Veronicas Closet | Zach Selwyn

Recently, on social media and my website, I have made no secret of my modern return into the world of competitive basketball. I play full court four days a week at the Hollywood YMCA and recently entered a Three-on-Three tournament against other fathers at elementary schools, which I happened to have won. (My proudest athletic achievement in my life to date – not counting the time I took Colton – the star 7-year-old pitcher – DEEP in a father-son Little League game last summer…)

Ray, me and James – LCS 3 on 3 Dad Champions

I have re-discovered a love for the game I haven’t had sine 1993 and I’m actually a better player now than I have ever been.

Throughout my life and into high school, basketball was everything. As a 6’2” inch eighth grader, I was groomed by my coach to become the next great Arizona Wildcats big man. Unfortunately, I haven’t grown an inch since eighth grade. I switched to the wing, where I lacked certain skills, but was still able to hold my own mainly because I was actually grabbing the rim with ease and in top physical shape. However, around age 18, I discovered the usual pitfalls – Weed, beer and women – and decided that since I had no chance, or interest in walking on my college team, I would hang up my Air Jordan XII’s and I only stepped on the court a handful of times over the ensuing decade.

The author (circa 1992) on the left just before discovering cannabis.

A few years ago, however, I was listening to UCLA great and fellow Grateful Dead-Head Bill Walton broadcast an Arizona- Oregon basketball game, when something he said struck me deep inside. After he spent a few minutes comparing some obscure 1970’s Bob Dylan song to the Oregon Ducks’ fast-break technique, he discussed his history of injuries he attained while playing. At the end of this sidebar, Bill Walton claimed to have broken his nose 13 times.

“That’s what happens when you play defense with your face,” he exclaimed.

He also mentioned his surgically fused ankles, incinerated spine, broken wrists, 36 surgeries and broken leg – all suffered on the basketball court. Walton’s lifelong injuries, along with his 1978–1979 year-long protest of the Portland Trail Blazers unethical treatment of his injuries, gave him the record of missing the most games during an NBA playing career, when taking into account the number of years he was officially listed as a player on a team roster. He spoke of how debilitating it became to walk and I researched even deeper to see that Walton once even contemplated suicide due to severe depression from debilitating back pain.

However, Walton then made a comment that made his life on the disabled list seem even more surreal… He observed a certain move power forward Solomon Hill had made and remarked, “That is a move to study – for those of you who are still lucky enough to play basketball…”

Lucky? How could 13 broken noses and suicidal thoughts be considered lucky? I felt that I was lucky to have quit basketball with my original nose still in place. What was Walton talking about?

Attempting to find out, the next day I dusted off some 10-year-old shoes and made my first trip to a court in what was nearly five or six years. I checked out a basketball at the YMCA that looked as if it had spent a good majority of its life underwater, and went to shoot around. It took me awhile, but eventually I was making short jump shots and working on my cardiovascular fitness while running up and down the gymnasium floor. Some of my old spin moves came back to me, and I put up a couple of nice finger rolls and hit some three pointers. It actually felt amazing.

About an hour later, a few guys asked me if I wanted to play “21” with them, but I declined, afraid of shooting 9 air balls and getting embarrassed. Instead, I continued to work on some post moves and drives and watched them from the corner of my eye. They were laughing, having fun and playing just above the level where I was – which made me think I might have hung in there if I had accepted their challenge. Instead, I returned my ball and went home and told myself I’d be back the next day.

I did come back the next day. And the next. I ran that court nearly every other day for months until I was actually joining the games of 21 and winning a good majority of the time. For the first time in over a decade, I was having a lot of fun playing basketball. I soon found myself in the full court games and now, three years later, found myself coming home and discussing the games with my wife as if I was playing in the NBA Finals. It became an obsession to the point where if I missed a lay-up during a game, I got depressed for the rest of the day. Still, it drove me to come back again, improve and remedy the situation.

My shrink had me draw a self portrait of what made me happy. Statistics are “close enough…”

My wife thought I was nuts. Every time I would bring up my day on the court, she would roll her eyes and remind me that I’m more Kevin Arnold than I am Kevin Durant. She also warned me to be careful, to which I reminded her that I was playing against a bunch of guys in their 30’s and that I was in better shape than most of them.

And then, about six months ago, I got smashed in the nose by a teenager who lowered his shoulder into me on a penetration. My nose now cracks in both directions when I try to move it, but I luckily avoided a full break. Then, a couple weeks later I was slightly concussed after being run under by a guy who was pissed that I was outplaying him. I ended up sitting out two days nursing my brain – which luckily was not permanently damaged. In December, I took an elbow to the bridge of my nose, which caused it to bleed profusely all over the court and earned me 75 “likes” on Instagram.

Blood on the basketball court. 75 “likes” on Instagram

In February, I jammed my left thumb so hard during a rebound that I am still having trouble operating the zippers on my jeans. Then I jammed my right pointer and ring finger in consecutive games. I’m consistently fighting shin splints and a bone spur. Finally, last week, I discovered that I have bursitis in my right shoulder and that I might not be able to play for three weeks or so. This will be my first trip to the disabled list in my athletic career. And I’m a month away from 40. According to my dad, the injuries will now just start piling up. In short, I am about to enter my Bill Walton years. Now, my family is giving me all kinds of advice.

“Maybe think about not playing anymore,” my mother offered. “You know, you’re no spring chicken.”

I hung up on her.

“A spin class is much better on your body,” my dad suggested. I simply sent him pictures of my three-on-three trophy and told him I’d be back on the court in a month.

“Don’t do anything stupid, you don’t want to really hurt yourself,” my wife told me.

I rolled my eyes and studied Russell Westbrook highlights like it was important game film.

During the past week, I have found myself watching Bill Walton again. I guess recently there have been petitions to remove him from the Pac-12 broadcast booth, which upsets me entirely. Sure, he can go on tangents about the time Bob Weir and him spoke Arabic to camels in the Egyptian desert, but his unique and loveable qualities are what make him a treasure in the booth. He’s not a cookie-cutter color guy. He’s quotable and full of basketball wisdom. In fact, he may be my favorite college basketball announcer working today. Not only does he know the game, he makes it fun. I know he seems like he might be high or severely “out-there” once in awhile, but his love for the game is like nobody’s I’ve ever heard before. Not only that, his passion for the game is what got me playing basketball again.

Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead in Egypt ’76

Without Bill Walton, I’d still be jogging three miles on a treadmill. Not competing and not getting any sense of accomplishment.

For that, I thank you Mr. Walton. For inspiring me to lace up my sneakers that early morning three and a half years ago and return to the sport of my youth.

Walton at the height of his game resembling the lead singer of My Morning Jacket. (1978)

The evening after I won the three-on-three “Dads” championship, my wife said I had a “glow” about me. I knew what she was talking about, because I felt it. It was a sense of invincibility and achievement. I felt young again. Above the rim. It brought to mind a famous Bill Walton quote I had read years ago when he said, “You don’t win championships by being normal, by being average…”

I may have only defeated a bunch of dads in a Saturday pick-up tournament, but for those of us who are just hanging onto the final glimpses of what we might be able to accomplish as men, it was as if I won an NBA Championship.

Now if you excuse me, I have to go ice my shoulder. I’m planning on returning to the court earlier than expected…

The LCS “3 on 3” basketball trophies I won. My proudest athletic achievement to date.

Buy Zach’s BOOK at amazon.com!

**UPDATE!** Read Bill Walton’s email to ZACH below following the publication of this essay!!

Bill.Walton <bill.walton@billwalton.com

to me

all good things in all good time

here we go—-forward, furthur,

good everything forever, BW,

and please don’t play defense with your face, there’s no future in that

READ SOME WALTON-ISMs HERE : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/bill_walton.html

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By Zach Selwyn

I can vividly picture the scene taking place on a Newark, New Jersey street corner in 1922… Prohibition is hanging heavily over every boarded up bar and single family household on the block. The streets are full of the penniless, making bedding out of old jackets on the grey and crunchy dirty sidewalk snow. Children are wrapping up nightly stick ball games to return home for dinner as the streets darken with denizens of the nightlife and small time hoods…

And then suddenly, out of the darkness, trotting up in a horse-drawn buggy, appears Rabbi Levi Zalman, who is suddenly swarmed by scores of men from these homes looking to procure the finest bottle of bootleg wine they can get their hands on. Money is exchanged, prayers are said and the men race home to their families. With every sale, Rabbi Zalman mutters, “Baruch Hashem.” (Blessed be the name of the lord). When it’s all over, Rabbi Zalman rides away a very rich man…

Of course, Rabbi Levi Zalman is not a Rabbi at all. In fact, he is Jack Joseph Brauer, an out-of-work shoe peddler from East Jersey City who has just unloaded his Government-relegated weekly supply of booze for a shade over $5,000.

He is also my great-great grandfather. This was his “congregation.”

Ratified in 1920, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution – which is America’s only Amendment to later be repealed – federally prohibited the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcohol. Of course, this was one of our biggest failures in our short history, and led to the golden age of organized crime, corruption and sheer madness across the country.

Doing some research (And I am not the first to report this – just giving you some background) Jewish households were allowed a certain amount of wine per household per year. To top that off, if you were a Rabbi, and you lead any type of “congregation” (12 members or more) you were allowed to get as much wine as you wanted for religious purposes at any time you desired… So guess what happened? A lot of “new Rabbis” suddenly started showed up.

“There were fake Rabbis everywhere,” my grandmother told me years ago before she died. “If you knew 12 people, that was a congregation… why do you think so many people started converting to Judaism during the 20’s? FOR BOOZE.”

So, when Jack Brauer’s shoe business got hit with hard times in the early 1920’s, he bought some religious robes, sported a fake beard and marched up to the proper Governmental distribution center and bought as much alcohol as he needed… He flipped it in two days and kicked off a successful six-year-run as the biggest “Rabbi Bootlegger” in Newark, New Jersey.

A few years later, when the American Jewish Committee began cracking down on the large number of fake Rabbi’s, my great-great grandfather Jack was NOT on the suspected fraud list. In fact, he continued to support his family until 1931, just before the Amendment was repealed. How? He had the third largest congregation in New Jersey at the time. (Even though it was 95 percent FAKE.)

Now, according to the three part documentary Prohibition by Ken Burns, other religions had these loopholes as well. In fact, Priests were ALSO able to purchase liquor for religious ceremonies. Of course, the government could actually reference records to determine if someone claiming to be a Priest actually was a Priest. But Rabbis? There was NO WAY OF TELLING WHO WAS A RABBI.

Starting to see why I’m obsessed with this stuff…

According to writer Daniel Okrent, “Rabbis were suddenly showing up everywhere. Irish Rabbis, Black Rabbis…” Nobody ever doubted their religious claims.

As is turns out, my grandmother was correct. In the 1920’s, Jewish congregations increased in membership by like, 75 percent. In short? BOOTLEG LIQUOR BUILT MODERN DAY JUDAISM. In fact, I don’t think you can reference a time in history when more NEW Jews suddenly showed up out of the woodwork to embrace Judaism in our nation’s history. No wonder we say prayers over the wine…

A few years ago, my grandmother Florence passed away. Readers of my stories should be familiar with our adventures together in her later years, which included a trip to the Ace Hotel, smoking medical marijuana and leafing through her old photo albums so she could announce who was presently, “Dead.” When she passed, it was a sad moment, and a week later, our family went through her home to get rid of old useless items…(My grandfather’s 5000 VHS tapes of classic movies) and save valuable ones… (My grandma had always claimed that she had hidden “thousands of dollars in cash” all over the house and that it was our job to find it when she died.)

Of course, knowing this, we tore open her home like Jesse Pinkman looking for hidden cash in that drug dealer’s condo in the film El Camino…

My mom and I found some money, but the “thousands of dollars” my grandma promised turned out to be something more like 220 bucks. We also uncovered a lot of jewelry and a stamp collection valued at about $39. So, if you’re the new couple that bought the place? If you ever find some ungodly wad of $100 dollar bills in a crawl space, hit me up…

Aside for a few of my grandma’s stray Vicodin, which I squirreled away in a jacket pocket, the only other item in the home that really intrigued me was my grandmother’s birth certificate. On it was listed her parent’s names and occupations – (Ruth Brauer-Kaplan – housewife. Jacob Kaplan- Dentist) – as well as her GRANDPARENT’s names and occupations… What intrigued me was the job description as reported to the state of New Jersey by JACK JOSEPH BRAUER –

His job: RABBI.

“Wow so Grandma’s story was true?” I asked my Uncle Steve who was helping my mom go through Florence’s old belongings.

“Yes indeed,” he answered.

“So was he really a Rabbi?” I asked.

“Do you know what a ‘Rabbi’ was back then?”

“I’m guessing a bootlegger?”

“It’s great getting to know your family, isn’t it?”

I went into the kitchen and poured myself a large glass of wine. I toasted my grandma on her final journey and raised my glass up to Jack Joseph Brauer – my great-great grandfather who kept so many families buzzed during the dark years of Prohibition…

“Baruch Hashem,” I said.

STREAM ZACH’S NEW SONG “Red Fuckin Wine” NOW!

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Zach recently began shooting a multi-episode series for History Chanel – where Zach travels deep into the heart of America to find the most unique and unusual people, jobs, locations and history he can find! Produced by Bullet Point Films, expect the series to premiere on TV and online in late 2017 or early 2018! Here’s a sneak peak of Zach at Rhinebeck Aerodrome in upstate New York and in Grand Teton National Park… Look for him on the road!

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Relive this country classic now.

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“LA DISPENSARY” LAUNCHES AS A GROUNDBREAKING VERTICAL INSTAGRAM SERIES EXPLORING LOS ANGELES’ CANNABIS CULTURE

Los Angeles, CA – The cultural capital of cannabis finally has its own story told on screen. “LA Dispensary”, a new vertical comedy series that premiered on Instagram and YouTube Shorts takes viewers inside the quirky world of a fictional Los Angeles dispensary.

TRAILER HERE

Shot entirely in vertical format to match the way audiences consume content on their phones, “LA Dispensary” blends sketch comedy and observational humor from the perspective of two budtenders, played by Megahn Perry and writer/director Zach Selwyn. New guest stars enter the dispo every episode.

“Cannabis is not just a product —it’s a lifestyle, a culture, and a community,” said Selwyn. “With ‘LA Dispensary’, I wanted to create something that was funny and original – as far as I can tell, this is one of the first vertical comedies out there which I think will be the future of Hollywood now that the studios have all moved to Ireland.”

The series is designed for quick, binge-worthy viewing on Instagram, making it accessible to a global audience. The first two episodes have been released through Hiii Media’s Instagram @hiiimag – as well as @LADispensaryshow

For Press Inquiries reach out to Zach@hiiimag.com

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The Worst Cocktail in LA.

By Zach Selwyn

It was a hungover morning. Most of them are hungover mornings, but this one was particularly bad. It was actually quite unbearable. It was 91 degrees outside, but for some reason I was in a good mood based on the fact that it had finally stopped raining in Los Angeles. L.A. had been miserable lately. Not to mention depressing. My gas bill in January had skyrocketed to $1800 and wasn’t looking to get any better. A looming writer’s strike and a desolate media landscape had flattened any creative work available in the city. Shit. Even Disney had laid off 7,000 employees sine January 1st. Not only that, but the rain had destroyed nearly every road in the city and never-ending potholes greeted my car wherever I drove, resulting in more than one flat tire.

Anyway, it was a Friday morning and I had to drop my son in the deep valley for a haircut on his day off from school for “Teacher Organization Day.” I wasn’t sure when “Teacher Organization Day” became a national fucking holiday, but apparently, like four times a school year, teachers needed some time to get their shit together. I guess I understood… I need one of those days like, 25 times a month. I just didn’t particularly love when these days were thrust upon myself as a parent, because you suddenly had to do stuff like catch up on haircuts and Costco shopping and shit like going to the Grove to see films you would never pay for on your own, like Dungeons and Dragons. Meanwhile. My son prefers this one particular valley hairstylist to any scissor-slinging tattooed millennial who works at the Floyd’s Barber Shop 0.8 miles from our house, so I basically have to go 13 miles to Encino with him once every three months. And as you know Encino is a pretty miserable place.

It’s ten times worse it with a bad hangover.

After dropping him off, I had a roughly an hour to kill around the Encino corridor. Looking to curb the uneasiness of the body aches I was fighting from the night before, I Googled local bars and hotels to find any sort of affordable Bloody Mary that might help me open my eyes and face the day a little easier. Not finding much, I walked for a few minutes and quickly realized that I was surrounded by nothing but chain restaurants, weed stores and car dealerships. I was on Ventura Boulevard in Encino. I had nowhere to go. I felt like I had become the man I once swore I would never become: A 47-year-old dad, hungover in the Valley on a Friday morning looking for a drink. This wasn’t rock bottom, but Jesus, it sort of felt like the boat was sinking fast.

And then I spotted the Buca di Beppo. Yes. Buca di Beppo. Anyone who has been here knows this place is basically Olive Garden on HGH. You order a plate of spaghetti and it feeds nine people and you take four pounds home to haunt your fridge for the next month and a half. The leftovers are enough to choke an entire village of starving Albanians.

I was certainly their first customer of the day. The general manager, a goateed gentleman named Rick, who was wearing a tie patterned with a bushel of tomatoes, looked shocked that someone had actually entered the restaurant before noon. He struggled to greet me at the door. When he finally did welcome me inside, I noticed that he his shirt was untucked and one shoelace was untied. He brought me a monstrous menu and informed me that the restaurant was featuring a wine special that day: A glass of Apothic Red Wine was going for only $14.00. I thanked him but chose to not alert him that Apothic Red is a bottle of garbage wine found at Trader Joe’s for roughly $7.99.

Sweet tie bro.

Since the dining room was still being setup for the evening rush, I was seated in the empty bar, where half of the barstools were still turned upside down on the tables. They had sports on, so I knew I could easily kill an hour there… and I asked Rick how the Bloody Mary was.

“It’s amazing,” he said.

That was all I needed to hear.

I asked for a Bloody Mary with Tito’s and “all the fixings they could give me.”

Rick responded by asking me, “Tito’s? – OK – So Vodka or tequila?”

“Uhm Tito’s”

“Oh. So… What is that?”

“It’s a vodka from Austin, Texas dude,” I said perhaps a little too aggressively. “It’s a Bloody Mary.”

That was my first warning. I should’ve walked out then. This guy did not even know that Tito’s was a fucking vodka company?

I gave him a little side eye as he began working on the drink, making sure he was pouring in the right vodka, but unfortunately, he reached for a bottle of some brand called Helix. Helix Vodka? I had never even heard of that shit. But I watched as he incredulously poured it into a glass and then poured in some bullshit pre-packaged Bloody Mary mix from a plastic bottle that looked like it dressed Greek salads on its off-days. He didn’t even MIX the drink. He just dumped it in, and served it to me raw-dog, meaning it was lacking any olives, pickles, celery, salt, Tajin, fucking pepper… and flavor.

“Dude, Yo – do you guys don’t have any garnish whatsoever?” I asked.

“We have Tabasco,” he said.

“Olives?” I asked. “Maybe a peperoncini?”

“Uhm well, we have those but it means I would have to open the salad bar, which isn’t quite open yet.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

I took Rick’s bottle of Tabasco and tried to make this drink taste like… something. Anything but Clamato juice and ice. And it fell flat. This was by far the worst Bloody Mary ever served on American soil. Right there, in Encino, California precisely one week before my birthday in the good year of our lord 2023.

I sat there for a moment as Rick adjusted his tomato tie and folded napkins and I watched some NBA Playoffs highlights suffering through each and every sip of this bullshit drink. It basically tasted like water with hot sauce in it. The ice cubes were so prevalent that I surmounted that there was close to one to two ounces of liquid in the entirety of the glass. The straw was minuscule and sharp in my mouth.

And then I started looking around at the decor.

If you’ve ever been to a Buca di Beppo, you know that they fancy themselves as a classic “Family-Style Italian Restaurant.” That requires that they must decorate the walls with photos of great Italian American stalwarts of recent past, including 200 pictures of Frank Sinatra, at least 50 photos of Joe Dimaggio and a few stills from the movie Goodfellas. In fact, there was one large bar photo of Dimaggio that caught the Yankee Clipper smiling and youthful, at the peak of career, probably in the middle of a 200 hit season. He was grinning so widely, that there is no doubt he just flossed his teeth with Marilyn Monroe’s underwear. For some reason that photo made me happy. I pointed at the picture and then back to Rick, who mind you, was probably in his late 30’s to early 40’s and said, “What do you know about that guy?”

“Oh, Sinatra?” He said.

I almost went Joe Pesci on him and slapped him with his tomato tie.

“That’s NOT fucking Frank Sinatra, that’s Joe fuckin’ Dimaggio,” I said. “Joltin’ Joe Dimaggio.”

“Oh, the baseball player,” Rick responded. “Dodgers?”

If you work at an Italian restaurant and think this guy is Sinatra, you deserve to be fired.

Let me tell you something. If you work in a Buca di Beppo, or ANY Italian establishment that serves a version of a simple red sauce on pasta or a fucking meatball or a basket full of fucking breadsticks, you BETTER know who the fuck Joe Dimaggio is. In New York City, Rick would have been driven to the Hudson River, fitted for some cement shoes and dropped the fuck off the pier. And even the cops would have looked the other way and laughed about it at a bar later that night. But, this was Encino. And Rick was born in 1987 or so. And I was hungover. And unemployed. And bitter. So I leaned back and continued sipping the worst Bloody Mary of all time. A few sips later, I excused myself to the bathroom.

There was a photo of Kirk Gibson above the urinal.

I guess that made sense. Kirk Gibson is an LA hero and that 1988 World Series home run is one of baseball’s grandest moments, but I actually began wondering if Rick even knew who he was. When I returned to the bar, I asked him if he knew who the mustached man above the urinal was. He nodded yes.

“Joe Dimaggio?”

Look. I have nothing against Buca di Beppo. In fact, I have enjoyed many fun nights at this restaurant with family and friends over the years… I’ve murdered bottles of wine and meatballs and large pasta dishes here while singing along to That’s Amore with drunk friends two tables over. But this was ridiculous. My advice is forever avoid the Bloody Mary at all costs, and certainly do not enter any Buca di Beppo before 6:30 PM on any given day. You will leave depressed, disappointed and miserable – and when you face that blazing sunlight outside it will shine in your eyes like God’s high beams, informing you that you have made yet one more mistake in your short, miserable, pathetic life.

I paid Rick the $11.00 for the drink and walked outside, heading to pick up my son from his hair appointment. I was feeling a little better, happy that I at least informed Rick who Joe DiMaggio was, and happy that I was now aware of the catastrophic flavor of Helix Vodka. I walked back up towards the salon and texted my son to see if he was done. He wrote me back pretty quickly and seemed happy with his haircut. I squinted in the sun and read his text aloud:

Dad, can we go see the Dungeons and Dragons movie?

I went back to Buca di Beppo’s and ordered another round…

The Author. Encino, CA. 12;30 pm Friday.

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DOWNLOAD ALBUM HERE!hungover at disneyland TRACK LISTING:

The Only Gym That I Like to hit (Jim Beam).

LA Ski Hat Weather.

Bad Night in Bro Country.

Yo Jay-Z! (Be My Manager).

The Web MD Song.

Dudes.

Hungover at Disneyland.

Too Old for Molly, To Young for LSD.

Kirk Cameron vs. Charles Darwin

Gramma on the Front Porch!

Look for it soon on itunes and beyond!!!
Song written using REAL headlines! FLORIDA MAN (c)2023 Desert Hobo Music

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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…

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