Greetings everyone. As all of you should know by know I have started a new job playing drums for [removed for now]. It’s been two weeks now and it has been more than just a little bit crazy. My flight down to Jacksonville, Florida was uneventful except for US Airways didn’t lose any of my luggage.  I suppose that is an event in itself. However, [cruise company] did manage to lose 2 of my bags between the cruise terminal and the boat. The boat is about 75 feet away from the terminal. The bags lost contained all the clothes I wasn’t wearing as well as my laptop, cell phone charger, headphones, drum sticks, toiletries and other important items. If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have checked the smaller bag, but my bag had no distance to cover to get to me and I would not have tipped the baggage handlers. Not having sticks made me unable to rehearse at first, but the lounge band drummer loaned me some sticks which allowed me to get through a jazz set and the “welcome aboard” show as well as everything else for the next 2 cruises. We’ll talk about playing later.  First, the tale of my missing bags.

My large suitcase with my clothes showed up the first night which meant that at least I would have clean clothes for the duration of the trip. However, it showed up in unclaimed passenger luggage by the information desk and my giant 6” diameter lime green tag with heavy duty button clasps had been removed. My small bag remained missing. The info desk’s remedy was for me to file a missing bag report which is similar to stapling fliers to telephone poles saying “lost dog – has four legs and fur.” At the conclusion of the first cruise, I called my parents with my remaining 30 minutes of cell phone battery to quickly tell them about my predicament. This left me with a lot of voice mails. So I bought a 2 hour internet card for $20 to have some means of communication and a few days later I got an email from Dad saying that a UPS store in Jacksonville had my bag. Remember, the boat was 75 feet away. The UPS store is 13 miles away. If the magician on board could do tricks like that maybe people wouldn’t walk out during his show. Anyways, it cost me a $50 cab ride and a $25 holding fee that I’m going to try to pin on [asshole corporation] to get my stuff but I now have all of it. Everything was still in the bag and still functions properly.  All things considered I feel pretty fortunate.

1) Hold my hand…you’ll be hooked.

2) Yar, you put the CURVY in SCURVY!

3a) Have you seen my booty? Can I see yours?

3b) Have you seen my booty? Do you want to?

4) My peg leg’s not the only wood I’ve got.

5) Walking the plank is so dangerous…why don’t you just sit on it and wiggle around a little.

6) How do you feel about having your poop deck swabbed?

7) My pirate ship is long hard and full of seamen. You look like a suitable port.

I could pull a Carlos Mencia and take credit for this one, but I won’t.  This is the one that inspired us to come up with our own lines.

8 ) If you were a pirate would you put your parrot on this shoulder (touch near shoulder) or this shoulder? (put your arm around target)

and if you don’t like pick up lines and prefer to be direct try this one

9) I’m a pirate! Wanna screw?

If used correctly there is a very slim excellent chance that your night can turn out like this

Rope Burn.

When I landed a job on a cruise ship in the Bahamas, many of my friends told me to watch out for Somali pirates. I appreciated their concern for my well being but my concern was now focused on their ignorance of geography.

Not surprisingly, I completed my boat trip free from pirate attack and I am still better than my friends at geography. However, most of them have real jobs so…I guess we’ll call it even.