On the 100th anniversary of George Frazier's birth

I’m showing my age, but what the hell. Just a few weeks ago, I was thinking about the late George Frazier, a legendary columnist for the Boston Herald and, later, the Boston Globe. Lo and behold, Frazier - acerbic, sartorial, controversial and eminently readable - popped up in the Globe last Sunday when Charles Fountain, who has written a book about him, penned a column in honor of Frazier’s 100th birthday, on June 10. Frazier died in 1974. 

“Immortality in a business as ephemeral as daily journalism is nigh-on impossible, but every city has a newspaper guy who will be forever identified with that city,” Fountain wrote. “H.L. Mencken in Baltimore, Jimmy Breslin in New York, Mike Royko in Chicago, Herb Caen in San Francisco. Frazier, born in Southie 100 years ago last week, is that guy for Boston.” 

Fountain says Frazier had what Frazier himself admired: duende. It’s a Spanish term meaning the ability to attract others through personal magnetism or charm. 

“So difficult to define, “ Frazier wrote, “but when it is there it is unmistakable, inspiring our awe, quickening our memory. To observe someone who has it is to feel icy fingers running up and down our spine.’’ Fountain recalls that Frazier credited Ted Williams with having duende even when he was striking out, yet Stan Musial lacked it, even while hitting a home run. Frazier’s column, Fountain writes, “had duende.” 

“He would be unimaginably huge today,” Fountain wrote. “The blogosphere would send his every column around the globe a thousand times over, and cable television would scramble for his services, coveting his wit, his eloquence, and his comfort with controversy, not to mention his natty dress and his theatrical mien.” 

"My God," Frazier told Time magazine when he made Richard Nixon’s enemies’ list, "what if I hadn't made the list? Men have been known to take the gas pipe with less provocation."