Cruise #7: And then there was Rum

Another 9-day run.

In case you're wondering, here's the day-to-day schedule of a seabound improvisor in paradise:

Friday: The United States! Land of Freedom and Democracy!

Itinerary - 9:00 AM Get off the ship, take train to Target
11:00 AM Sit in Holiday Inn Lobby for two hours, pretending to be a customer and leeching free wi-fi.
2:30 PM Six Million Phone Calls
5:30 PM Sailaway. Embark on nine day voyage of magic and wonder

Saturday: Sea Day. The utter vastness of God's creation is too enormous to take in.

9:00 AM Wake up
10:00 AM Discover that "Full House" is on the Crew Channel
10:02 AM Leave Cabin
12:00 - 2:00 PM Work
2:00 - 6:00 PM Read and write on the sun deck
6:03 PM Spa to recharge from all that work

Sunday: Samana. The vibrant wonder of an intricate Caribbean culture.

9:00 AM Wake up
10:00 AM Discover that "King of Queens" is on the Crew Channel
10:01 AM Leave Cabin
10:03 - 11:00 AM Gym
12:01 PM Spa, since everyone else is out exploring this strange new world
4:00 - 5:00 PM Work
6:00 PM Shave for the first time in three days
7:00 - 10:30 PM Work
11:00 PM Much needed drink at the Whiskey Bar after all that work

Monday: Tortola. A sparkling gem in the crown of the British Commonwealth.

8:00 AM Wake up
9:00 AM Discover that "The He-Man Christmas Special" is on the Crew Channel
11:30 AM Leave Cabin
12:00 - 4:00 PM Lounge on the beach on Marina Cay, snorkeling and drinking brain-slapping rum concoctions out of a tin cup
6:00 PM Spa. Still exhausted from work yesterday

Tuesday: Antigua. A rich, glowing tribute to all that is beautiful in nature and the human spirit.

9:00 AM Wake up, swear off Crew Channel, decide to make today a day I'll remember for the rest of my life
10:00 - 6:00 PM Sit in internet cafe
8:00 - 9:30 PM Work
10:00 - 11:30 PM Cocktails with the cast
11:33 - 1:00 AM "He-Man Christmas Special" on Crew Channel

Wednesday: Barbados. The pulsing heart of God's sun-drenched paradise.

9:00 AM Wake up
10:00 AM Discover "Smallville" is on the Crew Channel, inexplicably subtitled in English
10:01 - 10:30 AM Make fun of shoddy subtitling
10:30 AM Realize I'm doing this out loud. Feel stupid
10:33 - 11:30 AM Gym
12:05 PM Go ashore to the boatyard
2:00 PM Crew party. Watch Sam lose a tooth and win a beer-drinking contest. Feel smart.
4:00 PM Spa, for no reason whatsoever

Thursday: St. Lucia. An gorgeous island ripped straight out of a utopian imagination.

9:00 AM Wake up
10:00 AM Can't find remote
10:02 - 12:15 PM Panic
12:16 PM Find remote under couch, decide to clean cabin
10:00 - 11:30 PM Work
11:40 - 2:00 AM Finish cleaning cabin

Friday: Sea Day. The sun begins to set on this magical vacation

9:00 AM Wake up
10:00 AM "Full House" back on the Crew Channel. Close eyes and pretend that Dave Coulier is Man-E-Faces
10:30 - 11:30 AM Gym
12:02 PM Can't find chair on Sun Deck. Decide to look on Deck 15
12:04 PM Suddenly reminded that Deck 15 is "Clothing Optional"
12:06 - 4:00 PM Cry in darkened cabin
4:00 - 5:30 PM Work
6:00 PM Watch snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. Think back to Deck 15. "The horror. The horror."

Saturday: Sea Day. Last day of the cruise, and we're going to make it the best day yet.

9:00 AM Wake up
10:00 AM Vow to watch no more television on the entire cruise
10:05 - 12:30 PM Watch "The Bourne Ultimatum"
1:00 PM Attempt to go to Spa. Flashbacks to Deck 15 in locker-room. Run away
1:15 - 3:45 PM Hide out in library. Discover that my dislike of Robert Ludlum continues unabated
4:00 - 5:30 PM Work
6:00 - 11:00 PM Dinner with the cast
11:00 PM Drinks in the Bliss Ultra Lounge, what the year 2525 would look like if it took place in 1977
1:00 AM Off to bed, prepare myself for another grueling 11-hour workweek.

We hit Marina Cay this week, but I managed to have a working camera this time. The afternoon was spent snorkeling, dodging sea-urchins, and drinking painkillers, a drink that's comprised of coconut milk, orange juice, pineapple juice, and all the rum in the world.

Theo, from the Jean Ann Ryan Dancers, who has messed with Texas and lived to tell the tale

The dock at Marina Cay

Like an LA beach, without all the mercury

The sand, the bar, and the ride home

This is slightly nicer than the Santa Monica Pier

Gulls! From the sea! Can't see these back in Los Angeles

Kevin is tanner now

Floatin' Joe Latessa surveys his domain

Words I have heard rarely since leaving technological and public policy research and taking a job on a cruise ship

1. Logistically

2. Standard-Deviation

3. Steampunk

4. Supply-Chain

5. Realpolitik

6. Sino-American

7. Implementation

8. Statistically-Significant

9. Infrastructure

10. Toner

Cruise #6: In Which I am Shocked by Seeing Tatoos and Drinking on the High Seas

Not a lot of pictures on this cruise. It was another 5-day, hitting Cozumel and Grand Cayman. The five-days are a much younger demographic, and the crowds tend to react to the shows much more boisterously. This crowd was heavily inked up and ready to party.

I did get to go snorkeling again, this time in Grand Cayman. We had a rehearsal in the afternoon, so I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time there, but I grabbed my snorkel gear and wandered off into town to see what I could find. I walked about five minutes down the road and found a little dive shop. I ducked in and it turned out there were two reefs directly behind the place, about a ten minute swim. I rented a locker and swam out to Devil's Gorge, this time armed with a waterproof disposable camera. I only swam for about an hour, but wound up amid a huge school of brightly colored fish. If I can find a one-hour photo place, I'll post pics at the end of the next nine-day cruise.

All the shows went really well. We've got the adult show down, with a great starting game, "Battle Rap", courtesy of Montelione. It's nice and energetic, and is also a fun way to probe the audiences limits so we can understand their comfort zone. I met another really fun bunch of folks, including a professional livestock auctioneer and a really cool marine biologist from Philly. All in all, a good cruise.

Sunset through the clouds over the Caribbean

Kayaking in Miami; or "Traffic has made us retarded"

There was some bad news, however. I had my follow up with the doctor on Friday, the day we got back into town. Unfortunately, it looks like the bones in my wrist healed at an angle, so they're going to have to re-break it and set it properly. I find it a little flabbergasting that you could ever have a moment in your life where you find yourself saying "I guess the medically appropriate thing to do here is to pay a man to break my wrist." I suppose I'll just have to trust that Doctor's Rocco and Vincenzo know what they're doing. It looks like I can pick when I want them to do it, though, so I'm going to aim for having it done the last Friday I'm in Miami. That way I'll get to play around in the Caribbean for almost the whole time, and the cast will wind up coming off shortly after I get back to LA.

Hi ho.

Cruise #5: Unlike Yul Brenner, I Have Fun Breathing Through a Plastic Tube

Back to the 9-day run, hitting Samana, Tortola, Antigua, Barbados and St. Lucia. The highlight was definitely snorkeling in Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands. I'd never been snorkeling before, and it was amazing. Of course, my camera batteries died the minute I stepped onto the ferry, but, aside from that, it was awesome.

Floatin' Joe, our music director, knew of a little out of the way beach on an island not far from Tortola. We took a twenty-minute cab ride to a free ferry, then rode that to a small resort island called Marina Cay. They had a great little bar, a place that rented snorkel and scuba gear, and the best part was that it was almost totally deserted. It was also my first chance to get into the Caribbean water.

First of all, the water. The Caribbean is like God's bathtub. Warm, buoyant, crystal clear. Totally amazing. Getting in for the first time was beautiful. Come to think of it, it might be the first time I've actually been swimming since I was in college.

The first time I put on the mask and went underwater was mindblowing. The minute you get your head down, you realize that there are millions of tiny, iridescent fish surrounding you. The beach sits on the edge of a large reef, so you can swim out over the top of it, and, once you get to the other side, there are a million fish all over the place. Simply amazing. I'm picking up disposable underwater cameras next time I'm in Miami, so I'll be able to put up pictures.

Winters & Montelione: In no way Goth

Sam and I celebrate the death of the Stock Market

Clemson Fans in the Caribbean. Start playing "Dueling Banjos" on a steel drum

We're about a third of the way through our contract, so this is as good a time as any to meet the cast.


Jen Winters: Jen was the only person I knew when I started this gig. She's another grad from the Second City LA Training Center, and performed with the Group on Wednesday nights when I was performing with Welsh Poets on Tuesdays. She's originally from Walla Walla, Washington, and has worked as a masseuse and a Yoga teacher when she wasn't doing improv. Jen and I can fall into the role of the parents of the group, partly because we're older than the others, and partly because neither of us show much affinity for standing on a bar and playing to win in a beer drinking contest.

Joe Latessa: AKA Uncle Joe AKA Floatin' Joe. Joe's the music director, and has worked on the Pearl for the last eight months and on ships for the past two years. He's originally from Detroit, and worked as a music director for TourCo and at IO in Chicago, among other places. Joe and I are roommates, and will be for the next couple weeks. Joe's a wi-fi-seeking missile, and can tell you where to find free internet access more than a dozen countries. He also possesses an invaluable knowledge of all the ports and of all thing's ship-life. His book "Floatin' Joe Speaks Boat" will be out this fall on the Scribner imprint.

Sam Richardson: AKA Colossal Sam. Originally from Detroit as well, Sam's spent the last few years teaching at the Detroit training center. Sam was the first guy in the cast I met, and we wound up having a ridiculously fun evening with my brother and a bunch of old Carolina hands. Sam's great claim to fame is that he can eat his weight in food, double his weight, then eat that weight in food. Sam's our most ubiquitous cast member. Everybody seems to know him, and that's only partially attributable to his spending every waking hour in the ship's disco. He did the Ship'n'Males strip show on this cruise, which I didn't go to. That absence saved our friendship.

Kevin Sciretta: Kev's originally from New York, but has lived in Chicago for the past several years. He comes to the Pearl from the venerable Cupid Players, the big musical sketch-show at IO Chicago. He was also on Bullet Lounge, one of the Harold teams there. Kevin holds the world record for most times fired at Navy Pier. He's also disturbingly reminiscent of my friend 40 from college. We will actually get to hang out the minute football season ends.


Eileen Montelione: Another Chicago hand. She worked in the office at Second City before landing this job. She's a training center graduate, and can sleep for over 120 hours at a time, if the situation calls for it. Eileen is a fantastic singer, and regularly saves everybody's ass during Blues Jam in our Stardust show. She's also obsessed with "The Room", a bizarre cult film that's been playing regularly in Los Angeles for the last five years. It's astounding that I stared at the billboard for it every day in LA, but finally saw it somewhere between Barbados and St. Lucia in the middle of the ocean.

Anyway, the rest of the cruise was a blast. I met a bunch of very cool people, and got to hit a few of the ports I hadn't really explored yet.

The last, lonely tender out of Samana

Beach Volleyball with the crew of the NCL Pearl

The Boatyard: Where you can swim, surf, and be run over by a sailboat

Freedom!

The Two-Armed Bandit

First up, the cast came off on Friday. I’m icing it down a couple times a day and doing physical therapy exercises to get the swelling down and the range of motion back, but it’s off, and I’m overjoyed.

Not a lot of pictures from this last cruise. It was another 5-day run, Miami to Cozumel to Grand Cayman. This was our first non-holiday cruise, and it was an incredibly different crowd. The passengers were young, enthusiastic, and an amazing audience. All four shows killed, especially the adult show, which I think we’ve finally gotten the hang of. This one actually ran about 10 minutes long, and they would have been with us for another 30.

One of the volunteers for the first improv show is a student at American University, where I went to college. Apparently my old group, Mission Improvable (or, as it’s now known in improv circles, “Mission Improvable, no, not that one, the college improv group at American University”) is still kicking around, and the campus television station is as boring as ever. Ah, continuity.

It’s amazing how much of a wimp this gig makes you. I almost typed the sentence “This was a pretty busy week”, until I realized I was talking about working 11 hours over a five-day period. It’s like moving to LA and the weather. You could have moved from Ice Station Zebra, but, after two weeks, you’ll still find yourself going, “Sweet Christ it’s freezing. It must be like 60 degrees outside.”

When we hit Miami at the end, I hopped in a cab and headed out to the doctor. The X-Rays looked OK, so they used the highest available medical technology and took a circular saw to my arm. I understand the guy’s a doctor and all, but when you see someone attempting to take a rotating sawblade to your arm, your natural response it a healthy, Darwin-approved urge to get the hell out of there.

Fortunately, it all went well. I picked up a splint from the boat doctor, listened to his method of explaining all medical diagnoses or prescriptions using beer, and took the first normal shower I’ve had in a month. And all was right with the world.

Cruise #3, In Which I am Thrown out of Barbados for Wearing Illegal Pants

We got back into Miami on the 28th. This trip we had enough time and actually knew where we were going, so we managed to make it down to a Target and a mall to stock up on provisions. This included picking up the essentials: an easel and a red feather boa, along with personal junk for all involved.

Colossal Sam is not colossal enough to destroy a Miami transit station

Then it's back to the boat and time for another sail-away party.

This was another 9-day run, so the first stop was Samana. There's not a lot in the port town, so we took a tip from our music director, Floatin' Joe, and jumped in on an excursion to Cayo Levantado, a private island near Samana. It's a cool little spot, nice beach, bar, restaurant, and a lot of drinks served in hollowed out fruits, which is either caused by a boycott of the Dixie corporation or the presence of tourists. They had some cool local music and dancers, though, which we dug. It's a place that's almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Cony Island. This was appreciated by all.

Dominican Rainbow over Samana

The Beach

The Bar

The Booze

The Bentertainment

This was the New Years cruise, they were cool enough to invite us to a great party with some of the folks we work with. The whole shebang was a nice, blue-collar way to say goodbye to 2007 on the SS Luxury. It's been one of the odder years of my life, if only because it let me type that last sentence.

This is Kevin's version of hugging

The Pearl's attempt to take over the Ocean Village Two is rebuffed

Barbados began without incident, and it continued that way until the incident. On the way out of the port, I was grabbed by a policeman and told I would have to leave the country. The worst thing I'd done up to that point was make fun of a guy's mustache, and I was pretty sure that isn't a deportable offense anywhere. He went on to tell me that I had on illegal pants.

This was a new term to me.

As it turns out, camouflage is illegal in Barbados, so my shorts had turned me into an enemy of the state. As my brother later pointed out, camouflage shorts aren't the best way to disappear into the background, especially when they're on someone whose legs haven't seen the sun since Dukakis was nominated. It's not unlike painting the tops of two florescent bulbs camouflage, then turning them on.

So, in what has to be the shortest exile in history, I went back to the boat, put on legal gear, an met everyone at the Boatyard, the beach-joint we hit on the last 9-day. The Boatyard is a savagely nutty scene, as it's where the crews from all the different cruise ships head to when they hit Barbados. They give a discount to anybody with a crew badge, so everybody gets in nice and cheap. Admission includes a shuttle back to the boat, and I'm sure there's been many a wobbly walk up the gangplank thanks to it.

That said, we kept it nice and chill for the most part, and nobody went loony when Coyote Ugly broke out. We spent the day lounging on the beach, marveling over the "bungee-run", a brilliant sport that's like horizontal bungee-jumping. It's looks, for the most part, like a sport designed by ADHD sufferers for ADHD sufferers.

The Boatyard, where three things are yellow

The part of me that is in shape

Aside from that international incident, it was a nice, crazy run. The shows were probably the best we've done yet, and seem to be improving every week. We're back to the five-day run, now, and, at the end of it, I head to the doctor for X-Rays to see if the cast can come off. Cross your fingers. If I could, I wouldn't be going to the doctor in the first place.

Happy New Year!

From somewhere near the Dominican Republic with the cast of the Norwegian Pearl.