First of all let me say that these pictures were taken from the balcony with just the flash and lens that comes standard on the Canon G15. Take that into consideration when judging the quality.
5634 This is the opening dance. Marty is on the extreme left with the palm trees on his shirt. Neil is in the red pants and the Coffee Barista is the tall smiling girl on the extreme right.
5639 This is the coconut dance. They clack the coconut halves their hands against the ones that are strapped to strategic parts of their bodies. Neil is in the back, second from the left and Marty is on the right end of the back row.
5654 This is the female half of the one-man duet.
5655 This is the male half. The illusion was better under the constricted, dimmer spot when he opened his act but after the first change over spin they brightened the spot.
5656 This is the closing bamboo dance featuring Marty and Diana. They are just as happy as they look. We sailed with Marty before on the Prinsendam and when he saw me in the hall on this cruise he immediately greeted me and remembered my name. I guess that’s why he’s the wine steward in the ship’s fancy restaurant.
Nov 25 – At Sea. After all the activities yesterday I’m ready to kick back today and do almost nothing. Which is exactly what I did. We did have the Mariner’s Society Luncheon today and, since I was going to eat anyway, we did attend that.
Our entertainer was Hollywood writer, Marty Brill. He was excellent again.
Sometime during these longer cruises the various crew segments put on a show. Tonight the Filipinos are doing their thing. They are scheduled after the regular entertainers so they are on pretty late. They’re good about scheduling them with a day at sea next so people can stay up. This one was very well attended.
Since many Filipinos learn English as a second language they usually have a great MC. Their shows are a mixture of traditional and modern Filipino music. They apparently prefer love ballads, or I should say that I think they do as they sing in Tagalog and I don’t really understand the words but the emotions seem to be of the ‘tear jerker’ variety. They also perform traditional dances and lately they’ve had at least one ‘street dance’ to hip hop music in each show.
Filipinos make up the entire bar staff, the front office staff and the sailors. They’re the front office staff because of their facility with English. That’s the reason they’re the sailors also. Like commercial aviation, the common language for control and communication is English by law for international flights. HAL has a policy in place where all bridge orders must be given and recorded in English. It is very helpful if the sailors also speak English. They make up the bar staff for two reasons. First, most Filipinos are nominally Christians and have no prohibition from handling alcohol. Second, the other major segment of the crew is Indonesian and most of them are Muslim, although there are some Hindus (mostly from Bali) and Christians. Because they’re Muslim they don’t want to handle alcohol and that leaves it to the Filipinos. Plus, how will you tell your troubles to the bartender if his English is weak. Just kidding, don’t freak out.
The show was great. Marty, the wind steward from the Pinnacle Grill, was the primary male dancer and Diana, from the front office was the primary female dancer. Neil, who makes my omelet every morning, was part of the dance troupe and the smiling young lady, whose name escapes me right now, who works at the coffee bar, was a dancer as well. It’s more fun when you know some of the participants personally. They always have a great personality while at work but when they’re on stage they really shine. It’s fun to watch.
The second last act brought the house down. The stage went completely dark and when the light came up it was a single follow spot shining on a man in a tuxedo singing a love ballad. When he reached the point in the song where a female is supposed to sing he spun around 180 degrees and on that side he had long hair as was wearing a red formal style dress and he sang in falsetto. On the chorus each part had a line so he spun back and forth rapidly while singing. This caused a cascade of cheers and very strong applause from the crowd. After the final note he lifted his skirt on the female side to show off his leg. It was very funny.
The final act was the Filipino bamboo dance where two men beat a rhythm with long bamboo rods pounding them on the ground for two beats and then clacking them together. The dancers step between the bamboo poles as they dance but pull their feet back before they clack together. Some of the steps are intricate and you’re not exactly sure they will get out in time but they always do. This also gets a huge response from the audience. An easy day and a great evening.
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