New job!

When I Look In Your Eyes; Diana Krall, piano and vocals

I came up with the idea of working on cruise ships all by myself. About three weeks before my oral examinations at CCM, I realized that, in two month’s time, my life’s work needed to begin. Problem was, I didn’t want to work. By chance, at the bookstore, I happened to peek inside a travel magazine to see an article on world cruises and their various itineraries. And there, big as life, right on the first page, a picture of a show band with a guy sitting at a piano leading the band and …

BING!!

… a light switched on and I knew what I wanted.

Somehow I acquired a cruise industry periodical that listed every single cruise ship that sailed the seven seas. They numbered seventy-seven. So I made an audition tape and copied it seventy-seven times, put together a resume and copied it seventy-seven times, and wrote a cover letter and copied it seventy-seven times. I bought seventy-seven stamps for seventy-seven envelopes.

The night before my trip to the post office to mail these appeals for employment, these announcements of availability, these beacons of musical engagement, my friend H. called me. Hello. “Hi, Erik. This is H. Didn’t you say that you were trying to get a job on a cruise ship?” Yeah. Do you have one for me? “No. But how have you been going about doing this?” Seventy-seven tapes, seventy-seven resumes, seventy-seven cover letters in seventy-seven envelopes with seventy-seven stamps going to seventy-seven ships. Why? “I saw an advertisement in the musician’s union paper tonight for cruise ship musicians. Instead of sending seventy-seven of everything, why don’t you send just one of everything?” I sent one of everything. And to this day, hand to God, I don’t know what I did with the other seventy-six tapes, resumes, cover letters, envelopes and – gulp - stamps.

In the mean time, I passed my oral examinations and graduated with a Masters of Music from CCM. I searched for an option to attending my graduation ceremony and found myself assisting at the South Dakota All-State Music Camp on the campus of SDSU as the staff accompanist. I enjoyed being home for ten days or so. I hadn’t seen Mom and Dad since Christmas.

On the Monday after music camp, in the middle of June of 1990, hours before my flight back to Cincinnati and no job, I got a call. Hello. “Yes, could I speak to Erik Apland?” This is he. What can I do for you? “We enjoyed your audition tape and could easily place you on a couple of cruise ships. Are you available?” It depends. Tell me about them. “Well, one of them begins in Venice, Italy, on Royal Cruise Line and pays $XXX.00 per week.” When does it start? “August 17. The other one begins in Alaska on Princess Cruise Line and pays $XXX.00 per week.” When does that one start? “Saturday.” Hmmmmmmm. Alaska. Europe. Alaska. Europe. Alaska. Europe. alaska. EUROPE. alaska. EUROPE. alaska… EUROPE. EUROPE. EUROPE. … Europe. I’ll take Europe. “Good. We’ll keep in contact with you.”

Awesome! Life's work was about to begin. So, here's the plan: I needed to go back to Cincinnati, close up the apartment and move my stuff back home. My poor old Mercury Monterey, however, decided that it didn’t want to go back to South Dakota. So I asked my friend Chad if he wanted to take an emergency vacation that involved driving to Cincinnati, OH, to help a buddy move home. I threw in tickets to a Cubs-Cardinals game in St. Louis, MO, on the way back and he was in. The Cubs won and it rained to beat the band when we drove through Omaha.

Before my August 17 departure, I needed three things: a passport, a camera and … wait for it … a radio/cassette-tape/CD ghetto blaster. I decided that it was finally time to purchase an appliance on which to play my now twelve plus collection of CD’s. It was a Sanyo, it was all black, and it was beautiful.

It started its life work in my stateroom on the Golden Odyssey in Venice, Italy, on the evening of August 18, 1990. And, to date, it has accompanied me to every ship and boat I've ever worked on. I still have it. In what I assume is its later years, it tends to be a snob; it doesn’t always like to finish playing the CD’s that it plays. Oh, well. It done good when I needed it to do good.

One of its first jobs was to play a CD of one of the review shows that I had to learn to play on my first cruise. The show featured the music of Irving Berlin. I thought I had heard just about every Berlin song. It turns out I had barely scratched the surface. The Berlin song that haunted me most from this review show has winsome words:

There may be trouble ahead

But while there’s moonlight and music

And love and romance

Let’s face the music and dance

Soon

We’ll be without the moon

Humming a diff’rent tune

And then

There may be teardrops to shed

So while there’s moonlight and music

And love and romance

Let’s face the music and dance

Dance

Let’s face the music and dance.

If you, dear reader, would like to be a little haunted, you should hear Diana Krall sing this song. You should hear Diana Krall sing any song. You should hear Diana Krall sing EVERY song.

Credits: To my old tired ghetto blaster. Thank you, old buddy.