Ray was born in Virginia and has bounced from place to place ever since. He landed in Key West for a Parrothead Convention in 2000. A year and a half later he moved to this island ghost metropolis. One of his first jobs on the island was doing the Jimmy Buffett walking tour. Yes, people paid him to take them to bars and tell Jimmy Buffett stories, where they bought him drinks and them tipped him at the end. He works at the Hemingway House Museum in the daytime and does the Ghost Tours at night. He says as a writer and a storyteller, “These are the two coolest jobs I’ve ever had.”