heres the paper- some notes at the bottom

Destination: Margaritaville

 

Colleen Dolan

           

 

            “You’re just…you’re everywhere, honey,” said television host Whoopi Goldberg in September of 1992, mocking the profusion of the Jimmy Buffett empire.

            Young, old, male, female, rich, and poor alike have flocked in the millions to see his concerts, buy his CD’s, and even drink beer baring his slogans—fan of his music or not, it is impossible to deny the cultural phenomenon that Jimmy Buffett has brought to America. Buffett has made a career of being dubbed the worlds wealthiest beach bum, in the worlds biggest beach party. His loyal fans that call themselves “Parrot Heads” find an escape from the real world in Buffet’s beach ballads; vicariously experiencing Buffett’s life of bars, boats, and beer’s before 5. His well crafted persona of a rum infused lifestyle with days and nights spent boating around the islands offer a temporary release from the drudge of the day-to-day. Since the early 1970’s, Buffett has been releasing albums yearly and since 1985, he has toured each year, with no exceptions. But ask any Parrot Head and they’ll tell you that Jimmy Buffett is not just about the music- it’s about the experience. It was not until 1985 that Jimmy Buffett’s larger than life, more than just a concert persona was solidified. In ’85, Buffett aggressively began marketing his Margaritavillle mythos- in that year alone, he began ‘the Carribean Soul’ newsletter, released the ‘Songs you Know by Heart’ CD, opened his first Margaritaville store in Key West, and began touring on a yearly basis. Buffett introduced a new kind of attitude to America, echoing a personified version of Raegan’s longing for a simpler time. Buffett’s extraordinary success achieved in ‘85 that continues to this day, worked to redefine American ideals of pleasure, responsibility, and success in a newly unique way, and through this, Buffett was able to create his own empire, to which his fans could escape.

            Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Jimmy Buffett’s appeal how the term “Parrot Head” began and developed through 1985, putting a name to what it meant to aspire to Buffett’s lax lifestyle. During a concert in Ohio in early 1985, the term was coined by former member of the Coral Reefer Band, Timothy Schmidt, and used to describe Buffett’s loyal fans. “They’re like dead heads,” Buffett later said, “only…more colorful.” Buffett’s fan’s eagerly adopted the name, and embraced the seafaring and fun appearance by filling concert stadiums with Hawaiin shirts, beach balls, and hats with stuffed cheeseburgers on them. “I sell escapism,” Buffett said in a 1985 interview with a Florida newspaper. It is this ‘escapism’ that Buffett’s fans embraced, showing their longing for a laid back lifestyle in which beaches and booze were the only cares and the only thing needed to fit in was a brightly colored tshirt. Through the rhetoric and popularization of the term “parrot head” Buffett made it seem okay for his fans to redefine their hopes in terms of what made them happy, and not, as consumerist culture was telling them, what made them money. Parrot Head in Chief of his own empire, Buffett’s lyrics define what it means to be a Parrot Head, allowing American’s to embrace this new identity, that would previously have been frowned upon as being “lazy.” Buffett gets away with defining himself as a lazy beach bum, and marketing this lifestyle, because of the honesty and wit behind his lyrics. [NOT FINISHED WITH THIS PARAGRAPH YET- NEED SEONDARY SOURCE ETC]

            In 1985, Jimmy Buffett came out with his 18^th CD entitled ‘Songs You Know By Heart,’ solidifying both his cultural persuasion and the fact that when people heard Buffett speaking of his own “Margaritaville,” they wanted to hear more. Shortly after the release of this CD, eight of the thirteen songs on it became known as “the big eight,” and Buffett would, and still does, play them at each of his concerts. It was these eight songs that truly defined Buffett’s boat and beach music and, eventually, the Jimmy Buffett culture, itself. ‘Margaritaville,’ of course among the big eight, was Buffett’s first hit, but it was not until 1985, when Buffett released this CD and began his ‘Margaritaville’ empire, that the phrase truly caught on, and left fans asking for more.  ‘Margaritaville’ allowed Buffett to give a name to the place that fans went when they heard Buffett’s music. Margaritaville, of course, could be anywhere- and it was wherever Buffett was playing- whether in a bar in Key West or before thousands of fans in Madison Square Garden.

            “Sometimes,” Buffett said to the Palm Beach Post in 1985, “playing those songs is more fun when its dead of winter in New York City or Michigan, because you can see how badly everyone wants to escape.”

            And that is exactly what Buffett allowed his fans to do, through his songs. The title of this album was so called in an almost mocking way, because that was the only song that people really knew by Buffett at the time of it’s release. Fans of Buffett bought the whole CD though, bringing it to the tops of the charts, Buffett’s first CD to do so. With each song, Buffett gave more description of this place called Margaritaville and more personal stories of his lazed, carefree lifestyle. It was this lifestyle that got Americans hooked on Buffett. The idea, in 1985, a time when consumerism was beginning to boom, of a man that elected to lay on a beach or sit in a bar all day, that didn’t spend his life searching for more money, was a complicated concept to grasp. The idea, then, that such a man could actually be happy shook Americans beliefs on consumerism to the core. Through the songs on this album, Buffett was able to clarify certain philosophical issues, like the meaning of community, personal identity, and the nature of being; while redefining the ideas of pleasure and responsibility. His songs went out to every kind of person, and showing them the advantages of “wasting away in Margaritaville.” Even those in the cold northern weather could relate to Buffett in ‘Boat Drinks’ as he screamed out “I’ve gotta go to St. Somewhere” in pure frustration of being stuck in the cold for too long. In essence, Buffett was able to reach out to a huge variety of people, but also able to define his carefree, relaxed lifestyle in such a specific way, and people saw this, and in hearing the lyrics to this ’85 hit, they wanted to be a part of it.

 

-his concerts- traditions at the concerts during specific songs and how that perpetuated buffett culture, making people feel like they were a part of something

-the CD

-the newsletter

-the term Margaritaville

-the Margaritaville empire  à the hunger of Americans to achieve an empire that is not characterized by corporation and green but by beaches and beer

 

 

“t 57, to have a No. 1 album, I wasn't expecting it.”

 

 

 

You dress if you go. They looked like Deadheads with a little better wardrobe so that's how the name sort of originated.

It was in the April 1985 issue that the term Parrot Head was first officially used to refer to Buffett's fans. By the end of the decade, the newsletter had 20,000 subscribers.           

 

“everybody in the keys has had a beer with me. You can print that” the key west citizen, 1985

1985 album

empire

 

“let me remind you” “we are party people- and we will get through this” 

essay 4

Struggle for Preservation of Self and Conscience
Colleen Dolan
“What kind of war is it that begins and ends this way, with a pretty girl, cushioned seats, and magazines?” [pp 207]

On September 26th, 1959, the burning orange sun rose East of Vietnam to light up the massacre of the first American troops in what would become a six-year war. Culminating in April of 1975, the Vietnam War claimed the lives of over 50 thousand Americans and 3 million Vietnamese. Nixon drafted countless Americans to battle on the rough terrain of Vietnam, giving them no choice but to fight or flee the country, which many chose to do. Tim O’Brien was one of the many drafted to fight on the battlegrounds of Vietnam, and he remained there for over a year in Advanced Infantry Training. In his personal memoir of his time in Vietnam, If I Die in a Combat Zone, O’Brien grapples with his own personal moral and ethical struggle in dealing with the war. O’Brien clearly feels that the war is unjust, and this is shown in his reference to editorials he has written opposing it. It is his visceral opposition to the war that leads him to an immense emotional struggle regarding his time in Vietnam. O’Brien’s emotional struggle is highlighted by his trouble in defining courage as well as his lack of faith in his own actions. It is with letters to Erik, a close relationship with Captain Johnson, and an experience with Callicles that O’Brien is able to come to terms with his emotions and unique courageousness, allowing him to make it through his time in Vietnam.
Tim O’Brien’s disdain for staying in Vietnam develops into emotional trouble throughout his first few months there because of the struggle he endures in defining courage and what it means to truly be a courageous soldier. O’Brien describes his first days on the front as “waking up in a cancer ward…nothing to hope for, no dreams for daylight.” [pp 9] This pessimism and disrespect that O’Brien goes into the war with- scrawling words of hatred on cardboard and planning to flee the country- are setting him up for failure. “It is hard to know what bravery is,” [pp 23] he reflects upon departure, and it is this lack of understanding of this quality in himself that leads him to question his intentions and the intentions of those around him. Unable to separate his lack of support for the war personally from being a soldier leads O’Brien to think that he does not belong, and more than that, that he is anything but a hero of war. O’Brien finally begins to realize his own potential as a soldier when he abandons his plans to flee the country; “I could not run,” he says, “I was a coward” [pp 68] and it is this that causes him to begin defining courageousness in his own terms. When Mad Mark first hands him a weapon on the battlefield, he acknowledges feeling brave for the first time, and this is because he is allowing himself to feel like a part of something- he feels as though he is part of a group fighting for a common cause and this mindset propels him forward. He finds later that laughter “makes you believe you are brave.” [pp 109] The war begins to make him thankful for what he has, as the battles bring unity to his group; “we felt confident and…brave. Simply surviving the assault was blessing enough,” he says when he becomes closer to group. O’Brien is able to stop overanalyzing his reasoning behind being in Vietnam because he is distracted by the battles, which leave him with feelings of bravery that come naturally and boost his morale through the rest of his time at war.
O’Brien is again confronted with the definition of courage immediately after watching his fellow men torture the innocent Vietnamese, and this is because he cannot see himself as courageous when he sees his fellow soldiers as cowards. It is Captain Johansen that renews O’Brien’s confidence in his own courage after the troubling sight. “Proper courage is wise courage,” he says, “it is the endurance of the soul in spite of fear.” [pp 136] Johansen goes on to quote Socrates in specifying that “only the wise endurance is courage” [pp 137] which causes O’Brien once again to question his intentions of being present in Vietnam. Confronted with the situation of the shot cow, O’Brien notes that he does not shoot, but he endures- which is reflective of his own courageousness. It is the courage of his own convictions that O’Brien ends up questioning, leading him to the understanding that it takes a truly special man to be courageous. Johansen teaches him that “men must know what they are doing is courageous and know that it is right…courage is more than dying or suffering the loss of a love…it is temperament and, more, wisdom.” [pp 141] O’Brien must, however, take war as a unique situation in relation to courage, and when he discovers that it is the fact that fear is a taboo that takes the meaning out of courage in the battlefield, he is left disappointed. It is Captain Johansen’s courage that saves O’Brien and is used as a model for his own courage, allowing him to redefine the word itself. “It is more likely that men act cowardly and, at other times, act with courage…the men who do well on the average, perhaps with one moment of glory, those men are brave.” [pp 147] Johansen is the only one in his entire squad that O’Brien thinks has any concern with courage, and O’Brien finds deep respect for him because of this. “I found a living hero,” he says of Johansen, “and it was good to learn that human beings sometimes embody valor.”
O’Brien leaves for Vietnam with little to no attachments or support at home, and this results in him having little faith in himself, something that truly scars him and provides as a central emotional obstacle at war. “I went away…and the town did not miss me much,” [pp 15] O’Brien says upon leaving his home, and this having nothing to go home to gives him nothing to fight for on the battlefront. O’Brien confronts his emotional concerns early on in the war with Edwards:
I believe human life is valuable because, unlike any other species, we know the good from the bad. I believe that a man is most a man when he tries to understand what is good. I believe that a man cannot be fully a man until he acts in the pursuit of goodness. [pp 56]
In this passage, O’Brien is referencing his own insecurities vested in the fact that he does not believe in the war but finds himself absorbed in it, still. Edwards admonishes O’Brien for his arrogance and tells him that faith is the answer. “You’ve got to have faith in somebody” he says, and because O’Brien cannot even begin to have faith in himself, it is difficult for him to vest any trust in himself when fighting. O’Brien continues to lose faith as he witnesses massacre after massacre; seeing no point in the war. The Alpha Company lights a small town in Pinkville on fire, and as the rest of the squad is reveling in victory, O’Brien refers to it, as “good, just as pure hate is good.” [pp 119] He cannot get over the innocence of the victims, and battles go by with little notice to who has died. It is “certain blood for uncertain reasons,” [pp 168] and O’Brien cannot get over the fact that with each bullet shot, a human life is lost for something that he does not even believe in. The juxtaposition between O’Brien’s beliefs and what he must do cause his lack of faith, and the inevitable question- what is the point? And it is only the letters that O’Brien receives from Erik that provide as intellectual standards and give him something to truly believe in, allowing him to fight on.
The letters O’Brien receives from Erik serve to corroborate O’Brien’s own views on the war and life itself as well as to express a position from which O’Brien must keep his distance in order to explain what he is witnessing. With Erick’s offering of Lawrence’s book The Mint, he sees himself as “becoming a soldier…tak[ing] on a friend betraying my wonderful suffering.” [pp 34] O’Brien, however, continues to let his position as a soldier be surpassed by that of his conscience. Erik helps O’Brien to rationalize their plight in terms of various philosophies as well as literature. It is these letters from Erik that act as a stabilizing force for O’Brien’s emotional instability in Vietnam. Erik details his introspective thinking of his experience away from the front lines of the war, quoting Horace “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” [it is sweet and fitting to die for ones country] and it is not until O’Brien is transferred to Quag Ngai that he is able to begin to comprehend how much he has been affected by the fog of war. Erik says often, through philosophy, that which O’Brien cannot seem to put his finger on, and this is the most key in helping O’Brien make it through the labors and tedium of war.
Callicles provides as the symbolic representation of the mentality and culture of war which O’Brien so vehemently struggles against emotionally throughout the memoir. Callicles has been given the task of taking investigators to view the results of the My Lai massacre, and with such strong conditions, he makes it very clear that he sees the event as an unfortunate but necessary result of the war. After O’Brien reports him, the major must leave Vietnam. Callicles provides O’Brien with a new definition for courage shouting that courage is “not standing around passively hoping for things to happen right; it’s going out and being tough and making things happen right.” [pp 195] Callicles gives O’Brien hope that the warlike mentality that he represents is not tolerated, even in the pits of Vietnam. Callicles’ indiscriminatory violence and claims of “all it takes is guts!” after forcing O’Brien to be put to the test, suggesting he fire at incoming men in the middle of the night, going against everything that O’Brien believes and has developed faith in. This jolt of reality leaves O’Brien forever changed, in that he is now ready to hold on strongly to his convictions and what he believes in; while also being able to take blame for the war away from himself.
O’Briens instinctive resistance towards the war and what he is fighting for cause him to spend his time in Vietnam struggling with his emotions regarding the war and leave him stuck in between being a hero to his country and doing what he thinks his right. O’Brien is unable to separate what he must do from what he believes he should do and it is Erik that provides as O’Brien’s emotional cornerstone through his journey, there to provide guidance as well as a pillar of friendship. O’Brien is unable to allow himself to succeed in Vietnam at first because he has no faith in his own actions and he struggles to define what it means to be courageous. Captain Johansen presents just the role model that O’Brien needs, giving him faith that there are good people in the war, and that courage has to do with wise endurance. Callicles provides the opposite representation, that of O’Brien’s worst fears confirmed; unorganized and random violence without care or regard. This also provides O’Brien with a model, though, a model to show the effects of war going too far. O’Brien finally finds himself giving in to the uniformity of experience for a means for survival, but he never stops questioning himself or his conscience. His overanalysis of morality and courage as well as apprehension towards those around him end up working to his advantage, as he leaves Vietnam with more faith in himself and a knowledge that he possesses his own type of courage; “you promise to do better next time,” he acknowledges, “that in itself is a kind of courage.”

...my paper is under the comments

for those reading my paper

check the comments on my last entry to read my paper, i couldnt publish it as an entry, so i made it a comment 

thanks

colleen

Breaking Boundaries: Female Immigrant and African American Struggle for Identity in the Early 20th Century

okay wait this is just a test to see if i'll be able to post this... ill post the paper in 5 

So i tried to write in this the other day about the election, but because i only just joined the class, i didnt have a very accurate idea of what i should be writing, exactly. in looking through my classmates blogs, i see a bunch of different ways that they went about this...but most were pretty general and seemed like a good way to get thoughts flowing, so i will try that. 

On the historic day of inauguration, i was at all of the festivities, but last night i checked out how the varying news programs chose to cover the event. CSPAN used the phrase "the start of the Obama legacy" and "the end of the Bush era" a lot and definitely placed Obama in a very good light. I looked at CBS too 

...okay so my internet just shut off after i wrote about a page on this thing. and it didnt auto save. i hate the gwireless web thing. wow this is so frustrating....ugh. i will just quickly summarize the rest of what i said

Basically the CSPAN coverage was mostly hard hitting journalism. It was a lot of facts and focussed a lot on the historic-ness [maybe not a word...] of the event. They talked a lot about the way that previous presidents dealt with inauguration and gave a lot of trivial information about like the longest inaugural speeches and the shortest ones. They talked about how each of the inaugural events began- the parade, the balls, and things like that. 

The CBS coverage was basically the complete opposite of this- they talked about little things like family moving into the white house and what they were wearing and how they were going to alter their lifestlyes to acclamate to the environment of the white house. 

The reason that CBS did the coverage like this is because this is what the american people care about for this election- people feel so close to Obama and feel like this is a personal victory as well as a victory for Obama. People love to hear about things like the dog that the family is getting and the schools that the girls are going to. 

I think that when it comes to the paper, i might talk about how the fact that most people prefer the way that CBS covered the inauguration shows the progression of Americas taste and the way that they see and hear the news. I dont know, these are just some basic ideas so hopefully i can get some more in discussion today.