They aren't on TV much. Even "back in the day," only two or three (Capote, Vidal, Mailer) had enough personality to be invited on talk shows regularly.
Anyone recall Nat Hentoff talking to Carson? Leno? Certainly not Fallon.
Some of the obits on the Internet were extremely sketchy. The NY Post had only a few paragraphs.
Then there's THIS thing in the Daily News.
What kind of photo IS that? Did Hentoff really wear one of Dean Martin's rugs? And he glued on Al Goldstein's beard? It's a bit suspicious, that beard. Looks like it was Photoshopped on.
It's very strange around the lower lip.
Hentoff's death, at 91, got the usual cliche, which you can believe or not, about "dying peacefully" surrounded by his family. The very term "surrounded" doesn't sound too peaceful to me.
It was reported he died listening to Billie Holiday music. Today IS "Gloomy Sunday."
Listen to enough Billie Holiday music, and most anyone might die, but that's sacrilege in all sorts of way. Let' remember that Nat Hentoff was first and foremost a JAZZ critic. You remember JAZZ. It's what hipsters liked in the 50's. It was where some accountants got stuck between Big Band and Rock and Roll. Ah yes. JAZZ. Gotta like JAZZ. Go sit in a club, nod your head, and watch Miles turn his back on you. Cool. Damn cool. Every white guy who likes JAZZ deserves THAT.
Mort Sahl? A BRUBECK man. Before annoying bastards like Dylan arrived, comedians shared the stage with JAZZ guys. The bill was Mort or Lenny, and a JAZZ trio. An hour of some asshole playing the piano, with a drum and a bass. Ten minute riff on "How High the Moon." Does it get better than that?
But wait. I'm RIFFING, and we can't have that. This is some kind of obit-meditation giving respect to a guy who spent 50 years writing books and articles, to get a few paragraphs from his surviving colleagues.
Did I mention that the Village Voice cut him loose in 2009? Michael Musto you could understand, and wish it happened a decade earlier. But you boot Hentoff? Respect your fucking elders, why doncha? Oh, because the guyyysss on the Voice don't know Jazz as well as they know Jizz. By taste.
If you were of a certain age (that would be close to death) you knew Hentoff from Down Beat. Most people who are slightly more virile, remember him from his segue from championing Lenny Bruce (as Ralph J. Gleason also did) to finding nothing at all wrong with Bob Dylan. Nat wrote a famous New Yorker piece about Bob. He also wrote a lot of liner notes, for “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” and others.
It's a lost art, liner notes. When I was a kid, I thought it would be cool to be another Nat Hentoff, or Mort Goode or whoever, and write pithy album notes for my pals. But by the time I did get to write album notes, they were for CDs, and I was limited to a few hundred words. And then it was "hey, we're NOT issuing this as an ALBUM, only a DOWNLOAD, and we don't need CD notes."
Hentoff wrote less album notes, but he was a good enough writer to adapt. Even when the Village Voice cut him loose...he ended up finding some kind of Internet website to publish his work, almost till he died.
He also had that rare luxury of having a name and a following, and being able to write about anything he wanted. His followers could even tolerate the fact that, like Mort Sahl, he could disappoint, and be on the "wrong" side of an issue. He was, after all, the Liberal who not only didn't like Nixon, but also didn't like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. He was also anti-abortion. He was welcomed, despite being a White Devil, by that charming fellow Malcolm X. Quite a mixed bag.
Hentoff managed, even with the pipe smoking, and the college professor beard, and the love of jazz, to be as relevant in the 21st century as he was in the 20th. He had a core audience that wanted to read his take on anything from music to politics. Aside from topical articles that are now yellowing in magazines you might only find on eBay if you really really look for them, he wrote over 20 books, which one likes to think are still available in libraries (and not discarded to make room for the latest half-ghosted James Patterson stuff, or the newest Ann Coulter smirk).
There aren't many guys like Hentoff anymore. There are more columnists such as Piers Morgan, who aren't iconoclastic as much as mere provocateurs, willing to take up any contrary position if it gets them attention.
Well, somebody who listened to my new novelty album e-mailed me to say he enjoyed it and added, "I hoped you had fun doing it." It was an interesting phrase, which suggested that a) I wasn't going to have fun looking at my royalty statement, and b) that maybe 5 or 50 years ago, people would not be able to find it too easily, the same as some article Hentoff wrote for Down Beat.
In the end, I think Hentoff enjoyed the process. He liked being alone at the keyboard, and getting this thoughts down and then out. He was in the moment. A lot of what he wrote was topical, or about music that is of little interest to the average Millennial, and the proof is the often short obits he got. But he wrote for a long, long time. And he was "surrounded" by his loved ones. And that's a good life.
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