I Took a Photo!

I took a photo of the moment Lena Dunham became famous. 
She had just won Best Narrative Film at the 2010 SXSW Awards and was being interviewed on TV for the first time. The movie was a super low budget film she shot on a cheap Cannon DLSR filmed mostly at her childhood home with her friends and family as actors. After it won Judd Apatow developed GIRLS with her for HBO and she became super famous for better or worse. 👇

I was at the awards as press so I got the winners list before it was announced and I was hanging out with the Tiny Furniture crew when I got the email and I just had to keep it a secret so they could enjoy winning in the moment.
I was there because I dated one of Lena's best friends in like 2005 and through that Lena found out about the band I managed (The Gaskets) and fell in love with them. The lead singer of the Gaskets (Teddy) then met Lena's other close friend and they dated for several years (quite a bit of the plot of Girls season 1 was based on that time).
Teddy ended up doing the music for Tiny Furniture and I ended up running the Tiny Furniture Twitter account.

Running the Tiny Furniture Twitter account was such a good lesson in how context completely changes how people view things. I had to read EVERY SINGLE review of Tiny Furniture and nearly every review was incredibly positive before the announcement of GIRLS and after that nearly every single review had such a negative light. They all talked about how she had famous parents (her parents are artists you have absolutely never heard of) and how she was some sort nepo baby and how the movie was navel gazing which is ridiculous if you compare it to similar "mumblecore" movies at the time.

I visited the set of GIRLS during the first season and Lena told me I could be an extra in this Bushwick loft party scene. I wanted to play myself so I was gonna be in the background taking photos, but when I met the producer she thought I looked perfect for that scene (I was a hipster, let me live) and two days later they gave me speaking line. 
Saying one line in a TV show is an amazing gig. I got nearly $1000, I got to eat free food and had my own trailer and a several of my friends were extras and they had to stand on the other side of the room from me which was hilarious. Sadly my scene got cut, but 10/10 recommend.

building farcaster | surfing @ venice, ca | eating @ gjusta / gjelina | “lucky me, lucky mud” 🤠

Yeah she’s had some severe health issues but she seems to be doing great otherwise.

her image has changed so much throughout the years. saw her on a panel recently and she was nearly unrecognizable.