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flying from one-nighter to one-nighter. I had friends! Not only that, but as I moved from ship to ship, a lot of those same people would appear. It was a community and I loved it.
I worked Holland America briefly before I got hired by Royal Viking Lines and it could be argued that their three ships, The Sea, The Sky and The Star, were the number one ships of that era.
I had a couple of major advantages over other comedians on those ships. One, I'd worked in bars for years, covering four hours a night. Also, I'd done all those concerts for PBS-TV, so I had lots of material. I could do three or four different shows on a cruise. Most comedy club or show acts had a solid 45 minutes and not much else.
Second, I'd worked in and around country clubs as a teenager and knew the clientele. We were dealing with wealthy older people and I knew the drill.
Better yet, the three ships were stationed in three different parts of the world. One was in Europe, one in Asia, and one in North and South America. As I was successful, I could work any of the ships so I would pick cruises that went to places I'd never been before. It was glorious, and a huge education.
Enough of that, it's time for random ship stories.
After Royal Viking I worked a lot on the Seabourn ships, which were very elegant and quite a bit smaller than normal cruise ships. Every stateroom was a suite and the original Seabourn Pride and Spirit only held 215 passengers. Because they were small, they bounced around more in rough seas and while I was a pretty good sailor I did get seasick when it got bad. In rough seas, the best place to be on a ship is down low in the middle of the ship. The worst is in the bow, because it's crashing into waves and bouncing a lot. On one ship I would always go to the show room, low and in the middle of the ship, and I would grab bread and crackers from the crew mess because they settle your stomach. If I went late at night there would be a Filipino stewardess there too and we would share bread and crackers. We didn't even talk, we just shared our misery.
One time on a Crystal cruise ship we were docked and they set up a basketball hoop on the tarmac next to the ship. The Filipino crew loved basketball and I did too, so we played. It was the one time on a basketball court where I was the tallest person out there and I felt like Kareem. Their strategy was to get the ball and drive to the hoop. There wasn't a lot of passing or outside shooting but they were quite good at driving into the paint. I did a lot of rebounding and trying to block shots and it was a great day.
In Madras, India, Walt Wagner and I were getting ready to go ashore. I can't remember what ship it was, but obviously not Seabourn with the piano-playing cruise director. We were standing on deck and noticed a bunch of really poor- looking guys with pedicabs--three-wheeled bicycles with a seat in the back. We