April, come she will

For the past week, we have happily been in the midst or rehearsing our new show. I say happily because it's something to do while our Mexican ports have become progressively more ridiculous in terms of heat and not being able to hold our attention. Some time ago it became more about passing time until our relocation cruise to Alaska than it was about experiencing the joys of the Mexican Riviera. Seriously, though, if you do know of anything of cultural significance or interest unique to Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, or Cabo San Lucas, write soon to share it because we've none of us experienced it.

Our new show is a Broadway revue titled "WORDS AND MUSIC." Another reason I say we are rehearsing happily is because this cast is, even months into the contract, just great to be around. In our normal routine of not doing much of anything our busy onboard lives, sometimes we rarely see one another... so it is nice to be doing more of what we actually "do" and spending time together doing it. Joe Sackenheim and I, for example, make stupid absurdist remarks and giggle inappropriately. While the true work is being done, we manage to blow simple lines about the important work of Leonard Bernstein because we've been making jokes about how to truly convey every aspect of the word "intimacy" in our "intimate cabaret setting."

This "intimate setting" is a very large theatre with several hundred seats and a dress circle, by the way.

Next week we open the show and also will celebrate Leslie Turner's birthday. Leslie is one of our guest entertainers, and she is one of those people with her own catchphrase... one that is quite often appropriate on ship, "This is an outrage."

I realized today that the end of April has been a significant time in my life for years now, quite randomly it seems. A year ago I stepped off the Voyager from the world cruise on April 30. Two years ago, I began on April 28 what will likely remain in many ways the worst, most calculatedly humiliating ten days of my life - long story. Three years ago I got onto a ship for the first time on the first of May, so that doesn't really count... there are many other things that circle around this time of year for me, and I wonder if it's something astrological or absolutely random that it's been so eventful. Just blathering at this point.

Oh yeah - big news... this summer, I am discussing producing a musical during my time between contracts. I'll be putting the show up with my good friend Nick Marchello and his fiancee Tara, who are currently staying in Wichita, Kansas. We'll put the show up for two weeks in July/August, and it will likely be a small show called "MUSICAL THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS."

Once details are ironed out, I'll post more here.

like sands through the hourglass

I keep having these conversations lately.

Conversations that make me think about how the past two+ years have just slipped through my fingers like sand. It's not that I regret that or anything, time sometimes flies. It feels sort of like, as I wrote once before in other terms, that if the past two and a half years were a conversation I were having, my mind kind of wandered while the other person was talking and I'm now at the point where I come back into it having heard a key word or something, I turn to the person speaking with a furrowed brow and say "wait wait wait... WHAT?"

Does that make sense?

I have other news as well... this summer I may be producing my first full-on musical, and I'm very excited at the prospect.

woot!

(insert photo here)

I wanted to comment on an email I got yesterday, which echoes something a number of people have asked in recent months: why aren't I posting more pictures lately? Why aren't I blogging more regularly?

Short answer: it'd be repetitious. I hardly think more pictures of the same people in the same ship's wardroom/crew bar or same ports doing the same things are needed, and unless there's some exciting themed party or something (there may be one or two soon) I hardly even take my camera out of its case. I have been, however, using my video camera a lot in hopes of posting a series of videos about cruise life. Eventually that will be up. The answer is the same for the blog - it's a routine that encompasses 24 hours of your day, and it's fine, but I think I speak for everyone when I say we cannot WAIT for Alaska. So for those of you with well-kept blogs, I bow unequal to your majesty.

And I will not apologize again for being a poor correspondent. Someone recently wrote and said I apologize for that too much, so as I told him, I am sorry if I apologize too much.

I am working hard to make sure my parents finally make good on their stated intention to ocme on a cruise. It would involve so many "never have evers" for them to come out for Alaska it would be just brilliant if I can make it happen.

In other news, yesterday I watched as the world media was gripped when some random 13 YEAR OLD KID accused NASA of fudging figures in its calculations about Apophis, a so-called "doomsday asteroid." NASA had some time ago said the asteroid was not a significant risk; the kid said NASA hadn't figured in... blah blah blah. Anyway, what does it MATTER what the kid said? The media, so desperate to cause fear for whatever reason with their ratings driven "What three items in the room with you right now could be silently killing you at this very moment? Find out after this!" and "New terror threat imagined by Hollywood: Could it happen in YOUR home?" style "journalism" that they grabbed hold of a piece of garbage spouted by some GERMAN SCHOOLKID and spread across every media outlet for 36 hours. It wasn't long before NASA shuts them down with the obvious point that "Excuse me, we are NASA; this kid probably just watched Das Deep Impact and fell asleep after one too many Der Mountain Dews."

On the other hand, what possible good would it do us as a general populace to know about an impending world-ending asteroid disaster*? I could definitely see the logic in telling the public there were no danger. Let the people who actually might make some difference work on a solution, don't let the great unwashed know they might meet an impending firey end. they couldn't likely do anything to change it, and likely all most of them WOULD do is break windows, flip cars, and steal TV sets.

*Two asterisk points for this one: 1) I just remembered I watch the news when they discovered this asteroid in 1998, I think. Then, they announced it as a "probable HIT." Two or three days later they came back and said "oops, no, forgot to carry the one!"
2) "Asteroid Disaster" sounds to me like both a delicious ice cream sundae and a waterpark ride.

...

Sad news. I just learned from home that the guy who accompanied most of my high school vocal groups, who was two years behind me in school and later went to (one of) the same colleges I did, has passed away from complications related to AIDS. I don't know if I ever even saw him after high school, but he was a really nice guy. I remember a long evening in 1992 on show choir tour (yes, lord help me, I was in a show choir) when my friends and I spent hours hounding him around a Holiday Inn "Holidome" with those spring-activated guns that shoot little yellow pellets. It was sort of like The Most Dangerous Game, except not very dangerous. He was such a nice guy, and my prayers are with his family and friends. I'm sure he'll be missed.

I'm not going to put his name here for the sake of his family's privacy. If you are reading this, know who I may be talking about, and haven't heard, feel free to contact me and I can give you what very little info I have.

A Plague On Both Your Houses

Ever since I joined this ship on December 12, people have been ill. Not vomitously disgustingly nauseous, as in the dreaded shipboard Norwalk virus, but just.... sick.

I tend to have my illness, be it cold, flu, or whatever, on an annual basis. About once a year, I'll be under the weather for a few days and then back to normal.

Not so much here. For the third time since I joined this ship, I have caught a mutation of the same frickin' malady that has pestered in this petri dish for God knows how long... and let me tell, you, the third time is the charm.

It has aimed for my throat before, but like a poor marksman it KEPT... MISSING... the TARGET. This time, it got me. Whammy. The other night in the midst of performing CINEMATASTIC! I was riding a bike around the stage whilst singing a ditty and repeatedly found myself losing track of where I was, physically. I nearly rode off stage left... then into the audience toward stage right. These errors were not so much that and audience member would notice, there was no need for abrupt correction, but in my head it was as though I was watching myself and trying to maneuver my body via a sluggish remote control. This, achiness, and then my throat was just plain finished. By the end of the second show I had nothing left - CINEMATASTIC is the most vocally demanding show for me, with big giant money notes that are higher than I even COULD sing not so many years ago, and if it weren't for soul-crushing alterations that I made and the efforts of a talented sound tech (Mark Taleski!) I would have been even more humiliated than I was. I was feverish, somewhat nauseous, and generally not much fun.

I went to the shipboard doc yesterday morning, which I tend to avoid like the plague. I figured "Since I HAVE the plague, I may as well see (one of) the doctor(s)." I had already told our line captain there was danger of me being "signed off" for the next day, which would entail rehearsals and stuff for the cast and a lot of big headaches for everyone. I did my best to avoid being signed off, and instead I got a pile of medications, which is unusual on ship. Usually, they give you a lozenge called "Strepsils" for everything ranging from a cold to a broken arm to feminine disorders. Not for a singer on a show day! No, it's an armload of pharmaceuticals ranging from plain old Sudafed to dispersible gargling aspirin to a range of anti-inflammatories and painkillers. I spent the day in my cabin, not speaking, also not studying the new show as I should have been. I'm downing hot throat-remedy tea by the gallon, with all the accompanying extras that are rumored or have worked in the past as remedies. Around 5pm I try to see what will come forth from my voice, and it's not sufficient to bring on the show. I know it's not. So I have one shot - literally - Glenfiddich. I had been recently given a nice bottle of the single malt scotch by our other male singer as a thank you for a favor, and I thought maybe a nice belt of that would turn the sounds of mucus to the sound of music. It worked! Like magic!

Fifteen minutes later, though, i was back where I started. Another sip of scotch - back on my game! I poured a healthy measure of the cherished, for special occasions only beverage into my "I Wish I Were Dead" coffee mug, because I'm just that classy. I took it to the show along with me, and told the line captain the scoop - I'm not going to get trashed, I said, but I am using this to get through the shows. I hope you'll be okay with this, because... well, it's what we've got to work with. Horribly unprofessional, perhaps, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

I called the sound booth - because for this show we're in a different theatre - and let our PM there, Andy Anderson, know that I could use his help. We are very lucky to have two excellent sound guys here, and Andy made last night a VERY easy sing for me. Both shows. So last night, I made it through the shows thanks to single-malt scotch and Andy Anderson.

Rollin'

Oh yeah... I have about ten minutes of good video from my Sweeney Todd concert last year, just click here.

By the way, if you had a strange phone call today it was probably set up by me. I didn't do it on April Fool's Day, because you'd be expecting it. I did my April Fooling today.

Every time I look at me I don't understand

I wrote this over a week ago but it has been trapped in my old laptop as I transferred programs. Totally without connection to this wordy and meandering post, I just ran across this on which clicking you make for fun time amusement purposes. After you read that, enjoy a moment of inspiration, ask yourself "what would Jesus drink?*" and resume regular programming.

*Answer: single malt scotch, preferably Talisker or Macallan. Don't say wine, because a) that's trite and B) that carries a lot of bad memories for him. He'll forgive you, but he isn't as mild mannered as he used to be. After a few whiskys he might punch you in the mouth and THEN forgive you.

________________________________________________

This is a post of some substance, in relative terms.

There was a point in early 2006 when despite my foolish and misguided efforts to try to set things as I knew they should be, metaphorically speaking I lost control of the car.*

"No brakes," I screamed at first. I flailed for whatever I thought would save me, and as panicked drivers do I made some bad mistakes and skidded on the ice.

People were hurt, it was my fault, I didn't want to and yet I didn't know how to stop it. (That's all been covered before time and again, and I won't take you all to Dullsville by recounting again here my regrets. I've made my apologies and offered my amends long ago. Stupid selfish mistakes, and so on...)

I was flung around the car, terrified and bloodied, and...

Well, if it were a scene from a movie the car would hit something and there'd be a crash, then the ambulance would come and the scene would be over.

I have realized recently that for the better part of my life since then I have been riding in that out of control car. For a while I was that flailing driver, but well... if you're someplace long enough you try to make it work for yourself. Even a careening, out of control car. The world zipped by outside and I sort of adjusted to that... I learned to watch what was going on out the windows, not having any brakes but being able to avoid oncoming traffic and pedestrians. Miraculously, as the speeding sedan of my life went brakeless downhill, there was no slow-motion launch off a cliff. The car kept going, for weeks and months...

Some time ago, I think, the car somehow rolled to a stop. I got out, dusted myself off, tended my bruises... I look back at the ground I covered and it all went so fast. In trying to survive it all, I avoided much. At lot of choices I made I only made because I was stuck in that car. I learned a lot and grew a lot, pulled into myself a great deal, I traveled around the world, and now...

um...

Now what?

Armed with another small triangle in life's Triforce of Wisdom(tm) I find myself at age 33 with a wealth of experiences from the past few years, and I think a much better man than I was before. To what end? I have, but am not crippled by or afraid of the fact that I have regret. I understand its purpose and its place and its lessons. I see how fortunate and blessed I have been to have done all I've done, my whole life.

None of those things really work on a resume, though. (Smiley face with ironic eyebrow raise)

I'm now at the side of the road, looking out at some great vista and wondering how the hell I survived all that and what an idiot I am for getting myself into it in the first place. Realizing only now all the times that I might've jumped from the car safely or brought the car to a stop earlier. I didn't though, for whatever reasons. Since the initial... er... skid, I guess... no one further has been injured and somehow I survived. Now, all I can do is shake my head and try to figure out where the hell I ended up after this stupid ride... and what to do next.

If this were a story I was writing, I would be hit by someone else's metaphorical car and knocked off the metaphorical cliff at this point. (knock metaphorical wood)

It feels like a good place to be, if uneventful. I am going to do my very best to make sure I don't get into an uncontrolled slide ever again.

There is no conclusion to this, but I know everyone has these little realizations here and again. Does this make sense to anyone out there? Are you bored and will never read this blog again? This doesn't have to make sense to anyone else, but... well, it's a decent place to be. I think.

A bit dull, though, after the prolonged 1980s action movie sequence.

*It should be noted I had not been a very good driver for a while leading up to this, either. Still metaphorically.