Goin' to See the Queen

This afternoon, Plot and Duck are heading down to Crissy Field to watch the Queen Mary II glide into port, surrounded, so it is said, by low flying planes and fire boats shooting water in the air, and with quite a few thousand other people lined up along the shore to watch. The QM2 is the largest ship ever to sail into San Francisco Bay.

Duck saw the Queen Elizabeth II arrive in NY some thirty years ago, and says it was one of the most exciting things she's ever seen. The good thing about today is it's Super Bowl Sunday, which should diminish the crowds somewhat.

The Super Bowl is SO stupid.

Plotnik is not as excited as Ducknik to see the QM2, because the very thought of The Queen Mary gives him the shivers. He worked at least a dozen times on The Queen Mary 1, which is now a hotel docked in Long Beach Harbor. Loading equipment onto the old Queen Mary and into the proper salon for a gig was a nightmare. You had to use a freight elevator so small only two people could stand in it at one time with their guitars pressed against their bodies (to say nothing of loading a PA system, a piano, a bank of lights), while dealing simultaneously with an officious and status-conscious staff that managed to bring the Queen Mary into a tie with The Ritz Carlton Laguna Beach for the honor of Hotel That Most Needs To Fall Down and Start Over. That ship drove many musicians to a life of selling shoes.

The Queen Mary 2 only will be here for 24 hours, and 2000 of its 2800 passengers will be getting off before the ship sails for Sydney, Australia, with stops in Pago Pago and Auckland. Wow.