Happy Holidays!!

Appearantly the C-word is a nono. So I hope everybody's Holidays will be merry and joyful.

Enough with the sappiness.
And on with the happiness.

I played Santa Clause for the kids onboard this cruise. I had a blast, although some the female "kids" looked just a tiny little HUGE bit too old to still believe in santa... So, as you can imagine, I was sweating my ass off for two reasons.

#1

I was wearing a Santa costume in the caribbean.

#2

All I could think about half the time was "LAWSUIT LAWSUIT LAWSUIT LAWSUIT !!! there's a million reasons for me not to be having this 'kid' on my lap right now!" But the good thing is that now just about 250 families will have a picture of me in their home without even realizing it. How cool is that? It's not... I know it's not.

Anyways,

Merry Holidays to everybody except for the stupid women in the world... you know who you are.

Ellert.

Sea sick... or am I?

Well... yes and no.

I'm pretty sick of being at sea! But I don't get sea sick. I guess you could say that I'm home sick... that's right, I said it! I miss y'all. I only have a month to go, which is a long time when you think about it but It'll all be in the Carribbean.
I want to say happy birthday to my mom. I know I'm a week late, but I DID try to call on the day but sometimes it's really hard to get a line out and that just happened to be one of those days. I got her a cool present anyway. Not many people can say that their son bought them a birthday present in Egypt, can they? Happy birthday, mom! I miss you tons.

OK! Enough with the sappiness and on with the happiness.

I'm still having a lot of fun on board the Galaxy although I do miss home. We're crossing the atlantic right now (day 3/5) I'm psyched about getting off the ship and going to the beach with my guitar and just jam away whilst sunbathing and drinking an alcoholic beverage of some kind.
I must say that applying for this job was one of the smartest things I've done in my life. I now make a living by playing music, I'm touring the world at the same time and I'm making tons of new friends from all over the world.

Life is good,

Ellert.

No christmas for me!

I was going to see my grandparents today in Gran Canaria, although my ship docked in Lanzaroté. Turns out it's a bitch trying to commute between the canary islands. So I can't get my presents... I'll just be the grinch for this christmas, I guess. I'll make everybody's christmas as bad as mine! Mwahahahahaha! Just kidding.
I was really looking forward to seeing what my family had given me for christmas and my birthday, though, but I'm o.k. I'll just start wearing in the new clothes I bought today... a T-shirt from Jack & Jones and a shirt from Zara. I ordered the queer-eye makeover... Looks like I'm getting the deluxe package... hehehe.

Anygay... I mean anyWAY...
Over and out,

Ellert.

Hahaha!

Yeahhhh!

I'm watching the port of Barcelona fade away into the sunset right now and it's friggin' awesome. I bought a F.C. Barcelona uniform today (number 7, of course). About that last post... I still absolutely mean it, though there are always exceptions to pretty much every rule.

This cruise will be interesting. We just got a new bass player, who seems like a decent guy... well anything slightly better than the last one would be a god-send. And we will be crossing the Atlantic ocean on this cruise... i.e. 5 days back-to-back at sea. :-/ not too excited about that. But I AM excited about where we're going. CARIBBEAN, BABY!!!! Fuck yeah! I'm going to be spending my christmas holiday in a place that knows no frost. Mwahahaha!

Also, on this cruise are 93 Puerto Ricans and they brought their own salsa band, and I'm going to jam with them as much as I can. In fact, I'm going to see if they'll let me jam with them tonight.

I'm going to see my grandparents on either the 11th or 12th of december. They have my christmas presents! YAYYYY! Merry christmas to me. They're also bringing me some dry fish (harðfiskur), which I can't wait to eat.

That's all, you slags.

Ellert.

Women!

I would like to declare that I think all women* are idiots.

Later,

Ellert.





*this excludes my relatives and the ever lovely, fantastic, awesome, sweet and beautiful Sigrún Ása Magnúsdóttir.

Newsflash!!!

I just got some even better news. I will get 9 more days on vacation back home. To qoute Þorvaldur "that's 18 extra parties for me"... hehe. I'm looking forward to going to the Carribean because it's getting a bit cold here... well... I suppose it's all relative because it's probably ball-freezingly cold back home right now, huh?
I've started writing some music with one of the singers from the cast. He's awesome at making up catchy melodies, and I think we might be on to something good, but we'll see.

So where's my first party gonna be? Who's got the best offer for me?

Ciao,

Ellert.

Egypt!!!

YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!

So now I've seen the pyramids and the sphinx!! FUCK YEAH!!! Egypt has got to be the coolest, and the scariest place I've ever been to. The pyramids are amazing but there was something that made the experience less fun than it could have been. There are about 100 guys trying to sell you postcards, memorabilia or a camel ride. They are so aggressive, and they DO NOT STOP FOLLOWING YOU... EVER!!!
The only thing to do is ignore them. Talking Icelandic only backfired on me. It gave them an excuse to use a hands-on approach to try and sell you whatever they had to offer.

I'm going to buy a suit next time we're in Istanbul. I'm going with my production manager, and he got a suit from there last time for $70!!! That's nothing. So I'm gonna get a tailored suit for probably around a $100. How awesome is that... and my current suit hasn't been cleaned in 4 months, and I've worn it almost every single night since I got on the ship without cleaning it because it usually takes two or three days to clean it on the ship. Gross, huh?

That's it for now,

Ellert!

Yo!!!

I just got some awesome news. I got offered a job on the Celebrity Mercury. I will be sailing in Australia and then Hawaii, Alaska and then all along the west coast of north america. Woohooooo!!!! It's such good news. I will most likely start on february 8th. That means I'll only be home for 3 weeks... so you better make the most of it, people!!!! I want parties!!!!

Gimme some lovin',

Ellert!

Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum!!!

Hey y'all!

I attended a halloween party last night. My costume was quite a hit. You can see pictures on my photo site later today or tomorrow if you want. Some of the costumes were... well... provocative. One of the dance girls was dressed up as Malibu barbie and she was wearing the world's smallest skirt and the girl that does the solo gymnast acts on board was dressed up as a nurse... need I say more. I was going to go as a pimp and I had even found a purple leather jacket with a fur neck, but it turns out that Ukrainians don't know the difference between 100 grivna (20 USD) and 1000 grivna (200 USD). So, unfortunately I didn't buy that. Instead I bought a mask, a shirt and a tie so nobody could recognize the clothes I was wearing and it worked like a charm.

We played with a xylophone player two days ago... oh, dear. He had a backing track which we had to follow, and guess what he used as the metronome sound..... A xylophone... so every time he was playing the same notes as the metronome we lost the click track... and what I found out after the shows is that it's not even a programmed click track. Appearantly he just recorded himself playing the xylophone as a click and that was it. So you can imagine how difficult it was to speed up and slow down when the tempo was supposed to be steady.

We're playing what is appearantly a very difficult show tonight. It's a piano player called Elliot Finkel. You might know his father, Fyvush Finkel, from a TV show called Boston public. His brother is also a piano player and his show is appearantly even more difficult. But have rehearsal in about 90 minutes from now so I'll find out just how difficult his charts really are.

We're going to Egypt and Cyprus for the next cruise which starts in about a week. I'm really excited about it. There's even an organized tour for the crew to go see the pyramids and the sphinx and all that jazz.

Over and out,

Ellert.

Newsflash!

Hahahaha.....

I broke up with Erin. She cheated on me with her ex. OMG. The irony. Anyway, she wants to still be friends. I say fuck that, I got plenty already. I'll find myself a prettier girl and hook up with her. I'm not an emotional wreck or anything, far from it actually. I've been working out a lot and keeping myself busy with various things. I actually find it amazing how little it bothers me that we broke up. To be fair, we only dated for 3 weeks. But the main thing is, I'm fine and in a better mood than I've been in for a long time.

What else?.... hmmm.... let me think...

Oh yeah!

We played a prank on our band leader yesterday. We were playing Mark Donoghue's show and he just happened to own a fart machine and we decided to place it underneath the band leader's chair. The look on his face when the farts started was priceless. It's the simple things that are the funniest, right?

The night before we played a show with a comedian called Scott Record. He's one of the funniest people I've ever seen or heard. He'll be on the David Letterman show pretty soon. Keep an eye out.

Well that's it for now.

Over and out,

Ellert.

Alright... sorry about the delay!

Soooo... We visited 2 new ports this cruise. Yalta and Odessa in the Ukraine. To be completely honest, both ports are extremely boring. The temperature is getting gradually lower around these parts of the world. The Caribbean is still a month and a half away. I'm starting to feel like I'm back home because yesterday the temperature was 11° celcius. That's cooold, all things considered.
Erin and I are still dating and it's all creamy crusty goodness (copyright Roland Hartwell).

I went out in Istanbul again, but for the first time not on a saturday. It was weird and there were a couple of guys that tried to convince us that we shouldn't go to the main shopping street because of a bomb threat. But basically they were full of shit. They said: "Come to china town with us" yeeeeeaaaaahhh.... riiiiiiiiight. As if there just happens to be a "china town" right down the street from Taksim square. Sorry, not buying it. So, there was no bomb, no cops, bunch of people so we decided we made a good call by not joining those guys (which would have been the smart thing to do; bomb or no bomb.)

Earlier that day I had some Turkish apple tea. Mmmmmmm.... I loooooove it. It's so tasty. We also had some Nargile (some call it Hooka, some call it Shisha). It's basically fruit tobacco smoked through a bong... I know what some of you are thinking, but it's perfectly legal and I would pass every single drug test after smoking that stuff.

Anyway... not much else to report on. I've stopped drinking every night after I got a girlfriend. I've become extremely boring and reclusive... hahahahahahaha.... as if that could happen. But I HAVE stopped drinking as much, but I still like to go down to the bar to get down and boogie.

Over and out,

Ellert.

Well well!!

Ok... you're patience shall be rewarded.

My girlfriend's name is Erin and she's an australian hairdresser. We couldn't go official yet cause she was kind of dating another guy on the ship, but I'm just so irresistable... hahaha. She's awesome and we really like each other.

Anyway... enough with the sappy romance.

I went partying with 2 guest entertainers in Mykonos, Greece yesterday. Mark Donoghue, Jamie Allen and Z.J., Jamie's girlfriend. I don't think I've had a better time since I got on this ship. Those guys really know how to party. When we came back to the ship we were joined by the 3rd entertainer, Michel Bell. He was a member of "The Fifth Dimension" they had hits such as "Aquarius" and "Let the sunshine in" both of which were used in a musical called "Hair". AND..... His son is an actor and he was on "The third Watch" where he played a cop call Ty Davis you can read more a bout that here. I'm going to put a link to my photo website today so it should be on the right side of the page later today.

Over and out, you slags!

Ellert

Hurray!!!

So I finally got my computer. I haven't had time to post pictures because I had some trouble using my wireless connection, but fret not my friends. I will show all the funny, nasty, sexy, interesting, embarassing and humiliating pictures I've taken so far within a week from now... One more thing...





















Keep going...























A little further down...





























I'VE GOT A GIRLFRIEND... THAT'S RIGHT. Y'ALL THOUGHT I WAS A HOMO, DIDN'T YOU?

I won't reveal her name as of yet due to several reasons. The main reason is that she is a blow-up doll. KIDDING. But I won't tell you for now.

Over and out,

Ellert.

Ok fine!!!!

So I'll start posting more frequently... geezzz! I've been busy drinking.

I was in Santorini the other day. The whole orchestra decided to rent ATVs and drive around the island for fun... unfortunately my ATV just happened to be A LOT slower than the other ones. Soooo I got seperated from the other guys pretty much instantly, so I went wandering around on my own for a while and then I ran into 3 of the singers and a friend of theirs and I joined them and had a blast.

We have a new cruise director on board. We call him Mr. Personality because he doesn't have one. Everybody's had a run-in with him, besides the orchestra appearantly, so nobody seems to like him. I'm O.K. with him personally but if he managed to piss this many people of during his first cruise, maybe I should be wary of him. We were doing the Captain's gala toast last cruise and the captain's last name is Karamaounas (pronounced Kara ma oonas) and the new cruise director managed to mispronounce that name not once but twice. The first show went like this "Ladies and gentlemen. The captain and master of Galaxy: Captain Karama... Karamanananoos... I'm sorry this is the first time I've had to say it out loud"
Second show went something like this: "Ladies and gentlemen. The captain and master of Galaxy: Captain Karamous." Thankfully that's not gonna happen again because we also have a new captain on board. His name is Michail Margaritis.

The new production cast arrived yesterday... grrrrr... I'm gonna pick one of them to be my girlfriend tonight... If I should fail it will be beacause of her ignorance, not my lack of charisma. We also have a new tenor sax player on board, finally. The girl before him was starting to piss me off. He seems cool and I like his sound... so far.

I've been working out like a crazy person lately and it's starting to show. So be prepared to see some pics of me in a lot better shape in the next few weeks.

I'm going to buy a computer tomorrow, finally. So this is my last post from a public computer. I will set up a site for my photos and stuff like that within the next week or so. So to all you impatient bastards out there, stfu n00bs.

Over and out,

Ellert.

A quick check-in

Sooo...

It turns out that bass players that work on ships are ALL psycho! The one I have to work with got into an arguement with his roommate, who is a bass player from another band on the ship... and it ended up with my bass player calling security because "he felt unsafe". The other bass player happens to be African-American... so... of course the fact that my bass player feels unsafe is, to him, purely racist. This makes feel so mentally stable. Hahahahaha.

Over & out!

Ellert.

Checking in!

Ciao!!!

Just wanted to let you guys know I'm doing great, even with that horrid bass player getting on my nerves. We'll see how he does on this coming cruise. I've heard that Antonio Salci, who is a piano player coming on board is very particular and doesn't let anybody get away with any screw-ups.
I really like our new band leader. He's really positive, treats everybody with respect AND drinks a lot with me in the crew bar, hehehe. I guess you could say that I like him as much as I dislike the bass player.
We had another argument the other day, so as before I will be 'ME' and he will be 'BP'.

The celebrity orchestra is sitting backstage having a laugh before the 2nd show with Jennifer Fair. BP decides to attract attention to himself by taking the strap of his bass and use it as a skipping rope. ME looks over and comments the following, as an anecdote:

ME: Man! You've got a bad case of A.D.D.

BP makes no comeback to this harmless anecdote and the orchestra plays a pretty good 2nd show. When the houselights come on in the theater and BP turns to ME and says:

BP: Hey, man! Don't ever accuse me of having A.D.D. or I will fuck you up

ME: You're kidding, right?

BP: No, I'm not. I will fuck you up.

ME: Are you serious?

BP: Absolutely.

ME: You know I was kidding, right?

BP: That shit is not funny to me! If you ever say that again I will fuck you up.

ME: Alright, whatever.

ME is upset by this threat of physical violence and decides to report BP to his supervisor. The following day, during rehearsal for a guest entertainer, BP comes up to ME and says:

BP: (Grinning like a retard) You know I was kidding yesterday, right?

ME: No... you weren't.

BP: Yes I was. I guess you just didn't get it.

ME: I know you weren't kidding. You were just trying to bully me into some kind of submission or some twisted shit like that.

BP: Well, you obviously don't know me very well.

ME: That's right, and let's keep it that way.

Ever since this happened, BP has been busy kissing ME's ass, trying to make up for his wrongdoing... ME is very happy about that... ME has won the war.

Smell you guys later.

Ellert!

Gung ho!!!

What's up people???

Aight... We're sailing away from istanbul as I'm typing this post. I went to see Murder King again and they were phenomenal, as I expected. They played Creeping Death followed by Sad but True, fuckin' awesome.

I've had some run-ins with the new bass player, unfortunately. He keeps finding faults in other people's playing yet is oblivious to his own faults. For example: Before the second Broadway show this cruise, he had the nerve to start dissing other people in the band. Here's how our conversation went.

Bass Player (BP) : Ben (the trumpet player) is not giving us anything to build on when he starts "Never on a sunday"

ME: Hey man! When you play all the right notes in this show, you can start thinking about what other people are doing right or wrong

BP: Oh, don't get me started on you, man.

ME: Go ahead... start. What do you think about my playing?

BP: (backing out) Oh, I'm not that kind of person.

The end

Since then he's been fucking up rehearsals with guest entertainers and excusing himself by saying "Oh, I was falling asleep, man" and then leaning towards me and saying how this whole thing is so boring that he keeps losing focus... what a bunch of horseshit. He's gonna get fired... I can just feel it.

Anyway, anybody pregnant???

See ya,

Ellert

More changes

Well....

As if a new bass player and piano player/band leader wasn't enough change. I just extended my contract today. So, instead of coming home on november 24th, I'll stay for two months extra. Which means x-mas and new years will be celebrated in the Caribbean.
The new bandleader is awesome. There's a flow of energy that comes from his playing which motivates the rest of the band. The bass player is pretty good, although reading music is his weak point... oh well... can't win 'em all, I guess.

Over and out, you slags!!!

Ellert

Changes!

Greetings!

In 30 minutes I will attend a rehearsal with the new piano player/band leader and the new bass player. Hope it will be as good as it was before, or better. The new "Welcome aboard" music charts look juicy enough. This post is going to be my shortest so far, so here I'm going to ramble on for a little bit just to make it seem that much loooooonger... it's a guy thing... making things seem longer/bigger than they actually are. I want gossip... send me e-mails, people!


Ooooh, yeah! One more thing. I went to Rome today with a few friends. We went to the Vatican and the Sistene chapel. We went to the top of the vatican and took some pretty amazing pictures. On the way back two of the girls were eating ice cream so I decided took shoot a video and try to get them talk dirty while they ate it... didn't work... but there was a lot of "oh, yeah! You're real tease, aren't you?" from me in there. You'll see that later.. ehe.... probably shouldn't have left that in there, but I'm just in such a good mood that I'm gonna!!


AND THAT'S HOW YOU MAKE BABYS!!!!

Smoke and a pancake?

Ellert.

Long time, lots of sea!

Alright!


I've bought a camera. Now I just have to wait a little longer to buy a laptop and then I'm all set.

I just had a strange opportunity come my way. One of the singers in the cast went home today because she needed surgery, odds are she'll be fine and back working within 2-3 weeks.

Until she comes back, there's a crucial part towards the end of the Broadway show that needs to be sung by someone in her absense... and guess who was asked to sing it!! Me, baby!

Actually, to be fair, they were just talking about it a few days ago while I was sitting with them at dinner and I just said "I can do it" and I thought they wouldn't take it seriously but they loved the idea and gave me the music yesterday. I've been practicing my Alto singing all day. I've pretty much got it down now. We rehearse tomorrow and then perform in 3 days, so everything should work out nicely.


We get a new bass player and a new piano player/band leader in 3 days, too. I hope the new band leader will be as easy to work with as the current one. If not, I'll just kill him and we'll get a new one.


I went out with a few friends in Istanbul last weekend. The ship docks overnight, so the ones of us who don't have "port maninng" (that means you can't leave the ship) can party our ass off in Istanbul, which I did.

We started out by going to a heavy-metal bar. And I have never heard metal songs covered as well the house band did that night. They were playing MetallicA, Megadeath, Slayer, Iron Maiden and a bunch of other stuff, and it was all amazingly well played. We had about 6 beers there before heading to a Reggae bar... talk about ying-yang. But that was a cool place as well. Not AS cool as the metal bar, but still cool. We met a bunch of crewmembers in the reggae bar and continued to drink there.

When we started making our way back to the ship, appearantly I started dancing to some trumpet gypsy music being played on the street, and appearantly someone decided that it was worthy of a video recording... that would be Yotam, the birthday boy. It's a funny video which I'll show you some other time.



Yesterday we were in Kusadasi, Turkey. And to our surprise we got the day off. So, Ben (my roommate) and I decided that it was time to get hammered. We started by having lunch with the rest of the orchestra because it was Andrea's (trombone) birthday. After lunch we searched for (and found) a bar that had the cheapest Efes, which a Turkish beer. We had a few of those. Next bar was an Irish one where I got 3 beers for the price of one because I sang "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias for the owner... don't ask. Then it was time to head back to the ship, smoke a Cohiba cigar, throw up and go to sleep at 20:30.


Good times,

Ellert.

Backrub... mmmmm!!

Yo!!!

Yesterday I played with a woman called Zoe Tyler. These West end "stars" are really... uhhmmm.... aware of their own potential and they flaunt it every chance they get.

I guess that's just the way it goes.

Moving on...

Yesterday, I decided that I needed pampering so I booked a massage appointment for 10:30 earlier today. Maaaaan, that was awesome. I didn't know massage was THIS good. She found the source of my lower back problems.

Things just seem to keep getting better and better.

Now all I need is a laptop and a camera to start recording stuff at my awesome place of work.

Who's your daddy?

Violinists!

Wazzup!!!!!

Yesterday I played two shows with a violinist called Nicola Loud. I swear to Allah she was trying to kill me... Who on earth plays a song at 240 bpm and tells the drummer to play a 16th note disco beat???

I'm looking at you, Roland!!!

Moving on...

I thought my arms we're going to fall off when that song was finished on the second show. That being said... she's really good fun and very good looking as well, so I choose to forgive her.

She had stories about people from other ships that blew my mind. One included a bass player and a drummer that hated each other and that ended with the drummer getting fired for urinating into the bass player's cologne. Another included a Musical director who took a DUMP in the middle of the formal restaurant, AND later he got caught masturbating in the conference hall and refused to stop when security came along. What the hell is wrong with some people???

Aaanyway...

I just got some GREAT news yseterday. Before I finish my contract on this ship, we will go to Egypt for two days. That's just friggin' awesome.

I want a backrub.... anyone??

Ellert

Guitar Hero!!!

First things first (again)...

Sorry Vala! Didn't mean the bitch thingy.

Buying that guitar was probably the smartest thing I've done since I applied for this job. EVERYONE wants a piece of Elli now, and I don't mind sharing him with the right people. This trubador thing isn't very big outside Iceland, I think. People are so surprised that I can actually play more than 10 songs on guitar... but I ain't complaining.

When we sailed away from Istanbul yesterday, it was pretty amazing seeing Asia on my right-hand side and Europe on my left. Now that my training is over, I can start going on excursions and see the Acropolis and what not. All I have to do is hold up a sign that says "follow me" or whatever, and I get the tour for free. Pretty sweet.

See y'all later.

Ellert

Istanbul Schmistanbul!!!

First things first...

Happy birthday Krummi!!! Hope you had an awesome time on your big day. Wish I could have partied my ass of with you. November....november, just hang in there, it'll be ok. I know Vala can be a bitch. Just hang in there, buddy! Hahahaha!!!*

And now for minor chit chat...

I'M IN ISTANBUL!!! But unfortunately I have to stay on the ship from 20:00 because 1/3 af the crew has to stay behind every tima we're docked overnight. But that's ok. We'll stop here at least 5 times before my contract is over.

My camera is still fucked so, no pictures for the time being. I bought a guitar today... awesome, all things considered. 140 turkish lyra, which is around 7000 icelandic.

I can't describe how awesome it feels to be here everyday, working with extremely good musicians and spending time with cool people.

I want gossip from back home. Don't give me the "Hi, I hope you're doing well" crap... give something juicy... otherwise you won't get the juicy stories I've got to tell. I've got hundreds of them.

mmmmmmm..... beer!

Ellert!

* = I'm gonna get slapped when I get back home.

First cruise over!

1 down, 11 to go!

The first cruise was all in all AWESOME. I played with various guest entertainers such as: violinist Chris Watkins, pianist virtuoso Tian Jiang, singers Claude Eric Brunelle and Izzy (insert familly name here) :-D and of course the Galaxy singers and dancers, which are a talented bunch.
I played drums in one of their shows but that kind of meant that I couldn't sit and watch them work. I had to play to the best of my ability, and the last thing you need when you're concentrating is a bunch of extremely hot girls dancing around in front of you wearing provocative clothing... damn... Soooo... I went to see one of their shows and I was blown away. They do 4 or 5 shows per cruise and if the other shows are anything like the one I saw then OMG*, people, OMG!!! I thought that their job on board the ship was much easier than mine and that they really didn't do anything that required a lot of effort... boy was I wrong.

We will stop in Istanbul on this coming cruise. I'm told that there is a whole street with nothing but music shops. I think I might keep an eye out for a cheap and effective acoustic guitar. I've been craving to play guitar for a week now.

I'm getting on great with Ben, my roommate. We kind of have the same humour and (I cannot stress how important this factor is) we both like to drink beer. A few days ago he told me that his dad played trombone in the Buddy Rich big band. That's just awesome. And Ben is not a bad trumpet player either.... far from it, actually.

That's all for now, you scoundrels,

Ellert

* = OMG means Oh My God... for those of you who aren't hip enough to get it. haha.

Changes

I realized that only "registered users" could comment on my blog so I changed it. Now, anyone can comment. Saves a lot of time that way.

Lovely,

Ellert.

Sexual ethics... huh?

So... lot's of news I guess.

You may wonder why this post is entitled "sexual ethics". Well, so do I, because I have to attend training called 'Sexual ethics' in two days and I must say I'm a little more than curious. Speaking of sex... *cough*... One staff member got fired yesterday because of 'Inappropriate guest interaction' so they take this stuff really seriously... and I don't blame them.

Tonight, we (the Galaxy orchestra) will play big band music in the main lounge of the ship. I choose to call it "The great escape from the theater". Not that the theater is bad or anything, quite the contrary. It's slightly bigger than the main hall in þjodleikhusid. That's big!! AND I DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING EXCEPT PLAY DRUMS... THEY HAVE PEOPLE TO MOVE THE DRUMS AROUND... PACK THEM DOWN, SET THEM UP ETC... sorry, I didn't mean to yell at y'all, but that's just fuckin' awesome.

By the end of the cruise I think I will have played 'Memory' from cats and 'Don't cry for me Argentina' about 7000 times and I will attempt murder on the one who asks me to play that stuff while I'm at home between contracts. I'm not joking... it's been in 3 out of the 4 shows I've done so far, and I heard that it's going to be in the show tomorrow night as well. Go figure! I don't even like those songs. *stupid old people*

That's all folks!

Ellert.

Broadway show! Whoopy!!!!

Are you kidding???...

Last night we played two Broadway shows. I did an estimate of the amount of pages I had to read and they were about 25, almost all of which had tempo and feel changes. The show was basically an homage to all the biggest Broadway musicals (called Broadway express) and it included songs from 'Lion king', 'A chorus line', 'Cats', 'West side story' and I think 'Oklahoma' as well. Hard stuff, but I got through unscathed. :-Þ

I even got a few compliments after the show. When I had my extremely late dinner one of the lead singers came up to me and said that it was great having me on the drums. So, I'm doing something right. This is definately something I will want to continue doing for a while. I think I'll give the entertainment agency a call and have them extend my contract if possible.


Smell ya later.

Ellert

Day 3

I made it there, safe and sound... sort of.

The first day, I arrived on board the ship at 11:30 a.m. and immediately I was sat down to finish 3 million pages of paperwork... it seemed like 3 million at least. Then I went to my cabin and got to take a nap, which was awesome. Then at 3:30 I had rehearsal with the showband. It went pretty well, all things considered. The people in the band are: Jorge (Mexico) bass & bandleader, Ben (USA) trumpet, Patrick (USA) piano, Marie (Canada) tenor sax, Lisa (Czech Rep.) alto sax, Andrea (USA) trombone and myself on drums, of course.

There's one interesting guy I've met, and his name is Tom Jackson (Australia) Band Master. He's a drummer too. He plays in a pop quartet above the Martini bar. He's a really cool guy and we've had some interesting conversations about drumming. He showed one of the books he's written and he's got some really cool ideas and analogies for drummers and musicians alike... anyway back to my first day experience...

When the show started we played our piece which is a 12 bar blues song to introduce the band. Everyone did a 12 bar solo, including myself. "And on drums, all the way from Reykjavik, Iceland: Ellert Breidfjord!!" It didn't feel bad hearing my name "glorified" like that. Then we played "Santa Esmeralda" and the musical cast came and sang it with us and did some dance move's I daren't even talk about. When the show was done, I went straight to my cabin (which I share with Ben, the trumpet player in the band) and I was out like a light.

Second day started at 9 a.m. with 3 training courses"time & attendance", "Safety training" and "Environmental familiarization". That wasn't finished until 3 p.m. !!!!! Then we had a rehearsal with Claude Eric Brunelle, an amazing singer and just as good a performer. Wonderful singing voice. We played stuff like "fly me to the moon", "copacabana", "sway" and "feeling good" (not the Muse version).

After the second show (main show) Eric invited the band to join him for drinks in the Martini bar, which we did. I had my first martini ever... aaaaaand I didn't like it that much. Way too much alcohol in way to small a container, if you ask me. But being the ever-so-polite, easy-going guy that I am, I finished it, had my beer and some coke *sniff* KIDDING!!!! After that it was extremely late dinner with Jorge, Tom and Ben and then off to bed.

Happy, mom????

Ellert.

I cracked...

I'm leaving in less than two days... so I'm kind of already there... right? RIGHT?

I just wanted to run you through the process from getting the "idea" that you might have what it takes to play on a cruise to buying shoes that have weird and funny names two days before you leave... this is MY experience, anyway.

It started on a cold day in February when I was driving home from work and I remembered my friend John talking about a friend of his who had been playing on a cruise for 4 or 5 years by that time. So I thought myself: "Maybe that's something I could/should try for a while".

The next time I met with John I told him about it and he said it was "...the best idea I've ever had" which isn't untrue (double negative, I know). So I started doing some research and ended up with 4 e-mail addresses, out of which I got 3 replies. I auditioned for 2 out of those but got offered a job for all 3. Weird, huh? One of the two I auditioned for is called ProShip Entertainment and they handle all the musical entertainment for the major cruise companies.

The audition I did for ProShip was brutal. Lots of complex, tempo-changing big band stuff and gazillion groove examples to play. But I "nailed it" so to speak and I was offered a job starting at the end of august.

That changed exactly a month ago. A representitive from Celebrity Cruises called me as I was on my way to a binge in Þorlákshöfn and asked if I could start on the 13th of July. I said yes, of course. Then he said "...we'll just pick you up in Rome" which still sounds hilarious to me. The weeks leading up to my departure have been quite busy.

They have included the following and more:

6 visits to see my doctor to complete the medical check up for the cruiseline (7 if you count the time I had get an x-ray taken of my lungs). This cost me a lot of money.

Answering questions like "are you a member of Al-Qaida, Hamas or any other organizations who are hostile towards the united states of America?" just to get a work permit in the U.S.A. ... believe me that's just the tip of the iceberg. Some questions I had a hard time understanding, like "Would you ever consider possibly thinking about maybe conspiring to perhaps to terrorize the U.S.A., and if so, how would you do it and who would get to do it with you?" This also cost me a lot of money.

That last one was a joke but the questions were really long and extremely vague about what
they really meant.

And then there was the clothes shopping. I had to buy a suit. I had to buy a pair of shiny leather dress shoes. I had to buy shoes that are called "top-siders"... what the "f" is that? And I had to buy a bunch of sticks because, appearantly they don't grow stick trees on board the ship. What a rip-off, huh? This also cost me a lot of money. I'm a poor bastard these days.

Well, that's it folks!

I hope to never ever write such a long post, unless it's my birthday and I'm drunk, in which case I won't stop writing till "I've got blisters on my fingers" -John Lennon.

Who's fo' coffee?

Ellert S Breiðfjörð Sigurðarson

Blog... get into it while it's still not hot.

This will be my online journal as I tour the mediterranean on the Celebrity Galaxy . I decided to do this in English since there are a few non-Icelandic people that will read this from time to time. Next post will most likely be from on board the ship.

Smell ya later,

Ellert.