Rio and Beyond

On the sea day separating Bahia from Rio all the Americans who work on the ship are called in to the Crew Office and informed that their payrolling mechanism, in fact their definition as employees, has been changed, effective the first of the year. We are no longer employees of a shell company which files payroll taxes in the US, but are rather contractors working for P&O out of England. Needless to say, we are a little miffed. We had a nice little system of direct deposit going to our US banks and credit unions. Now our pay has to be wired from the ship and the deposit will be a good deal later in the month.

The thing that makes me furious about all this is that the paymaster on this ship is an ignoramus who can’t answer our questions about what’s happened and seems incapable of rational thought in general. How do these folks get and hold their jobs? He’s very good at posturing, but just try to ask him a fundamental question about what’s happened to your money and you can’t get a straight answer. Jan calms me down over the phone and explains that this maroon did not make the policy which went into effect without informing us, he was just the guy who should have told us that the change had been made when it was made. Some of the Americans are a good deal hotter under the collar because they have an automatic debt repayment schedule and they’re going to have to contact each of their creditors to rearrange their payments. We’re told about this change on Friday afternoon, so these guys are not very happy.

I don’t believe that such a fundamental change should be made when we’re working under a valid contract. One of my comrades told me, he won’t be able to work for Cunard again, because it’s going to put him into a 35 percent tax bracket with him doing all the contributions to SSI and Medicare. Better to work for Princess, which he’ll do, at least until this latest wrinkle at Cunard is either proven (they show a decrease in their expenses) or not (they lose all the Americans, who are mostly musicians. All Russian show bands are possible.)

They handled this all wrong. They were ham-handed. We still haven’t received the notification from the head office which will actually explain the change, which the fool on the ship is incapable of doing. I’m thinking we won’t get that letter until the end of this month.

Of course this is all a corporate shell game designed to save expenses. If there’s a lawyer out there who is willing to challenge the breaking of everyone’s contract, the conversion of our status to independent contractors even though we can’t turn down individual projects, well, I’ll bet that lawyer is in Fort Lauderdale next to the call center, where the rights of the Filipinos to get paid their overtime wages while at sea were won. Then there was the time a couple years ago when an insurance deduction suddenly appeared. That one never made it to court. 

It turns out that there is, incredibly, an allotment system for milk in the staff and crew mess. I thought that it was just a rumor, but when Jim went to get milk for his coffee and came back black with an explanation by the mess staff my fears were confirmed. 

They are trying to balance the books on a rounding error. Both on the American paychecks and the milk in the mess. I know that this ship burns a gallon of fuel for every six inches it moves. But there are surcharges. You could cut back passenger services, but these folks will make a big stink of they are deprived of even the slightest thing.

Rio was great, although Up until that point in my visit, it might have been any other port city with a downtown and a beach. The enormous swings from poverty to the rich were there, though not as visible as in Bahia. Junior and I spent some time in Copacabana, where we went using one of the jewelry store shuttles. We walked up and down the beach, not much else, but it was very pleasant and, after all, we were off the ship after sea days. The weather was cloudy with light sprinkles.

Contrary to popular belief, there is not a lot of coffee for sale in Brazil. Being an important export crop, you’re not likely to find the equivalent of a Starbucks. There was one, and the coffee was great, but it was tucked away in a shopping center. Rodrigo, the sound guy who is from Rio, rejoined the ship there and brought me a stash of his favorite coffee.

Some of the other crew members were lucky enough to encounter a samba school practicing in the street, but they were unlucky enough to have their pockets picked for their efforts.

I didn’t feel that I was really in Rio until the Samba show blew through the Grand Lounge at the same time that we were to play. Here’s how that worked: We arrive at the Queens Room for our 9:45 set, and nobody except for a couple gentlemen hosts is there. That’s because the samba show, complete with lavishly undressed Brazilians of both sexes, and a band led by a cavaquinho player and drummers. According to Stevie, the ship used to dock for two or even three nights during carnival, and passengers and crew used to join in the festivities. For the last pass through these parts, the company in its wisdom chose to arrive a week before carnival and--wait for it--leave that same night. You can always count on Stevie to tell you how things used to be in the good old days. 

Montevideo

The first overnight port is Montevideo, a pretty nice place. The capitol of Uruguay, the city is sited in a gorgeous setting on the River Plate. A little further upriver is Buenos Aires, the capitol of Argentina. The port is located in the Ciudad Vieja, the old city, which was founded by pioneer stock who wiped out a passive indiginous population and started subdividing the country into fincas and ranchos. 

Cattle appears to be still king, with the main shoreside activity being promoted being a dealer in leather goods, which has been advertised days in advance of our arrival on the television in our cabins. There is also the usual assortment of seedy bars and snappy restaurants within an easy walk of the ship, not to mention call centers and internet places. (I chose to walk inside the Ciudad Vieja looking for my combination of caffeine and internet, and I’m glad I did.)

First activity of the day was a totally useless drill, where we watched once again the video of an English soccer stadium bursting into flames, from which somehow we’re expected to learn something about crowd management. I did see John Lawrence once again in the role of the Cruise Director, which he plays better than anyone.

The crew morale thus deflated, we were free to wander about the city. I chose the $10 (PLEASE DO NOT DISCUSS THIS RATE WITH PASSENGERS!) crew bus tour of the city, with the usual monuments and statues, and a couple unique ones thrown in, the ones which memorialized the pioneers--two monuments featuring teams and wagons headed for the interior of the country with futures uncertain. The guide has English (as they say), but he mumbled and was hard to hear over the roar of the bus. 

Next to me on the bus, a Brazilian waiter took it upon himself to turn up the MP3 player on his phone, and, frustrated because I couldn’t hear the guide, I turned to him and said, “You don’t even THINK that’s rude.” The phone was put away.

I snapped quite a few pictures. I learned (finally) from the guide that while the minimum monthly salary is $150, the average tends to be around $300, and that the busses run all the time so that most Montevideans didn’t have cars.

When we ended the tour I wandered in the Ciudad Vieja. I found coffee at McDonalds, which is setting up ersatz Starbucks in a lot of their international stores. A latte ran me a couple bucks, tall cotton in this country I think, but I needed it. Walking back in the general direction of the ship I stopped at a neighborhood internet place with nothing fancy and incredibly cheap prices. I may have just had the most expensive cup of coffee in Montevideo, but an hour of hooking up my Powerbook to the internet cost me nine pesos, which is about a quarter.

As night fell, we played our gig and in the last set decided to play the Mancini waltz medley, our last tune, taking all second endings and no Ritards at the end. I packed up my horns and left them on the bandstand and we went to the buffet briefly before we met at the gangway.

We pile into a cab and head for anywhere that’s open, and end up in the new town at a sidewalk bar and cafe. I celebrate my birthday with a beer that’s around a 40 ouncer. No halfway measures here. 

This was one of our few overnights, where we didn’t sail until the afternoon of the second day. I returned to the same internet place next morning. Another cup of latte at McDonalds and I was set for the day, although we are looking at two sea days ahead and uncertain ports ahead because of the weather. Everyone knows this captain is overly cautious about going into ports where the wind is up, and if both of the ports in our immediate future are missed, we will be at sea for a week, from Montevideo to Valparaiso, east coast to west coast.

We lost Neville, who had to go home to Liverpool for a family emergency. Shame, that. We always seem to lose the good guys and gain egos.

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February 1, 2008

Stanley, Falkland Islands

The reason we went into Montevideo rather than into Buenos Aires, Argentina, is that this ship was converted into a troop ship when, in the early eighties, Argentina and England were at was over a useless speck of land in the south Atlantic called the Falkland Islands. The junta that ran Argentina at the time were having difficulties with their economic policies and chose to flim-flam their citizens by pointing out that some treaty back in the early 1800s entitled them to Las Malvinas, their name for the Falklands. The UN tried to prevent it, but, like Terry-Thomas in The Mouse That Roared, the Argentines dispatched troops to capture these islands where sheep are the majority. Only thing is, Margaret Thatcher didn’t know her end of the plot. She was having a few economic problems of her own at the time and, after arousing her populace chose to put troops into the situation--a double flim-flam.

Much discussion has taken place about the significance of calling at Port Stanley after a sea day. But the fact is that weather did not cooperate, although that didn’t stop the RAF and the Royal Navy from flexing their military muscles before we scooted out of there. We had a couple supersonic fighters do their thing for us in a low speed flyover and then, coming back, a subsonic though rapid one. We then drove the ship under a RN helicopter, which had a sailor dangling from a lead, whom they winched down so that he touched our deck, then pulled him up again. I saw it all on the bridge camera in my cabin, which was probably better than any point of view on the decks.

You can see why then that so many of the English remember the Falklands campaign as the last gasp of something uniquely British, complete with the QE2 pressed into service. The sad fact is that the curve of civilizations takes them from net producers to net consumers with the inevitable trajectory that means that the progeny of QE2 such as the QM2 and QV have been made in other countries, to say nothing of the nationalities of the staff, which were once, not so long ago, mostly English. 

And as far as the lingering problems between Argentina and England go, well, after all, we’re going to Vietnam, and they welcome us Americans and our dollars. Why they do that is a mystery to me, except, as a country steeped in Buddist traditions the people possess forgiveness in abundance. Nothing will stop me from getting off the ship there. 

Still there are those sad vogons who wonder why Britain cannot do what she once did. As you’ll read in a future installment, there is plenty that Britain can do, and not all of it good either. 

If we had to miss one port, for my money this was the one to miss. When we combine it with the sea days on either side of it we have a lot of time on the ship, some of it scenic, some not. 

February 2, 2008

We are cruising Cape Horn. Scenery is a lot like Alaska, not surprisingly. The ship traces a dollar sign on the map on the TV and scoots north again, I assume to go through the straights rather than around the horn, although the weather at the horn is pretty nice. 

Brendan’s 25th birthday is today. I got ahold of him on his cell but then the sat phone started acting up. They’ll be more to say when we get to a more stable area. In the band, we started playing my chart of I Got It Band (and That Ain’t Good) last night, which I remember playing at the Playboy Club right after Brendan was born, with seven horns instead of our three. So much has changed over these 25 years!

There is no port today. We are aiming for Punta Arenas tomorrow, but it’s on the Magellan Straits, where the weather can be a little on the windy side. Even if we drop anchor they’ll be a tender ride, and with all of these passengers to move about it’ll be unlikely that we have shore leave. (Note the military way of describing this situation, which is not the same way they describe it on Princess.)

The food in the mess hit a new low today. The vegetables look to have been reanimated, after they died of natural causes. Slabs of mystery meat slathered in equally uncertain gravy compete with various forms of dried-out chicken. Nobody gives a shit about us. The only meal we really have is supposed to be a buffet snack, between midnight and 12:30 in the Lido. None of this is a problem on a Princess ship, where we have access to the buffet at most of the times and if we feel like it we can have a 7-course meal at Sabatini’s or the steak restaurant for $5. And they’re not putzing with our checks over there at Princess either. At Christmas I was struck by the officers coming down and serving us in the mess at dinner, which may have been the last good meal we had. But now, with the advantage of hindsight and the erosion of standards, I think I was wrong to think of their actions as anything but an affirmation of the class system. Rigid beyond what an American can think, the English want people in their places with No Exit signs all around them. They don’t want too much mixing of the classes, either. Servants--and that includes musicians making less than, say for example, Sir Paul McCartney--are to be looked upon with a certain sneering disdain. Really, the passengers and the officers can be creepy when you meet them on this level. 

Every night we play three sets for folks who seem like the have no appreciation for what we do. That’s bound to wear us down. But there are some passengers, most of them Americans--who are supportive and even at times effusive in their praise. 

Winston and his wife are there at least part of every night, and we keep Splanky handy for him.

Then there’s Pete from Virginia, a passenger who, it turns out, was a road rat. Pete played trumpet on the Miller band and the Tommy Dorsey band, a decade behind me, though we have lots of buddies in common, like Jay Cummings and Dick Gearhart. Pete brought his trumpet with him and takes over the band room every morning from 7 to 9, when we working musicians are asleep. I’m going to expand some of the band’s charts for a second trumpet to accommodate Pete, so there will be 2 Petes on the bandstand. 

One thing that happened on this Scenic Cruising Day was that the Queens Room band, less Stu, the trombone player, had an afternoon session in the Yacht Club. Usually the chore is handled by the Orchestra, whose players pound for pound are less than thrilling jazz players, but for which the Musical Director plays. So the front line was me and Pete on trumpet, with Richard and Richard and Jim on rhythm. At the last second it was decided that I would introduce the tunes and do the announcing, and I was pretty much on the game. It felt like I’d been awakened from a long sleep. I introduced the band by saying that, as far as I could tell, we were the furthest south jazz quintet playing anywhere in the world, due to the fact that we were somewhere around 54 degrees south, at the very end of South America. We opened with Sugar, a bit of a departure from the usual fare that’s either “safe” real book material or downright Dixieland. It felt really nice to cut loose and take a couple choruses on some pretty challenging stuff, although we had a train wreck on Dolphin Dance. 

I came away from this experience thinking I’d like to do more leading, and missing the presence of Stu--We are a section, and having one of us sit out doesn’t do anybody any good. We could have done Mood Indigo! I don’t know what Brad’s thinking, or if he’s thinking, but, hey, it’s just a gig after all. 

February 3, 2008

We are blown out of Punta Arenas. It will be the sixth when we test the land in Valparaiso, Chile, from the afternoon of the 30th in Montevideo. 

When did this become a prison ship? Two sea days after this one. For crying out loud. Who picked these ports? There is some idle chatter in the crew mess about there being a dispute between the Chilean government and Cunard which will mean we’ll not be allowed to put in at Valparaiso. If that happens, we won’t see land until Papeete on the 14th, by which time I would think we’ll have grown gills. 

How far can this ship go on a tank of fuel?

February 5, 2008

The last sea day before Valparaiso drags on. 

Our toilet stopped working at 1 pm. 

We rehearse a theatrical big band show at 5:30. Last night we did something called the Puttin’ on the Ritz Ball. Of course nobody asked if the band had a chart--or even a lead sheet--on Puttin’ on the Ritz. And nobody told Michelle until 2 days prior that she’d be doing a tap dancing introduction to the ball. Typical. 

So I wrote a chart on the lead sheet that was in my computer, and everything went pretty much without a hitch. And that portion of the day was saved.

I did have a thought, though, to change the name of the ball to the Time Magazine Man of the Year, Putin on the Ritz Ball. I keep thinking about that spooky picture of him on the cover of Time. Anyway in his honor I ran out parts for the Song of the Volga Boatman. I don’t think anybody got it, but there you are.

I’m stepping back from this one tonight, because I got the impression from Brad that they were missing a bunch of parts and it would be very nice if I would write the missing ones. I already bailed them out on a big band night that they scheduled at the last minute on New Years Eve, and you know what happens when you keep bailing incompetents out on a regular basis. It’s one thing if they occasionally slip up, quite another when they act like they do here on these ball night and the various entertainment snafus. So I will happily be a sideman tonight, which I get paid for.

Jim Panalver is leaving in Valparaiso, flying back home to Spain and hopefully to the snare drum that my brother got him in the States. He’s been a stalwart, despite the pitched and ongoing battle to have the snare delivered, since I got on. I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job of keeping the band in line. He’s worked hard against his own countrymen, which explains why he lives in Spain. I will miss him.