A Spirited Perfect Ten

[fillerup]

Maybe a 20 year old 6 month trespass was forgotten. Maybe Hill wrote a letter of contrition and apology and got a 10 minute meeting with somebody high enough up the food chain to grant absolution.

Maybe, just maybe, someone should contact Hill to ask him for his side of the story. Additional info is usually useful.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's a lot more fun to talk about him behind his back. Like in tenth grade.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Jim has an account here. If he wants to defend himself he can.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Oh no. Somebody did something fairly minor twenty years ago. Let us panic forever.

Who cares? People can change a lot in twenty years. Some people do learn from mistakes. I know it is cool to hate on Jim Hill, but I can't seem to muster any hate for this. Everybody has skeletons. The dude having skeletons a few decades old is not going to rile me up a bit.

Adam the Woo got banned. He got back together with Disney, worked out whatever agreement they worked out, and he's back and following the rules. That was much more recent than the Jim Hill stuff. If Disney can find ways to move on, everybody else should too.

It's not like he was like that WaltCast guy who got nailed for picking up a hooker....

 

[TeriofTerror]

Jim has an account here. If he wants to defend himself he can.

I have an account here, too. If you all want to dig up stories of the stupid garbage I did 20 years ago (shut up; I was escaping a cult and had serious daddy issues), I seriously doubt I'm going to jump on here to defend myself to a bunch of people I've never met. (Okay, I have met @lentesta. But to my credit, I refrained from stalking before he had to institute a restraining order.)

 

[FigmentForver96]

Ok so lets say somebody is purposely trying to dig in the closet of big lifestylers? Why? What kind of motive would persuade you to do that and is it a solo act or a group of people doing this.

 

[NearTheEars]

Thats another reaaaalllllly big question that needs answering.

Someone has a serious Axe to grind.

Agreed I find the story behind who is doing the digging much more interesting.

Can we come up with a "Lifestyler"-like nickname for someone obsessed with bringing down the Lifestylers?

 

[Lee]

There are two problems as I see it.

1 - Disney PR has been in bed with someone that stole from them and that ended up in jail for said crimes. That's kinda weird.

2 - Someone intentionally dug this up.... Why exactly?

Ok, I'll try to wrestle these two down...

1- Yes, it is kinda weird.
- He committed fraud over and over and over again...until he was caught.
- He plead down from more serious charges and he was given leniency by the judge.
- He abused that and was jailed.
- He not only has worked for Disney thru D23, but claims to be an independent 'journalist' for the Huffington Post covering Disney ... a company he used to write about quite negatively, but now is only Pixie Dust and magic.
- He once wrote for The Orlando Weekly and was considered so venomous that his column suddenly died and, to this day, they won't (to my knowledge) credential Seth Kubersky.
- Disney is rewarding him with things that increase his 'street cred' ... like being quoted on a DVD box.
- The issue remains why does Disney place so much time, money and effort on these people? Is it that they simply find people they can totally control and they look the other way at their transgressions.

2 - Nobody "dug it up." It's public record. Been sitting out there for years. The person who brought it to my attention is/was a Disney CM who has had ''interactions'' with Jim dating back many years. They have been shocked by the way Disney (and Universal, to a lesser degree) seem to value him. They only decided to give this stuff to me because they said over the last year or so, Jim has become ''unbearable'' to deal with. "He thinks we owe him the world" and acts like Bob Iger ''who likely has never heard of him'' is his golfing buddy.

He has gotten into bed with Jeffrey Epstein and the D23 people who are promoting him to other divisions of the company, again, without any vetting whatsoever.

But intention really doesn't matter. No one is being victimized here. Disney was a victim of Jim, not the other way around. Certain arms of the company have opted to have a very strange relationship with him. It would appear that no one who has ever written a story on Jim or hired him to write a story on Disney or Universal has ever bothered to really vet him.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Since it appears some folks aren't really that familiar with Jim, here's a quick bio.
Jim has been writing about Disney for about 25+ years for various outlets. His cachet really started to rise in the early days of Disney fan sites post Usenet; mid-late 90's. He wrote for the biggest sites of the time including Mouseplanet, Laughing Place and others. Jim's height in notoriety continued into the Save Disney years in the early 00's where he launched his own site and began to be fed information by higher ranking folks within Feature Animation and Imagineering than his usual sources. Since the rise of podcasters like Lou and Ricky, he doesn't have much of a following but has managed to hang on by doing guest host gigs on a number of podcasts like the old WDW Fanboys Podcast, Parkscope, etc. What's really brought him into the spotlight in the past two years, which makes him more important than John or Joe podcaster, has been his gig as "the Disney guy" for the Huffington Post and his podcast and "insider" scoops he shares with Len Testa in the Unofficial Guides to WDW/DL and the Disney Dish podcast.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Dammit @Lee, you beat me to the punch.

 

[asianway]

I agree Dave, but, the one thing that makes my head spin is how anyone expects that in a company the size of Disney, anyone that was involved with the alleged incident would even still work there or if the incident was so minor that even if they did work in that same department back then, would remember it and if they did... would it matter?!

The second point is, to my knowledge, he has never been on Disney payroll. He has either been an independent blogger or a possible paid "celebrity" that no one would ever do a background check on. It doesn't connect with Disney at all other then common interests. You do background checks on potential employee's, not independent contractors or, for the lack of a better description, reporters. Can you just imagine what might happen if every single person that comes into contact with Disney on a different level then just "guest" was subject to a background check. Disney would probably have no suppliers at all. The entire idea that anyone should care at all about this "possible" situation is absolutely absurd.

And indeed, what would motivate anyone to spend the time and energy to research this to begin with? What is anyone trying to prove other then they have way to much time on their hands.

I realize you started your career in the Carter administration but nowadays we do background checks on all of our contractors....

 

[PhotoDave219]

Ok, I'll try to wrestle these two down...

1- Yes, it is kinda weird.
- He committed fraud over and over and over again...until he was caught.
- He plead down from more serious charges and he was given leniency by the judge.
- He abused that and was jailed.
- He not only has worked for Disney thru D23, but claims to be an independent 'journalist' for the Huffington Post covering Disney ... a company he used to write about quite negatively, but now is only Pixie Dust and magic.
- He once wrote for The Orlando Weekly and was considered so venomous that his column suddenly died and, to this day, they won't (to my knowledge) credential Seth Kubersky.
- Disney is rewarding him with things that increase his 'street cred' ... like being quoted on a DVD box.
- The issue remains why does Disney place so much time, money and effort on these people? Is it that they simply find people they can totally control and they look the other way at their transgressions.

2 - Nobody "dug it up." It's public record. Been sitting out there for years. The person who brought it to my attention is/was a Disney CM who has had ''interactions'' with Jim dating back many years. They have been shocked by the way Disney (and Universal, to a lesser degree) seem to value him. They only decided to give this stuff to me because they said over the last year or so, Jim has become ''unbearable'' to deal with. "He thinks we owe him the world" and acts like Bob Iger ''who likely has never heard of him'' is his golfing buddy.

He has gotten into bed with Jeffrey Epstein and the D23 people who are promoting him to other divisions of the company, again, without any vetting whatsoever.

But intention really doesn't matter. No one is being victimized here. Disney was a victim of Jim, not the other way around. Certain arms of the company have opted to have a very strange relationship with him. It would appear that no one who has ever written a story on Jim or hired him to write a story on Disney or Universal has ever bothered to really vet him.

I'm not arguing over this, really. I'm just with @jakeman (holy crap, we agree on something!) in questioning the timing of why this finally came to light. And based on that CMs comments, seems pretty apparent.

Yes, i think its totally wrong for Disney & D23 to be associated with Jim given whats come to light.

But I also think there's an ability to forgive and let bygones be bygones. Twenty years is a long time and I can't get righteously indignant over this.... mostly because I simply don't care about Jim one way or the other.

At some point you have to forgive the past.

 

[Jim Hill]

Jim has an account here. If he wants to defend himself he can.

Hmmn ... I don't think trying to defend myself is the proper way to go here. So would you settle for an explanation?

20+ years ago, I was in a very bad place. I couldn't get work as a writer. I couldn't provide for my wife and child. My marriage was imploding. Which is why Michelle was going to take our daughter 6000 miles away back to her family in Hawaii. And given the extremely tough financial straits we were in at that time ... It was highly doubtful that I'd ever get to see Alice again.

So during this bleak, dark period, I did some incredibly stupid, self destructive things because I felt like such a failure as a husband and a father. To be honest, I guess I was looking to get caught because I wanted to be punished. Which explains the info that got posted on this forum earlier tonight.

Now let me tell you the weird part: Being sent to the Orange County lock-up for 49 days was honestly the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It pulled me out of that self destructive spiral. It gave me time to get some real perspective on who I was and what I'd been doing. More to the point, in between when I was initially detained and when I finally did my time was when I first met Nancy. She came into my life when I was at my absolute lowest (Michelle had taken Alice back to Hawaii by then). And she honestly helped me turn this whole horrible situation around. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have the life that I have today. Or the career that I have. Or the close relationship that I now enjoy with my daughter.

So again -- in a weird sort of way -- whoever it is who actually posted this info online, thank you. This issue has been hanging over my head for 20+ years at this point. And given the way the Web works, I'm honestly kind of surprised that it took this long for this skeleton to finally come out of the closet.

But know this: That's not the man I am now. I freely admit that this is something that I did in the past. But I paid my debt to society and have worked hard since then to turn my life & reputation around.

And that's pretty much all I have to say. Other than the people who knew me back during my self-destructive-dumb--in-Orlando days who are still my friends today are the folks that I absolutely treasure.

 

[lazyboy97o]

2 - Nobody "dug it up." It's public record. Been sitting out there for years.

Public records still have to be actively searched, even if that became incredibly easy this past summer.

 

[NearTheEars]

Ok, I'll try to wrestle these two down...

1- Yes, it is kinda weird.
- He committed fraud over and over and over again...until he was caught.
- He plead down from more serious charges and he was given leniency by the judge.
- He abused that and was jailed.
- He not only has worked for Disney thru D23, but claims to be an independent 'journalist' for the Huffington Post covering Disney ... a company he used to write about quite negatively, but now is only Pixie Dust and magic.
- He once wrote for The Orlando Weekly and was considered so venomous that his column suddenly died and, to this day, they won't (to my knowledge) credential Seth Kubersky.
- Disney is rewarding him with things that increase his 'street cred' ... like being quoted on a DVD box.
- The issue remains why does Disney place so much time, money and effort on these people? Is it that they simply find people they can totally control and they look the other way at their transgressions.

2 - Nobody "dug it up." It's public record. Been sitting out there for years. The person who brought it to my attention is/was a Disney CM who has had ''interactions'' with Jim dating back many years. They have been shocked by the way Disney (and Universal, to a lesser degree) seem to value him. They only decided to give this stuff to me because they said over the last year or so, Jim has become ''unbearable'' to deal with. "He thinks we owe him the world" and acts like Bob Iger ''who likely has never heard of him'' is his golfing buddy.

He has gotten into bed with Jeffrey Epstein and the D23 people who are promoting him to other divisions of the company, again, without any vetting whatsoever.

But intention really doesn't matter. No one is being victimized here. Disney was a victim of Jim, not the other way around. Certain arms of the company have opted to have a very strange relationship with him. It would appear that no one who has ever written a story on Jim or hired him to write a story on Disney or Universal has ever bothered to really vet him.

It's 100% public record, but you don't just stumble upon someone's criminal record without actively searching for it, either online, or with a walk down to the OC courthouse. But you've already outlined their motive for bringing this to light, so we have our answer.

 

[Goofyernmost]

I realize you started your career in the Carter administration but nowadays we do background checks on all of our contractors....

I actually started my career in the Johnson administration, but, I understand your point. However, you may do a background check on contractors, but, not every employee that works for that contractor unless you are in a highly sensitive field. That's what I am talking about. Hill is not a vendor or a contractor, he is an independent and what he did 20 years ago has absolutely no bearing on what he is doing today. He does not, TMK, collect a check from Disney and if he did for the D23 duties, he was a guest panelist there based on his current background, not if he pulled someones pigtails when he was younger. But, I know... we all are judge and jury and due process of law is not necessary to convict anymore, so let's crucify and ask questions later.

So much for the land of the free. What has happened to this country. We should be called the United States of Paranoia.

 

[PhotoDave219]

So much for the land of the free. What has happened to this country. We should be called the United States of Paranoia.

Let me just quote that so everyone can stop and let that sink in for a few minutes....

 

[PhotoDave219]

Hmmn ... I don't think trying to defend myself is the proper way to go here. So would you settle for an explanation?

20+ years ago, I was in a very bad place. I couldn't get work as a writer. I couldn't provide for my wife and child. My marriage was imploding. Which is why Michelle was going to take our daughter 6000 miles away back to her family in Hawaii. And given the extremely tough financial straits we were in at that time ... It was highly doubtful that I'd ever get to see Alice again.

So during this bleak, dark period, I did some incredibly stupid, self destructive things because I felt like such a failure as a husband and a father. To be honest, I guess I was looking to get caught because I wanted to be punished. Which explains the info that got posted on this forum earlier tonight.

Now let me tell you the weird part: Being sent to the Orange County lock-up for 49 days was honestly the best thing that could have ever happened to me. It pulled me out of that self destructive spiral. It gave me time to get some real perspective on who I was and what I'd been doing. More to the point, in between when I was initially detained and when I finally did my time was when I first met Nancy. She came into my life when I was at my absolute lowest (Michelle had taken Alice back to Hawaii by then). And she honestly helped me turn this whole horrible situation around. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have the life that I have today. Or the career that I have. Or the close relationship that I now enjoy with my daughter.

So again -- in a weird sort of way -- whoever it is who actually posted this info online, thank you. This issue has been hanging over my head for 20+ years at this point. And given the way the Web works, I'm honestly kind of surprised that it took this long for this skeleton to finally come out of the closet.

But know this: That's not the man I am now. I freely admit that this is something that I did in the past. But I paid my debt to society and have worked hard since then to turn my life & reputation around.

And that's pretty much all I have to say. Other than the people who knew me back during my self-destructive-dumb-***-in-Orlando days who are still my friends today are the folks that I absolutely treasure.

Thank you for coming on here and addressing this. Glad you were able to conquer the demons.

 

[kpilcher]

Hmmn ... I don't think trying to defend myself is the proper way to go here. So would you settle for an explanation?
20+ years ago, I was in a very bad place.
.

Thank you Jim Hill for a heartfelt explanation.
Not that you owed us or Anyone anything. You didn't and you don't.

 

[TalkingHead]

Forget this other business, did Jim really think that mediocre collection animated shorts is a "must have for any serious film fan"?! Patently ridiculous.

 

[indyumd]

I enjoy reading and lurking here, but I have to say that the frenzy about this tonight is pretty awful. This doesn't seem a legitimate conversation about Disney business practices as much as it does a gossipy attempt to embarrass someone you don't like.