WIJBD?

Yesterday, Jimmy Buffett had a little scare in Australia. He fell 5 feet off a stage during a show, was unconscious for 5 minutes, and spent the night in the hospital. People all over the world, well, freaked out. (He's going to be OK, by the way...)

There's a popular slogan that makes fun of the "WWJD" - "What Would Jesus Do?" slogan. It's "WWJBD?" (What Would Jimmy Buffett Do?) After the scare yesterday, I began thinking about this one: WIJBD?

"WHAT IF JIMMY BUFFETT DIES?"

Yes - it's morbid. But he's no spring chicken. Jimmy Buffett is more than a singer, more than famous. He's a legend. An icon. A lifestyle. Even people that don't like him can respect and envy the life he's made for himself. (That would be you, Bart.)

Let's face it. Like Elvis and the Beatles, there is no other Jimmy Buffett. When he's gone, there will be no replacement. He changed popular culture forever. What will we do when he's gone?

Then I start thinking things like "Maybe I should stay sober so I can take my kids to see Jimmy while I still can." We all know that's crazy talk. First off...me sober? And second: Who stays sober at a Jimmy Buffett concert? Has that ever even happened before? And would he condone it anyway?

So then I start thinking...OK - in 8 years Karlin will be 18, and Chase will be 16. I can take them then. 8 years is a long time. What if he falls off the stage again? And what caused him to fall anyway? Was HE drunk at the Jimmy Buffett concert? I just wonder becuase it looked like a pretty obvious edge-of-the-stage to me. Granted, I've never been on stage with spotlights shining on me while 60,000 screamed and sang at me, but still. What if he's just getting old? Too old to tour?

I cringe to think of a world without Jimmy Buffett. 99.99% of us will never have his life. Or even a part of his life. But he gives us hope that maybe one day we will. And when you are in a God-awful hawaiian shirt, with palm trees on your head, pirate beads around your neck, drunk on 6 hours of tailgaiting, and singing arm-in-arm with 25,000 of your new closest friends - it seems like - just for a few hours - you're there. We're all in the tropics, on a boat, drinking margaritas together. For a few hours, the real world stops and we're all on Buffett time.

I look forward to those few hours all year. The best thing about living in Tampa is that Jimmy comes here every April. We can all be Pirates and Parrot Heads Fruitcakes and generally be irresponsible for awhile. We can sing to Mother Ocean and ask our neighbors to Get Drunk and Screw. We can all be Nobodies from Nowhere. None of us knows where we're gonna go when the Volcano blows, and we all know where the Fins are. We had our Cheeseburgers in paradise in a tent in the parking lot, and lord knows we are wasted away in Margaritaville.

Stay with us for awhile, JB. The world is a brighter, funnier, tackier place with you in it.