By Rance Rizzutto
Last week there was an 8.8 earthquake in Chile. Imagine hearing about this on the news…and then hearing there is a Tsunami warning for Hawaii…and then realizing you’re on a ship off the coast of Honolulu.
Tada!
Normally Saturday morning is filled with early morning announcements of who is cleared to leave the ship. The luggage tags you pick are connected to a departure time somewhere in between 7:00am-9:30am.
Instead, we awoke to one announcement letting everyone know why we were still at sea, and that same announcement given in Japanese.
Everything on the coast was evacuated, supposedly. The harbor was closed. Besides, the ship and everyone on it would be safest out at sea.
Everyone was following news reports: what had been hit, projected times, etc. We were supposed to get tsunami’d at 11:25am.
Now, this wouldn’t be the movie version of a 100ft tall wave blocking out the sun and sending us to Atlantis. It was reported that it would be 3-6ft high, which doesn’t sound that bad except that it have a lot of speed and force behind it. On land that could have meant easy destruction. At sea that would have meant the ship kind of bobs up and over it.
All in all the tsunami never really happened. The water level raised and lowered about a meter in Hilo and that was the worst of it.
The coast guard still needed to clear the harbor and around 4pm they allowed us to come in and start the process we normally start at 7:00am.
For the situation, I never felt like I was closer to a potential natural disaster while feeling like I was in the safest place.
By Rance Rizzutto
In the show I’m currently doing for one company on another company’s form of mass-transportation I’m in a scene with Deanna. I’m a guy preparing for a date with her…she is a blow-up doll. All she has to do is lay on some chairs, pretend to get inflated, hold the standard blow-up doll pose, then deflate. Easy, right?
This scene is usually a heavy hitter because of the ridiculousness of it all. For one gentleman sitting far back stage right it was the funniest thing he had seen in a long, long time. His laugh was…well…IS impossible to describe accurately in text. Let’s just say it was a funny laugh.
When his laugh was mixed in with everyone else’s at the “reveal” that Deanna is a blow-up doll, not so bad. When the laughter has died down as people wait to see what the next beat will be and all you can hear from the stage is that one guy’s laugh. Well…that is enough to make a blow-up doll start to giggle.
Deanna broke. And a few seconds later, so did I. Holding that pose seems easy enough until you realize that it means they can’t move the whole time. Watching the fight between trying to hold that pose while actually laughing was what pushed me over the edge.
In other news, whales are jumping like crazy today in Hilo. The moms are teaching their young how to breach. I clocked it at about six breaches a minute…for real.
By Rance Rizzutto
Well…sort of. We went to a beach yesterday. I think it was Kanapali or something like that. On Maui, by a place called Black Rock and another place called Sheraton Inn.
There was supposed to be good snorkeling out there and Tamara (sadhat.blogspot.com) is visiting so we all went out.
When we first got there we found some waves that looked like they would be fun to body surf on. Just near the shore so we didn’t have to go out too far.
We may have successfully body surfed once or twice. The rest of the time was what could lightly be referred to as “unsuccessful.”
I got rolled pretty hard…a lot. The nice thing is it clears out the sinuses pretty well.
After that we headed over to the snorkeling. There was another cruise ship around the island so there were a bunch of people out there. I hate snorkeling in crowded waters. Too many dipshits swimming around looking at anything but where they’re going. So, I didn’t spend as much time out there as the rest, but there were turtle sightings and Jen and Larrance saw a spotted ray and heard whale songs out further around the Black Rock.
After we were done I took my camera case up to the shower to rinse of the salt water (the case is waterproof). While I was doing that a lady and her two young daughters walked up behind me. As I was rinsing the camera one of the little girls said “What are you doing, daddy?”
So, I’m a father.
By Rance Rizzutto
The volcano on Hawaii’s big island has been kicking into gear a little. While we were leaving Hilo last week I saw what looked like a big snowflake fall to the deck. Turns out it was ash from the Volcano.
The next day at Kona (on the other side of the island) went from sunny to pretty hazy. I thought it was just clouds but it turned out to be ash.
Today in Honolulu we met with some people at Laughtrack Theater and they called it “vog” (I assume, volcanic fog).
I guess it gives some people allergies.
By Rance Rizzutto
photo by Mike Kosinski
I’ll have photos later on Facebook and Flickr…but not that great.
Last week we went on a whale watch/snorkel excursion. Between December and March the whales come back here to…do it. So, lately we can see them splashing around a bit. In a few weeks they’re supposed to get really crazy while they teach the calves to breach.
While we were out on the boat for the excursion we had a mother, calf, and escort literally go underneath our ship and pop out right on the other side. My camera was being a real turd so my shots weren’t that good.
Yesterday we were in Maui and went to a couple of places with traditional Hawaiian names: Acid War Zone and The Blowhole.
The war zone is named because the salt spray from the ocean has eaten away the rocks and such, and blow hole is a hole in the ground that connects to the ocean creating a huge spray.
By Rance Rizzutto
I forgot to mention something that happened. Some of us have started playing tennis while working out here in Hawaii. We’re officially classified as “okay to pretty good.”
We found out from the prior cast that there are night courts (not Night Court) in Kahului where we overnight. The only catch was that you have to push the button to reset the lights BEFORE they go off or they take forever to turn back on.
Two weeks ago we went there for the first successful time. There was a time before when three people went and didn’t know about the light switches. As soon as they arrived the lights went out. But two weeks ago was successful. As we were playing a flashing red light on the light switch turned on to let us know it was about to shut off. We pushed the button and played on.
Last week…well, it started out well. But around 9:30 the lights turned out with no red light warning…and they wouldn’t turn on again. Not only that, but right as the lights went out I saw a gate shut and a silhouette of a person in the distance. I kept my eye on them as Deanna and Mike went to the other set of courts and turned that light on.
So, we moved our stuff to the now-lit courts and as we were quietly saying “there are people in the distance” the lights we JUST turned on…went OUT.
We took it as a sign and got the hell out of there.
Coincidentally, the ship was playing Paranormal Activity that night. ooOOoOOOoooooOoo!
By Rance Rizzutto
If you put an exclamation point at the end of “different” it makes it special.
I’ve got about four more months in Hawaii. I’ve noticed some different ways and different things that are different. Different.
5. Their swimming water doesn’t seem to have any ecoli warnings.
4. Flip-flops are called slippers…I don’t know what they call slippers.
3. I can buy surf boards in convenience stores.
2. Bikinis are acceptable attire for shopping in the ritzy Waikiki area…pick up the pace, Michigan Ave.
1. People in cars will stop for pedestrians at crosswalks. And I’m talkin’ two lanes in both directions. I hope I don’t get too comfortable with that when I get back to Chicago.
One thing stays the same. In the land of Kehaus and Kekais, “Rance” is still a rare name.
By Rance Rizzutto
I had a fun set tonight! Thanks to everyone who came out. I think Charlie and Mary win for “most favorite audience members.”
I don’t know if I’ll get an opportunity to perform stand-up again before I head to Hawaii. But, I should be in Saturday’s Del Tones show at iO. More details tomorrow!
