Sea Monster

Sunday December 12th, 2010 - Tampa, FL

    Just when I thought I avoided all that nasty weather back home, it finds me at sea. It’s a different kind of nasty, but it’s still rocking our world in a scary way. The ship is battering into giant waves and bouncing all over the water. People are heaving like it’s a frat party.

   I’ve been ok so far, but it’s pretty scary to have the entire world from the floor up shake back and forth like an amusement park ride for hours at a time. There’s no place to go to get away from it, especially my cabin. I thought I was going to slice my ear off shaving as I waited for a few steady seconds, which never came. It would make a funny movie scene.

   Sunday night is normally the ‘Welcome Aboard’ show where the cruise director hosts a show which features a sample of what passengers can expect. There are usually some big dance numbers, but the dancers can’t perform when the seas are this rough. They could be injured, and I get that - but it meant we had to do an extra long comedy show to fill time.

   Both Thomas Brown and I are long time comedy veterans and can adjust to a particular situation well, but this was a challenge for both of us. The ship was all over the place and staying on stage in a single spot was difficult. I move around anyway, but tonight threw a curve every time the floor moved and I didn’t expect it. Fifteen minutes felt like forever.

   Not only that, it was fifteen minutes of material that’s now shot for the rest of the cruise because I won’t know who’s seen it and who hasn’t. That makes it extra tough, and it gets tougher as the week goes on. This ship likes us to mix up our material more than most of the other ships, and they like to bill every show as ‘totally new material’. I’d like that too.

   There’s a different vibe on this cruise from others I’ve experienced on this ship. This is a group that is a bit older on average than the last few, and that in itself is an adjustment. I don’t feel like I’m in the wheel house like I have in past weeks. This will take some work every show to adjust my material to give it the best chance of hitting with each audience.

   I don’t mind working, but I want to please the audiences in front of me no matter who it may be. That’s just not always realistic though. Most of the time I can pull something out they’ll like at least enough to get me by for that particular show. Once in a while though, I just don’t have anything in my tool box to pull out to fix it. They’re not into what I do.

   That’s how I felt when I first got out on the ships. I felt out of place and had to adjust an entire lifetime of experience in clubs to fit the variables that come with the cruise crowds. It’s been getting better and better, but this week may be a relapse. I’ve been warned that it gets a little tight during the holidays, as people often have lost loved ones or got divorced.

   I’m not going to read a whole lot into any of it right now. I’m just hoping we get out of this choppy water we’re in. I’m sure we will, but right now it knocked out the satellite for the TV and most of the channels are down. It’s a good thing I’ve got work to catch up on, and I’m not outside in the elements pooping a deck. This gig is NOT for the squeamish.

Posted via email from Dobie Maxwell's "Dented Can" Diary