Swinging on a Star – At Sea – [01/21-22/2012]

I’m tempted to begin this with “it all started in Rio”

Which, I suppose, in a way it did.

When one is asked for details, one is often hard-pressed to try and provide them, especially since the truth is likely a great deal less interesting than the actual facts. One thing to note : this actually has been going on over the course of a couple of days, so things are a bit out of order. However, the first thing I will do is clear up at least one thing: I have not been sharing drinks with Doc Severinson. Doc is a very private person whom we have seen very little of save for his time on stage, and I can’t fault him that, I believe he has a companion travelling with him and it’s only natural that they would want to spend more time together than they would signing autographs.

So no, I have not been clinking glasses with Severinson.

I have however, been having my drinks paid for by the rest of the San Miguel 5. This was not something I anticipated. Now this is me, I’ve grown up with musicians, I’ve spent my whole life around them, in most cases I am totally at ease in their company. However, when it comes to musicians who have a world class reputation, who have played with people that I would pay half a month’s paycheque just to buy a concert ticket for, I freeze, completely clam up, and tend to hide in a corner rather than risk approach and rejection. Were it not for the fact that one of the stripes that I’m friends with on board has no shame at all and basically dragged me into the conversation, I would never have considered approaching them in the first place. But suddenly, there I was, with Skippy nowhere in sight to rescue me. I spent much of that conversation saying nothing at all, and was startled when they remembered my name later in the evening, and more startled still when they invited me and one of my co-workers to the upstairs bar with them.

Even then, I still tended to shy away, let everyone else do the talking. It wasn’t until the violinist followed me to the dance floor for something as mundane as 1999 that I finally relaxed and started to be myself. At that point, one of them  It was shortly after that they asked me to dinner – a request that was, by some miracle, cleared overnight. I’m still not quite sure how that worked, as last night was a formal night and it’s normally very difficult to get approval to dine with guests on a formal night.

Dinner was delicious it’s true, but it was also a little intimidating – you see, these guys? So out of my league in every sense. One of those cases where it’s best to just sit and listen and absorb than it is to attempt to open my pretty little mouth and make a fool out of myself. At one point they mentioned that they would likely be having a jam session before they debarked in Buenos Aires (which they did, and I missed it, much to my chagrin), and, on finding out that I’m a singer:

You can sit in with us if you want…

You could have knocked me over with something less than a feather, and you can imagine how much the words stuck in my throat when I had to say no. Our CD on this cruise does not let crew sing, not ever, and he wouldn’t be likely to make an exception even for such an exceptional circumstance.

But still…

Not to mention it sounds pretty cool to say I had dinner with Doc Severinson’s touring band

And then I got to dance. No, not with them – I mean I danced with them, but that was just normal dancing, the kind you do in a big group of people. Those of you who’ve worked with me know that I always have one eye open for a proper lead, they’re few and far between on ships and usually no one can lead me to the level of my normal dance partner back home (who I’ve been dancing with for going on 11 years! Gah! Where did the time disappear to!). This being the World Cruise, I figured I was pretty much sunk, relegated to dancing with beginners (which isn’t a bad thing, but you can only do the  basic steps so many times) who are twenty years plus my senior. Then one of my fellow crewmates caught me at the end of the swing dance class I was helping with , flung me into a swing out and spun me into an under-arm turn.

You can lead swing?

Maybe…

Naturally this morning I feel like I’ve been run over by a mac-truck, and while I do have a video of it, we were so tired when we started dancing that we made loads of mistakes, so that won’t be going up anywhere any time soon. But it was fun, and we’re going to practice to see if we can get a number into the crew talent show (if there is one)

So there are your details…it was a good few days.