Tattoo?

Alright peoples. I need your help. I've always told myself that getting a tattoo is stupid unless I had a specifically great idea for something that has great significance. It occurred to me recently that there is such an object in my life that is ready made to be both significant and beautiful. I have never dedicated as much time, energy and enthusiasm to any other single endeavor as I have to the weeping willards. It is of course possible and maybe likely that the willards wont last forever but I will always be proud of the work we have done.

I want to get that triceratops in that color somewhere. The two places i'm thinking right now are either just about in the equivalent spot that it is on the shirt on my chest but smaller or on the inside of one of my biceps. I'm open to other suggestions of inconspicuous spots as well. 

Also, maybe this is exactly the kind of stupid, crazy souvenir that should be taken home from a cruise ship life.

Dreading a day off?

Yeah, I have today completely off. Considering I only work 2 hours in the average day, you wouldn't expect this to change my day a huge amount, but weirdly it does. The simple time constraint of having to be ready to work by 6:15PM forces me to eat lunch at an appropriate hour, practice trumpet and do whatever other errands are necessary on time. Today I got up at 10:30 to watch the singers and dancers rehearse their murder mystery (which was so bad it was good,) but now I'm totally free until probably 11pm at which time Pryme Tyme is playing the back deck and I'll be joining them on bass.
The problem isn't really occupying that time with activities, because I can always practice trumpet and go to the gym, etc... But being mostly alone during this time leaves my mind free, undistracted and able to sabotage itself. My mind's favorite pastime is over-thinking good relationships and categorically destroying all the self-esteem that recent events may have built up. It makes me wonder whether or not there is actually a such thing as a mentally stable person. Since I feel all this insanity in my brain and I'm pretty sure my outward personality doesn't reflect it, it leads me to believe that there arent sane and insane people. There are simply extraverted and introverted insane people; those who let their crazy out and those who spend their lives fighting to keep it hidden. This leads me to wonder which of these two insanity types could be considered worse or more insane? The one that feels free to lead the life they want or the one who bottles it all away and has a loony battle raging in their mind at all times.

Maybe I'm wrong? Does anyone out there feel that their mind is free of ridiculous thoughts, either mischievous or self-sabotaging?

Lianna Patch

is totally worthy of a dedicated entry on my blog and is hopefully not working during the day this coming saturday.

Stank Free Days Ahead!

Lordy lordy can I get an amen!? Yes that's right, next saturday I'm switching rooms. No longer will I have to constantly fear the banana hammock and the tidal wave of stink that bombards my senses every time I enter my cabin. It is just unfortunate that this hell has to passed on to some poor new sign-on. I'm going to be living with our new alto sax player Colin. He's been on for about a week now and he seems to be at the very least a regular guy who doesn't wear banana hammocks and knows how to shower regularly and correctly. He's from Oregon. Super.
How many college educated trumpet players does it take to write a 4 bar arrangement of the Rocky theme? Two. However, it takes two computers with finale and sibellius on them and 2 hours of time. We both feel pretty stupid right about now. I hope the staff captain is pleased with his new play-on.
It's really lame how little I have to talk about in my blog. It's also pretty indicative of how much is going on my life. Today I sat in the cafeteria for over an hour without eating anything because I had nothing better to do. Shut up Jesse. Go to the gym! But my tummy hurts from birthday shenanigans....

It's a fantasy

...but I'm not sure who's.
On paper, every day of my life looks too good to be true. I wake up at noon, drink some coffee, learn some spanish, go to the gym, walk off the ship and enjoy authentic mexican food or relax on a beach. Then in the evening I play trumpet for maybe 2 hours max and am free to hang out or party until late. I get paid twice as much as I did making silly latte art and theoretically I don't need to spend a dime of it on anything because all my food is free and I have no rent.
Then why is it that my mood flies back and forth between ecstasy and depression several times in one day? I've been trying to figure it out myself for some time. Is it the fact that the favorite topic for humor amongst my bandmates in racism? Maybe its my half-crazy, faux girlfriend who only wants to hang out when I ignore her for a day or pretend to be upset with her. Perhaps its that not a single friend of mine showed up to watch me play bass with the party band Pryme Tyme last night. Or maybe its that every fucking toilet seat in my world is always covered in piss.
People have wondered about the secret to happiness for a long time and many have claimed its not money, its doing what you love; or its not what you do, its who you are with. I think these are all very happy sentiments, but they don't quite have it right. It's all of these things together that make a person happy, because happiness has everything to do with mental stability and how can you have a sturdy mental position if you are worrying about money or if you hate your job? Or if you love your job and have enough money, how can you be happy if all your friends just make nigger jokes all day and don't invest 40 minutes of their time to see you perform. Perhaps my issue is I expect to much out of people and may even be hypocritical because I join in on the racist jokes at times. As much as I dislike the idea, this cruise ship seems to be a distillery for human nature and the results aren't pleasant.
The saddest part is, as much as I mean everything I say right now, I will probably wonder about my pecimism tomorrow when I spend a great day in New Orleans with a friend and then my gal calls me in the evening because I've been ignoring her all day.
In brighter news, my performance last night did go really well. I even broke a bass string because of my cathartic playing so I'll have to pick up a new set tomorrow. I'm hoping to get to play with Pryme Tyme much more before they leave in 3 weeks. Then I'll have to meet the new party band and learn their rep. Assuming of course they also don't have a real, live bass player.

Happy New Year!

Oi. No more shots of Dewers on an empty stomach. Last night the orchestra played a big band set from 11:30 to 12:30 on the promenade including a rousing chorus of that new years song that I don't know how to spell or pronounce. I've never seen the promenade so packed and full of excitement. At the end of our set a lot of people were coming up and taking pictures with us and some ex military captain guy bought the whole band drinks because we had played a song he requested. It all was pretty special. Pretty special, indeed. 

The family is gone now, but it was nice having them on board for the week. I got to eat a lot of good food thanks to my family's guest privilages, but now its back to eating at the staff mess for every meal.

Overall, I'm pretty glad the holiday season is over now. We had to do a lot of really stupid, unorganized christmas music concerts and we often had very little warning of when they were coming up. So now its back to our old schedule of basically one easy concert a night and maybe a rehearsal here or there.

I've been talking to the guys in the pop classics cover band Pryme Tyme about playing bass with them and they seem very open to it because until now they've been playing along with a midi bass track. I'm going to start with maybe one 8 song set and slowly build up until I know their whole repertoire. They have a total of like 6 hours of material so that may take some time. In any case it will be really nice to get some bass playing done. Trumpet is too hard.