Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup

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Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup

Tomorrow I step off this here tugboat and into the unknown. It's really made me think.

I’m not afraid of it. I’ve allowed, even cultivated, that happening.

Yesterday on one of our onboard movie channels they were playing and replaying The Grapes of Wrath. It s such a fine film, just can’t be touched, why am I afraid there will soon be a cheap-ass remake on TNT or something sometime soon, something like “Calgon presents Chris Noth in The Grapes of Wrath, only on TNT…”

I digress.

I was watching this beautiful film, which I think was chosen with some sense of ironic humor, and over the course of the day I happened upon the same scene. It’s a small one but one that touches me the most. I think right now it has a particular resonance.

It’s nighttime, and the Joads are leaving for California the next morning. Ma Joad is sitting by a small fire, I think, and she has this tiny ceramic bulldog. Written on its back, it says “souvenir of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St Louis, 1904.” If I’m a little off on that wording, forgive me. Point is, she looks at this little knick-knack and you can just see the happiness that is past. Her time is done, and what’s left may just be remainder. She’s losing everything, her whole family is, and she has this and one or two other meaningless (to anyone else) trinkets she can fit into her pocket. That bulldog has no significance to anyone else.

I have many baubles from my travels overseas, and from shows I’ve done, and such. Everyone here does. Gifts for others, souvenirs for myself.

Will we all one day find ourselves sitting by the fire like Ma Joad, gazing at trinkets?

As I sit here, I am watching our GPS channel, and I find us at latitude 25 degrees 48:49, longitude 76 degrees 21:09. This morning I woke to land on the screen for the first time in days. I think I will sight land before long off my balcony, as we pass through the Bahamas.

We're nearly home.

On this world cruise alone, I have logged 34,147 nautical miles. Do your own conversion - I would but I have limited internet time and I can't buy another card because my accounts are closed. Yes, it's THAT close to time. I can't imagine how many miles I've logged on this ship altogether in my time here, but I'm going to venture probably 150,000 nautical miles might not be too far off.

Last night there was a really nice gala farewell party and show, sort of a "greatest hits" of the world cruise. We did a couple of numbers, the lounge acts did a few, there were readings by staff and officers of "world cruise memories..." and... A week ago in a bar onboard, we had a night where we jammed with the band as a sort of show for the night. It went really late and I was D-runk by the end, I will admit, but we had a great time. A couple of the other acts on board got involved, and we did this really fun on-the-fly version of "You've Lost The Lovin' Feelin'" where I was backed up by Joe and Nathaniel Reed, who does a cabaret act on board. Later we did "Proud Mary" with all of the singers on board making up their own backup parts. Both those went over so well that night Jamie asked us to do those for the farewell, and while we had a good time doing them again (and on the big stage as opposed to in the cabaret space in the Horizon lounge) we all agreed the songs themselves had been better after a few drinks. I came here to sing Bizet, and yet somehow two + years on, my final performance on the stage of the M/S Seven Seas Voyager was singing a bass line to "Proud Mary." Go figure.

As of tomorrow, I can be reached by phone once more....