Drunk drunk drunk

I’m drunk. Drunk drunk drunk. Well kinda, I’ll proofread this post when I’ve sobered up, but I’m writing it drunk. First time I’ve really had more than a drink or two since I have been out on the ship. I’ve kind of been apprehensive about getting shitty with the people out here, we're not close yet and I don’t feel comfortable enough yet with them to let myself go. Because I haven’t been drinking much, I’ve been BORED. All there is to do on this damn ship is eat, drink and dick around in my room watching TV. With the drinking cut out, my prospects have been quite dim. I’ve started going to the bar a bit more and I can totally see how this ship could turn someone into a binge-drinking alcoholic. I fear that if I stay out here for six months, that it will happen to me…

The crew “lounge” is pretty much where all the people who don’t want to be recluses spend their nights. It’s feels desperate, gloomy and generally dungeon-esk whenever I go. Drinks are cheap, there are some big screens playing sports and a lone, ¾-size pool table tucked away in the corner. The walls are made of fake wood and tacky, plastic, 70’s-style decorations shaped like diamonds. The whole lounge is U-shaped with the bar at the curve and entrances on both sides of the top; this effectively cuts the whole place in half. Most of the time the bar is segregated; the English speakers on one side and everyone else on the other. This would normally depress me, but it doesn’t matter because the music is so loud that it’s almost impossible to hold a conversation without screaming. As you can tell, I’m not a huge fan of the place.

We played a motown set on Monday, and a bunch of the crew came out to dance. It was a good set and the audience was having fun. Once it was over, a few people mentioned going to the lounge and I was invited. I was feeling up after the set, so I went. It was an alright time; I had two or three and introduced myself to a few of the dancers. They’re so young, still infatuated with their own freedom. I struck up a conversation with them about a dance collective back in Baltimore that a few of my acquaintances are involved in. I made them laugh; I don’t think the things I said were particularly funny, but we were drunk so I guess I could have said anything. I got bored so I asked the singer about her history on boats and managing a boyfriend at home. She was bubbly and talkative, happy that someone was attentive about her personal life.

While I was interested in the second half of that conversation, playing interested in other people’s lives is something I do a lot. Most love to talk about themselves, so when I have nothing to say to them (which is often on this boat), I ask about this or that, anything just to get someone talking. Sometimes it feels faked to me, like I have to force myself to be attentive. Other times people are interesting, but rarely when someone is finished do they say “and what about you?” People on this boat, especially my co-workers, just seem disinterested in talking with me; it has been frustrating to say the least. Continually hitting this wall has made it hard for me to keep trying to connect with these people. I guess not everyone majored in psychology, so they do get off on knowing someone’s life story, but even when I try to talk about other things, sometimes their eyes glaze over and I get a half-hearted “yeah man.” I guess I’m gonna keep at it, but goddamn…

I had all of Tuesday off. I spent some time skyping in the Grand Cayman, but most of the day was spent grasping for things to do. I napped, over-ate and watched too much TV. I can’t believe how stagnant life out here feels. Even though I have a job and I’m getting paid the biggest salary I ever have, life in New Jersey and New Hampshire felt like much more productive times. I know I’m improving as a musician and some other stuff I guess, but it does not feel that way at all. I wish I had more to say about my last few days on the boat, but it would really just be rehashes of the past posts plus “I’m getting better.”

But today was great.  I have two friends who were working out on a sailboat in Cuba and just finished up their contract with the captain. I worked with these two on the island I spoke about a few posts ago. They came down to Playa de Carmen and I took a ferry from Cozumel to meet them. We talked about working on boats and growing out of being vagabonds over tacos and too much tequila. It was so wonderful to see friendly, familiar faces. The connections I’ve made on this ship are still shallow and superficial, I don’t know if they will ever grow past that. Seeing people who I actually care about and who care about me is invigorating, yet it makes me homesick and really doesn’t motivate me to stay here. It’s like the older I get, the harder it is to really meet people. People begin to get comfortable with their social networks and get lazy about meeting new people. I know I am guilty of this as well, yet I am fighting against it while I’m here, trying not to be content with the things I already have.

So, speaking of that island, I guess I decided to not take the job. It will be there for me if I want it next year, and I can always make it out to the island come august and they need end of season pelicans. I just need some time away from there. A lot of my friends will not be out there and I have a job here so I’m just gonna push this one out. If I wind up leaving here, I won’t get a chance to run the kitchen but I can still make it out there and do some work if I want to. On the other hand, I still am in contact with the island manager and I’m trying to leave that door open. If I wind up leaving here and I can’t get a job on the island, I’ll be quite disappointed.

Anyhow, I’m hanging in here.  Almost three weeks in, things have gone from bad to mediocre and boring, which is an improvement I guess.  

A Day in the Life

There was a good deal of culture shock my first two weeks on the ship. I have adjusted a bit now, but still I feel removed from the ship ethos. Life here is simultaneously slow and fast, communal and lonely, hectic and boring, and many other opposites. I guess life is like that everywhere, but here it seems amplified. If you stick a bunch of people in an enclosed environment, their true natures shine. At least on the main land, when it gets too intense, there is always room to remove yourself from a situation.

Here, life is forced upon you by the clashing of so many people from different parts of the world. The paymaster is Indian, the waitresses are Slavic, the janitors are Filipino, the captains are Italian, the dancers are English and the musicians are American. This list goes on, and honestly, I haven’t even scratched the surface of these new cultures and peoples. All of this has overwhelmed me a bit and, being the introvert that I am, has caused me to withdraw.

Now that I am more comfortable with the work, my ever-present complaints have turned to my lack of a social life. I know friends will come eventually, but I’m becoming impatient. Friends back home tell me that I am slow to warm up to people, and this is true. I remember back in college I thought to myself “I’ll never be close with this person” many times. Now that I am looking at things in retrospect, I realize that saying those things made them self-fulfilling. Also, I have said those things about some of the closest friends I have before I really knew them. I’m just finding it difficult to meet new people, start real conversations with the ones I know, and just generally form rapports with anyone. It feels like things are snowballing and as my social ineptitude gains momentum, it becomes harder and harder to crawl out of.

I like to think that I am open to new experience and change; it’s one of the reasons I took this job in the first place. Though maybe I’m not, seeing my reluctance to really take the ship in and accept that this is where I will be for at least another few months. A lot of people have told me that they respect me for being able to uproot myself and try something new. Now that I’ve done it, I understand why they said those things. We have roots for a reason, and living without the stability they provide is a lonesome path. It’s hard to dig into these cold, white-washed steel floors. Some people look like they have, but I wonder. The way I’ve heard others talk about this ship makes me think being here demands loneliness. Even those who are here with their spouses are going in alone to a degree. As a first time crew member who knew no one coming into this, things feel a bit stacked against me.

Today we got a new Sax player. He looks around my age and can play from what I’ve heard so far. He has gotten a warmer welcome than I did; It might be because he has worked on ships with our music director before, it might be because he doesn’t play the role in the band that I do, or it could just be a more approachable guy than I am, but watching it happen was frustrating. I guess I’m just expecting making friends to happen to me. It has worked for me before, but maybe I can’t do that type of thing here. I work best one-on-one, and there are rarely situations here where I can get that kind of time with someone. I’m gonna continue to be persistent, everyone at home continues to tell me that it will happen naturally because I’m such a likable guy blah blah, but I don’t feel likable right now. I’m distant, lovesick and just generally out of my element. Hopefully I will get past all that, but for now…

…well…

That’s enough of me being a downer for now. I wanted to walk you through what a day in the life of a cruise musician is like. As I said earlier, it is a both fast and slow lifestyle. There is TONS of downtime, the work itself is pretty easy now that I’ve gotten past hell week, and we get privileges that a lot of the crew does not get.

My days usually start any time between ten and one. I’ll stumble out of the top bunk and do a quick workout before I clean up and go eat lunch. We have a rehearsal around two a few days of the week, now it usually consists of catching me up with the rest of the band. Other days, we won’t have to “work” until 5:30, and that is just a quick sound check. Most of my hours happen between seven and midnight, those are the production shows, dance sets and karaoke sets. I will only work around four hours on most days, and a “heavy” day clocks in around five and a half. My hours are usually spread out; with at least a 15 minute break every hour and usually a few hours between hour long chunks of work. Before working here, I was used to working 8 hours shifts, with no breaks and being on my feet the whole time. Honestly, here it feels like I’m not working at all. The kicker is my co-workers actually complain about how much we work. They moan when we have a two hour rehearsal, and complain about working five hour days. It’s like they just want to get paid to be on vacation, and to tell you the truth, they kinda are.

Being part of the entertainment staff, to an extent, we are the faces of the boat. Kissing ass is part of the job, and having worked at a conference center helped me perfect my customer service face. A friend of mine who worked with me talks about being able to turn a mental switch on. That’s what it’s like, as soon as I walk through those crew only doors, I have to be all smiles, greet every guest I pass and make small talk like a pro. It’s funny; when I’m being superficial about it I have no problem striking up conversations. However, being a white knight for the company also allows some privileges. I can go into passenger areas whenever I want. I can eat in the lido café, I can use the guest gym, and I can wear casual clothes most of the time. We have our own dining hall with partial waiter service, and in general have more freedoms than most of the crew on the ship does.

The most challenging part of the job is when I’m in the hot seat. I’m the engine of this entire band. It doesn’t matter how well everyone else is playing, without me the whole thing falls apart. The horns can afford to sit a lick out, the guitarist can skip a beat and the pianist doesn’t have to follow the music note for note, but I can’t do any of that stuff. The work is fast, I’m flinging sheet music off the stand as I try to keep up with the click track. The smoke machines on the stage are blowing in my eyes, the singers are off-beat and the tempo changes are abrupt. Even one hour in the hot seat is quite strenuous, it’s requires total mental, physical and emotional focus, and demands a level of consistency from me that I am not used to delivering.

When we’re on stage, every performance comes with anxiety and nerves. I guess that’s what we mostly get paid for. Most people have a debilitating stage fright. I got over that a long time ago, but that apprehension never goes away fully. I’ve grown to like it a bit, it makes me feel alive. I know that the day when that feeling before a performance goes away will be the day when I start phoning my performances in.  

Musicians on the ship get a bad rep. A lot of the crew thinks we’re lazy (and some of us are,) that we have an easy job (which it mostly is,) and that we’re troublemakers. It’s not a bad lifestyle, but if I’m still doing this in a few years, I want one of you guys to shoot me in the foot.

Much love,

-D

One for the Other?

Sometimes things fall into my lap at the most inconvenient time. I have always believed that the universe is constantly providing everyone with opportunities, and if you learn how to recognize these opportunities you can take advantage of them. That is happening to me right now. I was presented with this chance on the boat, and now I am presented with a choice, what will I do a few months from now? As some of you know, I am a Pelican; not literally, it’s a nickname for employees of a company in New Hampshire. Last week I got a phone call, and I was asked to run the kitchen there this summer. I would be in charge. This is an amazing opportunity, and if it weren’t for the totally unsure nature of the next few months, I would jump on it in a second. I need to choose by Sunday. I have gotten good advice advocating for both. I’m going to do that thing that people always do in movies and make a list of the pros of both sides.

The Boat - I signed a contract for the boat and I would have to pay for my plane ticket home plus all my baggage. I don’t have a good enough feel for the job yet to make a decision. I could really like it four months from now. I’m basically getting paid to hang out most of the day. There is the potential for a lot of growth here. This is very far outside of my comfort zone, and the other job is safe. I may or may not be very disappointed in myself for leaving. I’m getting paid to travel and play music.

The Kitchen - This would be an excellent resume builder. I would be getting supervisory experience. I have a strong social network out in NH and a weak one here. I would be much more occupied with the kitchen job. I have the potential to change people’s lives there like my former boss changed mine while I was just a kitchen worker. I could be very sick of the boat job by the time the job in NH starts. I’m getting paid to cook. There are always other cruise lines to work on.

Both jobs have room and board included in the salaries. The amount I would be getting paid is comparable, although there would be more hours in the kitchen. The thing is I could have both. Six months is a very long time, and I am already getting bored here. I would be putting myself in a position of power and comfort knowing that I have something after the boat, maybe giving me more confidence for while I’m here. On the other hand though, I would not be able to come back to this company if I left early and both jobs isolate me from the most important people in my life. It’s just frustrating because I want to do both, but I’m not ready to make the decision.

Anyway, yesterday I had more corporate training. It was dull, and I learned the details of the family discount. Unfortunately, I can’t get anyone a discount until my second contract. I’ll have to look into this a bit more but it seems like all of my readers are gonna need to pay full price if they want to come see me. The rest was the usual sthick: sexual harassment, rules and employee benefits. Then we had the repeat guest party, where we play music and the line tries to sell them even more cruises. Late at night I went up to the guest deck and explored a bit, it was serene and windy. There was a lone couple at the end of the deck, they thought they were alone and kissed passionately. It made me lonely.

Today I explored Honduras a bit. The ship port was very artificially beautiful. There was a pavilion on a beach for the crew; it had free wifi, food and karaoke. Later in the day we had our second large production show. It was quite easy this time, and although it was boring and I played to a click, it felt good to play the show well. After we had a dance set, which was alright. I thought I played meh but the band complimented me about it afterwards.

My heart is not in this post, I feel uninspired and dull. I’m going to cut it off here. G’night.

Settling into the Second Week

I have never really been good with new social situations. It usually will take me some time to get comfortable somewhere before I can really start to connect with people and make friends. This aspect of me goes back as far as I can remember. I recall the social anxiety way back when I first went to summer camp in first grade. I guess that’s a natural thing for a kid that young to feel but I’ve never gotten over it; I guess it’s something that needs work. On top of that, I really don’t like group conversations. Everyone is always stepping on each other’s toes. Two people inevitably start talking at once and then there is this standoff. Who speaks louder? Who has participated more in the conversation so far? Who will say the more interesting thing? Who is liked more? Our brains process all these questions subconsciously in an instant, and somehow the group always seems to pick the same person. Sometimes I get picked, sometimes I don’t, either way I’ve never liked this contest of social dominance.

So, social anxieties and gripes aside, things are slowly starting to open up for me on this ship. I’m meeting new people every day, some of them are nice, some of them are cold, and some of them can’t speak a word of a language I can understand. I’m lucky that everyone wears nametags, because there is no way I could keep track of all of the names, it took me a week and a half to get everyone in the bands’ names down.

Tuesday I got off the boat and skyped with a lovely lady back home. Something we spoke about really got me thinking. A year ago, I was lost. Stuck in the post college malaise, I had no idea what to do or where to go. I stayed around Baltimore because I had friends there, and while I had a job, I still had no forward momentum. I was unhappy; I wasn’t learning anything except how to appease people with anger management issues and was not being challenged in the way I wanted to be. I eventually quit my job and was unemployed afterwards for longer than I’d like to admit. Being lost is a scary thing; every choice I made seemed so monumental, like the rest of my existence hinged on such trite decisions. Without direction, I fell into a depression, withdrew from the people who cared about me and developed some self-destructive habits.

College graduates get a lot of pressure put on them after graduation. It’s like people are telling us “Ok, you’re educated, now keep getting educated or contribute dammit!” Maybe this is why so many people are stuck doing things they don’t enjoy. We’ve spent their entire lives being indoctrinated by the education system, being told that at the finish line, there is a big pearly job with a fat paycheck. We aren’t taught to figure out what we want, and when it’s all over we’re stuck, lost, without purpose or direction.

Here is different though. I still don’t know what I want, let alone how to get it, but that lost feeling is gone. Maybe it’s because I’m so far out of my comfort zone that I don’t have time to think about things like that. Maybe it’s because I know that I’m heading towards some enigmatic goal. Or maybe I’ve just grown up a bit in the past year. Whatever it is, things don’t seem so urgent now. I have my whole life to figure things out, and if I focus on figuring myself out right now, all of those things in the future will come more easily. This relaxed attitude could be coming from me being in the middle of the ocean, but its clarity that I have not had since much simpler times.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this little rant, and I sure as hell don’t have an answer to the problems I’m talking about. I guess I just wanted to share what worked for me. I got up and did something that I had never done before, something that would challenge me and put me off balance. This place has definitely done both of those things, and while I can’t say that I’m happy yet, I can say that I feel at peace with just letting things happen.

Existential rambling aside, I got back on the boat and rehearsed for my second show with MA. I already knew the material pretty well, so the rehearsal was just a bit of polishing here and there. The first set went well and the band went down to the crew bar for a beverage before the second (we’re not really supposed to do that, don’t tell anyone ok?) When my bandmates started going on about politics, I half-heartedly gave my two cents and zoned out until we had to play again. Something fantastic happened during that second show. As I said in an earlier post, near the end of his show, MA likes to just take requests and the band makes up accompaniments on the fly. He made the decision to close with Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You, and we just nailed it. There was a standing ovation and MA was all smiles. The crowd demanded another song so we whipped out Heard it Through the Grapevine, which used to be my favorite song when I was much younger, and just killed it. It was a rewarding feeling, the first great show of my contract. After the show I was beat, so I went back to my room and watched some Breaking Bad before passing out.

Wednesday was a very light day. I had a lot of time to get off the boat and explore Cozumel. I wandered into the wrong bar and was approached by a prostitute for the first time in my life. She looked like she had once been beautiful, but now had a hollow look in her eye and her entirety was tinged with artificialness. I said “No Gracias” five or six times before I had to just walk away, the whole interaction made me feel dirty and I didn’t even touch her. I have no idea how some men can even humor the idea of paying for sex. Once back on the boat I had a few hours of free time, I ate dinner with a few overly made-up dancers and a production singer, we made small talk and they seem like a cool bunch.  

At night we had Karaoke. The ship has a Slavic sound man who is absolutely hilarious. I am the only member of the band who wears a headset during the karaoke sets, and he talks to me through them, tell me what the next song is and so forth. This set however, he was quite talkative, commenting on the singers during their performances and just making general wise cracks. Towards the end of the night, he got the whole backstage crew into the booth, and they were having a blast trying to distract me while I played. It made the set much more enjoyable than the karaoke sets normally are, and had me laughing all night. Luckily, I don’t think it affected my playing save for one or two quick moments.

That night, there was a party for the crew in the ship disco; it was 80s night. I don’t really like dance parties, but I went just to see what it was like for a half hour or so. I had a few superficial conversations and had a drink, I don’t think it’s really my scene but I’m glad I went. I met a few new people who seem nice and I’m starting to figure out how to break the ice with people on the ship better.

Things are gradual here. It’s a difficult environment to live in. My friend (redacted) and I spoke about this last summer. It’s hard to work with the people you live with. It’s nice to be able to go home to your friends and not talk about work or your co-workers. Here, being on a ship is what we do; it connects us and forces us to be together always. Sometimes that can be nice, but other times I just want to be alone because of it. Maybe I will grow more accustomed, but I have been in work environments like this before, and it did not get easier then. I’m trying as hard as I can to keep an open mind about the whole thing, but it’s impossible to not apply my past experiences to this one. Things are things, they fluctuate between bad and good pretty regularly, and I think that emotional intensity is a product of being in such a confined environment.

Much love to everyone at home, you are in my thoughts.

Starting Week Two and the Band

So I’ve cheered up a bit since those last two posts. I’m starting to find a rhythm to this job, and while I’m still working on building a social life and connecting with my co-workers, the challenge of the job has gone down a lot now that I have a week under my belt. As I get more comfortable with the material, I’m beginning to open it up and have a bit more fun with it. I’m still not sure if I can see myself being happy on the boat and haven’t ruled out quitting, but the worst case scenario is I keep my head down and six months later I’m a much better musician and have some money in the bank.

So this week started off yesterday with a coast guard inspection of the boat. Ever since that Concordia mishap, the cruise industry has gotten more serious about safety. We had a fire drill at 10:30am, and then an evacuation drill around 11. It mostly consists of us standing around until we get dismissed. I spent the drill with the Brit from the test the day before, and he spent the drill talking to me about all the ladies he’s chasing and how into him they are. He’s a friendly guy, I like him and we signed on together, but he’s a bit too girl crazy for my tastes. Once the test was over I got off the boat and walked around Tampa a bit. The area near the boat terminal was very corporate, most of the shops and restaurants around it were closed because it was not a work day. I called home, and then settled into a bowling alley to eat and read a bit.

I got back on the boat around three, and we had a guest safety drill. I still haven't finished my training so I get to sit these out for now. After the drill was over we had an entertainment department meeting. Unfortunately, I wasn't told about it, and I showed up late for it. The cruise director has a nickname for the new employees, FNG or F***ing New Guy. There was a new entertainment employee this week, but since I showed up late to the meeting, I'm still the FNG. The assistant cruise director started slapping me on the back when he greets me and exclaims "FNG! How's it going?!" I have a feeling that the nickname will stick for a while

We had rehearsal at four. The band played a few songs with one of the production singers. I introduced myself to him and found out he used to live in my home town. He had a good voice and the songs we played were fun. It was eye opening to see the band looking at new charts and not getting the songs at first, it made me feel better about taking some time to get comfortable with the material. Once rehearsal was over, I skyped for a minute before we had a karaoke set. It went well, some little girls came on stage and sang Kesha; I had a hard time keeping a straight face. We got a new Karaoke host this week, so she came up and sang a song, looked like she had a good time with it.

Then it was the welcome aboard show again. The cruise director did the EXACT same thing this week as he did last week. I guess that’s to be expected, but the show was starting to get old after just the second time, can’t imagine what it will be like in a few months. The comedian that came on this week was not as good as the one last week, but at least she didn’t single the drummer out. Once the show ended we set up for the show today, and then I went to my room.

Today I got up pretty late as per usual at this job. My cell phone does this thing where it sets itself to five hours later than it actually is when it is outside of the service area. That, plus the total lack of natural light in my cabin added up to me being really confused when I woke up. At lunch and did nothing for a while, blah blah blah. Sound check was at 5:30, everything was fine and I went to dinner. As I ate, I tried to strike up a conversation with the pianist unsuccessfully, so I left and hung out in my room.

The production show started at seven, and then again at nine. These shows are really silly for me because I don’t get any room to actually play; I just have to mimic what the guy on the recording is doing as best as I can. This is tough because on my score it usually with just say “fill” or “solo” and I won’t have a notation for what I need to learn. Now, I’m used to bad charts, but this is just beyond frustrating. It left me feeling down after this show because I didn’t play what the recording has on it well. E told me that he doesn’t really play the shows at all; he just plays his solo parts and ogles the dancers…gross.

After the shows we had another dance set and yet again I channeled the negative emotions I was feeling into my playing. Now that I know most of the songs that we play this set is a piece of cake. I switched to some heavier implements and they really helped with the fatter sound the band is looking for. At the end of the set the entire band complimented me about how I played. While it was nice, I was a bit bitter about the whole thing. It feels like most of the band really didn’t believe me when I told them that I would need a week to really get a hang of things. Now that I have they seem surprised about it. I guess I can’t blame them for wanting to sound good but it still irks me.  

After the show I was invited to the crew bar by the singer. It was the birthdays of two crew members who I don’t know, so I figured that I would head there to try and meet some people. Unfortunately, I always seem to forget that I don’t like crowded noisy bars. I got there and didn’t really want to stay, so I had a drink had a few brief conversations and left for bed.

So I guess I should tell you a bit about the band. We have a four man rhythm section, five horns and one female singer. There used to be a bari sax player but he left a few weeks ago and it seems like we’re not going to get another one. The band on my boat is one of the only large bands left it the fleet. Most of the other boats have pared down quintets with just a rhythm section and a saxophone. Having a big band is really nice for the live sets, but it’s kinda silly when it comes to playing the production shows. As I said earlier, all of our shows have a full band backing track that we play underneath, which makes a large band superfluous.  

Anyway, the band is led by P. He is a trombone player who has been on cruise ships for years now. He reminds me a lot of my friend Josh O. He is goofy and loves to talk but gets flak for it from the other musicians. He means extremely well but is a bit awkward and people hold that against him. He’s married to a kind but shy Japanese woman who he met while working on boats. He seems to keep to himself most of the time and his intoxicant of choice is coca-cola.

My roommate is a darker, mid-forties, stocky bass-player with a shaved head. He’s jovial, perverted and I’m guessing he’s a bachelor considering the nomadic lifestyle he leads.  He gets short snippets of songs stuck in his head and sings the same line for days at a time, for the past few days it’s been “I’m so excited,” and “I feel good.” He also loves the phrases “yeah dude” and “let’s do this” and will mutter them to himself constantly. He snores very loudly, spends most of his time in the room watching CNN.

The guitarist is a shorter Russian man who is probably in his mid-thirties and lives in England. His accent is very thick but his English is great so he’s not hard to understand. He’s been the friendliest to me on the bandstand but is hard to get a read on. When he asked me about the music I liked, he seemed intrigued by math rock.

The pianist is a tall, younger, American guy who is cerebral and loves to play video game music when he’s warming up or during a break at practice. This is his second contract on a boat and he seems depressed. I have tried talking to him several times but he seems reluctant to get into an involved conversation with me. However, he has been very helpful with letting me know things about the job that no one else has, especially concerning the terrible charts that I have.

The drummer is a shorter, mid-twenty something who’s aloof, cynical and independent. He has permanent stubble on his face and smiles infrequently. He doesn’t speak much, and when he does it seems like he is holding something back, I just don’t know what that is.    

The alto sax player is an Argentinian ladies man with a chubby face and is around my age. He is on the last week of his contract and he seems happy to be leaving, but also nostalgic about his time on the boat. This week he has been carrying a camera around taking videos during performances and rehearsals. He is smooth, outgoing and has great taste in music. He seems like a good guy but I don’t really have a chance to get to know him better.

The tenor sax player is a cold Russian giant with a stone gaze. He talks with an air of knowing everything and could be anywhere between 25 and 42. He swaps between seeming warm and very distant pretty regularly, and like the guitarist, he is hard to get a good read on.

There are two trumpet players and both of them are American. One of them is quiet young man with spiked hair who is dating a dancer and they are quite cute together. I don’t really know, but I get the feeling he likes to talk trash and is a bit sarcastic. The other is talkative, boisterous and wears glasses. He was a member of the reserves and is finishing up his military contract. He likes to joke around and has a long list of video games he wants to play during his contract.

The singer is an extraverted, giggly blonde who seems to have a bunch of friends on the ship. She routinely tries to strike up conversations with me when I am not feeling my best and I feel bad about not responding better. She has a great voice and a boyfriend on the mainland that she misses very much.

So that’s the band, not much else to report since the last post, still struggling with the same things. Miss you all, g’night.

  

End of the First Week

The culture of being on a cruise ship is bizarre. I have never had a job that has made me feel so many things in such a short amount of time.  The past two days have been a battle between my urge to make a life here and my urge to quit. Now that I have a bit of a feel for what this place is like, it is becoming more and more apparent to me that I don’t really see myself staying happy here. Everyone on the ship is two-faced; they have their guest side and their crew side. It seems to me that this two-facedness bleeds into interactions with crew members. To really make it here, I’m going to have to build a wall around myself to avoid letting it all get to me. I don’t want to do that, but I won’t last if I don’t. On the other hand, there is tons of room for making progress both musically and as an individual. So the question I’m struggling with is which do I choose; happiness or growth?

Yesterday was a pretty light day. I woke up and ate lunch. I don’t think any of the musicians eat breakfast here, lunch seems to be the first meal of the day. After that I killed time until 5:30, when we had a sound check. The show started at seven and another at nine. It was the same one that we did the night before. Playing with a click track is lame, but I’m getting a feel for it slowly. This show is New Orleans themed; mostly NO-style jazz a few pop tunes thrown in for good measure. The production singers range from great to mediocre, and the show does a wonderful job of taking good tunes and dumbing them down into collages of seemingly unrelated songs. Despite how cheesy the show is, I played it well.

Afterwards, we played another dance set in one of the lounges. People responded more to this performance one than my first. P loves to segue from song to song rapidly, and it’s tough for me to keep up because he calls songs on the fly. Being a drummer, it’s hard to pull tunes from a folder when you are playing with both arms. The show didn’t feel great to me, but the dance floor was full and I’m starting to get a feel for the songs we play regularly.

I schmoozed with a few guests once the show was over then went back my room. My roommate (I’ll call him E from now on) confronted me when I got back. He basically said I wasn’t up to snuff and the rest of the band was upset about it. The advice he gave me was to play busier and to get my head out of the music. He claimed the rest of the band was talking behind my back (there's that two-facedness I spoke about) about it and that that wasn’t who he was so he told me. I was a little upset about the manner in which he told me, but I’ve never really taken criticism well so I chalked it up to that. I thanked him for being real and settled in for the night. This was when I first started humoring the idea of quitting. I talked to a few friends online about it; the advice I got was to give myself a time frame to get a strong feel for the job before I make a decision. That way, I can either settle into it or really understand why I dislike it, so if I wind up leaving I won’t regret it in the future. Having talked it out with a few people, I went to sleep.

I got up this morning feeling better. The company requires a mandatory Vessel Familiarization Test at the end of everyone’s first week. You have to meet with your supervisor before the test and go over the material, so I went to P’s room and he went over everything pretty briefly. Then we had a rehearsal at noon; it was our final production show of the week, which stars guest singing recognizable tunes. The entertainment department auditions passengers the day before and the winners get to be in the show. This was the only production show we actually rehearse, so I actually got a feel for the tracks before I performed them for the first time.  The rehearsal was mostly the dancers teaching the passengers what they would be doing. During rehearsal, the interactions I had with my fellow musicians were cold, and this put me back into a melancholy mood.

Then I had the test, it was easy. I studied way too hard for this thing; most of the crew was blatantly cheating off of each other and the officers giving the test didn’t seem to mind. I chatted with a British and a Canadian guy after the test, they made fun of Americans and I played along, it was fun. When the test was over I had the farewell dance show, where I tried to do what E suggested. I got my head out of the music, and just wound up losing my place in most of the songs.  Near the end, I heard E talking to the guitarist about how I was terrible. Now, I haven’t been a professional musician for a long time, but I know that to form a musical rapport, the players need to trust each other. Instead of building that trust, his actions upset me and I just checked out of the rest of the show. When the show ended, I was feeling pretty upset so I pulled P aside and told him that I didn’t think this job was for me. He tried to convince me to stick it out and I told him I’d give it a few more weeks, but that quitting was on my mind. P told me to stop by his room and we could talk about it. We chatted for a bit and he’s actually a really nice guy. I felt a bit better about staying another week or so, but I told him he should keep his ear to the ground about finding a replacement.

We ate dinner, and then I had a karaoke set. I didn’t really want to play with the band at this point, so for the first half of the set I wasn’t really trying. Throughout the show, E continued to make comments about my playing to the guitarist; he must either have a lot of distain for me or think I’m oblivious. When we had a short break, I started to get really angry about it. Right before we started back up again, the guitarist said to me that I need to play like I’m an animal, and that if I’m not more aggressive that I will get killed by other animals. I channeled the rage I was feeling into my playing and things just clicked. It was good, but needing to be angry to gel with the other musicians seems unhealthy, and I’m positive that if I have to do that, I won’t be happy on this ship. Once the second half of the karaoke was over we had the production show. It went smoothly and uneventfully but the guests are not very good singers.

I’ve decided that next week I’m going to really try to be present on the ship. I want to really know if I should stay or leave, and I feel like concentrating on being here is the best way to do that. Honestly, this week has not been the best, but everyone tells me that your first week always sucks. I had really romanticized being a musician on a ship, and I sacrificed a lot of things to be here. I don’t really know if that was a good decision. I was legitimately happy for the first time in over a year when I was in New Jersey and it feels like I’ve left that behind for a pipe dream. On the other hand, I know that if I conquer this, it will only make me a stronger and better person.

I guess this post has a pretty negative tone, but I’ve been fighting the urge to quit all day. Not being initially liked by my co-workers is a difficult thing for me to deal with, and not having a support net of friends here is not helping matters. However, I’ve spent my life running away from things I don’t like. I’ve transferred schools three times (and almost did a fourth time), quit jobs and cut social ties all in the pursuit of happiness, but was that really a good idea? Did I ever really find happiness at the places I ran to, or just a different thing I didn’t like? I guess these are things I’ll have to wrestle with over the next week or two.

Stay tuned listeners! Next week’s episode should be a good one…

Cozumel and Hell Day

A lot of jobs I’ve had have a so called "hell week." My first week on this ship has been just that. The amount of information I’ve had thrown at me is astounding, that coupled with trying to build a social life and adjusting to the culture shock has left me completely inundated. Today has been probably been the heaviest day I’ll have for my entire contract. There have been many emotional ups and downs, at several points I thought to myself that this job is totally not worth it. But, it seems like this will be a pretty plush gig once I have a chance to get into a rhythm. So I told myself that it will only go downhill from here and that I’ll know all the music in no time. With that said, today has been both humbling and draining, and the tone of this post may be a bit more negative than the past few.

But before we get to that, yesterday was plush. First off, I got to sleep waaay in. One of the perks of being a cruise musician is having very late hours. I doubt there will be a day my entire cruise where I have to play before eleven, and most days I won’t have to work until around five. I got up around eleven, ate a quick lunch and got off the boat to explore the port. Cozumel, Mexico is a small island off the coast of Cancun, and it seems like their entire economy is based around tourism. The pier forces passengers to go through a duty free store before they even set foot on solid earth. Then there is a plaza that has about 50 shops geared towards selling tourists either cheaply made, overpriced chach, or astoundingly expensive jewelry. Vendors flirt with you from the entrances of their tropical-themed shops, trying to lure you in. The “party” bars blast salsa and spanish rock as their signs boast about cheap tequila shots and coronas. I finally found my way out of the plaza and onto one of Cozumel’s main roads. After walking for a bit, I found a small restaurant and practiced my bad Spanish with the waiter there. Then I settled into an internet café and caught up with the world for an hour or so.

I had scheduled a quick rehearsal with P and my roommate the bassist to go over some tunes, so I made my way back to the boat. The rehearsal went well; we really got cooking at a few points going over some soul tunes. When that was over I went back to the room and relaxed for a while: nap, reading and videogames. It seems like that will be a pretty common trio of activities for the next few months. I got back to work at 8:45 for my first live karaoke set. It was pretty fun, I play to a click and everyone else plays to me. We did mostly country-western tunes with a few pop and jazz standards thrown in. I got out of work at around midnight and hit the hay; I knew I had a long day ahead of me.

Which brings us to today, the boat docked in Belize today, but I could not get off of it. I had to be at a corporate training session for new hires at 8:30. Oh man, it was boring. There were a lot of acronyms for things that seemed superfluous and some cheesy videos starring a VP of the company and his goofy sidekick. Some of the officers came to talk to us about environmental policies and explaining the rules of the ship. The session was shortened (thank god) to make time for a safety drill. We are having a coast guard inspection this coming Sunday and we ran the crew evacuation plan. Unfortunately, the card they gave me that was supposed to explain where I was to go was not completed by whoever gave it to me, so I just followed my roommate. We wound up just standing on the deck for about half an hour until we were dismissed, but I guess people behind the scenes were very busy.

Anyway, my roommate snores, loudly, so I did not sleep very well the night before. I took the short amount of time I had to grab 20 z’s until rehearsal started. We went over the songs I had rehearsed the day before, but this time it went pretty poorly for me. Right after rehearsal we hosted a party for the passengers who had been on multiple cruises. I still had a bad taste in my mouth from rehearsal, so the show went alright I think, but I was not feeling good about it. I tried to shake it off, so I ate dinner and met some new people. Then we had the show I had been rehearsing for the past two days for. Most cruises have performers they call “fly ons” who get flown to a destination for only a day or two on the ship. Our fly on showed up, he was named MA. I was a little nervous for two reasons: rehearsal went so badly and most of the other musicians had talked about how MA can be difficult to work with. Both of the shows with him went really well, maybe it was the adrenaline, or it could have been the improvisational nature of the shows. I play much better on the fly than off of paper, and near the end of his show he would take requests and the band would just make it up, so I was really digging that part. I was feeling pretty good afterwards, but the day was still not over.

Our boat has two major and two smaller production shows. I’ve already spoken about one of each, and tonight we did a run of the second large show for the crew. I was thankful for this because it was pretty much a dress rehearsal for tomorrow, when I’m going to need to play it for the guests. Now, I was exhausted at this point, the show started at midnight and my brain was not at its quickest and I shared a beer with the rhythm section before we went on. To top it all off, I was going into the show completely cold, I hadn't looked at the music until about 20 minutes before we performed. Needless to say, I didn't play well. Now, it never feels good to play a bad show, but I was feeling DOWN on myself afterwards. We finished around 1:15am, and I was tired and grumpy. So here I am now, writing it all out. Tomorrow I don’t have work until 5:30, so I’m going to spend it learning the show. G’nite internets.

First Port

Ok, so I’ve been on the ship for 3 days now, and I’m still a little overwhelmed. I’m getting to know the band better and I’ve started meeting people, but I still haven’t really set foot into the passenger areas of the boat at all. They are much prettier than where we live. Everything in the crew areas is dull shades of white and greyish blue. The passenger areas are expectedly luxurious, it has a retro 70s meets classic Greek feel with dark mahogany trim. The contrast of the two areas is extreme, and will take a while to get used to.

Anyway, I woke up yesterday and got my medical check-up. Real simple: questionare, blood pressure and blood test. The nurse was a stocky English woman who was kind and a bit sassy, she made small talk as she pricked my finger and sighed as I made a quip about scurvy. She gave me the ok and I went to get my ID, which has quite possibly the worst picture ever taken of me on it. After that I went to the staff mess and ate lunch with a few of the musicians. Everyone on the boat raves about Breaking Bad and people perked up when I told them I have all four seasons on my laptop. A sax player came by my room and grabbed the last episode from me with his thumb drive after lunch.

Then I killed a bit of time. I didn’t have work until 5:30 so I explored the ship, went over some music, worked out and played some Binding of Issac (that damn game…) until work rolled around.  It was time for our first real production show. The show on the first day is only 8 minutes long, while the one yesterday was just under an hour. We didn’t rehearse this one either, so needless to say I was frazzled. Sound check was at 5:30, we played this show on-stage instead of in the pit, and I was on the top in the center. After checking all the mics I went back to the room and crammed a bit the music as much as I could.

Seven rolled around and it was show time. I was looking fly, 3-piece suit and a bowtie, but I was not feeling very confident with the music. Luckily, this show had a backing track as well, and I stumbled through it without any major hiccups but I was definitely not happy with the way I played. I shook it off and relaxed for a minute before the Nine o’ clock show. I felt a lot better going into the second one, definitely played better but I still wasn’t satisfied with the way I played. Oh well, I’ll be playing the same show for six months, I’m sure I’ll have it down soon.

Then we had a dance set in one of the bars, it was pretty fun. There was no click track so it felt like we were actually making music. It was mostly motown, funk and rock, and the crowd seemed into it. We were really grooving for a while and it will only get better as I learn the songs. The Cruise Director stepped in to check on us, and pulled P aside and told him that I sounded good. I’m glad I made a good first impression on my boss’s boss. After the set I got out of my formal wear and went over to the crew bar. I went by myself just to see what it was like, I didn’t know anyone there so I just had a quick drink and left. Then it was back to my room for bed.

Today we have the day off, but I have a difficult set coming up on Thursday so P and my roommate are gonna rehearse a bit with me at 2:30. Right now I’m in the Grand Caymans; it’s very pretty but also touristy and expensive. Instead of exploring I’m in an internet café uploading blog posts, skyping and catching up with my e-mail. I chatted with the Chinese guy from corporate training on the ferry ride into port. He said that the first two weeks on the boat are tough because you’re still building a friend group. It was nice to hear him say that. Things are good, but I don’t really have a group of people to do stuff with yet, that will come with time though. Well, I don’t want to waste all my port time in the café, so I’m gonna get some fresh air before rehearsal. See ya!

First Day on the Boat

Man, today has been a total overload. That shuttle I mentioned in the last post took me to the boat and left me at the crew security check point. After a quick frisk and check, accidentally walked through a fork lift only area and boarded the ship. That confusion was pretty indicative of the next few hours on ship. I went through a metal detector and my bags got scanned, then after ambling around the hallways for a few minutes, I found the porters office. There I handed in my passport and medical papers. Then I think I signed my life away, that contract was far too long to actually read.

Then the music director showed up, I’ll call him P. He’s a pale, stringy, hairless man who plays the trombone. P began to show me around the ship, showed me where my cabin was and started to tell me the rules on the ship. He has a generous sense of humor and seems easy going, should be a good boss as long as I show up on time and know my music.

After about half an hour, he took me to one of the lounges on board where I began my corporate training. An all-business Chinese man introduced himself, gave us some packets and played some blah training video that I’ve already forgotten. Then the head safety officer talked to us about fires and men going overboard in a thick Italian accent. After that I was taken to my muster point and the passenger safety drill began. I didn’t know what to do at all, so they let me go back to my room.

After about half an hour of waiting, rehearsal started.  It was there that I was told that we would be performing a show that night…and that we wouldn’t be rehearsing that show at all. Instead, we jumped into a bunch of Motown and Rock standards. Let me tell you, the band can play. There is a good mix of young men around my age and mid-life bachelors. There’s also one female singer that’s in her 20s. I’ll post about the band more once I get to know them better. None of the playing is really difficult, but the volume of music I need to know is pretty intimidating.

Then we had a dinner break, I stayed behind for a few minutes to learn about clocking in and out. The food was alright I suppose, standard cafeteria fare. I was warned that washing my hands was EXTREMLY important to avoid GI infections, there was an outbreak just last cruise of about 50 passengers so I was extra careful concerning all that.

I went down to a different lounge and we did a quick live karaoke rehearsal with the rhythm section. I’m the only one listening to a click during this and I start the band for every song. There is a book of about 200 songs that we sight read, it’s all pretty simple stuff. I think this should be a fun set to do. Then the horns showed up and we rehearsed a funk set we do every week with a guest performer. Standard fare stuff, but I hear he is pretty hard on the drummer, we’ll see.

There was a short break where I went over the show music once or twice, put my pit uniform on, shaved and headed to the theater. The show started with a drum roll and I was off. It was all kinda cheesy, military style snare rolls and 2&4 rock beats. I stumbled through it without any major mistakes, I had to sit out once or twice but luckily there was a backing track. Then the cruise director came on stage and made fun of the audience for a little bit, the passengers ate it up. I was warned before the show that the cruise director has no idea how to cue the band. He tried to cue us once to play some walk-on stuff and we totally missed it. Then the keys player tried to count us in late and just he and the bass player started. We got cut and the cruise director made some snarky comments about the band, P rolled his eyes and the show went on.

After some crowd pleasing antics, a comedian came on. He started his show by singling me out. “Hey, the band got a new member tonight, so in honor of him…What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians? A Drummer!” Silence. I was tempted to play a rim shot, but held back, don’t want to piss anyone off on my first day. So I just looked at him and smiled. He recovered and even made me laugh a few times before we played him off and the cruise director closed the show. We played the audience out with some broadway rock song.

So at this point I had been up since 4am and it was 11:30pm. We broke the stage down and I got pulled aside by the stage manager. Apparently they love to blow stuff up, but can’t use pyrotechnics unless everyone involved in the show watches some bland powerpoint video of pyrotechnics safety. It was riveting stuff, but I got through it.

So here I am now, in my room reading over my orientation packets and getting ready to sleep. My room gets no natural light at all, so I’m guessing that I will have no idea what time it is when I wake up. I don’t have work tomorrow until 5:30, but I should probably get up earlier to get my medical test over with and go over tomorrow’s show. It’s been a long day and my brain is full. Night guys. 

Getting Ready

So here I am at the in the airport, waiting for a shuttle to take me to the boat. I'm feeling a cocktail of anxiousness, nervousness at excitement because I've been kept in the dark about most of what the job will entail. I don't really know what to expect at all, I might be performing today. All I was really told was that I'd be playing in the showband, my sight reading needs to be strong, and I'll need a suit and an instrument to play.

Because I got hired through an agent, I haven't had much contact with the line's PR department. The only time I directly heard from them was when I got my plane ticket, everything else has been filtered through my agent. As far as a recommended packing list or along those lines, I haven't really heard anything from anyone. So I found this website that had some resources for cruise musicians that has been very helpful while getting ready to ship out.

As far as packing is concerned, I started with the basics: clothes, toiletries, some books, all the stuff you would pack if you were going on vacation. But what I was really wanted to know were the things that would really make my experience as an employee easier. A recommendation I found all over the web was to get a folding bike. It sounded great to me, I love seeing new places by bike and rentals in my ports of call are very over-priced. So I browsed craigslist until I found a cheap one in good condition and pounced on it. This bike is awesome. It's a little old with some cosmetic damage but rides great, 5 speeds and it folds down to the size of a suitcase. I'll post a picture once it gets shipped down to me. 

I also got a camera that I'm very happy with. Nothing too crazy, just a sleek canon point-and-shoot, but it should make for a much more interesting blog once I get some shots. Unfortunately, I can't get too candid with it because I'm trying to keep this blog anonymous, but we'll see what I can get away with.

I've been told that life as a musician involves a lot of free time, so I've packed a bunch of things to entertain myself with. Along with the 10 or so paperbacks I stuffed into my bags, I brought my laptop freshly loaded up with a bunch of games from the steam christmas sale, a copy of Settlers of Catan that I can hopefully find some people to play with, an ukulele to shed with, and a hard drive full of TV shows I've been meaning to watch. Hopefully all of that will keep me busy while I'm not out exploring ports.

So, any suggestions with other ways to entertain myself would me much appreciated. Any advice from seasoned cruise passengers would also be nice. 

Getting the Job

Hey everyone!

So this will be a blog where I will be chronicling my times as a musician at sea. The internet on the boat is 12 cents a minute for a 56k satellite connection, so the updates might be sparse.

So a lot of people have been asking me about how I got the job. There are two main ways musicians get cruise ship jobs, through the line's talent department or through an agent. I did the latter through a music agency. Either way, you need to apply with a resume and a video portfolio with some samples of you playing. About a month after I applied, they got back to me to schedule a video audition. They mailed me an audition packet with a few sheets of music and a cd in it. I had to open the packet on camera and sight read it along to a backing track on the cd. Then I was asked to play 8 bars in several different styles of music: funk, rock, jazz, samba, disco and so on. I uploaded it all onto youtube and sent the agent the links. I heard back about a week later and they told me I passed the audition. Then I waited. For two long months.

When I heard back from my agent, they told me that a certain cruise line was interested in hiring me, but I had to go through the pre-employment process. This included a bunch of medical tests, some questionnaires and a short personal bio. Once I got all of those into my agent I once again had to wait. It took the line another three weeks to get back to me with a start date, and then another two weeks until I got my tickets.

So, the process mostly took a lot of patience. Tomorrow I ship out! Expect a post about preparing to ship out soon.