Ports of Call

Ketchikan, Juneau, Icy Straight Point, Victoria, Astoria and San Fransisco.

Monday, September 8, 2014

The Formula



The Ship is in the midst of a 12 day Alaskan cruise out of San Francisco. Alaska is beautiful, but honestly this itinerary has been the most boring out of any I’ve been on. Too many days at sea, weird arrival and departure times and a lack of amenities ashore makes life a bit more difficult for crew members, but if you’re into hiking and wildlife and you’re looking for summer vacation ideas, I could see the appeal of this particular set of ports.

The home port being San Francisco, I was able to enjoy a few favorite spots while the ship disembarked old passengers and brought aboard the new. Well, after a trip to the worst Guitar Center in existence that is. Seriously, I’m no fan of GC’s in general but the store in downtown San Francisco has got to be the biggest shithole I’ve ever stepped into.  Apparently this place was in the midst of completely renovating the entire store, but decided to stay open and not cover up any of the equipment. Everything was covered in dust and half the ceiling was torn open.  If you’re a horn player like me, GC’s are generally pretty useless, so if you’re in San Fran and need some supplies head over to Union Music off of Market St.

The first two days of this cruise are at sea. Entertainers tend to loath sea days simply because they are boring. Most of our work happens at night, so the days are mostly spent in our rooms. In warmer climates we might enjoy a few hours of sunbathing or a dip in the pool up on the forward crew deck, but this being Alaska you can rule that out straight away. Mostly we practice, write music or watch movies. Exchanging shows and movies with friends helps, but by the third or fourth week you’ve watched everything, so it’s pretty important to have something constructive to do.

Our first port was Ketchikan. Any port that cruise ships dock in are tourist traps, and Ketchikan is no exception. Let me describe the layout of any port you’ll visit: one main street right off the gangway, usually called Bay or Wharf St; tour companies with white vans and taxi drivers soliciting the best whale watching or zip lining or beach resort in town; a small, annoyingly quaint shore side village filled with nothing but restaurants, jewelry stores and souvenir shops. There are very few exceptions to this formula. Here’s the real trick to having a good time in port: Get away from the fucking ship. Because everything is set up so close to the docks, any pub or cafĂ© or shop is going to be filled to the brim with cruise ship passengers. If you go just another few blocks down the road or few hundred yards down the beach, you tend to receive a bit better service and the environment tends to be a little less crazy.

Today we are in Icy Straight Point. This port is a tendering port, meaning the ship anchors offshore and everybody takes the little lifeboats into the docks. There isn’t much of a town ashore, but they do serve fresh crab legs ($20 a pound for guests!) and feature a huge zip line and some hiking trails. Hopefully tendering won’t take too long and we’ll get some good shore time before we have to head back aboard for our evening stage show. Tomorrow we stop in Juneau, one of the better ports on this itinerary. Juneau as a lot to offer as far as food and activities go, from sea plane tours to a great hike up a pretty big mountain. It’s also one of the prettier stops we visit. Unfortunately we’ll only be in port for a short while, which is super disappointing.

The best part of this trip comes at the end of it, so I’ll do my best to have the next post ready by then.

-SlideFunk

Thursday, August 28, 2014

A Familiar Whiff



I wasn’t sure what to expect when I returned to The Ship.  I had signed the contract and arrived on such short notice that there wasn’t really much time to think about what it might be like to come back to what had previously been reality for me for nearly six months.  Returning to any ship was a big question when I left, and yet three months later here I am aboard the same ship, in the same room and same top bunk as when I started my first contract last December.

As was the case last time, I stayed overnight in a hotel before boarding The Ship.  In December that meant staying in a nice hotel in Hilo, Hawaii.  This time it meant the Marriot in Richmond, B.C. Certainly not as flashy, but I did find the hotel to be nice. The Company paid for my flight out, my room and two meals.  As a musician I’m fortunate to have all of that covered for me. Anyone who earns tips onboard must pay their own way, which I’ve always thought was unfair since it puts them in the red at the start of the contract. To me it feels like The Company’s way of guaranteeing the first two or three months of work out of them, but it is what it is and I’m happy that they don’t expect the same from me.

From the hotel the next morning, a driver arrived to pick up new employees and take them to The Ship. In Hilo it was some slob in a white 12 person van that needed two trips to take all of us and our belongings to the vessel. This time they sent a well groomed guy in a HUGE fuck-off long distance bus. This thing was brand new, complete with TVs, retractable sun screens on all the windows and seating for 60. Considering there were only five of us, it was probably overkill, but it was comfortable. 



Arriving to The Ship this time wasn’t any less surreal than last time.  I knew where things are here, where my room is, where to find crew admin, where to be for training, where to eat, who my manager is and what music I’d be playing. I didn’t know anything the first time around and it was terrifying. Despite the familiarity however, in fact because of it, I was struck with a pretty powerful mix of emotions. It was as if I was hit with all of my ship memories at once, and it took a good minute to come back to reality.

The first thing to set it all off was the smell.  The Ship has a certain smell to it, a mix of cleaning solution, old plumbing and mold that I’m absolutely positive is unique to this particular vessel. The Ship is nearly 20 years old and has its fair share of sewage leaks, and certain hallways or staircases will smell pretty strongly from time to time.   They do their best to clean it, but The Ship has a musk that ultimately can’t be covered up. The first whiff sent me right back to dry-dock during my first contract, when rooms were regularly flooding and the lack of air-conditioning made it nearly unbearable at times. It’s not that the ship downright stinks, it’s just that it sweats a little from time to time and the deodorant needs to be reapplied often.

The first thing they do when you get on The Ship is take your passport away from you.  To The Company you are now a registered corporate citizen and your right to enter and leave the country is heavily restricted. I suppose they have to be wary of who might try to jump ship in particular ports (i.e. the U.S., Canada, Europe etc. The 1st world.) Being a traveler though, that passport represents your right as a human being in some ways, and even though I’m sure The Company has no ill intent in taking them it still unnerves me to have it taken from me. In return, crew admin issues you an ‘A-Pass,’ proof of your status as a crewmember and official drinking card (credit cards or cash don’t fly at the crew bars; your A-Pass buys you everything on board, has a $250 limit and must be paid off every pay cycle.)

It didn’t take me long to settle back into the routine.  I even have the same cabin as last time, though with a much different roommate. 


The first few weeks suck because The Company thinks returning crew have forgotten how to do their jobs and insists on us taking all the same trainings as we did the first time we joined.  That’s a topic for another post. Maybe.  Corporate style trainings make me pretty angry in general, and The Company’s lineup is certainly no exception.

The first two cruises will be out of Alaska.  I’ve already played a welcome aboard show and some dance and jazz sets.  Guest entertainers are soon to follow. I’ll have a recap in a few days.

-SlideFunk

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Restart: An update and a new format.

So yeah. It's been three years since the last post. Fail. Lets just pretend its been two weeks, mmKay? The original idea for this blog was to be a review of the Portland music scene as well as my own personal thoughts on current music events and topics. OBVIOUSLY that was a huge stretch for me, since I'm not really much of a writer and I generally can't seem to keep up with the hot topics within the modern music world. If there is one thing I've learned over the last few years, it's that the music business is FUCKING COMPLICATED. There is just too much out there to follow at once, and ultimately I'm such a novice to all of it that being opinionated on anything I haven't fully experienced myself only ever seemed forced and frankly, pretty dick-ish. This time around, I think I'll try to stick with what I know.

Which brings me to my latest gigs: Cruise ships. Yes indeed, the bottom of the ladder when it comes to full time musical expression. Last December I signed a six month contract with Celebrity Cruises. I had a bunch of fun, saw some really great places and learned a bit about performing every night.


So here's my proposal. I've signed another contract, this time for only three months. I'm sitting in a hotel in Vancouver, B.C. Tomorrow I get back on the ship. I wont always be in a port, but when I am able to find free wifi, I'll do my best to post an update, and give a little bit of insight to what it's like to live and work as a musician on a cruise ship. See you in a few days!

(Hopefully.)

 -SlideFunk