Next

I have been working on a new format for my website, and I'm going to try to have it up by the end of the week. The pages are simplified, and I made an easier system for posting pictures. Look more more picture pages in the coming weeks. A lot of the older pages will stay the same.

I'm just finishing reading a biography on Frank Sinatra called "The Life." The book feels like a celebrity gossip column a lot of the time, only it's out of date. It's fun to read and find out how completely reckless a person can live and get away with it. I've been listening to a lot of old Sinatra records lately too, and I'm becoming a bigger fan. I like how he can be classy and sloppy at the same time.

My family is coming to visit me here, and I'm psyched about that. I've been slacking a bit on blog stories I know, but stay tuned and I promise I'll come up with something good.

Trucking

My new favorite rock band is the Drive by Truckers. Their songwriting is killer. It's very honest and very American. You should check them out if you haven't already.

As of yesterday, I been six weeks on this ship which is three laps around Cuba. Our itinerary repeats every two weeks, so I'm starting to get to know our ports of call better now. Key West and Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas are my favorite spots so far. I'm still not really sick anything we're doing but I can forsee the repetition wearing on my after a while. I have no news to report, besides that I'm excited for my family coming here to visit me in June. There is also a cast change in June which means a new group of singers and dancers in the production shows here. Nearly our whole band is also changing by the end of June. Hopefully it will help keep things fresh.

Tamed

I swam with dolphins yesterday. It was amazing. Our cruise director Kevin Noonan hooked up me and two other musicians with free VIP passes to Dolphin Cove which is a tourist attraction in Ocho Rios, Jamaica. We ate jerk-chicken, drank Jamaican rum and listened to great live music, but the best part was the dolphins.

The three of us and the guide went in the water with life preservers and played with a dolphin named Nina for about a half hour. The highlight of the experience was actually getting pulled through the water by the dolphin. Nina turned upside down, and we were told to hold on to her pectoral fins (her arms, kind of). Then she swam upside down and pulled us quickly through the water. It was incredible to be right next to such an amazing creature. I was in a good mood for the rest of the day.

At first I wondered if I should feel bad for these trained dolphins who are made to perform for hundreds of tourists every day. I don't feel bad for tamed dogs or horses. A tamed dolphin is more uncommon, but I don't think the animals are abused by their captivity any more than a pet forced to wear a leash. Dolphins live longer in captivity (up to 50 plus years) and their health is guarded. They probably have better health care than most Americans living in the wild.

My health care is provided by the ship, and come to think of it, I perform for hundreds of tourist every too. In exchange I get free food (often fish) and a place to stay just like the dolphin. I'm also not free to go wherever I want in the wild. Job equals tamed. That's it, I'm quitting. I hope I don't get eaten by a shark.

Number 8

People eventually stop counting little things, and start counting bigger things. For example I don't know how many days old I am. Parents eventually lose count of the number of months old their babies are. I imagine that if we all lived a thousand years, we'd eventually stop counting birthdays.

I'm now about one month into my experience here in the Caribbean. Our band is changing again as we are with a piano player again as of today, and without our new trombone player as of next week. The constant change calls for new tunes and new arrangements so it keeps you on your toes. I'm really learning a lot, and this band is great for my guitar chops.

I took a bunch of pictures of Half Moon Cay a few days ago, but I haven't managed to post them yet. Our ship internet connection is very slow, so I have to wait for a faster line at a port. I hope to update my website, www.cyberyaniv.com, some time soon as well.

Seventh Cruise

Yesterday was my favorite day so far performing here on the Carnival Imagination. Our band backed up the singer Yolanda Barber for the second time since I've been with the group. She sang a bunch of classic Motown like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan tunes. I was featured in a couple guitar solos, and I had a blast stepping up. Yolanda is working on putting together some new material, and I actually may help her with the transcriptions and arrangements for her new show. We're going to hopefully meet up today to go over some ideas.

Today we are in Half Moon Cay again. I'm going to sit in again with the Caribbean band this afternoon when they play on the island. Then tonight we have two production shows. Tomorrow we're in Nassau, and then we start a new cruise again in Miami on Saturday.

Also, I just bought a digital camera. I'm going to start posting pictures once I figure out the easiest way to do it and get on a faster connection. Till next time.

Wet Desert

Tomorrow I will be four weeks in to my experience here at sea, and I will have made two full laps of our circuit here south of Florida.

I spent some time today outside just staring at the open ocean. It was great to let my eyes relax and look at nothing but open water in every direction. The ocean is a lot like a desert. On the surface, there's very literally nothing there. It's just wide open inhospitable space. But looking across it clears your mind, like the desert or like a great snow storm in Colorado. It's different though. Here the air is a lot thicker, and it has a taste to it.

It's also a little too hot here. I've been sweating constantly for about a month now. Whenever I exercise, I drip like I'm leaking. I guess I'm getting used to the feeling of constant sweat, but I thought my body would adjust more quickly somehow. I guess there's nothing to really do about it though besides lots of laundry.

By the way here's my mailing address:

Carnival Imagination
ATTN: Yaniv Salzberg, Crew ID #415610
Entertainment Department / Showband Musician
P.O. Box 025658
Miami, FL 33102-5658

Sixth Cruise

I still haven't lost track of how many cruises I've been on so far, and that's a good thing. This cruise I have the duty of port-manning, which is a bummer. By law, a certain number of crew members must be on the ship at all times even when the ship is docked. Every 6 cruises or so, we are assigned port-manning which means that we can't leave the ship for that cruise. So I'm stuck on board, and I won't get to get off in Key West or Cozumel this time around. The next time I can get off the ship is next Monday in Miami before my fifth week here begins.

Yesterday, the highlight of my day was sitting in with the Caribbean band up on the open-air Lido deck. They are a four piece band who play reggae, calypso and other island music. Their guitar player, Kelvin from Dominica, let me play his Les Paul. Their rhythms are great, and I had a blast. I played mostly Bob Marley songs with them because those were the tunes we knew in common. The keyboard player Leechan told me to play more sharp, not meaning higher in pitch, but more short and precise to chop through the mix. They invited me come back an sit in again so I'm psyched. One funny thing about that band is that all their gear pretty much destroyed. Their stage is outside, so the sea air ages their equipment very quickly. The drummer cymbals and the bass players strings are literally green, and there's rust all over the place. They still sound good though.

I also wrote a new song yesterday. It's actually the first full song that I've finished since my CD release concert in January, which was a long time ago. Also, I finished some simple arrangements of some play-on tunes that our show band is going to play before in some coming cruises. Hopefully I'll gain some momentum and keep writing.

This afternoon, we have a band rehearsal to rework some tunes since as of this cruise we are without a trombone player. I think we're getting a new trombone player in a few weeks, but until then we have to change our repertoire. Now that we have a piano player and one less horn, I'm probably going to get to take a lot more guitar solos. I'm also hopefully going to start singing with the band this week once we fix our monitors.

I'll have a lot of down time on board since I'm port-manning. I try to write again over the next couple days.