It don't take long for the good to get gone

They ain't makin' 'em like this anymore:
Slim Whitman and his Cowboy Cool

Four deaths of public figures in one day is a lot. Four deaths of people who affected me in one small (or large) way or another.

“The Sopranos” deserves all the acclaim it received, especially the work of James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano. But its unending violence finally did me in, and I became weary of the killing, the language, and even the gratuitous sex. Still, we watched it religiously on Sunday nights for a few years, reveling in the stories told, the characters, the Jerseyness and the acting, especially that of Gandolfini. He domineered every scene he was in, and was larger than life. One of the greatest TV characters of all time.

Dave Jennings was the best player on several bad Giants teams during some of my formative football years. And that is especially sad given that he was a punter. But he was all I could brag about to my friends for awhile, arguing he was better than Ray Guy (he wasn’t), and trying to put a positive spin on Sunday after Sunday of dreadful Giants play.

A lot of my appreciation and love of music came from reading a stable of great writers: the likes of Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh, Paul Nelson, Robert Hilburn, Lester Bangs, and Chet Flippo, who died yesterday. I had long read Flippo’s work in “Rolling Stone” and especially remember his “People’ cover story on Springsteen during the ’84-’85 frenzy. The fact that Flippo was paying attention somehow legitimized the Jersey Bard. Flippo was a great writer who placed music in its proper place, i.e. gravely important and often a reason for living.

The likes of Slim Whitman is unimaginable today. Corny to a fault, with a falsetto that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Cowboy costume, pencil-thin mustache and yodeling, he certainly was an anachronism when he got really popular due to a late-night TV ad in the 80s. I don’t own any of his records, but I deeply respect his devotion to his craft, which only ended when he did. And I get older I have begun to realize, perhaps he wasn’t all that corny. Just very good at what he did.