Cruisin'

I've been having trouble deciding what to write about since Zach first invited me to join this blog. It's amazing how much interesting stuff can be said about everyday events. I guess it doesn't hurt that we're now in the middle of the third "most important election in history" in a row. But rather than write a few paragraphs about the importance, or lack of importance, of the fact that Hillary Clinton looked kind of like a banana in that yellow jacket on stupor Tuesday, I've decided to use my dreams as inspiration. Or rather, my nightmares. Which I've been having a lot of lately. All of them involving cruise ships. Usually, I'll sign onto a cruise ship, and then realize something is amiss, and freak out. This morning, in a particularly vivid dream, I left my bass at some airport somewhere, and then when I was trying to use the internet to find it (this made perfect sense at the time), every time I typed in a website, it would change to something else. The other morning, I found myself running away from the ship along a Florida highway strewn with alligator carcasses.

I spent, in retrospect, only a small portion of my life working as a musician in the cruise ship industry. But it has had a large impact. I should start by saying that the best thing about working on the ship is saying that you worked on the ship and having people be really impressed and ask a whole lot of questions. If only there was some way to say you worked on the ship without having to actually work on a ship, and have it not be by lying.

The cruise ship industry is pretty absurd when you think about it. Cruise ships are resorts in the middle of the ocean. A Carnival ship is a little bit like a floating Holiday Inn attached to a Denny's attached to Atlantic City. People come to pay cut rates to be treated like they are rich and consume huge quantities of, well, everything. There are 22 bars on the average ship. The environmental implications are dire as well. Any estimate on how much diesel fuel is required to move a 110,000 ton object from Miami to St. Thomas? And a floating town of 5000 people, most of whom are on vacation, tends to generate a whole lot of solid waste.

I think the most striking aspect of the whole experience is how the cultural relationship on board is a microcosm of the relationship between North America and the rest of the world. While most of the guests are American, the crew is over 95 percent international. Most of the crew members come from countries with depressed economies in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. And, through some fluke in maritime regulations, the cruise companies are allowed to register all of their ships in either Panama or the Bahamas, dodging most of America's labor laws. As a result, the crew members who spend 14 hours a day serving drinks or making beds or doing laundry earn as little as 75 dollars a month plus tips. This could add up to a decent amount on a good week, but most weeks it falls short.

The main reason I'm pointing this all out is because most people don't realize how much of our consumption is made possible by the efforts of underpaid people in other countries. This is the kind of treatment we worked hard to eliminate in America. But since it got shipped abroad, I believe we've forgotten about this reality. What is amazing though is how close the cruise guests are to the labor, yet they don't seem to realize what's going on. What's worse, at least from my point of view, is that as an American working on the ship, my fellow crew members were often unable, or unwilling, to separate me from the rude vacationers they had to deal with all day.

Sometimes I do consider going back on the ship. It's an easy life - free room and board, travel to exotic tourist traps, and all the time in the world to think about what you did to deserve being there. Musicians on board tend to get a terrible ship habit. I frequently suggest that people read the book "Trainspotting" and replace every instance of the word "junk" with the word "ship." You know, people are always trying to get off the "ship," but then they're saying they want to get some more "ship" and how they hate themselves for it, but they need it, etc. I guess the dreams are just my way of preventing myself from forgetting the realities of the situation.

There should be a part of the curriculum in school to help people understand that we are a part of this world, and not the owner of the world. Maybe then we wouldn't have this sense of entitlement that leads to the cruise ship industry.