Day 2, At Sea With Rosie

In the morning, we boarded the boat, got settled, and headed to the upper deck to watch us float past the cityscape. It was unsettling to again notice the space where the towers once stood, but just a turn of the head and one could see the statue of liberty. Beautiful.

Just as we were passing Manhattan by we found a friend from last year. He has kids about our children’s age and they were all thrilled to see each other again. Brian talked about them all last year.

(One of those kids is ours :-))

I wonder now if many cruises are like this--the non-rfamily cruises I’ve been on were not--but every evening there’s a theme. This evening it was “State Fair”. Now, BC (Before Children) I’d refuse to participate in anything like this, but if my kids and Rob are all going to be dressed the same then I’ll conform too, just with protest slight enough that I know I’ll lose. So we all put on our Utah gear and headed to the BBQ.

Again, it’s amazing how many different states and countries were represented there, though most people were from around New York, of course.

Finally, I’m not really a big fan of Rosie O’Donnel. To me, she’s kind of like, say, the omelet of celebrities. I don’t have anything against omelets. I can enjoy them if it’s what’s for breakfast and I can see why some like them and some don’t, but I’ve no strong feelings and would never order one for my self. That’s right; Rosie O’Donnel = omelet… [sigh] It’s early. Simply, I appreciate what her family has done in putting on this cruise, I know she’s entertaining and I respect her talents but they just don’t resonate with my innate tastes. Furthermore, she is more of the bad cop sort of gay activist, and, as I’ve said, I can certainly see their great contributions, but their methods just rub me the wrong way. So sue me, Gay Mafia.

Rob on the other hand, I fear the only person for whom he might leave me would be Rosie. Could you imagine the tabloids? “Avowed Lesbian Rosie O’Donnell Wrecks Gay Man’s Family, Film at 11” He reads her blog as habit and writes in periodically.

Anyway, she MC’s most of the entertainment on the ship. The first night they put on some Broadway show. I’m not into such singing and so I stayed for her opening act and a couple numbers by some famous Broadway singers (I think), but when one of the boys had to go pee, I graciously “sacrificed” and took him back to the room.

Point is, I unexpectedly learned a lesson in PR and spin that night. Rosie made a couple jokes about her fight with Donald Trump and Hasselbeck. It would be difficult to care any less for such conflict, and it went by as just a couple small jokes in her set, but what followed was interesting. At port we talked to my sister and found out that some one in the audience had video taped the performance and sent it in to the media; it was even on the O’Reilly factor. We had a traitor on board :-).

I’m not going to list all the false facts and mischaracterizations I’ve found in searching “news” items about what happened on stage that night. I feel guilty to even search for it. It’s just seems so silly all around. But it is amazing to see how the media gets it wrong, even when they have video, and always in the direction of the more sensational (As I guess I knew already with our own experiences, here). It was also annoying that the whole event can be spun in some minds into a negative light for a couple jokes by one person in a 90 minute show for a week long cruise. I mean, one that got me riled was something like “Gay Cruise Becomes Anti-Hasselbeck Brainwashing Session”. We were all way too busy going to our on board workshops on converting heterosexuals, eroding societies, and sabotaging apple pies to worry about celebrity fights.

Great, now I feel stupid for even bringing it up.