“It was a scene,” he told Playboy magazine. “Everyone went out and applauded the sunset every night. Bales of marijuana washed up on the shore. There were great cheap Cuban restaurants … Key West seemed like the End: East Coast Division — a common reason people wind up there, especially writers, artists, musicians and other interesting derelicts, drawn by the idea that Key West is the final stroke of a great comma in the map of North America, suggesting more to come but maybe not.”

An incurable storyteller who populated his songs with tales of beach bums, drug smugglers and pirates,…

Tabbed by Rolling Stone as “rock’s romantic poet-pirate,” he became a guru for Parrotheads, the millions of fans who followed him and his band, the Coral Reefers, on their annual, sold-out cross-country tours.

With his tanned face, receding blond locks and ever-present smile, Mr. Buffett projected an exuberant but down-to-earth presence. His followers — bedecked in feathered headdresses, homemade shark-fin hats and grass skirts — arrived early for concerts and tailgated with frozen margaritas and jerk chicken in concert venue parking lots. Some brought giant sandboxes to simulate the beach and continued the boozy celebration after the concert ended.

–Washington Post

I am speechless.  I have no words to describe our loss, the alternative “real” which Buffett’s tunes suggest, — to the society in which we live.

Buffett’s song describes our heritage which we must claim, if we are to create a livable future.