the same way even if I was sober.
And that was that. He took some more photos of himself. I did my 20 minutes and went on with my day.
DAY 4:
The Hollywood YMCA sauna used to be a creative cocoon for industry veterans, actors and mainly…screenwriters. I knew dozens of guys with past TV deals and feature films who often discussed how they were optioning some comedy series to NBC. Of course, this was back when Hollywood was still functioning.
I met writers, directors and first AD’s from all walks of life in that sauna – and heard fantastic stories. One I recall in particular was from Randy Carter, who was Francis Ford Coppola’s Assistant Director for decades, who would spin Apocoalypse Now Martin Sheen stories that would make any film junkie feel like they were losing their minds in the jungles of 1969 Cambodia.
Today, however, I sat in the sauna with two young kids who called themselves screenwriters. They ran off a string of complaints about how selling your original script would never happen and I laughed under my breath at their naivete. Still, they kept on about “established IP” and began complaining about the fact that they were writing scripts for a vertical platform called ReelScreen – and how they should both be the next Tarantino.
“Wait… So you guys are actually currently employed as writers?” I inquired.
“Yeah, but it’s like, bullshit vertical soap opera stuff,” one kid said. “It like… barely covers my rent.”
What? I thought to myself… Rent? Writing? A possibility?
“So – Sorry to pry,” I said. “But – are they accepting writing samples – or looking for writers?”
The kid studied me for a few seconds. I was the epitome of middle age… Dad bod. Beer belly. Thinning hair…
“Uhm… It’s a pretty young platform,” he said. “So probably not.”
I decided not to pitch them my sequel to Splash and I finished my 20 minutes in silence.
DAY 5:
Today was one of those rare days where I found myself alone in the sauna. It was beautiful… and the wood was dry and it just felt safe and peaceful. I let the sweat drip down my body and fall onto the surface where I made a little Rorschach Tests for what shapes I found. It was a parade of dragons, butterflies and weird silhouettes of men scooping ice cream… It felt like I was on mushrooms… More days like this please.
DAY 6:
Reid, an old pal of mine from the basketball courts, was in the sauna today and asked me if I heard about the old guy who got kicked out for regularly soliciting hand jobs in the steam room.
“Holy shit, that dude hit on me!” I said. “Did he look like that Gilgo Beach Long Island serial killer Rex Heuermann?”
“Yes! He tried to lick my nipples last time I was in here – turns out he was 64!”
Suddenly, I didn’t feel as special, knowing that this dude was basically chasing every dick around the sauna. I took some pride in the fact that I was 15 years younger than him, so for a second I considered myself a “twink.”
Wait. What?
DAY 7:
Big delay upcoming. The sauna was closed because somebody had defecated on the rocks. I think I may be done with this experiment. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was the Samurai Sword guy…
DAY 8:
It’s been two weeks since the sauna reopened after being scrubbed and sanitized. I have certainly missed my daily trips but was looking forward to getting back to a nice schvitz following a quick jaunt to New York where I slept for a total of nine hours in three days.
So, imagine my surprise when three fully naked old Korean guys and a moss of white pubic hair greeted me on a random Thursday. The three guys were laughing about something I was not privy to, but there were no towels or clothing ANYWHERE. I mentioned that this YMCA demands that you wear some sort of covering, but they didn’t understand me. All I heard was that the Koreatown YMCA was temporarily closed, so a bunch of members were coming here now…
I walked out early, but was pleasantly amused when fifteen minutes later I saw the same three naked men try to walk into the co-ed jacuzzi area buck fucking naked.
They were politely asked to leave… I waved at them before going to do 40 crunches.
DAY 9:
Look, I never liked the guys who use the sauna as their “gym.” They use it to do crunches and squats and shadowbox and shit. Today – some dude was getting after it. HARD. I am pretty sure that there is an unspoken rule that you are not allowed to exercise in the sauna, but I’ll be damned if this guy, who was wearing a pointy felt hobbit hat, wasn’t taking up the entire room with jabs and push-ups…
“Dude, what does that elf hat do?” I asked him.
He threw a few crosses before alerting me that it keeps the heat closer to the head and therefore you can stay in the sauna longer.
“Yeah, but you look like Frodo Baggins.”
He stopped and looked at me. He was larger and had some bad tattoos and I immediately regretted commenting on his Lord of the Rings hat. He didn’t even respond. He just took the towel from around his neck and wrung it out over the electric sauna… right in front of the sign that clearly states “Do not put liquid on the electric sauna – it will short fuse.”
Frodo then walked out and left the door open… About two minutes later he came back, soaking wet from what I assumed was a trip to the shower. His hat was gone – and he started doing push-ups on the floor. I walked out a few seconds later, 11 minutes short of my goal.
DAY 10:
My final day of this experiment was somewhat heartbreaking… especially because Reid was back – and he informed me that his mother was recently conned out of her life savings by a
“man” she met online who claimed to be Van Halen lead singer Sammy Hagar.
Now, apparently Sammy himself had reached out online and told his mom that he was in debt and needed some money for surgery… He also tossed in that he thought she was very attractive. (For the record, she is currently 82-years-old).
Well, the next thing Reid knew, his mom was on her way to Los Angeles to meet the famed Red Rocker at the Sunset Marquis Hotel… Of course when she got there, Sammy Hagar was nowhere to be found and her $450,000 dollar nest egg was gone.
“Jesus, that’s heartbreaking,” I said, flabbergasted. “That’s like that one girl who thought she was married to Brad Pitt.”
“Exactly,” he said. ”Apparently this fake celebrity thing online is a new scam on the elderly… It’s happening everywhere – My cousin’s dad just sent 200 grand to Chilli From TLC.”
“What the FUCK!,” I said. “Who could be that stupid?”
“Dunno. The world is full of online scammers. By the way, are you hooping today?” He asked.
“No, I’m writing a story about the sauna.”
“Ew.”
Reid high-fived me and mentioned a future beer together and I nodded and smiled knowing that my ten day experiment had finally come to a close.
I also made a mental note to not return the email I recently got from Stevie Nicks…
So there ya go. 10 days. One sauna. Many stories. I’m sure there have been more lascivious tales, steamy stories and 180 degree orgasms in the days of sauna past but these were my encounters over the past month… But do me a favor and check back next week…
I’m thinking of doing 15 days in the steam room…
Read “Blood on the Floor” – Zach’s Latest Short Story for Hiii Magazine
Zach and Missi Pyle have a new podcast called “Missi and Zach Might Bang!” Exec. Produced by Anna Faris and Sim Sarna of “Anna Faris is Unqualified” – the show takes on celebrity guests, improvisational music and offers entertainment business advice as well! Head to http://www.ewpopfest.com to buy tickets now!!!
I had been at the Great Wolf Lodge for roughly an hour when a drunk and angry ex-firefighter threatened to kick my ass at the indoor water park. He was pissed off at me for disrespecting the “sanctity” of the Great Wolf Lodge… I am 100 percent serious. Let me start at the beginning…
Spring Break. These are two of the most beautiful words in the English language… if you are a child. To parents, these words concur up feeling of hopelessness, anguish and despair. And for some reason? Today’s elementary school kids get two whole weeks off for “Spring Break…” TWO WEEKS! When I was a kid we got TWO DAYS. In college we only got a week. And as far as I recall, it wasn’t even a thing in high school.
But sure… the rigorous schedule of counting, handwriting and connect the dots can be so gruesome and torturous for a second grader – that a two-week vacation at the end of March is exactly what the school nurse ordered… So, if you’re like me, you suddenly begin scrambling to find activities for your kids to do during this gratuitous vacation. So, you make plans…
You drop $75.00 to go see shitty movies like Sherlock Gnomes.
You gain 12 pounds by not being able to go to the gym on your regular schedule. And, in some extreme cases, you agree to take your kids to the GREAT WOLF LODGE for two days…
Which is exactly where I found myself last week, riddled with anxiety as I nibbled on a chicken finger ten feet from a wave pool full of screaming children. Praying for death.
If you have never heard of a Great Wolf Lodge, let me put it this way… Consider yourself lucky. With 13 locations across the country, the kid-friendly indoor water park is to people like me the end of the fucking world. Known for its indoor water park and “wolf-themed” decor, the franchise has drawn families from far and wide to spend their entire monthly paychecks on shitty food, arcade games and the guarantee that you will contract the Norovirus within three spins in the “Lazy River.”
I mumbled something under my breath as I loaded the car, preparing to journey down to the hotel with my wife, our second grade girl and my very unenthusiastic pre-teen who was pissed because he was missing roughly 48 hours of the video game Fortnite.
The drive down was actually somewhat exciting. I was anticipating the water park summer days of my youth, when I met a cute girl in line at the snack bar, chatted up an 8th grade crush and passed a Sony Walkman around with my buddies listening to Straight Outta Compton. Those days were nothing but innocent and fun… and I was hoping my kids might make some amazing memories of their own…
When we arrived, however, my entire demeanor changed. After looking for a space in the self-parking garage for 30 minutes, I was met with the sudden reality that there were a lot of people here during Spring Break. I mean, a lot of people. Like, thousands. And all of them had kids. Small, sweaty, stinky, gross, fat, weird, uninhibited kids…
My first moment of clarity happened when I was presented with a pair of felt “wolf ears” as I entered the lobby.
“HOWL you doing today!?” A bubbly 20-something dude named Bryan asked.
“PAW-SOME!!!” I responded sarcastically.
“Woah! Someone’s got the Great Wolf spirit!” He screamed. “AWWOOOOOOOO!”
I looked around at the hundred of fathers traipsing through the lobby wearing these ridiculous wolf ears… The looks on their faces all read the same: FAILURE.
There is a certain look a man knows when he runs into another man at a place like the Great Wolf Lodge. It is a look of defeat. Of mediocrity. Of deficiency. Like we all expected to be the dads who take our kids in Hawaii or something, but ended up at the Great Wolf Lodge in Anaheim. I recognized this look on every man’s face I encountered.
We checked in and got to our suite, which we were sharing with another family we knew from from LA. Everyone changed into bathing suits to go hit the indoor water park. A small part of me was hoping it would be a fun day, and after all, as long as they had a jacuzzi I figured I could kill a few hours relaxing and hanging out with strangers.
There was no jacuzzi.
And the water park was massive. And loud. And it smelled like feet.
“Daddy! Come in the lazy river with me!” My daughter squealed.
I took a deep breath and stood up. I took off my shirt and walked over towards the lazy river. The first thing I noticed about the water park was that somehow, I had THE BEST BODY THERE.
In my 42 years, I have never been the “ripped” guy at the pool. Ever. Even when I was 18 I had the beginnings of a dad bod and now, at my age, I had been keeping trim and eating well to the point where at the Great Wolf Lodge in Anaheim, California, I was a SWIMSUIT MODEL. Seriously. I was 30 pounds lighter than the average man. My wife, who has always been in terrific shape looked like Hannah Jeter posing for Sports Illustrated. We were “Anaheim 10’s…” and pretty proud of it.
As I strutted around my new Adonis-like physique, I watched as my daughter slowly dipped into the lazy river among what seemed like hundreds of other kids. I put my leg in, noticed it was much colder than I had anticipated, and began walking around the river behind her.
And then some kid’s fleshy leg rubbed up against mine under the water. I froze. It was like in Star Wars when that Dianoga Monster rubs up against Luke in the trash compactor. A gross little bare human leg rubbing against my inner calf. I stopped to gather myself. I felt like a part of the #metoo movement. I was rattled… And then another kid wrapped himself around my chest for support as he floated by… I shuttered. Looking around, I suddenly became keenly aware of little yellow swirls of urine accumulating in certain areas. I also counted three loose Band-Aids and numerous clumps of hair floating in the water. A few more kids hit me with inner tubes as they raced by and finally, when a little girl wiped her snot off of her face and tossed it into the water beside me, my afternoon at the water park was OVER.
“Baby, I’m getting out,” I yelled as she floated down the river.
Her frown broke my heart, but the place was already too much for me. I was done. I had been at the Great Wolf Lodge for less than an hour.
After drying off, I noticed the small line of men waiting for beer. I grabbed my “Wolf Band” which had my credit card and room number on it, and bought my first beer of the day. It was 3:30, but if I was going to get through this place, a buzz was certainly needed. Looking around, I noticed that day-drinking was certainly the norm here, like the way it is in airports when people order beers at 7:00 in the morning and nobody thinks twice about it.
After paying, I turned around, noticing three men behind me waiting for drinks. Two of them had “Lakeland County Fire Department” shirts on. The other was shirtless, proudly showing off a fading Tazmanian Devil tattoo from the early 90’s… I toasted the guys with my beer.
“Gentlemen,” I said. “What happened to us? We were all once virile men… with dreams, passions, desires… goals. NOW? We’re on vacation at the fucking Great Wolf Lodge. What the fuck, am I right!!?”
Suddenly, the shirtless man took a threatening step my way and got directly in my face.
“Are you disrespecting the LODGE, bro?” He asked in an accusatory way.
I wasn’t sure if he was serious. I laughed.
“Sounds like you are,” he continued aggressively, the vapor of liquor prominent on his breath. I felt scared. I backpedaled.
“No, man.. I was just, you know – joking-“
I was taken aback. If I said the wrong thing here, there is no doubt in my mind that this guy would start throwing punches. And whereas a pool fight might be the perfect excuse to get banned from the Great Wolf Lodge forever, I decided to lay off. Meanwhile, his friends tried to calm him down.
“Don’t get into another fight, Jim,” his friend told him.
Another fight? Holy shit… this guy Jim was out here kicking dad’s asses all day.
“No, man, I was just joking around, you know…” I mumbled.
“No, I don’t know, bro,” he said. “I’m a retired firefighter… I don’t back down from shit.”
And then, suddenly, there was an extremely loud wolf howl coming from the wave pool – This was the signal to swimmers that a fresh set of waves was about to begin… 200 kids screamed in delight as the call of the wolf echoed through the waterpark.
AWOOOOOOO! AWOOOOOOO!
“Ohhhh shit, what’s that?” I asked the guys.
“That means the waves are starting up…” Jim said. “That’s the call of the Lodge, bro… you better embrace your inner wolf… because like it or not? You made the decision to come here.”
He was right. I could make the most of this experience and embrace my inner wolf… or make myself suffer.
“Hey man, I’m sorry – it’s my first time here… I was just making a bad joke…”
Jim calmed down. His whole demeanor changed and he became aware that he was not in the octagon, but was at the Great Wolf Lodge. If he had wanted to kick my ass, he would have… but my honesty seemed to have chilled him out.
“Screw it,” he said. “Sorry to get up in your face, bro… come on, I’ll buy you a beer.”
Jim and his pals bought me another beer and I returned back to our deck chairs and told the story to my wife and her friend. They weren’t interested. They were concerned about something much more important.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Apparently, another mom had just told my wife that Pink Eye was going around the lodge that weekend… The woman’s two kids had been infected on the water slide and her husband was in the hotel room with his eyes swollen shut.
“Welp, I’m fucking out of here,” I said.
I took my beer upstairs and went to the bar to watch a baseball game. As I walked back through the water park, I began observing a few things.
I never realized how many adults have tattoos of their children’s baby footprints.
I had no idea that BIG DOGS Clothing was still a thing. There were also a lot of “Exercise…Eggsercise…Eggs are sides… Eggs are sides for Bacon” t-shirts and ‘water pun’ shirts. Like a picture of a snail holding up a seashell to his face beneath the words “SHELL-FIE!”
Finally, the majority of these adults seemed fine eating garbage for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One dad in line at the snack bar even highly recommended the pork nachos.
I thought we were in Anaheim. Somehow we ended up in Wisconsin.
Upstairs, I found a few other dads watching the Dodgers game. I made some new friends – including a pest control guy from Alhambra and a Target general manager from Riverside. We drank a few beers and talked baseball. As a way to make my new pals laugh, I recognized Bryan, the same guy who had checked me in earlier, eating on his lunch break. I approached him.
“Hey Bryan, quick question… do they have a Great Wolf Glory Hole up in this piece?”
The bar got silent. My new pals hid their laughter. Bryan did not seem amused. Within 30 seconds the bar manager tapped me on the shoulder.
“Just a reminder, sir…” He warned. “This is the Great Wolf Lodge… not the Great Wolf of Wall Street Lodge.”
My afternoon concluded in the arcade, where the kids have given up on video games requiring any sort of skill in favor of games where you spin a wheel,… and win tickets. It’s not even a challenge. It’s just a prize wheel. When I arrived, I found my daughter hoarding what looked like 15,000 prize tickets.
“I’m saving up for the stuffed wolf!” She said. I saw the wolf on the wall. At any CVS store across the country, this dumb little stuffed animal would cost $3.99. My wife told me they had already spent $60.00 trying to win it. I went back to the bar.
That night, after ordering pizza to our room, my wife and I shared some wine as the kids fell asleep. At that moment, we heard a rustling in the hallway. Peeking outside, I noticed two security guards dragging a very drunk man from his room.
“How long has he been drinking today?” They asked his wife, who looked terrified.
“Since brunch, I think,” she said.
“We’ll take him to the first aid area and get him some fluids… We’ll check back in 30 minutes.”
I asked the lady what had happened.
“It’s just my dumb husband… every time we come to this place he gets blackout drunk.”
“That makes two of us,” I said, raising my wine glass.
She shut her door on me.
The next day we were set to check out. I was excited to get home and back outside – as we had been indoors for roughly 18 hours straight. The Great Wolf Lodge is like fucking Vegas in that way. You have no reason to ever leave the place… I started packing and preparing to head back to LA.
“Wanna meet us at the pool?” My wife said.
“We’re not leaving?” I said.
“I figured the kids would want another day at the pool,” she said. “I mean we paid for it.”
And just like that, we did a second day at the water park. At this point I officially gave up. I began day-drinking at 11:00. I howled every time that dumb wolf noise started in the wave pool. I contemplated buying a Great Wolf Lodge t-shirt in the gift shop that was on sale from Halloween (Or as they put it… HOWL-ween…)
Deep down I knew that finally, I had reluctantly embraced my inner wolf.
I looked around the pool again. I was a little bloated from the first day and slightly hungover. I was no longer had the best body there. I was one day into my “Midwest” period.
I went over to our deck chairs and ordered the pork nachos…
WATCH ZACH’S NEW SERIES “ONE MINUTE MUSIC MINUTE” at OLE TV! @oletvofficial
The easy-going acoustic video for Zach’s song “I See Penises in Everything” from his 2012 LP “Moose Knuckle”
Hey y’all! itunes that song HERE
Zach Selwyn 