Bon Voyage, Jimmy Buffett
It was maybe three weeks ago. I was talking to a small group of coworkers about Jimmy Buffett. I’m not sure how the topic came up. Could have been that it was summertime. Could have been that our office overlooks Chicago’s Monroe Harbor. Could have been both. Anyway, there we were talking about the Mayor of Margaritaville.
“I like Buffett,” I said. “I wouldn’t call myself a Parrot Head, but I know the Big 8 by heart and I’ve seen him in concert around two dozen times.”
“Two dozen!?”
“A few of those shows, I paid for. But most were extra tickets I snagged when I was working in radio in Las Vegas. As the station’s marketing director, I often had access to a spare pair or so to many of the acts that came through town. And Buffett would come through twice a year, so about every six months, I’d be at the MGM Grand in cargo shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops getting hammered with thousands of other drunkards. Most of them looking like actual Parrot Heads: seemingly well-to-do, white folks dressed in grass skirts, coconut bras, and inflatable parrot hats. I saw him with friends. With friends’ dads. With girlfriends. With girlfriends’ dads. Everyone I knew wanted to see Buffett at least once. I mean, it’s a party. I saw him in three different states. Saw him perform huge venues and, once, I saw him play on a small, invite-only stage when he opened up Margaritaville Las Vegas. I got so drunk that night that I wound up sleeping in my car in the parking lot of a gas station with the keys tucked under the rear passenger wheel—just to ensure I didn’t get smacked with a DUI.
“I do love me some Buffett, but I can’t see myself attending another show. They’re all the same. The set list varies slightly, but it’s mostly the songs we all know with some of the new stuff sprinkled in. Which is nice because that’s when you make a beer or bathroom run. All his one-liners are the same, the solos get the same reaction. It was a fun party but the thrill had become a been there, done that sorta thing. I mean, I’d go again if it was a special occasion like a bachelor party or birthday thing—something extraordinary. Otherwise, I’ve done my Buffett shows and I’m good. And I always have his records to play when I’m in the mood.”
Judging by their faces, my coworkers were not, for an instant, buying my claim that I wasn’t an actual Parrot Head. And maybe, neither was I.
✶
News of Jimmy Buffett’s death came as a shock. And as a coincidence. I was just making the turn into the Hammond Marina for a day of sailing with my dad when my brother texted me, “I’m sorry about Buffett.” I knew he wasn’t talking about Warren—who is not related to Jimmy, although they had long joked about it with Warren calling Jimmy his cousin and Jimmy referring to Warren as “uncle.” Fuck, I said to myself. I pulled into the marina parking lot and opened my phone to check the news. And there it was. Jimmy Buffett was dead. And it hit me harder than I ever imagined it could. There was a tear or two. But I rallied with the knowledge that I’d mourn this news under sail at sea. And it was a perfect day for it.
I knew then, as I know now, my life will be no different with Jimmy Buffett no longer a physical entity on this earth. And should I miss him, I have the records and YouTube videos and photos from some of the two dozen shows I attended. His death wasn’t tragic. Making it to seventy-six ain’t bad. It’s still not old by my count, but damn, that dude lived one helluva life. One of the many things Buffett would say during his shows is, “I love my job!” Yeah, man. He had the job, the life, so many of us long for. Be a rock star—or at least a countryfied, sand in your ass crack version of a rock star. Travel the world, create your own line of beer, margarita mix, clothing, restaurants, and more. Write some books, act in some movies, sail your boats, fly your planes, sit in bars and converse with fascinating characters, become a billionaire. Jimmy Buffett had only one Top Ten Billboard hit: “Margaritaville” in July of 1977. But to modernize his impact, goddamn if that guy wasn’t my spirit animal.
Misery loves company, especially when there’s boiling shrimp, regrettable tattoos, and frozen tequila concoctions involved.
All that is incredible. Not least of all that only one of his many, many songs, including those other seven in the Big 8, ever cracked the Top Ten. Even Alan Jackson’s “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” featuring Buffett only peaked at number seventeen. But, like many of Buffett’s tunes, it’s ubiquitous in any coastal bar, summertime playlist, and shitty karaoke performance.
Whether you know Buffett’s songs by name or not, you sure as hell can recognize them. If even vaguely. But “Margaritaville”? Damn. Here’s a song that may well be one of the saddest, most desperate, potentially suicide letter-ready songs ever penned, and Jimmy Buffett turned it into a party anthem, a state of being, an imaginary place we can all retreat to, an actual place we can get a Cheese Burger in Paradise at (and be disappointed by), an actual place where we can go and sing and dance and drink and hook up and puke and rally. His shows were Margaritaville.
But I implore you to listen to the original recording. Really listen to it. There’s that familiar, on-brand island flair we associate with Buffett’s music. But mostly, it’s a moderate tempo song about crippling alcoholism, poor choices, and physical injury. The hero’s journey of the song, which many Buffett songs have, concludes with him admitting his terrible station in life is all his “own damn fault.” And the best thing he’s got going for him is more alcohol, which will eventually kill the poor bastard.
“Margaritaville” hit our ears in 1977 but by 1978, it was already being played to present depression and self-destruction to be as much fun as a conga line. And he turned that into a billion-dollar business. Misery loves company, especially when there’s boiling shrimp, regrettable tattoos, and frozen tequila concoctions involved.
When Jimmy Buffett died, it felt like a part of my youth died with him. A punctuation on the fact that time passes. And that, sometimes, that’s sad.
✶
It has always puzzled me that my own father never really took to Jimmy Buffett. They share a first name. They love boats and sun and airplanes. My dad has never been one for hanging out in bars or drinking in general, and he’s never been a fan of country music. But he does love Kenny Rogers and Shania Twain. Why not the guy who isn’t quite country and sings about boats?
So my first introduction to Buffett came from Jeff Miner. In 1990, I was eleven years old and it was my first summer at overnight camp. Miner was, and remains, a Buffett fan. A big one. Perhaps a Parrot Head. He had a lot of Buffett t-shirts, and as program director he was tasked with waking up the camp with morning announcements followed by music played through the camp’s PA system as we all got dressed and ready for breakfast at the mess hall. Often, Miner would wake us with a Buffett tune. At camp, Miner was the Buffett man. It was part of his identity.
Miner, like Buffett, is a fantastic storyteller. He has a knack for casting full characters and place. He can sit and suck back booze and swap stories with as much whimsy as anyone I know. I admired that.
Buffett’s songs were perfect for summer days by the lake. And thanks to Miner, Buffett became the soundtrack to my childhood’s summer vacation.
✶
I am at my most happy when I’m sailing, on the water, sharing stories in bars or over drinks in any setting. I crave experiences with the odd ones out, the strange, the dangerous, the tragic, the incredible. I have long sought to curate a life that is not unlike the Margaritaville lifestyle. I became the wannabe sailor with no shirt and a tan and a buzz in part because that’s just who I am, but I can’t ignore the fact that Buffett’s musical influence helped that along. It was a kind of proof that a living can be had as a working man whose job was basically being retired.
I could have worked harder to sail that career course. But other desires got in the way. And that’s okay. I do the best I can on the weekends. And maybe when older age settles in, I can cast off from the port of real responsibility and design a seaside life where shoes are not required and my greatest concerns are weather conditions and reapplying sunscreen.
✶
My freshman year in college, I was living in the dorms on the campus of UNLV (where the ‘N’ stands for knowledge). Before I left for college that fall, my grandfather, Grampa Ernie, asked if he could borrow my copy of Jimmy Buffett’s Songs You Know By Heart. “Of course,” I told him, and I handed him my CD. A few months later, Grampa Ernie sent the CD back to me. As I opened the package, I thought to myself, I bet Grampa forgot to put the CD in the case. And sure enough… I called him and a week later, the CD itself, wrapped in bubble wrap, arrived at my dorm.
✶
I didn’t know Jimmy Buffett personally. I don’t know his hardships other than when Jamaica mistook his seaplane for a drug smuggling vehicle and nearly shot it down. To note, Bono was on board, so I like to recast the facts as Jamaica wanted to blow Bono out of the sky. But even if Buffett was plagued by misery, he never let it show. Instead, he spent the better part of five decades creating a magical place that invited all our senses to feel good, engage in the gritty human experience, and just have a great time.
And, like I said, we can always access that. That’s the great thing about art, it tends to stick around. I didn’t realize it until he died that even though I was unlikely to attend another Buffett show, there was a subtle comfort knowing that on most nights somewhere in the world, Jimmy Buffett was on stage doing what the divine designed him to do, which was giving us all a place we could escape to. A place where the fun never ends, the air never cools too much, the sun doesn’t burn too badly, and we can let our worries roll back like a tide.
The irony is that it was skin cancer that did him in. You can’t blame sun rays directly for Merkel cell carcinoma, but all those years being Jimmy Buffett living the Jimmy Buffett lifestyle likely had something to say about it. Still, we all have to go some time, some way. So, I find it fitting, and comforting that Buffett waited until summer’s end to sail off. And on Labor Day weekend. It’s a nice call back to his first single, “Come Monday” with the opening lyric, “Heading up to San Francisco for the Labor Day weekend show.”
Well played, sir. As always… well played.
