23

I always used to wonder what I’d be doing at age 23. I think the notion hit me when I first really started listening to Incubus. There’s a line in “Pardon Me” when he talks about being 23, and I think it was just the massive scope I heard in the song while listening to it on headphones that made me wonder what I’d be doing, what I’d be like, what my objectives in life would be at that time. Overall it seemed like a significant age—just out of college, two years past 21, five years after being 18 and on the brink of graduating high school and making such a loaded choice between college, getting a job or something (decidedly) else.
Five years ago I had no clue. Two years ago it looked like grad school. One year ago it looked like getting ready for grad school and working in a coffee shop somewhere. And now…I’ll spend most of my time at 23 years of age in Europe, working as a musician. Maybe this is overshooting a bit, but I’m certain that if you took me at all three of those ages and gave them a peak into where I was going and what I’d be doing you’d have three very similar answers, likely somewhere along the lines of “holy shit, no way,” or “holy shit, really?” or, possibly “son of a bastard, that’s awesome” (times change, hair styles change, exclamations merely shift).
I think I’m at the point where I’ve come out of my shell enough and the nervous, quiet me isn’t so nervous, isn’t so quiet. I think I’m coming into my own with the guitar. I willingly accept getting tossed around and into trouble as long as I can call it a good time and learn from it. I love digging into things I don’t understand and soaking them up until I’m sick of them, needing to step back until a day or two later when I can appreciate my recent crash course all over again. I’m completely comfortable and accepting of writing near nonsense and posting it on the internet for anyone to read, namely since it means I got you to read it. Ha. Take that.
Maybe it’s because I’m to the point where I’m not too nervous about the future. Maybe because I’ve finally dug into reading “On The Road” and I don’t feel like it’s over my head, that I can relate to what Sal Paradise wants to see. I’m not even sure what this “it” is, but “it” is not so bad. “It” is actually sort of nice. “It” is cool what whatever comes next, so long as there’s coffee and scones nearby. That’s the important thing.

.nice.

Philipsburg, St. Maarten. These ports are littered with tourist shops selling cheap t-shirts and expensive jewelry, duty-free liquor and Cuban cigars. Still, depending on the atmosphere, they can be good for a quick bite, a beer or two (or three…) and free internet, conditions depending.
I’ve never seen water this blue, not even in the Mexican Riviera. I can officially see why Jimmy Buffett does what he does. Hell, I’d play “Cheesburger in Paradise” everyday for the rest of my life if I can wake up every morning to see something this…nice.
That’s the funny thing about terminology with people working on a cruse ship. Sober and standing straight, when talking about a certain port, someone is prone to gush about scenery, food, drink, atmosphere…but when subdued by a few hours in a crew bar, more in line with the spirit of the working crew on a floating hotel/casino/theater, the word “nice” takes on a vast new meaning. It’s more than just a simple, placating word. All things considered I’m still new to this job (just over three months total with Holland), but I think “nice” is a valuable word. I’d be honored if someone said I was a “nice” player; I’d be excited if someone told me that an upcoming port was “nice,” especially if they didn’t hold on too long to the “sss” sound at the end of the word (and indicator of sincerity, no joke). “Nice” isn’t “fantastic,” isn’t “surreal” or “unbelievable.” Bombastic adjectives are for newbies, for the uninitiated and the inexperienced who don’t know what it’s like to come back to the same place over and over again. “Nice” makes you sound like you know what you’re doing, that you’re not prone to being so quickly sold to bright lights and colorful signs. That’s the funny thing about working on a cruise ship: it’s not just a job, it’s a lifestyle. Some people do this for a short time to make money, experience something different and see cool shit (like me). Others make an entire career out of working on a ship, who can name all the ships in a fleet because they’ve worked on most of them.
At that point, it becomes a matter of familiarity with the way things go. I think I’m getting the hang of it. Inevitably, it’s a glorious position. People pay thousands of dollars a cruise to see these places, and we get to see them for free. Nay, we get paid to see these places (well…we work…sort of…). So, while passengers struggle to take everything in all within a matter of hours in a given day, cruise ship crew get to slowly relax into the area, to drink it all in with slow sips of each area over a contract/itinerary.
True, they’re not completely revealing of the culture of a given area, but it’s as close as we can possibly get given the circumstances. Living in a house or an apartment somewhere else, buying groceries, sleeping nights in one of these ports lead you to experiencing what it’s like to live somewhere else, somewhere you’re not accustomed to, possibly reluctant to experience. Regardless, we get to experience what it’s like to see a world outside our own for months at a time. Even if it’s just a resort with readily available booze and food, it’s a taste of something different to living back at home, shoveling snow off a car, going though motions that lead to monotonous moments.
I’m happy I’m here. It’s nice.

End.>vaccum.

I've said it many a time, but working on a cruise ship is an odd, odd thing. Where else can you essentially work everyday, get fed for free, see bits of the world and live in a tiny little cabin, all the while essentially escaping great senses of responsibility from that bigger picture out there most call the "real world"? While on the ship crew are obligated to uniform themselves as "smart casual" as they cater to the wants and demands of the (often elderly) passengers who can afford however many thousands-a-cruise prices, while the moment crew shore leave is granted the employed masses pillage the port for cheap beer and wireless access. Crazy, innit?
Still...not a bad gig if you can get it. Especially considering the times right now, I'm thankful that I can get paid, even more so that i get to play guitar...even more so that i get to play guitar and travel. Still, I miss things and opportunities back home, naturally. Mom, dad, Lauretta, Java's, a kitchen...I'm getting the feeling that when I go home in March for that glorious week I'll force myself to stay awake 24 hours a day as i engage in a cooking/bookstore/coffee shop binge that will go down in (my) history as my utterly mad week to soak up every bit of Penfield that I appreciate before going into a recessive coma that will take up most of the time of my flight to Ft. Lauderdale to start my next contract (assuming I make the connection). So...that'll be fun.
Mike Einziger, my hero/guitarist of Incubus, is having his orchestral composition "End.>vaccum" premiered in August. Naturally, I won't be there, nor would I likely have been had I not taken the Mediterranean contract (but not for lack of interest). I fully realize that I'm not even close to being on his level, but it's making me thing that I need to step away from what I think I need to be playing right now and start to think about what I need to be doing musically right now. Not to sound lofty or pretentious, but one can play Bach only so many times before one sort of loses it, y'know?
Really, I'm just going on and on right now because I've found wireless in Aruba.
Cheers.

"Here's to another year of art, music, travel and discover"-Brandon Boyd

adequate gyros in st. thomas, cafe au lait in dominica

I'm slowly getting back into the groove of ship life. Maybe it’s because I’m still getting used to the ship, but I get restless when I’m just in my cabin, lying around, watching tv. Playing guitar and reading helps if I can’t get off the ship, so I suppose it will force me to be productive—always a good thing. All I need to do is find an area to practice classical guitar in peace and I should be good.
I’ve heard good things about bits of the itinerary, but I think this contract will be a good one to just save up money, since Europe will likely take a decent cut of my bank account (stupid euro….). In a coffee shop in Dominica right now…I think I’ll call this place home every time we stop by here.
Yesterday at the sail away from St. Thomas the band met an individual named Bob. Bob was singing. Bob was dancing. Bob was (naturally) drunk. At one point this loud yet kind-hearted individual got at the microphone and talked about his wife—how she was the best thing that’s ever happened to him, how she’s given so much and never asked the same in return…very sweet of him. After our singer wrestled the mic away from Bob (who was in the middle of a sudden, inspired dirty joke), we played “Lady in Red,” and Bob got down on his knee and asked his wife to slow dance. Cheesy, perhaps (his wife is a redhead), but sweet nonetheless, but at the end of the tune Mrs. Bob threw him in the pool. I come to find out later that, as a gesture of thanks, Bob bought the band a case of beer.
So…I’m happy here.

assorted, vol. 1

1) Jack Kerouac, everyone’s favorite proto-hipster, once wrote that if you own a rug you own too much. I first heard that at a time when I thought that following his every word and action would lead you to a fulfilling, dangerous, adventurous and compete youth (this was also before I found out, apparently, that he was kind of a whiny, immature dick, but I digress). In a way, this is a totally applicable statement—your baggage (get it, baggage) will eventually weigh you down while you (sorry for the cliché) journey through life as a young adult. These thoughts came rushing back to me today as I was packing for my next contract when, after carefully folding my black dress shirts into my large suitcase, I looked down at what lie before me and I thought “wow….that’s a lot of stuff.”

To be fair I’m not packing (packing, not cramming, I can confidently say) so much out of impulse; it’s out of necessity. Those two bags that laid out in front of me like bloated, cumbersome corpses on the ground were not filled with things I wanted, but rather things I needed for this job. Black dress shirts (my new favorite formal commodity), a new suit (a rather dashing European cut, if I do say so myself), khaki docker pants (not preferable), Hawaiian floral print shirts (hate them) and polo shirts (hate them more) are some of the required attire for this gig, for better or for worse, and I accept the fact that, in a sense, I’m a sellout for dressing so decidedly preppy because the Man tells me I need to. I say “sellout” because the me of yesterday would shout that same hurtful word at the me of today for choosing this life, to which I would promptly should out “I’m going to the Caribbean and playing guitar for money,” to which the me of yesterday would shout back “really? Never mind…”

Still, symbolically, it’s a bit of an odd transition. I attached to playing the guitar through Green Day and Pennywise, bands who embraced the general counterculture sentiment, and now my first quasi-legitimate job involves my beloved six-stringed weapon of choice, but I look less like me and more like an alternate Sears catalog version of me. Odd, indeed, but in retrospect I have no reason to complain about this stage in my life, nor do I want to. I’m satisfying my restless desire to get out and away from what I know all too well, and I’m playing guitar alongside great musicians doing it—all is well with life, y’know? If I could just wear flip-flops, jeans and a shirt of my choosing, I’d never stop smiling.



2) Michael Cera is awesome. True, Arrested Development was better than Juno, which was still good and better than Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist (which I never saw but one could assume), so in theory fame’s a bitch, but I don’t care. Even if I discredit his actually ability as an actor (which I can’t), I wholeheartedly stand for and respect the goofy, awkward character he’ll perpetually be, even if in his next movie he’s pumping stereotypical bad guys full of bullets and knives while nailing Jessica Alba and Jean Malone (all at the same time). It didn’t hit me until just recently, but no matter what he does with his acting career, he’ll always (at this age, anyway) represent the shy, dorky, timid masses of middle school and high school kids everywhere. For that, the Andy Juriks aged 13-18 across the nation thank you, good sir.



3) Mickey Rourke deserves an Oscar for The Wrestler. To side with the hype, Heath Ledger deserves an Oscar for The Dark Knight. Everyone involved with Slumdog Millionaire nominated for any Oscar in an capacity deserves it as well, especially Danny Boyle. Actually, Boyle deserves one on principle alone. WALL-E, the character, not the movie, should be constructed as an actual robot and appointed a position in Obama’s cabinet. Jake Shimabukuro should be awarded a Grammy, as well as an apology for having not been given one before.



4) Greatest Hits albums should be treated less like retrospectives and more like mixtapes.







Read: Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby

Listen: Orphans by Tom Waits

Can't buy you happiness, but can buy you cool new toys.

I spent a little over $400 today at Guitar Center. Writing that first sentence made me cringe a little bit, but I know it's for the greater good. Everything I picked up today I know I'll need for the Halcats gig on the Noordam, so I take solace in the fact that they're all useful pieces of equipment, albeit expensive, cool looking pieces of equipment.
There was something about the whole experience that made it a slightly comforting one, namely the fact that this is for my job. I get to play guitar and, therefore, necessitate awesome guitar gadgets of various functions, colors, and ambiguous names. The guitar geek I keep inside got to play around a bit today, to fawn and drool at all the expensive gear and pretend for a moment that price tags were an elaborate joke designed by "the man" to keep these beautiful works of art out of most hands. So, that was cool.
The other thing that stood out to me was how the clerk and I were talking to each other, namely the appropriate jargon that was tossed around the entire time: "I need a Line6 Pod...Dean Markly Blue Steels, 11's...I play a PRS, but the Ibanez will work...klaatu barada nikto..." and so forth.

I think I'm slowly becoming the person I wanted to be when I was 13.
Cheers.

and....we're back.

I started my first blog because I was about to spend a semester in Italy, and it naturally seemed like the right thing to do. I figured that, if nothing else, my friends and family back home could see what I was up to, and I'd keep up with writing in some way since, well, I had a writing minor thing going. When I got back to Ithaca the blog sort of faded out of my conscience; maybe because it was devoted to my “fake” semester and the “very much real” semester had begun, maybe because the stress of both a senior recital and an intensive independent study was enough to keep me busy, maybe both. Either way, the notion that I had a blog out there haunted me in a way. I felt as if I had failed in a way, that I couldn’t even take the time to write just a paragraph or two about life post-Milan, or my perspective about finishing up my undergrad. How lame is that?

Which is why I wanted to keep this blog going. It’s not about a fake semester—I’ve come to accept that Milan was an isolated incident of irresponsibility and debauchery (unless you’re my mom, in which case it was a good, wholesome time). This is about what’s “next” for me, the illusive, terrifying concept of the future and taking that next inevitable step towards adulthood (apparently highly overrated, from what I gather). True, much of this was fueled by playing guitar on a cruise ship, a post-college occupation I feel I can rightfully deem far more kick ass than most other post-college scenarios. Considering all the guff I got from everyone about being a guitar performance major, I actually take pride in how cool this job is. Law school or Mexico? Sales analyst or playing guitar on a beach? Long commute to work or sail in the middle of a beautiful ocean? Flipping burgers or not flipping burgers? I rest my beautifully laid case.

If nothing else this is just to amuse myself, to see how many words I can pound out before I begin to repeat myself or grow bored with the subject matter. Then again, I feel like my life would really suck if I didn’t have anything remotely noteworthy to write about. If not suck, at least be boring, which itself would suck. I think that since I'm in a bit of a safe spot now (i.e. making money) I can relax in the comfort that things haven't really blown up in my face (i.e. being a jobless bum) while working for the next step (i.e. grad school). Until then, a few funny things need to happen at some point...true?