A Blender in Parrothead-Land (2008)

If you’ve been around for the last thirty years or so, you may have heard of Jimmy Buffett, laid-back island troubadour of the 1970s, the man who inspired a lifestyle and parlayed his hit songs Margaritaville and Cheeseburger in Paradise into successful restaurant chains.  But have you heard of his fabled fans?  At a 1985 concert at Ohio’s Kings Island Amusement Park, according to an article by Rick Bird of the Cincinnati Post, “…Jimmy looked out at something he had never seen before at one of his concerts – a sea of thousands with everyone decked out in crazy, colorful attire – shark hats, Hawaiian shirts, parrot inflatables.  He said to bass player, Timothy B. Schmit, ‘They look like tropical Deadheads.’  Schmit replied, ‘Yeah, Parrot-heads.’”  Thus christened, these carefree concert-goers have become legend in their own right.

A generation later, in Glendale, Arizona, the scene is just as vibrant, if a little more intimate.  At the invitation-only grand opening of Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Cafe, a pandemonium of Parrotheads is out in force, their plumage consisting of wild hats, tropical shirts, leis, beads, flip-flops, and even coconut bras and grass skirts.  While the apparel of choice is still beachwear, now more than ever, it is the hats that distinguish the Parrotheads.  This evening there are twisted-balloon hats, straw hats, pirate hats, parrot-head hats, and a hat made of colorful flip-flops standing up on its wearer’s head like a crown pork roast.  Most unusual of all, though, is the Parrothead in a straw hat topped with a working blender of margaritas.  She dances around, laughing and playing the crowd, while on stage Buffett croons his signature tune, “…wasted away again in Margaritaville…”

The girl beneath the blender is Shannon Madden, who grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona, the daughter of the police chief and a high school teacher.  She is a self-described “goofball” around her friends but, surprisingly, says she is shy around others.

Of the time before she started listening to Buffett’s music Madden says, “I was sheltered, a music idiot.”  In 1992, she was one of a growing number of college students who became a new generation of Parrotheads.  Four years later, she was well and truly hooked, a Parrothead for life.  Her crowning achievement, so to speak, is her blender hat, setting her apart from the other birds in Parrothead-Land, and even earning her recognition by Buffett himself at one of his annual Las Vegas concerts.

“We were in the front row, and Mac MacAnally (a member of Buffett’s backup band, the Coral Reefers) pointed us out.  Jimmy choked on his drink and started cracking up!  On ‘Margaritaville,’ he even changed the lyrics to ‘…some people say the girl with the blender’s to blame.’”  Madden treasures the yellow wristband Buffett gave to her off his own wrist that night and the autographed set list he made sure she received later.

What looks like a simple straw hat with a blender attached to it is actually a work of art Madden remakes every year.  Beneath the flimsy straw exterior is an industrial hard hat that ratchets down in the back.  Construction-grade epoxy affixes the battery-operated blender to the top.  Then with hot glue, Madden attaches all manner of tropical-themed paraphernalia.  Currently arranged around the blender are an “annoying” singing hula girl she has named Kay Aloha, a tropical Barbie doll, a tiny plastic compass from the drink of a friend who visited Margaritaville in New Orleans, and, of course, the lost shaker of salt.  Battery-powered hula-girl lights and Christmas lights illuminate the works, and the grass skirts on the dolls hide the battery packs.  The whole creation weighs about 35 pounds and costs around $300 to make.  Too big for airplane carry-on luggage, Madden also pays around $300 each time to ship the hat to various Buffett concerts, most notably the Las Vegas concert at the MGM Grand, where she has won the Parrothead hat contest, she says, for eight years in a row now.

This imaginative headgear has won Madden fame of a sort.  After a “belligerent drunk guy” knocked the hat off her head and destroyed it one year in Las Vegas (an act of disrespect “unheard of” in Parrothead-dom), Madden ended up with her own security guard, hired by concert managers, for subsequent concerts in that city.  Also as a result of that incident, Madden recruited her sister Marnie and another friend as “wranglers” to carry all her hat accoutrements and the “booty” that Parrotheads invariably acquire at concerts.  Marnie even wears a tee-shirt that says “Blender Girl’s Sister.”  Madden has also received a standing ovation as she donned her headdress after dining in a Margaritaville Cafe before a concert, and on her birthday in August, she discovered herself on the video loop of concert footage that plays at Margaritaville restaurants all around the world.

Though being a Parrothead is an important part of her life, it is not all of it.  In real-life, Madden is a crisis counselor, paged overnight to Phoenix’s east valley emergency rooms to counsel suicidal or even homicidal patients, among others.  It is a calling she speaks of as animatedly as she does being a Parrothead – work she was drawn to in the wake of her own bout with depression after the deaths of seven family members in a six-month period.  She is as dedicated to her counseling work as she is to her Parrothead persona, and like the serious, social-worker side of Madden, being a Parrothead has a more contemplative aspect to it.

“It’s a way to connect with my dad and his generation,” she says, adding that “Parrothead is my alter ego, and my blender hat is like a secret superhero costume.”  When she has her hat on, she is not shy or serious; she laughs and sings as she dances through Parrothead-Land, camaraderie and high spirits all around.

“My life as a crisis counselor doesn’t mix with Parrothead life,” she states, yet she admits it is catharsis for what she deals with on the job.

And maybe, after more than 35 years, that release is what continues to draw crowds to Buffett concerts, Parrotheads or not.   His music conjures up sunny days and ocean waves, soft sandy beaches and tropical drink tranquility – an escape from the day-to-day.  In the words from Buffett’s 1977 hit Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes, “…if we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”

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