Trad-Ivy Tuesday: It’s Random

I’ve never been short of ideas for stories with precise themes. You know…the ones that require editorial rigor and focus in order to have a single subject resonate. While it’s never been a strong suit of mine—focus that is—I’ve been known to tackle a singular subject with respectable outcomes. This is my long winded set-up for the fact that this little visit with you ain’t gonna be one of those.

It’s unfocused randomanalia time again, y’all. Rather like the multi-sensory deliverable of Whistler's Peacock room. Unfocused randomessence mainly because I am blessed to be covered up with work stuff that pays well but is sucking all of my time and mental disk space. I love writing about sartorial stuff but to cobble the same number of words together about pharma-biotech-diagnostics-medical device strategy is pretty much joyless. The part of my job that I love is when I’m interacting with customers or when I’m speaking to groups of clients or conference attendees—not coming home and writing case studies and summaries and follow-up. When I’m doing the live with groups or individuals thing, it’s my validation that I’m doing what I’m called to do professionally (with the exception of the only other thing that I’ve ever really done for the proverbial wage—worked after school in a Trad haberdashery—which upon semi-retirement and getting LFG into college—I might do once again). So as I’ve posited on other occasions, it’s either a random load of this-ness, or nadda. Now buckle up. Shut up.

Ivy Style at M.F.I.T. deserves and will receive next week, a blog story devoted exclusively to the exhibition, symposium and the accompanying book. But for now I’ll offer a few top-line comments. First, when Patricia Mears from F.I.T. called me over a year ago and wanted to talk about the evolving Ivy Style project as well as where the blogosphere fit in the oeuvre, I was happy to provide whatever insights I could. I’m on the record for being an ersatz-academic nerd type and could make matchbook collecting and curating an erudite endeavor. So this was right down my alley. Or does one always go up an alley? In?

But after my first phone call with the delightful Ms. Mears, (Who by the way, is well published and knowledgeable about women’s fashion and haute couture but was admittedly flummoxed about the whole Trad-Ivy-Preppy menswear thing) I thought…“Hell, if you wanna get this Ivy Style thing right, just get Paul Winston, Richard Press, Charlie Davidson, George Frazier IV and Bruce Boyer in one room and you’ll have all the literary, blood lineage and Trad-Ivy Mother Church retail stores legacies that you’ll need to land on a great version of what this was and is all about." I never needed to say it because that’s exactly what Patricia did. And with a dash of writers like Christian Chensvold and academics from around the globe, the book is and symposium will be—a home run.

I’ve yet to make it up to Gotham to see the exhibition and won’t until I head up to attend the conference but I’ve seen most of the exhibits in photos. And I’d say that just the opportunity to see Richard Press’s dad’s cashmere Prince of Wales Glen plaid sportcoat would be worth the trip.

Bottom line is that the Ivy Style exhibition catalogue is more than just another picture book. And I like most picture books. It’s a visual treat with academic heft. Like me.

So let’s shift gears inelegantly and just make a hard left turn and recap my previous five or six days. See the hands on the left? Those are the wise and learned but still learning—hands of Mr. Toad of Toad Hall, my good buddy and author of To the Manner Born blog. I had to rescue him last Thursday and my best strategy for Toad recovery-rehabilitation included the following unguents…a boutique hotel in Old Town Alexandria, cocktails, great food and finally, a lovely woman to accompany us during dinner so that both of us would come off as better looking and cultured. Mission accomplished. 

Sunday night saw me at Urbana with Dominic Casey and George Glasgow, Jr. from the George Cleverley mafia over in London. I stopped by their suite at the Fairfax Hotel on Embassy Row for a quick and vaguely conjugal visit with my next pair of Cleverley’s that are mid-way through their gestational coming about. Half of you will marvel at them while the less courageous and unimaginative remainder of my seven readers will want to check me for a fever. Until I have the time to write a story exclusively devoted to explaining every weft-warp detail of this fuzzy fabrication, I’m only gonna show you the deliberately edited and aggressively cropped photo above. Stay tuned…or not. I don’t care. And if you think I'm kidding--about the not caring part--you might need to check your own damn self for a fever. I don't care.

Oh, and this is a try-on model that the Cleverley boys had sitting about in the suite. Preening actually. The hide is carpincho…from the rodent-esque Capybara and it’s sublime. Glove leather soft and chances are you’ve a pair of gloves made of it. 2013 might see me carpinching a loafer of some sort in it. I care.

But the most delightful event between Toad Rescue and Cleverley Contrivances was my two-night visit with LFG. She came to my partially dismantled Casa Minimus and I reveled in her homework catch-up and her dance class shuttling and sleep deprivation recoup. No sleepovers, no competition from other, more appealing weekend options. It was bliss. Like the old days. You remember, don't you? It was a year ago.

My Sperry sportin' little dancer…post classes…bagging the goods for our valve closing white-trash taco party. White trash tacos are heavy on processed ingredients and the only allowable meat for the trailer park, anything but esoteric, Pawn Stars-Pickers version of the concoction is ground beef.

Add the chemical packet included in the kit. Bam. Just add a neighbor and their three year old little boy and we gotta party. Party be a noun.

This ain’t hyperbole or drama. I feel whole again...restored as a dad…after my two-night LFG weekend. And for those of you who are hyper-vigilant regarding my digs, the original upholstery on my sofa is what you see here. The decade old slipcover is currently under forensic review and fumigation. After that, it’ll probably be on ebay.

Further along the random trail…I’m always late to the technology party but this Instagram photo thing for the iPhone is new to me. And I love it. I posted the photo above on my tumblr and several of you asked again about the source of these Kilim slippers. So here you go, again. Contact Pammie Jane Farquhar at Nomad Ideas. Tell her what size shoe you wear in European sizing. She will send you a photo of what she has. You select your poison and send her your card details.

I hate shopping but I like stuff. And my stuff affinity is usually rather precise and eccentric so my dosh gets spread all over the globe. But I urge you, if you live in the D.C. area and are in need of anything Alden or Crockett and Jones or from another smattering of tasty shoemakers, please go by and see the guys at Sky Shoes on Wisconsin Avenue. There’s little in this aesthetically barren town that I buy…save for the lovely offerings at Sterling and Burke and an occasional Polo/J. Crew tchotchke. But Sky Shoes will always be my go-to place for some of the more mainstream shoddings that my anything but mainstream a_s desires. Go see them. Spend money.

This is it for now folks. I’ve gotta rejigger my to-do list and then not do it.

Onward. Sandy unimpeded. ADG II

Ps…and speaking of Sandy…an older cousin of mine—I had about twenty first cousins—gave me two Sandy Nelson albums when I got my Slingerland drums in the 6^th grade. I played this stuff over and over and over till I finally blew the speakers out of my mom’s big a_s piece of furniture stereo in the living rooms. And forty years later, my eardrums are in about the same shape.

Gerry Mulligan's New Clothes

I was on a quest for copies of 1930’s Downbeat Magazine. Hardly a magazine in configuration and paper quality... the newspaper sized jazz trade rag had been reduced to pulp. Not even Downbeat Magazine had archived copies from so far back. Cheap acidic papyrus doesn’t age well. You know what I was after. Downbeat was where the twenty something year old, freshly minted from Harvard George Frazier was turning phrases.

 A stunning and resourceful journalist made me aware that The Library of Congress might indeed have some of the Holy Grail Downbeats on microfilm. And she accompanied me on what was to be an onerous but productive mission to procure Frazier’s earliest words. Words…some of which his own son Frazier IV, had never read. That alone was fuel enough for me to make certain to procure them.

 But it was Gerry Mulligan’s baritone sax that first greeted me as we rounded the corner and approached the Performing Arts Reading Room. Damn, that thing is big.

 I’ve always been Gerry Mulligan aware but wasn’t neccesarily a Mulligan fanatic. But the big bari sax got me to thinking about the guy who piloted it.

 And the book at Bartleby’s was only ten bucks.

 Now it’s no secret that Charlie Davidson and his Andover Shop cognoscenti have outfitted many jazz greats from time to time including Miles Davis. Part of the Charlie Davidson—George Frazier connection glue was jazz so all of this just seems to kind of fit. Frazier-Downbeat-Jazz-Davidson-Andover Shop-Trad.

 So where does Mulligan fit-in? I’m not one hundred percent certain. Mulligan began working with Gene Krupa around 1946 and Frazier wrote about Krupa with some regularity. But by the time Mulligan joined Krupa, George Frazier and Downbeat were already and forever estranged. So Mulligan dodged for better or worse, any Frazier observations. Krupa fired Mulligan after a year anyway. It seems that Mulligan, within earshot of the audience one night, gave the Krupa orchestra shit for playing sloppily. That’s just the kind of story that George Frazier could have...with accelerated alacrity, had flying off the front page of Downbeat.

 But what about Mulligan’s clothes?

 “At the tailor shop in Cambridge Massachusetts” What’s the likelihood that in 1956, Mulligan got word that The Andover Shop would treat him right?

 Might that be George Frazier’s future “Saturday morning chair” behind Mulligan?

 I can’t prove it but it’s a hell of a lotta fun to think it.

 Onward. Reading books. And thinking. About stuff.

 ADG, II

Take Ivy…My Take

It’s no secret that the Japanese have been nothing short of obsessed with Trad style for decades. A broader generalization says that the Japanese have been obsessed with things Western for decades. I’m not providing any groundbreaking news when I restate the story regarding sabiro—the phonetic pidginization of Savile Row. Sabiro is Japanese for suit. Edward Green and probably other Northampton shoe makers, enjoys a greater percentage of their production in smaller sizes for Japanese buyers than any of their other market segments. And J. Press would probably be a distant and faint memory if not for the Japanese.

I’ve got a fairly small foot…you know what they say. And I’ve sold very nice shoes from time to time on eBay…trust me…I’ve given tons of loot to Goodwill but when I realized that people would pay you a hundred bucks for your shoes…geez…how do you think I finance the Belgians over here? Where do you think my size 8D used Aldens and other trad things end up? You got it. Japan. God help you if you are selling an 11.5D Alden cordovan whatever ‘cause you ain’t gonna fan the flames of a Nippon bidding war like I cultivate. Fifty bucks to ship them over there and all’s well. Our Japanese friends are crazy for our Trad goods…vintage, used, repurposed whatever.

I lived in Montclair New Jersey in the late 1980’s and used to run through the stately neighborhoods that included Upper Mountain Avenue. It’s a stunning area populated with elegant old homes…probably owned by Ivy Leaguers. But I used to run through these neighborhoods with my Japanese buddy A. Y.. It was like running through an Ivy League campus. I picture A.Y. as the type of guy who in 1965 would have devoured Take Ivy cover to cover. He owned the sushi restaurant on Valley Road and we would drink our faces off in his place at least twice a week. He’d close-up and head out with us.We’d end up at one of our posse’s digs and drink till daylight. He’d bring the good sake. And he was obsessed with Trad clothes. More shit walked out of my closet after I hit sake-REM than I’ll ever be able to prove. But I’d see some of my shirts and shit the next week, on A.Y., as he greeted and seated us.

So Take Ivy needs to be reviewed through the lens of its original intent. The annotated picture book seems to have had a singular purpose. To feed the Trad crazy boys back home a nice little visual buffet of the animal itself…round eyed white boys captured in situ…hurrying about to and fro…on the Mother Church grounds of Trad-prepdom…the campus. The Take Ivy collaborators were on a mission. To crack the code for their peers back home. The liner notes are superficial at best and what’s lost in translation makes for a chuckle or two. Here’s an example. The picture above enjoys this caption… “1968 …the year printed on his chest signifies his graduation year. A simple calculation tells us he is a freshman. He is wearing a crew neck top in green, his school color.” Stop it. 

Off-white is not quite white. But let’s be fair. It’s 1965 and there is no internet, no Life Image Archives, no Google Pictures, no Roetzel book or Flusser books. And Ralph Lauren, well he’s still aggravating the shit out of Cliff Grod over at Paul Stuart and sending Norman Hilton and his cutters in New Jersey over the edge. Had he sold his Morgan by then? 

“Elbow Patches…A student is wearing a cotton twill jacket with a rubber twill collar, rubber cuffs as well as leather elbow patches. Quite the stylish dresser.”  Patches I’m depending on you son….

The point is this…I’m sure when this book hit the stores in Japan, the target market went gaga. It was ’65 and they probably had nothing else of the sort; written in their language, assembled by their peers who offered impressions of The United States of Trad and more specifically, the Confederacy better known as the Ivy League. I mean where else are you going to get ground level Princeton intelligence like .... “Passenger Wanted…this is a bulletin board where students exchange information using a piece of paper. You can find messages like, “Passenger Wanted” and “A Guitar for Sale.” This was written for a people who had never seen their Emporer. It's all good.

“Madras Checks…In an effort to differentiate him from the masses, this student wears patchwork madras Bermuda shorts.” You ole intriguing outlier being different kinda rebel you. But that’s where the intrigue with this piccolo tome ends. It is an artifact and a lean one at that. I can appreciate Trad fetishization. Hell I’m the guy who went spastic when O’Connells offered all of the new old stock bleeding madras stuff. I’m one of that particular club. 

I did enjoy reading the segment on trad clothing stores. Assuming that they knew of J. Press and The Brethren before they hit the States, I'm not surprised at their reaction after stumbling upon The Andover Shop. Frazier was in there, vetting Miles' fabric selections. Here's the lore you'll learn, only in Take Ivy... "A Shop With A Modern Twist...This unusually modern looking boutique appeared out of nowhere, among an array of classical-looking men's boutiques."

 Abe Vigoda. Yale '37.

But what fanned the base interest in this little ditty over here in the States isn’t complex. And it damn sure wasn't grounded in thirst for sartorial erudition and gabardine depth. Until now, it was rarer than hardcover Apparel Arts magazines from the 1930’s. Trust me when I tell you that if I hadn’t seen a copy of it, most people hadn’t. So scarcity breeds covetous behaviors. We all had to see what this thing was all about. Well I’ve seen it and it took me all of eleven minutes to hit the “been there—done that” button on the ADG—ADD monitor. The photo of Tintin above, is worth fifteen bucks. Hook center vent-hungover as a mother ____. Drunk socks and the same shorts he wore on the bus back down to New Jersey from Smith. He'd been up there with my old girlfriend Roxanne Burgess. He puked three times on the bus ride home.

Here’s the good news…at fifteen bucks courtesy of Amazon.com, why not nick a copy for your sartorial library. Original hardcover Apparel Arts magazines from the 1930’s are worth every penny of the three hundred to four hundred dollars they command. Take Ivy is worth every penny of the fifteen dollars you’ll pay for it. And not a penny more.

Onward. Not disappointed, not surprised. Certainly amused but not impressed.

A.-trad-D.-fuzzy-G., the second, actually.

Trad Deportment-Andover-Frazier-Davidson…Damn!

Last Friday's Andover Shop post ended up being rather evocative and I always appreciate everyone’s comments. I generally try to acknowledge each contribution and in this case, two comments have motivated a following up post.

LPC…Lisa from Privilege posited…

“But really the question always in my mind is this. To what extent does the value system, one I hold to this day, require the aesthetic? And to what extent does the aesthetic support the values?”

I respect you immensely Lisa and I love your supposition. And my answer is that the value system doesn’t require the aesthetic. I tried to articulate my perspective on this in a post a good while back. I said in my feeble way, that I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt regardless of how they are swathed, shodded, inked, pierced or whatever. Let’s not kid ourselves…everyone…regardless of their degree of transparency about it…makes judgments and often times, inappropriate conclusions about people based on appearances. I’ve met well dressed WASPy assholes and I’ve met lovely, generous people of stellar deportment who didn’t care much about their sartorial contrivances. I’ve also experienced the converse. And certainly, the aesthetic doesn’t necessarily support the values. It might be a collateral variable or corollary to some behavioral mores and social/leisure endeavours but I don’t think there’s a strong link to values per se.

Further from Lisa…

“My father graduated from Harvard in something like 1951. He dresses Trad, I suppose, but is the least dandiest human I know. That said, while he wouldn't disdain a dandy, nor even a slob as long as it wasn't someone's funeral, he would disdain a guy who never showed up on time, didn't know how to take care of family, and insisted on having temper tantrums.”

The fact that your father wouldn’t disdain a dandy or a slob speaks to his integrity as a man—independent mostly, of his High WASP antecedents. And certainly, as a professor, your father has encountered academics, students, intellectuals and poseurs of all stripes and coverings. My hunch is that after all these years; he probably has a rather finely tuned and equitably screened sieve for sorting people out. And it would be intellectually sloppy of him to cast aside people of value just because of their adornments or lack thereof. Trad purists of your dad’s era are often times indeed, the least foppish in the room. But in my opinion, that patinated anti-dandy look is the truest and purist form of Trad. Again, regarding your father and his lack of tolerance for vulgar behavior…it speaks to the man—not exclusively to his tribe. 

I remember being told respectfully, by an African American man who worked for my father, to “go inside and put on a clean shirt…you know your daddy wouldn’t let you go looking like that.” Interestingly, my father had been dead for over a year. He was suggesting that I clean up a bit not just out of respect for my father but for reasons also grounded in his own code. I share this feeble example to support my belief that common courtesy, deportment and decency at one point in our history, could be found across social, financial, ethnic and class boundaries. This particular man who worked for my father surely never finished high school. Bottom line Lisa, is that your dad sounds like a decent man and there are other fine men and women who come from profoundly less WASPy backgrounds who possess a similar code of decency.

And finally from Lisa….

“Does that even matter? Does that kind of guy matter? Excuse me. I spent the day with my sister's kids, and one still has babyflesh, so I am a bit sentimental. But I do wonder.”

Yes it SHOULD matter. At least how I understand your statement. Common decency—high standards of personal accountability and conduct do matter. Unfortunately in my humble opinion, we’ve lost our way—our compass regarding where these things should be in the code…in the priority queue. And this isn’t a WASP thing—it’s macro societal thing.

And Lisa, regarding the babyflesh experience that may thankfully, at least for a moment, tenderize us…I left this comment over at your blog… “ The defining "baby flesh" moment for me was when LFG at I suppose, maybe four or five months old, could kind of latch/clamp/grip her little arm around my neck to steady herself while I held her. I can feel it in the memory of my neck as I type this. It is a moment of connectedness that still weakens me in a parentally sublime way when I recollect it.”

And then “Anonymous” weighed in. Perhaps he’s commented before and based on this particular comment, I hope he’ll not be a stranger.

Anonymous said...

“(You are much too romantic.)”

Yes I am, Mr. Anonymous and I thank God for that gift regularly. I’ve always felt life deeply and I’ll take the amplified pain that comes with said territory in exchange for what I believe to be; on the mostly happier times, a blessed lens through which I see the world.

Then…

“1) Forty years ago, I had a five-year stretch where 90 percent of my clothes came from The Andover Shop. They were nice, but they weren't all that. The stock of shirts was very poor, mostly Troy Guild of the O'Connells type -- nothing like what you saw the other day. And the after-purchase tailoring of the MTM suits and jackets was nothing to write home about. After a bit, I had the finishing done elsewhere.”

Nothing to debate here. I worked in one of these shops myself and concur with what I’ll net out to be for these types of shops a “middle of the road” definition of their caliber of inventory and in your experience at the Andover shop, service as well.

“2) When The Andover Shop opened up an outpost in Back Bay, many long-time customers went there instead just to avoid dealing with Charlie Davidson. (That patented suck-up, piss-down routine wore a little thin, particularly after he got sick.)”

Again…I’m long on lore and am batting zip—zero—nadda on actual experience and interaction with Charlie Davidson. Therefore I can’t do anything but acknowledge your assertion and accept your personal experiences as accurate. And why not? According to legend, your impression of, and experiences with him are consistent with what others report. On balance though, if he was an unswerving turd to everyone who walked the earth, I’d bet his shop wouldn’t have survived.

“3) J Press was just as empty 40 years ago as it seems to be now. Perhaps they're only there to launder money for Whitey Bulger. (Joke ...)”

Do ya think Whitey is still alive? I just finished reading The Gardner Heist and there is speculation that Whitey knew where the paintings were stashed. I’m not an Irish Mafia lore fan but it was interesting to learn a few collateral facts about Whitey in the Gardner Heist book. Seems he had bank accounts all over the world. As for laundering money through J. Press…the strength of the dollar v. the yen would probably dictate the go/no go for laundering via Press. For we all know that if it wasn’t for the Trad obsessed Japanese, J. Press would have shut the doors years ago.

“4) Tintin’s stomping on kids who "wiki" their take on "trad." But you two are kids, too, babies. You weren't there in the Fifties or the Sixties, and you didn't wear this stuff. It was just clothes -- really, I promise. Making a fetish of a largely defunct fashion is borderline "object sex." Of course, if that works for you, well, fine.”

Thank you ever so much for referring to me and Tintin as kids. I suppose it’s all relevant no? As a middle aged guy, I’ll take that compliment all day long. We all have opinions…certainly Tintin included and I’m also known to posit a bias or two on my blog from time to time. Maybe Tintang picks on the young’uns more than me but it’s all harmless…I think. Now don’t get huffy about my next comment but…your logic is flawed regarding the “you weren’t there and didn’t wear the stuff in the fifties and sixties” thing. I might be stretching it a bit but what I think you are saying is that if one didn’t live in the fifties and sixties and didn’t buy these Trad things back then, their observations and opinions are less credible, relevant and perhaps baseless. Alden has been selling, without modification, their tassel loafer since at least the 1930’s. Does the fact that I didn’t live and buy mine in the 1930’s impeach my credibility regarding my observations about their enduring style and design? I think not.

And I DID begin “wearing the stuff” in the late sixties as soon as I, a little kid, was large enough to don the smallest sizes offered. Evidence the OCBD that I’m sporting in my first grade school photo. I’ve recently posted a picture of me wearing a three-two roll sportcoat when I was four years old. 

And there’s the picture of me at nine years old in my first DB navy blazer. With the exception of a thirty month aberration during my preteen and early teen moments when I wanted to be a hippie, I’ve worn NOTHING but Trad togs since I was four years old. 

My pediatric Trad beginnings give me no more or less authority to speak on Trad clothing, style and deportment than anyone else. Just as it gives you no more or less authority to do so just because you frequented these venerated stores in the fifties and sixties.

And yes, it is/was “just clothes”. You don’t have to promise. But a car is just a car. A shotgun is just a shotgun. A book is just a book. I get your point. However, I know people who are just as passionate about the lore, tradition and back-story related to each of my aforementioned examples. They collect them, blog about them and regale like-minded people with their stories and opinions. I’m always fascinated by people who collect things and who also find the associated erudition rewarding. Even if the nicest shotgun I ever owned as a kid was a Flight King .410 from K-Mart, I reveled in stopping by James Purdey on South Audley Street almost twenty years ago to get a copy of the Purdey history signed personally to my buddy, the shotgun fanatic, by the Managing Director. I could give a damn about shotguns but I was dead on correct in my assumption that my buddy would behave almost as if I’d given him an actual Purdy gun. I felt the same way when Alan Flusser gave me his bespoke Poulsen Skone crocodile loafers that are on the front cover of his first book...Clothes and the Man.

“Object sex”…I’ll accept that. And finally, Trad isn’t a “largely defunct fashion”…mainly because it isn’t fashion at all.

 “5) A & S, until recently, made better clothes than ever passed through The Andover Shop. Charvet still makes better shirts. Alex Kabazz will make you the trad shirt of your dreams, but you'd have to skip a mortgage payment to make it happen. And George Frazier over-egged every pudding he met. (When he died, among the people who actually knew him, only Ellen Goodman seemed genuinely distraught.)”

Mr. Halsey

Mr. Halberry

Mr. Hitchcock

I couldn’t agree with you more regarding the Anderson and Sheppard assertion. Even with their probable slight decline after the retirement of Managing Director Norman Halsey and Head Cutter Dennis Halberry, I’m sure their goods are still stellar under the guidance of Mr. John Hitchcock. (I can’t say with authority-I never had clothes made there under the stalwart leadership of Halsey and Hallbury…or ever for that matter) The Andover Shop was never, ever in that league. I was merely referencing my feelings; comparatively, when I shared my reactions regarding my visits to each hallowed institution. Plus, my maiden visit to A&S at 30 Savile Row was accompanied by LFG’s mother and she would have bitch-slapped me had I gushed too much while on premises. And I also agree with you regarding Charvet and Kabazz.

And finally, regarding George Frazier’s over-egging and Ellen Goodman being his sole mourner…I’ll allow your opinion on his egg use. I will though, admonish you to admit the silliness of your gratuitous assertion that Goodman was the only one who grieved his passing. Specific to the Globe, indeed he had copy editors and production/printing associates and probably peers that were exasperated by him and maybe some who even loathed him. He also had others at the Globe who realized his talent and value and indeed, mourned his passing.

Frazier had an ass-load of enemies, detractors and those that I’m sure, were just weary of him. In a very basic sense, at least for me, I’m suspect of anyone who is the proverbial “loved by all” personage. They generally don’t stand for much. Frazier gave Sinatra hell in a column or two but when Frazier” died, his son Pepper received a handwritten personal condolence note from Sinatra, who signed it “Francis”. Sinatra could carry a grudge further and longer than Frazier and when he signed a note “Francis” he did so with great affection.

Here’s what Richard Merkin said about Frazier in his June 1988 Merkin on Style column in Gentleman’s Quarterly… “Paradoxical to the core and capable of being both a horse’s ass and a son of a bitch, he was simultaneously kind, generous, enormously entertaining (when sober) and simply the most elegant man I have ever known. For the better part of seven years when he was commuting between Manhattan and the Boston Globe, he was my friend, mentor and even surrogate father. Stylish as hell and mind bogglingly informed, George was a boon companion, and since many of our concerns were the same, we always seemed to have a great deal to talk about: books, jazz, baseball, and boxing, slanderous gossip and as Hemingway put it, “how the weather was”. And clothes, of course, about which he was never wrong. Understand please, that not everyone felt about George as I did; his was hardly a life of universal approval.”

Hardly the empty rhetoric of someone required to say a kind thing or two about an acquaintance passed. Brilliant people are sometimes difficult and average people like me are sometimes crotchety. I won’t pretend to deconstruct any of the yin-yang dark side of genius tortured artist crap as it may or may not relate to George Frazier. What I will conclude in saying is that I’ll take half a Frazier all damn-day-long over twenty hail fellows well met. Shut up.

Thank you Lisa-LPC for your thought provoking comments. And here’s to you Mr. Anonymous whoever you are…please continue reading and commenting on my drivel. For it’s the provocative comments from folks like you that make this scrivener happy.

Onward. In One Freakin’ Hundred Degree Heat.

ADG,II – Travelling