Remembering Jimmy Buffett

And visiting one of New York City's psychics

A few weeks back I detailed my exploits at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Resort in Times Square. I also challenged my readers to like the post 25 times in order to send me to Margaritaville for an overnight stay (the readers won). Things were going great and I was feeling the island vibes.

But on September 2nd I awoke to the devastating news that Jimmy Buffett had passed away. The news weighed heavily on me. I had spent so much time visiting and talking about his Times Square resort that I felt like our lives had become intertwined.

Jimmy Buffett, it seemed, was like a brother to me.

I googled Jimmy Buffett expecting to see news about his death’s impact on the stock market, but quickly realized I had made a mistake. The legendary investor and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway is Warren Buffett (who is still very much alive).

I leaned back in my chair and scratched my head.

If the Oracle of Omaha is Warren Buffett, then who the fuck is Jimmy Buffett?

I did some more research.

Jimmy Buffett was a multi-platinum artist known for his “tropical rock” music and associated lifestyle of “island escapism.” He parlayed the popularity of one song in particular - a 1977 hit called “Margaritaville” - into an empire of trinkets, alcohol, retirement communities, and of course, a line of wretched restaurants and hotels across North America, one of which I visited a few weeks prior to his passing.

It turns out I didn’t know as much about Jimmy Buffett as I thought I did, but this all made much more sense than the “tropical Warren Buffett” narrative I had concocted in my imagination.

Since I was to return to Margaritaville to fulfill my promise to my readers, I felt that I had to get in touch with Jimmy Buffett’s spirit to see if he had any unfinished business around the resort that I could help him with.

Luckily, New York City is crawling with psychics. And as it turns out, Jimmy’s spirit does need my help.

---

Everywhere you go in New York City, you see signs for psychics.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned since living here, it’s that:

1. There are psychics on every block of this city, and

2. Their advice costs $10

I located my local psychic and walked to her shop, pictured below.

The psychic’s office contained a menagerie of crystals, candles, and a tiny cat.

Two golden lion thrones (one of which is pictured above) also adorned the space, looking like they had come straight from DJ Khaled’s living room.

“Can you help me get in touch with a deceased person?” I asked the psychic.

“Yes, that would be a medium reading which costs $70.”

I frowned.

“That’s a bit outside of my price range,” I replied (Rat Report is a low budget publication). She rattled off her other services and their respective prices (none of which were $10). “Maybe we can do, like, a tarot card reading and if you happen to receive any messages from the deceased person you can just… let me know?”

The psychic agreed and disappeared behind a shiny gold curtain, returning a moment later with her tarot cards.

She sat down across a small table from me and began flipping the cards over while making predictions. The readings were pretty generic at first:

“You have many years ahead of you.”

“You are a good person.”

“You have stress in your life.”

But then they took a turn.

“I can tell someone very close to you passed recently, and you haven’t been yourself lately. Like there’s a part of you that’s missing.”

How could she have known??

“This person is trying to reach out to you,” she continued, “but all I can hear is ‘help.’”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Jimmy needs my help!

“He’s asking me for help?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes,” she responded. “This person is trapped in Limbo and needs your help but you have too much negativity surrounding you. You can buy the materials to remove this negativity for $250 - is this something you want to do?”

“Uhh - that’s out of my price range right now. But I’ll come back another time.”

---

My plan is to return to Margaritaville this weekend to help Jimmy find peace. After taxes and fees a stay at Margaritaville costs north of $500, so I’ll actually just be sneaking into the pool and staying until the bars close (Rat Report is a low budget publication, after all).

But first I must find out how to remove the cloud of negative energy surrounding me (preferably for less than $20) so that I can receive messages from the spirit realm.