Week Two: The Big Apple

When last we left our hero, he was winging away from the beautiful town of Chicago. Our time rehearsing at the Second City had come to a close, and it was time to fly to New York City and find our boat. Our flight out of Chicago was at 6:45 in the morning, which was kind of ass. But we got up and made our way out to the airport, thanks to the good people at the Airport Hilton shuttle service (“herding groggy travelers, no matter how ungodly the hour”). In spite of me not realizing that I was trying to check into the wrong airline, I soon made my flight and was off to New York. I was booked into a different airline than the rest of our cast (my ticket was evidently booked last) so I spent the flight listening to the new Wilco album (“Sky Blue Sky”) and dozing. Both activities which were highly enjoyable. We all touched down in LaGuardia airport, got ourselves together, and hopped another van to downtown Manhattan, where waited the docks, the ship, and our destinies. Mostly just the ship.

The entire time driving through Manhattan, I had a huge stupid grin on my face. It is no stretch to say that I’ve wanted to visit New York ever since I was a small child, and this was the first time I’d ever been there. I kept staring up at buildings for miles and miles, and wished I could just tuck-and-roll out of the van and live there (my plan was later revealed to be deeply flawed).



There’s a spot in downtown Toronto, near Bay and Front St, where if you look up at a certain angle, the buildings block out all the sky around the area, and it looks like you could be in downtown New York. That experience in Toronto is now ruined for me.

We drove for about 30 minutes (NYC isn’t the greatest driving town, as I’m sure you’re aware). And then, we saw it: our floating home away from home for the next few months. The ship is called the Norwegian Spirit, part of the Norwegian Cruise Lines fleet. The thing is, to say it plainly, stupidly large. Like, hilariously large.



The first thing I did once we were out of the cab was get a picture taken with some genuine New York Police Officers. I am an enormous dork. The cops both had these awesome, thick, “extras from Spider-Man 3” accents, and it wasn’t until I was halfway done talking to them that I realized I was subconsciously imitating them. It’s a weird (and potentially dangerous) habit that I have.



The next few hours were taken up with us getting on the ship, getting our key cards, dropping our luggage off, all that usual stuff. I’m currently sharing a cabin with Derek, which is pretty alright since we brought about 50 DVD’s between us. The room is nice, but pretty tiny (considering that there’s 2 dudes in it). We also don’t have a window, since we’re on the inside of the ship. It’s completely pitch-dark when the lights are out, which will be great for sleeping off hangovers, but bad for waking up before noon.



We were some of the first people on the ship, so we took advantage and went to the buffet before anyone else. The main buffet is a restaurant called Raffles (dunno why), and the food was pretty good. Lots of fresh Caesar Salad, Chicken Masala, and some kind of delicious chilled banana soup. And all of it free! FREE! Being free made it taste like, 10 times better. After that, the ship set sail out of the harbour, past the Statue of Liberty. So I made like a good tourist and took a bunch of pictures.







Later that day we attended a mandatory safety lecture down in the crew section. We had to wait about half an hour for it to start, and I kind of fell asleep and drooled on my desk. But they showed us around the ship, demonstrating the water-tight flood doors, the free condoms in the doctor’s office, and the water cannon which has supposedly been used to repel Asian pirates. I’ll believe that when we’re boarded. And now the spiffy part: we got to leave the safety lecture early. See, the weird part of being on this ship as Second City cast is we’re not really crew, but not really passengers. We exist in this weird grey area in the middle, where we get almost all the privileges of passengers PLUS all the extra perks of being crew, with almost none of the drawbacks (not unlike Wesley Snipes’ half-human/ half-vampire character in “Blade”). As a result I’m told that many of the crew and other performers resent us, but I can honestly say I haven’t experienced any of that thus far (though for the record, I am also incredibly naïve).

The next thing on our exploration was to check out the theatres we’ll be performing in. There are two: The Stardust Theatre (where we do our 50 minute “Best Of” scripted show), and the Galaxy of the Stars (where we do our 30 minute “Scriptless” improv show). Yes, I am aware that those names are pretty ridiculous. The Stardust is apparently a 100-seat theatre, where we have to wear wireless headset mikes in order to be heard at all. The stage is ENOURMOUS, and we barely use any of it. The Improvised show we do is in more of a bar/ lounge, and we use handheld mikes, which is pretty lame, but better than nothing.



So the first night and next day were pretty uneventful. We ate more free food, the coffee onboard is terrible, we rehearsed for 6 hours the next day, and we had a nice sit down dinner the next night in one of the ship’s nicer restaurants, Windows. It’s at the back of the ship (or “stern”, in nautical terms), and has enormous 2-storey windows that look out on the ocean. This was one of our first meals where we weren’t on a time schedule, so we took this time to get to know each other. I mentioned in my last entry that I would talk about our director, Matt Hovde. He is the director of the current Mainstage revue at the Second City Chicago, “Between Barack and a Hard Place”. We saw it in Chicago, and I think it’s an excellent show. Really smart, topical material, with some great human scenes. So we knew we were in good hands. Matt is from... somewhere American... and went to College at a Christian School in Texas (in spite of his not being particularly religious). At dinner he told us the story about his first day in Chicago. It’s a long and nifty story, but it pretty much involves Matt coming to Chicago knowing nobody, and (through a series of flukes) by the end of his first day having drinks with the entire Second City Mainstage cast (including director Mick Napier, Rachel Dratch, and Tina Fey). Some more fun facts about Matt:

- Another big video game fan.
- Has (supposedly) never drank or smoked anything in his life.
- Has a black belt in karate.
- In high school, he compiled an inventoried video-tape collection of every episode of the British “Whose Line Is It Anyway”.
- Apparently drunk American tourists think he and I look interchangeable.
- Enjoys ice cream.
- He’s a funny, really nice cat.



So as you’ve probably noticed, I’m kind of pacing myself on this blog. This entry only takes us up to June 3rd, in spite of the fact that I’m writing it 6 days later. I figure if I write everything all at once, I’ll have nothing to talk about once we’re hitting the same ports every week. So stay tuned friends and Mom: next week, I shall regale you with sea-tales of our first shows, our first port stops, and my massive, massive sunburn. G’night!