Sir James Buffet

I've learned over the years that an artist you like can completely break your heart by being a scumbag. Warning, the intro to this does mention pedophilia, but it gets light hearted after the break. Just down to the sentence that starts with "I'm not a huge Jimmy Buffett fan" if you want to skip the bad stuff. 

My favorite band through most of college and well into my adulthood was Brand New. The music was interesting, it was perfectly balanced between yearning and loneliness, the isolation that comes from a world that seems to be spinning out of control, and anger that no one in power wants to change it. 

And then it turned out that Jesse Lacey, the singer, had been soliciting pictures from underaged girls for years. 

One of my recent favorites, the Arcade Fire, now has their own lead singer issues who is being accused of being a sex pest. (At the very least to of age women for now)

And it's not just a "now" issue. There's stories of David Bowie in weird situations with underaged women. Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson, Don Henley, Elvis, the list keeps going. Ranker has a whole list of sex pest celebrities.  

So this is where the blog changes direction. Like 90 degree, complete deflection into another topic. 

I'm not a huge Jimmy Buffett fan. His music is background music to me. You won't see my bobbing my head to Cheeseburger in Paradise. There's a time and place for Jimmy Buffet... and that is on a boat, which is where I was when we were listening to him. 

I don't remember how the conversation started, but the boat was generally grooving to Dr. Sir. James Buffet. 

We talked about Margaritaville, both the resort and restaurant. 

We discussed how impressive it is a man has had a 60 year career writing songs specifically about vibing on or near beaches. 

And then I had this sinking feeling, maybe behind those good beach vibes, there was a dark character. Maybe he's murdered someone. Maybe he's a sex pest. Because anyone that has been this popular for this long has to have some skeletons out in the open.

So, in the middle of this lake, while drinking an ice cold beer, I had one of the passengers on the boat pull up the dreaded Wikipedia Controversy section on Jimmy. 

Well, what I found out was, Jimmy Buffet might be one of the COOLEST PEOPLE TO EVER LIVE. 

Controversy 1: "God's Own Drunk"

The son of comedian Lord Buckley brought a $11 million lawsuit against Buffett, claiming he not only stole parts of the monologue from Buckley's "A Tribute to Buckley" and then alleged that Buffett's "blasphemous" rendition presented a distorted impression of Lord Buckley. 

Buffett was barred from playing the song live until the lawsuit was settled. So he would get to the part in his set where he would normally play this and would instead play a song he wrote especially for Buckley called "The Lawyer and the Asshole."

Controversy 2: Drug Smuggling and Bullet Dodging

In 1996, Jimmy Buffett's private plane was shot at by Jamaican authorities because they thought he was a drug smuggler. 

That on it's own, is a story worthy of telling. But to make it more crazy, he had Bono from U2, Bono's entire family, and Chris Blackwell founder of Island records and person who made Reggae music available to the world. 

Other than a few bullet holes, not much damage was sustained. Jimmy Buffett, in what I'm starting to see as a theme, wrote a song about it called "Jamaica Mistaica."

Controversy 3: Math Suks

This is barely a controversy. Buffett wrote a song about struggling as a student to understand math and a bunch of math nerds got mad. 

The real controversy here is how boring the song is. It sounds likes something an off brand Muppet show would sing. 

Controversy 4: A Sailor Mouthed Ejection

In 2001, Jimmy was kicked out of a basketball game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks. Pat Riley, the coach for the Miami Heat, asked the ref if "he has ever been a Parrothead in his life" and the ref took that as an insult... because he did not know Parrothead is a term of endearment for Buffett fans. 

Jimmy used the ejection (wasn't a true ejection since he watched the rest of the game from the tunnel) to rile up the Miami fans for the final 2 minute push of the game. 

Controversy 5: B-Vitamins

Jimmy Buffett is not known as a party guy. /s

In 2006, French authorities detained Jimmy believing his private jet was carrying over 100 pills of the party drug ecstasy

A spokesperson for Buffett said the pills were an unnamed prescription drug with Buffett saying they were B-Vitamins. 

He paid $300 and was released. 

Ultimately what I'm saying is, on this random August day, out on a boat, I sort of became a Parrothead, not because of the music, but because of the stories. And I will be purchasing a Jimmy Buffet autobiography and reading it while drinking a margarita.