Holly Gleason, a Nashville-based songwriter, essayist and critic, posted a lovely piece about Jimmy Buffett in which she described him as “that uncle your parents wouldn’t let babysit, even if he could talk to them about sailing, literature or Gulf Coast resorts. That made his sangfroid that much more delicious to a kid sitting on a worktable in a back room, not getting all the references.”
The essay, “Beyond The Coral Reefer: Jimmy Buffett Finds That One Particular Harbor,” remembers him this way:
“Jimmy Buffett believed in his songs, his friends, the characters who’d inspired him. As long as he had those people, a little imagination, he’d find a way. Oh, and that way made him a billionaire; he had the last laugh on the music business know-it-alls.
“Not that that was his motivation. Standing onstage, with the smile slicing his face like wide open like a ripe mango, eyes sparkling at the naughtiness of Parrotheads converging on Paris in some kind of electric mojito acid test, there was revelry to be had – and songs, poetic and ribald to be sung.
“That way the joy and the mission: honor what is however it was, remember the beauty, hang onto the high jinks and never, ever doubt the songs … Even when the king of the parrot pirates was out flying his planes or chasing the sun, talking about good times or creating more memories, he was always braising those songs. Living like he sang, laughing like he wrote, it was all the same beautiful ecosystem so many people drew their moments of release, of elation, of crazy wild ‘oh yeah’ from.”
And there’s this line from Gleason’s essay:
“Buffett was snide about the right stuff, tender with the good stuff and savoring of the naughty stuff. Even before he turned into a billionaire industrial conglomerate of frozen drink machines and retirement communities, he understood not just what mattered, but how.”
The post “Snide About The Right Stuff, Tender With The Good Stuff, Savoring The Naughty Stuff” appeared first on MNB.
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