"I got a job with Stanley. He said I'd come in handy."
SQUEEZE, "Up the Junction."
A few months ago Harris Publications went under. I hadn't heard about it till now (which gives you some idea of how important THIS news is. What, another newsstand mag company dying because everybody wants free digital content??)
The first job I had as an editor was at Harris. I freelanced for many magazines, including Countrywide (originally co-owned by Harris and Myron Fass) and then edited the rock mag ROCKET.
The New York Post:
One irony was that Harris was still publishing a hip-hop magazine. He no doubt figured that audience doesn't own a lot of computers. They still buy bootlegs off guys who spread out blankets on sidewalks, or cardboard boxes in front of bodegas.
Of course I would've felt pretty ridiculous hanging on over there, hacking my way through whatever titles fell into my lap, including hip-hop titles and "Juicy" gossip mags aimed at cretins.
How sad for some who DID stay there for 3 decades or more, to the bitter end. Pensions, anyone? I don't think so. A stack or two of yellowing hairdo magazines in the closet to show for your life?
Well, I can see it for a few people I recall over there, who liked a comfy, ordinary and predictable lifestyle. But why not just take a government job printing pamphlets or something? You would've gotten a pension and been retired already.
Over the decades, I never thought of "dropping in" and seeing how Stan Harris was doing. I barely knew what was going on over there, except that they'd acquired "Eerie" and "Vampirella" when Warren Publishing went bankrupt. It turned out, via a Jim Warren lawsuit, that they DIDN'T acquire "Eerie" after all. But Stan Harris did do very well for many years with "Vampirella," and an expanded collection of comic books to replace such vintage items as "Teen Spectacular" and the adult "He and She," both edited by my friend Peter Dvrackas.
So. Today I had nothing better to do than wonder, "What's with Harris Publications?" I don't recall what word association got me to Googling, but when I did, I discovered the company is, to use British slang from that Squeeze song, "Up the Junction." Kaput. As in this from FOLIO:
BILLBOARD actually mentioned the modest magazine empire of Mr. Harris, using a generic Getty Images photo of a closing office door. For a moment I thought, "Is that Phyllis Goldstein?"
Stan Harris surprised his staff by shutting down with just one day's notice. He told 'em on Thursday that they had to gather up their stuff and be GONE by Friday. That's sort of standard operating procedure, isn't it, so that the employees don't have time to strip the place bare?
It sounds heartless but Harris Publications was basically a "family run" outfit and, at least early on, not known for being mean. I don't recall any firings and just the usual backbiting animosity and Machiavellian pettiness. The former I recall centering on a now well-known gay gossip columnist who at the time was a white-shirted nerd trying to climb up by demanding access to my rock and Peter's entertainment world connections. He was the assistant to a repulsive old crone who liked wearing low-cut blouses revealing cleavage that resembled two clumps of string cheese. You looked because it was a train wreck, but she appreciated it just the same. He and the crone were not above spreading rumors.
As for Machiavellian pettiness, one employee had a pudgy, precocious daughter of about 13, who should've been in school a lot more often than pestering me. She'd come by with a smirk, pick up a bunch of incoming promo record packages, and coyly say, "YOU don't need THESE, do you?" My stock line is, "I don't know till I open them, and I'm not opening them now. When I do, they'll go to the record reviewers. You can take THESE if you want..."
I'd point to the shelf of "anyone can grab these" albums, which she never bothered to look at. To get on her good side (because Daddy was important in the company) I did what I could to keep her happy. "I'd LOVE to see Eric Clapton..." she said, in the kind of grand manner that inspires effeminate homosexuals to copy the worst traits of the opposite sex.
I wasn't going to the show myself, and hadn't assigned anyone, but I called in a favor with the record label, got the "plus one" tickets so she could go to the Nassau Coliseum. My reward, a week or two later, was that her Daddy had gone to Stanley Harris to say I wasn't running the magazine right: "My daughter says he's picking the wrong acts for the cover, and there's hardly anything that she likes."
The magazine was selling well. I didn't have much response that would've been good office politics, so I just assured Stan I appreciated the input. And that the way most of the 100 pages were divided, was to give the space to whoever was on the charts, not on any one person's personal opinion.
I suppose my first experience with changing trends (as opposed to inept business practices, which often sent minor magazine companies into bankruptcy) was when KISS faltered. You couldn't just put 'em on the cover and get sales. Punk and disco were getting popular and neither translated into magazine sales too well. Always a cautious fellow, Harris decided to quit while ahead.
He shelved the newest issue, which was just about to go to the printer. Sorry, Gene Simmons, Nick Lowe, Genya Ravan, etc. etc. He offered me Peter's men's mags. I declined, as I didn't want to take work away from Peter. So Stan hired someone else and Peter was eased out. My parting with Harris was amicable, although I did run into the circulation guy whose daughter had backstabbed me, and to his surprise, I told him what I thought of him AND his daughter.
Fast forward through the good and bad comments left at the news of the end of an era:
Harris Publications was a niche market, and he wisely played it conservative. Yes, as you walked through the place, you would find some boring drones working on hairdo magazines, second-rate adventure stuff, and hacky entertainment efforts, but most of it served a purpose and offended nobody. Well, my stuff and Peter's stuff sometimes did, which Stanley viewed warily. Peter would add a bit of kink to the men's titles and the first issue of ROCKET offered Debbie Harry nude (quite a coup for us), which got us banned on some newsstands. The second issue had a topless shot of Amanda Lear which likewise rankled some conservatives.
Stanley was not too interested in making waves, unlike his flamboyant ex-partner Myron Fass, but I didn't think that was such a bad thing. Not "such a prize?" He was ok. With only a few exceptions, so were most of the staffers and editors.
One irony was that eventually, amid the gossip mags, decorator and hairstyle tomes and comic books, Harris was known for a lot of gun magazines. The irony is that the legendary split between Myron Fass and Stanley Harris (who were co-owners of Countrywide Publications) included an in-office pistol whipping. Harris emerged bloody from an encounter with the never-stable Myron. This effectively split the company. Harris took half the titles and formed his own group. Fass, a fat and unpleasant maniac, soon belly-flopped into bankruptcy on his own.
Fast would often wear a gun around the office. I remember, when I was freelancing for Countrywide, he once dropped by an editor's cubicle while I was there, stared at me, and asked the editor, "Should we kill him?" The editor mildly said, "No, he's always on time with his stories. I need him." Fass's gun was at eye level as I sat.
So, Harris eventually had all these niche gun magazines, which apparently were quite beloved.
One gun fancier reported on the sad disappearance of the titles:
I do believe in the 2nd Amendment, to the extent that if someone likes shooting ducks out of the sky for kicks, they can do it as their conscience (or lack of same) dictates. Likewise, if you feel insecure, and you want a gun under your pillow, and you don't think someone else will get a hold of it, ok. Harris probably felt these considerations made it easy to ignore that much of gun manufacturing involves semi-automatic weapons that serve no other purpose than to maim and kill innocent people. He probably also figured that John Lennon being gunned down by a fat slob who easily got a weapon was, well one of those things.
I kind of wonder if Stanley, who kept a very low profile, actually showed up at gun-nut conventions, or joined his editors in cheerfully wandering around a gun show. I wonder if his thoughts ever traveled back to the days when his partner walked around with a gun at the office, threatened people, and ultimately tried to put a few ounces of metal up his nose.
I wrote a magazine in tribute to the slain John Lennon. I didn't do it for Harris.
It was for one of his long-gone competitors. Give the man credit. While the infamous names such as Traub, Zentner, Fass, Goldstein and Goodman (Chip) vanished, Harris did not. His shrewd knowledge of which mags could exist on circulation alone, or on minimal ads, kept him around long after most of the others had filed bankruptcy.
Any thought I had about what a nice, safe life I would've had if I stayed, ended when I noticed via "Glass Window" that nobody had a raise in the past 7 years, and the workload seemed to get worse. Most of the mags were dull, middle-America craft items, many with their own websites. Romantic-Country dot com for this safety sterile item:
So who would I be talking to up there? Middle-aged women checking over cover-lines about hairstyles and comforters? Some nut doing sports? Some aggressive chicks promoting guns? At least the latter swiftly found work elsewhere.
What have we learned from all this? That time moves along. That the publishing world is getting worse. That people don't want to buy anything or have anything on shelves when it can be downloaded FREE and stored on a CLOUD.
Some ex-employees have some good memories. And so it goes.
No, none of the above clips are anything I wrote. Especially not this one.
SOME people found it a nice place to stay. Two women from my days at ROCKET were there at the end (along with Harris himself, of course).
Yep, another Harris mag with its own website. And, what, no photos anywhere of Stanley, Phyllis or Mary. In fact, if you Google the guy, you're more likely to find a photo of his insane, now-deceased ex-partner Fass.
No. No more mags like THIS, which out-lasted ROCKET by far, and were prized while Stan dispensed with the men's mags as fast as he could:
I added the images of the mags, and clips from various websites as "cut and paste" material. Sort of a tribute to much of what they did at Harris Publications.
