Sea Sharp: One Foot Out The Door

So Yeah, I’ve quit. As I said last week, I gave my notice a few hours after posting. It went much smoother than I expected it to. I told P that I was leaving for a job in another field, and he, having worked in the culinary arts in the past, took it well. He was much less stressed about it than I anticipated him to be, saying that he appreciated the notice I was giving and that ship life is definitely not for everyone. He nonchalantly printed off the resignation paperwork, and we made small talk about that kid who got shot for wearing a hoodie.

The paperwork included my exit “interview.” I had to answer questions you would expect a large corporation to ask it’s leaving employees, like “What could we have changed to prevent you from leaving?”, “What do you think of your direct supervisor?”, and “Describe the morale in your department.” I saw this as an opportunity to open up a line of communication between P and the cruise director. As I said earlier, there is some tension between the two, so I spoke my mind in a polite and constructive manner. Since filling out the paperwork, things seem much better between the two of them. Afterwards, P checked the “employment terminated mid-contract” box, which basically means the company won’t hire me back after I leave, we shook hands and I left.

The next day I was called back to his office/room to clarify some of my responses. P was a bit concerned about a comment I made about tension between middle and upper management. We spoke about the difficulties of keeping professional distance in an environment where your co-workers are your only social outlet, and how he can’t really speak about his issues with the cruise director with the musicians. It was productive, but I felt that maybe I should have bit my tongue during the interview just to avoid conflict. I mean, I’m leaving in a few weeks and then I’ll never have to deal with these issues again, why bother with them now? When we were done speaking, he showed me a flash video called “ship of darkness” that is about disgruntled musicians and ship life. It was funny, and I grabbed it from him, so when I get home I can show people what it was like to live on the ship.

I was a bit concerned about how I was going to tell my co-workers. I waited a day or two before I started running my mouth. The first person I spoke to was the karaoke host, a middle aged woman who was recently laid off, so she sold her house and came out to the ship. We were eating lunch together and it just seemed like the right moment to let the cat out, she was understanding and told me to follow what I wanted to do. Then I started to let the musicians know over the course of the next few days. Everyone was surprised that I was leaving, but when I explained that I found another job that is more in line with my desired career path, they seemed cool with it but simultaneously disappointed. Since then, I’ve been letting a select few people know as it comes up, but I don’t really plan on spreading the word too much. I’m not very well known on the ship, so I doubt many people would be interested in my departure.

The few days after I quit, it was hard to motivate myself to really play out. Instead, I’ve kind of just been going through the motions yet again. Now that I really know the production shows, I don’t really need to read along with them anymore. I get through them pretty well this way, but there are still a few hits that I miss or a fill that isn’t played exactly as it’s written. Honestly, no matter how well I play, the band is wallpaper for the production shows. We are one of the only ensembles in the fleet that is actually in the house speakers when the shows are going on. Most sound guys just play the backing tracks and mute the band, but we are at about 30% volume to 70% backing. Even with this, we still don’t really matter, and if we were to not play at all, it really wouldn’t be a big deal. Because of this, I try to just not make any glaring mistakes and not play in any holes. I am at the point where I can do this without the sheet music, so instead of trying to learn the drum solos note for note, or get every 16^th note exactly right, I just go with it and it turns out well enough.

As for the karaoke sets, they are what they are. I have a bit more creative freedom during these, but I am still playing to a click and not playing like I mean it. Our most requested songs are “Margaritaville” and “Sweet Caroline,” but during karaoke this past week, we’ve had a lot of young girls singing Ke$ha, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. The songs we play are not stimulating for the band at all, and are meant to be dumbed down versions of pop songs that are easy for the guests to follow. One moment stands out that epitomizes the disconnect between musicians and the singers; this one 11 year old boy came up and sang “DJ got us falling in Love” by Usher. For this song I play four on the floor, with occasional snare hits on 2 and 4, real boring stuff. Well, the entire crowd went BALLISTIC for this kid; the dance floor was fuller than it has ever been, even for the dance sets. Afterwards, I had a chat with the keyboardist about the power of shitty club music, and how people go nuts for it. I guess not everyone has good musical tastes. Tomorrow I have to play songs like that for three hours. Doing this is much more draining than playing music I want to be playing; I leave those sets feeling sluggish and unfulfilled.

I want to elaborate a bit more on the dance sets. As I’ve said before, it is a collection of accessible Motown, Disco and RocknRoll. We try to pick music that everyone will know and enjoy. Sometimes, the production singers will come up and do a few songs with us, but mostly it is our showband singer doing the songs. Here is the setlist for our last set in no particular order…

She Drives Me Crazy – Fine Young Cannibals

I’m So Excited – The Pointer Sisters

Mustang Sally – Wilson Pickett

Locomotion – Little Eva

I Can’t Help Myself – The Four Tops

Sway – Dean Martin

Shake Your Tail Feather – Blues Brothers

The Greatest Love of All – Whitney Houston

Respect – Otis Reading

Rescue Me – Fontella Bass

Last Dance – Donna Summer

Get ready – Rare Earth

Neither One of Us – Gladys Knight & The Pips

Shake Your Booty – KC & The Sunshine Band

What’d I Say – Ray Charles

Wooly Bully – Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs

Ooh Baby Baby – Linda Ronstadt

Sunshine of my Life – Stevie Wonder

I Wish – Stevie Wonder

Late in the Evening – Paul Simon

Midnight Train to Georgia – Gladys Knight & The Pips

Walking on Sunshine – Katrina & The Waves

I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor

Here are some of the songs that we didn’t play for the last performance but are standards for the set…

Achy Breaky Heart – Billy Ray Cyrus

Ain’t too Proud to Beg – The Temptations

Brown Eyed Girl – Jimmy Buffet

Brick House – The Commodores

Crazy Little Thing Called Love – Queen

Celebration – Cool and the Gang

Crazy – Patsy Cline

Chain of Fools – Aretha Franklin

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me – Elton John

Disco Inferno – Tina Turner

Electric Slide – Marica Griffith

Freeway of Love – Aretha Franklin

Heard it Through the Grapevine – Marvin Gaye

Georgia – Ray Charles

Get Over It – The Eagles

I Feel Good – James Brown

It Had to be You – Classy Brass

Johnny B. Goode – Chuck Berry

Land of 1000 Dances – Wilson Picket

Love Shack – B-52s

Louie Louie – The Kingsmen

Mony, Mony – Billy Idol

My Girl – The Temptations

New York, New York – Frank Sinatra

Only You – The Platters

Old Time Rock & Roll – Bob Seger

Pretty Woman – Roy Orbison

Play That Funky Music White Boy – Wild Cherry

Proud Mary – Ike & Tina Turner

R.O.C.K. in the USA – John Mellencamp

Soul Man – Blues Brothers

Sweet Home Chicago – Blues Brothers

She Works Hard for the Money – Donna Summer

Sharp Dressed Man – Z Z Top

Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder

Save the Last Dance for Me – Michael Bublé

September – Earth, Wind & Fire

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay – Otis Redding

Shout – Otis Redding

The Twist – Chubby Checker

Twist & Shout – The Isley Brothers

That’s the Way I Like It – KC & the Sunshine Band

Wonderful Tonight – Eric Clapton

Walk the Dinosaur – Was (Was Not)

What is Hip? – Tower of Power

YMCA – Village People

123 – Miami Sound Machine

25 or 6 to 4 - Chicago

There are about 30 more songs in our book that we only play occasionally. As you can see, it’s a pretty diverse mix of recognizable pop music from the 50s through the 80s. The music, save for a few songs, is pretty boring for the drummer. I mostly play backbeats with basic eight-note bass drum patterns. I throw in some ghost notes and fills to keep it a bit more interesting, but there is only so much I can do before drawing the focus away from the singer and the melody. Regardless, this set feels more like actually making music than the other two do because there is no click and the sheet music is much less rigid.

This past week I was on Port Manning, which means I couldn’t leave the ship. Basically, if an emergency happens while we’re in port; the ship needs to know that some of the crew will be on board to assist with the evacuation. Part of my duty was to perform “just ask” during embarkation day. Basically, the passengers turn their brains off as soon as they get on the ship, so we help them read maps and signs that are posted all over the ship. I stood by the elevators and told people we “You’re on the second floor, the buffet is on the ninth floor!” about 200 times. The whole week was a bit boring, but I didn’t get claustrophobic like I expected myself to. What I did do was sleep, a lot, like 13 hours a day. We visited Costa Maya for the only time during my contract, so my MD gave me his ID and let me get off the ship there. It was basically exactly like the other ports, very touristy. Everyone saw my skin and saw the color of money, so that was a bit annoying, but I got to sit on the beach while I surfed the internet and read, so I can’t really complain at all.

We had a new fly on this past week, JD. He was a nice guy, but not the best singer. We rehearsed for about two hours before the performance then it was show time. I don’t like that aspect of this job very much. As with anything, with a performance, you get what you put into it. Putting only two hours of rehearsal into something usually results in a sloppy and unprepared show, but I guess that’s all the time we have to devote to a one-time thing like this. As you could probably guess, the show was meh at best.

During my exit interview, I spoke with P about some of these things I just mentioned. What it boiled down to was that the musicians are just not fulfilled by the music we are playing. A few days later, the cruise director called a meeting to talk to us about adding another set to our schedule. He said that for this one, we could do anything that we wanted. We settled on a real book set, so we threw together a list of standards and rehearsed them briefly. Oh man, it was sooo good to finally play some jazz! This was the first time that I fully performed on the ship, I was playing out like I never have on this gig. The other musicians finally “got” my drumming, and the response to the set was overwhelmingly positive. It will be quite nice to have this outlet for my last few weeks on the ship. My only gripe is that I never got a chance to play a drum solo, what’s up with that?

So, I only have three or four weeks left on the boat, I’m trying to make it as enjoyable as possible, so I’ve been spending time with the people I’ve gotten to know and I’m introducing myself to those I’ve been meaning to meet. A few nights ago I had a listening party with a few of the musicians, we stayed up until 4 in the morning just playing each other songs; it was pretty fun. Moments like those make me think twice about my decision to leave. I have thought once or twice that I would like to stay, but that is only natural when making such a life altering decision like I am. I have thought much more about how amazing of an opportunity I have coming up with this new job, and how I am going to run such a tight yet fun kitchen.

Today I went snorkeling in the Grand Cayman. It was much nicer than the snorkeling in Roatan; there were many more fish and the reef was much bigger. At the dive off point, there were a bunch of huge Tarpon, they must have been like 4 feet long. It was a bit intimidating diving off and having these fish who could seriously mess you up right there. They were docile though, they hang out there because the dive center keeps them fed as a tourist attraction. The solo guitarist and I stayed out at the reef for about an hour, it was relaxing to swim a bit and see some big schools of fish.