Zach is excited to announce he has published his first crime mystery novel, “Austin Translation.”
Set in Austin, Texas during the summer of 2020, true crime podcaster Rob Stoner finds himself set up for the murder of a young girl. Now, using his amateur sleuthing skills, he has to clear his name, find the killer and save his marriage all during a global pandemic.
Please download on Amazon.com – Physical signed copies will be available for purchase upon request for $10.00 in the near future.
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
Back in 1994, just three weeks into a relationship that I swore would last forever, my hippie Phish-loving girlfriend “Rainbeaux” announced that she was, “giving up toilet paper” as a way to preserve the environment.
“I’m sorry, what?” I responded.
“Look at the facts,” Rainbeaux said. “Every time we use a pre-fab product like toilet paper, we are destroying not only the rainforest, but the redwoods and like, all the natural resources of our planet… It’s a no-brainer for me.”
“Well, it’s a boner-killer for me,” I thought to myself.
If Rainbeaux wasn’t so fascinating and beautiful, I would have run away immediately… Instead, I did my best to question her plan.
“So… like, what are you gonna use when you…uhh – you know, go to the bathroom?” I asked her, calmly.
“It’s called Hmong Hill Hemp Cloth from Thailand,” she explained. “A guy who I met on last Phish Tour introduced me to it. It’s made from undernourished plant cloth and hemp fibers and It originated with the Hmong Hill Tribe…and for like 2000 years – their community is like… the healthiest in the world.”
I nodded my head in solitude, looked into her green eyes – and smiled vacantly.
“Sure, whatever you want,” I said.
She smiled and went back to drawing octagonal prisms in her sketch book.
Rainbeaux’s genius “save the planet” idea was to purchase 100 cloth swatches as her permanent toilet paper – and to just simply wash them at a laundromat whenever everything got dirty… I was secretly disgusted by this entire hippie dream of hers, but I went along with it for the time being because, well… she was cute and we were 19-years-old… and that’s just the kind of shit you do at that age… Especially when your “Are you a REAL hippie?” status is in question by a beautiful woman wearing patchouli and a tie-dyed sundress.
Not the way to start your day
So, after I announced that I would support her toilet paper protest, she made me promise her I would give up toilet paper myself.
I promised her I would.
A minute later, she told me that I was “a real mystic” and then for the next 30 minutes, we made love listening to her $750 dollar Natural Sound Machine from The Sharper Image.
Of course, around 3:30 a.m. I woke up and rushed to her dorm’s community bathroom because I had to take a massive crap… And when I was done, I had torn through about a half a roll of Charmin Double Ply…
“Rainbeaux,” of course, wasn’t her real name. She was born “Hannah Gurlin” and she had grown up rather wealthy in Highland Park, Illinois, beneath the tutelage of a father who encouraged horseback riding as a a hobby and an older brother with a weed connection and a penchant for the Grateful Dead. After turning down offers from multiple respectable schools in the midwest, she had decided to attend UCSB (UC Santa Barbara) as a way to major in creative writing while enjoying the Southern California party lifestyle. We first met at a Big Head Todd and the Monsters concert during our freshman year, in one of those moments when the cute girl next to you singing along to the song Bittersweet made you feel like anything on the planet was possible…
Our eyes met as we sang together: “We work our way arouuuuund each other… as we tremble and we bleed…”
These were the deep connections that could make any lovelorn college kid in the 90’s soul fall head over heels.
After the show, Rainbeaux and I exchanged phone numbers – and we eventually met up again at a Dave Matthews Band show that spring…
A month later we went to a Phish concert… and that night we ended up sleeping together while listening to Mazzy Star Fade Into You. As we laid in bed, we discussed my theory that “The 90’s were just the 60’s Upside Down…” It seemed real, it seemed perfect and we both thought we had a once in a lifetime connection.
Of course, no long-lasting relationship that begins at a Big Head Todd concert can ever be expected to last.
Our relationship peaked when we embarked on an epic five-city West Coast Phish Tour – where we exchanged words of “LOVE” following a post-show Shoreline house party that as I recall, was crawling with ecstasy and Parliament Lights.
And then, a week later… was when Rainbeaux gave up using toilet paper.
Rainbeaux was the type of woman that you fell in love with in your 20’s. She had a zest for life, could party with anybody and it didn’t hurt that her dad was always sending her money. (Back then rich trust-fund hippies like this were referred to as “Trustafarians.”) But eventually, the hippie dream, much like it did to our parent’s generation, turned on us.
My main concern was not flunking out of school. (I wanted to make sure my dad’s tuition checks were going towards something besides my social life).
Rainbeaux’s main concern was how she would be able to make the type of money her parents made to support her lifestyle… She claimed she was a “writer…” yet she barely wrote anything. I was the one always writing. She could never seem to get anything down on paper… and it became awkward when she becoming jealous when my short stories, as dumb as they were, began appearing in the pages of my local college humor magazine.
As the used Hmong Hill Hemp Cloth began piling up in a wastebasket near her closet in the dorm room, I stopped wanting to come over. It was … sadly… disgusting. After she noticed that I had not been taking any cloth with me when I went to the bathroom, I came clean and was forced to admit that I was actually guilty of using “pre-fab” toilet paper. She was unhappy. I told her that after spending a few days on the Hmong Hill… I needed to hike back DOWN to reality.
She cringed, asked me to consider “her feelings” and I told her I didn’t think I could continue following her experiment. A few days later we broke up.
That was it. College went on. I drifted into my dreams and she did the same. We lost track of each other.
It had been nearly 20 years since I had been in touch with Rainbeaux, even after doing some embarrassing social media stalking…
I could never find her… Not online, not on Facebook… I even checked obituaries. There was no sign of Rainbeaux’s or Hannah Gurlin’s existence anywhere.
Until last week – when DEAD AND COMPANY came to the Hollywood Bowl right by my house here in Los Angeles.
My brother and another friend, Mark (Who was once arrested for dealing nitrous balloons at a Grateful Dead concert in 1989), had all gone to the Dead and Company show hoping to relive any slice of our youth that had faded as quickly as adulthood had arrived. John Mayer was playing Jerry Garcia’s parts and the band I fell in love with as a kid was playing better than ever.
Amazingly, Mark revealed to me that he had a fake business license for about five years in the late 80’s that let him pass as a FROZEN YOGURT SHOP OWNER – Basically, he would take his fake yogurt license into a legitimate NITROUS DEALER and procure as big of a nitrous tank as he could, claiming that his “Chocolate/Vanilla Swirl” was super popular and that he needed to buy the max amount of nitrous to get back to Sacramento.
It worked for a while, but eventually, his drug dealing days caught up with him and Mark was arrested at an early 90’s Grateful Dead show in Irvine. For his crime, he paid a thousand dollars and did 100 hours of community service.
To this day, he fucking hates frozen yogurt
Lotta these dudes in the parking lot
Anyway, the three of us jumped out of our Lyft around Highland and Hollywood and embraced the free flowing beauty of the “Shakedown Street” parking lot scene where I quickly spent way too much money on a collectible “Arizona Dead Pin” and some $5.00 bootleg t-shirts…
After vaping and laughing and walking around for a minute, Mark pointed out about 100 plus “balloon dealers” openly distributing the gas on the premises – as if we were at a dental convention and we all needed emergency root canals…
All of this was shocking, not only because of the notorious Grateful Dead parking lot trouble that has existed in the past – but because when Mark was arrested 20-years-earlier, he had merely sold one balloon and was caught, cuffed and carried out…
Back then, the cops didn’t believe his story that he owned a Frozen Yogurt shop. Maybe it was because when they asked for the name of it, he replied “IKO IKO FROYO.” (Apparently the cops giggled at this before arresting him).
Discarded balloons everywhere
At the Hollywood Bowl, the cops didn’t seem to give a SHIT about anything going on. I counted 15 nitrous dealers, countless weed dealers, girls offering K, shrooms, molly… there were even makeshift pop-up bars operating on picnic tables where you could buy any mixed drink you wanted. It was insane. About the only thing I didn’t see for sale in that parking lot was a black market kidney.
And then, through the crowd, I saw RAINBEAUX.
I wasn’t sure if it was her at first, but I certainly remembered her eyes. Green, maybe a bit grey now, but still gorgeous. I watched her flit about some friends for a second in a yellow sundress before realizing that YES, it was her… the only obvious difference I noticed, was that she now had two little children wrapped around her legs.
No matter what, when you see an ex-girlfriend with their children, it makes you think about a lot of shit…
I decided to say hello, and walked up to where she was standing.
“Are you RAINBEAUX by any chance?” I said to her as she was least expecting a conversation.
She lit up. She turned around. She stared at me…
“Oh my God… Zach Selwyn?” She said.
I felt like Al Pacino in Carlito’s Way when his ex recognizes him after getting out of prison.
Charlie? Hello Gail…
“Hi,” I mustered… “I knew that was you.”
We hugged for a while – one of those “what could have been” hugs… and she quickly introduced me to her kids – Saffron and, her youngest – a kid named… ZACHARY. She said he was not named after me.
Secretly, I didn’t believe her.
We hugged again. Deeply. She told me that she hadn’t been “Rainbeaux” for a long time. She was back to being known as… “Hannah.”
She asked me about everything – especially how my writing was going.
“Yeah, it’s fine, I guess,” I meekly admitted. “I just post stuff online and write songs and, whatever, it’s a long story.”
I asked her about her writing career. She said she never had the guts to pursue it. She had been teaching Neo-natal yoga in Poway and was married to a dermatologist.
“Wow, didn’t expect that,” I said.
I thought Rainbeaux would marry a guy like this…
We rambled on for a moment, talking about what songs we were hoping to hear that night. I was hoping for Estimated Prophet.
“You know, Estimated was my official battle cry/anthem when I moved to LA – telling all my friends and family not to worry about me,” I said before singing out the lyrics, “California! Preaching on the burning shore…”
She smiled. “I remember… Do you remember how much I loved that song Bittersweet by Big Head Todd and the Monsters?”
I stared into her eyes as her daughter ran back up and hugged her.
“Of course I do,” I said. She smiled.
After I introduced her to my friends, she said good-bye, scooped up her daughter and began to walk away. As she was 10 feet or so up the sidewalk, I had to ask her one final question that had been bugging me for years…
“Hey, Hannah…” I said. “Are you still on that ‘Toilet Paper Protest’?”
She stopped, turned towards me and flashed kind smile before responding…
“Haha – NO,” she laughed. “I’m going through about, like – a box a half of baby wipes a week.”
I raised my beer in her direction and nodded my head.
“Me too.”
As I watched the concert that night, I thought often of the days I spent with Rainbeaux, and I began to think that I should have brought my own children to the show with me…
Until some guy behind me passed me a Nitrous balloon and said it would make me feel like “God was licking my ass.”
Zach Selwyn stars as DWIGHT STRIPES, a filthy, sleeves hating guitar playing Shitrocker in Bubbles’ new outlaw country band, “Bubbles and the Shitrockers!” Zach also wrote five of the songs on the soundtrack! Find out where this film is showing and get right out of ‘er and see it! Also starring Billy Bob Thornton, Ronnie Wood and your favorite Trailer Park Boys…! Dir. by Charlie Lightening
We lost a terrific man this week. Here he is saying more with no dialogue than most actors can say with Shakesperean prose. – RIP to John Walsh… aka “Jimmy the Taint.” (Originally aired on G4 “Attack of the Show” in 2007)
When it dips below 65 degrees in LA, the town starts dressing like we live in Vermont. Please enjoy “LA SKI HAT WEATHER” – from my upcoming comedy CD called “I Think We Should See Other People”
ZACH’S First collection of Short Stories and Essays, “Talent Will Get You Nowhere” will be published in early 2014 on Dirt City Press! LOOK OUT!
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).
truTV & GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS to give new yorkers chance to break records at the Guinness World Records(R) Unleashed arena in Times Square. Dan Cortese, Zach Selwyn, Mark McGrath and More Slated to Appear at Nov. 6 Event, one day Before truTV Launches New Episodes of Guinness World Records Unleashed
truTV and GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS are giving New Yorkers an opportunity to set some new world records in the Guinness World Records(R) Unleashed Arena. Located in Times Square (46th/47th and Broadway), the Arena will be open 2-9 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 6, the day before truTV’s hit series Guinness World Records Unleashed returns with brand new episodes.
Guinness World Records Unleashed host Dan Cortese will be on-hand for the fun, along with comedian Zach Selwyn and GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS’ Liz Smith, who provide commentary in the series. In addition, severAl GuinNESS WORLD RECORD adjudicators – including Guinness World Records Unleashed adjudicator Stuart Claxton – will be present to ensure official recognition of any records broken during the day.
Guinness World Records(R) Unleashed – New episodes begin Thursday, Nov. 7, at 8 p.m. (ET/PT)
During the event, world-renowned sculptor Andy Gertler – who has mastered a range of media, including pumpkin carving, sand sculptures and ice sculptures – will attempt to set a brand new Guinness World Record. Using nearly 15,000 marshmallows he will attempt to build the world’s largest marshmallow mosaic, expected to be more than 86 square feet in size once completed. In addition, there will be a demonstration by speed-reader and viral video personality Trisha Paytas, who will attempt to break the record for Being the world’s fastest talker in the season premiere of Guinness World Records Unleashed.
Also slated to appear at the Guinness World Records Unleashed Arena will be Mark McGrath, host of truTV’s Killer Karaoke; Q, Murr, Joe & Sal, the stars of truTV favorite Impractical Jokers; Les, Seth & Ashley of truTV’s hit series Hardcore Pawn; and Ron & Amy Shirley and Bobby Brantley from the popular Lizard Lick Towing.
Visitors to the Guinness World Records Unleashed Arena will have the chance to break The Following records:
– Most seated free throws in one minute (Current record: 20)
– Fastest time for a team of two people to make a single bed (Current record: 14 seconds)
– Fastest time to build a 20-shotglass pyramid (Current record: 6.44 seconds)
Fans wishing to participate in the buzz surrounding the Guinness World Records Unleashed Arena are encouraged to use the official event hashtag: #GWRUArena.
Determined record chasers are gearing up to wow viewers and secure a place in the record books when truTV’s hit series Guinness World Records(R) Unleashed returns with all new episodes. Hosted by Dan Cortese, the series features daring and fearless record hopefuls as they attempt to secure their place in history by breaking some truly outrageous world records. Guinness World Records Unleashed premiered on truTV in February, averaging more than 1.3 million viewers and ranking as one of ad-supported cable’s Top 3 programs in its timeslot with key demos. The series is produced for truTV by High Noon Entertainment (Tough Love, Cake Boss, Hurricane Hunters), with High Noon Entertainment’s Jim Berger, Burt Kearns and Fred Birckhead serving as executive producers with Guinness World Records’ Rob Molloy.
Color Commentator Zach joins co-anchor Liz Smith and host Dan Cortese in a brand new, crazier, braver and funnier season of “GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS UNLEASHED!”
Zach Selwyn 