Chris Moss Online

This entry details the genesis of my torrid love affair with Jimmy Buffett. It started off as a post about interpreting lyrics, but it took a different direction.

Songs can be a lot like poetry, and their meanings can differ widely among people. In fact, the popular interpretation of some songs can be remarkably different from what it meant to the lyricist. One of the things I really love about music is how it can be incredibly personal. You can latch on to just a particular part of a song, a line or even just a few words. Whether it was the words themselves or the expressive manner in which the words are vocalized, certain songs have the ability to evoke sharp feelings and emotions. Or, it can evoke a memory (or the feelings related to the memory) of a place where you were, what you were doing or who you were with when you heard a song. I find that entirely appropriate and absolutely wonderful.

For me, there are a lot of songs that bring back certain memories. Most of the time, I don’t care for new songs I hear until I can associate that song with something. My earliest memories of music involve growing up on Lake O’ The Pines and fun times at our family’s houseboat. We spent a lot of time doing fun things and music was a big part of it. We listened to classic rock and country. Bob Seger, The Eagles, and classic country artists like Willie Nelson and George Jones were staples, as were contemporary country artists of the late 70s and early 80s. Full blame for my interest in some of this music can be layed on my parents and the wonderful memories permanently attached to artists like Ronnie Milsap and Eddie Rabbitt. There is a song by a comedian, Tim Wilson, that somewhat describes me. However, it has also given me a broader appreciation for music than most and I find I enjoy a very wide range of music.

I refuse to like an artist just because they are popular. In fact, an artist who materializes out of thin air and is suddenly popular is likely to make me have a distaste for them. I didn’t like anything Madonna did until she had been popular for 15 years. But after a road trip coming back from New Orleans once, listening to The Immaculate Collection, I finally acknowledged her greatness. The closest I’ve come to liking a new artist right out of the box is Hootie & the Blowfish, Matchbox 20 and John Mayer. I “discovered” Steve Winwood when “Higher Love” came out when I was in high school, only to learn he had been making music for 25 years.

The Tragically Hip and R.E.M. are associated with my friend, Tim, who introduced me to those groups, both of which we listened to extensively as we drove the back roads of East Texas to cure our boredom. Sarah McLachlan’s album “Fumbling Towards Ecstacy“, not ironically, is associated with my own sexual awakening. Indigo’s song “Perfect Day” not only describes James and I, but we heard it and danced to it together the night we met. There are countless songs that evoke a particular feeling or memory for me.

My favorite artist, much to the chagrin of certain (all) of my friends, is Jimmy Buffett. If ever I were to meet a cute gay boy who loves The Tragically Hip and Jimmy Buffett, methinks a certain Aussie would feel a bit threatened Jimmy Buffett does not possess a gifted voice or remarkable musical ability, but the words of his songs are pure magic, for me at least, and for a variety of reasons his music has earned a huge permanent space in my heart. Buffett’s music defies classification. It’s not really rock, it’s not really country. No genre will claim him. His music has been (appropriately) described as “Gulf and Western” and “Yacht Rock.”

I have a vague memory of seeing Jimmy Buffett on the local news one night when we were living in Orlando circa 1986. Buffett was promoting his Save the Manatee organization and had held an event locally. I only knew him as “the guy that does that ‘Margaritaville’ song” and thought it was cool he was involved with manatees. At the time, I wanted to become a marine zoologist and go to work at Sea World. I didn’t pay much attention to him until after I had lived in Florida for a total of eight years and moved away. I always had a beach bum sort of mentality, combined with an adventurous nature and a desire to explore the world, particularly the warm and tropical bits. When we moved away from Texas after five years, I spent much of my life in Florida pining for the “good old days” on the lake in Texas and wanting to move back. When my parents finally did in 1989 during my freshman year of college, I jumped at the chance to go, too.

After being back in Texas a few months and learning first-hand that “you can never go home again” I began to miss some things about Florida. My brother, Jason, had been in a steel drum band in high school when we lived in Florida, and his group of band friends had listened to a lot of Jimmy Buffett. Jason began playing a lot of Buffett because he missed his friends from the steel drum band (there are those memories tied to music again). At first, his music annoyed me. I didn’t like his voice and paid no attention to the lyrics. After a while, I caught certain lines and started to kind of like them. During the summer of 1990, I worked the Census and was assigned to some rural areas. My brother had a pickup truck with four-wheel drive, so I often would drive his truck on my assignments, and he had some Jimmy Buffett tapes in there. I spent a lot of time driving around East Texas roads, alone, with a lot of time to ponder the world and my future, and Jimmy Buffett became the soundtrack to that. The music itself and some of the lines began to be pleasant reminders of my four years living by the ocean. I also began to enjoy the simple truths and life lessons in certain of the songs, such as “He Went to Paris“, “Cowboy in the Jungle“, and “Take Another Road” The imagery and music also fit with the beach, boat and water freak that lives within me. A lot of the songs are humorous, and the brand of humor fits me, too. I think I also liked the fact that he was somewhat obscure. There was just a real synergy of things I liked about his music, which I didn’t realize until I looked a bit deeper. It might be summed up by a line from his song “Migration” that goes, “I’ve got a Caribbean soul I can barely control and some Texas hidden here in my heart.”

The fall of 1990 took me to Denton to start as a sophomore at the University of North Texas. I was living in Denton with my childhood friend from the 5th and 6th grades, who I reconnected with when we moved back to Texas. It went great for the first couple of weeks, but it quickly went sour. My friend got into the party scene, joined a fraternity and drank – a lot. It takes a lot for me get so crosswise with people that I can’t think properly. The frat brothers were always at our apartment, and something was always going on. One of them moved in. I didn’t like the frat brothers, and pretty soon I no longer liked my friend. I tried to leave them alone and get through the semester, at which time the lease would end and I could move. But, they didn’t feel like leaving me alone. I became a subject of ridicule and teasing, and an easy target was the music I was listening to at the time. It sort of pushed me even closer to that music. Songs like “Dallas” and “Stranded on a Sandbar” became extremely relevant. A lot of the music, however, had a calming effect and reminded me that things would get better, and of course they did. But the experience forever endeared me to Buffett’s music.

One misconception a lot of people have when they hear that Buffett is one of my favorites is that they think I am a Parrothead – which I’m not. I’ve never had a desire to wear a grass skirt or a foam shark head. I do treasure the music, though.

His newer music over the last 15 years has been great for the most part, also, so here’s to more fun in the sun and by the water and adventures ahead careening through life listening to wonderful music!

Current mood: introspective
Current music: “A Pirate Looks at Forty” – Jimmy Buffett

…big pile of it and the boss is abroad.

Work has been more than interesting lately. Wow. I’ve actually been a bit excited about it. We recently obtained some work for a syndicate of Lloyd’s of London, The Catlin Group. Catlin has found a niche in writing insurance to an association of commercial warehouses. My group at work has been designated (written into the policies) as the claims managers for all losses in North America.

So, in addition to my usual work, I am now also responsible for absorbing all of the open claims into our workflows. We are receiving files which are, really, just a collection of documents that relate to the same loss. They aren’t in any sort of organization and aren’t even in labeled file folders. It sounds like a pain, and it is, but fortunately the work is really interesting.

There are a lot of things going on with some of these claims, and it was interesting that Catlin just sort of jerked the work away from the old claims managers and handed it to us. I have made a couple of minor goofs already, which really involved my breach of protocol. If you read through that Wikipedia entry on Lloyd’s, you’ll learn that they have a peculiar way of doing business. I am pretty practical by nature (indeed, since I bill by the hour, it would behoove the client to allow me to be practical) but in most cases they place procedure, protocol and systematic routine above practicality. Who is to say which is better, but the bottom line is it will take some getting used to.

One of my claims involves the spontaneous combustion of cocoa. These warehouses aren’t small, and most of the claims are quite large – in the hundreds of thousands or millions. Our company as a whole specializes in handling large, complex claims like aviation claims, marine claims and energy claims. Those major types of claims represent a large portion of the operations of the company that currently employs me, Charles Taylor Consulting. My group is involved in traditional risk management practice and how we got to handling these claims is a round-a-bout story, but I was identified as someone who could take this work on. The claims management side of our business exists because it involves claims that have a high severity but low frequency and are usually very complex. The insurers don’t have a staff of professionals to handle them because of their infrequency. Our company does a lot of other neat things.

Anyway, there are a lot of neat things and I like doing this for a couple of reasons. One, it makes me feel productive to be working my way through the claims, getting up to speed (they often involve interesting stories and histories) and summarizing them in reports and recommending the way forward. In two cases already, I have completely contradicted the course that was recommended by the previous claims manager. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how those stories end. Another reason is that my boss had to leave the country for two weeks, so really everyone just has no choice but to just let me take care of business. And I been TCB’n all week long!

Also, there is some travel coming up. I don’t mind short trips, especially day trips or one-nighters. I haven’t done as much of that as I thought I might in this job. Now I’m getting a bunch at once. Monday and Tuesday, I’ll be in New Orleans (returning to the scene of the crime) On the 7th, I go to Chicago – but just for the day. On the 12th – 14th I’ll be in Kansas City and Chicago. I thought briefly on Friday I might have to go to Newark, but I think that fire has been safely doused. No telling what else will turn up in the next few weeks. One can only wonder how long before a trip to London to meet the underwriters will be required

Current mood: Satisfied
Current music: Sweet Surrender by Sarah McLachlan

This week in 1996, Jamaican authorities opened fire on Jimmy Buffett’s seaplane, the Hemisphere Dancer, mistaking it for a drug trafficker’s plane. U-2 singer Bono was with Buffett, but neither one was hurt. Buffett wrote a song about the incident, entitled “Jamaica Mistaica,” that can be found on the album Banana Wind.

Okay, maybe it isn’t utopia but nonetheless one of my fav-o-rite places in the whole wide world. James and I knew we would be going this year at least, but now we have a good idea when and that there will be “big doin’s” and other reasons to celebrate and generally be happy.
So now all I have to say is this:

Well I hope you understand, I just had to go back to the island
And watch the sun go down
Hear the sea roll in
I’ll be thinking of you
And how it might have been
Hear the night bird cry
Watch the sun set down
Well I hope you understand, I just had to go back to the island

More profound posts on this topic to follow.

Current mood: Giddy
Current music: Back to the Island – Jimmy Buffett

More “do as I say, not as I do” hypocritical bull honky from the far right:

Southern Baptist Director Arrested for Soliciting Gay Prostitute

How many of these types will it take before the public realizes that those who cry loudest have something to hide?

I’m glad 2005 is over.

Looking back, it wasn’t a bad year for me personally. Home life has been great and we’ve been able to spend a lot of quality time with our friends. Work has been good – and rewarding. But there has been so much negativity last year, and maybe it is my fault for focusing on it, but it has been brutal on me emotionally and on my spirit.

The Boxing Day Tsunami, which was actually at the tail end of 2004, still weighs heavily on me. It’s difficult for me to comprehend why so many people continue to talk about Katrina and Rita, which killed around 1,000 people, when the tsunami killed a quarter of a million people and left millions homeless. Yes, the Gulf Coast is in our country and physically much closer. I’ve visited New Orleans many times, and it is a city that I love to visit, but I can’t get over that people seem to place a higher value on the lives of people living in this country versus the lives of humans over there. Sadder still is that most of those in Katrina’s path had a warning and, although there are exceptions to be sure, the tsunami came with no warning at all. People talk everyday about “never forgetting” September 11 or Katrina but the tsunami seems a distant memory for most.

Besides the storms, the Constitutional Amendment election in November continues to weigh heavily on me. I still can’t believe the number of people who didn’t get up off their asses and vote. It has taken me longer to get over it than I thought – although I am getting over it and moving on. Nevertheless, there are certain people that I won’t talk to anymore – and some who I wish I didn’t have to talk to. I don’t have any respect for them because I feel that they don’t have enough respect for themselves (in the case of gays & lesbians that didn’t vote) or for gay people. Personally, James and I put a lot of time, money and energy into the campaign against the amendment and so many people we know did not seem to care. I’m usually positive about most things and can get up quickly but for some reason this one just knocked the wind out of me.

I’m a political junkie and one of the things that is really bothering me of late is the intensity of the “us versus them” mentality of partisan politians on both sides of the aisle. I don’t like partisan politics. We are all Americans and we are all in this together, although we have different ideas of how things should get done. However, as of late, the obvious corruption of the people currently in power is apalling, and the things these people are saying in an effort to throw people off the trail is abysmal, and frankly it is pissing me off. The American public deserves better and I don’t think we should have to stand for it for one more minute. I have a lot to say on this subject and perhaps I’ll elaborate soon.

I was off work for the last half of December, (saved up vacation time) and I needed it. Unfortunately, I spent a lot of that time doing things that had been piling up on my “to-do” list. I never did really get into the Christmas spirit. We put our tree up about a week later than usual and the lights went up on the house about a week later. Usually all done the weekend after Thanksgiving. The house lights were only turned on once – a fuse blew and I couldn’t find a replacement and got tired of looking. I squandered a lot of my time sitting in traffic running various errands.

Christmas at my parents’ was pleasant, but I was a bit bothered by my brother’s visit. He sort of dropped out of contact about 18 months ago. It’s been 2 years since I’ve seen him and last we spoke, I was always calling him. Then my calls didn’t get returned anymore so I quit calling, figuring he needed some space. My mom told me he was coming for Christmas, and I was hoping to hear from him before then but I didn’t. So, I called him at work the day before he left just to say hi and tell him I was looking forward to seeing him. I figured that would make it less awkard when I saw him, and that was true. But, he never said anything about why he dropped out of contact and there may be no real reason and to me it is a bit insulting to just show up and act like nothing ever happened – I feel I’m owed a justification of some sort, or at least an acknowledgement and perhaps an apology. I think he could have found the time to do that during his visit.

The time between Christmas and New Year’s was better – a bit more relaxing and got some things done around the house. My office is in a bit better shape although it doesn’t actually look it – things are more organized and I threw a lot of things out. We got some art up on the walls – that is probably the accomplishment I am most pleased with. One of our Blue Dogs now hangs on the wall.

The best part of December was that we spent a lot of time with our friends and that was nice. Our Fifth Annual New Year’s Eve party was really a lot of fun, made so by those who attended. I really needed that, so thanks y’all

So with the new year, I finally feel like it is a fresh start and that all this silliness can be put behind us. I’m looking forward to having more fun with my man and my friends this year and hopefully a full week-long trip to a magical little island that lies about 89 miles north of Havana.