Last night I flew in to Omaha to meet with the man Warren Buffett would 'name' as his successor. You could say Mr. Buffett was passing Berkshire Hathaway on to another member of his family, albeit one who hadn't been related for the past six centuries. This particular Buffett was sitting on the couch of his Hilton hotel watching a rerun of Seinfeld's Soup Nazi episode while strumming his guitar. It was 'Cousin' Jimmy Buffett, practicing his new song for a surprise appearance at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting.

Ten minutes before the 8:30 a.m. movie began, Warren came backstage to wait to say "hi" to his 'cousin' Jimmy. They'd had their DNA tested and were about to announce that their families were linked 600 years ago in Scandinavia. They'd only say they shared the same trait of "commercialism."

"We both got the commercial gene, but he got the music gene," Warren laughed, sitting down in a leather chair in front of two flat-screen televisions showing the news and, in a few minutes, the meeting. "And we both like to have fun," he added.

How'd Warren get Cousin Jimmy involved? "We were friends, and he offered, and I took him up on it," Warren said. The two first met through Warren's sister Doris who wanted to find out if they were related. They've shared the stage before in Omaha for the opening of Jimmy's Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant. "I played the ukulele and he took his cues from me," Warren said.

Beyond their joint performances, Jimmy and Warren regularly talk business. Jimmy bought Berkshire Hathaway stock at $1600 a share more than 20 years ago. A few years later they met for lunch down on Wall Street when Warren came in to rescue Salomon Smith Barney from its financial scandal in 1991.

"We laughed and giggled and ever since then we've been close," Jimmy said.

Though he said they used to see each other more often when Warren used fly out to Martha's Vineyard and Maine to see Katherine Graham, they still manage to meet a few times a year. "Whenever I'm flying East or West I'll stop in and have lunch with him," he added.

When Jimmy had first launched his chain of Margaritaville restaurants, Disney approached him to open one in the park. He met with the company, but wasn't sure about the deal, so he asked Warren's advice since he had dealt with Disney himself.

"He said, 'Whether you make this deal or you don't make this deal, is it really going to change your life?' I said, 'Not really, but I just want to be comfortable in the deal.' He said, 'Well that's a good way to start. Then all you do is go in and they will say what they want and then you say what you want and see what they say. Then if they accept it then you're comfortable in the business deal, and if they don't, then it's the right thing to do because you wouldn't be comfortable anyway.'"

At the meeting Disney asked him to appear six times a year among other demands, so Jimmy came back with a few requests of his own, such as on the nights he played, he'd get 5 percent of the gross of the park.

Disney's response: "'We'll get back to you,'" Jimmy laughed. 'They never did.'"

But five years later, he went into negotiations with Universal Studios and was more prepared, and it was there that he opened the first big Margaritaville. "Warren was very
instrumental."

Sitting backstage, Warren leapt to his feet when Jimmy walked through the
door yelling, "Cousin!"

Jimmy stood next to him and said, "I have to show you something." He pulled out the lyrics to "Margaritaville," which he'd rewritten as "Berkshire-Hathaway-ville" (and played on stage a few minutes later to the packed arena).

"When did you do this?" Warren asked, laughing as he read the lyrics.

"Last night on the plane before I got in," Jimmy replied. "I got up and looked out the window and saw people standing in line and thought, 'It's just like people going to my show!"

Warren started to explain the on-stage plan to Jimmy: Jimmy would open the meeting and announce himself as Warren's successor.

Warren even invited him to answer shareholder questions before announcing his 'junior partner' Warren (though this never came to pass). "Then, I'll come out and I'll say, 'Lets take a vote on who runs the rest of the meeting!'" Warren chuckled.

"But I'm headed to Mexico," Jimmy laughed. He was heading south in the afternoon for a Cinco de Mayo celebration. "Anyone who wants to see Jimmy Buffett can come down to Mexico."

The whole set-up had been planned for awhile, and Warren remarked that he couldn't believe they had both managed to successfully keep Jimmy a secret. "Well, I heard some of the waitresses at the Hilton whispering that I was sneaking around," Jimmy said.

He had arrived the night before and sneaked in through a back entrance. Instead of heading to Borsheim's for the opening cocktail party, he stayed on lock down in his hotel room.

Now, Jimmy was ready. Soon, Charlie Munger came in and said a brief hello before sitting down with his coffee, and then Walter Scott came in before Warren led them all out to watch the movie. Jimmy changed from jeans and a button down shirt into a Hawaiian top and board shorts and went to watch the video from stage right.

When the movie ended, the announcer wound up the crowd for the other "Mr. Buffett"--and Jimmy burst onto the stage and said, "Who were you expecting? My distant cousin?" As next in line to run Berkshire Hathaway, he said he was appointed because, "Blood is thicker than water!"

Back in his hotel room after the show, Jimmy was packing up for his afternoon departure, adding the new purchases he had picked up at a shareholders discount on the exhibition floor: Ginsu knives, See's Candy, Geico 'caveman' T-shirts for his family, plus he was wearing his new Justin's boots for the ride.

"I thought it really worked," he said. "I was worried people wouldn't know who I was so that's why I wore my shorts and t-shirt to help the recognition factor. But nobody knew ahead of time!" he exclaimed, even Howard Buffett. "Howard told me, 'I bought it hook, line and sinker.'"

Walking around his fellow shareholders, Jimmy said he felt right at home. "There's a similarity between these people and the people who go to my shows--except they haven't started drinking yet!" he laughed. "But they're here for the same reason. It's a pilgrimage."

by Alexandra Wolfe