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

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

“You looking for girls tonight?” He said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He grimaced.

“How’s your shoe game?” He asked.

“I have these nice ¾ boots,” I said.

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

I walked out of the store.

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

The Business Hipster. Everywhere in New York City.

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

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

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

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

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

Club PDH. $2500 bottles. $12 beers.

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

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

I stayed for 8 minutes.

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

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

“You wanna table shower my man?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Derby in its heyday, 1997

The Day The Derby Became a Bank * By Zach Selwyn

And the Derby today… A Chase Bank

I live about a mile from the building that was once the famous swing dance club known as “the Derby.” In the mid-late 90’s, when the swing music revolution twirled its way across the streets of Los Angeles and turned regular farm boys from the Midwest into Rat Pack wannabes, “the Derby” was the swing club to frequent.

In 1996, Jon Favreau was so inspired, he made a pretty great film about it called Swingers and suddenly star Vince Vaughn had the entire town looking for “beautiful babies” and saying that everything was “money.” I passed a bootleg VHS tape of the film around my college friends and soon fell in hook, line and sinker. After graduation, I dove head first into the post-Swingers madness that raised dirty martinis all over Hollywood. Lines formed around the Hillhurst/Los Feliz street corner where the Derby resided awaiting entrance into the ultimate haven of swing-cool.

I owned 15 bowling shirts, white “creeper” shoes, Cadillac-emblazoned pants, shoulder-pad heavy sport coats, a flask, three Big Bad Voodoo Daddy CDs and a t-shirt that said “It’s Frank’s World, Were all Just Living in It.” I went to Las Vegas monthly, drank gin and tonics and swept my hair up into a James Dean-inspired pompadour. I remember feeling so confident that my “swinger” image would live with me for the rest of my days, I traveled to New York City around 1999 and searched out underground West Village swing clubs to show Manhattan that a “Real Life Hollywood Swinger” was in their presence. Somehow the façade worked and after ringing up a $290 credit card bill, I managed to make out with a girl named ‘Kitty’ who had a Stray Cats tattoo on her shoulder before retiring to her floor mattress in Brooklyn where she woke up six times during the night to smoke Marlboro Reds.

It was all because of Swingers.

And then, about five years ago, it was announced that the Derby was going to be transformed into a Chase Bank. The bar where I spent my early 20’s was suddenly going to be a place where I would curse the teller for charging me a checking account fee… The club where I once dated the hottest bartender in town was turning into a place where a gal named Evelyn would inform me my mortgage was ten days late. When I heard the news, I knew this was not good. The Derby? I thought… A bank? WWJFD? (What Would Jon Favreau Do?)

Turns out, Favreau had bigger fish to fry. Even though he could have easily bought the Derby and used it to store his Iron Man memorabilia, he ignored my twitter plea for him to buy the bar and turn it into a museum. I’m sure Vince Vaughn most likely drank at “Mess Hall,” the restaurant next door, toasting the ghosts of the barroom that made him a movie star… but he was also too busy and uninspired to save the bar. I even tweeted actor Patrick Van Horn, who played SUE in the film. He at least took the time to write me back by quipping “End of an Era.”

A week before the Derby was to be gutted, I gathered my old “Swinger buddies,” – now dads who had traded in slick sport coats and suspenders for Old Navy hoodies – and we poured out some gin for Favreau and Vaughn, for Sinatra, for dirty martinis, for the incredible wooden Derby ceiling, for the memories we had shared at the bar and for the debauched nights spent watching amazing swing bands like Royal Crown Revue sing “walk right in, walk right out…”

We even quoted the movie a few more times to make sure we still knew all the classic lines. “Get there…” “This place is deaaad anyway…” “He’s all growns up… I would never eat here.” “You’re the fun-loving out going party guy, and you’re sweating some lawn jockey?” The night went on and on.

Seanny Walls, Big Daddy Jake and the author, feelin’ “Money” in 1998. #jawline

As the evening died down, we all retired a lot earlier than we had in the late 90’s and excused ourselves back to our families. The next week, the Chase Bank transformation had begun and the last remaining memories of my first few years out of college were carried out and discarded.

A few weeks ago, I found myself in line at the Chase, staring up at the exact same wooden ceiling that I had spun girls beneath in the past. The ceiling beneath which I had done shots of Crown Royal a hundred times. The ceiling that watched over me as I tried to find assimilation with a unique sect of people during those weird times when you’re not yet quite sure who you were – who you are – or where you are going.

I got up to the bank teller and deposited my meager check, taking a moment to remark that this building was once my one-time favorite nightclub.

Without making eye-contact she mumbled, “Yep, every one of you middle-aged guys who comes in here has the same story.”

“Fuck off,” I whispered under my breath.

I took another glance at the ceiling and thought of the days gone by. Hollywood is forever a town of transformation. Very few restaurants and bars make it ten years… hence the stories you read about now defunct clubs like The Trip, The Cathouse and Gazzari’s that were the most happening places to be. In my life, the Derby was certainly my place. The place where I was part of a nationwide fad that engulfed my youth when I was a mere lump of clay awaiting to be molded into the lump of Play-Doh I am these days.

As I looked down at my bank receipt and realized how far this journey in Hollywood had taken me, I thought of the dreams I had at age 22 that were still somewhat unrealized. When places that mean so much to you as a kid disappear, you fail to immediately recognize that they will be gone for good and the memories will fade or melt into new ones until all you have left are a few photographs and some journal entries. I look back at my two years as a pseudo-swinger as important remembrances that I will take with me through all of my life. At the time I thought I’d be 22 forever, twirling cute tattooed ladies across slick wooden floors only pausing to sip drinks and wipe the sweat from our brows. I never thought I’d be 40-years-old and in the exact same room looking down at a bank statement stressing about the fact that I barely had enough money that week to cover my DWP bill.

The line leading to these steps would wrap around to Los Feliz Blvd.

Again, my thoughts turned to Jon Favreau. As the worlds most in demand director, he probably never imagined he would achieve the level of success he has back when he was simply searching for familiarity amongst the Hollywood night-crawlers of the mid 90’s. I reached back out to my old swinger buddies and arranged another drinking night to sit back and reminisce about the Derby days gone by, and we all agreed to get together on a following Tuesday night.

Of course, by Monday morning, everybody had flaked and the plans were cancelled so we could spend some time with our families. We all agreed to try again later, and I thought about how a little piece of all of us died the day the Derby did…

And a part of me knew, that somewhere, high up in those Malibu Hills, Jon Favreau was feeling the same thing…

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*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…

DeAndre Jordan’s “O-Face.”

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A VERY CORPORATE DEAD AND CO. EXPERIENCE…

By Zach Selwyn June 26, 2024.

1

We were somewhere around Barstow at the edge of the desert when my traveling companion had to pull over to take his blood pressure pills.

Also I had to pee. And the Mini Cooper we had taken on this for our journey into the desert was running low on gas. And the left windshield wiper didn’t work, so we needed to clean the bugs off.

Plus I needed to reapply my sunscreen, because my arm was getting a little red on the right side.

In the trunk of the car, we had an orthotic pillow, my knee brace in case we walked too far, a bunch of ibuprofen, a laptop with a broken screen, a pre-rolled joint in a plastic black container and some bananas and water in case I was hungover the following day. My toiletry kit was full of generic Propecia and cholesterol pills, Loreal Under Eye Cream and Trader Joe’s Green Juice alongside a single bottle of nine dollar red wine that had been left at my house four nights earlier.

Still, the Mini Cooper rolled along like an electric roller skate on the highway, carrying me and my new acquaintance Savage towards Sin City to see the last bastion of what was left of the mighty Grateful Dead in a $2 billion stadium known as the Sphere.

This was definitely not the same road trip I had taken 30 years earlier when I last saw the Grateful Dead in Las Vegas, carrying four ounces of dope and a three foot bong we had named “De La Soul” because it was “3 Feet High and Rising.” The times had changed. Life had arrived. My hair wasn’t to my back anymore, the hand-made leather sandals I wore every day had been replaced with Amazon flip-flops and I had two children at home.

Savage, yes that’s his real name, still looked very much the part of a true music lover and outlaw Dead Head. He sported long, full Sam Elliott-like hair and a handlebar mustache beneath a killer vintage flat brim beaver felt hat. A pack of Reds poked out from his shirt pocket and he was blasting some early 70’s New Riders of the Purple Sage over the radio. I barely know this character, but so far he seems like a good road trip buddy… He’s got the wheels, a beat up Epiphone acoustic in the trunk and seems to be drumming along rhythmically to the beat of the tunes he’s playing. Savage is not a close friend, but more of an acquaintance. We met at a school fundraiser. I liked his look. He came to my band gigs. And anyone who compliments me on my music normally passes my acid test for being a worthy road trip adversary.

Meanwhile, I had resuscitated my original 1995 Grateful Dead Las Vegas Silver Bowl T-shirt from the depths of my drawer, recalling the last time I had driven to Sin City to see what was then the dying embers of the Jerry Garcia Grateful Dead. At that time, I had traveled by van with 15 friends, including my college girlfriend, and we all split a huge suite at a Bally’s hotel. We got so stoned in the room that we missed half of Dave Matthews Band’s opening set, and Dave was the best group going at that time. Still, by the time we made it into the Silver Bowl parking lot, the drugs were everywhere, Shakedown Street was flying with multicolored human beings tripping, laughing, passing nitrous balloons around and speaking in a language I had never heard before. Miracles were desired, free hugs were offered and trunks of VW busses revealed simpler lifestyles that pre-dated the popular #VanLife trend that is going on these days on Instagram by nearly three decades. This was Burning Man before Burning Man. The festival life before Coachella.. This was the desert. It was 108° and workers hosed down the crowd from the sidelines and we danced on a dusty stadium floor kicking up more dirt than a Mad Max film. Medics tended to dehydrated druggies in trip tents and there were multiple overdose incidents all around us. As the night passed, we went back to Bally’s where my girlfriend and I tried to make love on a couch where four other guys were sleeping at the same time. That didn’t end well. We were too young to gamble, too old to have any money to afford our own hotel room and it was a beautiful snapshot of my youth awash in psychedelics, a few “kind beers” and more marijuana than the late Bill Walton’s carry-on suitcase.

.

Now 29 years later, I was going to the desert again. This time as a man in his late 40’s who was thinking that by this time in my life, I should have been able to afford a nicer suite than the one that Savage and I had booked due to my financial limitations. It was called the Mardi Gras. It cost us $92 for the night (Including the $5.00 resort fees) and sits on the wrong side of Las Vegas. Judging by the images on the website, it looked like a three-story flop house with moderate New Orleans decorations and two separate happy hours. But more of that later.

It’s not that I haven’t had any success in my life, but this past year has been extremely rough, especially with the strikes and the death of Hollywood for actors, writers and filmmakers who exist on the same level I do. Whereas I once would make a very nice living hosting TV and doing voiceover jobs, the whole industry has dried up, leaving an entire generation in shambles struggling to pay mortgages and rent. Myself included. Luckily, my music has carried me through on many occasions but I never thought that I would be almost 50-years-old sitting on the passenger side of a 2012 Mini Cooper, driving to Vegas with a guy that I had only met a few times through our kids’ mutual schools… Yet here we were.

For the first hour into the ride, Savage had been delivering a master class in storytelling. His tales made me feel like I was listening to a live podcast from a man who lived a brilliant, adventure-fueled rogue life. From his days working for Bill Graham Presents in San Francisco setting up Grateful Dead shows to watching his friends have dalliances in bathroom stalls with pop stars of the 1980s to breaking his back and shoulder in competitive skateboarding tournaments while sponsored by Vector in the early Southern California pool scene… He claimed he helped Owsley build the Wall of Sound. He explained how his silk-screening business lead to his design being used on an official Dead tour shirt. He manned the bar at the legendary Powerhouse Bar next to a motorcycle club in Hollywood as a 28-year-old drifter, helping bikers defend the establishment from the rioters of 1992… He took acid and saw the Dead for the first time when he was 12-years-old. He watched Bay Area rock stars who were worldwide touring acts cruise his high school parking lot looking for “chicks.” I was traveling with history and I relished every crazy tale he told.

His brother had originally bought the Sphere tickets, but could not go. He offered them to Savage. Savage offered one to me. It was a fair exchange for becoming his sounding board for storytelling.

From being Eskimo Brothers with some of the biggest rock stars in the world to turning down Elite Models in the 90’s, story after story- mile after mile – Savage tore through his adventures like a pirate regaling his tales of the sea, replete with yarns of wenches, treasure, celebrities, criminal activities and money come and gone.

In comparison to his tall tales, mine seemed tame and boring.

“I used to smoke weed with Rob Thomas from Matchbox Twenty!” I bragged. “Nicest guy!”

He stared at me and laughed before telling me about riding Harleys with two motorcycle gang members and how they paid him with a bag of speed to be the getaway driver when they robbed a liquor store.

Here was Savage, a living legend doing time as a family man in Hollywood, sharing stories that nobody could ever imagine were true. I was lucky enough to be his wingman, rattling towards Las Vegas anticipating what would be his first Grateful Dead show since Jerry Garcia died in 1995. Savage once swore that he would never see the Dead again once Jerry passed in 1995, but this was the Sphere and this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see them play in what is supposedly the most mind-blowing and visually stimulating concert spectacle in the world today.

But first, we had to stop for blood pressure pills. Doctor’s orders. As his 60th birthday loomed in the distance, so did the threat of heart disease, high cholesterol and a lifetime of partying catching up with him. We popped into the gas station outside of Barstow, used the facilities, filled up the Mini Cooper and decided to get back on the road.

But first… he had to smoke a few cigarettes. I sat back in the passenger seat and sipped the kombucha I had brought along for the ride.

2

The actor Clark Gable supposedly waited out the news of his wife Carole Lombard’s tragic plane crash death at a small saloon 30 minutes outside of Las Vegas known as the Pioneer. It is a relic of a long lost mining town, and the Pioneer has been around for 111 years and has seen its share of brawls fist fights, gunfights, card games, confrontations and drunken min(e/o)rs. Both literal men coming from the underground after seeking precious metals… And minors – as in underage patrons. There are bullet holes in the walls and cigarette burns on the bar from where Gable extinguished his smokes while awaiting news on the fate of Lombard’s plane. Apparently, Gable sat and drank at the bar until he heard that there had been no survivors and then lost his mind once her death was confirmed.

Savage casually informed me that we would be stopping by the Pioneer Saloon for some pre-Vegas beers because he knew the owner.

“He’s the guy who got me out of prison,” he said.

I didn’t press further on that one.

Apparently, his pal had recently purchased the saloon and the general store next-door for a fairly respectable fee, longing to keep the place – and its history – alive. Dubbing himself “Old Man Liver,” he marketed the bar the way it should be, classic, barely touched and unrestored. This is not a Jason Aldean Rooftop Kitchen or a Kid Rock Big Ass Honky Tonk in Nashville. This is the real deal.

“Figured we’d stop at my boy’s place before heading up to check-in” he said. “Maybe we can get your band to play out here for a bunch of aging meth heads and local bikers.”

“Yeah, I’m sure they buy a lot of merchandise,” I said.

The funny thing is in my musical career I have either played for two types of people: Aging meth heads and local bikers… And billionaires in towns like Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In my experience the billionaires spend more money on t-shirts.

We rolled into the Pioneer Saloon about an hour and a half later. The place runs on a septic system, and has no glassware or washable dishes so the beers come in plastic cups. The food was simple and hearty and served on paper plates and in Styrofoam containers. The bar was full of bikers, travelers and Dead Heads making their way to Las Vegas for the show. We saddled up for a couple of pints and a burger with a piece of nopales cactus on it before touring the local cemetery and paying our respects to the residents by playing a couple of songs to the deceased. A few of the graves were shocking… One featured a small hand carved wooden tombstone standing meekly over mis-packed earth flaunting the name PAT CASH. All I could think of was who this poor soul was and how he ended up in a pauper’s grave out here in Goodsprings, Nevada. Then again, there is a part of me that would rather spend eternity out here under a wooden tombstone in the desert rather than be forever interred in Forest Lawn or some monstrosity sitting on the Glendale border.

We walked back to see if Savage’s buddy had arrived at the bar yet, but the bartender informed us that he wasn’t in town. I avoided buying a $10 sew-on patch that featured a cool skeleton dealing blackjack cards only because those types of things just weren’t in my budget at the moment. Besides, I was saving up for the bootleg merch on Shakedown Street outside of the venue.

Shakedown Street is what Dead Heads call the legendary parking lot scene that burns brightly before every Grateful Dead show. This is the place where bootleg t-shirts can be found for seven to ten dollars, veggie burritos whet your appetite and any drug on the planet can be negotiated or found with a proper wink, smile and a handshake. Shakedown Street, as anyone will tell you, is as much fun as the live shows. You meet unruly, crazy people selling vegan burritos to afford getting from town to town… Smoking everything under the sun and wishing each other, “a good show.” In my life, there have been many Grateful Dead shows where the Shakedown Street experience far outweighs the actual concert experience. I figured this would be my last chance to possibly find some pre-show mushroom chocolate and unique handmade Grateful Dead merchandise. That is why I avoided buying any Pioneer Saloon memorabilia.

After sipping a final Modelo in the bar and talking to the woman with a “Don’t Tread on Me” tattoo on her back thigh, we got back on the road. Savage spun a few more tales about drinking gallons of margaritas with the band Night Ranger and how they were close pals. That’s who this dude was. Savage could even make the band Night Ranger seem cooler than shit.

I told him about how I once pulled a 1/50 Luka Dončić cracked Ice Prizm sports card from a pack I bought at a WalMart.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He said. “Baseball cards?”

Maybe it was the two beers, but being in such a historical bar picked up my outlaw spirits. I bought a fresh pack of smokes, noting that I always smoked cigarettes at Dead shows, and I started getting really excited for the night. And I know a cigarette in 103 degree weather sounds disgusting, but when you come from Tucson, Arizona like I do, it just feels familiar sometimes.

45 minutes later, we arrived at our hotel, the Mardi Gras. This place… was disgusting. Our room was a decent size, but smelled like sewage. There was some sort of dried pool of dark liquid on the rug by the sink that vaguely resembled human blood and a three-legged dog was hobbling around the premises. There were no gaming tables onsite, but 15 or so desperate souls sat glued to slot machines begging for that one lucky spin that would change their lives. There were diapers on the floor in the hallway, bad tattoos everywhere and a woman yelling at her husband about not receiving a welfare check for her two young children who were willingly playing on a third story railing that had been partially dislodged from the wall.

Yes my friends, this was not the Wynn- This was the LOSS.

A quick stroll around the hotel balcony later and we finally came into visual contact with the dome of the Sphere. It looked unbelievable. The Steal Your Face logo floated over millions of LED screens, promising a night of mind expansion and adventure which in turn sparked memories of simpler times. That iconic logo was friendly and familiar and was inviting us to come dance in a ring around the sun with one of the greatest bands in the history of the world. I looked up at another large hotel down the way and saw my old friend Theo Von’s face on a 40-story billboard on the side of Resorts World Hotel advertising his upcoming residency. Years ago, Theo and I would play shitty clubs in Los Angeles discussing our mutual admiration for each other. Now he was selling out 10,000 person theaters on the same sacred ground where Elvis once stood… And I was preparing to clean dried blood out of the carpet at the Mardi Gras Hotel.

Savage and I went downstairs and got two $4 beers in the bar and headed for the pool where we met Owen, another Grateful Dead traveler from Canada who had come down to see all three shows for the weekend.

“Where are you from?” Savage asked.

“Vancouver man, how about you?”

“LA, by way of northern California,” Savage said. “This guy is from Arizona.”

This was a common interaction throughout the rest of the night. We asked everybody that we met where they had come from, because the chances of us meeting someone from Henderson, Nevada who lived locally, was zero to none. Owen came down hoping to meet some like-minded friends and take some LSD to watch the show.

“Well, let’s just all get over to Shakedown Street and make this psychedelic dream happen,” I said.

“Oh dude, there is no Shakedown Street at the Sphere,” Owen said.

We laughed at this preposterous statement.

“No, I’m serious,” he continued. “Vegas won’t let you sell anything in the parking lot or on the street so they moved it inside to the Tuscany Hotel – it’s in the ballroom about a mile away from the venue.”

What? NO SHAKEDOWN STREET AT THE SPHERE??

And it was inside a hotel? Hell no. Back in ’95 and I’m sure in ’75… Shakedown was where all the contraband was… Where teenage runaways living in buses braided their pubes into necklaces and sold them for five dollars. I was not going to a Shakedown Street inside a hotel ballroom. Could you imagine? The same place where the Schwartz Bar Mitzvah took place two weeks earlier is now the same place where you buy loose joints? Joints that were most likely curated and logo-stamped by the Dead themselves?

(For the record, even though the Grateful Dead have licensed their image and likeness to everything possible in the world, I don’t think they have a line of weed yet – even though there was a Jerry Garcia strain available for awhile).

It was also at this time that Owen informed us that James Perse had an entire high end Grateful Dead retail store in the Wynn dedicated to Grateful Dead everything. Including $250.00 pickleball paddles. #KILLMENOW.

We went to the room to change, crack the wine I had brought and head to the show and see if we could find anything to alter our state of mind.

But first we had to call our wives and let them know we’re OK.

Yeah, Savage and I are now committed family men with two kids each. We weren’t in Vegas to party. There would be no trips to Treasures, the new gentlemen’s club that had a $150 cover up the street. Plus, checking in with my lady is something I always do on the road – especially since I recently fractured my shoulder during a drunken Memorial Day fall down a steep driveway. Since that accident, I had slowed down my booze intake and I wasn’t planning on drinking too much that night… After all, nobody ever wants to be the drunk guy at the Grateful Dead show… But a few beers wouldn’t hurt and if we could make it to the Tuscany Hotel, perhaps some other mind-altering substances could be found as well.

I cracked the wine and quickly realized that keeping it in the trunk of a car for six hours through the 114 degree Mojave Desert was not a good idea. The cork was popping out and the sweet red liquid had oxidized making it undrinkable. I made a note to bring it back to Costco for a nine dollar refund once I was home. Shit, they take back everything. (As I told you, it’s been a rough year).

We finally began making the .8 mile walk towards the Sphere. This was the most sober I had ever been in the hours leading up to a Grateful Dead show and I began to mildly panic. Luckily, we came across a dangerous looking corner 7-Eleven where an arrest was taking place outside and got some cheap canned beer. As we approached the Sphere, the lack of the Shakedown Street scene was suddenly imminent. In fact the lack of danger and adventure was imminent. There weren’t even any trip tents. Savage was frustrated and began calling out everything that had changed…

Where are the druggies?

Where is the scary guy in the top hat who made devil sticks out of human bones?

Where are the Lot Lizards?

Where are all the Sparkle Ponies?

“Wait – what’s a Sparkle Pony?” I asked.

“That’s what we used to call a beautiful hippie girl – bells on her fingers, rings on her toes… you know? Look at this crowd – this is like a bunch of rich lame white couples wearing brand new tie-dyes… These are more like sparkle donkeys!”

He was correct. This was the “Corporate Dead.” This was Vegas Dead. And not the 1995 Vegas Dead… This was, “Honey, do you want to buy some tie-dye shirts and go see John Mayer’s band the Grateful Dead? Maybe we can see Jersey Boys the next night!”

I would say 75% of the crowd was over 55 and looking way beyond their years. We half-heartedly asked folks for shrooms or better dope… and we scoured the outside of the show for hippies selling anything but made no connections. There was no food, no burritos, no fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches… No snacks. No kind beers. No acid. No mushrooms. No loose joints. No t-shirts. No buttons. No pins. No alcohol. And definitely no ‘Sparkle Ponies.’

It was at this point that I realized I had only eaten half of a hamburger the entire day. I was suddenly starving, three beers in and well aware that there was no food to be found within a mile or two of the Sphere. We considered going to Tuscany after all, but we were told it had just been shut down to get people over to the show. Luckily a guy with a box of pizza walked up and offered it to me like a hippie angel out of the blue. I reluctantly took the box from him and asked him if he had dosed it.

The guy laughed and said, “Yeah bro, like I’m gonna give you fucking Acid Pizza…”

I dug in, enjoying every bite of this mediocre, crusty and flavorless pizza knowing it was going to save my ass especially if I would be forced to drink $21 beers inside since my mushroom journey was now officially over.

As I ate the acid pizza, sort of secretly hoping it was laced, I watched Savage approach a bevy of individuals and talk about his 30- year Grateful Dead hiatus, his years as a Bill Graham employee and how he may have made out with Mountain Girl as a teenager, but wasn’t sure. (Mountain Girl was one of Jerry Garcia’s early wives). People responded and laughed, the vibe was getting better and we smoked some of Savage’s homegrown weed known as “Los Feliz Loco.” It was a mild but effective strain that he grew himself after reading a recent article in the LA Times about how many pesticides, chemicals and other poisonous items had been recently found in dispensary-bought pre-rolls that had claimed to be “organic.” It was like when they did that undercover sushi expose and found that 90 percent of all sashimi in LA area sushi restaurants was actually tilapia tainted with food coloring.

Still I knew I had my secret pre-roll weapon in my pocket that I was going to save for the peak of the concert. As we puffed away at Savage’s joint, a security guard walked up and warned us to finish smoking outside because if they caught us inside… We would immediately be kicked out.

Excuse me? A Grateful Dead show without a joint or a cigarette being smoked? What have we come to ? What would Jerry Garcia say about that? My guess is that Jerry would’ve never agreed to play the Sphere in the first place.

I was beginning to think that the Dead agreeing to play the Sphere was the concert equivalent of licensing the song Touch of Grey to a Just for Men commercial…

3

After finishing our beers and finding our way inside, we began to notice that this venue resembled the Beverly Center or, as Savage more astutely put it, the newly re-designed LaGuardia Airport. Everything was modern and new, like that Star Wars ride at Disneyland… I half expected Kylo Ren to walk out of the 300 section and order a beer. Half airport, half space port, I thought to myself. Not a lot of charm. As we walked through the halls looking for our seats, I jokingly asked a security guard if he knew where the United Club was. He quizzically looked at me and said, “I don’t understand sir, you’re at the Sphere.”

Sometimes when you’re high you’re thinking just a little bit ahead of everybody else.

We got a couple of $23 beers to get through the set and went to our seats – We were in the 100 section. The lights went down, the stage opened up and I saw maybe two plumes of smoke puff throughout the crowd.

Before I go any further, I need to mention that before I came here, everybody told me that there is not a bad seat at the Sphere.

I wholeheartedly disagree.

The biggest design mistake they made in the Sphere is the overhang. This obstructs the view for close to 1/3 of the audience who are stuck underneath it, unable to see the ceiling. As luck would have it, we were stuck underneath it. And no amount of beer or weed would fix this. Especially because as the show started up, I quickly realized that the only visual I was seeing consistently was John Mayer’s bulging crotch and his $250,000 Audemars Piguet watch, which put a perfect statement on this entire corporate Dead situation. This guy was up there looking like Lil Wayne showing off his fucking wrist to a bunch of aging hippies who grew up telling time by using sun dials. This motherfucker was wearing an Audemars Piguet? Not only that, but all the crotch shot made me think of was poor Taylor Swift being forced to face that thing in a dark Four Seasons Hotel room when she was 22-years-old. Look, I am a huge fan of what John Mayer has brought to the Dead but this wasn’t what I came to Vegas for… I needed visuals. I need something real. John Mayer’s muscular sleeve tattoos and his “Oh Face” was terrifying and got worse as the weed and beer kicked in a little harder.

“We have to move seats,” I said to Savage. “I feel like Mayer’s gonna get me pregnant sitting here.”

The John Mayer Crotch and Watch View

Even though the sound was good, we missed the cool San Francisco city visuals, and Savage, being from northern California, wasn’t happy about that at all. We crawled to the floor, puffed on the Los Feliz Loco and left to go head upstairs.

Once we got there the entire experience changed. The sky exploded with flowers and visuals rained down upon us. I finally saw what people had been talking about. If you get stuck under the overhang at the Sphere, do yourself a favor and move immediately. You need to be up top or on the floor.

As we danced in our new seats, happy to have found an open spot, I began taking videos and photos like everybody else and sending them to my friends. It’s kind of hard to capture the vibe on the phone, but I did the best I could and suddenly, nothing could go wrong… until an older couple flanked by a security guard came up and told us that we were in the wrong seats.

“It’s chill brother, we’ll just stay here for a while,” Savage said. “Back in the day, 25 people would crowd into one aisle and no one gave a shit!”

The woman, who I can only refer to as a “Grateful Karen,” piped up.

“Carl! Tell them we paid for these seats!” She yelled.

I had never seen a Grateful Karen before, but let me tell you… they definitely exist. I can only describe this one as being in her early-to-mid 60s, with short gray hair, long jorts and a T-shirt that read “GRAY-tful”. She was carrying a plastic bag with a brand new Dead and Company hoodie inside as well as a $100 rolled up poster. In her left hand she had a 32 ounce Diet Coke with a straw. Her husband was wearing Birkenstocks with socks and had on a flowered shirt to complement his khaki shorts. These two smirked and chuckled as we were escorted from our seats.

“Thanks for calling the manager,” I said to her.

We went back outside to walk around La Guardia. We took a look at some of the posters that were intricately designed and even looked at the silent auction where a guitar was already being bid on at the $7900 level. This spoke volumes about the crowd and energy in that arena. Everything that could be for sale was for sale… I even paid an extra three dollars for a Dead and Co. collectors cup which I’m sure my wife will be throwing out in the next couple of weeks. Eventually we stumbled across a poster rolling station, far from what I’m sure was a joint rolling station 20 years ago.

“Roll Posters, not Joints” I yelled, getting a chuckle from a couple of cute girls nearby.

As I looked up to get a better look at them, the sky suddenly opened up with possibility. These girls were angelic. They were young and beautiful in that casual hippie way that I remembered from my 20’s… They flashed me back to memories of my girlfriend in 1995 playing “air piano” and dancing around in her 90’s babydoll flowered dress to songs like U.S. Blues. I stared at them in awe for a couple of seconds, running every Old Man Has Threesome With Two Hippie Chicks PornHub title through my mind over and over… Until Savage came over and knocked me out of my flesh fantasy.

“Hey bro, you DID find some Sparkle Ponies!” He said.

Staring at these two girls as they danced, suddenly made me extremely nostalgic. I began texting all of my friends who I had seen Grateful Dead shows with in the past, explaining how the world had changed and how there were very few moments that could ever replace what we experienced together back in the 90’s. Back then, we had a saying – It was either myself or my buddy J. Smooth who coined it, but it was simply this:

The 90’s Are Just the 60’s Upside Down.

That was the t-shirt I always wanted to make… But never had the bread to do. As I watched these two girls twirl around Like hippie nymphs inside a mundane corporate forest – it dawned on me that I was in fact… as guilty of being the old guy here as everybody else was…

4

My friend had told me the intermission was long so we made our way out to the center of the sphere to as many strangers as possible. This was the closest it came to a Shakedown experience and we spent 30 minutes or so talking to computer designers from Phoenix, truck drivers from New Jersey, Christmas tree farmers from Portland and accountants from the DC area. I have been told the first sets had been pretty slow for the other Sphere shows leading up to these and that the second set was going to be even better. So, after a couple of conversations we went back into the 200 section looking for any empty seats. And then the lights went down and China Cat Sunflower came up. I reached into my pocket for the pre-roll I’ve been saving for the second set. This was gonna be good.

A quick aside here… As an on-camera TV host and actor I am often forced to do my own makeup. I have been doing this for 20+ years and I keep a bunch of items in my toiletry kit in case a gig presents itself. One of the items is a black make up tube that fills in gray hairs in your beard. Full disclosure… I use it all the time and it comes in handy quite often. Unfortunately, the one place that I didn’t need it, was at this Grateful Dead show. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the little plastic black container holding the pre-roll… Only to find it was the fucking beard pen.

This Beard Pen Looked a Lot Like my Pre-Roll When I Left the House.

I uncapped it, looking down at the ink dabber, cursing my recent luck.

Look, I may have not been as stoned as I would have liked, but damn… my beard was looking dark and full.

The Sphere Visuals From the Upper Section

Savage brought out the last of the Los Feliz Loco and we burned it openly in the crowd this time saying, screw the laws – if they kick us out they kick us out. The next 45 minutes were spectacular and everything made perfect sense. We danced and sang along, I thought about my beautiful wife, my kids, my friends, my girlfriend from the past and everything in life that made sense and it was magical and perfect. I even began screaming for every John Mayer guitar solo. His watch didn’t even bother me anymore. Savage and I talked about maybe going over to the after party at the Tuscany… We made plans to try and stay for the Friday show the next night… We were dreaming in that way you get at a Dead concert when all of your problems can be solved with the right note of a song. The band finished the set and we walked out of the Sphere with super Cheshire Cat grins on our faces awaiting the next party.

What we found was roughly a mile-and-a half-walk to the Venetian, where people could get Ubers and towncars. Walking through Vegas always kills a buzz, especially when the working girls start yelling out that they will, “Break yo dick off for 50 dollars.” Plus, even though you can drink on the streets, there was nowhere to buy anything. After a good 35 minutes, I suggested we pull the ripcord and just get an Uber back to Mardi Gras. At least they had a late night happy hour and maybe we could run into Owen in the lobby and see if he scored any harder party favors.

Our backs were hurting, our flip-flops were not exactly the most ideal concert choices and I wasn’t about to go for an $18 Miller light at a large casino bar. We got back to the Mardi Gras and walked into that familiar surrounding of despair and desperation, looking not unlike Nicolas Cage’s motel during his downfall in the film Leaving Las Vegas. Grizzled old drunken madmen hunched over slot machines. Middle-aged women at the bar nursed Miller Lites in orthotic shoes. An overweight family was eating slices of pizza out of a shopping bag… It made me very happy we had not found any psychedelics because I would have tripped out. Drinks hit the bar and Savage ordered a breakfast burrito to soak up the booze.

My impersonation of the average Mardi Gras guest. Note the collectors cup.

And then it hit me. Savage had said he made out with Mountain Girl? The timing seemed off. By my calculations, she would have been a mother of two living in Oregon by the time he graduated high school. He defended a bar during the LA Riots? Biker clubs don’t let dudes in that easily. And what about him claiming he was there when the Wall of Sound was completed? He would have been in third grade. Suddenly I was thinking to myself, who actually was this Savage guy? This guy holding court in the bar of a fleabag Vegas hotel gulping down a bucket of well whiskey the size of a small bird bath? Did our kids even go to the same school? Suddenly, the 275 mile drive through 110 degree heat the next day seemed daunting… and to top of all that, the acid pizza was wearing off.

“I’m gonna go to bed,” I announced, now feeling somewhat paranoid about sleeping in a room with this guy.

“Nah, man! We’re in Vegas! Did I ever tell you about the time I partied here in the 90’s with the Chelsea Football Club?”

I had heard enough stories for one night. I was cooked. I looked at my phone and had a few Friday kid carpools to drive and an early dinner with a potential job offer. Real life awaited me back in L.A. I shut the lights off by 1:30 a.m. a far cry from my average 6 a.m. bedtime back in the 1990’s. Savage never made it back to the room. The next I saw him was behind the wheel in the morning, his roulette eyes signifying a night well wasted.

This is not the first story I have written about seeing the Grateful Dead or Phish as an older man, but this one felt different. Maybe it wasn’t my favorite show, but this was one of my favorite experiences.

On our way out of town, we passed through the Pioneer Saloon again and stopped in for one final beer before the road. This was about as outlaw as this trip would get… A beer at 11 AM in a bar where men had been shot over $10 card games. I started writing down some ideas and eventually realized that these experiences are always worth it – especially for the art that comes from it. Hell, I even began writing a song about Clark Gable and Carole Lombard on the way home.

If this was my one and only trip to the Sphere, I am glad that I got to see the remnants of the Grateful Dead. I will probably go back if Pink Floyd or Oasis reunited with original members or something ridiculous like that, but I’m not gonna count on it. Even if the Dead and Co. come back for another residency next year, I will most likely go, making sure that I am a little better prepared.

The only thing I can say for sure, is that next time, I won’t be staring at John Mayer’s crotch…

Check out Zach’s New Album “Country Linen” streaming everywhere now!

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Savage’s Fear and Loathing Inspired t-shirt

420 bob weir Comedy Dead and Co. John Mayer dead Heads Fear and Loathing Gonzo Grateful Dead humor hunter s. thompson Las Vegas LSD marijuana Music SNL Taylor Swift The Sphere travel writing Zach Selwyn
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.

They grow up so fast…

READ ZACH’S NERDIST STORY “RE-EXAMINING THE NBA DRAFT ID I HAD BEEN SELECTED!”

https://nerdist.com/re-examining-the-1997-nba-draft-if-i-had-been-selected/

bukowski david sedaris essay fiction hugh hefner humor Playboy playmate sex short story stories writing Zach Selwyn
my behind the stage seats

HOW TO SURVIVE A GRATEFUL DEAD SHOW WHEN YOU LOSE YOUR FRIENDS IN THE PARKING LOT * By Zach Selwyn

My old college friend Bernard (Or “Burner – for reasons that don’t need to be explained) called me the day before Father’s Day. He had an extra ticket to the 50^th Anniversary Grateful Dead concert in northern California. I informed my wife that I would be traveling to the show the following Saturday night.

“Haha yeah right,” she said.

“No. I’m going.”

“Stop it. Now, what do you want to do for Father’s Day? Should we meet the Bartons for brunch? Or do you want to have people over to bar-be-cue?”

“I hate the Bartons,” I said. “I want to go to the Grateful Dead.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“Well, take your son with you, don’t you think he would enjoy it?”

“Uhhhhhhh….”

I didn’t think that was the brightest idea. The smoke and the dancing and twirling was completely mind-blowing to me when I was at my first show at age 18. Back then I was scared shitless. Too many drugs, too many lost souls… too many people having a lot more fun than I was. I told my wife that I’d rather let my son find his own musical path. (Then again, if he’s following 5 Seconds of Summer around the country in 10 years I may have failed somewhere.) Plus, I told my wife that a 9-year-old boy does not need to see his 40-year-old dad clink Absinthe cups with a dude in hiking shorts who made Silicon Valley millions by inventing the Nook.

“Do NOT drink Absinthe,” she demanded.

“I won’t, I promise.”

Eventually, I got the green light – and I called Burner back and committed to his 70-dollar ticket. Which I soon found was WAY too expensive for my shitty seats behind the stage where just a few songs into the set a man would face-plant and nearly die on the concrete right next to me.

Recent online ticket prices for the Santa Clara shows had settled at $20-$40 depending on where you were seated, way down from the rumored $1500 nearly a month earlier. This was due to the “Soldier Field Panic Purchase” that nearly every Dead Head and ticket scalper had fallen for when their final two shows of this “Fare Thee Well” concert were originally announced… Thinking the tickets to Santa Clara might be listed at the same price as the Chicago shows, folks bought up dozens of seats at face value, only to find themselves losing money when trying to unload the tickets in the parking lot the afternoon of the show. (Steal Your Face Value, anyone?) Even Burner was left with a handful of tickets that he ended up trading for “pieces” (pipes or chillums), 50^th anniversary bandanas, T-shirts and at one point a foot long joint being sold by a spritely blonde nymph out of a giant cardboard box.

$15 super joints from a beautiful blonde girl

Now, a fair amount has already been written about these shows – if you want to hear about the set lists and the fan reactions to Trey Anastasio and the supposed $50,000 “fake rainbow” – go Google that now. This is my personal adventure about smoking a lump of hash with a crazy looking scallywag who was dragging a dirty pet pit bull named “Iko” around on a hemp dog leash – and becoming so cosmically altered, that I managed to lose my friends for the duration of the show long before the first note of Truckin’ was even played.

It was a surreal experience to say the least. When I last saw the Grateful Dead in 1995, the crowd was pretty much the same… just about 20 years younger. But now, those folks have grown up. Gone are the days of living in the Vanagon and hopping from town-to-town. The “Only Users Lose Drugs” shirts I used to fawn over had been replaced by at least 25 men happily wearing a t-shirt reading “Grateful Dad.” (Thank you, honey for not getting me THAT for Father’s Day.)

At least 25 of these shirts at the show.

A vast majority of the well-off crowd could be found eating sushi and sipping wine in the safe “red” parking lot, while the more traditional “Shakedown Street” blue parking lot catered to the jewelry designers, pushers, providers, dealers and, yes, the guys selling veggie burritos. (At $5.00 a steal – considering it was $11.00 for a nitrate-riddled hot dog in the stadium). Bottom line was, it was a very balanced scene. Which is how I went from talking about music with a doctor who lived in Marin County – to witnessing a hippie trade a T-shirt for a Churro – to eventually asking the aforementioned scraggly looking pit bull owner if I could have a hit of his joint.

“It’s hash bro,” he said.

“Nice,” I said.

“Nice,” he responded.

I took a long drag from the tightly rolled spliff. It was licorice-like in flavor… and reminded me of smoking hash on a Eurorail with a Spanish stranger during a train ride from Switzerland to Germany in 1996. I exhaled.

“Nice.” I said again.

“Real nice,” he said and pulled off the joint again.

I stared up at the clouds.

“Nice,” I laughed.

“Totally nice,” he replied.

We stood and watched the sky for a few minutes. I started to realize that for the past ten minutes, I had managed to keep a totally coherent conversation going by merely uttering the word “nice.”

The author, moments after the hash took over…

I shook off my daze and decided to gather myself to find Burner and our other friends and head inside. We were 30 minutes away from the opener and I didn’t want to miss it. I looked back at my hash-providing friend and we shared an ever-knowing look of “I’ll never see you again, but thanks for the time together.” I threw up a peace sign. As I walked away to find my buddies, I heard him utter one final word as a fare thee well to our little session.

“Nice.”

Back on Earth, I was suddenly totally confused. Burner was gone. Swirls of dreadlocks and weathered faces engulfed me. I wasn’t sure if I should head back to the blue lot and skip the show altogether or saunter forth inside all alone. Like a wilderness-trained tracker, I decided I’d take some photos to document the beauty of the signage and the sky and the colorful people and cars all around me. Scrolling through my camera roll a day later, all I can find is a few pictures of the stadium and a wasted girl passed out on a lawn. I definitely could not find my friends. I was high and wandering… but at least I had a ticket to my seat.

This girl was FINISHED before the show even began

Having lost buddies at concerts over the years, I am somewhat used to making friends and surviving. This was certainly not the first time I had been alone at a Grateful Dead show… In fact, at the LA Sports Arena in 1993 I accidentally left the concert mid-song and walked 23 blocks away until I was lost in a Ralph’s parking lot deep in South Central Los Angeles. Luckily, the night cashier slipped me a Fentanyl and called me a taxicab. Once I lost my buddy in Santa Barbara and ended up sleeping in a bush after a Neil Young concert. At the Dead show, however, I wasn’t truly worried, because nowadays we are all lucky enough to have cell phones.

I looked down to text my friends. No service. Of course. No fucking service.

I made my way inside and ogled the crowds flittingly dancing along. Anticipating the first note of the show that would send me into another stratosphere. They started with Truckin’. The place went nuts.

Then the guy next to me almost died. His friends pounded his chest until he sat up and they forced water down his throat. Scared and afraid, I went to get a beer. I met some kind gentlemen in the beer line. We spoke about how awesome the show was that we were missing… by waiting in that beer line. I looked around. A girl next to me made sure to use all 9 pockets of her leather fanny pack. At least three guys purposefully wore cargo shorts to show off the “Jerry Bear” leg tattoos they had done in the 90’s that they were waiting all these years to uncover once again… Finally, a woman carrying a six-month old baby in what seemed like a paper bag attached to her back came dancing through the crowd. The kid’s head bobbled furiously, unstable and terrifying. In Los Angeles, the helicopter moms of Orange County would have screamed, rescued the baby and brought it to the nearest hospital. At the Grateful Dead show, however, grown men laughed and spewed forth dragon breaths of marijuana smoke into the sky as the baby drifted right through the haze. It was absolutely disturbing. I could not imagine my kids in this environment. As much as I would want them to appreciate what the music can do for everybody, the last thing I would want is my kid getting a second hand weed buzz around a group of folks sending wafts of OG Kush into the atmosphere.

A few songs later, I had settled down. It suddenly hit me that I was completely alone and that my conversations with strangers were fun but fleeting. I wasn’t making any new friends… I wasn’t analyzing every note Trey played… The worst part was, I was barely even seeing the show from my seat behind the stage. I watched the majority of it on a big screen. So, I wandered around and decided to talk to the security guard. His name was Reed.

“What’s crazier, a 49ers game, or this?” I asked.

“Well, different crowds, ya know?” He said. “Niners fans drink a few beers and try to look tough. These folks drink 10 beers and dance around like fools!”

“So is this the rowdiest show you’ve ever seen here?” I asked.

“Oh hell no, the worst was the WWE Wrestling event. I broke up about 30 fights, had to throw a guy down some stairs.”

“What’s the weirdest show you’ve ever seen here?”

“Kenny Chesney. Was like a Gay Pride Parade met the deep south.”

He shook my hand and walked off.

A few beers later, I was overwhelmed by hippies praying to the miracle rainbow in the sky yelling out things like “It’s a gift from JERRY GARCIA MAN!” (If you can imagine a bunch of high people reacting to a rainbow at a 50-Year Grateful Dead anniversary show, it’s EXACTLY how you picture it…) The argument that the rainbow has been faked is everywhere online, but in truth, if the Dead had 50K to blow on a holographic rainbow, I would hope they at least should have tried to construct a hologram Jerry Garcia instead. (Shit, I’d have settled for hologram 2Pac.)

As the evening went on, as a way to remember what I was going through, I began dictating voice notes into the “recorder” app on my iphone. These are the translations as best as I could decipher them:

A: I have just spent the last hour hanging with a giraffe

I wasn’t tripping. I had spent an hour hanging with a a giraffe.

B: (Me singing a song idea for my band to record in the future) – “Sunday Ticket, who’s got my Sunday ticket… man are you with it? I wish I could stop and smell the roses – but the elements of elephants are lost among the doses – I suppose it’s the way of the Dead – I suppose it’s the way of the Dead” (Then yelling): “WAY OF THE DEAD!!! MY NEW SONG WOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!”

C: Hot dogs, nachos, chicken fingers… hot dogs nachos chicken fingers…

D: What hole have these people been hiding in since 1995?

The last note made sense. A lot of these fans were folks who looked like they never recovered from Jerry Garcia’s death. They had been in exile, awaiting the return of the Grateful Dead for years, sort of like those Japanese soldiers you read about who were trapped on islands with their loaded weapons unaware that the war had ended months earlier.

The highlight of my night came during the song St. Stephen. I had never heard the tune live – nobody really has – and it lifted my spirits high. For five minutes, the long drive alone had been worth it. So had the hash and the lost friends and the $70 seats. I reached high for the sky and let out primal screams of joy and happiness and thought about my kids, my wife, my career, my goals, my dreams my family. I was genuinely ecstatic. I had found my top of the mountain… It was one of those moments that I remembered having as a kid – worshipping this band for slices of perfection like that – when everybody is smiling and nothing can go wrong. A moment of calm and peace I hoped would never end…

Of course, an hour after the show I found myself cursing technology and feeling depressed about having to wait in a two-hour line for an Uber.

I left the venue alone. Got to the hotel alone. I was in bed by 1:00. I woke up before my friends – who had stumbled in at 3:30 – and shook off the cobwebs before beginning the long drive back to L.A. As I listened to the radio and heard reviews of the show it became clear how awesome the evening had been. I re-played to my voice memos and shuffled Dead songs on my iphone the whole drive, wondering how I could call my work and get out of it Monday so that I could stay and watch the second night show instead. Thankfully, I decided one amazing show was enough and I rode down California 5 with Santa Clara and the Grateful Dead in my rear view mirror. As I watched northern California disappear behind the rolling hills, one word came to mind as I smiled and traveled the golden road home…

NICE…

Buy Zach’s FIRST ALBUM “Ghost Signs” on itunes!

1965-2015 bob weir Bruce Hornsby Comedy fare thee well Grateful Dead jerry garcia Music phil lesh santa clara short story Trey anastasio