The new Jimmy Buffett record, “Buffet Hotel”, is set for Dec 8, 2009 release. The first song on it is the Kimbrough/Womack composition, “Nobody From Nowhere”. The record can be preordered here.

In other words…Woo Hoo!!!!!

First off, I want to apologize to the investors – and all the Cheeseheads - for the long wait and me keeping you in the dark about what’s going on with the Government Cheese reissues. Believe me, no one is sorrier than I am that this has taken so long, and if it’s any consolation, it’s cause me many sleepless nights. Hence, this update.

First, let me tell you this. For sure and for real, the Cheese reissues will either happen this spring or I will give the money back and figure the next move from there. No one is going to lose their money if the project doesn’t happen.

Mary Sack (my manager) and I have cleared Spring of 2010 for nothing but this reissue. There will be no “There, I Said It!” to get in the way (which happened), no new book (which happened) and no new Daddy record (which happened.) The only thing I have coming up on my plate is a children’s book which is already written and won’t take up too much of my time to prepare as it will largely be in the hands of the illustrator from this point on.

What has happened to delay it is a contract that is not signed. When I bought the tapes, I didn’t have the foresight to get the publishing at the same time, which turned out to be a sticking point for the other parties involved in helping me put this record out. The party who needed to agree to sign over the publishing, after some discussion, agreed to sign it over.

Then he had a heart attack.

A good deal of time went by then as we waited for him to recover. When we judged enough time had passed, we sent him the contract to sign and return. He didn’t. Calls went unreturned. I’m not indicting the guy; he could have had other problems that I don’t know about, but fair to say communication broke down. And that’s when my paranoia kicked in, that he wouldn’t sign and I’d be out the serious coin I paid out of my own pocket for the tapes. I could have called him many times since then, and I haven’t. I was afraid because of my natural tendency to be too nice, and I was afraid that – working on my own – I would screw things up further.

Others are now involved in helping me straighten this out. The contract was recently updated and I’m talking with the others involved on getting in touch (en masse) with the aforementioned party and going to his house to get a signature.

The notion was floated a while back to just give the money back and start from there, but I was reluctant to do that because money had already been spent (on a UPS bill to ship the tapes to San Francisco to have them digitized, a hard drive to store them on, and the lawyer bill for drawing up the publishing contract). I also got advice that giving the money back wasn’t the answer, getting the record out was.

What I can assure you now is that the project will either happen in the spring or the money will be refunded. I’m sorry as I can be this has all taken this long. And I promise I won’t leave you all in the dark about it in the future like I have lately. It will either happen soon, or restitution will be made; and I will have learned a great lesson: have your ducks in a row before you quack.

God bless,
Tommy