Back from the Sea

We’re back, and I have news that’ll be so obvious that I probably should state it. But here goes: Being a passenger on a cruise ship is ordinally better than being a crew member. There, I said it. Like Brent Musberger describing the way-obvious antics of the players in a football game.

The fact is that I started as a passenger. When I played with the Modernaires we got booked on the Viking Serenade on its winter repositioning from Vancouver to Los Angeles. We got passage for two, plane tickets from LAX to Vancouver for two, and no money, but we in turn got free passage for two in return for two shows on the sixth day of the seven-day cruise, one for each seating. When we arrived at the ship, the agent (Jay Gredon’s father Joe) had a proposition for us. “Uh-oh,” I thought, leaning on my memories of working on the Azure Seas. “here we go . . .”

Joe asked us if we’d do a dance set for a hundred, cash. Sure, we all said.

A little further up the road Jan and I booked a handful of cruises on her vacation periods, all in the Caribbean, one with Carnival out of New Orleans, the other out of Galveston just after 9/11, which was the best deal ever on a cruise. I had a “real” job then, and scheduled a vacation with Jan, who tends to have hard and fast schedules depending on the passage of the semesters across the calendar.

I will miss our cabin steward. I will miss having all my food prepared for me and served with great flourish by our Portugese waiter. Did you know that, here on land, you are required to PAY for food? There’s no salmon at the breakfast buffet either.

How I adjust to this reentry is anyone’s guess.

Vacation Time

From Historical Artifacts

Starting tomorrow, Jan and I will be taking a great adventure on MS Grand Princess from Los Angeles to Hawaii and back. We fly to LAX Tuesday morning, then board her Wednesday afternoon. Then we have 5 sea days, 4 days of island hopping, then 5 days back. I doubt we’ll have anything to say about the sea days or the band on the ship, or much of anything, so I am officially pulling down the “Gone Fishing” sign on this enterprise until we fly back to Austin when we get back.

I DID, however, write what might be a very nice chart of Three Little Words, a vocal/tenor feature of the Harry Ruby tune from the previous ‘teens.

Here is where our position is, provided it is after the seventh of January, 2009, and before the twenty-first of January.

See you when we get back!

Whatever Happened to Rebirthing the Band?

From Historical Artifacts

Good news! I've been stumped to find a studio where we can record, because we need: a large room, a couple iso booths and a piano.

I found a place that's close enough to my house that we go by there maybe 5 times a week, mostly to bring the corgis to the park. I walked into the place with Leroy Rodriguez and announced that we had a big band to record, and Mike, the engineer, just about split in two smiling.

There are a few details yet to be worked out, and Jan and I are going on vacation for the next 2 weeks, so I won't reveal all the details yet. But I hope to have some good news when we go up the gangway or before. Looks like we could record as soon as Valentines weekend.