In the merriest of experiments that we are calling, “Jimmy Buffett Meets Mark Twain on the Way to Heaven,” impressionist Darin Talbot and I are connecting dots between two of America’s most colorful characters. We decided to begin by selecting lyrics that might segue seamlessly, and just let time and space fall into simultaneous dimensions.
I’ll present some first proposals here, and await Jimmy’s (Darin’s) rejoinders.
Jimmy, my son, I feel a need to share with you some etiquette on getting into heaven.
Upon arriving at the Pearly Gates, don’t speak first. Let St. Peter speak first. And don’t start a sentence with “So, or Say, or, Be good and you will be lonesome…” And don’t try to take a selfie with him, hell is full of people who have tried that. And Jimmy, in case all else fails, you might want to take along your guitar.
On your way to heaven, Jimmy, you must stop at the Island of Maui. You will think you have arrived. I remember one particularly pleasant afternoon on Maui I observed a bevy of naked native ladies bathing in the ocean. This was the sort of local color I was looking for, for the Sacramento Union, so I went down and sat on their clothes -to prevent them from being stolen.
The sea was rising, I shouted for them to come out but they ignored my warnings and continued to frolic in the sea. When I got up to go I noticed my horse was asleep, which goes to show you that there is a difference between a horse and a man. You cannot depend upon a horse to gather news … for the Sacramento Union.
The Sandwich Islands are to this day the peacefullest, restfullest, dreamiest haven of refuge for a worn and weary spirit that the surface of the earth can offer. Those islands affect you just as all things that you instantly recognize as perfect affect you -perfect Parot Head music, perfect joy. The Sandwich Islands are one long slumbering Sabbath. The good that die there experience no change, for they fall asleep in one heaven -and wake up in another.
I wrote to my brother in 1866: I have had a call to literature, of a low order – humorous…to excite the mirth of God’s creatures. When it comes to writing, Jimmy, the difference between the right word and the almost right word, is the difference between the lightening and the lightening bug.
I know how you like to travel, Jimmy, and travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. I have gone over the Atlantic so many times now that I know all the whales, and lately it’s been an embarrassment to me to meet them, for they do not look glad to see me, only annoyed, and they seem to say, “Here comes that old derelict again.”
You will be one of the youngest to enter heaven by this gate, Jimmy. Your few wrinkles merely indicate where the smiles have been.
So I repeat and emphasize my maxim, Jimmy: You cannot reach old age by another man’s road. The important thing, the essential thing, is that we endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Stay tuned to these pages for future Buffett – Twain progress.
Want to hear McAvoy Layne tell it? Go here for an audio version of this column.
For more than 35 years, in over 4,000 performances, columnist and Chautauquan McAvoy Layne has been dedicated to preserving the wit and wisdom of “The Wild Humorist of the Pacific Slope,” Mark Twain. As Layne puts it: “It’s like being a Monday through Friday preacher, whose sermon, though not reverently pious, is fervently American.”
