Crew Church, "I statue"

They had a large fellowship meeting on the ship tonight. It started at 11:30 p.m. (on a Thursday) and was held with the door open in a conference room, right next to another open-door conference room with a full set of chairs and two people watching Narnia: Prince Capsian on a wheeled-in flat screen. The preacher was an African-American (new york?) guy with dreads down his back. I was completely surprised to find the meeting and a guy pacing back and forth with two guitarists sitting next to him. He was doing a lot of yelling about men “stepping up” and how you have to be a good man or your how can you expect your kids to listen to you. To me, this was pretty boring. But my friend wasn’t at the bar, instead just the piano player playing for about 3 middle aged people seated like 3 rows back from him. So I walked by the fellowship meeting again and saw a surprising number of people, including the party hostesses. At this point, the preacher was yelling about how “I am here to life you up! I am here to give you the language of uplift!” and there is something about saying “ha ha ha give yourself a round of applause” or “ha ha ha WHAT A GREAT SUGGESTION!” that tips me into mental instability—which we did tonight. So I stood by the door and listened for a bit. He then said aloud very hilarious/wonderful things like “in your job! You have to be a servant! You have to smile and say ‘yes’ to some nasty no respecting condescending passenger who bought the cheapest ticket there is to get on here! But you have to say ‘yes’ and smile! Every time you do that! It is written down in the book of life—say it with me” and everyone did and he made them raise their hands a few times. Please remember this is happening off a hallway, with two passengers lazing in a room 6 feet away. They had the movie on to deafening levels, which…maybe the AV guys did on purpose so they could be as loud as they wanted in the other room.

I left because I thought I would get caught. Then the piano player from the man woman lounge act (he plays keyboards and sings, she sings) came out and said “we are having a fellowship! You should join!” But I had a previous engagement to see Detroit Rock City in the Kid’s Center. Where they project movies onto a white tarp that is nailed to the wall and the DVD sound cuts out about once every 10 minutes—not long enough to merit turning it off, just enough for everyone to go “WHY! WHY DOES IT DO THAT!” and then forget that they flipped out.

Today I also learned another aspect of the entertainment industry. That is the term “to statue.” Statue means “stand like a statue in a park.” But you say “I have to statue today” if you are someone who statues, which I met today, to my amazement. She said she can do it for about 2 hours, but the pros can do it for a solid 8, although you have to stretch a lot afterwards. This is fascinating. She also, to her credit and karma, tipped every street performer we came across and is a very happy, sunny little person.

I asked my cronie nouveau to propose to me on a bridge in Boston because Boston is insane and gorgeous. He did, I said no as was preplanned, but upset a kid on the bridge when cronie nouveau did a very dramatic reaction of “how dare you” and etc. as fits a hilarious and dramatic Broadway-ish tenor with great jeans and shoes and a German shirt and madras plaid vest that he felt confused about. One of my favorite stories about him is that he wanted to do ballet very badly as a little boy, and his parents said “NO you will play SOCCER.” He played for one game, and cried the entire way to the game and during the game. My soccer career highlights were picking warts, kicking the ball into our own goal, and doing cartwheels during the (boring) game when I was blocking the goalie. Now, both of us do theater.