Friday, August 18, 2006

10 Days left on Cruise Ship X (yippee!), which means it's time for the:

Top Ten signs you've been a Cruise Ship Musician for Too Damn Long:

(note: I did my damnedest to do a list that had the fewest possible cruise ship in-jokes. I failed.)

10. You see a comedian come on stage, and recite his routine along with him verbatim.
9. Mexico feels more like home than Manhattan.
8. "Greasy Rubbery Grade-C Steak Night" in the mess qualifies as an exciting event.
7. A room with a nine-foot ceiling feels really, really spacious.
6. Gorgeous half-naked dancers prancing around backstage have no effect on you whatsoever.
5. You sing your favorite song the way it appears in a production show.
4. You're accustomed to taking orders from someone who tells fart jokes for a living.
3. You devolve into a sputtering drunk who hates music.
2. You no longer order your drinks in English.
1. You walk down the street yelling "Ciao!" to random passersby.

By six of these measures, I've been on a cruise ship for way too damn long. But you knew that already.

2 comments:

Moandji Ezana said...

What's the relationship between Will Layman's article (which I read and liked at the time, but haven't re-read since) and the sputtering drunk?

pat said...

From Rudresh in the article:

"The summer after my first year at Berklee, I got a cruise ship gig that was a big eye-opener. Almost every musician on the ship had forgotten the reason they started playing," Mahanthappa tells me. "No one cared about music any more. They were just drinking, living the life on the ship. And I thought, if that's what making a living as a musician is about, then I want no part of it."

This was the quote that started this blog in the first place...