carnibunk

Hawaii. For those who haven't been there, the most common thought is of luaus, poi and flashes of Magnum PI. After being on the Pride Of America for over a month, I finally got some land time. today in the city. My initial attitude upon disembarking was one of relief and anticipation of experiencing the island paradise. I have been to enough exotic port cities to know that expectations won't meet with the experience (both good and bad) but some hidden part of me always clings to the naivety of the media's portrayal of the tourist vision. 

As I walked along the oceanside main drag whose name escapes me -- a Polynesian word with a lot of m's and u's -- I was still marveling at the obscenely idyllic weather. I stopped at a small open air mall and purchased my traditional port flag (my cabin is almost completely wallpapered in them) and ordered a perfect Orange Julius from the stand that was put there, presumably for my personal benefit.

I noticed that a perfect day scenario might be in the making here, and it needed a perfect soundtrack. I put the earbuds in place and started listening to several albums. Dream Theater? No. Oingo Boingo? Close, but no. Phish? Surprisingly, that didn't fit the day. The only thing that fit was Sting. Yes and shut your face -- Sting's "Dream Of the Blue Turtles" was a good fit. You had to be there.

After walking for a few minutes, the craving for familiar habits reared its head, so I sought out the big shopping mall I had heard about. Still clinging to my idealistic notion of Hawaii, I wandered in the general direction of the mall. I saw a car pull into a parallel parking spot on the street about a hundred feet from me, so I wandered over to get directions from the driver who not yet exited the vehicle.

I approached the window and asked him where the mall was. He appeared to be startled from an afternoon siesta by my question. Simultaneously, a young lady's head popped up from his lap. In my self-induced fog of the Hawaii commercial running through my head, it took a few moments to click that I had interrupted a transaction between a prostitute and her customer. The man shot a finger in a direction and I hurriedly followed it. 

For the first time, I took an objective look at the area into which I had wandered. There were no restaurants or bannered invitations to skydive or parasail. I only saw distribution warehouses for auto parts and unidentified cardboard boxes. I was close to an unkempt basketball court with unkempt people hanging around. I noticed two things: 1. They weren't playing basketball; and 2. They were starting to take an uncomfortable interest in me -- the same kind of interest that a criminal might have in a potential victim wandering unaware through his hunting ground wearing tourist clothes, a nice watch and an fairly nice backpack. I definitely fit the latter description, and began fearing that these young men may fit the former.

I turned quickly for the main road, but they didn't follow. Shaken from my pseudo dream, I began to realize that Honolulu is an actual city with actual people. There are Hawaiian muggers and Hawaiian mugging victims who report the mugging to a Hawaiian police clerk behind a desk in a Hawaiian police station. The clerk has probably been working the job long enough that he has, in his mind, categorized a strongarm mugging without violence as a "routine crime."

After recovering from the adrenaline jolt of what I was sure at the time was a close call, I started seeing the real Honolulu. Honolulu is, for lack of a better word, nice. In comparison with other major cities, "nice" is quite an achievement. 

Potholes in the street are common, but not as common as the holes in the sidewalk. This is due to the volcanic origins of the island. The ground moves and destroys the pavement at a rapid pace. However, unlike New York, both street and sidewalk holes are immediately covered by slabs of steel and plywood, respectively -- I don't think I ever saw a single uncovered hole on my mile journey to the mall.

I first noticed this movement in Maui over the course of three visits in as many weeks. I tripped in a small buckle in the pavement the first week. The second week, the small buckle had changed from a minor trip hazard to a major obstacle. The third week, that section of sidewalk had been torn out and covered with framed plywood, awaiting it's turn to be mended by the road crews who are constantly working all over the place.

Another thing that struck me was the homeless population, which is quite large. They all seemed relatively content in their temporary camps. By "relatively" I mean in comparison to other cities I have visited. There doesn't seem to be the desperation that one might see in the homeless population of Florida. No overt begging for change or emaciation from hunger. The Hawaiian transient looks well fed and in less dire straits than his cohorts in most of the mainland. I have learned that the public system in Hawaii has more of a hand in feeding the homeless and providing them with tarps to protect them from the rain. 

I saw the same good treatment in places like Juneau, AK; Vancouver, BC; and Seattle, WA. Although I don't believe in God, I am fairly well-read in the Bible and think that there is wisdom in a lot of it. I had a great feeling about all of these cities, and was reminded of Jesus' words about how a place or group of people can be judged on the merit of how they treat "the least of these." Orlando, take note.

The mall was a sprawling, three story deal with the obligatory Macy's and Sears anchor stores, food court and Sam Goody's. They also had a Barnes and Nobles bookstore that wasn't selling their fixtures at 90% off -- truly a rarity in this golden electronic age. I was debating the choice to purchase either "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" or "Starship Titanic." 

Happily, I decided on both and walked back to the ship, carefully sticking to the main road. I decided that it was better than a perfect day -- it was a memorable day. 

I had been on land for almost a year, in one place. That is no good for my psyche. My blood slows down, my eyes get bored, my brain goes into auto-pilot, and I sulk. Badness.

But look ho! Here's a cruise line I've never worked for in a part of the world I've never seen. I am now working for Norwegian Cruise Line on the MS Pride Of America as the new lighting director in Hawaii. 

It's definitely a different type of ship. Most of the ship is cabins. No casino, no night club ... just two theatre spaces with killer lighting rigs and a few other guest amenities. This ship was born for this route, which has no "Fun Days At Sea" (non-port days) and count 'em, TWO overnight ports per week. The ship never leaves US waters, and must therefore fly the American flag. 

Now, before you think I'm getting all misty eyed and patriotic, this aspect makes the ship different in several ways. First, the ship must follow not only ILO and IMO rules (International Labor Organization, and Int'l Maritime Org, respectively), but more stringent United States labor and safety practices as well. For example, the company must pay overtime for over 40 hours per week as opposed to over 300 hours per month. With an average of a 60 hour work week, this translates to roughly cha-ching for workers.

Another difference is this ship stays in US waters. This allows cellular service for about 90% of the time while at sea. Normally, cellular service is limited to either time in port, or being charged international rates plus a hefty fee from the ship's cell carrier for both data and phone.

One thing I miss about being in the international fleet is the multi-cultural background of the crew. On other ships, I am hard pressed to find a person from the United States, but here it is an exotic treat to meet someone on the crew who isn't from less than 50 miles from my house.

As far as the run itself, I haven't actually made it on land yet, save for a trip from the airport to the ship. I can tell you that the weather is unreasonably beautiful. It is the middle of August close to the equator, and the temperature at noon is in the low 80's. Yes, Fahrenheit (sp?). I have my first chance to get off ship tomorrow, so I'll tell you about the endless coconut-and-poi buffet later.

But what about my precious psyche? It is much better, thank you for asking. The interminable wait for The Call has ended. For those of you wanting to get into careers in either ships or entertainment, that feeling that you have while waiting for the cast list to be posted on the wall never gets better. But the upshot is that the adrenaline high you get from finally getting The Call never gets old either.

End of another contract. I'm sitting in what has got to be the best international airport in the world. Vancouver is an unreasonably beautiful city with clean streets, public buses that run on electricity from overhead powerlines, cops who are helpful, suburbs that are much more beautiful than yours (I don't care where you live -- I am willing to lay money on this claim), and sickeningly friendly people. "Sickeningly?" you ask. Yes, sickening because I don't live here on a full-time basis. The recession has hit here too, don't get me wrong, but people here aren't so incredibly wound up about it. This whole country seems to have a collective attitude that says "This sucks, but it's goig to get better eventually."

I have been off the Mercury for about 4 hours now, and I feel little knots starting to form in my shoulders and back. Actually, I think they have been there for a few months, but I'm just now allowing myself to acknowledge them.

For the last few days, I have been involved in a long-overdue maintenance overhaul of the conventional lighting rig in the ship's main theatre, as well as assisting with the build of a new show. We pulled a few all-nighters. With the addition of that schedule on top of my existing duties, sleep has been hard to come by; however, working with such great people gave me a huge sense of accomplishment. Totally worth it.

It's going to take a few days for me to adjust to land life again. Sleep is going to be rough with no rocking motion to lull me. I'm hoping my wife will understand when I bolt upright in the bed in a panic that I'm late for something.

5 months with no days off. That hurt.

But back to the airport ... if it weren't for the luggage carts and the occasional "Paging so-and-so" on the intercom, I'd think I was at a small but pleasant mall.  Free wi-fi and even though it's busy with cars outside, it doesn't seem very hectic or crowded in here.  I highly recommend this airport if you are forced to schedule a flight with a long layover.

My first view of Alaska was from the forward deck of the MV Mercury, the red-headed stepchild of the Celebrity fleet. She was on the verge of being sold to a rival cruise line overseas, but like any smart parent attempting to sell their child, Celebrity had broken out the paint and dressed the Merc in her Sunday best. Rust spots were ground away and the blemishes whitewashed to hide her age. The snow-capped mountain peaks looked guiltily out-of-place in the unseasonable 60 degree weather; die-hard guests at a party that ended hours ago. Nestled in the shadow of these mountains was the town of Juneau. The town we can see from the ship is a Disney matte painting of the same shops one sees at every single cruise port town in the world: Del Sol, Caribbean Jewels, the store that sells bamboo clothes, and the obligatory Diamonds International. These store fronts do their best to make this port appear to be exactly same as every other port. Fortunately, their power extends only a few hundred feet beyond the gangway, and (if one cares to look) one can catch a small glimpse of Alaskan culture.

Fisheries and boatyards that struggle -- no, insist -- to eek a living from the landscape with which they had involved themselves. You can tell which buildings were built by Alaskans and which ones were built by Outlanders. The Alaskan buildings conform to the landscape -- houses and old businesses hug the mountain sides, hiding in the contours of the rock. Anything that sticks out of the landscape is temporary by definition and is built as a sacrifice to the spirit of the Big Cold.

If you're not from Alaska, then you don't belong here. This isn't some Caribbean island where the people are warm and friendly, greeting you with mai-tais and flowery garlands. The locals see the tourists as necessary evil. There is a uneasy feeling of intrusion when you walk into an Alaska family-owned business. Not necessarily unfriendly or hostile or even mild dislike -- but definitely a feeling of genetically bred distrust. When an Alaskan looks at you he instinctively knows where you are from, which is one of two places -- Alaska or Not-Alaska. Not-Alaskites can hear the accusation in their thoughts: "Outlander."

I have met a few people from Texas, and I get the same vibration of fierce pride from Alaskans. Like Texas, it isn't a matter of hatred toward other places; rather, it is a sense of bewilderment at the idea that there are some people in the world who didn't have the good sense to be born in Alaska. These people are a tough stock -- families that have literally carved their living from the mountains and ice or figuratively from the sea. Across the harbor, one can see a few seaplanes parked behind modest homes on the water. The seaplanes aren't fancy -- little single-prop jobs that look as though they are treated like the family station wagon.

To be continued ...

It's been awhile, and I know that the teeming millions of my fans have been waiting on pins and needles. I got sucked into a nasty Facebook addiction, but it's totally under control now. I can quit anytime I want.

Lessee here ... when last we left our story, I believe I was on the Solstice complaining about salads. Since then I have worked on the Constellation, Summit, and now the Mercury.

I must say, I do enjoy smaller ships. There is more of a family feeling here. It comes at the price of fewer amenities, but it is so worth it. The Mercury is roughly half the tonnage of the Solstice (around 77,000 tons compared to Solstice 144,000 tons), but it feels like more of a luxury ship than the larger vessel. Hallways are bigger, the decor is a little more opulant, there are more quiet areas to relax ... even the crew areas are nicer. The forward deck has no pesky helipad that we can't walk on, so every once in awhile I get to sit at the bow by myself and just look at the water.

Constellation was a nightmare from the lighting standpoint. We had a ton of cyberlights which are just not suited for ships. They give great 1200 watt lighting, have cool built-in effects and are versitile as hell; however, they are big, heavy bastards and they don't like vibration while they are turned on -- not a good combination of faults when the rig has no easy way of hoisting instruments. By the time I got there, the rig was in extremely poor repair, but we got it back into better shape thanI found it.

You don't wanna hear about geeky stuff. You want to hear about ports. Okeedoke.

The ports were awesome at first. We had a nice New England / East Canada run that included Boston, Portland, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia along with an overnight in Quebec City. Quebec City is a lot of fun, and I got to practice my French. Notice I said "practice" as opposed to "speak." Good theatre all over the place and the people were ... well, they were Canadian. Friendly as hell and not ready to kick your ass if you look at them wrong.

We did that run twice and then headed to the Caribbean. It was a good time there with stops in Miami, St Thomas, St Croix, St Kitts, Barbados, Antigua ... a bunch of fun. Barbados was a little rough -- it's illegal to wear camoflague fashion, and they will put you in jail if you happen to get past security in the port wearing it.

Then we did the Panama Canal westbound. It was an amazing experience the first time seeing this huge engineering marvel that men had forged into the earth. Awe inspiring. We had stops in Cartagena, Columbia; Costa Rica; and three cities in Mexico including Acapulco before ending up in San Diego.

I gotta say right now -- United States ports are starting to piss me off. Security in US ports has gotten ridiculously complicated. And don't give me that crap about "they're just protecting us against terrorists blah blah blah." This "security" craze has got people so wound up! Okay, listen: Let's say that the crotch bomber event had happened ten years ago instead of last year. Would you have even heard about it? It might have made an amusing story on the evening news as a byline, and maybe Jay Leno would have cracked a few jokes, but that would have been it. Now we are wound so tight that it made page one of every paper and nobody stopped to laugh. This idiot thought that his "explosives" were going to take down a plane and all it did was burn his crotch. Burned his crotch for God's sake. Didn't anyone else find this story fucking funny?!? I know it's not a popular stance to take right now in this climate of fear, but we need to lighten the hell up when we can't laugh at a guy who burned his pee-pee through an act of stupidity.

[/rant]

Anyway, back to the ports-of-call. The second time through the canal eastbound was not quite as neat-o. Two weeks with three decents days of ports is not cool, and you can only watch the same Panama Canal episode of "Nova" so many times before you begin to hate PBS for producing the damned thing. The third and fourth times through the canal, the crew were about ready to kill each other and take a few passengers with us.

After that contract ended, I signed a new contract with the Summit and we did a couple of Carib runs before heading to exotic New Jersey to begin our Burmuda run. Burmuda is a beautiful and extremely expensive place. I could see myself getting tired of that run pretty quickly, but fortunately I was transferred to the Mercury where we have been doing the Vancouver-to-Alaska run. I am digging the small ship thing, but the ports-of-call leave a little to be desired in the things-to-keep-crewmen-from-losing-their-shit catagory. But it is beautiful.

More about Alaska later.

North Atlantic water is greenblack.  Not blackish green or greenish black, "greenblack."  It is simultaneously and fully both colors.  It hides an ancient anger under its impervious surface -- even the foam made by the ship intruding through it hurries back into the depths so as not to belie its true nature.  It's anger isn't focused on anything in particular.  It is pure, pent-up fury that has been waiting to be unleashed for longer than God has been keeping track, and will continue to wait like a betrayed woman. 

By "salad" I mean meat/pasta/veggie/etc salads; not make-it-yourself-salad-bar salads. The salads in the guest area are sometimes wonderful and original concoctions that tantalize the taste and pander to the palette. The failures can be judged by looking at guest's plates on the way in – if I see a scoop of salad with one fork-full missing, I know to steer clear. If I see a new bin of salad replacing an empty one, it’s probably a safe bet. Since seasoned crew will eat just about anything, a different set of criteria applies.

I have nothing interesting to say, and nothing to bitch about.  What a nice change of pace.  I'm sitting in a Starbuck's in Kusadasi getting free internet, sipping a chai latte, and sniffin' my new leather jacket purchased from a local leathery.  Life seldom gets better than this!  

 If I could save time in a bottle?  No problem!  Ship-time is already in a bottle.  Ship in a bottle ... okay, enough with the metaphors already.  We get it.

Since being on ship with Celebrity, the days of the week have lost meaning.  During my stint with Carnival, we had seven-day cruises, which meant that every Sunday, we were in Miami.  On this line, we have 10- 11- and 12-day cruises that rend the week to meaningless shreds.  Nobody ever speaks about "Tuesday" or "next week."  The days are renamed for the ports-of-call and number of days at sea.  The "weeks" become "cruises" having an arbitrary number of days depending on the itinerary.  Today for example is "First Istanbul" instead of (wait a second ... have to look it up) Saturday.

Holy crap, today is September 11?  I did not know that.

See what I mean?  So yeah.  Since we spend 2 days in Istanbul, we put a "first" and "second" in front of each to specify the day.  Hell, the only reason we know the day and the month is because paydays are on the 1st and 15th.  If it's not the 1st or 15th, it's "Kusadasi" or "2nd Sea Day."  There is no manual or corporate mandate that tells us to do it, it just happens, and you acclimate to it pretty quickly.

Add to that that half of the crew uses standard time and the other half of us use maritime/military time, and schedules get a little hairy 'round here.  Converting AM/PM to military time is easy enough, but twice a cruise we go back or forward an hour (Greek time forward, Italian time back) so I am fortunate to have been indoctrinated to the idea of daylight savings.

I'm also very glad that they use SAE clocks.  If the ship went to metric time, I'd have to quit.

Yeah. So I hate techno music now. I haven’t heard this much techno since ... well, since I lived with a gay girl. I have heard some good imaginative techno music in my lifetime, but all this house techno could be done by a monkey with an Apple IIe and it is turning me against all techno in general. But watching a bunch of scantily-clad gay men dance to it (some of whom, if I didn’t know better, are out of their minds on coke, ecstasy or ketamine) is absolutely priceless.

I also made a command decision and decided not to go into Egypt today. Being identified with this group of men (some of whom, if I didn’t know better, were STILL out of their minds on [insert substance here]) didn’t sound like a great idea in a country where you can be arrested for being gay. Listening in on a few conversations, the consensus seemed to be for the most part was that the Egyptians would just have to deal with it. 

Now, while this is a brave attitude (and applause to those who chose this adventurous cause to change hearts and minds), my attitude would probably have gone along the lines of “Suck it up and pretend I’m your cousin for a day.” If it was the deep South in the US where I lived, I would be more predisposed to martyrdom. But Crimony, this is your vacation, and this isn’t Kansas, friend of Dorothy!

I am enjoying the relaxed dress code we have for this cruise. It’s nice dressing down for a week.