Category: Music

BMOC Wannabe

My dreamy-eyed college ID photo. The staple holes came from meal passes.
Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions was a favorite record during my freshman year of college. “Jesus Children of America” was a significant song for me. I had started doing Transcendental Meditation at the end of my senior year of high school (my assigned mantra was “ee-mah”), and my involvement with a church at home had extended to joining a Christian Fellowship group on campus.

I haven’t listened to the album all the way through in many years. My 50-year-old copy of the LP is playing now, and Innervisions is every bit as accomplished and enjoyable as I remember it.

Jimmy regarding Jimmy

This week’s Arlo & Janis storyline is about Arlo being a Parrot Head.

https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2023/09/18

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ArloandJanisFans/permalink/10159834026155334/

Jimmy Johnson – I hope you have been enjoying “Arlo & Janis” this week, featuring memories of Jimmy Buffett. Not everyone is a Buffett fan although you might not think it at the moment. Since his death, the outpouring of admiration, of appreciation and of personal sadness has been, frankly, astonishing. Given all this, I debated whether an entire week of A&J almost a month after his passing would be relevant, but I felt as if I owe it to Jimmy Buffett.

Like Arlo in the strip, I am a fan of Mr. Buffett, a longtime fan. I particularly enjoyed his earlier work, not coincidentally because it coincided with my “salad days.” Because of this, I repeatedly mentioned him in “Arlo & Janis,” and fellow Buffett fans noticed. Fortunately for me, the mentions were a benign dog whistle heard by fellow travelers who might never have known of my work otherwise. I know for a fact Mr. Buffett garnered me attention and fans in years when I needed them most.

I always have been attracted to the stories of people who led singular lives: Marquis de LaFayette, Bill Mauldin, Julia Child. I think Jimmy Buffett was one of those people. So much more than a beach bum, Mr. Buffett was optimistic, whimsical, intelligent, adventurous, thoughtful. He was ambitious. He literally made a fortune singing for a cult of fans, whom he made very happy. As a fellow Alabamian who also came from materially unprepossessing circumstances, I don’t see anything wrong with that at all. I think a lot of people now sense there was much more to the man than “a silly beach song,” as he has described it. I think that is why he has left an unexpectedly large hole.