Actual photo.
So after long ago buying tickets to JB’s “Under the Big Top” tour — assuredly putting me on some sort of watch list — I decided… not to go.
Various reasons, among them:
- (a) I didn’t want to hear — in the far from pristine environment that is Jimmy’s actual voice — the post-1987 music I’ve yet to encounter,
- (b) I frankly didn’t want to hear the handful of songs I actually like equally butchered by the man who gave them life, and:
- (c) despite 16 albums of preparation I wasn’t ready to surround myself with the Buffett aesthetes who’ve practiced for this their entire lives.
I ended up there anyway.
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Berkshire gained 44.4% in 1989. $1.5 billion, compared to a mere half-bil in 1988.
And of course this is in spite of Warren’s yearly bluster about the impossibility of any future BRK growth. (He does it even more in 1989, this time predicting an imminent loss in shareholder value.) He’s a fiscal Ralph Kramden: “One of these days, investors… POW! Right in the kisser!”
(Did I just date myself? Reveal that I am actually an 87-year-old man? And did you know Jackie Gleason recorded a Christmas album of “lounge” music? I have a copy.)
Anyway, before we head straight to the moon, four segments in 1989′s letter. Let’s break it down, Berlin-Wall-style:
(Are you humming Jimmy’s “Come to the Moon?” Why not?)
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Go buy this album instead. Or any other album.
So the past few weeks I’ve devoted the bulk of my listening to Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin. It feels a little dirty, but I’m halfway through Jimmy and I deserve a break. Call it the 16-album itch.
Or a palate cleanser. Though it is a little unfair to Jimmy — like rinsing with Lafite Rothschild after a course of Old Milwaukee.
(I had to Google “lafite rothschild” to make sure it was what I thought it was, but rest assured Old Milwaukee I had down.)
And I’d rather write about Brian than Jimmy. Floridays is particularly un-notable and… somehow… just doesn’t stand up to perhaps the greatest pop songwriter of all time, doing frickin’ Gershwin. And say what you will about Brian’s thinning, sexagenarian vocals, the novelty aspects of this particular album, the thematic heavy-handedness inherent in his latter-day efforts, his inability to recapture the magic of Pet Sounds, etc., but Brian wouldn’t be caught dead in the same league as Jimmy.
Or so I thought.
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I also have a responsibility to these guys. Don't we all?
Yeah, still here.
Back when I jogged there was a saying: “go out hard, die like a pig.” (It’s probably still a saying.) The point was that if you start out too fast, you’re… liable to die squealing on an electrified killing floor?
That can’t be it. Stupid quote. Why not “afterburn out, burn out after?” Or “go out sprintin’, come in limpin’?”
The point is I’ve maintained too great a clip here. Warren and Jimmy are exhausting. And the past two weeks I’ve dreamed of nothing but turning this project into sweet slices of Buffett bacon. (Smithfield-processed, no doubt.)
But, ultimately, I have a responsibility to my readers. No, not you. My future readers. Specifically my kids. Because one day they’ll end up Googling their father, find this project — unfinished — and discover that Dad is a quitter.
They don’t need to know. So: onward we go, at a conversational pace. The kids can learn about me later, from another project I abandon. But first they’ll learn some glib, superficial finance “lessons” from decades past.
Just like you. (See how I did that?)
Let’s go.
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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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