I have come to the conclusion that there is no way that America can be saved from itself. And this has nothing to do with Donald Trump. It has nothing to do with a cultural landscape that's gone to hell in a handbasket thanks to Hollywood popcorn-movie franchises or rap stars with ridiculous stage names like A$AP Rocky. It has to do with our obsession with fantasy, particularly with how we live our lives. And one of the newest fantasy living patterns that has taken hold in America is the idea of a senior-living development built around a theme, like a live-in amusement park for adults. And one of the latest senior-living developments with a theme-park concept is a network of senior-living developments based on the songs of the late folk-rock singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett.
In no way am I disparaging Buffett's music. In fact, he wrote some of the most enjoyable songs of the past fifty years, blending Caribbean rhythms and country arrangements to create a genre all to himself - Florida rock. His songs were emblematic of the laid-back Florida beach life, and they still sparkle like the fluorescent colors of the Art Deco buildings of Palm Beach or Key West. His signature song, "Margaritaville," is one of those songs I never, ever get tired of hearing. "Come Monday," "Volcano," and "Cheeseburger In Paradise," to name a few, are also certifiable classics. But why would anyone want to live in a housing development with the aura of Buffett's music all over the place, from the street names to the amenities to the activities?
The answer is simple. "Latitude Margaritaville" - the name for these developments not only derives from the title of Jimmy Buffett's 1977 hit song but also the album it appeared on, Changes in Attitudes, Changes in Latitudes - offers its residents a never-ending Club Med-style existence where one can live enveloped in baby-boomer nostalgia for not just Buffett's music but for the music's distinctively seventies vibe, recalling an era of hippie beachcombers and fancy cocktails, before the Sunshine State got overpopulated by spoiled-brat spring-break college kids, oversized amusement parks, pompous resorts, and edgy hipsters. It offers boomers and Generation X elders aged 55 or older the chance not only to celebrate the past but to live in it.
Living in Latitude Margaritaville essentially promises to insulate its residents from the realities of the present, be it the realities of present-day Florida, where two Latitude Margaritaville communities exist, or present-day South Carolina, where you can find one on Hilton Head Island. (A fourth Latitude Margaritaville is planned for Texas.) Among the amenities you can find in the Daytona Beach community, for example, are:
The Latitude Bar and "Chill," which offers a full-service restaurant in addition to a bar specializing in tropical drinks and rooms for private parties;
It almost seems like white boomer nostalgia, not the sort of mean-spirited nostalgia Trump is selling, but the sort of nostalgic vibe you get when any sort of country-rock song from the 1970s, not just one of Buffett's, comes on the radio - that easygoing, harmonic, carefree sort of music that defined the laid-back feeling of that period. All very nice, but not very good. To live in such a place would seem like death to me, because while I like Jimmy Buffett, I would pine for a change in attitude toward other forms of seventies pop and the alternate vibes they represent, from the heavy metal of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple to the jazzy sounds of Steely Dan. Latitude Margaritaville sounds like you only get to live - nay, live in - Jimmy Buffett songs for the rest of your life.
It's this cartoonish, nostalgic, pleasure-oriented way of living that makes America the laughing stock of a world that has long since moved on from the past.
They call it paradise. I don't know why. You call some place paradise . . . kiss it goodbye.
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