One thing I pride my self on are my eclectic tastes. I have a very weird and wide taste in music and film, but while no one questions my mix CDs with Frank Sinatra and Three Six Mafia on them there are a few things that people tend to be surprised about. When anyone ever finds out about my fanatical obsession with the Miami Dolphins a they always say “I didn’t picture you as a football fan” or something to that extent. Also equally weirded out are the people who I force to listen to Jimmy Buffett records with me while I tell them how much he means to my life.
When I was still in the womb my dad would sing Jimmy Buffett lyrics to me. It was pretty much the only music he ever listened to. I grew up listening to the Beatles, the Monkees, Jimmy Buffett and pretty much nothing else. (Occasionally my mom would get a chance to play a Bonnie Raitt tape on car trips.) The first song I ever memorized was not Mary Had A Little Lamb or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star… It was a Jimmy Buffet song about playing music in dive bars. I pretty much know every lyric to every Jimmy Buffett song written before 1980, which is the year I was born and the year my parents stopped listening to new music.
I listened to so much Jimmy Buffett when I was a kid that I think I actually thought I was from Florida. Often people ask me why I am a Miami Dolphins fan and I usually tell them I don’t know… But I am pretty sure my life long love of the Miami Dolphins is directly related to listening to Jimmy Buffett songs about Florida. I was a big Orlando Magic fan too… To this day I have constant fantasies about quitting nightlife photography, buying a house boat and moving to the Florida Keys to try my hand as a fisherman. When I was 10 years old I once cried because I realized that I would never get to meet Jimmy Buffett. He was like a second father to me… or at least an extension of my actual father.
So this whole story has a point. Today the Dolphins announced a partnership with Jimmy Buffett. Buffett has a beer company called Land Shark Beer and Dolphin Stadium is now called Land Shark Stadium for the next year. In trade Jimmy Buffett going to be making appearances at Dolphins games and events, doing special concerts and he changed the words to his song Fins so it relates to the Dolphins instead of a song about trying to fuck girls at bars.
Now originally I was super excited about this merging of two of my life long obsessions… but now I am not so sure. The local Miami papers interviewed Buffett fans who said they would be attending games just because of Buffett even though they don’t like football. At the same time Dolphins fans are sort of upset about the whole thing. Let’s face it, Jimmy Buffett is not exactly hip. I am not sure how they plan on attracting younger fans with a musician who is nearly 70 years old. Also, the new lyrics to Fins are super hokey and have nothing to do with the actual team. They are just about going to Land Shark Stadium not about football. I mean, the current Miami Dolphins theme song is horrible, but at least it has more to do with football than it does tailgating. I think my man Jimmy phoned this one in.
All that being said, I have a good relationship with the Dolphins organization so now there is actually a much better chance that I might meet Bufett one day which if nothing else would really please my 10 year old self…
Let’s Go Dolphins!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwqzES_sHIA[/youtube]
