T'was the day after Christmas

My fourth Christmas at sea passed without the usual depression associated with spending the holiday season on ships. A few other musicians were sad though, no least Bob, whose mum is ill. I suspect that the reason I wasn’t quite so sad this time was that this is my last christmas on the ships. This time next year, I’ll be home with family. It’s a very pleasing thought.

Had a pleasant day in Cabo christmas eve. Phil, Cade and myself got off the ship and found a nice bar. Excellent tequila from the barrel. The following exchange took place: 


Me: You know, I really do like doing this in Mexico.

Cade: What?

Me: You know, the whole getting off the ship, finding a nice little bar and just relaxing.

Phil: We like doing that in every port.


What could I say? He had a point.

Did the Christmas show that I’d written on Christmas day: one for the passengers and one for the crew. It worked very well, with Bryan, the CD, a little bit taken aback by the quality of the singers, band, and the arrangements. I’m sure a favourable report will go back to head office.

My friend Amy Alter is coming to visit the ship in Fort Lauderdale. She and I have this thing of doing rendez-vous... usually in the Spring. She is lovely, and I’m looking forward to seeing her.

Still working through my future plans. More about them when a few things are straightened out. And they have to get straightened out pretty darn soon.

Days at sea

Well, except for a six-hour stop in Nuka Hiva (see photo), we’ve been at sea for eleven days now. We’re running a little late getting into LA, and may not get off there... and I have port manning in San Diego, and we probably won’t get out in Cabo, which means I won’t be able to get off the ship until December 27. I’ve never done sixteen days at sea before. Argh! It brings new meaning to “worse things happen at sea.”

At least I’m getting some work done.

Papeete to LA

Well, managed to get a sunburn in Bora Bora. Good day. UNFORTUNATELY, Cade and Bob only took a half bottle of vodka down to the beach (see picture) which was gone in ... what ... forty minutes. Still, almost saw some stingrays and, as I say, got sunburnt, which had me looking like a leper for days afterwards.

Papeete. The Chinese food, I discovered, is incredibly expensive in Papeete. French Polynesia is always expensive. Probably the second most expensive place I’ve visited (apart from Oslo...those damned Norwegians and their Norwegianness!) Still, it’s all about getting off the ship, especially when we have ten days at sea. Ick!

Since then, it’s been get up, arrange, do shows, watch season 2 of House, go to sleep. Only highlight has been Bob DJing in the crew bar, which was lots of fun. Lots of people there just dancing to good music... Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind and Fire, that sort of stuff. As opposed to the usual super-loud doof doof doof that I usually encounter down there.

Got an email from the wonderful Caitlin the other day that cheered me up. She’s so gorgeous and wonderful and talented it defies description. What she’s doing with John I’ll never know. :)

Lazy day, my arse!

Although I was really supposed to be working on charts today, I sat down with Cubase to ... do I call it play or learn? Finally got around to installing the new Trilogy wrappers and, after a year and a half of owning the damned thing, got it to work. And it is, in a word, awesome. Sat down with BFD, Virtual Guitarist and Trilogy, and managed to produce a fairly basic but ok sounding indie rock progression. Nice crunchy acoustic guitar. The trouble with this of course, is that it makes me want to buy more software. I’m looking at the BFD Jazz package of course, though the Rock and Latin stuff is also looking promising.

Unfortunately, despite the picture, the seas were too rough to allow many people off, so the tropical paradise that was supposed to be Rarotonga will forever remain unknown to me. Still, Moorea and Bora Bora are coming up. Surely we can get off at one of those. To be honest, it’s remarkable that we managed to get in at all.

The big highlight, though, was Dave Osborn, the trumpeter, hearing I was running out of coffee came back with a big bag of something called Atiu Coffee from the Cook Islands. Must admit I didn’t know they brewed coffee in the Cook Islands, but I’m very relieved they do. Need my morning coffee.

Bay of Islands to Rarotonga

Well, things have settled in to the routine of many, many days at sea. Wake up around ten, yawn, get up trying not to wake roommate, go down to the crew mess and make coffee (which I’m running out of), go online and deal with any emails, do some arranging before the midday rehearsal, arrange again in the afternoon, do whatever gigs we have in the evening, work out between them, and chat with the lads in the evening. My days are very uneventful at sea.
Although today *was* slightly interesting in that we crossed the international date line. This means that for us, there were two December fives (I’m writing on the latter). Caught some of us off-guard as some of us had duties on the sixth. Lots of jocular comments about Groundhog Day and so forth.

But for me, the big news is that yesterday, I finished Regent’s Christmas show. Ten Christmas songs. Slightly depressing actually. I’m never at my best on Christmas... like a bear with a sore head to use the vernacular. I miss the family too much. But this will hopefully be my last at sea.
But, at least, I’m free to start on some other stuff. I owe some work to Meera Thompson and am halfway through a show for Hal Fraser (the first of two actually). Getting time to work on my own stuff is the problem actually. Work on Standard Shift and work on the Scoreworks website has stalled while I get the arranging work out of the way. Is it always like this?

Back at home, the Rudd government is forming, which I’m quite pleased about. Over the past eleven years, Howard has consistently made Australia a cautious, small country, not at all like the racy one of the Keating years. The early nineties were an exhilarating time for Australian politics. We were forward-looking, had a concept of the big picture, and well on our way to becoming a republic. I’m hoping Rudd can make it exciting again.

Thoughts on leaving Australia (yet again!)

We’ve left Hobart and we’re now heading towards New Zealand. Managed to get the mac fixed in Sydney (to my enormous relief), so, while work on the CD is temporarily halted while I finish some arranging work, I can actually continue to work on it. As soon as I’ve finished the Regent christmas pad.

You know, I think I’m over ships. Especially as a lifestyle. Nothing to do with Regent, which has been a good company to work for. I just need a home. I’ve decided that the last song on the CD will be Somewhere over the rainbow as, really, I just want to go home. Every time I leave Australia, I miss it and the people in it a little bit more. Leaving Hobart, I was in a really bad mood. It was only tempered a little bit by Labor’s win over Howard and his conservative cronies in the federal election. Very pleased about that. Now, there is not a single conservative government across Australia at the state or federal level. It’s a hopeful time, and now more than ever, I want to be home to take part in it. Plus, Howard’s loss will be good for the arts and for academia. I hope Kevin Rudd lives up to all our hopes and dreams.

Another reason to go home is that I’ve made some useful contacts especially this contract, that will help me find some decent work when I get home. I do want to earn a decent living playing, which I’m assured I can do. We’ll see what happens when I return. But certainly, I need the CD finished, and I have a lot of work on at the moment. Both a blessing and a curse!

Myanmar

For a while there it looked like we wouldn’t get off in Myanmar. Rehearsals were a kicker, and if it hadn’t been for Justin Tundervary intervening, we wouldn’t have.

Still he managed it, and thank god he did. After an afternoon rehearsal, a group of musicians stepped off a tiny bus into downtown Yangon, looked around and wondered what to do. We found a supermarket and changed some money into an insane amount of Kyat, then wandered around until I spotted a sign saying “Beer Restaurant” (What more could musicians want?) leading off a suspiciously dark alleyway. We followed it for a ways and saw a lot of flashing lights.

Well, what a meal! Probably the best fish I’ve ever eaten, and they just kept bringing food and drink. Locals were very friendly and kind to a group of odd-looking strangers. It ended up costing us $3 each, which was just ridiculous. Sated and suppressing contented burps, we wended our way back to the bus for the very bumpy ride home.

The final day there, we managed to get on a crew tour to the Golden Pagoda. This, I am reliably informed, was built 2,500 years ago, and contains eight hairs of the Buddha himself. What I do know from personal experience is that it was one of the most mind-blowingly beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen. Hundreds of spires of chedis and gold everywhere you look (As much gold as I could eat... sorry, had a mini Python film festival the other day.) But seriously, although the photos don’t do it justice, there are some in my travel photos page.

The rest of the day just smacked of anticlimax. We went downtown and saw some incredibly overcrowded busses, and had lunch (Cade was suffering from a sugar low). We went back to the ship, did Chloë Dallimore’s show, and discussed the day

Upcoming work

Well, there’s a lot of work coming up in the next few months. I’ve got a lot of arranging work for Regent Cruiselines, writing for Hal, the pianist on the Mariner, working on Standard Shift and starting to think about a CD with Meera. Still, I’d rather be busy than bored any day. I’ve barely had a chance to scratch the surface of the new Garritan Personal Orchestra, which is my new toy.