Movie Shoot

We shot the video for the murder mystery that will be shown at the Staff Captain’s party in August. Do not read on if you are going to be attending an America’s Cup party in Sweden this summer, because I am about to spoil the murder mystery surprise for you. It was basically a master class in acting taught by Sue. She got to play twins, one a shy spinster grown mad by unrequited love, the other a hellcat who hid her pain beneath a mask of drinking and cocaine dealing. She wore a blond wig when she played the drunk twin, which meant that the Costume Designer for the Monday night show (and at one point, Jason) served as Sue’s head double when she would play the spinster twin. The videographer even employed some high tech split screen techniques first pioneered in “The Parent Trap” and “The Patty Duke Show” so both twins will appear in the same shot. Paul and Beth played a high powered Texan couple who had had nefarious business relationships and a thwarted love affair with the murder victim respectively. Randall and I both played undercover KGB agents who were trying to kill each other. Ellie, who is the principal singer for the Monday night show, was in it also, and called one of the Russian dancers for us so we could learn how to say “I am a KGB agent” in Russian. We spent most of the rest of the day saying, “Ya agint Ka Gay Bay” to each other (I spelled it phonetically to help with pronunciation). Ellie was the virtuous hotel director who was having an affair with the first mate and fending off advances from the murder victim. Jason played the first mate and the murderer, and he did a great job of portraying the desperation that drives someone to bludgeon somebody with a flashlight and then dump them overboard. I really like mysteries and was excited to take part in this, because it seemed to fulfill a childhood wish to guest star on “Murder, She Wrote.” While I hate to be critical, this mystery seems a little convoluted and there don’t seem to be any clear cut clues that would point you in the right direction of the murderer. I’m not sure how anybody will logically figure out who it is, and I don’t know how well it will all translate to a Swedish audience. But I’m willing to be optimistic.

Hard Rock Cafe

Just in case you were wondering, we did go to the Hard Rock Café in Nassau on Thursday, with some of the people from the Monday Night Song and Dance Extravaganza. We got the nachos, which were okay, and the chocolate chip cookie sundae, which was a little disappointing. I was hoping it was one of those deals where they bake a chocolate chip cookie in a skillet and make the sundae on top of it, but it was more like a Toll House Cookie pie. Whatever. I’m not going to begrudge them the fact. Two of the people we were with were Canadian, and the rock and roll setting sparked some conversation about Canadian musicians. All the greats were discussed: Alanis Morrisette, Celine Dion, Anne Murray (I think Randall had been to the Anne Murray museum in Nova Scotia). There were pictures near us of Canadian musicians, but now I can’t remember who they were. I know we were in the vicinity of a lot of Cranberries paraphernalia, but I thought they were from Ireland. I’ll have to do some research.

Cards

The bartender from the bar we like to go to on the ship went home to Bali for a vacation, and then will go to another ship. Such is ship life. Once you get close to someone they get transferred somewhere else. We got him a card and put some money in it since we never really tip him (15% is written into all drink prices, but you never give cash like in the real world). Jason objected to giving him money, I think because he didn’t think he was that great a bartender and had been unfriendly to him at some point, so he refused to sign the card. But now the rest of us have gotten card fever, and are planning all of the different people we’ll give cards to when they leave (Randall suggested that we just buy a bunch of cards to have on hand. I’m pretty sure he was serious). This drives Jason crazy, so now whenever we talk about someone being nice to us, he rolls his eyes and says, “Why don’t you give them a card?”

Crew party

There was also a crew party last night on the outside bar by the pool. While not as glamorous as the helipad party a few weeks earlier, it was still a resounding success. Now that we know more members of the crew, we were able to interact a lot more easily with everyone else instead of just awkwardly introducing ourselves. We must have been feeling particularly cocky, because we even initiated conversations with the non-English dancers, who I might dare to say we are friends with after last night. When we asked the Russian dancer, who kind of looks like a slim version of Dolph Lundgren in his “Rocky IV” days, what he had been doing earlier, he told us he had been rehearsing. Rehearsing for what, we asked? He seemed confused by such an obvious question, and replied, “To get better.” We’re big fans of his, and I think Randall told him that his dancing was already “technically perfect,” which sparked a brief debate about the unattainability of perfection. The female half of the Ballroom Dance couple told Beth that they were saving money to open a dance school in Russia, which we’ll probably help fund. The Hungarian dancer started several sentences by saying, “I’m going to tell you something that you’re not going to like, Brendan” and I steeled myself to hear “Nobody likes you” or “Everyone talks about how you suffer from adult acne,” so I was relieved when his follow-up was always something benign like “I’m never going to be able to see your show.”

Grandma Punchers

The other night we were hanging out in the upstairs bar, which is normally a quiet haven from the rest of the ship since most of the passengers don’t know of its existence. Yet that night it had been invaded by a drunk woman in her late teens (minors can drink beer and wine on the ship with signed consent from their parents) who we took a disliking to because she was loudly saying “Hola” to each member of the Phillipino bar staff. She was fairly loud and disruptive for the twenty minutes he was there. The Juggler said something expressing his annoyance with her that she overheard and as she walked by us on the way out, she lifted up the back of her mini-skirt, effectively mooning us since she was wearing a thong. I should say I didn’t hear what the Juggler said that offended her nor did I see the mooning, since my back was to the exit. I just wanted to tell you this part so you’d get as much back story about this girl as possible.

Last night we all found ourselves back in the same bar. She had loved the show, and if she remembered mooning us the night before she didn’t bring it up, but instead came over and drunkenly told us all about herself. We were having a delightful conversation when all of the sudden things took a weird left turn. “I spent last night in the ship’s jail!” she proudly told us. She then showed us a purple land mass of a bruise on the inside of her upper arm. She had been dancing at the disco last night, and her grandmother told her to go home because she was drunk. The girl didn’t want to go, so the grandmother grabbed her arm, which ultimately left the bruise. This did not sit right with the girl at all, so she punched her grandmother. The ship will let you do a lot of things, but it draws the line at grandma punching. Security was called, and she spent the night in the brink. If you’ve ever struggled to say the right thing, you’ll appreciate how difficult it is to respond appropriately to a story about punching your grandmother. As she was leaving, I asked her if things were all right now between her and her grandmother. A momentary look of confusion clouded her face, and then she said, “She gives me money” and walked out the door.

Vocab Words

On the Shuttle Bus to see “Batman Begins” in Port Canaveral, some of the dancers from England and Australia taught us some slang words. It started when Christina, from Australia, told us that when she was little people would rest four knuckles onto one of their hands and then extend the display asking people to “smell my cheese.” When the unsuspecting victim would lean in, the four knuckles would shoot out and hit the person in the nose. This is a far more violent game than anything I ever played as a child and only confirms my belief that Australians are a hardier stock.

From there Faye and Laura (who we called “Nora” for the first two weeks due to cross-continental miscommunication) taught us a bunch of English slang. If something is good it’s “the dog’s bollocks.” However, if you were in Australia, the same good thing would be “the duck’s nuts.” Good things can also be called “trousers,” as in “Cillian Murphy is trousers in ‘Batman Begins.’” Alternatively, Liam Neeson playing a mysterious new-age mentor for the umpteenth time in the same movie would be termed “pants.” Parents are designated as “me old Doris” and “me old Man.” And an Australian expression of hope after a disappointing experience is “she’ll be apples." For example, “I thought ‘Batman Begins’ was just all right, but I heard Katie Holmes won’t be in the sequel, so she’ll be apples.” So far, my use of these new expressions have been welcomed by the ship community at large and have been found to be natural and unforced.

Talent

Dance finally came to the talent show this week. The night kicked off with a seven year-old girl in a gold sequined hat and leotard tap-dancing to “One” from “A Chorus Line.” A teenager did an impressive J.Lo-inspired dance involving a lot of falls, splits, and back splits. The winners of the junior portion were twin sisters who had a tightly choreographed routine to a song from a Bollywood musical. Our favorite dancers, however, were two brothers who did only what I can describe as “that athletic shaky kind of dance the kids are doing these days.” We had noticed them earlier this week and had watched in quiet respect so it was a real treat to see them in action. Since they were seventeen and nineteen, they didn't fit into either the adult or junior category, but the judges gave them an honorable mention and their videotape will be sent to Miami for future consideration.

We had met the eventual adult winner (a recent college graduate who sang “On the Street Where You Live” from “My Fair Lady”) the night before. When I found out that he was competing, I told him to make sure he knew his lyrics and dressed up, because that had kept a lot of people from winning before. He smiled politely and then I realized what the term “stating the obvious” meant.

While the two girls who won the junior portion were very talented, our sentimental favorite was an eight year-old Ramona Quimby-looking girl who skipped on stage and warbled a pitch perfect rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” I think Randall would be fine with me telling you that he cried at the end. We usually try to reserve our standing ovation for one contestant, thinking that will influence the judge's decisions. We wholeheartedly gave it to Ramona, and were disappointed when she didn't nab the big prize. I wanted to find her and tell her good job afterwards, but then realized I wouldn't be able to pick her out from the other two hundred eight year-old brown haired girls with bowl cuts on the ship.

I Am an Awful Person

Shortly after I told the rest of the cast about Law and Order Guy, Sue was able to observe him in action at the gym. She came back with the theory that he wasn't a creepy stalker, but mentally handicapped. This was later confirmed by watching him Saturday afternoon at the gym where he interviewed every single woman working out. My guess is that his questions were part of an exercise given to him to help him with his social skills, as he had the same list of getting-to-know-you questions that he asked each person (their name, where they were from, how long their trip back home would be, was this their first cruise and how it compared to other cruises if it wasn't, would it be hard to readjust to normal life after a week on the cruise). Many people were understandably reluctant to reveal exactly where they were from but he would persist until he got a specific town name (“Yeah, but where in the Darien area? Near Foxwood's?”) The benefit of so much pointed questioning was that I was able to find out the story of some of the passengers who I had seen a lot over the week. For example, the compactly-built woman who we would see running laps every night at eleven revealed herself to be a personal trainer from Staten Island after some gentle prodding from LOG. So I would like to take this moment to apologize to LOG for thinking he was a serial killer and hope that he enjoyed his time on the ship.

2 Funny Things Beth Said

Beth, Jason and I went into Nassau Thursday night. It's only the second time we've gone in, so we still don't know our way around that much. I immediately felt at home though, because the cab driver from our first week recognized me and gave me a hearty handshake and shoulder clap. That sense of homecoming quickly dissipated when a man approached us on a dark street and claimed to be a bartender from the ship. He launched into a convoluted story about how his wife lived in the Bahamas and her car broke down on the way back to the ship from visiting his family, and so now he was late for his shift. According to him, the cure-all for his problem was to give him money, but the story was so full of holes (he smelled of beer, wasn't wearing a wedding ring, and the time he said he had to back for work was the time the ship was docking into port) that we quickly made an exit. I once paid forty dollars for a shoeshine in Chicago so I felt it a mark of personal growth that I escaped with my wallet intact. Anyway, this unpleasant experience, plus the fact that Nassau was overrun by recent high school and the strong odor of garbage and urine in some of the alleys caused Beth to dub Nassau “Assau.”

The second funny thing Beth said happened when we were walking by a bar and a guy outside wiggled his nose, placed his finger to his nostril and asked if we were “all set.” We said we were and quickly walked away, aflush with the excitement and seediness of being offered drugs in a foreign country. His question prompted us to come up with other things that he would have wondered if we were “all set” for. The capper was Beth saying, “The opening of “Bewitched” with Nicole Kidman? I can't wait!”

We ended our time in Nassau by stopping by the Hard Rock Café, where Sue and Paul had had dinner with some of the singers and the musician. The Hard Rock Café Nassau really gets the bottom of the barrel with rock memorabilia. Their big attractions are an autographed guitar from Warrant and the Baha Men's Gold Album for “Who Let the Dogs Out?” I quickly forgave them for their lax museum standards when I ate their delicious steak nachos and Hot Fudge Brownie Sundae. That combo might even make a return trip to Nassau worth it.

The Extravaganza

I forgot to write about this yesterday. We went to the Monday night song and dance extravaganza as is our custom, but something about that night's performance was different. Randall, Beth, Jason and I went, and for whatever reason we were all really amped to see the show. When we first saw it a month ago, we all thought it was a little over the top and kitschy, but now I think it's one of the most beautiful pieces of theater I have ever seen. Plus, we are friendly with a lot of the cast members so we feel more of an emotional investment.

If any of you ever get to see the show, I would insist that you sit eight rows back either house left or house right, as we did Monday night. This gets you into the thick of the action, as it's where the ribbon dancers and some of the musicians come out to in the audience. It just makes you feel like you're getting a more special experience than the rest of the audience.

The pre-show announcement encourages people to dance in the aisles and sing along to the songs. No one ever does this, either because it's early in the cruise and people feel reserved or because the majority of the audience isn't familiar with the lyrics to “ No Me Ames.” We haven't made that leap yet either, but it's Beth's wish that the last week we're on the ship we stake out one of the balconies and sing and dance the entire time. I'm not sure if this would be a good idea or not, but I'm willing to take the challenge.

The audience seemed unsure of basic theater etiquette. People streamed in thirty-five minutes into the show, which lasts fifty minutes, and they were irritated when people wouldn't readily stand up to make way for them or the dancers in the aisle were blocking their way. Also, they wouldn't always clap when the principal dancers would exit the stage during a number (kind of like how you clap for a pitcher leaving the mound during a ballgame) or when the adage couple would perform a particularly difficult feat. To counter this, I clapped extra loud and started a couple of appreciation applauses during the later numbers (I'm something of an Applause Whisperer, and can get audiences to applaud even when they think they don't want to).

Anyway, we were rewarded for our positive behavior later that week by one of the dancers teaching us the opening moves to “Let's Get Loud.” Little did she know that she was creating a Frankenstein monster by doing so. Beth is already threatening to stand up and dance along at next week's show.

New Songs

I don't know if they have changed the mix tape that they play at the buffet and gym, but I've heard a lot of new songs in the past few weeks. “Bette Davis Eyes” gets heavy rotation, as does Richard Marx and that Climaxx song they played at one of my aunt's weddings (“Girl you are to me, all that a woman should be/And I dedicate my life to you always”). I heard Don Johnson's “Heartbeat” in the Reading and Writing room today, which nicely set the mood for my reading and writing. Also, Whitney Houston's “All The Man That I'll Ever Need” is played frequently, and each time I get confused if that song is supposed to be about Bobby Brown, God, or some combination of the two.

Also, I just want to write this down so I don't forget it. Several art auctions are held on the ship over the course of the cruise, and the auctioneer always ends his announcements by saying, “The only difference between 'action' and 'auction' is 'u' being there.” I'm trying to find ways to incorporate that phrase into everyday conversation.

Swedish Stars

The Staff Captain is throwing a big party in his hometown in Sweden this August (I think it has something to do with America's Cup, but I am not sure). He asked us to film some video for a murder mystery dinner he wants his guests to participate in. I am playing a photographer who is really a KGB agent. I want to ask one of the Russian-speaking dancers to teach me how to say “I am a KGB agent” in Russian but I feel like that might be some breach of etiquette. Anyway, we are filming it next week and are all excited about becoming murder mystery celebrities in rural Sweden.

New Passengers

There are a lot of characters on the boat this week. Here are the most important.

Sport Billy and Sport Lily: These are two deeply in love recently graduated college athletes. I first saw them working out together at the gym on Sunday. Usually most people in the gym enter it as if they are walking onto the surface of a new planet. They tentatively touch the rowing machine, they mount an exercise bike and seem bewildered when the pedals move beneath their feet, and then they take several pictures of themselves and leave. Yet these two attacked the gym with a confidence unseen in the past month. They did a series of complicated exercises on two of the gym's three benches for forty-five minutes (people usually just stay on the bench for forty-five seconds, lift something too heavy, strain a muscle, and then leave). I could hear him tenderly correct her posture during her military press in the same tone that one would use to recite Italian love poetry. She admitted that she hated doing lateral raises as if she was confessing that she had never been in love before. I saw them at Bayside in Miami on Wednesday and I imagined they had probably dove off the ship in perfect pike dives and then swam ashore to shop for ankle weights.

The Family That Smokes Together Stays Together (or TFTSTST): TFTSTST usually sit in patio chairs just outside the buffet, right before you get to the pool. There are usually three generations together, all puffing away. They move their position around the pool throughout the day, whip out their Marlboro Lights, and then puff away.

Law & Order Guy: I saw Law & Order Guy at the gym a few days ago. He is a slightly overweight red-cheeked young man who wears glasses. He has brown hair and sounds a little bit like Ernie from “Sesame Street.” He got on one of the exercise bikes and then began the following conversation with the attractive woman two bikes away.

Law & Order Guy: Hey, do you know how to work this thing?

Attractive Woman: (taking off her headphones) Excuse me?

LOG: Do you know how to work this thing? Do I just press “start?”

AW: Yeah, you just press start and then it will prompt you to select the program.

LOG: Thanks a lot. What's your name?

AW: Oh…it's Erin.*

LOG: Hi, Erin, I'm Bill. I met you the other night, didn't I?

AW: I don't think so.

LOG: Yeah, I met you at the bar. Are you having a fun time on the cruise?

AW: (hurriedly putting her headphones back on) Yeah, it's great.

(long pause)

LOG: So what does “Fat Burning” do? Burn fat?

AW: (stares intently ahead, pretends that her iPod is turned up so loud she can't hear any outside noise)

(brief pause)

LOG: So what does “Fat Burning” do? Burn fat?

AW: (still staring ahead, the song is just too loud for any outside noise to filter in)

(Two minutes pass. AW gets off her bike and positions her body that when she walks by LOG she is looking at the wall and not at him)

LOG: Bye, Erin. It was nice meeting you.

AW: (iPod is still up too loud to hear anything, plus the articles posted to the wall about the Zone diet are too engrossing for her to possibly be broken from her reverie)

(Three more minutes pass. LOG gets off his bike, pulls out a camera, takes a picture of the bike, and leaves.)

I call him Law & Order guy because the whole exchange reminded me of the opening scenes of Law & Order, when you know something violent and terrifying is going to happen, but you don't know what it is. I am sure if you were to go in LOG's room on the ship, you would find an elaborate collage of AW, pictures of her taken surreptitiously on the ship carefully arranged among images of exercise equipment. I hope she's okay.

*I have changed their names, but I am sure that they weren't using their real names in the first place. She was fending off advances from an unwanted admirer, and he was trying to muddle any identifying traits because he is a serial killer.

New Movies

They have changed the new line-up of movies playing on the passenger channel, which has greatly expanded our entertainment options. The themes seem to be Matthew Lillard movies (“Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed,” “Wicker Park”) and Love Stories where the Lovers are Kept Apart by the Machinations of a Jealous Third Party (“Wicker Park,” “The Notebook”). “Wicker Park” is a romantic thriller about two beautiful high functioning mentally retarded adults who fall in love. She accepts a job in England and has to leave right away, so she tells her crazy neighbor to break the news to her boyfriend. I think they also live in a police state, where email, cell phones, and mailboxes have been outlawed and the only way to communicate is via Crazy Neighbor. The Crazy Neighbor is in love with the young man, so she never tells him the news and she tells her friend that the young man was in bed with another woman when she went to tell him. So the woman thinks that her boyfriend was cheating on her and the man thinks his girlfriend has just disappeared, and they can't clear any of this up because, as I said before, they don't have email or cell phones. This clears the way for the Crazy Neighbor to assume the young woman's identity two years later and seduce the young man (since he lives in a police state, they have burned all copies of “Vertigo”). In the meantime, she has struck up a relationship with Matthew Lillard, who is the young man's roommate/home health care aide. But the man never meets his roommate's girlfriend because he is always too busy, or because she is wearing Kabuki make-up (she is an actress who is starring in one of the avant garde productions that are frequently being mounted in Chicago where the actors wear unitards and cat make-up). Eventually everything is all cleared up. The woman moves back to the States and tries to get in touch with the man, the man realizes his crazy one night stand is also his roommate's girlfriend, the crazy neighbor apologizes for lying for the past two years, the man breaks up with the slightly less attractive woman he has gotten engaged to since his girlfriend disappeared, and the man and the woman finally get back together. They never say what happens to Matthew Lillard and the Crazy Neighbor, but I assume they stay together.

Randall and I watched the last hour of “The Notebook” earlier this week. The thing I liked about “The Notebook” is that just when you thought it couldn't get more unbearably sad, it would inventively find a way to do so (Gena Rowlands getting restrained and sedated! James Garner having a heart attack! Dying in each other's arms!) I'm sorry if I have just ruined the ending of “The Notebook” for you. No I'm not. You would have just spent the entire move crying.

We also saw “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” this week in Port Canaveral. This was the most disappointing film we have seen so far in Florida. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play two assassins who work for competing agencies that don't like the fact that their top assassins are married to each other, so they concoct a plan to get the two of them to kill each other. Then Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie kill everyone sent to kill them, so the agencies are like, okay, you guys can live, and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie go back to couple's counseling refreshed and invigorated.

Ketchup Man

My Sunday trip to NYC was spent doing errands, since after a spirited email exchange with my high school friends Jordan and Christine we realized next weekend would work better for them to meet up. My big task was to get measured for a tux for my friend Jamie's wedding, an errand that was complicated by the fact that the Puerto Rican Day Parade was going down 5th Avenue. Streets were closed off, making me have to walk about twenty blocks out of my way and battle the masses before finally arriving at the Men's Warehouse at Madison and 46th. I hadn't planned on getting measured when I woke up, so I had just rolled out of bed, got dressed, put on some flip flops and left the ship. By the time I arrived at the store, I was fairly sweaty and my feet had a fine layer of New York grit on them. So I'd like to apologize to the young woman who had to measure me. I hope you work on commission.

When I was in Pittsburgh last September, I went to the Heinz Ketchup Gift Shop and bought a red t-shirt with the Heinz Ketchup logo emblazoned on the front. This was the shirt I was wearing in the city yesterday, and it was a huge hit. A little girl called me “ketchup man,” a group of guys on their way to the parade shouted across the street, “Holla back at your boyz, ketchup man,” the cashier at Whole Foods pointed it out to her coworker, and the clerk at Barnes and Noble said, “I like your shirt. It's very colorful.” The capper was when I was crossing the street, a guy yelled at me if I was from Pittsburgh. I said no, that I had just visited there. He said he had lived there for a year and a half and then pointed at my shirt, saying, “That place is like the shit over there. They have all the fucking jobs.”

Talent Show

The Talent Show this Saturday easily eclipsed last week's, mainly for the fact that no Billy Joel songs were sung. Also, this week kicked off the junior portion of the talent show as well, so there were three little kids participating, which kicked up the adorability factor tenfold. The night began with an elderly Jewish woman from New York taking the stage in a song and dance number. She began her act by saying, “Now many of you know that Nelson and I have been on over forty cruises.” Actually, I don't think any of us were aware of that fact, but I was willing to take her word for it. She then proceeded to say how our cruise director and “his merry men and maids” were the best she had ever seen and dedicated her song, “I Can't Smile Without You,” to them. She sang in a high falsetto and did a little soft shoe during the musical breaks. We were all smitten. How could she possibly be beaten?

Well, the answer was possibly contained in the next act. If you ever wondered what I would look like as an elderly woman, here was your answer. She was over six feet tall, had short white hair fashioned in the same haircut that I have, and the same elongated face that I share with John Kerry. She admitted that she hadn't sang the following song since she was eight years old, but that she wanted to dedicate it “to all THE SENIORS!” She said this last part with her fists pumping in the air, and several of the older passengers stood up and cheered in solidarity. Her song was “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which she sang in a clear sweet voice, hitting all of the high notes. With the old age vote clearly split, the night was clearly anybody's for the taking.

My favorite of the night was a young woman who was in her early twenties but looked thirteen. She sang “At Last” and nailed it. I think “American Idol” has trained audiences to applaud wildly at the end of the first stanza of a song and then at any subsequent high notes, so I wasn't always able to hear everything she sang but what I could, I was impressed by. My least favorite performer was this jerk who sang “Georgia On My Mind.” I call him a jerk because he got out of his seat during one of the junior performers songs. I can take someone being disrespectful during a professional's show, but when you are sitting in the front row of an amateur talent show and you leave your seat to talk to your friend while an eight year-old girl is playing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” you are a loser. His jerkhood was further confirmed by the fact that he got up to the mike and said, “Here's some Ray Charles for y'all,” as if we had all been waiting with baited breath for someone to funk the show up with some Ray Charles. Also, he bent and dipped every single note (I believe the technical term is coloratura, but I might be wrong), elongating even the simplest word to several syllables (“Ju-huh-st ay-ay-ay-n oh-ho-ld swe-hee-eet so-yong”). I applauded briefly at the end, but only because it wouldn't have been socially acceptable for me to sit on my hands.

The talent show was ultimately won by a man who played guitar and sang an original song. The winner of the junior talent show was a six year-old boy who looked like Joey Lawrence from his “Gimme a Break” days. He did a magic trick where he made color and pictures appear on previously blank pages. It was pretty awesome and I'm not ashamed to admit that I gave him a standing ovation.

Best Passenger Ever

Before the talent show, an elderly man came over to us and asked Paul, “What are the three words that a married man never wants to hear while he's making love?” This prompted a joke-telling flurry, which also included “What's the difference between making love and a bowl of Cheerios?” * He then did two magic tricks. For the first one he pulled a handkerchief over his wrist and said, “watch, watch, watch” until he pulled off the handkerchief and revealed his watch. For the second one he held out his hands and told us to pick a finger. Then he said, “Wait. Let me mix 'em up” and wiggled all of his fingers. He was about five feet tall, wore glasses and hearing aids, and a red sweater that was tucked neatly into his dress pants. He told us that he had been married for sixty-four years and pointed to his wife, an elderly woman who was deliberately looking the other way. She later turned to us and said, “I have no idea who he is.” He said they've never had an argument, “because it hasn't been my turn yet!” He also had pictures of himself dressed up as a Cardinal and the Pope, which I think had been taken for a documentary on the History Channel, but I couldn't hear that whole story. I think we all had hopes of becoming friends with him on the last night of the cruise, but at the end of the talent show he and his wife got up and walked into the casino, and we never saw them again.

*The answers to the jokes are “Honey, I'm home” and “Come over to my place for breakfast and I'll show you.” We had a lively debate over the exact verbiage and meaning of the second punchline at dinner last night, so I might have gotten it wrong.

Pineapples and Chocolate

Right now I am sitting in the Internet Café, which overlooks the atrium. This gives me the perfect vantage point to watch the Executive Chef lecture-demonstration. One chef is making animals out of pineapples (so far he's made penguins sitting in a nest and a fish jumping out of the water) while the other is making chocolate garnishes. I haven't mentioned the food decorations in the buffet before, but there is usually one or two pineapple creations in the line. They are usually sea-themed, with sea horses or dolphins carved into the side of a pineapple, but I have seen what I think was supposed to be the Virgin Mary on the outside of one. It might just be a generic woman, but there is something iconic in her depiction, so I'm leaning towards the Blessed Mother.

Yesterday Sue and I went to the chocolate buffet. Sue was initially put off by the long line (it snakes through several rooms before you hit the actual buffet) but I convinced her to wait for at least five minutes (I have gotten big on timing things since I got my new watch). The five minutes went up and we were still a room away from the buffet, so Sue took off. However, she felt badly about me having to go through the buffet line by myself and came back. There is something pathetic about loading up a tray by yourself at a Chocoholics buffet, so I thank Sue for not making me do it alone. The buffet was a little disappointing, but the white chocolate s'mores made it worth the wait.

Chef Update: Two lovebirds kissing, a bouquet of roses, and Stitch from “Lilo and Stitch” have been added to the pineapple creations. I was mistaken about the other chef doing merely chocolate garnishes; he was doing an entire cake-decorating demo, and the garnishes as well as some elaborate roses have been artfully arranged on a cake that reads, “Happy Cruising.” People are now taking pictures of the cake and pineapples, pictures that will never see the outside of the photo envelope they get returned in.

I think I jinxed my chance to hear the three singers again, as I haven't seen them since getting onto the tender boat two days ago. So I have no song updates to write about. We have seen #1 Cruiser (the woman who always sits in the front row) a bunch in the past two days. She came to the improv workshop that Randall and Beth taught yesterday and spoke to Beth afterwards about improv in New York City, so Beth is in the inner circle now. Sue also saw her in the front row of the game show last night, and I saw her and her husband play the Newlywed game on the ship channel yesterday.

They are giving away the pineapples now. I don't even think you can take cut fruit off the ship, so I don't know why people would want to have pineapple birds in their room for the last day of the cruise. Also, I'm not sure I was right in labeling the last pineapple as Lilo; it might just have been a rabbit head.

Jumping Fish and Sirens

On Wednesday, I went to the Bayside mall in Miami with Beth and Sue and can't say enough about their customer service. Both the clerks at Sam Goody and Suncoast Video couldn't have been more helpful, giving us circulars that outlined their sales and pointing us in the direction of some good buys. I bought “The Life Aquatic” at Suncoast Video and the clerk said, “I have a little surprise for you.” He then went to a box behind the counter and pulled out a “Life Aquatic” commemorative red stocking cap and gave it to me. I'm not sure if this is something you get for buying the DVD or he could sense how much I like free things, so don't get upset if you buy the DVD and don't get the hat. Beth and Sue were instantly enamored of the hat, and this is where the customer service really kicks in, because he went out back and gave them free hats as well. The Suncoast Video in Bayside will definitely be getting all of my movie purchase business in the future.

I wish all of our experiences at the mall were as positive. We ate at a Middle Eastern café in the food court and Beth's chicken kabob was uncooked in the center. To make matters worse, Sue found a piece of tiny piece of glass in her hummus (Sue lost the piece of glass after taking it out of her mouth, so we never had any hard evidence of its existence, but I believe that it did and not that Sue was trying to divert some of the attention Beth received for her uncooked chicken ordeal). We will not be eating there again.

Last night there was a crew party in what I can only describe as the ship's bowels. I'm not sure of the exact purpose of the room we were in, only that it contained a lot of rope and a punching bag. There were grates on the windows and we were able to look out onto the ship's wake. In all, it was a lot of fun (they had karaoke in English and Tatalog) and so we added another fun crew party to our belts.

This morning Randall, Sue and I went to the private island. We walked to the private beach Sue had discovered earlier (elapsed time: 30 minutes) and it was perfect. Nobody else was in sight, so you could trick yourself into thinking that you owned the island or that you were shipwrecked. We were sitting down when all of the sudden we noticed splashing about thirty yards away from the shore. The splashing got more frenetic and then died down, only to resume ten yards closer. We watched as the splashing approached the shore, and realized it was a school of fish trying to eat the minnows, who were swimming into more shallow waters where the bigger fish couldn't follow them. The larger fish were literally jumping out of the water in their attempts to get the minnows, and the three of us watched this depiction of nature's bloody food chain for several minutes (some gulls flew overhead, periodically diving in trying to snatch one of the fish). The whole thing seemed like the opening of a horror film where the dumb tourists watch a seemingly innocent scene of nature turn deadly. We were lucky that the fish didn't eat us.

There was another island about a quarter of a mile away, which I swam out to. I could have walked because the water never got deeper than four feet, but I didn't have my aqua socks and the ocean floor was covered with sea plants, and I didn't want to step on any coral/sea urchin again. The swim was more tiring than I expected, so I didn't explore the island as well as I could have. I was able to see tiny blue and yellow fish with my goggles, so it was well worth it.

On this cruise, there are three high school girls who are always singing. Randall had mentioned them earlier this week but I hadn't seen them until today. They were waiting in the line for the boat back to the ship, huddled over a walkman and singing “The Pina Colada Song.” Once you notice a passenger on the ship, you see them everywhere. A case in point: the woman sitting in the front row of the Sunday night show who enthusiastically raised her hand when asked if there was anybody who had sailed on the ship before. Since then I have seen her at the cha-cha lesson (her husband made a dumb joke about the instructor's accent, but I won't hold that against her), talking with one of the cruise director's staff by the pool, in the front row of our show last night, walking by the buffet line at the island today, and getting out of her seat during the magician's show tonight. I'm hoping that I see the singers around the ship more, and that their songs will somehow illustrate a theme for this week on the ship.

Strictly Boxing

We went to the mall today and saw “Cinderella Man,” and all left official members of the Paul Giamatti Fan Club. To get to the mall, we ride a bus designated for the ship's crew, and the bus makes two other stops at Wal-Mart and Cocoa Beach. Our bus company is currently engaged in a price-gauging war with another bus company that is trying to edge it out of bus. I'm not sure why we're loyal to this particular company and not to the other one, but they have given us bottled water for free and always tell interesting facts like how the alligators have to be driven away from Cape Canaveral whenever there is a shuttle launch. Our bus driver told us that he was probably going to be driven out of business next year and speculated that the other company would quadruple the fare. So I just wanted to let you know ruthless business practices even extend to ship crew shuttle buses.

Sue and I took the cha-cha lesson taught by the ballroom dance couple on the ship tonight. It was basically like the opening scenes of “Dirty Dancing,” and I'm pretty sure the couple was scouting which of their students they would invite back to their private underground cha-cha party later on tonight, or which of us could fill in for them in case of any unexpected medical emergency. The class was a diverse bunch: some elderly couples, one Asian couple who clearly had more than a little cha-cha experience and were frustrated by the class' beginner pace, and then younger couples with mismatched rhythms. There was also one man with a pencil-thin mustache who showed up late and chassed through the couples, causing a few near collisions. Sue and I were quick students and really only had problems mastering the spot turn, which we had down by the end of class. We have plans to go for the next few weeks, so that by the end of the cruise we can be entered in some intra-ship dance competitions.

Low Points

Sometimes when I walk to the Internet Café the hallway is empty and people have placed their discarded room service trays out in the hall. Once I walked by a birthday cake with one piece removed, and I just now walked by an uneaten piece of chocolate cake. I love desserts, and not to wolf these down requires an enormous amount of willpower on my part, similar to that of a starving fish who swims by a worm speared onto a bobbing hook. The only thing that stops me is the fact that there are 1100 video cameras on the ship, so my scavenging would be recorded and possibly replayed as part of a warning video for future employees.

Changes

I woke up this morning and brought my book outside to try to finish it. I was interrupted by four blasts of the ship's foghorn. Everybody around me was startled by it, and we all looked around as if there would be any clues as to what should we do. But we couldn't see anything out of the ordinary going on so we all went back to our business. I like reading outside towards the front of the ship, because it's usually pretty empty as I think it takes passengers a while to discover it. Last Saturday I was there when all of the sudden I realized the people in the hot tub were talking about a conversation they had had with me, Beth and Randall the night before. Their retelling was filled with inaccuracies and misquotes, but their attitude was cheerful so I didn't feel like I should reveal my presence and correct them. Anyway, any awkwardness was avoided since it began raining soon after and I discreetly went back inside, feeling a lot like Harriet the Spy.

Today I went inside early because I wanted to watch the Fashion Show. Paul and Sue were inside watching it, and I was able to catch the very end with them. The models are all from the dance company and they showcase the various Tommy Bahama products that can be bought at the ship's store, or Galleria. Sue has grand designs of her and I taking over the commentator position for one week, and we both agreed that we'd give up the $25 Galleria gift certificate that comes with the job just for the chance.

The family sitting next to us tonight at dinner gave their kids free reign and displayed some of the laxest parenting I've seen on the ship tonight. I'm going to give the mother a pass because she was dealing with her seven month old daughter (whose ears were pierced, so I'm not giving her that much of a pass) and non-English speaking parents. The four year-old son kicked things off by clinking his butter knife repeatedly against his water glass, as if to request that a non-existent bride and groom kiss. His father told him repeatedly to put his knife down, but didn't seem all that phased when his son ignored his request and kept on clinking for the next two minutes. Later, when the boy and his younger brother began acting up, the father switched to threatening them that he would cancel their Shirley Temple drink orders, but neither took him all that seriously and kept up their racket and they were enjoying their drinks a few minutes later. After they had eaten a few bites, both boys left the table and parked themselves (quietly, to give them some credit) in front of a big window that looked out over the ocean. This placed them right at the feet of a couple enjoying a quiet meal and three elderly women. The father looked over and cheerfully said through a mouth filled with food, “We don't know who they are! They've been following us around ever since we got on!” One of the elderly women looked up and gave him a look that I would characterizes as “sternly disapproving,” but he just repeated himself, as if they hadn't understood his joke. When we were leaving I overheard him telling the waitress that they hadn't really enjoyed their meal, not because the food was bad but because they “had all ordered the wrong thing.”

Sue, Randall, Jason, Beth and I then went to the Song and Dance extravaganza, which we were all looking forward to because the principal singer is on vacation this week so the secondary singer was taking over her parts (Paul somehow escaped the hysteria surrounding this casting change and went back to his room to play video games). Since we're now somewhat of an expert on the Monday night show, we were able to knowledgeably compare and contrast the two singers, agreeing that the understudy had done an excellent job.

After the show I went back to my room and finished up “Empire Falls,” the book I have been reading (this might be a good time for me to tell my roommate Martin I borrowed his copy of “Empire Falls” last month. Martin, I hope that's okay and I will get it back to you somehow, some way). While I liked it a lot more than the woman sitting next to me on the plane last week (“I had to read it for my book group last year. I finished it and said, “So what?”), I think the superficial nature of my life on the ship right now made me want a more definitive and happier ending for the book. But maybe it was good for me to read it on a cruise, since the river and water play such important roles in the story. I brought about twenty books with me, thinking that four months on a boat would be the perfect time for me to read all of the books that I have ever put off reading. But given the slow rate that I finished “Empire Falls,” I think I was overly ambitious in my packing. I'll have to figure out what to knock off next tomorrow, because now I've gotten mildly obsessive about shipping the books I will eventually read back to my parents (or my roommates, if the case may be) so that I can leave room in my suitcase for all of the coconut monkeys I will eventually buy.

Talent Show

Saturday night we went to the passenger talent show. The rest of the cast had gone last week when I was home and said it was the best thing they had ever seen, with the highlight being a man in his eighties playing “America, The Beautiful” on an electric guitar (he was trumped by a tap dancer). This week's roster was all singers, with the works of Stevie Wonder and Billy Joel heavily represented. The winner was a Henry Rollins lookalike who sang “Piano Man,” which as Paul pointed out isn't that hard of a song to sell to an audience full of New Yorkers. I thought the guy who sang “Overjoyed” should have won, but apparently the fact that he read the lyrics off a music stand was held against him. The audience was extremely supportive, even applauding when one of the contestants flubbed the lyrics to “Your Song,” as if to say, “It's okay, get back up on that horse, buddy.” Even more impressive was silence during one young woman's off-key rendition of “As,” which was sung about an octave too low and was marked by her frequently consulting the lyrics which she had written on her hand.

We went to the crew bar later that night and hung out with the SCUBA instructor and Personnel Director. I met the SCUBA instructor a few nights ago and we talked about my lung, which collapsed a few months ago and prevents me from ever SCUBA diving. Ever. The Personnel Director did a magic trick where she was able to make a smudge of cigarette ash go from one hand to the other, which none of us were able to figure out.

This morning when I was in the bathroom we got a phone call saying that I had to go through immigration again since I had disembarked last week. They didn't tell Jason where I should go, so I went down to the Crew Mess Hall where immigration had been set up a few weeks ago. This started a series of me being sent to various parts of the ship, and when I showed up at the correct location a half hour later they were annoyed with me, and I was told that I had held up clearance for a half hour. I'm not sure exactly what clearance is and who was affected by it, but I apologize to everyone who I unknowingly inconvenienced.

While I was in New York I had lunch with my former boss Kathleen and her daughter Maria. We ate in Soho, which I had never been to before, and then walked around for a while, unsuccessfully avoiding conversations with the artists who were selling their works on the street. Also, I'm pretty sure Jim J. Bullock walked by us talking on his cell phone while we were eating brunch. It was great to catch up with them, and find out the goings ons at my old workplace. Hot Dog Day there will be a little dimmer there this year, as the job of the man responsible for its decorations was phased out (that sentence is worded weirdly, his job wasn't to decorate for Hot Dog Day, that was only something he did voluntarily). Each Hot Dog Day, he would add a new giant paper Hot Dog character to his army of Hot Dog decorations, which included a Hot Dog family, a Hot Dog librarian, and a Hot Dog firefighter (commissioned after 9/11). Hot Dog Day was my favorite time of year at work so I was sorry to hear that there wouldn't be any new Hot Dogs. But we all agreed that they would make a great exhibit at an outsider art gallery. We also talked about things that Maria hates, which include helping people, art, and rats touching each other.

Sea Daze

Paul and I taught the adult workshop Thursday afternoon and it was really fun. I had been nervous because I had watched the teen workshop the other day and it had contained some hateful and unimaginative twelve year-old girls. I feared they would be representative of the rest of the passengers, but the people in our workshop were all delightful and well-raised adults (I should say the teen workshop contained some very creative kids as well, but the two or three alpha females kind of railroaded things for a while).

That night we had our improv show and it was my turn to sit in on the ship's game show, which is a version of “Balderdash.” The improv show is only a half hour long, and serves as something for people to do between the two Song and Dance Extravaganzas that go on in the theater. The show went fine and was over before I knew it.

The game show was a lot of fun too, basically because doing it makes you feel like you're a 1970's cast member of “The Match Game”: there's witty banter and you get a free drink. The first week I had been on the ship I was struck by how playful it was, until my director told me they did a lot of the same bits each week. Sure enough, the jokes that I had been convinced were off-the-cuff were all trotted out again (there's an Oh God/O. Henry bit in particular that kills and is executed as if it's just occurring to the participants). The curtain behind the Wizard has been lifted, and I have emerged older and wiser.

We went out afterwards and ended up back in the disco towards the end of the night. This cruise contains a lot more younger passengers than the previous two and so the hormone level was nearly off the chart by the time we arrived. There was one young woman dancing with what can only be described as stripper-like abandon. She only knew about three dance moves, but she and her baby-faced partner performed them with enthusiasm. She wore Daisy Dukes and one of those halter tops that tie in the back, which meant you could see a good portion of her bra strap when she turned around/gyrated. I'm not sure if that's a fashion faux pas or not, but people seemed willing to forgive her for the error.

Randall made friends with an Irish couple on their honeymoon, and I got stuck talking to a drunk man who was confused as to why I had been on the panel for the game show (“I'm in a comedy group that performs on Wednesday nights. A comedy group. Wednesday. Nights.” This was repeated for a few minutes as I tried to avoid getting stabbed by his cigarette.)

A TAB update: Beth pointed out TAB to the juggler and told him how TAB hadn't liked either of our shows (I should also note that TAB has been almost conciliatory when I've seen him this week, and has made it a point to tell me that he's seen part of our show and then repeating a key phrase as if to prove his attendance). The juggler, who doesn't have the fear of confrontation as I do, went over to TAB, who was hanging out with one of his “honies,” and asked him why he hadn't liked the show. This caused TAB to go over to Beth and ask her why she told the juggler he hadn't liked his show (again, life on the boat is like a middle school dance). Beth quickly defused the situation, and when I made eye contact with TAB when he was leaving the bar, he enthusiastically pointed at me and was shouting what I took to be a greeting, so I think all is well. Unless he was shouting, “I'm going to kick your ass.”

Nighttime in Nassau

It was one of the dancer's birthdays last night so we went out to a bar and night club in Nassau. The birthday had a cowboy theme, which resulted in a lot of people dressed as cowboys and cowgirls but speaking in British or Australian accents. Some people were worn out from the previous night's helipad party (again, don't kick yourself that your own life doesn't afford you the opportunity to attend parties thrown on helipads. The next time you're out, look around and try to find a space where a helicopter could land, if necessary. Then tell yourself that you're on a helipad and you'll have some sense of what it's like to be me), so it ended up being just Jason and me who went out. The bar we went to had no real ventilation system, so we were all sweatbots fifteen minutes in. But the night was really fun and I feel like we're slowly but surely chipping our way into the crew's social infrastructure.

I had meant to write about this on Monday but I had forgotten. The ship's (optional) formal night is held on Monday, where you can dress up for dinner if you want. My mother was surprised that it was held so early on the trip but the cruise director jokes that it's the only night people will be able to fit into their clothes (alluding to the seven pounds people are supposed to gain while on a cruise. By that reasoning, I will be 286 pounds when I leave in September). Anyway, the idea is that you go to one of the ship's fancier restaurants to get the full formal effect. Somehow this message isn't conveyed to all of the passengers, resulting in a few sad-eyed elderly people in full formal regalia going through the buffet line. This only strengthens my theory that the ship is closer to middle school than anyone would like believe. They look like the kids whose mothers told them to wear a tie to the sixth grade dance, and then they're forced to endure the public embarrassment as their cooler contemporaries walk by them wearing t-shirts and shorts. It's none of my business, but I still fight the urge to tell these people that they should go back to their rooms and change into something more comfortable. Or not eat at the buffet.

Miami is Nice

Yesterday marked the first time I had left the ship when it was in Miami. Since I typically only dress as if the weather is the exact same temperature as my room, I was very uncomfortable walking around South Beach in my corduroys. A freak thunderstorm during our lunch at the News Café cooled things down a little bit, but I still found it necessary to buy some shorts while we were there and change into them. We walked by Versace's mansion and Paul and Sue showed us some of their other favorite places in South Beach (the lobby of a fancy hotel that Jason noted looked like the set of a music video since billowing white curtains sectioned off areas and all the furniture was covered in animal skins). I asked our cab driver where exactly the MTV Video Music awards had taken place when they were held in Miami last year, but strangely he didn't seem aware that they had occurred at all.

I took advantage of the spa's crew discount and got a lava stone massage when we got back. I feel like a jerk even writing the words “lava stone massage” so I'll move on, but I do want to note that my masseuse either gave me a bunch of gels and oils for free or I mistakenly bought them. Chalk it up to another breakdown in US-Philippines Communications.

The shows were received very well, probably because the weather has been bad the past few days and people have stayed on the boat living it up. Two drunk women sitting in the front row talked throughout the second show, which was distracting, but other than that everything went smoothly.

There was a helipad party for the crew last night, where they moved the crew bar up to the helipad for the night. If you're reading this, you're probably realizing how small your own life is since you don't regularly attend parties on helipads, but they are not as glamorous as the media has led us to believe. The people in other departments aren't willing to meet people outside their own social circle unless you directly go up to them and introduce yourself, which is sometimes awkward because of the number of languages spoken in the crew. It all has the effect of making the crew bar seem like a middle school dance, with tightly formed groups of people interact independently of each other. Yet the night was fun and we still managed to meet some new people.

This morning Randall and I went to the private island. Jason couldn't go because he had a meeting with one of the personal trainers. We also get discounts with the personal trainers as part of our crew perks, and a lot of the former and current casts have taken advantage of this. The trainers are very big on the Zone diet and want everyone to eat five meals a day and drink protein shakes. I have not yet taken the personal trainer leap yet, but that probably has as much to do with the money I spent on the lava stone massage (there are those words again! Arrgh!) than anything else.