The Modern Juke Box

Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, and Ludwig von Beethoven all had differing style periods. It stands to reason over a lifetime of experiences things change. You grow as a person and an artist. The world changes, and the artist/musician must adapt. Many people do not know that twelve tone serialist Arnold Schoenberg began his composing career squarely in the Romantic Period. His Gurrelieder is a an epic oratorio with none of the clangerous tone clusters of Milton Babbit, but it is a far departure from his serial works. Stravinsky too dabbled in the twelve tone row and like Schoenberg finally established a style that people could mistake for no other. America’s style periods desperately are awaiting a change, as is the country. While Barack Obama recently became the Democrats pillar of change, there has yet to emerge a reckoning force in the field of popular music. Maybe it is because television has set the wrong example for true change in music. Nowhere in the history of America was music trite. Music like life was a pinnacle of effort embodying the struggle for survival. Tabloid television single handedly has undermined the potential for viable popular music, because like Karioke it has suggested music is nothing more than a passing fad. It is something youngsters do to pass the time. George Gershwin didn’t feel that way. In Tin Pan Alley at the turn of the century the piano was the center of attention in American families. There was a desire and need for good piano music that could be played in the parlor. As a result of this demand the American songbook developed at the hands of Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, and Hoagy Carmichael just to name a few. The demand for music is what created the product. Tabloid television has lowered the standard of demand setting the wrong example for the proliferation of viable popular music. If the model seen on national television every week suggests becoming a musical artist is nothing more than lady luck, then who will expect more? We in America are being brainwashed and dumbed down for acceptance in and as a universal group. It’s a “group thing.” Music is being used a adolescent candy to sell other products and popularity. If anyone cares to look those products also have taken a nosedive in integrity. We with the emergence of the cell phone, iPod, and Blackberry have become a trite superficial society enamored by bells and whistles rather than the substance that should be in them. This trend began with the personal computer and not yet has ended. When the effort switched to the means rather than the idea, popular culture began to suffer. All through the decade of the 1980’s music technology flourished. Companies such as Yahama, Roland, and Korg pushed the envelope of music-producing technology. As a result the music benefited. The new sounds quickly were absorbed into the music market and became competitive. This creative and competitive drive pushed the boundaries of popular music. When the gears shifted and the personal computer industry took over, music got lost. What should be the goal of technology, to play the music cheaply or to produce it well? American Idol is playing it cheaply. America is still waiting for someone or something to produce it well.

Artistry

There are definitive downsides to being an artist or an intellectual. Being an artist means you feel things more deeply than others, or rather you have made a conscious choice to deal in the aesthetic of feeling. This viewed in the realm of modernism may seem anachronistic, but feeling a particular event used to be the building block of art. Human beings have the remarkable ability to toggle between the two separate and different sides of their brains. One is affective, a word that means dealing with emotional interpretation, and one is cognitive. Certainly it is plausible to create in depth understanding of a subject with only cognitive study. To create an artistic rendering of that understanding is different. That could be considered talent, this spiritual affectation that belies easy definition. The human soul that utilizes the affective side of the brain is a large synthesizer that is affected by experiences. This is what allows us to become educated by making mistakes and learning from their consequences. To say the least after years of service the soul can become plagued or taxed, and that could be mental illness. It stands to reason after years of abuse or negative synthesis, the mechanism that controls response can become loose causing short circuits. It is a daunting process to change your soul when it becomes diseased, but in the journey of life it can become necessary. Jody Foster recently starred in a movie where she witnessed a heinous crime walking with her boyfriend. It was tragic and as tragedy does demanded her bereavement process. While often times this process accompanies a death in the family, it too can be triggered by other losses in one’s life. It could be said growth or wisdom can come from completing and understanding the bereavement process. In her situation the bereavement process along with her unchanging environment were strong enough to cause her mental duress. It is easily understood, because the soul is a fragile vessel and needs nurturing. Needless to say America does not provide the type of kid gloves necessary to survive easily when this happens. Our Capitalist socio-economic system is rigid and unchanging as our lives become. When our existence in it becomes soiled thus it is not easily cleansed. To cleanse our souls sometimes we need to shed our skins and start anew, and that means changing ourselves. As Jody did in this movie, she simply changed and became a different person. This might be the easiest way to jump start a weeping soul, which comically is reinforced by the notion that electro-shock therapy actually helps an ailing mind. There can reach a point when the human soul can take no more. On a much smaller scale crying can relieve some of this tension, but after years of negative reinforcement releasing water through the eyes may not be enough anymore. Artists have chosen a difficult vocation, because it requires that one harbor and store a lifetime of affective experiences. There can be a time when those experiences become anachronistic. In a nutshell the passing of enough times renders the experiences out of date or not relevant to the current time period. Modernization could be considered this sometimes difficult process of attempting to purge your soul of expired emotional data. After all one cannot continue to carry garbage forever. The trucks of our souls simply are not large enough.

Ft. Bragg, North Carolina

President’s Bush’s recent visit to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina to inspect personally the barracks conditions that were posted on You Tube is but a drop in the bucket. When BRAC generals arrive in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the southern town grown hydrophonically on Interstate I-95, they equally will be as disappointed. BRAC commissions are scrambling to try to prepare for the onslaught. Bragg Boulevard, the main thoroughfare from Ft. Bragg to downtown, is going to be closed. Highway 13, a rural road that leads to Greenville, is going to be extended across the base. All ready the military installation is ripping at the seams. Chain link fences have been put up. Razor wire is coiled along the perimeters of official looking compounds. They moved “Iron Mike,” the seminal statue of military men hoisting the American Flag, from along Bragg Boulevard to somewhere inside the camp. Most of the inhabitants of Fayetteville don’t know what the hell is going on. For years and years they have lived there with full access to the military base. It was part of Fayetteville, and Fayetteville was a part of it. There were no boundaries. The city built the All American Expressway so people could get home from work faster. It was a huge vast expanse of sandy pine trees, and there was no need to disguise this was where army soldiers train. Most of the residents of Fayetteville were either actively enlisted or veterans of the military. It was part of their family. Now with the recent surge in terrorist activity, Ft. Bragg has been buttoned down. Once open throughways now are flanked by surveillance kiosks. No longer can you motor to the PX to buy cheap liquor and cigarettes. (That’s Post Exchange) No longer can you use the back roads of Ft. Bragg to travel to Pinehurst, North Carolina. (The Special Forces Command Center is out there!) Now in the modern age of terrorism the Defense Departments has seen fit haul in 30,000 more troops, batten down the hatches, and live and let live. What kind of a life is that? Thousands and thousands of military troops going and coming to Iraq, and this is what they get? The “Old Fayetteville” commission decided to clean up downtown. What once was a symbolic landscape of military extra-curricular activity became…. well? Downtown. A few restaurants and a movie theater. My, times have changed. It used to be military towns had prostitutes, strip clubs, bowling alleys, massage parlors, and chain restaurants. When did the needs of soldiers at war change? Did something suddenly happen when Corporal Brasler decided he would rather go to a coffee shop than a strip club? Did coffee suddenly become an able replacement for the need for female companionship? I don’t get it. Men fight. Men die. Men get to let off steam. Living in Right Wing Conservative America is no way to reward troops for a job well done in Iraq. Neither is shipping them back to a stench infested, back woods, suicide parlor. If we really had the best interests of our troops at heart, they would replace Fayettenam completely and start from scratch. Drug Trafficking. Gang violence. Combat. It seems if America could recognize that men want women, we wouldn’t have these problems.

Groove is in the Heart, but Really in the Body, Because Dance Comes from the Body…

Being at war with Iraq is setting precedent. When all the country reads, sees on television, or absorbs in everyday life is war, then it can become difficult to see anything else. Nature vs. Nurture simply states that we are a product of two things. One is our environment, and the other is our own learned perceptions about life. With recent dramatic developments in DNA research it has been all but proven that babies are not born with a blank slate. Genetics wouldn't mean anything as a science unless some DNA information is being “threaded” through bloodline. At a more distant time in history bloodline was important in family. It was the primary entity upon which was placed the decision for betrothal in a family. The Caste system in Indian by which recently a pregnant daughter and her husband were murdered by her own father is a good example of this desire for power through genes. Isn’t it interesting that recently celebrities such as Madonna and Angelina Jolie have dispensed with this notion that bloodline is important in forging a family? Did they never take the time to think that the genetically encoded information in their adopted children could be deviant? While saving a baby from starvation is admirable, what will be the long term ramifications of adopting a possible aberrant bloodline? There could be disease. There could be mental illness. There could be “extreme” behavior. Nature vs. Nurture is true and strong, and no matter how positive a child’s environment they are always predisposed to their preceding bloodline. That is not to say that every adopted child from a third world country will be a Frankenstein. It just means that if you are gambling with world genetics your chances of hitting a specific jackpot are less likely. With globalization, P.C., and the other slew of conservative right wing ideas flourishing today, it seems no one has taken the time to pontificate the possible problems of combining cultures and therefore bloodlines. While there is nothing wrong with multi-racial interaction and it should be applauded, it seems care should be taken in examining the inherent possibilities of mixed blood. Immediate gratification today has overcome almost every possibility of sustaining tradition in the United States. It really is like we are on the plains of the Wild West shooting from the hip. Are we that desperate for our survival? Schooling attempts to teach society a set of rules that have been shaped over time by others. They attempt to allow us to circumvent grievous mistakes by learning what can happen in the future if we are not prudent. The recent change of economic infrastructure in the United States has taken its toll on our traditional sense of values. How could it not when changing technology says, “You are no longer qualified to work in our company. Your skills are obsolete.” This is a ludicrous notion, and the quest for “smallness” has all but suffocated our society. Dad’s are losing their jobs, and we are shrinking what used to be our American lives into nutshells. If they make personal computers any smaller, we will have to miniaturize ourselves next to be able to use them. What is this quest to shrink the proportions of human life? Who cares how small a P.C. can become if the human being is going to remain the same size for centuries? Are we as Americans going to be subjected to body wrapping to inhibit the growth of our trunks? One reason why I refuse to use a cell phone is because the buttons are too small for human hands and fingers. Who decided this was the appropriate ergonomic model? Squint and use a needle to write E-Mails? No thanks. There was nothing wrong with the world’s traditional model of existence, and when we run out of petroleum and food it will be of no consequence how small a computer chip is. What will be important is how to grow food, build adequate sustainable shelter from the elements, and how to continue our own bloodline in the face of seeming insurmountable odds. This is what the settlers in Jamestown had to do, and the Lost Colony proves it is not an easy task. True Native Americans having braved the elements in primitive living may have been more qualified to survive. There have been many science fiction movies that depict the future state of America. Waterworld, A-1, Mad Max, and the Terminator all attempt to project an image of America in the not to distant future. All of these movies suggest world supplies of food and fuel will run out, and we will be left at the mercy of Mother Nature. It seems we might begin now trying to work with her than against her.

American Music War

No one in the band seems to know what swing is. They think that syncing to a machine is what music is all about. They don’t realize you can “loosen up,” have a drink, and relax when you play music. Instead the feeling is antagonistic. On the bandstand no one seems to want to cooperate. The drummer clearly says, “Don’t talk to me during the set.” Don’t talk to him when he is playing? You are playing a “pick up,” improvisatory, informal set of music, and the drummer says you can’t talk to him while we are playing the set. “It’s spiritual man. Like wow, Jesus is speaking to me through my music, and we wouldn’t want to interrupt Jesus.” Bullshit. This completely negates the entire purpose of jazz music, communication. It completely reinforces the inappropriate concept of ego. In the field of jazz music, the only way to create a coherent sound is to listen to one another. Unfortunately this is a lesson novice musicians don’t learn for years. “Let’s all stand on stage and scream at each other without listening to what the other person is saying.” Maybe in a slim definition of the Avant-Garde you could get away with this. In the intimate setting of acoustically realized art music, this is unacceptable. I learned how to be a good piano player by learning to listen. I stopped trying to think what to play with my brain and instead began listening to the music as it happened. This way you engage the part of your brain that is responsible for instinctual learning. If you listen to what is happening in context with a large arsenal of historical sonic knowledge, then you will know what to play. It will present itself to you. As the Boy Scouts say, “Be Prepared.” I was unpleasantly shocked when I began working on cruise ships. No one listened. No one cared what you played. They just want to get laid. Fuck you. It took many years to realize that I could no longer listen to the members of the band with which I was playing! Are you listening? Stop listening! Everything they play will be a hindrance or deterrent to the creation of viable jazz. Everything they play will be a challenge, a duel, or a threat to your own salvation. Welcome to the Wild West of Cruise Ship work. I had to stop drinking, because now if the music wasn’t in your brain and your fingers, you couldn’t play it. It didn’t matter that it was in your soul and psyche. Those things don’t exist working on a cruise ship. Slowly I learned to expect the worst. The bands wouldn’t swing. No one knew tunes. No one could improvise over chord changes. Worst of everyone seemed to think the concept of “styles of music” was passé. It became music war, and that is what it has been every since.

Jazz

I tend to forget, because I am an older man, “swinging” has always been something of an elusive art. Miles Davis said it. “You either have it or you don’t.” Duke Ellington said it. “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” Miles said, “Playing with a drummer that doesn’t swing is like death.” With all these things in mind it would be easy to understand why the gamut of cruise ship musicians don’t swing. There has always been a feud between the jazz and classical camps at music school. Even at major universities each aesthetic seems to battle for its own worthiness. That is ludicrous, because jazz music would not exist without its European counterpart. Because jazz is art music, and art music is complex it incorporates all of the things upon which European “classical” music are based. Form, harmony, melody, and rhythm are equally as important in both vernaculars. The difference is jazz music “swings.” What is this elusive thing? Swing is a feel. It is a definition of rhythm that feels good. It is not strict. It is not oppressive. Swing by nature infects rhythm with a feeling embodied in the human body and soul. Without the experiences and feelings of the human being, jazz would not exist. While it can be documented in manuscript, it cannot be composed. Not really. Charles Mingus, Fletcher Henderson, Oliver Nelson, and Gil Evans were pretty successful composing jazz music, but without the rhythmic interpretation provided by the jazz musician the music would not swing. Therefore it can’t be jazz. Many “new school” musicians would argue with that. They constantly ask, “What is jazz?” and usually clarify their opinion by saying it is “anything.” That is ridiculous. While labels in music can be discriminatory, labels are needed to define components of an aesthetic. There are many sciences. There are many languages. Hence it is logical to assume there are many styles of music. Calling jazz “anything and everything” relieves the musician of the responsibility of understanding and learning a specific style of music. Defining a style of music is not rocket science. First the shallow depiction of music on the radio and television today has to be dispelled. It might be easiest to use the major “style” periods of European orchestrs music. It would be difficult for a new school music pundit to dispute the history of Western music. Broadly defined there was Medieval Music, Renaissance Music, Baroque Music, Classical Music, Romantic Music, and 20th Century Music. Each of these types of music was different from the others, and they have to be classified according to some definitions. Form, phrasing, articulation, counterpoint, harmony, texture, color, mood, and tempo are a few. Why cannot we use the same definitions for jazz music? I like to think of jazz music as, “A swing-based improvisatory music based upon the 32 bar A-A-B-A form American popular song and the 12 bar blues.” While there are symphonic types of jazz (such as Charles Mingus’s Epitaph) and many big band repertoires, this describes what jazz musicians play in a small group. They must learn the melody and chord changes of a song, then learn to “improvise” a new melody over the existing chord changes. This “solo” has the capability to be a work of art in itself as John Coltrane showed in his music. A “solo” in jazz music can be akin to telling a story. That is an easy way to describe it. Dexter Gordon was good at doing this. While Miles Davis did push the boundaries of this definition, it is a good place to start. To understand the gamut of jazz music you must start from the beginning in the l920’s and move forward. There isn’t an easy way to jump in. Like any art form you must have a clear understanding of what came first to be able to understand what comes later. Miles shaped jazz music in three distinct ways pushing its boundaries. He like many jazz musicians got tired of playing “tunes.” He conceived the “Cool School” where jazz music takes on a reflective refined state. (Some say this was a reaction to the boisterous rhythms of Charlie Parker’s, Dizzy Gillespie’s, and Thelonious Monk’s bebop) Miles also brought “modality” into the harmonic spectrum. This superimposed one scaler sound over what would normally be a progression of differing chord changes. Again this creates a type of pastoral soothing Eastern vibration. Further Miles dispensed with “swing” rhythm all together and created “fusion.” Fusion was a type of rock jazz that used elements of music that began to be popular with the inception of Rock ‘n’ Roll. He liked Sly and the Family Stone and Jimi Hendrix and often credits them with influencing his music. Obviously these influences change the early definition of jazz music. Like any good thing it needs to expand and evolve. For novice musicians they often find the burden of learning standard tunes unmerited. “Why can’t I just go out on stage and play?” The answer is without some substance in your playing, who is going to want to listen to you? Young, dumb, and full of c-m is not really enough in a vocation as complex as music. While there is an improvisational and therefore spiritual component of jazz music, it is not enough to carry a musician through a successful journey of jazz music. Using the earlier definition of jazz makes the jazz players job more clear. He is a singer of songs. Just like a vocalist would try to communicate the message and feeling of a particular song through their singing, an instrumentalist attempts to do the same thing except with no words. To be a successful jazz musician you have to know songs, lots of songs. You must KNOW the songs, therefore have memorized or learned the songs by heart. You cannot create authentic jazz music when you are reading music out of a book, because there are too many obstacles in the way of your own communication. You must learn the fundamentals first and well to be free enough to express your own opinion in music. With all of this definition the notion of “swing” rhythm still is obscure. It might be one reason why jazz is an art form. You can’t necessarily to to music school to learn to play jazz music. You must experience it first hand. Seeing as jazz music developed in the brothels and on the streets of New Orleans, how is a modern jazz student going to learn his craft? It has always been listening to the recordings. Luckily the recording industry began in the l920’s in America, and someone thought jazz music was worthy enough to be documented aurally. Quintessentially it is the only true way to document jazz music because of the swing feeling. Many people believe jazz music is the music of the devil. Both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia felt jazz music represented some heathen culture. They were not acquainted with the raw, primitive, tribal custom of Africa. The feeling of jazz or its rhythmic feel came from the tribal heritage of African drumming. Gunther Schuller, a past president of the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, was the first to notate the rhythm of this African drumming. It is notable because it is the first known-to-be-documented example of polyrhythm. That simply means that although the drummers are playing together, they are playing in differing time signatures. The magic that all of these feels work at the same time is what creates one type of magic in jazz music. Now that we have defined jazz music somewhat it can be easily understood a musician with a ‘traditional’ university music education may have no clue how to play jazz music. The aesthetic is completely different from the art form of playing orchestral-based music. Because American popular music recognizes jazz as a major component of its heritage, it equally should be taught in our nation’s music schools. Without that education modern commercial musicians severely are lacking in the skills they need to be successful. A traditional orchestra music education fails greatly teaching the variety of necessary styles inherent in American commercial music. Cruise lines should draw a line in the sand and require a comprehensive and diverse knowledge of musical styles stemming from the jazz experiences. Otherwise, like the rest of America, the oppressive front of the Extreme Right will continue to brainwash our senses with tight ass, conservative, unfeeling propaganda.

Cruise Criminals of Music

There are two shows. One is called “Piano Man.” Although you are the piano player in the band, you are not the “Piano Man.” Another cruise line you have worked for also had a show called “Piano Man.” The music was better, but the lead trumpet player sat directly in front of you with his bell pointed at your head. He did not swing. All of his figures were syncopations playing off the beat. Your job as a piano player is to play “on the beat.” When the loudest instrument in the band is playing right in your ear “off the beat,” it is not easy to do your job as the “Piano Man.” Most people would quit. This new “Piano Man” is the male production singer. He sits at the acoustic piano much of the time, but the M.D. fails to tell you if he plays or not. For the first half of the contract the sound engineer does not mike his piano, so you play his “Piano Man” parts on your digital piano. When the sound man changes the new engineer mikes his piano. He comes to you in a panic and says there is a “chorusing” effect. (He also is a keyboard player) It is created because you and the “Piano Man” are playing the same parts. No one could ever hear this before, because they didn’t mike the real “Piano Man’s” piano. To solve the problem you instigate a meeting with the “Piano Man,” and ask him what he is playing. You write this in on your music and begin to leave out what he plays. This should have been done on the first tech run of the show five months ago. The M.D. that “brought out the ship” failed to do this creating havoc for five months between the “Piano Man” and you. The second show is pop/opera, and is a gay romp. The grooves are all electronica. The drummer in the pit is using a Roland V-Drum kit. He does not use any of the sounds that are recorded on the tracks. He uses a live high hat with electronic cymbals. It is not miked. He never studied the grooves on the tracks, and plays like a machine. He should have been fired. Your most difficult music in this show is Nessun Dorma from Puccini’s opera Turandot. It is an aria. (In opera there are two types of singing. Recitative is spoken language set to music. It is linear, florid, and continuous. Aria is more sedate and expressive. Its rhythm is like a hymn.) It is extremely unusual to use an aria in a commercial production show. The reason is chamber and orchestral music are expressive and breathe. Commercial music relies upon a groove. To realize an aria in a commercial context with a CLICK TRACK, all of the changes in tempo (rubato) must be calculated and programmed into the computer. In this production show City of Dreams understanding and playing these tempo markings in Nessun Dorma was the major task of the piano player. There was only one simple line of melody to play, but there were tempo changes every two beats of music. This is the most unconventional music notation conceivable, and no commercial keyboard player in a pit orchestra of a production show should ever be required to do this. Doing this means you must memorize over thirty tempo changes for one short piece of music. (This is not music) No musician in history has ever been required to do this. After attempting to follow a rubato click track completely exposed with two vocalists that have no click track, you’re required to play a techno synthesizer part with the bass playing off beats to your downbeats. Like the “Piano Man” show where the lead trumpet player is playing his syncopations in your ear off your beat one, this bass player is doing the same thing. It is commonplace in ship production show writing to use the piano player as the metronome. The arranger does not use a live piano player to record the keyboard parts in the studio. Instead they program the keyboard parts with the computer using a standard MIDI file extraction from their notation program. It is left untouched or quantized with a specific rhythmic feel generating a Casio Drum Machine type feel. The feeling of live music does not exist in the track, and the arranger requires that the other live players record to this track negating the possibility of any real musical interaction. This stiff, sterile, uncompromising music erroneously has begun to set the standard for commercial music production in America. Because there are only three venues of live music left in the vocation of music (Broadway, the military, and cruise ships) cruise ship work has taken over as the major trend. With the influx of Disney into the Broadway orchestra pit, live music production has suffered. The use of a computer in music production has ruined the craft of music in a few short years. Jazz music, the underground, renegade, and rebellious music of Bourbon Street brothels, is what created art in music in America. It added humanity to an aesthetic that easily can become nationalistic propaganda. America was the unique place that allowed this music to come to fruition. The flooding of New Orleans and the subsequent loss of American musical heritage greatly is effecting the temperament of the nation. The drugless anodyne to life’s tragedies slowly is being murdered at the expense of right wing extremism. Music quintessentially represents the human things that need to occur in life. If this magic could be incorporated into the cruise ship experience instead of a stifling bureaucratic political game of music, then it stands to reason everyone would benefit. Keeping the pleasures of music at bay because of novice movers and shakers is a crime.

Cruise Ship Gigs

When you sign on the person meant to meet you at the gangway, show you around, and get you started is new. They have no clue what to do, so as a result neither do you. They sit around smoking cigarettes. Your roommate is a French-Canadian beatnik. He smells like ass. He hangs his dirty underwear all over your closet of a room with no air conditioning. He does not shower for over a week and consequently you have to complain to the Musical Director. He gets angry when he finds out you complained about his stench. Later in the contract he cock blocks your only romantic action. You share a room, so without roommate consent you can’t get laid. The new drummer and bass player called you a homophone and a racist. The bass player is “in the closet” and is not responsible for his own sexual orientation. As a result he takes his anger and frustration out on you as well as wanting to sleep with you. You get transferred off the ship, because they decide your vibe is too “straight.” The M.D. tells you at 5:00 p.m. to pack your stuff. Your are leaving the next morning at 6:00 a.m. You are being transferred to a non-smoking ship, so you will have to quit smoking cold turkey. Most people would quit now, but you do not. You have to pay for your taxi ride from the airport to the new ship. You have to carry all your luggage by hand to the furthest berth on the dock. None of the scores of bell hops or taxi drivers offer to help you. This is your punishment for being "straight." When you sign on the ship the new M.D. thinks you are an asshole, because you are being transferred. He couldn’t care less that you are there, until you prove yourself musically. Although the band members like you because you play well, the band does not swing. This is your first encounter with pop/jazz. It takes the full month and a half to figure out what to play on the piano. You strum like a guitar. When you leave, although the band members still like you, you curse the bass player. He hears you and is offended. You will run into him again. When you get to your third ship, they are prepared for you. They have a preconceived notion you are an asshole and give you a hard time from the beginning. You almost get fired the second night of the cruise, because the guitar player runs the band. He says you have to kiss his ass. He cannot play the shows authentically, so that is why they have to ride your ass. You have one Dixieland set a cruise that kicks your ass from here to eternity, because the band doesn’t swing. (If jazz doesn’t swing, it is reggae.) The drummer takes offense to this comment, although it is true. He gives you a hard time, because you don’t play like a banjo player. In spite of all the bad playing, you shed the Dixie repertoire, transcribe some licks, and nail the set. It is the most musically difficult thing you have ever done. The tempos are blazing fast and you have to play “stride” piano and say, “Yes, massah.” The big band sets are sickly sweet, and you only have one 90 year old couple that dances. They don’t care that you can play jazz and improvise. They want Lawrence Welk. The new lead trumpet player and your roommate is an alcoholic. He drinks beer 24/7 and is drunk all the time. He rarely sleeps, although he nails the shows. His best friend is the guitar player, and of course he hates your guts. You are able to escape the carnage by developing a hernia. Because the company pays for your operation, they send you to the smallest ship. Your cabin is at the stern and over the diesel engines. When you port the entire rear of the ships shakes violently. Your roommate hates having a roommate and yells at you for not being quiet as a mouse at night. The M.D. is expecting your visit, because this happens every time. You change cabins hoping to get a smaller person, but the new drummer is your roommate. He is a large black man with racks of drum videos. He stays in the cabin 24/7 the entire time he is on the ship. You concede and let him sit there, because at least he is practicing the gig. The production shows are hard Broadway music. You have to shed them constantly. The M.D. makes you read the shows cold in full view of the rest of the band. You are humiliated, but your persevere. In spite of the suspect music, you enjoy the little ship. There are some girls to hang out with. The band on your next ship is the best. The band plays New Year’s Eve, because the “back lounge” band got fired. They videotape the gig and play it on ship’s television. The trombone player can play the trumpet like Maynard Ferguson. The two sax players are from New Orleans, but they still don’t swing. The rhythm section is the best in the fleet, before the drummer leaves. When the new guy comes, he tanks the band. He looks like Jesus and plays like a pussy. His excuse is he has beaten cancer. Luckily you sign off. The M.D. on your next ship is a manic depressive. He drinks constantly and blacks out for days at a time. He is irresponsible on the bandstand and wastes everyone’s time. He has a band of older musicians, but he can’t hand the responsible. The band is ready to explode at any moment, because the drummer plays like a pussy. (Now it is becoming a trend) He is dating the dance captain, so the cruise line will not fire him. A good band is being wasted, and everyone is frustrated. You develop another hernia from the stress and sign off. The M.D. gets yelled at by the Cruise Directo, because everyone thinks you quit. You decide to return to your first ship after the surgery to see if it is still gay. Your roommate is the only gay person in the band. You have to file a sexual harassment complaint against him after three months of hell. The band is good for an instant. You start to get attitude from the bass player and drummer like the first time. Things don’t change. You stick it out for two months. You have never been to Alaska, so you decide to take that ship. As soon as the M.D. goes on vacation the band has a good time. It is a constant party, and the band is drunk all the time. The shows are the hardest in the fleet, so you have no fun. Eventually the drummer bursts into your room drunk at three in the morning and pushes you up against the wall. He threatens you, so you decide to sign off early. The M.D. is an alcoholic and smoothes it over with the office to make it look like you are taking early vacation. Because you don’t want to “go on a long vacation” like the M.D. keeps suggesting, you do a vessel transfer. They lose your luggage, and you go over a week without clothing. The ship is docked in Jacksonville for the superbowl. You have to go to the mall to buy clothes. Jesus is the drummer. Now he is the M.D. He religiously writes down everything you say from the minute you sign on. When he gives you your evaluation when you sign off the ship, both he and the Cruise Director suggest you quit the company and become a school teacher. You change cruise lines and fly to San Diego. The ship is small and dark. The walls are paper thin, and your can hear the person turn over in the bed in the next room. Your roommate is an asshole and expects you not to breathe when you are sleeping. He has gland problems. He changes clothes five time a day. You steal wood from the carpenter’s shops to seal up the holes in the bunk beds. You stuff the remaining spaces with towels to absorb your breathing. The bass player and drummer develop an attitude and complain about you to the M.D. and Cruise Director. You have a meeting. The male production singer and the head cruise staff person are a couple. They are gay, and the C.D. is a woman. When she signs on the ship, she tells everyone to quit if they don’t like her. I did.