Fifty Nifty United States

Aloha! Mahalo! And all that other island jargon I keep hearing. We’re in Hawaii! This officially marks the end of a quest. I have now visited ALL 50 STATES. Lame? Perhaps. But…exciting nonetheless. AND...to top it all off....Alaska was the 49th and Hawaii was the 50th state admitted to the union and they were the 49th and 50th states I visited. Is this interesting to anyone but me? Doubtful.

Hawaii has been really nice. We arrived first in Hilo the other day, and, of course…it was pouring down rain. So we just went to Wal-Mart to get a quick fix of American commercialism and some marshmallow PEEPS and then we ate at a place called Ken’s Pancake House.

Then yesterday we got to Honolulu. It’s gorgeous here! Just like you’d imagine. So…we thought it would be fun to go skydiving here cause it would be great scenery. We were definitely NOT disappointed. The jump was amazing. I’ve jumped twice before, but this was definitely the best. We were up on the North Shore, which is where all the big waves are, so the view of the ocean was stunning. My favorite part was that I got to jump THROUGH a cloud! It was so weird. It was a beautiful day, but there were some clouds in the sky. As we reached our high altitude, we were above some of the clouds and they were all just cool and billowy underneath us. So….we headed out. The freefall was my favorite part, as it has been in the past. Then, as I saw us approaching the cloud I got all excited, then when we hit it, it suddenly got really cold and wet. I guess I knew from my studies of clouds in the Omnibus smart kid program in Mrs. Haberman’s class in second grade, I knew clouds were made of water, but it was so strange nonetheless. Definitely an unforgettable experience. And…I got some great pics.


















After my chute opened, the guy on my back said, “Uh oh…their line is twisted.” He was referring to one of my friends that I jumped with. They just sort of kept plummeting past me with their parachute out, but it wasn’t catching any air. It was scary. Then, finally, as I’m trying to figure out if all of Anne-Marie’s remains will fit into my backpack to take her back to the ship, her chute finally opened. When we met on the ground, I was so happy to see her. Of course at that point she had no idea something had gone wrong. I guess parachute failure is on a “need to know” sort of basis. So she was freaked out when I told her what had happened. But in the end, all is well in the world and she’s left with a good story to tell.

So…then we got back to the ship and got cleaned up and decided we should have a nice dinner to celebrate our last great adventure together. So, Jimmy and Anne-Marie and I put on our Sunday best and headed to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. I know it’s a chain and all, but it really is crazy tasty. As you all know, being a Nebraska boy at heart, I’m a complete carnivore and love my steak. Well…prior to this, the best steak I’d had in the past was at the Ruth’s Chris in Minneapolis. That has now been surpassed. I generally believe that Nebraska beef is the best. However…Hawaii is supposed to have great beef as well because of the volcanic nutrients in the soil that the grass grows in that the cows eat. Well…it is true. Jimmy and I got the giant porterhouse for two. It was 40 ounces and it was RIDICULOUS! It was about 3 inches thick and took up the whole plate. It was a little Fred Flintstoney. It was so thick that the waiter said that the top half of the steak was a ribeye and the lower half was a filet. So it was soft like a filet, but was marbley and tasty like a ribeye. We finished every last bit, then Jimmy chewed the bone for 20 minutes. We finished it all off with my favorite molten chocolate desert and a dollar movie next door. The Brits had never heard of a dollar movie. They were shocked. Anne-Marie kept saying….”It’s really only a dollar?” It is, indeed, Anne-Marie…. it is indeed.






So…tomorrow we’re in Lahaina and the Brits and I have rented a car and we’re going to just head out and explore. Should be a good time. We wanted to find a luau, but they were all booked, so…just us and the car and the island. I feel like Gilligan. Actually….Jimmy would be Gilligan. I’m more like the professor. Only I hope I’m aging better. Yikes.

12 more days til I’m home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here Fishy Fishy

Wow...I can't believe it has been over a month since my last blog. We're in the home stretch of our contract, so I've been trying to squeeze in all the things I meant to do. Here's the highlights.

I finally go the chance to do my Guest Entertainer set with the orchestra. It went GREAT. Rather than posting the video here, just check out the link on my website.

www.johnmichaelzuerlein.com/pages/cabaret.html

It was fun doing material that I got to choose. It was also nice not having to sing wearing spandex or sequins.

Our last trip to Sydney was AMAZING. One day I was walking through the botanical gardens with my friend Rob. Then, out of nowhere we came upon a few cockatoos. Apparently they just roam free there. So...we went to take some pictures of them when suddenly like 50 of them showed up. It was a little disconcerting (especially when they all decided to attack at once) but I ended up with some great photos, though I did feel a little like Tippy Hedron.



I went to a wonderful animal sanctuary where I got to play with kangaroos! They were so much fun. I also got to take some pics with some koalas. They look totally fake in the pictures, but they were alive. One of them shared some eucalyptus with me. That was nice of him. As I got close to him, the handler warned...."Watch your face!" That has become my new catch phrase. Here's some pics.






Some of our remaining ports in New Zealand were a little rainy, but our last day in Tauranga was beautiful. It was nice to have a great day at the beach before heading into on million days at sea with no land. Also, while I was in Tauranga, I purchased a bottle of Absinthe to send home. You can’t buy it in the states. When we were in Sydney at a bar we had these crazy shots called “Fairy Dust” which were lit on fire and had sparks jumping out of the flames. VERY cool. Anyway….Absinthe used to have some sort of hallucinogenic quality when mixed with certain things, so it was made illegal in the States. The rest of the world is apparently more open minded. So…I’ll have a bottle to share with my friends back home. It’s kind of funny because it says specifically on the bottle that you are not to drink it neat and that it must be mixed with something. Good times!

After Tauranga, NZ, we had 4 sea days before we hit Tahiti. This is sort of when everything went awry. Pretty much everyone in the cast got the flu to varying degrees. I thought I was going just have the cough because that’s how it started. BOY, was I wrong.

I woke up from my nap with a little tickle in my throat. Good times. The next day, I woke up with a hacking cough.
Headache and achy all day, but had a show that night and had to perform. Two dancers went down mid=show from the same symptoms, but singers are more noticeably missed when they leave stage.

So....Went to bed that night. Didn't sleep a wink. Coughing and headache and a ridiculous fever. So...the next morning I go to the doctor. They open at 8am. I got there at 20 minutes to 8 so I'd be first. I'm sitting there by the door slowly getting hotter and hotter and hotter. At 5 minutes to 8 I start banging on the doorcause I feel like I'm gonna pass out. Of course no one answered because they're idiots. So I decided I should probably lie down on the ground. Of course the fucking idiot waiters who were by now sitting with me said and did nothing. So I'm laying there with sweat literally pouring off my face and
collecting in a pool beneath me and then my friend Jimmy who was sickthe day before came up for a follow up visit. I told him to get the doctor and just as I did, I passed out. I woke up to them draggingme into the medical center where they sat me in a chair. I kept saying...I'm gonna pass out again, I'm gonna pass out again and they're asking me all kinds of questions and I just wanted to puke.

So....they finally took me to a bed and I laid down just drenched. So they gave me a HORRIFICALLY painful shot in the ass to break my fever. Turns out....it was 104 degrees. Hello? So finally my fever broke and then I was freezing. So...the kept me there for 4 hours and put me on an IV and everything. It was awful. So....after 4 hours, my fever was down to 100 at which point I went back to my cabin. I haven't had the flu in YEARS. It sucks. So luckily I didn't have a show for 5 days, so I was hopeful I would get better.

Flash forward to the night of the next show and I’m still hacking up a lung. Luckily, we had recorded a “sick track” of me for that show, so I got to lip sync the whole thing. Which….if you’ve never done it….makes you feel like a TOTAL ass. Truth be told, it’s so loud in there that past the first row, you don’t’ get any ambient sound anyway, so nobody could really tell. But…I felt stupid nonetheless.

So I’ve been feeling better, but can’t shake that cough.

Then we got to Tahiti! It was supposed to be a beautiful day of lying on the beach. Wah wah. Poured rain all day. So….Jimmy and Anne-Marie and I just walked around a bit and ended up at McDonald’s. Now…mind you…while the beaches of Tahiti are amazing, the city part is equally disgusting. Reminded me a lot of Panama, actually, only not as many transsexual hookers. But I digress. So…there I was sitting at McDonald’s enjoying my $12 “Value” meal, just sort of staring off into the parking lot. Then, out of nowhere, around the corner come the two dirty, ugly chickens. CHICKENS! Real live chickens just wandering around. Needless to say this effectively put an end to any appetite I had. I promptly gathered my umbrella and went back to the ship to hope for a better day.

The next day was Bora Bora and I had high hopes. It is said to be the most beautiful place on the planet. Let me tell you…..IT IS! I had one of the greatest days of my life. Honestly. Definitely in the Top 3. I haven't gotten all the pics back yet, so I'll post those when I do.

The Brits and I and a few other crew members went on this amazing excursion. It started out in this boat with this crazy local guy who was wearing this tiny little sarong thing playing his little Bora Bora guitar while driving the boat. The was was unbelieveably blue and clear. It was a little overcast, but everything was so amazingly beautiful it didn’t matter. Plus…had it been any sunnier, we would’ve fried, so it’s good it wasn’t.

We started off at this area of the sea that had lots of Stingrays. Now I’d been to Stingray City in Grand Cayman before, so I kind of knew what to expect. They’re such amazing creatures. Very soft and rubbery and slimy. They were a lot of fun to swim with and play with. I, apparently, had better luck with them than Steve Irwin.

THEN…we went to swim with sharks. From the way it was described to me, I thought there would be some fish and a few sharks here and there and that they wouldn’t be very big. Um….not so much. We get to the spot where the sharks swim. I’m not sure what kind they are, but apparently they don’t usually eat people. So…I jump in with my snorkel gear and am completely dumbfounded. They sharks were everywhere! There were lots of other types of fish, too, but there were probably 50 sharks or so. And they were big! Not like Jaws or anything, but many of them were definitely bigger than me. It was very peaceful the way they move. But every once in a while one would head straight towards me and it would get really freaky and then suddenly it would veer off right before it got to me. It was a little disconcerting to be circled by sharks. They were so close, I could reach out and pet them as they went by me. It took me a while to get up the nerve to do that, but once I did, it was SO COOL. I never thought I’d pet a shark in the wild. Amazing.

To top off the day, we went to a big choral reef and did some more snorkeling. I have to say that that was by far the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. There were THOUSANDS of fish. I felt as though I’d just dropped into an aquarium. I used to have fish when I was a kid and I’d always go to the pet shop and the amazing colorful fish were always like $50, so I always ended up with a five cent goldfish in a bag. All the fish I’d seen as a kid were now EVERYWHERE. No matter where you looked everything was beautiful. Then...just as we were about to head back to the boat, we spotted a huge Moray eel. It was like 6 feet long. Beautiful and creepy as hell. It’s true when they say that you don’t’ see colors like that in real life. It was truly an unbelieveable experience.









WOW! What a month. We now have a couple more sea days, then we have a week or so in Hawaii. Once we hit land there I will have officially visited ALL 50 STATES! Yea! Seems kind of nerdy, but it’s kind of a fun milestone to have accomplished.

So….hopefully my cough will subside enough to get through the show in a couple days. In the meantime….I’m working on some web design stuff and enjoying hours and hours of the Golden Girls. Thank God for DVD’s on sea days.

On Sunday we're going skydiving in Hawaii. On Monday, the new cast arrives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Peace out.

Sunny Side Up

Did I mention I went to the beach yesterday? Pass the aloe please.

Monkey. Sea Monkey. Do.

FINALLY...a lovely day to spend at the beach. We are in Tauranga, NZ today and it a great day out. Sunny and warm with a nice breeze and lots of beautiful New Zealanders walking about. Speaking of...did you know it's all the rage down here to not wear shoes? I don't just mean at the beach and stuff. Everywhere. Restaurants, grocery stores. No Shirt? No Shoes? No Problem. I, of course, hate being barefoot anywhere that isn't carpeted, but that's just one of my own neurosis. Or..."quirks" as I like to call them. So I don't like water on my face. So I don't like anything brewed. So I like all things banana and strawberry flavored except bananas and strawberries. So sue me.

Today I went with the Brits down to the beach. It was great. On the way there we passed by this amazing old tree that I played on for a while. Sometimes being a monkey is fun.




The beach was incredible. Very warm and the water was just right. If only they could do something about all the children running around, it would've been perfect. Being in the waves was tons of fun. That is, of course, until Jimmy attacked me with a giant chunk of seaweed. I really need some of those water shoes.



We had our Dance Around The World show last night. it's our classical show. I think it's a great show, but I HATE doing it. Way too much high singing. The audiences really liked it and we got a standing ovation which was cool because apparently they don't do them down here. It was nice. I met a guy on the cruise this week from Kansas City. It was fun to talk to someone about back home. He had a weird eye, though, so we have nicknamed him Googly.

That's it. Off to work on some music. I'm doing my set with the ship orchestra on Thursday so I need to work on some witty banter. Any ideas?

A Cock in a Frock on a Rock

Well...this week has been a week of Australian theatre. Saw two shows. In Sydney, we went to see Billy Elliot the Musical. For those who don't know....Billy Elliot is my most favoritest movie of all time. If you haven't seen it...it's the story of a young boy who is the son of a coal miner in northern England and he discovers an exceptional talent for dance which allows him to escape the small town life. Sort of Coal Miner's Daughter meets Riverdance. Sort of. But not really. Anyway...the show was really great, but the boy was AMAZING! It's amazing to me that there are 13 year olds with that much talent. God knows I was not at my prime at 13. To give you an idea...



Nothing says hot like a turquoise shaker sweater and braces.

But I digress. The show was wonderful.

Next, in Melbourne, we saw Priscilla, Queen of the Desert...the Musical. It was CRAZY! It was just like the film, only about 10 times more extravagant. The costumes were amazing, the singers and dancers were great, and the set was RIDICULOUS! There was a full size bus onstage and they had people and things flying all over the place. It was a ton of fun.

Other than that, not too much else going on. We had the roughest seas I've ever experienced the other night. We ended up having to cancel our show it was so bad. We were all backstage getting ready, and the ship was literally moving so much that people were being tossed against walls and such. Not so much fun to dance to, so they cancelled. YEA!

Next cruise I will be doing a short Guest Entertainer set with the Celebrity Orchestra. I'm pretty excited about that. 20 minutes of material of my choosing. It's nice to get to sing songs you really want to sing rather than things you don't like singing. Granada anyone?

That's it for now. We're in Tasmania today and I'm off to find something yummy for lunch. Thai perhaps?

Later!

You Look Just Like Gomer Pyle

Is that really something you should tell someone? Even if you think it? Well....I heard it every day when I was doing Forever Plaid. I haven't heard it in like 6 years though. Then....out of nowhere. BAM! During the degreet after our Broadway show last night this woman came up and said "You look just like Gomer Pyle". I wanted to punch her in the face, but I thought it would be better to keep my job, so I just gave her a dirty look and wished evil things on her. Gomer Pyle indeed.

Okay...maybe just a little.

You know that feeling you get when you're late for a flight and you're running to catch it? Well....that's what I felt today as Gary (the other singer) and I were running to catch the boat before it left Melbourne. We had spent the day at an animal sanctuary with Gary's friend Ben seeing interesting things like koala bears and kangaroos and emus and dingos.








It was fun. But because the Australian Open was going on today, the traffic was crazy. So...I had visions of throwing my bag to Gary as I make a last ditch effort to leap off the pier to get on the ship as it sailed away. Alas...we were late for our all aboard, but the ship hadn't left yet. So we made it. Yea! Missing the ship is no fun. You are required to find your own way to the next port that the ship stops in at which point you are promptly fired and sent home. Wah wah. Anyway....back on board safe and sound.

It has just occured to me that I haven't blogged in a really long time!

A few days after Christmas, we had a crew Christmas dinner where there were foods from all different places made. That was fun. The Brits in the cast gave us all Christmas Crackers which had little paper crowns in them.




Apparently it's all the rage in England and they get them every Christmas. Who knew?

New Year's on board was fun. This is a picture of my buds in the cast.



That's me, Jimmy, Gary, Anne-Marie and Vicki...or as I like to call us....the "Cool Kids". We did our shows and then we all got dressed up and went upstairs and had lots of really really REALLY shitty champagne (with the misnomer of "Celebrity's Finest") and ate very small food.



After all the festivities Gary and I went on a hunt to find food, so we raided all the kitchens and ended up stealing some baguettes from the bakery which turned out to be quite useful in our reenactment of a Star Wars light sabre fight and as band leader batons in our staging of Seventy Six Trombones that we performed on our way back to our cabins. Did I mention we had some champagne?



We also came across a huge bucket of chicken fat. I'm not sure why.



The night ended as most of my nights do here on the Mercury with a bottle of water and a little box of Fruit Loops. Since I've been weening myself off the Ambien, I didn't sleep a wink that night. And around 5:30am I realized that I had never watched the sunrise on the ship. Everyone has always said how cool it is, but as we all know, I'm not much of a morning person. Anyway...I went up and took some great photos and made a little movie. Have a look.




Since New Years, things have been a little rocky....both literally and figuratively. Heading westward from Auckland, New Zealand back to Australia, the seas have been VERY rocky. We ended up canceling our show the other night and then had to make it up last night. This cruise the audiences have been pretty lame and don't seem to like the shows very much. Oh well. I'll give them the same 70% I give every audience. :) There's been some illness in the cast, so we've been making contingency plans and that sort of thing. Good times.

New Zealand is BEAUTIFUL.



Everything is so lush and green and there are sheep EVERYWHERE. Yet...for some reason I haven't taken a picture of any. The architecture is really great, too. There is lots of intricate ironwork and some really cool masonry.




I could definitely live down here. That is...if a can of Coke didn't cost $3.00. No lie. Last week in Napier we went mini-golfing. Mini-golf in NZ is much prettier than the Putt-Putt back in Omaha.





In Tasmania, I saw a guy passed out at a coffee shop at like 10 in the morning with a half eaten cookie in his mouth and the chewed up portion on his shirt just outside his mouth. I hate it when I fall asleep mid cookie. Anyway....I thought it seemed like a Kodak moment.



That's about it for now. I've been putting together some band charts to do a set with the "Celebrity Orchestra" in the next few weeks. That should be fun.

We're on our way to Sydney now and will have three days there this Saturday through Monday. I'm hoping to see the stage version of Billy Elliott this weekend and I think on Monday a bunch of us are going to climb the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It's supposed to be amazing. I, personally, think it seems a little pricey, but I guess I probably won' t be back here any time soon, so I might as well do it while I have the chance. I'm sure I'll include some pictures of that adventure. And next time we're in Melbourne, I think we're going to go see the musical stage version of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. I imagine a gay time will be had by all.

Hope everyone back home is well and enjoying the snow. I'm sunburned. :)