47
said, “I would wake up really early,
and, during the summertime
and fall, the first thing I would do
is check the waves because the
waves don’t come often on the
Jersey Shore, and you need to
surf when you can.”
He parlayed his love for surfing
into a position as Caribbean
correspondent for Surfing
magazine. “So, the fact someone
would pay my way to go surfing,
and then pay me to write about
it, I thought, my God, that’s even
better than writing about music.”
Writing in the wee small hours of
the morning became a lifetime
habit, too. “I could literally get up
at 5 o’clock, and by 5:07, I was at
the typewriter.”
His portfolio spans a range of
work, including car reviews, real
estate, and concerts, as well as
bicycling in Iceland and surfing
in New Zealand. “There were two
reasons to do it,” he said. “One
was to earn a living, and the
other was to earn experience.”
In his early 30s, he was one of five
music critics selected to curate
the first Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame and Museum in Cleveland.
He credits this chapter of his
odyssey with providing a more
stable environment for his family
and sustaining his exigency to
explore.
when I was 16,” he said. “I owe a
lot to music, and I like to think
that what I do, my day-to-day
job as a curator of The Grammy
Museum, is that I give some of
that back to music.”
“I had my first steady job, and it
brought stability to the family,
and I was there a whole lot more,
probably not as much as I should
have been, because that too
evolved into a lot of traveling,” he
said. “It was just my nature.”
To curate a museum, he takes
the same approach he would
to create a long magazine
piece. When artifacts revealed
themselves in places like
Mississippi and Seattle, he
traveled to them. “I just couldn’t
control myself,” he said, breaking
out in smiles and giggles.
Cleveland led to a museum
project in Seattle, which led to
his role today at The Grammy
Museum in Los Angeles.
“When I hear a song or an album
or an artist that absolutely knocks
me over, I can still connect with
that same kind of energy and
that same kind of passion I had
MICHELLE HARMON
Michelle Harmon, MJE, has
been a journalism educator for
12 years. Before that, she lived
in New York City, working at
various corporate jobs, where
the skills she used to earn her
B.A. in journalism at The Ohio
State University supported
her travels. The Idaho State
Journalism Association awarded
Harmon Journalism Teacher
of the Year at its 2013 state
conference, and The Borah
Senator student publication won
Best of Show. Youth Journalism
International awarded her its
2014 Journalism Educator of the
Year honor. Harmon is the Idaho
State Director of the Journalism
Education Association and a
member of its Digital Media
Committee. Email:
[email protected] or
@mrharmon on Twitter.