Hello my name is...
I have enjoyed and hated being Harvi Wallbanger for the past 20 years. As part of my retirement from the SW industry, I have decided to put this alter ego to rest.
The running joke is I've gone Supernova, the logo could be a sick 69 Nova blowing up... but that's too related to the past - and I am looking for something that encompasses my future.
What’s in a f’n name anyway?
Many people have asked, “How did you become Harvi Wallbanger?”
In the early 2000s, I had left the online pron industry and was looking for something new to do. A friend who was a driver at a local escort agency suggested I would be awesome as an “office manager.” I took a job working for an older heavyset Greek man - he had started up an outcall agency for his now X-girlfriend (whom he initially met as a provider).
Things I got from that job were :
Learning a new lingo - surprisingly a “trip to Greece” is not quite what it sounds like to the uneducated.
Lice, because when you increase exposure to people, you increase fun little friends like lice, scabies, and bedbugs - none of which I would wish on my worst enemy.
A personal distaste for men owing a business employed by only women.
In my first year in the industry, I didn’t have an alter ego - I was just me. I worked for a few different locations as I was living between 2 cities. This allowed me the opportunity to work for someone I admired, and others I didn’t so much.
When a friend asked if they could visit me in the “big city” and if I would be open to helping manage her phones / provide a place to stay - I said why the F not. Then the next friend, the friend of the friend - before I knew it I was quitting my regular job to “hang with my friends” and support their business full-time.
BIG F’n OOOOPS!
So here I am, working away in the big city - having friends visit from the small city. At the time I had a friend who owned an agency in the small city. Many of the friends who were now coming to visit I had met from working there. We had an arrangement of cross-promotion and supporting each other in different cities. I didn’t have a brand name or an account on the advertising hubs - I didn’t see this as a business - I just saw it as helping provide what I could to people I liked. At the most it was sort of a side arm of the friends agency, but I managed it / just sent a %. Technically I didn’t need to do this, but those damn pesky self enforced ethics wouldn’t allow me to do it any other way.
The main advertising hubs are toted as “review sites” where marketing, advertising and the community connect. These are important assets, but they are also fraught with pros and cons. Typically these hubs are focused on the needs of the patron, but only profit off the needs of the providers accessing those patrons - so it’s a weird dynamic.
One day a patron with the alter named “Hamster” wrote an unfair review - this is what we do as humans, we are more opt to bitch than praise. As consumers, we see ourselves as always right, and always deserving of the very best.
I am a cunning linguist, or at least I think I am. I can be efficiently savage with the mic drops, I never mastered keeping my opinions to myself. I wrote a review about “Hamster” from the providers POV. I mentioned his ethnicity earlier on (common in provider reviews) - and when I got to his other stats I made a horrible racially profiling steriotype and referred to him as having “Asian sized” rather than “Hamster sized” genitalia.
In my mind I thought the use of his alter in a suggestive way was on point, I laughed as I thought it, how TF did I not catch that before posting… Hard lesson learned - proof read at least 3x & don’t post with too much passion. Meh - still learning that all these years later, my weekness is that I am a passionate c u next Thursday.
SO - yes dear readers I was rightfully lambasted 20 years ago, held up to be shamed and put in my place, there was no explaining - just apologies. My friend felt that I had done damage to their brand name, and things were getting to the point where I should maybe consider my own “alter ego” and brand name.
At the time I had recently fallen in love with a obscure drink from the 70s… you guessed it - the Harvey Wallbanger.
For those who do not know…
The Harvey Wallbanger is a mixed drink made with vodka, Galliano, and orange juice that was popular in the 70s. “Harvey Wallbanger is the name. And I can be made!”
ms.Harvi Wallbanger is a cunning linguist, fiercely loyal, driven, and with the good fortune to know loads of pros. Passionate about love, laughter, art, music & putting things in my mouth. Head madam, meme slut & local doer of things. “I am self made”
So that’s it, I drank these funny little cocktails wherever I went, I created multiple brand names attached to that alter ego, and I built my reputation within the community on this name. I still smacked back and well was just mouthy “too many words” me - always ready to fight for what I felt was right. Until I wasn’t anymore - again another tale for another day.
One of my favourite patrons suggested a wake for old HW - or maybe a celebration of life in the new year. To be honest, I don't want or need either. It will be a simple name change on this account and others I plan to maintain - and that will be enough for me to say goodbye to this friend and foe I have created.
I don't know what my new altar will be yet, but I do know it will be unique and witty even if it's just funny to me (my favourite type of humour). Yes, I'll still keep ordering those Harvey Wallbangers when I want a cocktail because they are damn tasty AF.
(* )( X) ~ H