Hawaii and Exit

March 25, 2008

Honolulu

Wonderful city, though terminally crowded with tourists. Not that I’m not one, you understand, but there you are. 

We pull into the city dock (not a container port, although not the dock at the Aloha Tower either) at 6 in the morning. At 6:30 I see the customs guys pulling up in a fleet of government cars. Uh-oh, I think. All the passengers have to go through immigration in the Queens Room, then the crew members who joined since New York City, maybe 20% of the crew, in another venue, the luxurious and splendid crew library. To complicate matters, the comings and goings of the crew office with respect to US Customs and Immigration are now being handled by the biggest jackass in the world.

So with the excreta hitting various air circulation devices, we are not “granted” shore leave until 11:45. 

I pile into a cab with Patrick and Campbell and head for Waikiki. (Patrick brutally mispronounces it, but the cab driver figures it out anyway.) I spend most of the morning sucking up bandwidth and caffeine in Starbucks while my pianistic friends go for a swim. By the time we hook up again they’ve had lunch and a few belts. Campbell splits off on his own and Patrick and I get on a city bus to the mall, he in search of DVDs to add to his collection, me for Wal-Mart for such reason as I can only imagine (though my supply of acceptable socks is dwindling for some reason). Our progress is impeded by an accident, an overturned truck full of chickens.

Patrick’s needs are first because he has IPM and an early set. I was to have had IPM, but the luckless Richard Williams is ordered into my place. We split, Patrick uses his bus transfer to get back to the ship while I go around back of the shopping center and find a huge multi-story Wal-Mart with slightly elevated prices. I buy a shirt, pajamas, and three pairs of socks. In England, it would have cost me $80. In Honolulu, it’s a little over twenty. It would have been even cheaper in Texas. I know we’re eating away the fiber of our beings as Americans every time we patronize the Bentonville Monster, but if I just stick to necessities I can assuage my guilt. 

I walk back to the ship, a couple miles with my backpack. I enjoy so much being back in the states. They say that travel changes you because it changes your point of view. I’ve been on a ship largely patronized by grouchy aging British citizens who look upon that ship and the ports we visit as indications of the collapse of their empire on the world stage. The ship’s going to Dubai and a refit as a hotel. The countries that Britain used to have influence over have become the powerhouse economies of this early century, while Britain has become a net consumer of the things it used to make internally. The folks who are passengers on this ship know it, and they’re pissed about it. 

March 26, 2008

The next day we are tendering in Lahaina on the island of Maui. Why is it that the captain now knows how to man all the boats necessary to land all the passengers and the non-working crew? Why could this not have been done in Vietnam on the 12th? What has changed? I do not know.

Anyway, I walk around the banyan tree, looking at the art goods for sale there. Even though it’s a Wednesday, the folks are all turned out with their goods. They take dollars like they were native currency, which of course they are. 

Lahaina like an old New England whaling village if you squint enough. (Ignore the palms and the pineapples.) I fall into step with Igor Mashura, who is looking for a cash machine. These Russians are something. They’ve learned how to make the most of us. We go to that most capitalistic coffee shop, Starbucks, and I use my new Starbucks Hawaii card I bought yesterday in Waikiki to spread a little hospitality. We come back to the center of town by way of the beach, and I get a little wet. Still we get back to the tender for the next to last boat and I note that the mix is 50-50 crew and passenger.

My Sprint phone likes it here in Lahaina, and I have a long conversation with Jan, until my battery runs out. Whales are breaching all around the ship at the time.

As far as I know, I am going down the gangway for the last time on the 30th. We have three sea days to go before Los Angeles. 

The sea days drag on, with the rituals of packing and preparing. I have six months’ accumulation of stuff in the cabin to deal with, but I’ve decided to pack some of it in a box and send that box by UPS from the nearest Office Depot. I’ve got commitments from my sister Cindy and Steve Johnson, my longtime musical associate, to show up around noon at the terminal. I figure it’ll take from 6 in the morning to noon just to get us leavers down the gangway.

We’ll see.

March 30, 2008

This is my last day on QE2, and they way things have gone, maybe my last on a ship as a bandsman. I got a little sleep and we woke up in familiar territory, under the Vincent Thomas Bridge in LA Harbor. It was here, 24 years ago or so, that I started on my first ship, the Azure Seas, plowing the waters between Los Angeles and Ensenada. Brendan was just born, and I got a call to fill in for the saxophone player, a friend from Santa Cruz whose dad was ill. Tom Hill, the funniest bass player I know, was on board, greatly lightening my load. My cabinmate Kevin fell hard for a dancer who didn’t reciprocate and ended up killing himself in a very messy way a couple years later. 

I guess when it all comes down and you have an experience like I’ve had for the last nearly 6 months, it’s the human relationships that you walk away with, maybe the only thing that really matters.

So as I leave QE2 I want to thank my Queens Room bandleaders, Jim Penalver, Archie (Richard Walliston), and Stu Bystricki for making the gig fun. Mates on the band Pete Clagett and Stu the only horns. QR pianist Adrian Cross, Brian Ibbitson, Archie, bass players James Klopfleisch and Richard Williams, who delivered us from evil. Drummer Brad, who didn’t know what he was getting himself into until he arrived in Valparaiso, kept that expansive metronome thing happening, thus keeping the customers satisfied and still finding our groove.

Friends who were singles: Irish pianist Patrick Patton whose New York Times castoffs made all the difference, pianist Bernie and ladyfriend Louise for keeping it light, Campbell Simpson for showing us the way whenever possible.

Trevor and Stevie, you guys give a shit when nobody else seems to. You deserve better, and once this ship offered it to you.

And Siân, some other jazz bloke might be lucky enough to deliver you to your Gareth at the end of your contract. I’ll miss our battles with cockroaches and I feel privileged that we had the good times we did whenever we did something together. 

Predictably, there are delays getting off the ship. It turns into noon soon enough. I waltz through customs and I’m on the sidewalk. Free.

My sister and Steve arrive at virtually the same time. Evan is with Cindy and Joe. I finally get to congratulate him on his scholarship to SMU. Steve takes us to a diner and we have a great meal. We find an Office Depot and drop of my box. 

Steve and I hasten to the nearest Apple Store so I with my wad of hundreds might have a look at the iPhone. But they are sold out. 

Cindy, Joe, and Evan head back to Orange County and Steve drops me off at American at LAX. I sleep most of the flight to Austin.