Sunshine, Sex & The Shiprocked Cruise
This is how I turned three years of involuntary celibacy on the #1 rock cruise into a wild weekend with 3 beautiful girls!
As we are a few months away from the best rock cruise in the country – I am contemplating if I go solo or bring a date, and the only way to decide is to leave it up to the readers, as I have had some wild times because of Shiprocked, so read on my faithful social-undergroundians!
When I describe Shiprocked to people as 5 days, 15 bands, 3000 people on a cruise ship… in the dead of winter to somewhere in the Caribbean for decadence, debauchery and down and dirty rock n roll… I generally get one of two reactions. Sometimes it’s – “yikes – I could never do that” or the far more popular – “how the fuck do I sign up for that?!” The latter being the correct response, as it truly is everything you’d want in a – leave your problems on the mainland – type of week, and for two years’ shy of a decade (this coming January will be the 8th Shiprocked cruise) I have had the honor of being one of the hosts of the madness.
The organizers have always worked hard on making sure there’s bands from various decades and genres, and in fact the only caveat seems to be as long as the band is great live – nothing else matters. Usually you can expect a couple of bands from the 80’s/90’s (bands like Living Colour, Queensryche, Andrew WK) – all the way to bands with hits on the radio now (i.e. Five Finger Death Punch, Hinder, Pop Evil, In This Moment), and a few that will become more well-known soon (Crobot, Wilson, Avatar). This coming cruise is unique, as basically the line-up was picked by the shiprockers themselves. There was a poll on the Facebook pages of the most wanted bands on the boat, and I believe 6 of the top 8 are onboard this year. Shiprocked leaves Jan 16th from Miami to Turks & Caicos, the headlining bands are Breaking Benjamin, Papa Roach, Alter Bridge, Sevendust, & Pop Evil with about a dozen or so other bands, and special guests as well (you can find the lineup at shiprocked.com).
Now – the first 4 years of the cruise – I brought a date. Initially there were always more dudes than girls (although this year it might be different) AND I felt like it was something I could definitely find many girls that would be interested in going with me (readers of any of my previous articles know, I am a big advocate of inviting a girl to something interesting as a way of turning a girl who wasn’t interested in you into someone who might become interested!) In truth – I have had good amounts of success (a playboy model, and a Miami Heat cheerleader to name two), and I have had my share of mishaps before as well – where I bring a girl to an event, and they either get caught up in the free drinks, find a good looking guy in a band they’d rather hang out with, or just disappear… But the date I brought on the 4th Shiprocked was a doosey!
Granted this is pretty much my fault, and it made for a point in one of my past articles – which is – if you don’t know a girl that well, and said girl tells you she gets crazy when she gets drunk. Run Away…. To cut down my week long misery into a few sentences – after a mildly successful first day on the boat, I found her drunk, naked and wrapping herself in toilet paper on the main deck dancing to Sevendust! When I looked at her in shock from stage – I immediately went over to her trying to explain that she’s an extension of me on the boat, and this is not the way to behave… eventually ending up with her cursing me out – telling me “You don’t own me Nigga!” over and over (I am white btw, and so was she). Leading me to A) kick her out of my room B) tell the organizers of the cruise that they could leave her in Mexico If they like, and C) Not bring a girl on Shiprocked since.
Which, sad to say – has unfortunately led to a 3-year involuntary shiprocked-celibacy streak! Granted, I will blame myself a lot on this too since besides bringing on the bands, I also host all the events – from Beach Wars, Drunk Spelling Bee, Beer Pong, the comedy nights, and a plethora of other events… I even do my podcast as an end of night wrap up, so I tend to not really have a lot of time to hit on girls while I am there, but I truly thought It might happen ONCE!!! Alas, it didn’t and this angered me so much that about 2 months before the last cruise I announced that I would be singing Adele’s “hello” every single time I get on stage – if I didn’t get any action – which in turn lead me to sing that song about 30 times, and I left the boat again, hungover and horny. A threepeat of sadness.
Now talk about turning a negative into a positive… what happened next was truly for the record books, and is also part of my philosophy of life. You never know what will happen unless you ask. Granted I have far more balls via text or online messaging – and since you cannot do that on the boat, might also add to my losing streak – that being said – about 2 weeks after the cruise – a very pretty girl that was on the boat texted me and said – “you should’ve asked me! I would have gladly helped you stop singing Adele”
I responded with a truly moronic statement “well, I was really looking for 3 girls not just one!” which turned into her coming to visit me for a weekend with two cute girlfriends and all we did was eat, sleep, lay on the beach and have sex! One of the craziest weekends I’ve had in a long time. I didn’t think it was really going to happen, until they showed up in Miami, and on that first night – I kept thinking that somehow I was going to wake up. I went through two boxes of condoms that weekend my friends, and now with Shiprocked being only a few months away, I am trying to decide what to do this year.
I’ve noticed on the Shiprocked Facebook forums A LOT of single girls going this year. And yet I know my schedule of events, how busy I will be, and how bad I am at hitting on girls IRL (as the kids say), plus I really don’t think my ego could handle being a four-time loser. Add to that the fact that a few cool chicks that I know actually want to go with me. Then throw into the mix that my podcast co-host is bringing his woman, and I would hate to be the 3rd wheel… the flip-flopping in my head is boggling my mind!
Now when trying to pick a girl to go with me – I have to factor in some important things. How well do I know her? Is she a girl that will get drunk and stupid? Will she leave me for the singer of Godsmack midway thru the first day? Will she leave me for the singer of god-smack’s girlfriend morning of the 2nd day? Why Do I keep bringing up Godsmack? Plus – I have to hope that she understands that she has to at least pretend to care about what I am doing when I’m there. No easy task!
Or do I throw the dice – try and be my charming self, throw it out on the Shiprocked forums that I am single – and see what happens? I am asking the Social Underground readers to help me decide. What should this middle aged, out of shape, hairy Jewish rocker do?! Rely on his somewhat charming personality, or bring sand to the beach?! Let the games begin!
For more information on Shiprocked – you can visit www.shiprocked.com If you’d like to follow me – do so everywhere @iamralphsutton and listen to my podcast The SDR Show on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio and more.
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Tall in height, short in the pants.
Host of The SDR Show, The Tour Bus, as well as Shiprocked & Motorhead’s Motorboat