I live with a Parrothead. I should say I’m married to a Parrothead…and before everybody gets all over me for spousal insolence, Nancy happily confesses to being a Parrothead, because that’s just what Jimmy Buffett fans do.
Today, from an article I read in the Charleston Daily Mail comes a funny tale about a Jimmy Buffett fan who became much more.
His name is Tom Watt, and 15 years ago he took a break from his carpet-cleaning business to sail on one of the Celebrity Century’s first cruises, embarking in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The story’s too long to re-tell in a blog like this, but the short version goes is…
Watt had a solo acoustic act that played church gatherings and nursing homes around Pittsburgh in the ’70s. On that Celebrity cruise, he became a celebrity. The band that was playing invited him on stage a night after they met, and he sang “Margaritaville.” The audience thought he was the real thing. So did the cruise line executives, who asked for autographs and — despite Watt’s denials that he was Jimmy Buffett — insisted his anonymity was safe with them, as they sent nightly bottles of champagne to his table.
Home from the cruise, he filled in for a Caribbean-themed musician at a bar one night, and was offered a job. That was the beginning of the end of cleaning carpets. The end came when he saw an audience going bananas to Margaritaville while watching a Buffett impersonator one night near Virginia Beach.
He became, officially, a Buffett impersonator and tours the country as “The Buffetman.” Not only does he sound like Buffett, whom he has met (once), Watt looks like him, too. He’s had women walk up to him and pose for a picture that her husband takes, and walk away without saying a word.
That could be my Parrothead.