What’s the wait?
I registered HarryAtricks.com in January of 2020 and have been getting ready to launch ever since. Never seemed like the right time. What about content? Page design? La, la, la,la, la.
A couple days ago I began looking at the historical precedent for this waiting and recalled times I waited for perfection. And other times when I said “Screw it,” and just took the shot.
Flashback to the summer of 1968 (If you lived through the summer of ’68 you know that flashbacks were not uncommon). I was stationed ten minutes from Waikiki with 242nd Army Band. In disguise, I went to a party with civilians. My mustache and hair were as long as possible for me to still be able to pass the morning inspection. Wearing a Nehru shirt (I know what you’re thinking but it was really cool. I think I still have it), white bell-bottoms, smoking a pipe. When all at once… wait for it… I saw this girl.
I grabbed our host and asked for an intro.
“Don’t tell her I’m in the army.”
“What should I say?”
“That I’m a writer.”
College English minor. Writing courses. Nothing published. Only submission was a very bad love poem sent to the New Yorker in 1962. A very kind rejection letter.
“Who do you write for?” she asked.
“I’m going to be talking to Young Hawaii Magazine about some ideas I have.”
“Wow. That’s so cool!”
The next afternoon I was in the editor’s office pitching a piece that would compare the covers of Jimi Hendricks’ Axis Bold as Love and Toscanini’s Complete Beethoven Symphonies. No really, that’s the truth.
“Do it.”
I did. Published. I freelanced for YHM until it shut down 15 months later.
Interviews… John Kaye from Steppenwolf. Articles. Short stories. Music reviews. Think pieces. Whatever I suggested…”go ahead”…I did and got paid. 25 bucks a pop. An extra $50 a month on top of Spec 4 army pay of around $230. This was a very big deal. First thing I did was hit the post PX for another Nehru shirt.
Got out of the army and eventually ended up back in my hometown, Wyandotte, Michigan. My mom suggested that while I searched for a job as a professional musician, I should check out the News-Herald (I’d already worked there delivering papers when I was ten so I had a track record with them). What the heck. Because of Hawaii I had a portfolio of published work. Hired on the spot. I stayed for 4 ½ years until I went to the Cranbrook Academy of Art for my MFA in photography. But that’s another story.
Waiting is over. Welcome to the launch of HarryAtricks.