today is my last day with The Academy

For a guy who used to go to the corner of Hollywood & Highland on Oscar Sunday to try to snap a glimpse of the red carpet, you can imagine the thrill of ending up getting an All Access pass for several years to document it on Instagram and Snapchat.

The rest of the year I covered our events; interviewed members; shone a light on the incredible archive, library, and forthcoming museum. And of course posted content on all our social channels.

But best of all I got to work with some of the smartest and talented people you could meet. Seriously. I learned so much from them from so many aspects of the history of cinema to what works (and doesn’t work) when building online communities.

Shout out to Josh Spector who hired me and gave me the freedom to post 3-4 times a day pretty much anything I wanted. He also set up a department that had creative graphic designers, an amazing video team led by the super cool Ryan Velásquez, and an IT dev team.

So when you see on my resume that our Instagram followers increased by over 4,000% during my 5 years it wasn’t just because I was posting pics of McLovin. It was a team effort in every way.

For a while I sat next to Nathaniel Thompson. At a place like AMPAS there are movie buffs, true geniuses of film. Nate not only knew his movies but also music, tv, and how to write about it quickly and cleanly. When I posted the Genie you’re free, it was after brainstorming a little with Nate and following the general instruction of Josh to try to start using movie quotes with a still from the film. It ended up reaching over 68 million people. My mom saw it on Good Morning America. I got emails of congratulations from the executive floor but it was a team effort – like all hits are.

Speaking of my mom, taking her to the Oscars was one of the best things in my whole life and I’m so grateful to the Academy for being generous to their employees with tickets. Pretty much the best perk a job could give.

The last year i was in the office I sat next to Rosalyn Hummel, another freaking brainiac and bookworm who just happens to know everything about the history of US presidents and presidential libraries (!?).

I’m grateful that I got to work with Matt Severson, and Anne Coco and everyone at the library. And I’ll never forget setting nitrate film on fire with May Hong Haduong.

This job was the longest one I’ve ever had. My third day George Lucas said hi to me. And as cool as that was it was just as cool talking with Joe Rendon and watching Lauren C Selman create magic.

I have no idea what’s next for me, but this one will be hard to top.

pros and cons of working from home

pros: strangely less distracting as i never turn on the tv or radio. my home office is a quiet little sweatshop.

cons: i miss all the people.

pros: no need for pants!

cons: i was getting headaches because my face is smooshed into this bigass macbook pro.

pros: i learned that the 99 cent store has a generic version of Excedrin that knocks that headache into last week.

pros: no need for shirts!

cons: i eat way more.

pros: but i am spending less because eating at home is way cheaper.

cons: there are way more people at your work that you meet than you think, and i miss them.

pros: if someone says, meet me at noon across town for that thing you wanna do for that secret project you dont need to ask permission or get time off, you just say hell yeah bro, and you’re there.

cons: you’re out of the loop.

pros: the loop distracted you from the things you really wanted to do anyways. the loop is overrated.

cons: you work all night and on the weekends when you work from home.

pros: sometimes your girlfriend is off in the middle of the week and you can hang with you as you work and that may be the best of all.

cons: she probably misses her alone time at the crib.

am i cursed with pride

yes

when you know you’re right, what do you do

of course you stand up for yourself

of course you don’t just roll over

for those who lack courage

imagination

style

success

LIFE

of course you fight fight fight.

imagine if david byrne said i have a dream

and jonathan demme said, but that sounds like a nightmare

would byrne have said oh, lets appease all of your darkest fears

instead of reach for the highest star

if he had his name wouldnt have been david byrne

it would have been phil collins.

be david byrne.

and if you can’t,

be jonathan demme and make dreams come true.

tell us more about the 80s tony

it’s weird being the old guy in the office

it’s weird being in an office

it’s weird being at the oscars

it’s weird still blogging

it’s weird how wifi works

it’s weird that this can instantly be published around the world

it’s weird to think that some people, who could feed the whole country, don’t.

it’s weird to think

it’s weird how much my new tire costs

it’s weird what kind of car i drive

maybe we shouldn’t even day dream when we’re young

because if you’re doing it right,

nothing ever turns out the way you thought it would.

i made it

i woke up at 3am

got in the shower around 3:20am

got to work at 4am

was eating delicious bacon at 4:13am

we started our noms around 5:15am

all was well

now im exhausted

we saw the sun rise

everyone was happy

everyone said how great everyone was

someone said how many people saw it

i said

1.5 million

everyone laughed

now im eating left over eggs and potatoes

god is good

life is nice

now im trying to get my butt back home

so sleepy.

soooooo

yesterday was elisas last day at work and patrick j dropped by

so a bunch of us went to Natalee Thai on robertson and olympic

usually the primo thai joint in 90210

a close second going to tuk tuk thai

the place was packed

they sat us in the back.

when the food came out it was hot

spicy hot like omg

then it got really hot

i drank coke. then ate rice.

people were crying.

i was crying.

my sinuses cleared and a truck went through them.

my ears cleared and i could hear again.

hair grew on my chest. and my ears, but the fire singed it all, which was nice.

i asked for a to go bag but

i threw it out at work and the trash can caught fire.

and then the fire caught fire.

but its sinuses cleared.

mary came to my work today

maryand she dolled herself up real good to meet Oscar

as you know she has a little fluffy doggie named Oscar so she wanted to meet his cousin

i think she thought we were really gonna break open a case and let her go home with one, but instead of that i brought she and her smokin hot friend to our theater lobby and they took pics next to one of the giant statues.

after all that nonsense we drove to lunch and mama mia how does mary’s boyfriends do it?

this girl is nonstop energy the whole time

funny jokes under her breath

crazy schemes

she knows all the movers and shakers. she has questions that she answers herself.

she ordered a win with a side of ice because she knew the wine wouldnt be good.

she asked for the salad because she thinks shes fat.

i was all, baby if youre fat then all of america is fat

ALL AMERICA IS FAT! she screamed and birds flew from the trees

my fish was divine and every time marys friend told me her name i instantly forgot it.

i kept calling her Juanita.

Juanita is an Aquarius from Afghanistan. amazing eyes, great fashion choices and smart as a tack.

i friend requested her on facebook and i dont think she will accept me.

i dont blame her.

i paid for lunch for all of us but when we got back to the car there was a ticket on it.

mary was all, why didnt you put money in my meter?

i didnt know i was supposed to.

she said you drove my car, everyone knows the driver has to pay the meter!

i do? i guess i do now.

but it looks like our trip to vegas to see britney spears at the planet hollywood isnt going to happen bc they hate me now. and thats how the cookie crumbles.

oh well, i still have my plantains in my doggie bag.

im going to miss a deadline tomorrow at work

safe in hell

it makes me sad because i always hit my deadlines.

but this is a different type of assignment. it’s long and involved. and even though we knew about it a month ago, i had three other assignments between then and now, plus i had to work far longer on those than i expected.

and worse of all, this one, like i said, is long and involved. and i know nothing about it.

and my stomach was in knots all day today and a little yesterday because of it.

sometimes a situation appears in front of you and you know how to work with it. 99% of the time i drive i know several different routes to where we need to go if disaster strikes. thats why im always cool behind the wheel.

in this scenario, i knew everything was against me. most of all, time.

with me, there is often a little spark of magic that strikes when i write things

sometimes.

from day one on this thing, a month ago, there was no magic, ever. it was all work.

dig dig dig, polish, place.

one sentence after another. it literally would take hours for a sentence.

mostly because it has to be true. and accurate. and well written. and with proof.

so you read read read. talk talk. google read google. then you have a sentence.

i even talked to experts but they were on a different plane.

our planes never intertwined.

last week my plane and the other dudes planes were doing loop di loos together.

any question i had there was an answer. anywhere i wanted to go, he was there too.

it was different because he had little two sentence answers, which is quotable but i wanted to get deep.

so i realized i needed several followups.

this was harder. still is. i have tonight and i have tomorrow to see what last minute miracle happens.

and hopefully i got over the tough transition today, but im still not sure.

heres my biggest fear about it: i dont want kids looking at it while doing research if its not fucking great.

as someone who dealt with less than fucking great materials when i was a kid,

i dont wanna be that guy to them.