What am I doing HERE?

23 September 06

How did I end up getting stuck here in the Oklahoma City Airport? I feel like this whole thing is not even real any more.

I got on a bus in Copenhagen yesterday at 7 in the morning, because, after all, you need several hours to get on an international flight. Like from 8 to 3:30. Seriously.

Except for multiple catterwalling babies, whose parents I felt deeply sorry for until the flight, and the crying, went into extra innings somewhere over Greenland. Then I remembered one incident where Brendan couldn’t stop crying on a flight when he was about a year and a half old. The problem was that Holly had eaten Szechwan for lunch. I started thinking bad thoughts about this group of parents. By then we were in USA air space, where a big surprise awaited us, in the form of a map running on the in-flight “entertainment” system, which clearly showed that we were executing a square maneuver over Lake Michigan, just a few miles from O’Hare Airport. At first we laughed about it, thinking it was some glitch in the GPS system manifesting itself. As it dragged on, I looked out and noted that we were making 12 degree banks, the easy way to travel in square patterns.

Additionally the asses were sore from nine hours of sphincter-numbing, the baby crying situation, and so on. So the captain gets on and tells us, in Danish first, that we're being diverted to Milwaukee until we can get cleared into O'Hare, and here's the kicker: We're landing there because we're nearly out of fuel.

We land, and we're surrounded by emergency vehicles including an ambulance. Three passengers are allowed to leave the plane. It must have been a real emergency because the implications of not clearing customs and going straight to the hospital are clear.

So after about an hour we're up in the air again. We notice that most of our connecting flights left 20 minutes ago. Surely, I'm thinking, nobody would let a plane with a lot of old folks come in to O'Hare without a well-thought-out plan.

I thought wrong. By the time we cleared customs we found that our flights were long gone, and--worse still--that SAS didn't much care for dealing with the situation. As far as they were concerned it was the bus got there, delayed by weather. The connecting flights were on domestics anyway. Thank the stars for United, which, just coming off bankruptcy, has a lot to prove. And they did. They grabbed nearly every passenger and at the very least sent them off to a discounted hotel room with their bags checked. I had an ugly meeting with the station chief for SAS because of our company's policy of customer service. I suppose there were a hundred passengers on the SAS flight, but their attitude was dismissive, that it was all the fault of weather, and so on. Well, I bet about half of those people slept on the hard benches of O'Hare, and the SAS station chief could have cleared a lot up by calling a hotel, meeting us at the USA end of Customs, or SOMETHING. Weather happens to us at Princess too, but when it does we get right on the Best Possible Outcome, It's not always perfect, but the passengers KNOW they're being taken care of and by whom.

So I got a motel room, discounted, because of a nice lady at United. I'd been dreaming about a bath for a week. When I got to my room, the hot water wasn't working. The bed was great, but when I finally arrived there it was 2 in the morning, and the vans from 5 onward were reserved full (my flight was at 8). So I got a couple hours sleep anyway.

Security was a bit hellish, but I didn't lose anything at least. (The security in Copenhagen was wonderful.) Welcome back, they seemed to say in Chicago. We loaded up on a Canadian Regional jet, 70 passenger version, and headed down the taxi way.

A couple hours later the captain comes on and says we're going to Oklahoma City so they can look at an engine noise. So we tok off from ORD at 8 am, landed at OKA at 10 am, and we have a long wait for a part and don't get airborne again until 9 pm. I arrive AUS 10:30 pm, exactly 24 hours after I was scheduled to do so.

But I'm here and it's summer all over again.

Just 13 days to go!

OK, so I got extended for one cruise and now I leave on the 22nd of September, just in time to catch a few weeks of Texas heat.

Thirty years on the ships.

Neither of these normal-looking people in their mid- to late-thirties has a home outside of the ships.

Barry is the small fellow, the big guy is trombonist Rob. Each of them has about 15 years at this game. Think of it: 15 years of living in the space of a closet.

They have storage spaces and take their mail at their parents' addresses.

Maybe I got too late to thier game. I have a spouse, a couple grown kids who I went through parenthood with, a mortgage, pets, and and a thousand lumps of life these knuckleheads will never know as long as they take long contracts with cruise ship companies.

When gigs started interfering with life, that was it for me. Now I'm back at it. These two don't realize there's another alternative life out there.

For me, I know there is life out there, and the skill of integrating the polarities of life with the gig is where you show if you have the finesse to pull it off. Otherwise, you're just a cog in somebody's machine.

I like these guys, but I know my limits don't extend to their way of life. They stay up all night drinking in the ward room. When they run out of things to say they talk about they folks who don't. And that's the saddest thing of all.

Sunrise over Oslo

1 September 2006

When I was a kid a had a paper route in Santa Ana. I was around 12, just stretching my metaphorical legs out into the real world. I was given the worst route that the Santa Ana Register had, an afternoon throw through the orange groves from Edinger all the way to McFadden west of Grand Avenue.

My favorite days were Saturday and Sunday, because I got to get up before everyone, get my folding done in the dark and head out the mile or so where my first paper was thrown, at Cherry Rivet on Dyer Road, just past the sugar factory that’s now a hotel resembling, well, a sugar factory. By then the sun was coming up in the fragrant orange groves, the traffic ranged from light to nonexistent, and I was full of joy.

Don’t try riding no handed nowadays on Dyer Road.

What brought all this to mind is this morning, unable to sleep at 5:30 am I went out on the deck and watched the sunrise over Oslo, which is breathtaking in its own way. I was alone on the deck except for a few guys from the wipe-down crew.
There was a party in the hallway until 4. The revelers were still at it, more quietly when I went out. They missed it! I remember that feeling.

20 days to go if the creek don’t rise.

Might as well head down to staff mess, load up with breakfast and head back to sleep. We’re docking now, so there won’t be any sleeping for nearly an hour.

Dave Cutler

31 August 2006

When we started these cruises we had a drummer name Chaba from Prague who left lots to be desired. More than anything the drummer can make or break a band. This drummer decided that ship life wasn’t for him and paid his own way home. So Brian in the office hustle up a new drummer, which caused gloom to descend, especially when we heard that the new guy was a 52 year old on his first Princess contract.

We needn’t have worried.

When he arrived we started swinging for the first time.

Dave had worked for the British cruise lines, mostly P&O, for twenty-odd years before he got around to us.

He had a taste of America when he went to Berklee in 1977, then came back to England to steady gigs in the West End (JC Superstar) and touring bands and a steady chat show on the BBC which gave him enough to buy a house in a lower middle class neighborhood which eventually went upscale. That’s where his daughter and grandson now live while he’s out here.
Dave can read fly shit. He swings hard enough to elevate the proceedings. He has a facile wit and a great sense of humor, which are essential when you’re doing this gig. He also is totally obsessive, which I suppose goes hand in glove. He’s the kind of guy who some people do not deal well with, because at a rehearsal he deals with minutia that most people don’t even get. There’s one guy especially who Dave gets to, but Dave has the good sense to point out that this other fellow is insane.

We are lucky to have his experience and is innate musical decision making driving the band.