cabin letter to new pianoman

To the new piano person -

I add these pages to those written by pianoman JP Nadeau 3 months ago, perhaps the start of an interesting archive?

1) JP's comments on "no airconditioning in the Piano Bar" are true, unfortunately. For 98 days I was seen carrying the fan (which you now inherit) through the B Deck corridor and into the piano bar. (People will make dumb jokes abut your "Number One Fan"). The ship goes into drydock in January for a week or two, perhaps they'll fix the problem then.

2) If you attempt to grub food in the Indonesian/Filipino mess across the corridor, you may get resistance from the mess manager. Perhaps being "served" as an entertainer upstairs at the Lido Buffet disqualifies us from being "one of the boys" downstairs on B Deck. Or maybe it's just a tribal thing.

Last week the mess manager finally warmed up to me when we struck up a conversation about Islam. He's one of the many Indonesian muslims here, and attends services when the crew mess becomes a mosque on Friday Afternoons.

3) JP's comments on toilet paper are simply untrue, I can't understand how this was such a problem to him. The only thing I can figure is that he failed to tip his room attendant. The current room attendant for B058 is "Sandi", a perfectly nice guy. However, he doesn't seem to notice when the soap is reaching the size of a communion wafer. Write a big fat note to him when the soap starts getting too small.


4) Cabin B058 is right next to the Officers Bar, and also right next to the cabin of the lead singer for the HALcats -- Expect strange sounds from both places.

5) You STILL have no TV, for most practical purposes. Sandi brought the above TV out of retirement from a closet down on C Deck. In fact this TV should be thrown overboard. The only reason I retained this piece of junk was to cut down on my TV watching by making it less pleasurable. Any nighttime scene in a movie will be disrupted - no picture at all -- until suddenly it's a daytime scene again, or a well-lit scene, and suddenly you have a picture again.

On Channel 36, for 14 weeks, you can expect a constant replaying of the following movies - Gladiator, Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind, Gigi, Breakfast at Tiffanys, Rocky, Godfather, Top Gun, West Side Story, Tootsie, Field of Dreams, Grease, On Golden Pond.

6) Bartender Rey is a nice guy, and a real character. I utilized him many times - he has some funny schtick (e.g. YMCA and Margaritaville) which he enjoys doing, and people really enjoy. Good singer too -- not solo, but rather a nice harmonies voice - he was Garfunkel to my Paul Simon during "The Boxer"

7) Good luck with the Name That Tune contests, which you'll do once per cruise. The prizes are cheap trinkets, but these people compete seriously. Invariably you'll get old people complaining that the contest was too difficult. They stopped listening to the radio in 1956 and everything after that is arcane.

8) Use the back crew elevator by the marshalling area (red floor) -- go up to the 7th floor, walk up one flight to the back (crew) door of the piano bar. Although this back door is "crew only" it has a green "exit" light visible to people in the piano bar, in case of emergency. Guests frequently see this and attempt to use this door to get to the back of the ship. 98% of the time they see their error and back off. But occasionally a stubborn or drunk guest will forge ahead, go through this door, and disappear into another dimension.

9) The piano was tuned on July 18 in Norway, but you'd never know it. You'll quickly discover a rotten Aflat toward the top. Maybe you'll get lucky and someone will tune it again soon. Also, hope you like June Allyson and raspberry-colored pianos.

Enjoy the gig
Steve Lynch