Cruise, Folks.
I’m in a hotel room looking at a cruise ship out my window. I really can't understand how some people look at one of those and think, ‘That looks like it would be a great time.’
Being stuck on a boat for days, maybe weeks, with the same people. Wandering around eating at a different buffet every hour in the middle of the oceans sounds like hell to me. I also get seasick pretty easily. I’m just not a boat guy.
I’m not sure what kind of guy I am. I really have to figure out how to have fun. The anxiety of traveling in any vessel for one reason or another is kind of daunting. Just figuring out where to stay and what to do anywhere is exhausting.
I’m in Charleston, SC right now which seems to be a popular destination for the vacation people. I walked a mile to a restaurant, which was good, but I feel like I’m kind of done with the town. It wasn’t even a fancy restaurant. It was a vegan butcher shop called Three Girls on Spring. It didn’t have a table except for a couple outside and it might’ve been the highlight of my whole trip.
There are beaches and water and fancy southern style things all over here but I just don’t care.
I went to a record store which is always immediately overwhelming and the guy who worked there, who I didn’t notice, said, ‘Is that the Marc Maroon tee?’ I turned around and this dude had a Ship John shirt and hat on. He had listened to me talk to Mike Elias. I was wearing Ship John pants. The cult of Ship John is international.
Again, as I’ve been saying, it’s good to get out there and talk to strangers in passing. Stay in touch with basic humanity.
I was in Charlotte and looked up some vegan soul food place. I drove out to the address and it was in some kind of complex of restaurants but it wasn’t really its own restaurant. I walked into a room with a few high top tables and maybe eight video screens which were click-on menu touchscreens for as many different restaurants. There was a door there that said pick up order here. I’d never seen anything like it. It was horrifying somehow. The future.
There was a counter at one side of the room with a kitchen and a few tables. It was a Japanese place called Dozo run by chef/owner Perry Saito. I asked him how the screen business worked. He said there’s an industrial kitchen in the back and people representing each menu for each ‘restaurant’ rent stations in the kitchen. I guess it’s kind of an extension of the food truck idea when you’re ready to get out of the truck.
Perry recognized me. We talked comedy for a few minutes. I told him I was vegan but I didn’t really love the whole touchscreen thing. He said he didn’t have any real vegan dishes but he said he’d make me a tofu and mushroom fried rice. So, he was cooking it and then we talked about the area, the south, the blue bit, the red bit. He said when he was younger he never really connected how politics affected his life but now as a small restaurant owner he was concerned for the future of his place because of tariffs and the cost of imported stuff.
His dad was a chef and he had built his business from a food truck.
It’s good to talk about what’s happening in a practical way with people who are waking up to the horrendous impact of it all. It gave me hope somehow. For a few minutes.
The fried rice was awesome.
Today I talk to Nick Thune again. It had been years. It's been a rough few for him. Good talk. On Thursday I talk to Modi. He’s an Israeli-American comic I have known for years but hadn’t seen in about 20. His career had blown up in a very specific way. Another great talk.
Enjoy!
Boomer, Monkey and LaFonda live!
Love,
Maron
