Post #239111 by Rev. Griz on Thu, Jun 22, 2006 1:56 PM

Welcome Rev. Griz.

Around these parts (...that would be TC), Jimmy Buffett is often derided as the "Anti-Tiki". Are you sure you want to be thought of as the Jimmy Buffett of Utah?

Thanks, Hakalugi! Although lurking about here I've seen some anti-JB sentiment, I'm puzzled as to why he'd be thought of as the anti-tiki. In fact Buffett has very little to do with Tiki other than covering "The Tiki Bar is Open". As a musician, I idolize the man for one simple reason: he's spent his entire life doing exactly what he wanted to do: play music and entertain. Anyone else who has done the same thing can feel free to cast the first stone, but it's still something to which I aspire :) He's a mediocre musician, a questionable singer, a functional songwriter with occasional flashes of extreme brilliance, but he knows how to help people have a good time and he puts on a hell of a show. In between albums and concerts he flies his boatplane to exotic locales or sails his boat to far away islands. His businesses and followers do a lot of good charity work.

Now as to philosophical issues, I don't give a hoot about those. He's a shrewd and sometimes ruthless businessman. He's not above whoring his newfound popularity out to the Nashville machine that rejected him in the '70s. For money, fame, power, who knows? All I know is he flies in the face of the music industry, puts on a good show, and does his own thing like any good Beachbum. Why that would be regarded as an afront to the Tiki community, a good many of whom embrace the many tentacled and far more insidious Disney monster, is a mystery to me.

As far as me comparing myself to him, I flatter myself. I'm more of a JB in training :) I write and sing funny songs about beaches and palm trees and hope some day to be the performer Jimmy is and to live the life I dream of rather than the one dictated to me by the rat race. He's more Caribbean and I'm more Pacific, but there's room on the island for everyone.