For Those Of You About to Rock Cruise, We Salute You

(This story originally appeared, in a slightly different form, in Radar Magazine.)

Getting naked with hundreds of people you've never met is something that sounds like a good idea in theory. But as it turns out, it's just kinda awkward and weird. Especially when it's 10am and you haven't had a lick of alcohol and you're on the deck of a cruise ship somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

The nudity itself isn't the real problem. It's the lead up. When you know that you're about to drop your bathrobe and share your naughty bits with the world, all sorts of paranoid thoughts flash through your head. You wonder if maybe you're the only one stupid enough to actually go through with this. Is everybody else really planning on exposing themselves to complete strangers? Maybe you missed a memo, and "naked" is just a code word for "flesh-toned swimming suit."

A strong breeze off the ocean has an amazing ability to circumvent even the most tightly-secured bathrobe and find its way to your genitals. If you're a guy, this can have an adverse effect on the size of your junk. Which is distressing if you're planning to share it with other people anytime soon. You consider slipping a hand inside your robe to give it a gentle tug, just to make sure you're "show ready".

KEEP ON READIN'! HECK, DO IT PANTLESS! WHO'S GONNA KNOW?

It's only day two of Ships & Dip, a five-day rock cruise headlined by Canadian popsmiths the Barenaked Ladies, and I'm already about to do something I know I'll regret. Not in a fun way or a "that was such a crazy trip, man" sort of way, but in a haunting, traumatizing way that could take years of therapy to undo. After all, we're not just here to get naked; we're here to have our photo taken. The shared trepidation has a calming effect on the crowd. It makes us feel a little less alone and vulnerable. We're convinced that if we choose our placement wisely, our shriveled and frightened reproductive organs will be obscured, just another pink blur in the vast panorama of naked flesh.

The nude portrait was the band's idea. It started at last year's cruise, when they invited guests to join them for a photo themed on the "barenaked" part of their name. To the band's surprise, hundreds of passengers showed up. This year, not counting me, there are 953 would-be nudists on the deck.

The air is filled with nervous tittering. From what I can gather, the mob is comprised of equal parts men and woman, young and old, physically semi-attractive and the reason why civilization insists on clothing. The most repeated phrase of the hour is, "I can't believe I'm doing this," followed by a nasally Fran Drescher laugh. There's a very loud guy a few rows ahead of me, who's pretending to be helpful but actually he's just making everybody more acutely aware of what can go wrong.

"When you pick up your bathrobe after the shoot," he reminds us, "please bend with your knees!"

I keep trying to rationalize what we're doing. I tell myself that it's carefully orchestrated hedonism to get us into a rock n' roll mood. We're like Marianne Faithful dropping a fur rug to tease London cops, only in much greater numbers and on a luxury ocean liner rather than a London flat.

A photographer, perched on a ladder several yards above us, orders the crowd to disrobe, and we do as we're told. Strangely, it's not in any way erotic. There's absolutely no sex in the sexual tension. There are no lecherous grins or roaming hands. It may be because we're all stone-cold sober, or because most of the participants don't have bodies that are complimented by direct sunlight. There's a woman standing near me who's draped her breasts over a guardrail, and they look like tube-socks filled with gravy. There's a lot of cheering and laughter, but it's a blushing, puerile tittering, like a schoolbus full of kids who've just learned about the planet Uranus.



"One more second for safety," the photographer bellows at us. "One more for safety, one more for safety..."

My gaze drifts towards the ship's bow, and I seriously contemplate jumping overboard and swimming for shore. It's probably suicide, but at this point it seems like the most reasonable option.

* * *

I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's back up.

A few weeks ago, if you'd asked me if I'd ever consider taking a cruise, I would have laughed in your face. For anybody under retirement age, taking a vacation on a cruise ship sounds about as appealing as an early-bird breakfast special at Shoney's. A cruise is god's waiting room, a place to get a tan and relax in the pool while you're waiting for the sweet release of death.

Even more absurd to me was the concept of rock cruises. They've been around for years, but always struck me as the musical equivalent of summer stock theater. When the headliners on a cruise are Sister Hazel and Toad the Wet Sprocket and the year isn't 1997, it's not exactly a floating Coachella. And those are the modern acts. If you want to watch the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd limp through "Sweet Home Alabama" for the umpteenth time, there are cheaper (and less personally embarrassing) ways to do so than paying $1000 for a concert on international waters.

But then something bizarre happened. Seemingly overnight, rock cruises — or, as their publicists prefer to call them, "floating music festivals" — stopped being a novelty fad. Musicians who don't usually play at county fairs and Indian casinos are now hosting their own cruises, like Dave Matthews, Ben Folds, Gomez and Bela Fleck. And audiences who might normally spend their music budgets at festivals like Bonnaroo and Rothbury are showing up in record numbers, boarding cruise ships like Florida retirees with a few more tattoos and a better taste in music.

Believe it or not, rock cruises have become cool. Well, maybe not cool cool, but at least ironically cool.

"Cruise ships aren’t what people think they are," insists Andy Levine, the spokesman of rock cruise purveyor Sixthman. "Some of them are a thousand feet long. They're like mini-cities. It's a great platform for this kind of festival." When I asked him if people under a certain age might feel uneasy in a cruise setting, which has a (not undeserved) reputation as the vacation of choice for Florida's elderly, he’s adamant that a rock cruise isn't something your grandparents would enjoy, or even feel welcome on.

"There are no old people," he says with just a little too much certainty. “There's no riff-raff at all. It's a pure environment."

It's unclear what lengths he’s willing to go to ensure the purity of his cruises. One imagines a socialist state, with strict dress codes and undesirables mysteriously disappearing from their cabins in the middle of the night. Levine's vision of rock cruise utopia - a community of like-minded people who share the same opinions and musical interests, living together peacefully on an oceanic city - is definitely creepy, but also strangely compelling.

But overpriced cultural assimilation isn't really the reason rock fans are flocking to cruises. Last February, when John Mayer's Mayercraft Carrier set sail for its debut voyage, photos quickly circulated of Mayer wandering the ship in a Borat-style speedo. It was obviously a wink-and-a-nudge that the cruise wasn't meant to be taken seriously. It was just silly, self-deprecating fun, and the rest of us land-dwellers too proud or full of self-imposed indie cred to set foot on a cruise ship were uptight, humorless prissies.

Because I easily cave to peer pressure, I was determined to join the rock cruise tongue-in-cheek party scene. I settled on Ships & Dip, the second annual cruise hosted by the Barenaked Ladies. They're not a nostalgia act playing to aging hipsters, but not so popular as to attract the obnoxious, boob-flashing, date-raping MTV set. And their cruise is the perfect length — five days, roughly the length of a Vegas marriage. Just enough time to get your sea legs and realize why this relationship is never going to work.

The Dame and I spent weeks preparing for the big day, packing and re-packing as we reevaluated the best rock outfits. I received numerous calls from Paula, the cruise's publicist, making sure I was adequately prepared for a week at sea. She warned me that her last rock cruise had been "wicked rocky."

I'd planned for pirates and stomach viruses, but not sea sickness.
I considered bringing Dramamine, but to hear Paula talk, vertigo and nausea just seemed like another part of the rock lifestyle. She told me a story about her last cruise, when a guitarist became so ill during a concert that, while in the midst of a shredding guitar solo, he walked over to the edge of the ship and barfed into the ocean.

"We had a bucket beside the stage because so many of the musicians who were getting sick," she told me. "But none of them would stop performing. They didn't let a little vomit come between them and entertaining their fans."

As much as I looked forward to puking in the Atlantic for the glory of rock, I was still afraid. How can I explain it in ways you'd understand? If you've ever lived in Los Angeles, you've experienced that moment when you're out drinking with friends and somebody says, "Hey, we should drive out to Las Vegas tonight!" So you all pile into a car, thinking you're being spontaneous and wacky. But about midway through the desert, you finally come to your senses. What the fuck were you thinking, driving to fucking Vegas in the middle of the fucking night? What good could possibly come of that? But you've come too far to turn back now.

Las Vegas is never as good as you think it's going to be when you're buzzed. Hitting on middle-aged cocktail waitress and watching a Wayne Newton show is only hilariously ironic in theory. In reality, it's just kind of depressing and icky.

A rock cruise is Las Vegas with all the exits cut off.

DAY ONE

The Dame and I are standing in line at the Port of Miami, waiting to pick up our boarding passes with a throng of sweaty, pushy tourists.

There's a palpable anxiety in the air. If I didn't know better, I'd think we'd stumbled onto a sad scene of deportation. But unlike illegal immigrants, these people are terrified of being left off a ship, not herded onto one. Their vacation hasn't even officially begun yet and already they have the panicky expressions of theme park tourists. Their faces are strained in impatient joviality, trying to understand why the fuck they aren't having fun yet.

There are hopeful signs that the Dame and I aren't the only ones here in on the joke. The crowd is a sea of Hawaiian shirts, Bermuda shorts and (inexplicably) homemade Viking helmets. We don't question whether their fashion choices are meant in jest. We have to believe they are, as the only other explanation is too terrifying to contemplate.

Just in front of us in line, there's a teenage girl with purple hair and a faded Fugazi t-shirt. Judging from her eye-rolling and impatient huffing as she waits for her father to check in, she couldn't be less thrilled to be here. We try to ignore her, but she's our canary in a coal mine. When the hippest person in the room would rather be anywhere else, it doesn't bode well.

Tickets in hand, we drag our luggage onto the ship, and it takes several hours just to find our cabin. The Carnival Victory — the boat's name makes me wonder if we'll be exchanging cannon-fire with British galleons — is an endless maze of stairs and hallways, all leading back to the central dining room. I don't know who designed this ship, but I suspect the architect had a fondness for Escher's Relativity and hash brownies.

We eventually stumble onto our room, a windowless cell with what we're convinced is a cum stain on the carpet, and quickly change into our cruise attire. We wander up to the Lido Deck just in time for the launch party and the first concert by the Barenaked Ladies. But I'm in no mood to celebrate. It's only late afternoon and I'm already haggard and hostile and prepared to hate everything about this cruise.

And then somebody offers me a coconut filled with rum.

"You can use it later as a coin bank," a waiter explains, as if this is a major selling point.

Three or four coconuts later, I'm ready to mingle. It's easy to make new friends on a rock cruise. Every conversation has a built-in introduction: "How many times have you seen the band?" It's instant camaraderie for strangers who otherwise have nothing in common.

The Dame and I meet a 30-something couple named Marie and John (they've seen the band three times in concert) and their friend Harriet (eight times), who proudly informs us that she's the only African-American on the boat.

"If you see a black person, just yell out, 'Hey, Harriet'," she tells us. "It's probably me."

We also exchange pleasantries with Sal and Mary Anne from Long Island, who plan their Vegas trips around the Ladies' tour schedule because "we like the slots." And Samantha from Orlando, Florida, whose 10-year old son Christopher has spent the last few months helping her train for the Guitar Hero competition, which takes place tomorrow morning. She doesn't like to brag, but thanks to her son's guidance she has a 76% proficiency.

And then there are the passengers we’re afraid to approach; the fans best admired from afar. Like the four women in matching sailor suits and hats, their initials stitched in cursive on the breast pockets, who loudly proclaim to anyone who'll listen that they all live in the same trailer park. Or the woman carting around a child dressed from head to toe like a monkey. The meaning behind this costume has to be explained to me.

"There’s a line in (the Barenaked Ladies' song) 'If I Had $1,000,000' about a monkey," a helpful man informs me. "'Haven’t you always wanted a mon-key?'"

I smile and thank him, but the explanation doesn't put me at ease. I can't help but wonder, is this woman offering her child to the band as some sort of ritualistic sacrifice? It's unclear.

Despite the friendly and affable crowd, I'm still uncomfortable here. I feel like a fraud. It's probably because I'm not a diehard fan of the Barenaked Ladies. I remember "One Week" when it was played incessantly on the radio during the late 90s. And I've heard the occasional song since, like that one about Yoko Ono or the one where they rap-sing about monkey postcards. At best, they seem like Weezer for non-hipsters, or They Might Be Giants with a more cheery attitude.

The rum starts to take hold, and I become stupidly hopeful. I'm not just here for the band, I tell myself. I didn't get on this cruise for the Barenaked Ladies any more than people flock to Mardi Gras for the free plastic beads. I'm here for the experience.

Before long, I lose all track of time. But the sun feels good on my face and the music sounds so sweet to my rum-soaked brain. I'm not sure why, but there's chili in my shoes. Have I even had chili today? I'm far too drunk to remember.

The band is singing about the joys of poverty and eating Kraft mac-n-cheese in a tree fort. The crowd is singing along with every lyric, and some of them are actually crying. If any of their enthusiasm is meant ironically, they're playing it very close to the chest. I have the stomach-dropping epiphany that I'm like the guy at the Star Trek convention who realizes too late that he's the only one who digs the show for William Shatner's god-awful overacting and the laughable special effects. Everybody else, in their Klingon costumes and Vulcan ears, is taking this shit seriously.

The ship's horns announce that we're leaving Miami, and The Ladies are singing one of their non-hits, "Some Fantastic." The lyrics seem eerily ominous.

"Bye, bye self respect
I haven't had much of it since you left."

I order another cocktail and try not to look obviously alarmed.



DAY TWO

At 38, I'm not so old and jaded that I don't see the appeal of Guitar Hero. But there's a big difference between playing a video game and watching other people play it.

To be fair, the vast majority of passengers gathered in the mid-ship Disco Bar aren't just here to cheer on the guitar-shredding prowess of their peers. They've come to gawk at Ed Robertson.

"I hear you've been practicing," Robertson says to the crowd with a playful sneer. "I look at you as lambs before the slaughter."

Robertson, the lead guitarist and singer for the Barenaked Ladies, is hosting the Guitar Hero Championships, one of many activities scheduled for the first "Rock Day at Sea." The Disco is standing room only, and dozens of would-be rockers are waiting on the sidelines, preparing for their musical showdown.

The game is simple: two competitors play dueling guitars to classic rock standards, and the winner is the one who hits the most correct notes. But the real show is Robertson, whose job is to keep the crowd entertained. If there's a lull, Robertson is quick to create a distraction, usually by covering the players' eyes or blocking the TV screen with his hands or body.

With his dark good looks and buff, tattooed arms, Robertson is the band's resident heartthrob, and he's clearly comfortable with that role. He flirts shamelessly with his female fans, at one point even announcing to one of the contestants that while she's playing, "I will be touching you inappropriately."

When Robertson has to leave early, the audience lets out a collective sigh. An attractive brunette named Lisa, who's wearing a t-shirt with an iron-on picture of Robertson, is so upset that she nearly bursts into tears.

"It's just not fair," she sniffles. "I wanted to play for Ed. It's not the same if it's not Ed."

At least on this ship, there's an expectation among the fans for something more intimate than idol worship. They want a personal connection with the band. And the Barenaked Ladies deliver on that promise. They treat the passengers like friends. They know a staggering number of their fans on a first-name basis, and they're not shy about sucking up to the customer.

At some point during the day, every band member is somewhere on the ship. If they're not performing, they're making the rounds, greeting the guests and shaking hands and posing for photographs, like politicians running for public office. I have yet to see one of them kiss a baby or promise a "change you can believe in", but it wouldn't surprise me.

At the Double Dippers show (for fans returning for a second cruise), Robertson wears an "Official Michael from San Dimas Fan Club" t-shirt. Michael from San Dimas, it's explained to me, is just some dude who really, really likes the band.

Back in our cabin, the Dame notices that the TV is playing Barenaked Ladies videos and concert films in a continuous loop. So when you're not watching the Barenaked Ladies, you can watch... the Barenaked Ladies.

Outside, there are posters everywhere, advertising the event you've already paid to see, as if reminding you of who owns this boat. It's almost Orwellian. The only thing missing is a political slogan designed to keep the masses in check. Something like "Ignorance is Strength" or "Freedom is Slavery."

DAY THREE

I don't claim to know much about Grand Cayman, having spent less than a few hours on the island, but I do know this: Their beaches are populated by an alarming number of stray dogs, at least one of whom I've personally witnessed raping a child.

The Dame begs to differ. When I point out the beach dog violently humping an 8 year old boy in shallow water, she insists that I'm mistaken.

"The dog isn't raping him," she corrects me. "He's just riding him. Like a surfboard."

I study the pair more closely. "I don't think so," I say. "I’m pretty sure surfing doesn’t involve quite so much thrusting."

We've tried to make the most of our first port-of-call, wisely avoiding the chain restaurants (dining at the Hard Rock just didn't seem particularly exotic) and paying the extra cash to be shuttled out to 7-Mile Beach, a sprawling coastline of white sand and whiter people nursing overpriced booze. But aside from a brief dip in the ocean (where I accidentally submerged my cellphone, our only means of contact with the outside world) and the novelty of witnessing a canine sex crime, we're starting to wonder why we didn't just stay on the ship.

We strike up a conversation with a gaggle of women lounging next to us. They're in their mid-forties, pale and heavyset, and perfectly content to be vacationing without their husbands.

"They didn't want to come," a dark-haired woman named Lauren says with a smirk. "They told us, 'We don’t want to be trapped on a boat full of crazies.'"

Her friends burst into laughter, with a familiarity that suggests they've shared this joke many, many times already.

A few hours later, we're back on the ship with the other "crazies," eating meatballs and downing cans of Miller on the Lido Deck as we watch Great Big Sea, a folk-rock band from Newfoundland, perform loud sea shanties.

My name is Captain Kidd
And God's laws I did forbid,
And most wickedly I did as I sailed!

Anywhere else, I wouldn't be able to stomach their nautical romanticism. But on this boat, breathing the warm, salty air of the Atlantic, their songs about pirates and maritime alcoholism are enough to make me tear up and pull out a lighter.

The rest of the afternoon and evening is a blur of live shows. I watch sets by Carbon Leaf, Griffin House, and other acts I've never heard of before getting on this boat. They're all likable enough, playing the kind of inoffensive pop-rock that's brought them modest fame in car commercials and teen drama soundtracks. But after awhile, it all starts to blend together. You forget where one band ends and another begins. It's like I've been watching one seamless, 12-hour pop anthem.

Not that there isn't variety. The cruise features a diverse lineup, including power-pop brooders (The New Odds), indie rock almost-weres (Harvey Danger), alt-country cynics (The Handsome Family), Weather Channel theme song-providers (Guster), and of course, Canadian singer-songwriters (Howie Beck, Jason Plumb, Jason Collett, Sarah Harmer, etc.), who are here in such great numbers that Canada's coffee shops must be eerily silent.

Rock cruise passengers aren't casual music fans. They live and breathe rock n' roll. And they have more than a passing interest in these bands. Everyone I've spoken to has at least one story about music's emotional impact on them. At a cocktail social for members of the Barenaked Ladies' Internet fanclub, a middle-aged man in a red bandana tells me that the band "literally saved my life."

"How do you mean?" I ask him. "Did one of them pull you out of a burning building?"

"It's their music, man," he says, as his friends nod in furious agreement. "Without them, I never would've made it through my divorce."

A short and rotund woman has her own story of musical inspiration. "Gordon got me through some really rough times," she says, her eyes growing misty. "I don't think I'd be here without them."

Gordon is the band's first record, notable mostly for minor hits like "Be My Yoko Ono" and "If I Had $1,000,000." In other words, novelty joke songs. I would've been as surprised if she'd confessed that "The Monster Mash" or "Fish Heads" had convinced her not to try suicide.

It'd be easier to mock these sentiments if they were more isolated. But almost everyone I talk to believes that the Barenaked Ladies, or one of the other bands on this ship, are the only thing standing between them and financial ruin, depression, and an early death.



Their cult-like devotion runs far deeper than rehab affirmations. For many of these people, the cruise isn't just a vacation; it's something altogether more personal. Howard and Cindy of Ohio, both in their early 60s, have decided to celebrate their honeymoon (a second marriage for both) on Ships & Dip, and they've brought along their adult children and grandchildren. And everyone's buzzing about Charlene and Richard, a young couple who got married in a private ceremony just as the ship was leaving Miami. According to some rumors, the newlyweds pledged eternal devotion to each other and the Barenaked Ladies.

When I run into Stephen Page, the Ladies' other singer and guitarist, I mention the fan wedding and he forces a smile. "I think it's sweet that our music means so much to them," he says. "But sometimes I feel alienated by it. (The fans) have this community, and it's almost like it has nothing to do with us. It's a world that wouldn't have existed without us, but it's not really about us anymore."

He admits that the cruise, at least initially, wasn't something he wanted to do. "I resisted it," he says. "I thought it was going to be terrible. Right up until we were boarding the ship, I was just dreading it. I've never been a cruise person. I would never elect to do that as a vacation. In a sense, it's like a floating airport Hilton. Who wants to spend five days doing that?"

With perfect timing, Page is interrupted by a young woman asking for an autograph. "I-I just want to thank you," she asks, her voice trembling. "Your songs saved my life."

Page smiles dutifully and poses for a photo with the star-struck fan. She clings to him like she fears she might tumble into the abyss if she lets go.

(To read part two, go here.)

("Raise the Anchor, Drop the Robe" artwork courtesy of the extremely awesome Kelly Light. Nude group photo courtesy of the shockingly and perhaps unfairly talented David Bergman, and I'm not just saying that because he is in possession of the only known photo of my shriveled junk.)