Paulo Almeida

So today starts the last cruise of this contract for me. I’ve grown a lot over the last three months, both as a musician and as a person. What’s really exciting though, is that I’m going to Canada for part of my vacation to see a friend that I made a while back, but who I’ve been getting to know really well through phone calls and e-mails. She seems like a great person, and I’m not typing that just because I know that she may be reading this sometime soon. Her name is Charisse and she is a speech therapist for kids, many of them who have disabilities.

So I have to look forward to right away because I’m actually flying straight to Canada when I sign off the ship this Monday, so it’s really close. I’ll be there for a week doing a bunch of stuff with Charisse, and I am really excited.

This last contract has been great, though. I’ve practiced a lot and had the opportunities to arrange quite a bit. I just finished an arrangement for vocalist and band of Willie Nelson’s “Crazy,” and I think it came out really good. I’ve always loved that tune because I used to play in a Portuguese band with my cousin Dina as the main vocalist and she always sang it so beautifully. I also recently finished an arrangement of the Beatles tune “While my Guitar Gently Weeps,” where the bass plays the melody. Especially with the bass player in the orchestra I get to work with, it’s a great tune. I’ll be putting it up on my music myspace soon so you all can have a listen.

Well, I’ll keep you updated with what’s happening as soon as it happens and I get to the computer. Peace and love, y’all.

Ah, ship life.

I just passed my one year anniversary of working on cruise ships a couple weeks ago and I find that working on ships for me is something that I’ve gotten used to fairly easily, but there are things about it that I still think are weird that I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to. So much of the culture on ships has to do with partying whenever we’re not working. I go to hang out with my friends on the back deck (which is crew only) and the same people are always there drinking themselves silly. I’d venture to say, though, that people on ships get drunk more often than the same people would on land. Why? Mainly because there really isn’t a whole lot else to do after work, really. However, I find that since I really don’t drink that much that I feel even more out of place when I hang out with these people, unless I’m drinking, too. I do drink from time to time and I’ve been drunk my share of times, but I’m also trying really hard to save money this contract and find that going out and drinking ever night makes that hard to do.

On another topic, we had some really nasty weather in CocoKay yesterday. I was one of the jet ski chasers again and the water was really choppy. It was awesome to get soaked out there and trying to jump from wake to wake on the ski. I had a ball. I think it’s probably the best part-time job on the island. It’s tiring, but man is it fun.

I spoke with my Dad earlier today. I called to say hello and wish him Happy Father’s Day. I talked to my Mother first, actually. It was really funny because she said to me in Portuguese, “You know going down in the ocean and swimming with these sharks, you’re done doing that, right? You’re not going to do that again, right?” I laughed. It’s because I sent them the pictures of me down there with my buddy and my Mom said that it’s dangerous because they were surrounding us. It’s really not that big of a deal. It was so exciting and much safer than people think. But I don’t know if I will do it again. Not that I’m scared or because my parent’s don’t like me doing it, it’s just so expensive. I love that I’ve done it, though. Twice!

I got less than a month left, though. I’m really excited because I got some fun plans lined up for my vacation from the ship. I’m going to travel some and visit a bunch of friends in a bunch of places and I’m going to celebrate my 30th birthday in August. After that, I will be returning to the ship to ship it off because it’s going to another company in November. I can’t help but do some counting now, though. I got about a month.

Peace everyone. Another awesome blog, right?

Ah ship life has been really interesting for me. First off, I’ve had the pleasure of partaking in recent shark dives in Nassau. It’s amazing. I’m right there with a group of about 30 Caribbean Reef sharks as they feed on fish heads in front of us. No cages. I went with a diver friend from the ship who is leaving soon. I’m becoming a pro since I’ve now done the dive twice. The second one was cooler because the sharks touched us a lot more often. I even got hit in the face mask by a shark who was swimming by. It was awesome. The sharks were really active. It’s really amazing to be swimming with them and they look so calm and docile, but when the feed comes out, they just want to eat it so much that they’ll even attack the fish food case while they are waiting for more. It’s really something to be there. The cost was totally worth the experience and I bought some of the pro pictures they took, so I’ll always have that. Good times.

I’ve also really been enjoying having conversations with people on the ship that insist that ship life requires that people live a certain way in order to keep their sanity. I say that it takes ship life for people to realize how strong or weak they actually are. Many people insist that a lot of the more immoral stuff they do on ships has to do with the hard life that we lead here, but there are so many times where I call them out on these ideas and challenge them to reconsider that it might not be as hard as they actually think. As on my first ship, I’ve learned a lot about myself here so far and I look forward to learning more and then heading off for vacation for a bit of a break before I return to this ship in September.

Musically, I’ve been growing tremendously. It’s great because I’m around other like minded musicians that really enjoy playing and discussing music. I’ve also been part of various “listening parties” while on this ship. Me and some of my musician friends will just get together and listen to each other’s music while we discuss it. The best part about my musical growth is the new bass player that has arrived to the ship. His name is Bob and he’s from upstate New York. We are very close in age, yet he has much more experience than I do. However, the good thing is that he is willing to get together with me to rehearse or jam in order to improve our playing together. He also knows a lot about musics that I’m not as familiar with, so he’s been showing me a lot of great music that I should know and am now getting exposed to.

Bob’s also been giving me new challenges in my practice habits that I haven’t tried before. For example, in stead of practicing with a metronome on every beat or every other beat, he turned me onto this idea. Use a metronome to play one beat per bar, but not on downbeats. Try it with the single metronome click on an upbeat within the measure. For some reason, it’s much more difficult than having the click on the one of every measure. It forces the player to have much better time. Any musicians out there reading this should try it and please get back to me about it.

The last month has been great. I’ve been practicing a lot and improving a bunch. We picked up a new bass player from New York state. He’s a great player. It’s awesome because we’re always talking about music and listening to different music that we are teaching each other about. It’s awesome. I also have been diving again. I went on a scuba dive the other day where I dove with about 30 reef sharks. They fed the sharks in front of us. It was really a great experience. I enjoyed it very much. I can’t explain how much fun it was for me to be in that experience.

Some friends and I on the ship have been engaging in really interesting conversations about sex and the misconception these days that it is a necessity in order to survive. A lot of people assume that my belief that it is not as necessary as people think has to do with my spirituality and my choice to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church. Well, that’s part of it, but I’ve thought a great deal about sex before marriage and have a personal decision to be celibate until married. I also just don’t think that it’s that big a deal. There are a bunch of other things that I think are much more important to my living my life.

I remember reading in a book years ago with a challenge presented by an author somewhere that if you really want to be free to really make your own choices, look at how you live and see if there is anything you are a slave to. I think that is brilliant. Many people think that freedom is the “right” to do anything they want out of desires for themselves, which could very easily make you a slave to something. I think that freedom is the “responsibility” to do anything a person wants out of love for yourself and others. If a person finds themselves in a situation where they are not sure whether it is out of love, they should look at how it affects them and others. I talk to so many people about sleeping around and they usually refer to these activities as “mistakes.” So, if a person thinks of the beautiful intimacy of sex as such, how can that be out of love? To really give yourself in this way is so close and intimate and special, I just don’t think it’s worth it to give it to several girls just to enjoy the brief and short lived “Big-O” while looking back at it later as a series of “mistakes.” It just doesn’t make sense to me because people just keep doing it even though that is how they look at it!

Many people just feel like they are not able to live without TV or sex or alcohol or coffee. How can being a slave to something be out of love? I guess it would be out of love for the vice in question, but being a slave to anything can not be good unless it has to do with something that is complete love, say if Mother Teresa’s desire to help the poor was her vice. There really isn’t any disputing that.

I’m chilling on a park bunch next to the street in Nassau using free wireless. What a country. I’ve been here for a week and have a better idea of how things work here. I was worried that these shorter cruises were going to cut some of the performance opportunities that other ships have, but I was wrong. What they do is all the same stuff, but we just cram them into the week, so we actually play a bit more here than on other ships. Monday, welcome aboard show and Big Band Jazz. Tuesday, jazz set, Show with cast. Wed, guest entertainer. Thurs, show with cast and farewell, and jazz combo set. Fri, welcome aboard. Sat, jazz set, guest entertainer. Sun, show with cast and farewell, and jazz combo set.

I’m diggin it and am getting back into my practicing. I’ve also been bringing my own music to the group and we are playing a couple of them at the next jazz combo set. The guys really dig my stuff, so it’s working out. This is a good environment for me right now. I’m also going to be doing the shark dive in Nassau very soon, so I’ll tell you about that when it happens.

Peace, y’all. Live life the way you want.

Paulo

So this is the third day I’ve been on my new ship, the Sovereign of the Seas with Royal. Man, what a difference! It’s so much more relaxed than my last ship, but it’s not too easy. There are challenges and we still play all the normal shows, but the cruises are just really short and go to the same ports all the time. I’ve already made a bunch of friends and the guys in the band are really cool. I’m focusing on learning the Production Shows that we perform with the cast. They are not too difficult and they are actually made up of really fun music. This is all over the place, but the first show contains music from Footloose and Dirty Dancing; stuff like that. The other show look at rock from the 50s to the 90s, so Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Beatles, Aretha Franklin, and Michael Jackson. They are pretty fun. I really get to rock out on them. I don’t really hold back and they never say that I’m playing too loud. My boss is really cool and supportive. I’m looking forward to writing music for the group so we can change it up a bit.

The ship is pretty old, but there are some really cool perks associated with it, particularly the crew. Super cool and I’m gonna have a good contract.

Peace.

I’ve been hanging out in Fullerton the past couple days, mainly to get some things figured out with school. My friend Eric was doing the final stuff for my thesis while I was gone and still had a couple more things left when I found out I was coming back, so I told him to hold off. I just got back and submitted my thesis to the bookstore officially two days ago. So I’m done. I will be on the list of graduates for this semester with my Master’s of Music. I’m glad it’s done. Now, I’m going to look into actually using the degree. I’m planning on trying to find teaching jobs in New York for the Fall. Fingers crossed.

So I also got another ship. I’ll be on the Sovergien of the Seas with Royal. I leave in three days. It’s nice because it’s so quick, so I don’t have to sit around waiting for another ship. What I’m sort of worried about it that this ship takes really short cruises and I really want to be on a ship where the orchestra plays in a lot of different settings, such as Production Shows, Guest Artists, Big Band and Combo Jazz sets. Since these cruises are so short (3 and 4 days), I’m wondering if they don’t have one or more of these settings for the orchestra. For me, I’d much rather be challenged by diverse situations, but I’ll make the most of it either way. At least I’ll be back out there in the Caribbean for 3 months. Anyone interested in cruising with my ship, let me know. I might be able to get you a discount.

Peace everyone.