Paris (May 7, 2007) -- "So that makes you Kim Jong-il," I said to Jimmy Buffett over breakfast at the George V hotel in Paris.
Jimmy, who does not like to be interrupted, had been talking about his shows and was answering a question about whether it ever got old playing the same songs over and over.
"Someone once said that my shows contain as many surprises as a North Korean election," he said before I unveiled my uncanny ability to link the ultimate fun-time guy to the ultimate totalitarian leader.
"I don't want to be compared with that guy," Jimmy said in a very non-Margaritaville way. He was looking straight ahead and not at me.
Besides that awkward moment, breakfast with Jimmy Buffett this morning was a very good time.
How I came to be having breakfast with Jimmy Buffett is kind of a strange story in itself. In my work email on Wednesday was a message from the executive editor of the IHT, a friend of Jimmy's. "We have a special, last minute guest for lunch if anyone is interested in having lunch with Jimmy Buffett," the message said.
It was too late for me to make the lunch by the time I arrived at work, much to my disappointment.
But my always energetic friend Matt, a former Marine sniper from Mississippi, came down to tell me that he too had missed the lunch. But his efforts to get an interview with Jimmy were looking promising. Matt, who works on the Internet stuff, was telling people that I was going to take the pictures.
Somehow, no one thought this was strange and so we too acted like it was normal.
Matt, it should be noted, has never had an article published.
But he had chased down this interview with gusto and was nice enough to take me along, so why not? And he did a great job conducting a two-hour interview with Jimmy over breakfast at the most expensive hotel I've ever been in.
Jimmy, dressed in those same kind of slip on shoes that my dad uses to walk the dogs, jeans, a beat up T-shirt with a St Barts Film Festival hat on his bald head, ordered in pretty good french a plate of fruit and tea for breakfast with carrot juice on the side.
The conversation began with talk about Biloxi, Miss. and how bad that area is screwed up after Katrina.
Then we moved on to how he got started in music and what a large role his two years at Billboard Magazine in Nashville played in terms of his understanding of the music industry. He said the time at Billboard taught him how artists needed to watch out for themselves if they wanted to make a living at singing.
Obviously smart, he still exuded a feeling that he was just really lucky and was just as astonished as everyone else at how one song about a good Margarita in Austin, Texas could lead to 40 years of music success and a yearly salary totaling $100 million.
This sounds odd to say, but Jimmy was so sober and down to earth that the interview was a little boring at times given the dry way he talked about his job and his life. But then I remembered who I was sitting next to.
He said that his two rules during his career have been, "Never forget to duck and remember that all hell can break loose at any moment. Those aren't random. I didn't pick those out of a hat. This is experience talking."
After the interview, we left the hotel and headed to the nearby Champs Elysees. Jimmy said that he was going to a French lesson and then to meet his band to rehearse for their show tomorrow night at New Morning, a small jazz club near my place.
The three of us shot some pictures on a traffic island in the middle of the Champs Elysees. Then we were almost hit by a bus.
"We don't want a real big story!" I again joked. The humor seemed to be mine exclusively.
After that close brush with death, Jimmy asked Matt and me if we had tickets to the show and we said no, so Jimmy gave Matt the number of some guy who is running the guest list.
Then, as we were standing on the sidewalk, I asked Jimmy if he was ever scared during any of his travels.
He said one time in Colombia there were a bunch of guards with big guns and red eyes who had their search dog going through his bags.
"What if this dog has a bad day?" he said about his thoughts at the time.
Nothing happened in Colombia. But that led him to the story about how some French guards mistook some of his vitamin pills for Ecstasy a few years back.
"That's the one drug I've never ingested and couldn't tell you what it is or what it does," he said with a laugh.
On that note, Matt and me wished Jimmy a good day in French and parted ways.
Kind of an unusual morning.
Hope everyone is well.
Take care,
Brett
