OMC: You've not been superstitious about trying too hard on this one, after not trying too hard on the last one?

PB: Yeah, right. No, I think because I'm really happy with the songs. The music's there. If I wasn't so sure about the music, it would be different, but I really feel like this is an evolution. It's got all of the stuff that "Gold Star" had, but it's just taking more chances, in a way, and I think it's going to pay off.

OMC: What about the "Spirit" show? Did you learn any of your lessons from that? Is it something you'll do again? Tell me a little bit about your thoughts on that -- how it turned out as opposed to how you envisioned it.

PB: Well, it's so funny, it's like something was just working through me, because it's amazing what I attempted, when I look back. Even during it, I knew. The best word people would use is "ambitious" to describe that.

OMC: Were they using it in a scornful way?

PB: No, just like "wow," you know. Or in like, as impressed in the sense that I kept working' at it and kept making' it real. I was saying to somebody before that one of the things I learned is that if you put art before the business, you can get yourself into a mess, and they said yeah, but if you put business before the art, you've got nothing'. So I said, yeah, okay, you're right about that. Again, that show critically, a complete success. Audience-wise, a complete success. We had great turn-outs, in a sense that we'd always struggle at first, and then we'd have people coming back four or five times.

We had people literally changing their lives. I ran into a guy on a plane with his family, and he said, "Are you Peter Buffett," and I said, "Yeah." And he said, "I saw your show in Milwaukee, and I took my dad and I took my wife." And I got some emails from him, so I knew, okay. He said, "I sold my business and I'm moving to Costa Rica to do work down there." And I mean, this guy, based on the show. I kind of woke him up and said I'm going to reprioritize my life.

OMC: That has to feel good, regardless.

PB: It's amazing. I got so much positive feedback from the show, and you know, it was able to get taped when it finally reached what I considered to be its completion in Philadelphia. Because even in Milwaukee, there was still work to be done.

OMC: How many places did it go after Milwaukee?

PB: Milwaukee, then it went to Washington -- it was on The Mall for the opening of the museum, which was tremendous. Amazing to see it on the cover of USA Today. And native people, thousands of them saw it there. It was two shows a day for a week, and lines down the mall. I mean, it was just amazing. So, a total success there, which is great. Then we went to Louisville, which was tough. But in like all places, low turnout at first, then it just grew and grew and grew.

OMC: By word of mouth, presumably.

PB: Yeah. Then I stopped it because it was not sustaining itself. The business model was wrong, and we needed sponsorship, and I knew that, but we were never far enough ahead of ourselves to get the right sponsorship and do all that. So then we restarted in '05 in Philadelphia, and that's when the show was essentially perfect. I felt like, okay, this is the show. Still, the business model was wrong. The wrong guy was in charge of the production side. I could just see that this was not going to make it. I had some guys from Purple Onion come out and video tape it and everything, made the DVD, and so I thought, okay, "Got it." You know, "it exists." Some people had heard about it, a lot of people had heard about it, but this organization in San Francisco that takes shows around the world, had heard about it, and they're now busy, hopefully, if all goes well, it'll be touring Europe next year.

OMC: So it's not past tense.

PB: It's not dead, no. Robert Redford saw the video, called me up, and said, "I'd love to meet with you." So I went out there, and we spent the day.

OMC: That's not a phone call that comes every day.

PB: No, that's wild. I went out there and sat with him for a day, and he said, it's so funny, the conversation would stray, and he'd say "let's go back to talking about Spirit." He loved it, and wants it at Sundance during the summers. So, that show will absolutely live again in some form, and maybe multiple forms.

OMC: I'm not sure what its legacy seemed to be. It seemed there was some mystery, at least in Milwaukee, where it went after Milwaukee. It seemed like a big deal at the lakefront at the time, but then you didn't hear about it anymore.

PB: That's too bad, but it was because we were just struggling so hard, and it clearly was the wrong … you know, I was trying to make it happen, and at some point I should have, and I was trying but just never found, the right partner. You know, if I'd gone to Cirque de Soleil and said, "Here, take this over. I don't know what to do now." That would've been a fantastic thing. I mean, I never went to that, but that's the kind of thing I should have done. I mean, you have to make it real for people to get it.

OMC: Right, it would've lost it's …

PB: It could've easily. And that's the thing. I wanted to own it long enough to make it what I wanted it to be. And the DVD and the soundtrack show what it is now, and so now, whether it's Robert Redford or somebody else, they can see it and say, "Oh, okay. I get it. Let's make it happen." I don't really have to do much of anything until we launch it, and I can just oversee that, and I don't have to be in it, and I don't have to you know. It now has the potential to be whatever it's going to be on its own, which is just great. I'm thrilled.

OMC: Well, I have one last music question for you.

PB: Sure.

OMC: From another coworker, who wants to know if you're a Parrot Head.

PB: Yes. Good question.

OMC: Are you hanging out in Margaritaville?

PB: I'm hesitant to say, "No," because about two weeks ago, Jennifer and I had lunch with Jimmy, and I'd met him before, multiple times.

OMC: So you guys didn't grow up hanging out at each other's houses.

PB: No, not at all. We were…

OMC: You said that you are cousins.

PB: Well, here's the funny thing.

OMC: Are your dads brothers?

PB: No. We never exactly knew how we were related, and his mother and my aunt were both really into genealogy, so they knew that they had found what they thought was common ancestry. So, about two weeks ago, I was having lunch with Jimmy, and that's the first time I've spent time with him in sort of a relaxed setting. It was always before a show, the first few times I spent with him before. We had a great time -- he's a great guy. It was really nice. A couple of hours, we had lunch together, and he then went to my dad's big shareholder's meeting that was just in Omaha a couple of weeks ago. So, we had lunch before that, and he said that he had just gotten the message that the DNA results were back. Because for this meeting, one of the things they were going to do was announce just how related they were.

OMC: Is he a shareholder or something?

PB: Yeah, he's a shareholder, and he did a funny skit at my dad's meeting.

OMC: He's just an investor.

PB: Yeah, right. He's no dummy. Clearly. So, he came on stage. I never talked to him directly, but he said, "Well, the DNA tests are in, and about 6,000 years ago in Scandinavia, there were Buffetts mixing it up." I said, "Well, okay, that means that he is essentially not related."

OMC: But you're a Parrot Head in knowing that he's a nice guy.

PB: Yeah, he's a great guy, and that's even better. You know. So, it's funny you would ask, because I happen to have all of this current information that I didn't have two weeks ago.

OMC: Well, we'll help get the word out.

PB: People thought we were brothers, cousins, and turns out, it's nothing'. Turns out there's nothing there. We (you and I) are probably just as related.