So I took a couple of weeks off. Like you’re paying attention.
My excuse: either I’m becoming more like Jimmy by the week, and simply don’t care about your Regular Society expectations; or I needed a serious reevaluation of everything in my life after my overwhelmingly glowing experience with Riddles in the Sand.
Either way, let’s move on… to Last Mango in Paris, Jimmy’s worst titled, and chintziest designed, album to date. This is one I suspect even parrotheads are embarrassed to display in their CD racks.
(Note: I wanted to type “gun racks” right there instead of “CD racks.” You can’t really blame me, right?)
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I’m as surprised as you are.
Typically the new album experience for me is a painful gestation. It’s work. But as I mentioned earlier this week, Riddles in the Sand is miraculously… tolerable. In fact after my first listen-through I had to restrain myself from immediately posting my mild praise here, for all the world to see.
After a few days of further digestion and questioning every belief I’ve ever had, I’ll now validate that Riddles is indeed laudably consistent — as even-keeled, probably moreso, than even Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.
Alright, fine. It’s good. Shut up.
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As with purchasing firearms, I have a three-day waiting period before posting to this site. (And for the same reason: to prevent an emotional act that leads to my shooting myself in the foot.)
But this week is unique in that I am in the same state as I was three days ago: One, still liking Jimmy’s current album (more on that later this week — this warrants additional scrutiny), and two, deriving actual, if a bit rudimentary, value from Warren’s 1987 letter. For both Buffetts it’s a renaissance here in the mid-eighties. Not unlike [Jefferson] Starship in the actual eighties.
Come on: “We Built This City.” In your head? Give it a second. Yes? How about “Sara?”
Alright, Warren. Let’s do 1987.
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Back in the saddle, my friends. Or, on the dock, or whatever.
I, like Jimmy, have decided to phone in the rest of the decade, and will start here with One Particular Harbour. (One note: my simple goal for the rest of the 80s is to find just three songs that I want to listen to again. Just three, Jimmy.)
As we all probably predicted, OPH is not a standout album. However it does present the most likely candidate of all time for The Official Theme Song of the Brothers Buffett: “I Used to Have Money One Time.” Even more fitting than the title is its intricate refrain:
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Montana? Part of the world. Ergo, mine.
Ugh. I’ve put off reading 1986 — too many painful Bill Buckner memories — for what seems like weeks. Actually it has been weeks.
(I really should have done this project in 1991. I’d be so close.)
Anyway, I finally muster the energy to read 1986 and what do I find? Nothing. As in: Warren basically took the year off and has zilch to impart beyond some ninny updates on his amazing holdings. (And some free verse poetry, and pictures of his kids; it’s a little weird.)
On one hand it sucks, because I had to read the whole letter anyway to find out. Thirteen thousand words I’ll never get back.* On the other, now I can do what I want with this post, which is:
- Gloat over my BP purchase. Seriously. 40% in nine days. I am king of the frickin’ mountain. Tony Montana. Joe Montana. Hannah Montana. Pick a Montana, that’s how untouchable I am.
- Redact what I just said in #1.
- Remind you that I wrote a frickin’ song for you last week, so call your radio station or congressman or the guys at Pandora and demand some airplay. I’d like it the Official Song of the Gulf Cleanup by Monday. (Relief wells would be so easy if subsea containment wasn’t so hard.)
And I just realized there’s an Appendix here in 1986′s letter, so, fine, let’s talk a little bit about it.
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Another four albums down can mean only one thing: it’s Johnny Time. As I struggled this past month with the future of this project, so too does this song take inspiration from the turmoil that has inhabited my very soul. This blog… investing… they could be so easy…
Also, of course, note the influence of JB’s last few albums:
- Write profound-sounding lyrics. And don’t look back.
- Non sequiturs are fine, so long as they rhyme.
- To heck with grammar. (It should probably be “if it weren’t so hard,” but the parrothead in me says “wasn’t.”)
- Jimmy’s apparent new favorite TV show? “I Love the 80s.” Me too, then.
- You can never have enough background singers. Pretend mine are ladies.
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Don't you just want to punch him?
So I’m here on the verge of my next song, frantically seeking inspiration, and finding Somewhere Over China waiting for me.
It’s a desperate place to be. I feel like a cornered animal.
Let me help you out here. My favorite song on this album, “Where’s the Party,” simultaneously evokes the M*A*S*H theme (yes, “Suicide is Painless”) and Rick Astley’s “Together Forever.” And while I’m not entirely disappointed by that, because both of those songs are rad (Jimmy’s is, let’s say, less rad), that’s the level of stimulation I’m dealing with here. Suicide and Rick Astley. Together. Forever.
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Pretend I made a clever joke about what "BP" stands for.
As mentioned earlier, I’m no longer buying stock on a schedule. I’m buying it when I see a deal, just like Warren.
Small problem: I don’t know how to recognize a deal.
So far that hasn’t stopped me from trying. And I continued yesterday by acquiring — at least by TBB standards — a large amount of BP.
(And I can’t tell if this is delicious irony or just regular irony or Alanis Morissette non-irony, but the irony of buying stock in a company responsible for destroying Jimmy’s treasured Gulf is not lost on me. I’m sorry, Jimmy. It’s not personal. OK, just a little bit.)
If I had them, I would point out the legitimate reasons for my BP acquisition. Here instead are some things to distract you from the lack thereof:
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This week I had a crisis of conscience — “conscience” is perhaps putting it strongly, but what else does one have a crisis of? — and considered prematurely ending this project. Why? Lots of reasons, mostly related to ego (and net-worth) damage.
But as I wrestled internally, I paid attention to signs from the Brothers. Today I’m discussing them, and at the same time trying something new: merging 1985′s letter and Coconut Telegraph into one unholy Buffett buffet.
Let me set the stage: I’ve got Coconut Telegraph on the hi-fi; 1985′s letter, the longest to date, stacked in front of me; a glass of port in my hand. I’m the man your man could smell like.
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I may not be the biggest man, but I was the biggest boy.
It takes a big man to admit when he’s wrong. But, really, the biggest man of all is the one who has the ability to admit he’s wrong — but never actually has to.
I am no longer the biggest man.
I’m taking a cue from Warren tonight — WB in his letters routinely admits to being an idiot — and recognizing a sad fact: ten albums in, Jimmy is… how do I say this… not that bad.
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So I took a couple of weeks off. Like you’re paying attention.
