R.I.P., Jimmy Buffett

I think we’re all bohos on this bus.

“Some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic,

But I had a good life all the way.” — Jimmy Buffett, “He Went to Paris”

Jimmy Buffett always seemed to be having more fun than the rest of us.

And not just because he got stupid rich — Forbes estimates his total net worth at a billion smackers, which ain’t sponge cake — off restaurants and real estate. No, sir.

Dude hung out with all the right (wrong) people. Jerry Jeff Walker. Steve Goodman. Jim Harrison. Thomas McGuane, who wrote the liner notes for “A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean,” married Buffett’s sister, Laurie, and is the only survivor of this august cluster of poets, musicians, and miscreants.

Buffett died yesterday at 76, “surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” according to a statement on his website and social media. “He lived his life like a song till the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many.”

My friend Hal Walter and I were fans, declaring occasional Parrot Shirt Days in his honor when we were on the copy desk at The Pueblo Chieftain back in the Eighties. Hal actually tried to get him to speak at commencement when he escaped journalism school at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

I still love listening to “A White Sport Coat.” I have it on right now as I sip my morning coffee, and just played along (inexpertly) to “Why Don’t We Get Drunk?” That one is credited to “Marvin Gardens,” which was Buffett on maracas and beer cans.

The 1977 tune “Margaritaville” was his signature tune and biggest hit. But I always preferred “Death of an Unpopular Poet,” which Buffett clearly was not. I mean, he even had a species of Florida Keys cryptofauna named after him.

Many a margarita will be hoisted to mark his sailing away. Some for breakfast, I expect. Lots of vitamin C in those limes.

Between essence and descent

Shadow descending.

You can’t go wrong with a good T.S. Eliot reference.

Hunter S. Thompson, whose larger-than-life shadow often fell between the idea and the reality, was fond of quoting “The Hollow Men.”

Francis Ford Coppola gave a strong nod to that one as well, along with “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” in “Apocalypse Now.”

Crash Test Dummies likewise put “Prufrock” to work, in “Afternoons & Coffeespoons.”

Lately, of course, the news is distinctly more William Butler Yeatsish, with things falling apart, mere anarchy loosed on the world, and the worst filled with passionate intensity.

It all makes me wish I’d paid more (which is to say “some”) attention during my high-school English classes. And that some other, more prominent slackers had gotten more out of history and civics.

R.I.P., Paul Reubens

Pee-wee Herman has pedaled off for that final Big Adventure. He was 70.

“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” Reubens wrote on an Instagram message posted today. “I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”

It was cancer that did for him, according to his estate, and Reubens kept quiet about it, which I find oddly admirable in an era when anyone will say everything about anything, including me. Peace unto him, his family, friends, and fans.

Dogfights, flies, and hummingbirds

Our backyard hummingbird shower.*
*Hummingbird not included.

The GOP pestilential dogfight is shaping up into something like “The Lord of the Rings” as reimagined by Charles Bukowski with an assist from William Gibson.

Thus we get Scum Baggins, Douche Baggins, Colostomy Baggins, and so on.

In this Bukowski-Gibson cyberpunk edition the Shire is a casino built on a Superfund site, a former dogfighting venue called Slobbiton.

The Wizards are all off somewhere dicking around with AI, social media, and first-class-only rocket flights to nowhere special for the Elves (Dwarves can’t afford a ticket).

The Rings of Power are not limited to the Elite — they’re Watches of Power, and can be acquired by anyone with the do-rei-me — but all they do is let you answer the phone that’s perpetually in your hand anyway and tell you to get out of the La-Z-Boy for a couple minutes every hour, you great fat bastard. Mostly the Ring-wielders use that time to go to the fridge for some tasty Boar’s Head snacks.

Speaking of pigs’ heads, at some point our revised narrative careens off piste entirely into “Lord of the Flies” territory. The Wizards and Elves get voted off the island on charges of being woke, trans, or both; everyone left is some variation on Jack or Roger (though George Soros makes a brief cameo as Piggy); and the Royal Navy never turns up to set things aright because THIS IS AMERICA BUDDY! YEAH, BABY! USA! USA! USA!

All things considered we’d rather watch a sprinkler in the back yard. Now and then we get to see a hummingbird enjoy a brief shower.

R.I.P., Tony Bennett

Like Old Blue Eyes, a friend and mentor who called him “the best singer in the business,” Tony Bennett did it his way.

He died Friday in Manhattan at age 96.

But Bennett went down swinging. Despite a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, he kept performing and recording. His last public performance was in August 2021, when he sang with Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall.

And he got a top-notch sendoff from The New York Times. His very fine obit in that august publication comes to us via the retired obituary writer Bruce Weber, cross-country cyclist and author of “Life is a Wheel: Love, Death, Etc., and a Bike Ride Across America.”