My next job

As a Parrothead with the dream of becoming a full-time beach bum, I respectfully ask that none of you interfere with my efforts to land the job of "island caretaker" on Hamilton Island, Queensland, Australia. My friend Jenny Peaster passed this along to me as she knows I'm perfect for the job.

It requires 12 hours of work per month for six months, performing such arduous tasks as snorkeling, whale watching, feeding sea turtles and blogging about life on the island and throughout the Great Barrier Reef. Now this is a job at which I'm actually willing to work hard. Although, the living conditions -- being put up rent-free in a multimillion-dollar, three-bedroom beach home with pool and golf cart -- sound kind of tough.

They're looking for someone who can communicate with the media (heck, I am media) and can write and speak English (working on that now). They also say they're not looking for a "beautiful" spokesperson. Got the not-beautiful part covered too!

The six-month job begins July 1, so I don't guess I'll see y'all much for six months after that.

You can read more about it here and here and in this Sunday's column.

I'll be filling out my application at http://www.islandreefjob.com/. But, with a reported 13,000 hits every three seconds, I'm gonna need a lot of luck getting on that clogged site. It's not loading for me now, so the rest of you please quit clicking on it.

Attn: Christmas-loving Parrotheads

This info comes courtesy of fellow Parrothead Pat Mitchell of Columbus:

Peter Mayer, guitarist/singer/songwriter for Jimmy Buffett's Coral Reefer Band since the very late 1980s, will be performing a Christmas concert Dec. 18 at North Highland Church in Columbus ... you know, the one with that massive prayer tower.

Mayer, whose brother Jim also is a Coral Reefer, does a good bit of Christian music in addition to folk and rock. His song "Suzannah" off the 1996 album "Green-Eyed Radio" is one of my all-time favorite tunes. His Peter Mayer Band had a hit with "Piece of Paradise" in the late ’80s, too.

The show, which is sponsored by Columbus Hospice, will, of course, feature a love offering, and Columbus Hospice is a very worthy cause indeed. I'm not exactly sure what my plans are for that night, and organized religion ain't exactly my cup of tea. But it would be interesting to see Peter Mayer perform in a setting quite different from the drunken debauchery of a Jimmy Buffett concert.

For bios, discography, tour schedule and to sample pretty much every song he's ever recorded, check out Peter Mayer's Web site here. His music is light and sometimes folksy or spiritual, so if you're expecting Parrothead-type music, you'll be disappointed. Although, many of the apparently close-knit Coral Reefers show up on each other's albums so there may be some familiarity.

Parrothead pilgrimage 2008

Just returned from the holiest day on my calendar, Jimmy Buffett's annual appearance in Atlanta. Here are a few of the pics from the tailgating area where my wife, my friend Bass (now known by his street name "G-Dawg" given to him by a thug on the street, though we just call him "Truck" ... long story) and I parked the truck Thursday. Unfortunately, not a lot of photos from the area are fit to be published here, but it was an awful lot of fun and everyone was just one big, happy, tacky family as usual. For a video and slideshow from the much tamer official Lakewood Amphitheatre parking lot, click here. We preferred the more untamed tailgating area.

Me and Bass, a couple of nuts. Mmm, coconut milk.

Alternative mode of transportation

Multiply this scene by 100 and you get the idea.

Parrotheads finally phlock into the amphitheatre.

The lawn people, of which I was one.

My wife with some Columbusites.

I think this guy likes Jimmy Buffett.

Multiply this by 4,000, and you get the idea.

I think my wife took this picture. I hope my wife took this picture.

More Buffett gals.

One more week

Exactly one week from this very moment, I'll be on the Lakewood Amphitheatre lawn with thousands of other Parrotheads for the Jimmy Buffett concert. So, expect me to be in a pretty good mood for a few weeks after that. Nobody's more excited about my going to the Buffett show than my boss, Pork Chop, because she knows it's my religious holiday and I come back from Buffett shows a changed man ... at least for a little while. That's exactly what this Sunday's column will be about.

Every now and then you need to escape to paradise, even if that paradise is a parking lot in metro Atlanta. See this slideshow from The Gulch, where my friend Bass and I tailgated last year. If you've never been to a Buffett show, well, I consider you a heathen. And here's an idea of what you're missing:

News for Parrot Heads

Tickets for the June 5 Jimmy Buffett concert at Atlanta's Lakewood Amphitheatre go on sale at 10 a.m. Monday. They're $36-$136. (Guess which end of the range I'll be shooting for.) You know the drill: Go to your local Ticketmaster outlet or to Ticketmaster online and hit reload over and over. They sell out in just a few minutes. I've seen him at Phillips Arena and Lakewood, and the outdoor venue is the way to go for this show.

If you can't wait to get your Buffett fix, the newest Margaritaville bar/shop/restaurant opens today in Panama City Beach's huge Pier Park shopping and dining area on the west end of Highway 98. To learn more, click here.

Still trying to decide whether I should finally wear a coconut bra and grass skirt June 5.

Return to Angel City

My friend Gregg and I went to Angel City, the motorcycle haven in Unadilla, Ga., for the fall rally this past Saturday. Gregg rides a Yamaha. I ride a Mazda SUV. Yes, I'm born to be mild.

Of course, while I'm at this rally with thousands of bikers, a biker legend came to the Ledger-Enquirer during my vacation: Erik Estrada, who played motorcycle cop Ponch on the old TV series "CHIPS." Read my co-worker Brad's blog to learn about that visit.

While I'm not a biker myself, I do enjoy mingling with the biker crowd. They have a sense of unity a lot like you find among Parrotheads at Jimmy Buffett concerts. Only they prefer beer and Jack Daniels over margaritas and the revving of engines over the revving of blenders. I didn't have my camera with me this time, so Smitty and the gang from back home won't have to worry about incriminating photos on the Internet. I imagine photos from this latest rally will be going up soon on the Angel City site.

Parrotheads in The Gulch

With the help of a hitchhiker we picked up in the bowels of downtown Atlanta, my friend Gregg and I finally found the tailgating spot for Parrotheads known as "The Gulch" before Wednesday's Jimmy Buffett concert at Philips Arena. From makeshift beaches to hula skirts and tiki huts, Parrotheads managed to turn the parking lot into a bit of paradise in the urban jungle. Everybody talks to everybody else, and there are no strangers in Margaritaville.

But I got in trouble with the police in the parking lot. OK, it was the "Margaritaville Police," and they issued me a written warning citation for not wearing a lei. The citation noted that it wouldn't go on my "permenant record." When I pointed out they misspelled permanent, they issued me a second citation for being a nerd. I did purchase a $3 lei and the police later struck my first offense. As punishment, they also ordered me to go to wicked Wanda's trailer and have an upside-down tequila shot, which I passed on. I'm still upset that they didn't check the "too sexy" box on the citation, but then again it was two guys patrolling the parking lot, so that's OK.

Parrotheads are fairly normal people most days of the year (perhaps I'm the exception to that rule). But when Buffett comes to town, let's just say they let it all hang out, figuratively and literally as you can see in this slideshow from WSB TV. If you're offended by folks drinking mass quantities of alcohol, you may not want to view it.

Oh, a bonus during the show: Jazz great Earl Klugh played guitar during "A Pirate Looks At Forty."

I survived the mayhem and am fully functioning today, despite the tailgating, the show, a friend's cell phone beeping every 10 minutes all night long, and getting up at 7 a.m. in downtown Atlanta and getting to work by 10:15 a.m.

It was the third Buffett concert experience I've had, and I can say that Wednesday will go down as one of the most fun days of my life.

A "Hoot"

One thing that bugs me about a lot of movies aimed at kids is the three or four cuss words that they toss in there for no apparent reason. In most cases, they do nothing to advance the stories or the characters and just leave parents shaking their heads. Really, even going back to my youth, would "Smokey and the Bandit" would have been any worse without all the cussin?

Don't get me wrong: I'm no puritan. And I've seen my share of movies with vulgarity, nudity and graphic violence. I'm not against them. I don't think some of my favorite movies, such as "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" and "Sideways," would be as funny with G-rated words. And it wouldn't have been in line with the characters. But 10-year-olds weren't their target audience.

Which brings me to the movie "Hoot," which my 7-year-old son has wanted to see ever since we saw the trailers a year or so ago and he noticed Jimmy Buffett was in it (he also produced it), and Saylor knows I'm a huge Parrothead (which is another word for Buffett fans for those of you without advanced vocabularies).

So we got the movie through the cable's "on demand" service, and it turned out to be what a kids' movie ought to be. Kids standing up for a good cause. Good guys win. Bad guys lose. Silly jokes. Cute animals. Cute kids. Positive message. And not a single dirty word or even the slightest sexual innuendo.

For an adult, it was predictable, but tolerable. I enjoyed it just for the mix of music (provided mainly by Buffett and friends, including a reggae-style revamping of his mid-1980s song "Floridays") and the Florida scenery. It's based on Carl Hiaasen's book of the same name, and when nonconformists like Hiaasen and Buffett team up, good things usually happen.

There's some stuff Hiaasen has written that I wouldn't want Saylor to read. And there are plenty of Buffett songs I won't let him hear. But it's nice to know some folks know that there's a time and a place for everything. If only everyone else were as reasonable.

Anyway, if you've got kids in the 5-13 age range, check out this movie. And when the kids go to bed, watch "Harold and Kumar" for the umpteenth time. It's get funnier every time.