Cheese, Splotch and Elephants on a Ship of Fools

The bottles stand as empty

as they were filled before

Time there was and plenty, but from that cup no more

Though I could not caution all

I still might warn a few:

Don't lend your hand to raise no flag

atop no ship of fools

Ship of fools on a cruel sea

Ship of fools sail away from me

It was later than I thought

when I first believed you

now I cannot share your laughter

Ship of Fools (words - Robert Hunter)

At the time I started writing this I was half way through it. The light was at the end of the tunnel. I can now say I have been on a cruise and I can safely say it has lived down to all of my expectations. I am concerned now about the human race. If human beings can actually desire to pay to be on one of these massive cheesy boats and look forward to the cruise experience, spend their hard earned money on this type of experience, than I think Frank Zappa is correct when he says there is absolutely no hope for humanity. It is nice though to see during the life boat drill that the cruise line is so concerned about the environment to ask people not to throw their trash overboard. Never mind the thousands of tons of carbon put out into the atmosphere from the tons of fuel used up, just don't throw a can of soda pop in the water because a fish already choking from the fuel spilled on the water might be hurt. How conscientious. And speaking of pollution, I think we now deserve the full effect of global warming. Send in the hurricanes, tornadoes, floods - you name it - our species is so completely pathetic that I now realize we don't deserve to be on this planet. Cockroaches - take over - it's all yours - you can have it.

Our family has done well. Nobody killed or physically attacked one another. No instead we split off into our respective camps and pretty much did a good job of avoiding each other, or keeping contact to the bare obligatory minimum. At the time I started on this writing, I may have exchanged about 5 sentences with one of my brothers, and on my way to 10 at most. We did manage a full on conversation about the last full day. There were several elephants in the room that members of our family were all doing a great job of pretending to avoid seeing. So many elephants that they were all on the verge of suffocating each other. You can't come out and say look at the elephant because then the classic reply is "what elephant?". I used to, but now I've learned. I observe all the elephants, so close they are practically shitting on my face, and act like they aren't there. It ends up for the best that way. My laptop finally crashed - there was no technical reason - but I am convinced it just simply could no longer handle the weight of the elephants one moment longer. Our family is like a bunch of magnets that basically repel each other in different segments. We have done a great job of staying the course. This has been the greatest union/non-re-union ever conceived by the Jehovah like God who arranged this. Thanks Jehovah. I don't know how Jehovah did not have a heart attack with all of the neurotic attempts to control and orchestrate this entire endeavor. Some never learn that the more they try to take control the more out of control everything becomes. Maybe that's why he was shaking so much. And he thinks I am the one messed up in the head. I also see the dark, ugly, hateful rage in all members of the family - including yours truly - to be something like a Medusa that you cannot look directly in the eye. Most of us drank excessively to avoid looking at this Medusa. As for me, I minimized contact - and eye contact especially.

When you walk onto the ship before anything happens, after you have cleared all the procedures to show you are really not Juan Jose trying to smuggle into or out of the glorious U S of A, the first thing you notice is a stale musty smell in the middle of the ship. It kind of seems like someone has ripped an enormous mold encrusted disgusting fart, and to make up for it they have sprayed a whole bunch of odor remover, but the odor doesn't quite go away. The fart is so odorous and strong, that maybe the farter died in the process, because it also smells like someone has just died. All the reason to crank up the deodorizer, but the smell of the dead farter never quite goes away. After a while you kind of get used to the smell - almost - well maybe - not quite. And then the cheese attacks from all directions. It is so overwhelming you almost can't quite take it in. It is beyond Godlike. You almost have to bow down to it. And then there is a constant sensation of having a phallic like object stuck up your butt, and no matter how much you try to avoid the sensation, you can' t get rid of it. BOHICA - bend over, here it comes again - courtesy of a caller of the Jim Rome show. Where to start. Well - let's see - how about the music. You are greeted by a cheesy synthesizer and a lady trying to sound Latin - to go with theme of heading down to lovely Ensenada. Other groups perform completely watered down Reggae versions of Everything's Going to be All Right and Margaritaville out by the pool, while quite appropriately people are getting wasted "wasting away" - drinking their sun exposed asses off and having the party of their lives. It seems like everyone on the boat is engaged in constant sexual activity - all except myself - unless self-gratification counts for anything.

Let's hear it for the food. It is a luxury experience as described by the Jehovah who arranged the gathering. Let me try to describe the food. Imagine being in a futuristic space ship where magically you can have anything you want - all you do is tell the computer. And then SPLOTCH - out it comes out of a little faucet - but it is a just a couple chromosomes away from what it is supposed to be. SPLOTCH - give me a steak. But instead out comes a shoe - with about the same texture and consistency. Luxury dining at its finest. The orange juice is delicious too - imagine a can of left over concentrate that has been in the refrigerator for two straight weeks, and then so much water is added to it that it almost is a stretch to say an orange ever gave birth to it to begin with. OJ on the house - drink as much as you want. Anything else - cough up the money - because if you don't feel like lemonade, iced tea, OJ, or mutated apple juice - its gonna cost ya. I will say the food improved toward the end, and that quality was definitely better away from the taste bud Jammer cafe buffet. The coke and bottle of water they kindly place in your room - boom - two bucks each you are told - and that is after you have already downed a couple of them. Toilet paper is complimentary - at least for the time being - though I am sure that is subject to change. I was almost afraid to wipe my ass. It seems like just about everything I ate at the buffet was a SPLOTCH version of something it was supposed to be, mutated away and just could not arrive and ended up in a bland wanna be version of what it was and never quite arrived. But there was plenty of food - eat all you want. Eat up - the space aliens want you fed well so they can eat you for dinner - ala TO SERVE MAN - a Twilight Zone episode. The way we were herded into the muggy kitchen at the beginning, I almost felt like they were getting ready to round us up for a mass execution and throw us into the gas chamber or shoot us once it was done. And eat up - as much as you can - stuff your face - if you can't just throw it away - never mind the beggars rotting away in the Baja town awaiting that would sell their souls to even get a chance to eat the McFood that you have the luxury of eating all you want of - if that is grammatically correct - if not - well - oh well. But seeing it was a short little McCruise to begin with that was okay. I am not complaining though. Even a short cruise was far too long for me.

The sleeping arrangements are like Sting's "packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes" you almost bump your head on the ceiling on the bunk level as it appears the residents of the adjacent sardine units are all loudly screwing the daylights out of each other and bumping into your box on the way. The constant motion of the waves provides the sensation of a constant feeling of nausea that never quite goes away as your mind plays trick on you for your close to near sleepless night to welcome you aboard to the cabin. I had one decent night of sleep. The last night I was awakened to the sound of a drunken female lush singing that her friend Ashley never takes it from behind. Being back home now, I thank God constantly I am no longer in that sardine box, and I don't have to pay for a drink of water from a bottle. The little things we take for granted in life...

And the crew was so friendly - good morning - good morning - good morning - to the point you want to go like the dude in AIRPLANE - who starts punching everyone in the face who comes across his path. Shut the hell up - just let me enjoy my God Dam good morning without telling me how f-ing good it is. Shut up - but the cheese continues - the cheesy sounds of the crew telling you the latest cheesy event coming up, or the waiter dancing away to the cheesy disco music that they are dancing to as the "meal" comes to an end. So much cheese - it comes from all directions - there is no way to avoid it, so all you can do is surrender. For the last time, I don't give a flying rat's ass about how much is in the bingo jackpot. Find another way to take my money - you have found plenty already - and I wasn't even the Jehovah funding most of this thing.

But - there is a cloud behind the silver lining. I can now say I have survived a cruise - once I made it to the finish line - and 3 days seemed like 3 years. It was nice - kind of - to see some elements of the family - especially the ones I could actually have a somewhat honest conversation with, the ones who are willing to open up a little and not constantly try to act like the elephant isn't in the room, or that the thing they just told you five minutes ago does not completely contradict what they have been telling you for the last year(s) in Orwellian double speak. And I have had some very spiritual experiences here, amazingly enough. The guitar sessions under the lifeboats, where I could get away from everyone and I probably spent a good 3-4 or so hours a day on average were particularly inspiring, especially at the sunrise and sunset portions of the day. An oriental lady doing what looked like Tai Chi did some weird chant while I was singing Misfits by Ray Davies and smiled at me - it was somewhat bizarre but nice. It was fitting to finally record "Everything is Cheese" on such a cheesy venue - and it is soon to show up on You Tube. I had a nice talk and singing session with my brother Dan there, even if I may not see or hear from him for another decade or so - it was still pleasant and I take that with no expectations of any kind for the future. That's the way it is with my family - now you see them and now you don't. Many times we flat out avoided each other. My daughter couldn't understand why. She was baffled by the lack of interaction. My wife was astounded by this, especially at the beginning when we separated off to our cabins, and at the end when we were dumped at the airport almost 7 hours before the flight without an invitation to hang out or come to the house. I was constantly reminded of how much warmer her family is. My daughter is now heartbroken that the family she was so close to for a few days is now long gone and makes absolutely no effort to stay in touch with her or follow through with the empty promises to come and see her. But for me - I have no expectations, and that is why I didn't feel the same empty misery I felt at our last gathering in Mammoth Lakes, even if that venue was much easier to take physically. (For the next gathering if one is proposed I suggest either an Alaska Iditarod - we all get our own dogs, or a re-enactment of Dan's book hiking across the Pacific Crest Trail, with a detour over Donner where we can all eat each other for dinner). I have come to terms with what I would like our family to be as opposed to the clear reality of the distant being that it is, because I have made my efforts to bring us closer and now I resign myself to the fact that it can only be what it is. Nothing more or less. I have pretty much come to accept what it is - it is kind of like a ghost family - it no longer seems real to me. It is clear after all the demons passed through me a year and a half from the time I found out about it, all the way up to the days before, where I confronted some major emotional baggage on the way, that the most difficult part was all of the mind fucking leading up to the cruise. The actual cruise, though not particularly pleasant, was kind of anti-climactic. No one fought - my wife and mother in law did not come to blows, we all smiled and took the family photo - which I couldn't bring myself to smile for but I endured anyways. We are not going to kill each other over the $250.00 jackpot of an inheritance that will be left for us, but we will never exactly be in love with each other. That's okay. I just for now - thank God constantly that this ordeal is over and I am back - home sweet home - where I belong.

As a little follow up post script - if it sounds like I am completely over this - I'm not. Just moved a little closer but not there - that's why I avoid family gatherings because at some point the depression inevitably kicks in. I didn't get thoroughly depressed about this during the actual journey - which is a plus, but it is slowly creeping in now the more it all starts to slowly sink in - how completely impossibly hopeless the whole situation is with my family relations. So no - I have not risen above this by any stretch. Many demons still remain. To quote the author originally cited at the beginning of this:

Any which way you are tempted to roam

It's a long long long long long long way

Way to go home