COMEDIAN JEFF SHAW

It’s hard to believe the holidays are over already. Perhaps if I were to take the Christmas decorations down in my cabin, it would feel more like the twelfth day of 2014. But seeing how my New Year’s resolution was…

One of the first things guests ask me is, “What’s an American like you doing working as a crew member on a cruise ship?”

My stock answer is: “I’m not a crew member. I’m actually the president of the cruise…

There comes a point in every comedian’s career when he has to stop worrying about offending people. Worrying about offending people while performing stand-up comedy is like worrying about getting bugs on your windshield while driving a car. No matter…

After reading about the popular new trend of online “fan fiction,” I can’t stop picturing how cool it would be to have some teenage girl reinvent me as a wisecracking vampire lurking in the shadows, thirsting to drain the lifeblood…

The coolest thing about being a cruise ship comedian is I get to perform stand-up for children way too young to visit comedy clubs on land. One night, this adorable little Chinese-American girl in the front row raised her hand…

Whenever a comedian’s flight gets canceled, I get paid extra to cover his shows as the fill-in headliner. It’s happened three times in the past two months. I’m not sure if it’s due to the current shortage of air traffic…

Difficult cruise ship guests can be put into four categories. You can try putting them into five, but they’re not going to cooperate.

You’ll recognize the four types of difficult guests by their mantras:

1)     “I Paid a Lot to…

My job is to help guests on my cruise ship experience the vacation of a lifetime. But difficult guests don’t need my help. Their constant complaining can make seven days seem like a lifetime.

Don’t get me wrong. Helping difficult…

The great thing about Facebook is it allows average folks to express themselves with words without first having to actually learn how to express themselves with words.

Why struggle through a Writer’s Digest book on argumentative essays just so you…

I’d like to wish all of you an exciting, fun-filled cruise. Of course, I realize this can’t happen for everyone. Some of you are going to drink too much and fall overboard; others will sustain serious brain injuries in water-ski…

Being a cruise-ship comedian is an easy gig. Perform two or three 30-minute sets a night, four nights a week, and you’re done.

That leaves you 163 hours of free time every week to…

• Get to the airport at 4:00am…

Living and working on a cruise ship can be a lot of fun. You get to meet interesting, hardworking people from around the world and scream at them in your underwear when they're line dancing to “Gangnam Style” in the…