In the latest Vanity Fair, Jimmy Buffett writes about his friend Herman Wouk, with whom he collaborated on the musical Don’t Stop The Carnival:

Herman Wouk is one of the wisest men I have ever known. In aviation the best information comes from pilots themselves, in airplanes, not from air-traffic controllers or meteorologists on the ground, in some big air-conditioned office. In his new book, The Language God Talks, Herman sends us all a most valuable pilot report, since it comes from a man whose remaining time on this voyage, he concedes, is rather short. It has been a long time since I sat down and thought about the big questions, such as “Who are we, really?” and “Why are we here?” I have always been more comfortable being tagged a court jester than any kind of philosopher, but I am glad that my old friend keeps his page-a-day commitment to himself, thus extending, in The Language God Talks, a pilot report that we can all use.

Pre-order Wouk’s new book now at Amazon.com.

Billboard has an interview with Jimmy Buffett that discusses the new album “Buffet Hotel”, next year’s tour, and two new books that he’s working on.

“Buffet Hotel”

Jimmy Buffett says he felt a greater level of engagement on his new album, “Buffet Hotel,” than he has on many of his other recent efforts.

“With a band this good and with people this good around you, you kind of get in a routine,” Buffett tells Billboard.com, acknowledging that previous “listening and fixing” was done primarily by Coral Reefer Band collaborators Mike Utley and Mac McAnally. But on “Buffet Hotel,” Buffett says that “we got back to doing things like we did in the old days. Instead of doing it in the afternoon, I said, ‘Let’s go back like we did in the old days and do those red wine and reefer vocals…at midnight.’ I’d get a little buzz on red wine and get my singing chops, get in that mood, and then I’d send ’em over the Internet to Utley and Mac and say, ‘Alright, I know they were midnight. You got red wine vocals there. You can throw ’em away or tell me what you think,’ and they’d go, ‘Do more of those!’ ”

Buffett and company previewed several of the songs during his 2009 concerts, notably “Summerzcool” and “Surfing in a Hurricane,” the first surf rock song he’s ever written.

“Mac told me on the last night of the tour we’d done seven of the new songs off the album over the summer, and I’d never done that before,” Buffett recalls. “Usually you’re lucky to get one or two songs from a new album into the show, so it was a complete reversal.”

2010 Tour

Buffett is planning a full-scale “Buffet Hotel” tour for 2010 and intends to start the year in Australia and the Pacific Rim. He’s toying with the idea of playing entire albums next year and hopes to play 1983’s “One Particular Harbor” in Tahiti. He’s also putting into motion into a special performance at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival with “Buffet Hotel” guests Sonny Landreth and Toumani Diabate.

Film and Books

And while he says that he’s “out of the movie business” at the moment, Buffett is working on a documentary about his trip to Mali with director Margaret Brown.

Buffett also has two books in the works, a collection of short stories set in the Pacific and “a rock ‘n’ roll novel” called “Mudbath” that is “based on a real-life adventure, but hopefully you won’t recognize any of the characters.”

Read the full article here.

Another year has come and gone, and we look back at some of the highlights from 2008:

January

• Jimmy’s sister Lucy “Lulu” releases cookbook: “Crazy Sista Cooking”



• Jimmy plays a charity benefit show in Hong Kong
• In addition to Hong Kong show, Jimmy performs private show in Singapore and performs for troops aboard the USS Harry Truman (right)

February

• February 4th was the 7 year anniversary of Jimmy getting ejected from Miami Heat game
• The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis prepares for spacewalk by listening to Buffett’s “Oysters and Pearls”
• It’s reported that a Michigan company would begin making chips and salsa for Jimmy’s Margaritaville Foods
• In mid-February the annual trickle of tour dates begin to leak out, followed by the official tour announcements by the end of the month
• Harrison Ford reveals in an interview with Barbara Walters that he got his ear pierced after a lunchtime birthday celebration with Jimmy and the late Ed Bradley
• It’s announced that Buffett would build a new restaurant in Waikiki, Hawaii called “Jimmy Buffett’s At The Beachcomber”

March

• Panama City Margaritaville opens on March 5th
• On March 12th, Comedy Central’s “South Park” lampooned Jimmy Buffett (right)
• March 17th marked the 30 year anniversary of the release of “Son Of A Son Of A Sailor”

April

• Jimmy and Mac performed April 9th at the Glendale, AZ Margaritaville
• On April 13th, Jimmy and Jane Buffett pledged $50,000 at Comedy Central’s “Night Of Too Many Stars Autism Benefit”
• 2008 tour kicks off April 21st in Houston
• Buffett plays St. Louis for the first time in 8 years
• Other tour stops this month were Frisco, TX and Charlotte, NC

May

• Freddie & The Fishsticks play benefit show at New Orleans Margaritaville on May 1st



• Buffett plays New Orleans Jazz Fest on May 3rd
• Jimmy’s latest novel, “Swine Not?” is released May 13th
• Publicity rounds for new book include the Today Show, Regis & Kelly, and David Letterman
• It’s reported May 29th that the Trump Casino in Atlantic City will be turned into a Margaritaville Casino

June

• “Scenes You Know By Heart” DVD released exclusively through Walmart on June 3rd
• Second leg of tour resumes in Atlanta on June 5th
• Buffett also plays Raleigh, Detroit, New York City, and Philadelphia in the month of June

July

• Tour resumes in Cincinnati on July 17th
• Buffett also plays East Troy, Pittsburgh, Chicago twice, and Indianapolis in the month of July
• It’s reported that because of the credit crunch, work was slowing on the Margaritaville Casino in Biloxi

August

• Jimmy performs at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island on August 3rd
• Tour resumes August 24th in Atlantic City
• Buffett also plays Wantagh, NY and the first of two shows in Bristow, VA in August

September

• Second show in Bristow, VA on September 1st
• Other tour stops in September include two shows in Mansfield, MA
• September 6th Mansfield show time moved up to 3 pm because of the approaching Hurricane Hanna
• Buffett performs two shows in Paris, marking the second year in a row he’s played Paris
• Mohegan Sun Margaritaville opens on September 29th
• BuffettWorld debuts the Buffett Caption Contest

October

• New monthly column debuts on BuffettWorld: “From Under My Lone Palm”, written by Justin
• Coral Reefer Nadirah Shakoor releases album on October 14th: “Nod To The Storyteller”
• West coast tour includes stops in San Diego, San Francisco, and two shows in Las Vegas
• On October 23rd, Jimmy visited Google Headquarters where he spoke and performed

November

• Jimmy’s dear friend and legendary Key West figure Captain Tony Tarracino died on November 1st



• Jimmy performs November 2nd at a Barack Obama rally in Tampa, Florida (right)
• On the 8th, Jimmy performed a private show at the Mohegan Sun Margaritaville Cafe
• Radio Margaritaville becomes available to XM subscribers as the result of the Sirius XM merger
• Coral Reefer Mac McAnally won CMA Musician of the Year at CMA Awards on November 12th
• Jimmy attends University of Florida football game on the 15th where he was invited into the locker room by coach Urban Meyer

December

• Jimmy Buffett turns 62 years old on Christmas Day

And that’s a quick review of 2008!

It was another great year at BuffettWorld and we’d like to thank all of you who visit BuffettWorld, subscribe to the daily email updates, and who are members of our forum.

Thank you and we look forward to providing you the best and most Jimmy Buffett news and information on the web again in 2009!

Jimmy Buffett was the answer to one of the ‘Test Pilot’ questions in the October issue of AOPA Pilot magazine, the magazine of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. Here was the question and answer:

Question 7. From reader Charles Baumann: Less than 10 authors have ever had their books appear on The New York Times bestseller lists for both fiction and nonfiction. Which of these authors is well known as a pilot?

Answer – Jimmy Buffett for his novels, Where is Joe Merchant? (1992) and A Salty Piece of Land (2004). His book A Pirate Looks at Fifty made the nonfiction list in 1998.

Visit our Jimmy and Aviation page to read about Buffett’s pilot career and see photos of his airplanes.

Lucy Buffett, sister of Jimmy Buffett and owner of Lulu’s at Homeport, will be on Better TV on Wednesday to promote her new cookbook “Crazy Sista Cooking.”

This Wednesday, Lucy Buffett shows a nation-wide web audience and viewers in 12
major television markets how a Crazy Sista spices things up in the kitchen. She will
appear on Better TV and www.better.tv Wednesday, August 13th.

Be sure to check your local TV listings for the air time so you can watch Lucy
prepare some of her favorite dishes from her new cookbook, Crazy Sista Cooking.

Better is aired on Meredith-owned stations CBS 46 in Atlanta, Georgia; KCTV in
Kansas City, MO; FOX 5 in Las Vegas, NV; PDX 49 and FOX 12 in Portland, OR; FOX in
Greenville, SC & Asheville NC; News 3 in Hartford, CT; 4 News in Nashville, TN; KSMO
in Kansas City, MO; CBS 5 in Flint-Saginaw, MI; CBS 3 in Springfield-Holyoke MA; and
CBS 5 in Phoenix, AZ.

If you don’t live in one of these 12 television markets, you can still watch Lucy by
logging on to www.better.tv. Look for her Crazy Sista Cooking Segment on the right
side of the homepage.

And if you are interested in learning more about Crazy Sista Cooking, or purchasing
your very own cookbook, please visit www.lulubuffett.com.