Zachariah & the Lobos Riders are set to release their newest 6 song EP “Cloud Road.” Z details how this surprise record came about…
Cloud Road EP * 2020 By Zachariah & the Lobos Riders
In December of 2019 I blew out my knee playing basketball. I vowed to return to the court within a year and elected for surgery in January of 2020 – Following the surgery came the Norcos. As a decent wine drinker, painkillers were never my thing and I have been able to avoid them after major surgeries – of which I’ve had my share… But this time, things were a little different. Lying in bed, unable to walk or barely get up to use the bathroom, I would play a lot of music and drift off into the spacial tranquility of a few pain pills. At first it was 2, then it became 3 and I was pretty soon out of my bottle… The doctor had told me it would take about three days to not need them anymore, I was on day 11. What came to me during these lost moments was a lot of lyrics about childhood memories, dreams dying, and the main street that I grew up on in Tucson Arizona in the 80’s and 90’s… Cloud Road. The first song is the raw file you hear “Cloud Road Painkiller Freestyle.” That was done in one take off the dome. I quickly understood why so many artists get involved with Vicoden, Percoset etc. These five songs came to me in three days. The sixth was written for the TV show “Breaking Bad” but ultimately not chosen. CLOUD ROAD (CLICK FOR SAMPLE)
A different approach for me for sure. A nod to my teenage years in Tucson dying to go anywhere… now looking back and realizing I have gone everywhere. What’s next? I need another motivating factor to push me into whatever is next…
PRAY TO THE LORD
Back in high school, my friends and I would drive around all night and break into unlocked cars and steal stuff. We then took the stuff to Zia Records for trade money, Play it Again Sports for cash and second hand shops… One night a few guys broke into my old football coach’s truck and he was watching us from his window. At one point, one of the guys said he saw him flash a gun. We ran. The part about dropping my high school ring at the scene of the crime is based on a separate incident involving a girl’s bedroom when her boyfriend stopped by – but combining these two incidents into this song made sense.
MY MIND GOT MIXED WITH WANDERING
Yeah, where does the motivation go? I think I speak for a lot of young people here when I talk about how we all want to find that one comfortable place but then see something else a little more appealing just around the corner. I wasted a lot off my 20’s looking for something else and not recognizing what was in front of me.
JUST A LITTLE INTERMISSION
Again, painkillers had me rapping to myself a lot. And for some reason I was doing it in a Humpty Hump – Special Ed voice… This is a nod to the 90’s hip-hop I loved – and it’s really just a joke – as most of my rap songs are.
CLOUD ROAD PAINKILLER FREESTYLE
When putting this EP together, I came across this a week before releasing it. It is the seeds that grew into the title track of the record as well as the “Intermission” song. I was rapping into my phone on a galaxy of pain meds… In a studio this might actually be dope.
THE BALLAD OF JESSE PINKMAN
Since I rhymed about Jesse Pinkman in “Intermission,” I felt like this fit on this record as well. I wrote this before a season of breaking Bad and sent to the EP’s, tweeted about. And had a lot of show fans RT it as well. Ultimately, someone heard it and said they did not need any new music. So FUCK THEM. This song deserves to be heard, even if the show hasn’t been on for six years.
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.
Welcome to the 10th Circle of hell.
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.
This was the best body at the water park.
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.
The lazy river… Grabby kids, urine and hair clumps.
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 saw 35 of these tattoos.
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.
These tickets cost us roughly $60.00
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 author, detained by security for being a Yankees fan in LA.
By Zach Selwyn
I never knew that being drunk in a grocery store could be so much fun.
A couple of years ago, the Gelson’s at Franklin and Bronson decided to take out their magazine section and build a bar. Replete with rotating beer taps, three large TV screens, wine options and a full menu, it has slowly become the place to be seen in the Franklin Village neighborhood. And, it may not only be the best sports bar in Los Angeles… but also one of the best watering holes in the city today.
It just happens to be in a grocery store. And I was almost arrested there a few weeks back.
I first sat down at the Gelson’s Wine Bar a few Mondays ago, after purchasing a rotisserie chicken at the checkout stand. My sole intention was to check the score of the football game and head home. But, I started talking to a guy next to me named Tom. Two hours later, Tom and I were Instagram friends, I was on a first name basis with the bartender and I had devoured the entire chicken with my hands all while downing seven Hazy IPA’s.
Tom and I made a pact to come back for every Monday night game, and we agreed to each bring friends next time. Within weeks, the bar was standing room only, and we began having to show up two hours before the game started to even secure a seat.
Gelson’s has become the new No Vacancy.
Like the residents of this city, Los Angeles area grocery stores have ther own personalities. Hollywood folks know Rock ‘n’ Roll Ralph’s from the days when hair metal Gods slogged down the aisles with jugs of vodka in their hands… Influencers and Yoga Moms have made Erewhon the best place to be seen in LA and places like Trader Joe’s are full of everyday people buying cheap booze while mixing in a festive box of Peppermint Joe-Joe’s. Gelson’s has managed to remain innocuous, casually overcharging customers for basic foods and thriving in their deli counter and produce sections. As a grocery store, Gelson’s is a notch above, say, a Ralphs or a Vons, but they don’t have a smoothie bar or a massage chair, like Whole Foods or other gourmet stores. They do, however, happen to have the hottest bar in the city.
“I love it here,” a girl named Samantha told me after taking advantage of a two-dollars-off-draft-beer special. “It’s not dark, they don’t tax you and the food is decent. Plus, you just feel… safe.”
Samantha had a good point. What makes the Gelson’s Bar interesting and affordable is the fact that they are not allowed to add sales tax to bar bills and they refuse to let the customer tip the bartender. That’s a far cry from last week, when a bar on Cahuenga automatically added a 30 percent gratuity to my $23.00 bartab. The service wasn’t even good and the bartender complained about her dying acting career the entire time. And now, with everybody from fast food counter employees to Uber drivers expecting 20 to 30 percent tips on everything they do, it’s refreshing to be able to follow the old standard rules… Tip one dollar a drink. ( I normally go a little above and beyond this but I refuse to pay an extra $12.00 on an alcoholic beverage that is already marked up by 75 percent).
Also, there is a security guard, who I got to know fairly well after yelling obscenities at Dodgers players on TV during game three of the World Series a few weeks back. (For the record, I was detained for 20 minutes and told to not return until the series was over.)
“I totally understand… but can I pay for my chicken wings first?” I asked.
In Los Angeles, hot bars come and go. I still long for the days of Daddy’s, Dublin’s or even the old Powerhouse. But, did I ever think that I would choose to go grab a beer at a grocery store over, say, La Poubelle? No. But, where else can you shop for groceries and have four drinks while catching a Lakers game? Not to mention, the clientele is somewhat of a higher class than your average dive bar, which has been a a nice change from a place like the Frolic Room where two weeks ago a guy tried to get me to buy a tamale out of his coat pocket.
The fun thing is the sheer novelty of drinking in a grocery store. It actually puts everybody in a better mood. Jokes are made, drinks are bought and discussion often turns to what other institutions need a bar on the premise. (Most obvious suggestions have been laundromats and The DMV). Drinking at Gelson’s is a little like drinking in an airport. Everybody is in a good mood because they are bonding over the fact that the same place where they buy nine dollar boxes of Cinamon Toast Crunch for their kids also serves a Pineapple Cider for the same price.
As a parent of a young child back in the day I would often be asked to run to Gelson’s to get diapers when we ran out. I happily obliged my wife’s request, because I knew I could sneak into the Birds Bar with my neighbor for two quick beers. Sometimes I think about what would have happened if Gelson’s had a bar back then? I may have never made it home.
The one knock on the bar is that it is super bright, and does not do any favors for the beer goggle wearing crowd. In fact, it’s impossibly fluorescent at times so there is no hiding your age, wrinkles or skin damage the way a dark bar might do. If Casa Vega feels like midnight at 1:00 in the afternoon, the Gelson’s bar feels like a racquetball court at 9 AM. However, the people watching is incredible, local shoppers often scoff at your party following their trip through the meat section and it becomes really fun to try and convince customers to ditch their shopping list and join you for a quick beer. Last week, we successfully got a local friend who was picking up sushi for his family to delay his return home with two glasses of wine at the bar. He has since become a regular.
For years places like Whole Foods have had wine bars or beer tasting areas in their midst. But I have never sat down at Whole Foods intentionally with the goal of getting hammered. At Gelson’s, I recommend taking advantage of the Tuesday night non-corkage fee, where you can buy a $15.00 bottle in the store and drink it at the bar while watching the NBA. Sure, the trend these days for men my age is to stay at home and be responsible adults, but every once in a while a new bar in Los Angeles pops up that everybody gets excited about. I never thought it would be at the Gelson’s grocery store up the street from my house, but I am actually thrilled to say it has.
Come find me whenever you are ready. I’ll be the guy eating a rotisserie chicken with a bottle of wine yelling angrily at the three large TV screens.
Anna Faris is expanding her presence in the podcast world.
The Mom star and host of Anna Faris is Unqualified has launched a new podcast featuring Gone Girl actress Missi Pyle and actor-musician Zach Selwyn. Titled Missi and Zach Might Bang!, the new show is a fun mix of celebrity interviews and improv and is being executive produced by Faris and her Unqualified co-host/producer, Sim Sarna.
“[Missi and Zach] have spent their careers navigating Hollywood as actors and musicians, and now they are taking their multitude of talents and launching their podcast,” according to the show’s press release, which adds that it will feature “an array of improvisational songs, stories, laughter, and the immortal question… Will they ever bang?”
War Stories, My Stepfather and a Sony Discman. (Part 1)
The first time I got caught drinking, my mother thought that my stepfather, a man named Steven Fishco, should have a talk with me. After all, at the time, he had been sober for eight years and was one of Tucson, Arizona’s leading drug and alcohol rehabilitation counselors, working for recovery places like Sierra Tucson where rich people would spend ungodly amounts of money to send their troubled kids. Celebrities showed up as well, along with spoiled debutantes, trust-fund babies and occasionally, politicians. In the circles of rehab, Fishco was simply known as “the Fish” and he treasured the moniker as if he was a member of some secret Government Navy S.E.A.L.S. operation and that was his codename.
The Fish & His Beloved Mets Poster – 1988
Always wanting to know who had a serious drinking and alcohol problem, I would probe Fish for information on whatever ex-Major League baseball player or fading Hollywood star was enrolled in his rehab program. Unfortunately, he was a stickler for the rules and he never revealed his counselor-patient confidentiality agreement. Considering that Sierra Tucson cost roughly $45,000 a month, I’m sure many rock stars and celebrities were happy that some 14-year-old wasn’t running around junior high telling his friends about the time everybody’s favorite singer mainlined a jug of gasoline and copulated with a stuffed giraffe. Therefore, when Fish would tell us some funny stories about troubled Hollywood types and celebrities, he would mask their identities and I was always left guessing who the “serious dope fiend singer from that one band you like” was.
Because of the alcoholic horror stories, and the fact that Fish’s own mind was ruined from years of intravenous drug use and cocaine, I avoided drinking and smoking for most of high school. My friends accepted it and I occasionally lied to people to seem like I had been caught drinking and couldn’t afford to be grounded again, etc. Most everybody accepted this as my way in life. I would often quote Fish and his unique sayings that kept me away from drugs over the years. My favorite being, “Cocaine is an expensive way to get nervous.”
In the spring of 1992, At 16, I skipped school with some buddies and some cute girls to go wander around Sabino Canyon. Now that I’m much older and more environmentally aware, I recognize the canyon as a natural, beautiful Tucson national park and quite possibly the most serene place I can think of on earth. However, back in high school, it was simply a secluded place to drink, meet girls and bury empty cases of Budweiser cans in the desert as to not leave any evidence behind. (Sorry National Park Service.)
The day we skipped school was known on campus as “Senior Ditch Day,” and even though I wasn’t quite yet a senior, I knew that they were somewhat cool with me tagging along because I not only owned a Sony Discman, but because I liked to DJ parties with tapes, CD’s and my boom box. So, I loaded up the 50 CD’s I owned at the time along with my 75 cassingles and drove to go drink in the desert with a bunch of turtle-necked mullet-heads who listened to MC Hammer and loved Minitruckin’ Magazine. (For a rare few years in my high school, lowered mini trucks, turtlenecks and tight Z. Cavaricci pants were the only things that mattered to a select group of cool kids. “Minitruckin” was the art of buying a shitty truck, lowering it to the ground and spending thousands of dollars on paint, rims and 12-inch woofers to blast DJ Quik while spinning your ride around a parking lot.)
Courtesy of Mulletsgalore.com
Of course, one of the seniors immediately took over my system. As soon as I loaded up the music in the desert and set up my stereo to play an endless mix of Naughty by Nature and Metallica, a guy named Adam Lancer decided that he was going to DJ and that I was going to be forced fed beer while teaching him how to seamlessly mix songs. Never wanting anybody to touch my equipment, I was reluctant at first but eventually gave in to him because, well, he was a cool senior with a killer set of Oakley sunglasses and the hottest girlfriend on campus. Admittedly, trying to feel cool, I tried to match him drink for drink. Needless to say, I soon found myself giggling and slurring, while confidently trying to brush my hand up against senior girl Heather Tyrtanna’s butt in her tight, stonewashed Guess Jeans. When she didn’t seem to mind, I kept doing it and eventually let Adam Lancer have full control of my boom box. As one beer turned into six, I suddenly developed an insane confidence to convince Heather to take a private walk with me in the desert where we made out (and dry-humped) for 15 minutes. That beautiful moment was all I needed to realize that all those years I avoided drinking were a complete waste of time.
The party was broken up about an hour later when two cops ran up on the desert gathering and the kids scattered like roadrunners. As the dozen or so lowered 1991 Isuzu pick ups high-tailed it out of the parking lot, I was left gathering my CD’s and tapes and watching Heather Tyrtanna run off with senior Miguel Arroyo in his 1990 Honda CRX. A bit drunk and confused, I was able to pull off a decent straight man when the cops asked me what I was doing in the middle of the desert on a school day. After a few questions and a lot of probing, I told them I was 22 years old.
“You don’t look 22, you got ID on you?” One cop asked.
“I don’t have it right now,” I slurred.
When they asked me what I was doing with a bunch of stereo equipment, I thought of the best lie I could possibly come up with.
“I’m actually an employee of Desert DJ’s,” I said. “A bunch of kids hired me to play this party… for 50 bucks.”
Desert DJ’s was the company that had DJ’d my Bar Mitzvah.
“Young man, are you intoxicated?” The cop prodded.
“Of course not,” I said.
I then proceeded to knock all of my music into the sand and fall down.
Having a patrol car escort you home at age 16 is a pretty traumatic experience for a high school kid. Especially since I had a backpack full of CD’s and severe penile chaffing from grinding my crotch up against Heather’s jeans for 15 minutes. When they pulled up into the driveway, my mother ran outside hysterically screaming. Once the cops calmed her down, she watched as I slumped my way inside the house and proceeded to projectile vomit all over the bathroom. Amazingly, my mother tried to convince the policemen that I was an Ivy-League bound honor student and that a “Minor in Possession” ticket would ruin my future. Somehow, they believed her.
20 minutes later, my mom brought me some water and told me to go to bed before warning me that we would have a serious talk when I woke up. The policeman left and the last thing I remember my mom saying before I drifted off into the dark abyss of my first ever drinking hangover was, “Where the fuck is your car?”
When I woke up at 6:00 that night, Fish was standing in my room.
“Yo Z!” He exclaimed. “Tied one on this morning, hey baby?”
As I scrambled my throbbing thoughts and felt the dry contact lenses cracking in my bloodshot eyes, I asked him what had happened. He simply dangled my car keys in my face and said, “Get up, mom wants me to take you to get your car.”
The ride back towards Sabino Canyon only took about 15 minutes from my house. As I became increasingly aware of the rawness I had inflected on my private parts attempting to grind Heather’s zipper open, Fish tried in his own unique way to scare me away from the perils of drugs and alcohol.
“So, how many beers did you slam this morning?” He asked, sounding like a one of my buddies and less than a parental figure.
“I think 5 or six,” I said.
“What a PUSSY, man! What are you a lightweight?”
As I opened the window for some fresh air, I was suddenly aware that Fish was not going to lecture me on the perils of drinking. Instead, he began relaying to me story after story about his 20 years in the trenches of inebriation. In Alcoholics Anonymous, they call these tales “War Stories.” Apparently Fish was the KING. He told me that every single patient at Sierra Tucson loved him and his war stories.
Like how in college when he took three consecutive spring breaks to Colombia. Not the District of Colombia, but Colombia, South America.
“Bought three grams of coke and two ‘party girls’ for me and my buddy Larry Goldbeer… Man, first time I had a semi automatic rifle pulled on me!”
“The first time?” I asked, gingerly.
Another great story involved seeing Jimi Hendrix on LSD n 1967. And then there was the drinking with Jim Morrison, the spliff rolling with Bob Marley and the three straight days he spent shooting junk with James Taylor on Martha’s Vineyard. I suddenly came to the conclusion that this wiry-haired man-child from New Jersey, who I had lived with for ten years and only bonded with over baseball and reggae music, was the coolest person I had ever met.
“Now listen Z,” he said, suddenly getting serious. “The key is moderation. Now me? I got no way to control myself. Once the bottle cap is twisted off, you might as well consider the bottle finished – once I won a rum drinking contest at Club Hedonism in Jamaica and fell asleep in the ocean.”
“How did you survive?”
“Some native chick I was banging saved my life man… Threw me in my hotel room and I woke up 3 days later.”
Although the threat of upsetting my mother and father was still the top priority on why I would probably never drink again, the stories Fish was churning out made it seem that the only way I was ever going to have any adventures at all was to begin a lifelong relationship with drugs and alcohol. I mean, at 16, my life was pretty simple. Go to school. Go to basketball practice. Masturbate. Go to Jewish youth group. Masturbate again. Watch Beverly Hills 90210. Maybe masturbate during Beverly Hills 90210… I needed some new escapades.
As we pulled into the parking lot of Sabino Canyon, I noticed my 1988 Dodge still parked by the entrance of the park. Fish pulled his car next to it and we talked for a minute about what drugs I had seen at school. Truth was, I had only seen a few hesher kids smoke pot once or twice. I heard that other kids did it, but in early 1992, weed wasn’t exactly everyone’s drug of choice. Of course, six weeks later The Chronic by Dr. Dre came out and everybody I knew suddenly began smoking dirt brown Mexican mota and fastening wooden pipes during Shop Class.
“Let me tell you one last story,” Fish said, solemnly looking out towards the Santa Catalina Mountains.
“1980, man, I went to visit my buddy Gary Guccinelli in Houston. We decided to do some coke and go to the Astrodome with his dad who had season tix… Of course we drank in the car before the game and then when we got there, we started smoking reefer up in the upper deck because the place was fucking EMPTY, man.”
All I could envision was the horrible Houston Astros uniforms on my 1980 Topps Nolan Ryan baseball card. He pressed on.
“Anyway, we went down to his dad’s seats man and then we just started drinking whatever we could find… Mainly beer, but you know it was a combo platter for me with all the dope and the blow and whatever… Anyway, Gary’s dad was kinda senile, so he gets up and starts walking up the row of seats, so Gary goes to follow him. I stayed in the seats because I was waaaay too sayonara baby, you know? Next thing I know, I’m yelling out at Cesar Cedeno (The Astros talented multi-tooled player who was at the end of his career in 1980) about when he killed his girlfriend when they were fucking blotto drunk, man. So Cedeno keeps looking back at me, and finally points his finger at me and next thing I know, two cops have me around the neck and are escorting me out of the stadium.”
Fish’s arch enemy – the man who had him locked up – Cesar Cedeno
“Wait, who killed Cesar Cedeno’s girlfriend?” I asked.
“In like 1973 he and some chick he was screwing were playing Russian Roulette and the girl was shot and killed and Cedeno got off,” he explained.
“So what happened after you were taken out of the stadium?”
“Bottom line was, I WASN’T taken out of the stadium, man… I got thrown in Astrodome Jail!”
“Astrodome Jail?”
Apparently, the Houston Astrodome had a jail for drunk and disorderly fans during the 1970’s. Fish was taken there and thrown into a cell with 3 other rowdy men who had been detained for various reasons. I asked him who the other prisoners were.
“2 drunken Indians and some 70-year-old guy who pissed on himself during the 3rd inning,” he said. “Anyway, Gary and his dad ended up leaving the game and I had to take a taxi back to their house 5 hours later and when I got there Gary had called my mom in New Jersey and told her that I was missing. Of course my mother told him it was the 5th time I had been reported missing that year so she didn’t get too worried. Meanwhile, Gary’s dad went to sleep and I told Gary my story about being locked up for five innings in the Astrodome.”
“Wow,” I said. “Was that when you decided to get sober?”
“Are you kidding me? Gary and I took his dad’s car and went to a bar until six in the morning!”
I decided to show Fish where the party had taken place, but Sabino Canyon was closed for the evening and we were asked to leave by the Park Ranger. I got in my car and followed Fish home, doing my best to not go even one mile above the speed limit. When we got back, my mom asked me if we had spoken about the incident. She said she hoped I had learned my lesson and I told her that I had before thanking her for getting the cops to not issue me a MIP ticket. We hugged and I crawled into bed to sleep the rest of my hangover off. After slathering my genitalia with gobs of Neosporin.
Guess Jeans similar to the ones that annihilated my crotch in the early 90’s
The next morning, I went to gather a few CD’s for my drive to school. It was then that I first realized that not only was my Sony Discman missing, but so were at least 5 of my perfectly alphabetized and organized CD’s. I could not find “OPP” by Naughty by Nature, LL COOL J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out,” “Nevermind” by Nirvana, Color Me Badd’s “CMB” and, oddly enough, “The Soul Cages” by Sting.
Later at school, I noticed that Adam Lancer was walking around the hallway with my Discman. Assuming that he had my CD’s as well, I knew I would have to confront him and get my stuff back. Of course, when I approached him in between 2nd and 3rd period and asked for my Discman back, he said, “Don’t you remember giving this to me when you were wasted?”
The 60 pound Discman I cherished in 1992
I didn’t. However, based on my minor blackout, I couldn’t be sure if he was lying. Still, I knew I had to get my stuff back. What would follow over the next week were some of the most humiliating events of my life. However, at the end of it all, through a carefully calculated game plan that included falsifying Government documents, blackmail and a web of deceit, I would suddenly have the reputation as the craziest partier in my junior class…
…TO BE CONTINUED
*Zach’s First Collection of Short Stories and Essays, “Talent Will Get You Nowhere” will be published in Early 2014 by DIRT CITY PRESS!*
Please Keep watching GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS UNLEASHED! on TRUtv – 8pm Thursdays!
Every television show would be more interesting if Zach Selwyn was on it.
Thankfully, TruTV has enlisted the multi-talented Los Angeles native to serve as a color commentator for Guinness World Records Unleashed. Zach’s dry and relentless wit is a perfect match for a show about the outrageous and the impressive. BFTV caught up with him on Wednesday to chat about the new season of GRWU and what else is new for the eternally lovable TV personality.
In just last week’s premiere, Zach has had to discuss one gentleman attempting to set the world record for most kicks to his own head in one minute, and another aiming to dunk a donut into a cup of coffee from higher than anyone else has ever dunked before. These are some pretty crazy things, so how many times does he question people’s sanity?
“Oh, countless. I’d say at least three times an episode, I was concerned that somebody was going to get really hurt and occasionally die,” he told us, joking that “You know it’s a good show when you think people are going to die.”
Not that he’s on the set just to poke fun at the competitors. “I admire all these guys,” Zach said, though he did confirm GWRU host Dan Cortese’s story that he once made a vague attempt to break a world record himself. “It was the most amount of donut holes eaten in either 60 seconds or 90 seconds,” he reflected. “I think I got to like four.”
Since we let Dan dish on Zach when we spoke to him last week, it was only appropriate to flip the script and let Zach talk about Dan. “Dan’s incredibly professional,” he told us, “and very tan. And very muscular. He’s very intimidating, because I don’t think any man alive should have the physique that he has at his age.”
But being impressively in shape doesn’t mean Dan is safe from Zach’s humor: “I certainly did a bunch of Veronica’s Closet jokes and Rock ‘N’ Jock jokes,” Zach revealed.
His commentary on Guinness World Records Unleashed is just the latest TV gig for Zach, who’s become a TV mainstay over the years with credits like G4’s Attack of the Show!, Science Channel’s Catch It Keep It, and let us not forget the greatness that was GSN’s Extreme Dodgeball. If you can put it on TV, he can make it funny.
And if that’s not good enough for you, he’s also an actor and a musician, with a healthy iTunes catalog. His album Ghost Signs has seriously been in our rotation for ten years. Then there’s his comedy web series, The Reportist. Check out Zach’s observations on graffiti in the video with this article.
Zach has plenty of projects to keep him occupied going into next year. “I’m going to start shooting Season 2 of a show on History called America’s Secret Slang. That should come out in 2014. I’m putting out a new record,” he told us. “And I wrote a book, too, that’s going to be coming out in 2014. It’s called Talent Will Get You Nowhere. It’s a collection of short stories.” Somehow, he manages all of this on top of being a devoted family man. That’s one heck of a balancing act (dare we say world record-worthy?).
Not that you’ll ever hear him complain. “I’m very happy to be working in any capacity and working with the good people of Guinness,” Zach reflected. “Ultimately down the line, hosting and acting and music are all things I’m passionate about. I’d like to somehow combine all three. I just hope that everything I’m doing continues to resonate with someone out there.” And we hope that he sticks around for a long, long time.
You can catch Zach every Thursday night at 8 PM ET/PT as part of Guinness World Records Unleashed on TruTV. You should also visit his website (zachselwyn.com) and follow him on Twitter (@ZachSelwyn).
Hollywood is a notoriously tough town. About 99 percent of the people who arrive here daily to become television or movie stars end up scrambling to make ends meet, strung out on drugs or alcohol or waiting tables at some awful Middle Eastern restaurant buried deep in the San Fernando Valley. In my 15 years here, I have seen a fair amount of contemporaries pull in with glossy head shots, star-crossed eyes and dreams of red carpet idolatry, only to return to their parent’s houses as quickly as six months into their silver screen adventures. Most men or women barely scratch the surface in this town. Some might land a commercial or two or even become a member of somebody’s entourage, but the majority of these illusionary dreamers end up as footnotes to the lucky ones… Cast-aways who are quickly replaced – and rarely remembered. If they’re lucky, they might meet one or two people in five years who have found success. To tell you the truth, however… even that is a stretch.
For most starry-eyed dreamers, Hollywood ends up like this
Yet somehow, for reasons unknown, three of my wife’s ex-boyfriends – who she briefly dated prior to our relationship – happen to be incredibly famous and successful superstar film and TV stars.
I am not at liberty to mention them by name, but let’s just say that you have seen them on screen. You have possibly bought an Entertainment Magazine because they were on the cover. If you’re a woman, you may have imagined one or two of them in your mind while being intimate with your boyfriend or husband. You have fainted while meeting them at San Diego Comic Con… Two of them have even been on lunch boxes. I’m talking huge f-ing stars.
Now, according to my wife, before she met these three guys, they were simply struggling actors, living on Top Ramen and tips for bartending and waiting tables at places like the now vanished Italian restaurant “Pane E Vino.” Once she broke up with them, however, their careers took off and they now all own multiple homes and squire fabulous starlets around the covers of In Touch and Us Magazines.
As my wife would say, she has the “golden vagina.”
In the 12 years we have been together, I have certainly seen my television career take off – being lucky enough to host a bunch of shows and land a few acting jobs, and I am grateful and appreciative for any work I’ve received. Yet, as a competitive man, I am very aware that I am still miles away from the careers of the three aforementioned actors whom previously shared my wife’s bed.
Which makes me think that the only way my dreams of becoming a successful film and TV actor will come true, is if my wife divorces me.
I jokingly posted this thought on Twitter a few months back and received a huge amount of response from thousands of followers trying to figure out who these actors were. Guesses ranged from Bradley Cooper to the Rza – but I would not reveal their names to anybody. In defense of my wife, she was never a slut… In fact, she once turned down a sexual advance from a very drugged-out Chris Farley after he flew her and a friend on a private jet to Hawaii after a night of partying in Hollywood. (She gave me Chris’ XXXL green shirt a few years back – which still hangs in my closet today).
Other Twitter followers suggested the usual Hollywood cocksmen – David Spade, Jeremy Piven… Charlie Sheen et al. Thing is, those guys were already stars before my wife even moved to LA. No. Her celebrity cache was founded on the strength of her sense of humor, encouragement and her all out sexual power.
When I “hung up my boner” at age 26, after meeting my wife, Wendy, I had but one celebrity conquest on my “sex resume.” (Not including ex-Playmates and flash-in-the-pan actresses). She was an actress named Danielle Fishel – who played the girl “Topanga” on Boy Meets World and at the time she was 19-years-old and I was 22. She also happened to be dating ‘NSYNC now-out-of-the-closet star Lance Bass just before me, so when we hooked up one night at a celebrity-filled bar called “Dublin’s” on Sunset Boulevard (Now also torn down), I thought I had scored an A-List hottie. (For the record, we never had sex – just made out in a bar and in my driveway for three hours).
Bottom line? Not exactly Motley Crue kind of sex-capades. In fact, when I ran into Danielle seven years later when she was hosting a show on Style Network called The Dish, she had no idea who I was.
Topanga from “Boy Meets World” ended up on Maxim Magazine this year.
At the same time, Wendy was living it up in private jets, drinking with Keith Richards at the Whiskey Bar at the Sunset Plaza, being flown to New York by record executives (Remember them?) and living an all-around fabulously privileged life for a hot woman in her late 20’s. I was still traveling to Puerto Vallarta with my family over Christmas for snorkeling adventures… Advantage: Wife.
How I ended up with Wendy is another story, but the fact is, we’re perfect soul mates. I could not be luckier. And nobody has told me this more than the three famous exes she at one-time dated…
I have now met them all.
Roughly three years ago I was in an electronics store when I ran into undoubtedly the most famous of these exes. He is a star on a very popular TV show now in it’s 9th season or something. He is cool and handsome and built and talented and I wondered why my wife would ever decide that they weren’t right for each other. I approached him as he perused a $7500 outdoor flat screen and weatherproof speaker system and told the salesman it was for his, “Homies to watch the Lakers game” that evening.
“Hey, bro,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow and gave me the once over – not unlike his character does to criminals on his TV show.
“Just wanted to say hi – I’m a fan… I’m Zach – I married Wendy Thompson…”
His face lit up. He waved away the salesman and high-fived me. He smiled and said, “Dude! How’d you ever pin her down?”
Relieved, I laughed it off.
“I dunno, man… we just clicked!”
“Dude, I tried so hard to make her like, my serious girlfriend and she just never went for it… you must be a STUD.”
I laughed and tore off a fingernail, nervously. I should have asked him for a guest-starring role on his show right there. Instead I over-stayed my welcome by hanging around and watching him buy electronic equipment that cost the same as the credit card debt I had recently wracked up re-piping the copper sewer tubes beneath my front lawn
Finally, after realizing how much of a tool I was being, I turned around and walked away. He called after me.
“Yo, broseph – tell Wendy I said ‘hi,’” he said.
“I will man,” I responded giddily. “Keep on keeping on!”
As I drove home, dreaming of a career like his, and the ability to walk into an over-priced electronics store and plunk down seven G’s so I could watch sports outside of my living room, I thought about how lame it had been that he had called me “Broseph.” TV star or not, the dude was not as impressive as I had once thought…I mean, “Broseph?” Come on.
Although I had wished he had invited me to watch that Lakers game…
I ran into the second of my wife’s famous ex-boyfriends at the 2012 Hollywood Holiday Gifting Suite – where already-way-too-rich celebrities walk around a room at a hotel and accept free shit from vendors hoping to get a celebrity endorsement. Believe it or not, these places exist, and a star like, say, Brian Cranston can walk into one of these any time he wants and be handed $50,000 worth of useless shit for free as long as he poses for a picture with the product. This gifting suite was full of everything you don’t really need. Nespresso Brand Espresso Makers, Stainless Steel facial massagers, strawberry-crystal body scrubs, electronic cigarettes with actor Stephen Dorff’s image in the box…. It was a madhouse. I happened to be there because my friend was one of the vendors and he had snuck me in on the guest list. I was allowed through the velvet rope only after a crew of 20-something girls IMDB’d me and noticed that I was hosting a TV show on AMC. (IMDB is the Internet Movie Data Base… a website full of credits for performers all around the world)
After drinking some horrible peach bellinis with former NBA-player turned TV host John Salley, I strolled through the suite hoping to get anything worth selling on ebay. It was then that I saw Wendy’s ex from the 90’s… a well-known film and TV star who was wheeling around a metal cart full of free stuff behind him.
After observing his behavior for a few minutes, which basically included barking orders at his suite-host and jamming as much crap into his metal basket as he could, I came to the conclusion that he must be a world-class asshole. My wife had mentioned that he had endured years of drug and alcohol abuse, but was supposedly on the straight and narrow now… Still, if there was a rehab for douchebaggery, this guy needed to be shipped there immediately.
At the conclusion of the walk-through, my suite loot consisted of two gold-plated pens, a set of thermal pajamas and an Ipad charger that powered up 9 different devices at the same time. I also got a free week in a Bahamian Hard Rock Hotel… but I was responsible for getting myself there. Basically, that will never happen. Compared to the other actors in the suite, I barely registered. Nobody had heard of the AMC show I was hosting and my request for any of the bigger items was denied.
I wasn’t really that insulted by the lack of attention until I saw Tila Tequila loading up her Range Rover with about six Espresso makers.
Tila Tequila got 6 Espresso Makers
As I waited with a small crowd for my car, I decided to let ex number two know that I had been the one who snagged Wendy Thompson away… It was a small victory, but one I needed to share.
“Hey man,” I said. “You’re that guy from that film, right?” I said.
“Yeah, man… what up.”
“Did you used to date Wendy Thompson?”
He paused and looked me over as his suite host loaded up his Mercedes SUV with free gifts. He lit his new electronic cigarette.
“Yeah, a long time ago, why?”
“Funny, I was going through some old photo albums and saw a bunch of pictures of you in them… like from ’97, right?”
Ex number two cracked his neck and stared me down. He was menacing and steel-eyed. The rasp in his voice screamed of a decade old cocaine habit.
“Why were you going through her photo albums?” He wanted to know.
“Oh, we’re married and I’m sort of the ‘family scrapbooker’” I replied, immediately feeling like a total dweebazoid.
“No way!” He said. “Dude, tell her I said hi… Is she seeing anybody?”
This comment obviously took me aback, considering I had just mentioned that we were married. I came to a quick conclusion that ex number two was not exactly a very bright bulb.
“Uhh, yeah, actually we’re married,” I repeated.
As he peeled a 20-dollar bill off of a fold and handed it to his suite host, he came back and shook my hand.
“I gotta hand it to you, man… She’s a keeper. Don’t fuck it up like I did.”
“Oh, thanks. I won’t.”
At that point, he stared at my meager haul from the gifting suite. It all fit in one canvas bag.
“Dude, you didn’t get an Espresso Maker?” He inquired.
The truth was, I wasn’t offered one. The PR department at Nespresso did not think I was recognizable enough to warrant a gift.
“Naah, dude… We have two already – I didn’t need one,” I lied.
“Bro, all this stuff isn’t for you! I give all this shit away to my family, my sisters, my housekeeper, my agent… You think I really want a stainless steel facial massager? Hell no – my assistant is getting that!”
I nodded. He was smarter than I thought. He had just done all his holiday shopping in one spot for the price of a photograph or two. I was now pissed that I didn’t get a coffee machine.
“Nice to meet you, man,” I offered before he walked to the side of his car to drive off.
“You too, man. Tell Wendy what up for me… And good luck with that! Don’t do what I did!”
And with that, he was gone – off to another gifting suite across town where he would work the Hollywood system once more.
As the family “scrapbooker,” I organize old postcards, photos, etc. into albums.
When I got home and told Wendy this story, she proceeded to remind me of his inhuman drug intake, his dismissal from two big Hollywood films and the fact that she once walked in on him masturbating to an Avril Lavigne music video during a family dinner party. We finally agreed that he was a total loser, and I kissed her goodnight fully knowing that I was the luckiest one because I got to sleep next to her. Of course, once the lights went off, she knew exactly how to make me second guess my afternoon’s actions.
“Really?” She said. “You couldn’t get one Nespresso maker?”
Ex number three is currently one of the biggest stars in the world. He sort of stalked Wendy when he followed her to a bar called “Smalls” after a Social Distortion concert in the mid 90’s. His indie film was a big industry darling at the time, and it would eventually lead him to a worldwide recognition. That night at Smalls, he introduced her to Quentin Tarantino and some other heavy partiers who carried the weight of Hollywood in their back pockets. A few dates followed and he casually bumped into her at the restaurant where she worked for awhile until a tabloid photo surfaced of him with a stunningly famous blonde in a Jacuzzi. Since Wendy wasn’t exactly committed to him at the time, she shrugged it off and went on her way. Within a year he was starring in a huge film and three years later he was one of Hollywood’s highest paid actors. All after dating my wife.
Many of my wife’s exes are Comic Con superstars
I ran into him at the Hotel Café on Cahuenga one night after my band had finished playing.
It was a decent crowd for a Thursday. We played a lively set and the owners were all excited about the future of our band. Beer and wine flowed and we all ended up doing shots at the bar before it had expanded into the bigger venue that it is today. It was then that I met ex number three.
Getting to him was harder than the others. He was obviously out to be seen, and had a nest of beautiful women clucking at his feet. When I finally poked through the crowd to order another beer on the band tab, he stopped me.
“Your band was good, I love outlaw country,” he said.
Again, I should have handed him a CD and asked him to get a song in his films. Instead, I brought up Wendy.
“Dude, this is so funny!” I yelled over the crowd. “I married Wendy Thompson!”
He leaned down into my space and took out some homemade ear plugs fastened from paper bar napkins.
“You have a hairy Johnson?” He responded.
Like him or not, the dude was funny.
“No, haha,” I continued. “I married Wendy Thompson…”
He took a minute to register who I was talking about. Apparently, they had been together for two months roughly eight years earlier, but I still expected him to react a little more intrigued.
Instead, he nodded his head and said, “Did I ever sleep with her?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “But you dated awhile back…”
He replaced the earplugs in his ear and looked my way once more. He obviously had no clue who Wendy was or why I was so interested in sharing my matrimonial conquest with him.
He slugged his beer and yelled at me once more.
“If I did sleep with her, that means we’re Eskimo Brothers,” he said.
(For the record, according to UrbanDictionary.com, the term “Eskimo Brothers” is Used to describe two men who have had sex with the same woman.)
Terrific.
“Nice to meet you man,” I screamed.
“Congratulations on getting married,” he said before turning around to watch the next band. Disturbed, I went outside to bum an American Spirit from somebody.
That night I got home and relayed the story to Wendy, who at this point, was starting to find it strange that I was running into all of her exes around town. She said that ex number three was always an ego-maniac and didn’t seem to remember or even care about anyone but himself.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “He was kind of stand-offish…”
We spoke about how famous these guys had become since she had dated them and how successful they seemed on paper and in the magazines, but my wife is always one who is well aware of the fact that success does not equal happiness. As we shared some wine that night and laughed at the incident at the Hotel Café, I relayed how lucky I felt to have found her and to have started our family together and that even if I never became some huge star, I would never ask her to dump me for my own personal success.
Lying in bed that night, I asked her once again if she regretted dumping any of these exes who had turned out to become Hollywood A-Listers.
She rolled over, kissed me softly on the lips and said, “Yes.”
I laughed so hard, I nearly threw up on my thermal pajamas.
“Well, I look at it this way,” I said. “I’m ‘Eskimo Brothers’ with some pretty huge stars…”
She laughed.
“Who am I ‘Eskimo Sisters’ with?” She inquired.
I thought about it for a long time.
“Well, almost Topanga from Boy Meets World,” I said.
She put her arms around me and smiled.
I kissed her on the forehead and turned out the light.
COME SEE ZACH’S BAND PLAY POWERHOUSE in HOLLYWOOD! – TUESDAY NIGHT ! 7:00 -9:00 pm
10 years ago last night – on April 23rd, 2003, Zachariah and the Lobos Riders took the stage at the KING KING in Hollywood to release one of the world’s first country-rock rap hybrid albums.
It garnered interesting reviews from a few magazines and newspapers and led Z and company (Dan, Jeff, Jim and Scott) down a long glorious road trip of friendship, partying and music.
If you’d like to listen to this album, which still holds a very special place in the band member’s hearts, please check it out HERE…
Here’s the video for one of our most well-received songs, “Tucson Afternoon…” Enjoy and RIDE ON! NEW ALBUM COMING SOON! WE PROMISE!!!
Watch “America’s Secret Slang” Sunday nights at 7pm 10 est on H2!
Host Zach Selwyn hits the streets to ask everyday people what they know about the origins and meaning of American slang, and then he reveals the true etymology and hidden history of common phrases and words that are unique to the United States. In each 30-minute episode, Selwyn focuses on a specific period in American history, revealing words the originated during that era or had significance for the geographic region. The six episodes in Season 1 were: “Guns, Booze, and Politics,” focusing on common phrases during the Prohibition Era that related to politics, firearms and alcohol, such as pork barrel projects, slush funds, lame ducks, falling off the wagon, teetotaler, bootlegger, and skid row; “Them’s Fighting Words,” highlighting idioms popularized during periods of war, from the American Revolution to WWII, such as basket case, Yankee, bought the farm, sideburns, deadlines, and hookers; “Y’all Speak Country,” featuring slang of the American South, like y’all, rednecks, fly off the handle, having an axe to grind, and barking up the wrong tree; “Westword Ho!,” chronicling common expressions from the American frontier — riffraff, betting your bottom dollar, passing the buck, acid test, and heard it through the grapevine; “Coming to America,” documenting common sayings from immigrants; and “Talking Turkey.”
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Zach Selwyn 