How Shipbound Got His Cabin Back

I’m a nice guy. No, really, I’m not just saying that, I’m a very nice guy. I’m also fairly good-looking, extremely talented, and I have a disarming charm. (I don’t believe in false modesty.) I have an enormous number of faults too, but I won’t bother mentioning them here. Why ruin your imaginary portrait of me? But back to me being nice. I’m so nice, that I let my drummer Dom (who I love to death) use my cabin while his girlfriend Marisha (who I also love to death) was here for a week visiting. I stayed in his cabin with his roommate, Chris (who I love to death too), who didn’t mind living with his “boss” for a while. I know they would have done the same for me, and they’re 2 people I love very much (to death in fact), so it really wasn’t a big deal. So long as the sheets get changed. Aren’t I nice? So why don’t I have a boyfriend? Fuck, it sucks to be me.

All profane Avenue Q quotes aside, it got me thinking; what do people do who can’t get a cabin to themselves? I know a musician who is dating a dancer who, despite having been together for 2 years, still can’t get a cabin together. She rooms with another dancer, he rooms with another musician. He was lucky for a little while in one contract, when I managed to get him a cabin alone for a couple of months (Don’t ask how I did it. It involved a bit of subterfuge and a bottle of Jack. Granted, it was the ship’s smallest cabin. You had to open the door to change your shoes). There’s a couple on my current ship who are married – MARRIED - and can’t get a cabin to themselves. She was also lucky for a while because she didn’t have a roommate, but that changed this week. Another crewmember came to me last cruise, suggesting an illicit liaison. The first question out of her mouth was ”You have your own room, right? I was surprised that, despite having done 2 contracts together, she had no idea that I played for the Rainbow League. And I ain’t no switch hitter. Apparently, she had a history of barking up the completely wrong trees. We had a laugh about it. A week or so later.

One’s cabin can demonstrate how high up one is in the pecking order. I have been to the Hotel Manager’s cabin several times, (it’s not what you think…) and I am always surprised at how big it is. It’s bigger than my last apartment. In New York, it would rent for about $5000 a month. Easy. AND it has a balcony. AND a bathtub. (Ohhhhhhh a bathtub.) I am apparently high-ish up on the ladder, because I have a room with a double bed and a porthole. (Although I have no discernible power, and no one listens to what I say. Oh well…) A lot of people who don’t share a cabin still have twin bunk beds – which can make relationships challenging, but is useful at least as extra storage. Some of the crew down on B deck share a bathroom between cabins. Cabin location is key, too. On my first ship, my cabin was on the top deck, and I had a couch, a fridge, a DVD player and a picture window. I foolishly assumed (…makes an ass…) that all future accommodations would have similar amenities. Imagine my surprise (Zounds!) on my next contract where I had none of these things. (But I DID have a porthole! You should be happy with what you have! There are starving children in Africa without a porthole!) There are some crewmembers who have cabins in passenger areas or close to passenger areas. Now, fraternization with passengers is verboten, and I’m not saying this ever happens, because it doesn’t. Ever. I swear to God. But it would be fairly easy to sneak a passenger in and out to dance the horizontal tango without so much as a furtive glance. But this is all conjecture.

I have never had sex with a passenger (and if my parents are reading this, I’ve never had sex). But on my last contract, I had a close call. At least the other guy thought so. The ship was in port, and I was eating nachos in the Lido, which is possibly the un-sexiest food ever. There was this gentleman standing around, staring out the window, getting a glass of water, just loitering. He was probably close to 60, but he was in very good shape - very well built, and probably very nice. But he was wearing these little white shorts. With no underwear. I was NOT looking, but when someone is bouncing around in there, one can’t help but notice and think: EEEWWW!! Anyhow, I finished my nachos (remember; unsexy food) and made my way to the elevators back to my room. Who should appear 20 seconds later, but Bouncing Boy. (It should also be mentioned that he had shaved his head bald, and he had the bushiest eyebrows I have ever seen.) He gets on the elevator, we make small talk – nice weather, great cruise, music director hmmm – and he asks “You have your own cabin, right?”. Either I am tremendously naïve or just don’t pick up on clues, but at this point, I still have no idea he’s trying to make me another notch on his Depends. I responded “Yes, and I have a porthole” Make your own joke. Everyone else has. That’s when I start to clue in. Also, he hasn’t pressed his own elevator button, and is headed down to A deck, a crew area. Now, the gangway is on A deck, but midship, whereas I live in the front. So as we step off the elevator, and he looks sheepish and hopeful, the little 15 watt bulb in my head finally lights up, and I have a “eureka” moment. Not a happy one. So, I try to diffuse the situation and guide this gentleman to the gangway. I meant to say “You must be trying to get off the ship”. But instead I say, and get ready for this, “You’re looking to get off, right?”. Well, if I hadn’t been sure he wasn’t wearing underwear before, I certainly knew it now. I mumbled something about having to play for tea time (which was true), ran back to my room and left the guy with the eyebrows to his own devices. He had apparently made goo goo eyes (and other things!) at several other male crewmembers, and one evening over a couple of beers, we all had a good laugh. Poor guy. I wonder if he ever got laid.

By the time this contract ends in November, I will have lived in my current cabin for a total of 16 out of the past 24 months. I have added a few homey touches, such as a bamboo floor mat from Croatia, blue suction cup fish from Italy, a Canada umbrella hat used as a light fixture and dirty clothes on the floor. I’m sitting on my bed typing this right now, in fact. I miss my dogs, and being able to cook. But as much as anything else is, my cabin is my home. But only for now. (That makes 2 Avenue Q quotes!)

The Slums of Venice

It’s safe to say that in Venice, all roads most assuredly do not lead to Rome, if you know what I mean. The streets and alleyways snake around, fold in on themselves, and end abruptly - either by running into a wall, or by falling off into a canal. There are countless narrow passageways with centuries-old buildings, the pastel-coloured cracked plaster exposing the ancient brick. Houses like that in North America would be condemned (or the exposed brick would be on the inside – how 1993!). In Venice, it’s awe-inspiring. It’s very easy to get lost. Or rather, it’s very difficult to get lost, but very easy to get temporarily misplaced. (Venice is not very big, and there are big yellow signs everywhere on the buildings telling you the big landmarks are, like St. Mark’s or the train station). Nevertheless, I saw countless groups of tourists today, huddled around a map, each member pointing in a different direction. At least 4 people came up to me and asked for directions. (One young lady, reading from her phrase book in apologetic Italian, asked me where the train station was, and I said back to her; “Sola? Perduta? Abbadonata?” She looked puzzled, and I told her in English to follow the signs.)

All this to say that I had about 4 hours to myself this afternoon before I had to be back on the ship for passenger boat drill, so I decided to purposefully get lost. My friend Steven has decided that getting lost is my super power, since I have a tremendously poor sense of direction. But I just wanted to find a Venice that had something other than 3 Euro bottled water or cheesy Pierette masks. Well, a turn down an alley here, a jaunt down a laneway there, and I found myself in what can only be described as the Venetian Projects. There were about 10 of these tacky and poorly built pre-fab complexes with bars on the windows (the first floor anyway), all facing onto this un-maintained court yard. There were graffiti tags from Italian street gangs (is graffiti an Italian word?) – one said “West Side”. (I’ll have to ask my sax player Chris what this represents. You see, in every picture we’ve taken of him, he is either flipping the bird, or is giving the “West Side” symbol – the one where you spread you fingers wide apart, but the middle ones are crossed, forming a “W”). The only thing that distinguished this from run-down neighbourhoods elsewhere in the world was that each of these buildings was built on pylons, and had a parking garage for motorboats. I’m not quite sure why I was so touched by this. It’s almost as if I finally realized that, for me, as much as Venice is Venice, for most Venetians, Venice is merely their home. A city with grocery stores and traffic and street people and schools and nice neighbourhoods and not-so-nice neighbourhoods. Some of the magic was lost, but it made me love it even more.

In ship news, a piece of scenery fell from the rafters about 5 minutes before a rehearsal was supposed to have begun, narrowly missing our beloved assistant stage manager by about 10 seconds. There were countless reasons why people should have been on stage at the time, but luckily, no one was. I have a show on that stage tonight. I’m not nervous.

UPDATE: show went fine, no one died. And I'm up too too late, yet again.

Cabina d'Amore! Baby, Cabina d'Amore!

Let me clear something up right off the bat. It's not "Life from a deck" but rather "Life from A deck" as opposed to B deck or C deck. I work on a cruise ship and I live on Deck A. I have no idea how often I will write here, or if it's just another one of my great ideas that start out with glorious and noble ambition, and end up forgotten and discarded like a one night stand's phone number. Suffice it to say that I want to keep some sort of log. Working on a cruise ship can be wonderfully rewarding; but it can also be a most frustrating, surreal and absurd exercise in futility.

Tonight, my band "plays the hits" for 4 hours. They are amazing. We love playing together, and we're tight tight tight. They're a dream! But more often than not, we outnumber the audience. It's difficult to belt out "Play That Funky Music White Boy" to an audience of seven 80 year-olds. Tonight might be a practice-in-front-of-the-crowd night where we'll try out some new or less familiar tunes. Maybe "Love Shack".

We found a great bar in Venice that was willing to stay open, shall we say, later than usually allowed to by law. It was the first night that all 8 of us went out all together. It's a party band, I'll give us that. Beer was cheap (or at least cheap by Venetian standards) and the company was delightful. I spent an hour chatting with a guy named Marco (who may or may not have been trying to pick me up...) who spoke only slightly more English than I speak Italian. However, after about 40 minutes, we realized we both spoke lousy German. So, imagine if you will, a trilingual conversation, in which neither party really fully comprehends anything being said, but are having one hell of a time. We bonded while singing "Che Gelida Manina" at the top of our lungs while the proprietors of the establishment shushed us repeatedly.

Tomorrow, Venice again, then Croatia. Then the magic of Istanbul for 2 days. Lots to tell...