A Sunset Toast to Jimmy Buffett

When I heard on Saturday that Jimmy Buffett had died, I wrote a condolence e-mail to his longtime friend Thomas McGuane, the novelist. McGuane, who is married to Buffett’s sister Laurie, was the go-between when I was trying to get Buffett to talk to me last year, when I was reporting a story about Latitude Margaritaville, the retirement community, or communities, really, that are, notionally, a manifestation of the beachy/breezy/boozy ethos expressed in his songs. Buffett had got rich and even more famous by converting his body of work into a life-style brand. That success, the freedom it gave him to say no, and maybe some lingering if unacknowledged misgivings over the relationship of his attainments in business to his songwriting made him squirrelly about interviews, or this one anyway. McGuane, who referred to Buffett as Bubba, put in a word. Bubba and I Zoomed. He was delightful.