Celebrity deaths don’t typically affect me, even when it’s celebrities I like. However, when I woke up last week and read that Jimmy Buffett had died, I immediately got a pit in my stomach.
To be perfectly transparent, I don’t know a ton about Jimmy Buffett, the person. I don’t know much about his public or private persona. I’ve never read any of his books. I didn’t know he was only 76—a fact that only makes this loss that much more tragic, especially when you consider that 187-year-old walking corpse and part-time dementor/part-time Senator Mitch McConnell still walks amongst us (a fact that has firmly tilted the “is God real?” question firmly to the negative, for me anyway)—nor who his family consisted of.
I did know that as he got older, Buffett was defined more by the lifestyle he created, by the brand he created, and how his Margaritaville-inspired restaurants, beachwear, rums, and hot sauces catapulted him to billionaire status, over the music that launched his career. Despite my growing belief that billionaires can’t be good people and that we should eat the rich (both stances will be happily revisited if I ever become either), I never faulted Buffett for his financial success. Despite me not knowing anything about his persona or personal life, I still gave him a pass, assuming that he (like the only other good billionaire, Rihanna) should be given some props for turning the music and lifestyle he loved and clearly craved into a runaway success.
Buffett didn’t get rich selling unattainable financial dreams, dangerous pharmaceuticals, faulty products, or cheaply made wellness hacks to suckers. He got rich selling the notion that even in our hectic lives, we could take a break and drift off to Margaritaville for a bit, whether that bit be the length of a song, a dinner, or however long we choose to lounge on a Margarittaville-themed beach towel. He was an unproblematic musician selling middle-class folks like me a quick island getaway when we didn’t have the time or resources to go for real.
I was, and am, however, an unabashed fan of Jimmy Buffett’s music. “Cheeseburger in Paradise” will immediately bring me back to drunkenly dancing around the mini jukeboxes at Chick’s, my favorite collegiate diner in sunny Scranton, PA, and how can you not respect someone who writes lyrics like “Not zucchini, fettuccini, or bulgur wheat, but a big warm bun and a huge hunk of meat,” or “I like mine with lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57, and French-fried potatoes” (bonus points to Buffett for referencing Heinz and not…Hunt’s)?
“Come Monday” regularly makes the top ten on my Spotify wrapped. And “He Went to Paris” is one of my top favorite songs of all time, with my second favorite lyric of all time, “some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic, but I had a good life, all the way” (second only to “someday we’ll look back on this and it will all be funny,” from my top favorite song of all time “Rosalita,” by one Mr. Bruce Springsteen). I love “Fins.” I love “Margaritaville.” I love “Changes in Latitude,” “Boat Drinks,” and “One Particular Harbor.”
I love them all, unironically, too.
It should be said that I think there’s something about music snob’s distaste for Buffett that made me—and makes me—like him more. I find myself drawn to art—music, TV, books—and people who have no pretensions about them. They offer up what they feel is fun or entertaining and don’t look for critical acclaim or the approval of “tastemakers.” It’s why I also unabashedly and unironically love Billy Joel, Jersey Shore, and McDonald’s. You don’t have to be fancy to be fun. And fun and good shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.
The Saturday that Buffett died, my brother and friend, Jacki were in town. We had no set plans for Saturday morning but were heading to Burnsville in the evening to stay in a cabin and heed the call of the mountains. We’d been throwing around going on a short hike or finding somewhere just to chill and hang in our hammocks, but I felt we needed to do something to honor Jimmy, even in a small way. I knew Shawn would be similarly melancholy—the last time he visited, we spent the drive back from a sunrise Black Balsam hike discussing our favorite Buffet songs and lyrics and making loose plans to see him in 2024—and was also somewhat relieved to know that Jacki was similarly devastated.
After a relaxing walk around River Arts and West Asheville, we headed to Hi-Wire’s RAD Beer Garden. We wanted a ceremonial cheeseburger in paradise, and the beer garden’s vaguely tropical theme and the fact that Foothill’s food truck has my favorite cheeseburger in town made it a fitting place. After ordering our burger, even though we didn’t want to start that early, Jacki and I figured we should get a “cold draft beer” to properly complete the tribute. I’m not saying it’s some sort of sign or anything, but as we scanned the menu to see what would work best, we saw that they were offering a Margarita Sour. It was delicious. And perfect.
That night, after checking into our AirBnB in the mountains outside Burnsville, we went to Homeplace Brewing, as they advertised outdoor music. They had a solid Bluegrass band, so we settled in with some beers, pizza, and wings and enjoyed a low-key listen as the sun set in the background. It was also pretty perfect: relaxing fun…and though it wasn’t his genre, it was definitely something Buffett would’ve approved of and/or written about. And then either Shawn or I—I can’t remember who—pointed out that we were enjoying a Labor Day Weekend show, the kind memorialized in the opening of “Come Monday.”
“Heading’ up to San Franciso for the Labor Day weekend show, I got my hush-puppies on, I guess I was never meant for glitter rock and roll.”
Sure, we were in Western North Carolina and thus footed with Birkenstocks over the loafers (but adorned in Hawaiin shirts), but it still felt right and good. I was with my good friends in a gorgeous setting, listening to music we liked, paying homage to a man whose music we loved and whose death, because of his music, had us all feeling slightly sad.
It was pretty perfect too.
To paraphrase Jimmy, while some of it’s tragic, some of it is also quite magic. We had a good night, all the way.
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