Below is all the writing I did on a week long cruise of the Caribbean. It's probably the most personal I have ever been on this blog. Enjoy the ramblings.

HOME SWEET HOME.

December 22nd, 2006:

On my last blog post, I was recounting my time in Geneva last week, and right now, on December 22nd, 2006, I feel about as distant from the peaks and valleys on Switzerland as I could possibly feel. I know I will not be able to publish this blog entry until December 29th, but I am writing it now, and will continue to write throughout my trip on this cruise, so I will try and outline everything by date to make sure whomever (if anyone) reads this, they will be on track. So, here goes…

Cruises are interesting western inventions. First and foremost, they are largess to the utmost extent, so much so that it becomes sickening and somewhat distressing after a while. I have been viscerally and liberally pumped up with so much food, I feel dizzy. The boat is rocking, however, so some sort of seasickness may also factor into to that description.

Anywho, my trip here was hell. I flew from Amsterdam to Chicago, and then transferred there amidst a maelstrom of security to catch a connecting flight to Toronto. Six hours later, I was on a packed, early morning flight to Ft. Lauderdale (next to two crying babies as well) and then after an hour drive to Florida City, FL, I was sitting in a Comfort Inn, wondering how to hook their wireless internet. After careful deliberation, I figured you could not connect to their wireless, because they only had the service available for Ethernet ports. Way to be in 2003 Comfort Inn. How comforting. I am not complaining by any means about my global sojourn, as I even sat next to three Chippendale Dancers on my transatlantic flight, but it was tiring, and I was irritable. After Sushi back in Toronto, I was ready for bed… Lucky for me, some Risotto exploded in my bag so upon opening it, I was greeted with myriad grains of rice to clean up all over my transitory setting. How fun.

Now onto the cruise. After some beaurocratic difficulties – as it turns out I was never scheduled to be on the trip, somehow replaced by my father’s wife – we sorted out the paperwork problems and boarded the boat. Since then, I have been walking around, exploring the munificent surroundings and the food and drink that go along with it. For the most part, this cruise seems to be made up of affluent Jewish families and retirees. It seems like everyone is either a teenager or a pensioner. The boat is pure opulence. There are several restaurants and bars, a gym, basketball court, spa, putting green, five pools and hot tubs, shops, jeweler, hair salon and nightclub, among other ‘amenities.’ It is a hyperspace, a simulacrum of real life, a third space, plainly fucked up in my opinion. In some ways, the sheer largess nature of the cruise bother me, as I am not used to this type of crazed consumption, so in some ways my conscience is having difficulties adapting to these surroundings. On the other hand, I am as lucky as a Mormon at a chastity belt warehouse to be here (horrible pun, I know.). Yet, something is troubling. Maybe it has nothing to do with the cruise at all. I am trying, honestly trying to enjoy this, every moment, but I cannot lie to myself about these troubling metaphors that seem to be overriding my enjoyment. Maybe I am theorizing about this too much, or maybe I am just too cynical a bastard to enjoy this type of holiday. I need some time to stew, ponder, live, breathe and sweat out this cruise. It is called the Coral Princess, and often coral requires more than a simple glance before its inherent beauty unfurls. Regardless, I will keep updating this throughout the trip, and maybe I can grow to make sense out of this experience, and why a floating town with no poor people is such an enchanting holiday experience for so many people. Now, however, I am going to search for a supposed wifi connection that I have been tipped off to, and with a scotch by my side, hopefully publish this entry and do some more work whilst I am at it. Merry Christmas.

December 23rd, 2006 – Day Two

I have not had dinner yet. There was this max exodus to the dining room around 6PM, making a reservation impossible. Therefore, I have postponed my luxurious dining excursion for a few hours so I could come and update this. Two days in, and I am still extraordinarily troubled by the metaphors and themes embedded in this cruising experience. Last night I decided to venture towards the hot tub at 1AM for a soak, lucky me, and upon arrival I met two Americans and one Canadian, all on the cruise for varying reasons. After some small talk, we followed one of the members party which grew considerably when she noticed a contingent of cousins was still up into the dining hall where everyone but myself proceeded to pig out on burgers and chips until 2:30AM, where drunken and tired, we resided to our respective rooms. I was sober, however, and one of the people that joined us was a Psychiatry PhD student from Chicago named Shayna. She was quite intelligent and accompanied by her brother, who I think was drunk, but who knows. After finding an open area, we began talking around our respective courses, where she and I began an intense debate concerning the validity of my chosen doctoral choice, as she believes Cultural Analysis only points out the negatives in society, wherein there are plenty of positives that are being ignored. Her valid argument, although I disagree, got me thinking. Firstly, I believe simply dichotomizing my discipline into polarities does nothing for the work we do in the grey areas of life, but upon unveiling my thesis topic to her, she began to lambaste its validity in terms of whether I am actually going to be making a difference, or simply stating negatives – being a negative Nancy as my friend Zach would say, via South Park. Anywho, our argument got heated and ended in a stalemate, as I see Psychiatry as being very essentialist, where things are paraded off as either being useful or useless, without any mentioning of why, how and the structures and discursive codes that abet such labeling. An insane person is deemed useless, for example, even though he or she may be wildly intelligent. In addition, Africa would be seen as useless, while Iraq useful. I cannot accept such discernment.

However, our debate was encouraging, as it is making me question myself even more, a theme that has been permeating my internalities for quite some time, as it should be with everyone. I always wonder if what I am doing is making a concrete difference in life, helping people in laments terms rather than just helping myself. Shayna stated that a certain level of narcissism is normal, even though I see that as a modernist, Caucasian western construct, but regardless, it is valid. Yet, studying airports and living my privileged life is narcissistic, even though I recycle, am a staunch defender of human rights and free speech and try and save the environment. Is recording music, writing about bands and studying esoterica useful? Probably, or in my opinion, definitely. Is it externally useful? I am not sure. I have been discussing this unanswerable, almost paradoxical quandary with one of my closest friends lately, and we are both stalemated. She wants to change her life; I just want to refocus mine. I love what I do, I love whom I do it with, and I just want to improve who benefits from it, basically.

Yet, sitting here in the ‘library’ on the cruise and writing this is unabashedly hypocritical. I am in a nonspace built on excess. A largess, troubling sphere of western ignorance for the sake of a weeklong vacation, a place that ignores its social responsibility for the sake of a good time. I am in, literally in, the acme of narcissism. Furthermore, my only contact to the outside world other than the endless polluted water circumnavigating the boat is CNN and a world I tried to escape years ago and have been dragged back in; the world of privilege for the sake of privilege, blissful ignorance and classicized demarcations of self and narcissism.

Currently I am listening to Trail of Deed’s “Wasted State of Mind” off Worlds Apart, coincidentally, and the song and album title are resonating with me in a piercingly violent way. I have done the equivalent of nothing in the past two days, deserved or not, and I am going to continue to do nothing until we dock in about a week back in Florida. In the meantime, shore excursions are being offered ‘to mingle with other cultures’ and an endless heap of food, alcohol and fake smiles are being broadcasted throughout the ship. Upon eavesdropping a conversation over breakfast this morning, I found out the cruise ship uses 2200 pounds of butter a week to cook all the food. Imagine if instead of cruising, we all explored our hometowns, I mean really explored, or ventured off to a neighbouring city ignored because it fails to connote exoticism. I should feel lucky – and in many ways I do – and grateful for this opportunity. My dad has done a lot of work to bring me here, and I appreciate it. I just cannot help thinking this place troubles me, like being in a permanent airport departure lounge drenched in the salacity of Las Vegas and some sun. Yet, there was no sunset today; it is cloudy, and I have no plans tonite, other than trying to put on the face I have been avoiding looking at in order to meet some people and hopefully, engender some sort of meaningful experience that is not entirely lubricated on whisky and dreams of smoking pot in the Netherlands Antilles, as was the topic of conversation last night.

Yet, I feel refreshed, especially as I write this. Downstairs, there are two extremely talented musicians playing Bob Marley covers on a grand piano and a steel drum – a nice variation from the usual Christmas hoopla and caroling that has spread through the ship like strept throat. Plus, the girls are pretty – albeit in a summer camp, Abercrombie and Fisch manner, but pretty regardless (the ones who look over 19 only), whilst the alcohol is cold and there is plenty of time for reflection, as you can probably estimate.

So, I guess a sort of cruising chronicles is sprouting here. I have nothing to do here but think – about myself, my loves, my faults and my future – and as a writer, throwing up on paper is my release. It beats yelling at people or eating a shitload of chocolate, which by the way, is easily accomplished on this floating carnival for rich people. Until tomorrow. Dinner waits.

December 23rd, 2006 – 10PM (after dinner)

I feel so alone on this ship. For whatever reason, this boat spews a nuclear family ethos, something I have never been privy to. Dinner was nice; fancy for the sake of being fancy with above average fair, including a soup that could easily have been misconstrued as frozen yogurt. My father taught a group of retirees bridge today, and our conversation revolved around the quality of the attendees and the theory of universal grammar, as noted by Chomsky and Pinker. It is questionable whether a universal grammar exists, as languages are fundamentally different, well core languages that is. From counting systems to historiography, a sweeping universal grammar theory is a tough bargain, but I do believe that at some point in each one of our lives, we did intrinsically embody something of that ilk.

Being on this ship, it seems all the customers have lost any dedication towards universality, any link with others outside of their culture, any culturally universal grammar. I know this is a bit of a stretch. So, I have retired to the library once again, and after fumbling aimlessly on Photoshop for a few minutes, have resorted back to this journal of sorts, wondering if this makeshift book I am writing at sea will ever be published. There are some intensely personal elements in here, stuff I may decide to censor, and maybe this is too much, too much revealing, for a blog. Uncensored, unabashed shainhouse, essentially. How crap is that? I would not read it.

December 25th, 2006 – Merry Christmas

I keep thinking how much can change in a year. For me, my life has ultimately been turned on its head, shaken around and presented as something completely different. Enough about that, however, as that is not the reason I am sitting here on this cruise ship writing, instead of drinking my face off and hitting on someone. I did not update yesterday. That is because of the day before yesterday, December 23rd, and what occurred after I packed up my Mac when I finished writing the above entry. I was listening to Strangefolk today and their 1994 album “Lore,” where on one of the songs the lyrics state “I hope last night doesn’t wake up this morning, and tell tomorrow what I have done,” or something like that. Anywho, that night, two nights ago, slightly altered my perspective on the cruise, as for the umpteenth time, the social theory that states that it is more important who you’re with than where you are controlled the night. I certainly hope last night does not tell tomorrow what I did.

In a roundabout way, I met a girl whom I was once her camp counselor, and subsequently her family and friends, ten people strong. The night consisted of us – the legal ones – spending much of our time at the ‘nightclub’ dancing to crappy top 40 music whilst chatting up various employees of the ship, including a dancer, two spa workers and my Dad’s boss. It was a fun night, but I had too much to drink, ultimately showering the next day in hunger pangs, but these pangs did not cry for food; instead, they cried for normalcy, something my recovering body refused to grant.

So yesterday, I lounged around, went to the hot tub and pretended to read. And this is me NOT complaining. It was a lovely day, but one that saw me conk out at 9PM after watching some American football of all things on TV. I thought dinner would free me from feeling like crap, but nothing worked. I did get a reasonable amount of sleep, something that has become a problem on the boat.

The cruise shakes; all the fucking time. The folks working on this floating classicized orgasm do not notice it, but my stomach does. It is sensitive. Very sensitive. Therefore, I have been perpetually nauseous on the cruise, and yesterday illuminated that perfectly. Plus, it was formal night – something I obviously did not participate in. Formal night, what unmitigated bullshit – and I had to be up at 7AM for the port call. So sleep it was.

Today we visited St. Thomas, albeit in haste. St. Thomas is one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and its capitol, Charlotte-Amelia, houses about 56,000 people. The first half of the day consisted of a pre-planned tour, something that was booked for me, which consisted of a boat ride to an adjacent island for some mountain biking and beaching. The tour was nice. Ten of us ventured off to Water Island, home to a whopping 106 people. A woman from Detroit who permanently lives on the island was our guide, and her husband rode down with us on the mountain bikes. The trail was bumpy, but enjoyable. I have a neat blister on my thumb. After the 5.5 bike ride, we rode down to their beach, which happens to be manmade. The island has an interesting history, filled with all sorts of hoopla revolving around a man from New York who purchased much of it after WWII and built a hotel and resort on it, as well as homes for friends and family. The island was a WWII bunker site that was never used – it never got finished before 1945 – and the state department sold it to this dude, 4000 hectares of it, in 1946. He then dredged a beach and built up the island, until a hurricane removed much of the success in the 1970s. Since, the island has diminished slightly from its past glory, despite its proud citizens and their dedication to the island way of life, all hundred of them. Yet, all water and gas is imported. For example, despite them having a fire station, a fire fighter has never graced it. They can’t institute a volunteer fire department because of union laws in St. Thomas, and the government cannot afford to hire one full time for the island. Plus, potable water is caught in tanks from rain and blackouts are frequent. It’s a way of life for some, but not for me. The beach, called Millennium Beach and accessible by water taxi, was quiescent, in an almost stoic manner. It truly could resemble paradise, if Corona adverts define it. There happened to be a wedding the night before on the beach, so leftover fruit and drinks were brought out as we lounged. After three hours of bike and beach, we boarded the water taxi back to St. Thomas.

After lunch, I explored St. Thomas. It is a bit of a shit hole, with nice weather. I decided to find my own way around at first – bad idea. I ended up in some slum, surrounded by chickens and barbed wire, with locals consistently approaching me offering up myriad drugs as well as begging for change. The first thing that gleaned over the first hill I climbed was a strip mall – with a KFC, Dominos, Subway and Scotiabank inside. How wonderful.

I scraped back down the hill to the port, hot as a yak in heat and caught a taxi towards downtown, which consists of a small crowd of streets ultimately overrun by jewelry merchants. Dozens and dozens of jewelers. My mother – who has been here – would have had another field day. I was unimpressed, especially because everything else was closed on Christmas. Therefore, after meeting my father in town, we hiked up another hill to find a synagogue founded in 1796, and after finding it closed, we snaked back down a steady slope of hills towards the downtown core, passing some colourful local shops and folks in the process. Yet, the whole town is strewn with trash. Everywhere, piles of beer bottles and fast food wrappers dot the corners, as if the inhabitants have a physical aversion to tossing something in the bin. The smell reflected the landscape, and I felt like I was in a barrio, or some part of the developing world. This was not a wealthy place, this was a Caribbean Detroit.

I did, however, sample some Bermudan Ginger Beer – fantastic by the way – and met a couple locals, who seemed proud of their little rock, which to me is slowly turning into another landfill. It could be gorgeous; the culture is lively, the people were wonderful and the town’s architecture reminded me of Northern Portugal, but the trash was too much to bare. It was pervasive. After a long day, we made our way back to port and boarded the ship. Since, I have napped, hot-tubbed, ate and lounged. I am one lucky duck.

While the metaphors of cruising still bother me, I am adjusting to this lifestyle and vacation and enjoying myself more. Regardless, I do not think this whole cruising thing is for me. More on that later. Merry Christmas.


Wednesday, December 27, 2006:

Cruises are interesting entities. I only have about fifty minutes left on my battery, so here goes some explanation from the last few days. I did not update yesterday, as it was another port day, in Sint Maarten. Sint Maarten is the smallest landmass divided by two countries, the Netherlands and France. Phillipsburg in the capitol of the Dutch side and Marigot the French side, and the total population is about 56,000. All is peaceful, as the only divided is a sign. No one speaks Dutch, as French is the main language in addition to English, as the country has a sordid past with slavery and plantations, mostly with British and American ownership. From first impression, Sint Maarten is much lovelier than St. Thomas, as it is cleaner, fresher and hillier. To begin the day, I went sea kayaking with my father to an aquatic habitat unlike any other in the world, where mangrove trees protect an endangered shallow sea area from hurricanes (normal for the island), allowing jellyfish, sea cucumbers and coral to flourish. The colour of these jellyfish was amazing; hues of white and blue, somewhat iridescent but bursting with an innate fervor of life, and tame enough to pick up, albeit properly. We floated around the mangrove trees for a while – a very important plant by the way because its think branches protect from mudslides overflowing the reef – and then kayaked to a beach within a yacht port. While the yachts were abominably huge, too huge for me, the beach was lovely; white sand, virtually empty minus a few topless sunbathers and warm. The water was nearly eighty degrees and completely clear, so you could see the small coral communities flourishing below. The island has been in a constant fight with hurricanes, so there was lots of reconstruction throughout the beach community, but the area was pleasant – quiet, clean, serene, the Caribbean. We kayaked back, a distance of nearly two miles that to be honest, I did not enjoy, engendering a few nasty blisters along the way; but in retrospect, it was worthwhile. My thumbs are both cut up to shit right now, however.

After enjoying a few complimentary Caribbean lagers to reward us for the lengthy paddle, we boarded a bus back to the cruise, stopping at a sort of a duty free along the way that allowed us to sample guava berry rum, a delicacy on the island. I’ve decided I like guava berry rum. It is another one of those island drinks that can be chugged with knowledge that it is furiously alcoholic. The Vanilla rum, with flecks of Vanilla bean squirming inside, was also great. I like rum.

Furthermore, the rest of day was spent walking around Phillipsburg, a nice beach town that has little litter, lots of tourist shops and cheap beer – which you can drink anywhere because you are technically in Holland – along with some new friends, a few crew members I met kayaking. We got back to the boat at 4:30PM and sailed away.

The crew leads interesting lives. I keep thinking of the Futurama episodes that feature the sewer mutants, and that would create an image of how the crew lives. They have their own city, literal city, on the bottom deck of the boat away from the passengers. It includes a crew mess, or dining hall for those nautical colloquialism challenged, a bar, a dance hall, medic office, lounges, a ping-pong table, and all the nasty stuff passengers do not see, like garbage and toilet disposal, composting and kitchen facitlities. My friends work with small children, and they got off manning the ‘fun zone’ at 10PM and we proceeded to go to a crew BBQ, which was held on a hidden deck at the front of the boat, away from the passengers. Some people spend years on a boat, or at least six months at a time, and the life that is created in this little city, from social politics to sex, amenities and interpersonal requirements, is thought provoking. They literally live in hiding, away from the passengers, burdened with rules like when to eat and where and how to look and so on, but yet, their life is as exciting and creative as any passengers, maybe more so. Forty-six minutes on my battery. I am going to go plug in my computer.

(plugged in) The life of the crew fascinated me. I ate in the crew mess today for lunch with my friends, as they are served the leftovers from the main dining hall buffet service that the passengers eat, yet with no frills, no service and no smile. It is extremely blue collar, almost collectively stoic, and unruly perplexing. Tales of sex, divorce, inebriation, hating work, the whole cat and caboodle overshadowed our conversation, as if we weren’t floating in the middle of the ocean on a traveling barge turned salacious city. Life is life, as if I would be sitting at the Soundgarden bitching about school, but instead, our surroundings were completely different. It did not matter, though. Stories of further trips, Alaska, Panama, Hong Kong and beyond were verbally thrown around like meal selections, almost pervasively commandeering the conversation. I could not feel how constrained they were in one way, almost to the point where they could be qualified as well paid servants, and how free they were in another way. It is another ultimate paradox. A swirling theoretical conundrum, all packaged in the basement of a giant boat. I am so lucky for being considered crew and being exposed to the real lives that make this one gigantic fake life float. A new discovery, indeed.

After meeting them at the BBQ, we went to the passenger’s bar, Explorers, and danced and drank until 4AM. It was truly a treat, a convergence of peasant and prince, pauper and priest, to the tune of Skee-Lo’s “I Wish I Was a Baller.”

I am convincingly tired this morning. In retrospect I mean, as its nearly seven o’clock. Right now it is Wednesday night, and we are due to get off the boat Friday at 7AM, with a flight scheduled back to Canada at 11:30AM. I am ready to get off the boat. I do not think I mesh with the transcribed culture enthusiastically pumped into the clientele on cruise ships. The sheer excess, unethical at times, is nauseating. The free hooch has been lovely, especially because most of it has been Scotch – I am drinking a Rob Roy at the moment – but the constant stream of food, entertainment, distraction and nothingness is souring. While there are limitless activities available, I feel bored, almost trapped in a way. I sat in a hot tub today with a few makeshift cruise friends and watched them dive off the hot tub into an adjacent pool directly below, despite a sign adorning the area instructing them not to dive. An ensuing older lady emerged, pissed off at the disrespect, and proceeded to call security on my immature friends, creating a situation better for a National Lampoon movie than anything else. This little situation is a perfect metaphor for the cruise thus far. Nothing is consistently ordinary, in the middle, ‘normal.’ Everything sways to the side of excess, from the dessert selection to the harassment of youth for jumping into a pool. Everything is figuratively overboard, something Heidegger would construe as a distraction that has enveloped life itself, almost so that life on the cruise equals distraction, synonymously. I feel distracted. I have gotten very little work done, and reading Foucault has become nearly impossible.

Yet, I guess that is what cruising, or vacationing is all about. Our daily lives are so bad that we must escape them at all cost, get suntanned, drunk and leach off culture we know nothing about, whilst feeding our consumptionist ethic on prime rib and strawberry shortcake. With me, the day-to-day is not that bad. I love my life, barring its problems, so to me, this is not a vacation; this is more of a discomfort. I feel horribly cynical, critical and downright rude writing this, as I am lucky to be able to partake in this, but I believe that this prescribed luck is culturally crafted because cruises are seen as luxurious, rich and opulent. To be honest, my favourite moment thus far was in the crew quarters, because it was the moment that reminded me of whom I am, not what I desire to be because society delineates as such. I do not need cruising, excess, libratory consumption, stuffing of the proverbial face and touristing; I love the scotch, beer, some of the conversation (I have met some wonderful people, whilst also sharing conversation with people I do not get, or do not get me) and the weather. But I feel like the conscious cost of enjoying this is not worth the 24hour buffet. I would rather work on a cruise, see life as it is, not what it wants to be, and sail the fair seas with equals, rather than classicists. I am not saying everyone on the boat is driven by money, as generalizations are rife with discriminatory assumptions, but I have met a few folks who simply make my head spin. That is for another discussion however.

So tonight much of the same is planned. My father and I will eat in the communal buffet, rather than booking into the fancy dining hall, as we do not have the formal attire to partake, nor would I want to, as I always feel self-conscious in formal situations. Ironically, another formal night has been declared, as I have already seen one too-many bowties. Plans are to meet a transitory buddy at Explorers at 10:30PM and see what happens, which in cruise-lingo translates to getting drunk and hitting on girls, two things I am not particularly interested in. I know who I want and she is not here unfortunately, and I don’t want to get drunk, unless its with her. She remains a pronoun for blog sake, but she knows who she is.

On a wonderful note to end this entry, I have seen two of the most fantastic rainbows I have ever witnessed, one on a rainy day at sea and one above Sint Maarten as we were departing. Furthermore, I have seen some of the magnificent sunsets and stars as well. Lying on the deck at the crew BBQ yesterday was mesmerizing. I felt insignificant – once again – as my entire being ebbed and flowed around the natural puzzles forming in the sky. Tonite, a similar ethos will prevail, as I plan to venture outside and spend sometime alone talking to the stars, in hopes that someone may be up there, listening to my cynical wails and sarcastic shrieks. Here’s hoping. Lastly, RIP James Brown. Here’s to you, one of the biggest musical influences I have been lucky enough to discover. You’re the man, and always will be. Expect one final entry tomorrow and then I’ll upload the whole shebang after landing in Canada.