I read in the Trib the other day that Celebrity Cruise Lines is booking three “cartoon cruises†featuring New Yorker cartoonists Sam Gross, George Booth, Jack Ziegler and others.
I’m not sure exactly what these cruises will entail, and writer Jay Boyar offers no real specifics, but it’s an interesting, if expensive, way to connect with cartoonists.
(Note – I’m offering paddleboat rides with me for significantly less money.)
But the whole cruise ship angle got me thinking about my younger days as a professional trombonist, or as I liked to put it, “sackbut for hire!â€
I played for various cruise lines for about 2-1/2 years. I spent a summer cruising around Alaska, about a year in and around San Juan, and I’ve been to the Bahamas somewhere around 120 times.
Musicians generally worked about 2-3 hours a day and the rest of your time was yours. Sure, you never got a day off, and the accommodations were cramped, but all in all, not a bad way to spend one’s youth.
Anyway, I crawled up into some boxes in the garage and pulled out some photos of the artist as a young musician. Check them out in my photo album on the left sidebar.