The S.

Annoyingly Obstinate Weisman Family Stories

One time in middle school, I got an official detention slip “for being Jake.” Two or three of my friends, at the same time, got official detention slips “for being around Jake.” 100% true story.

If someone asks 10 of me, I will gladly give them 9– but never 10. People around me sometimes have a problem with this. I’m on one of those explorations of self-discovery to figure out why. If I have a better reason other than “because fuck you,” because right now I don’t think I do. Ultimately, in my mind, it comes down to a sensible bucking of authority.

One of Dad’s early lessons that really stuck was to “be skeptical.”
I want to say at a young age I reply with: “Even of you?”
He looks down and nods, “Yeah, even of me.”
I don’t think that actually happened. It woulda been good though.

My Mother’s Gifts of Outspoken Media

Mom and Me

Growing up, all around were outspoken fictional characters in my regular media consumption. I really looked up to James Spader’s Alan Shore and that first season of House because those guys couldn’t keep their mouths shut. I, inexplicably or not, also really admired Denzel Washington in Training Day because good guy/ bad guy, nobody’s cooler than Denzel Washington in Training Day. These characters share- for lack of a better phrase- a problematic relationship with authority.

As you could already guess, it’s all my folk’s fault. They raised me this way. You don’t engineer a sports car to pick up your groceries, and you don’t raise your kid to be skeptical of authority then expect them to follow every rule. Part of the way they instilled these…virtues(?) in me was by way of curation, the media they deemed important enough to share with me with explicit purpose.

This is not a picture of my father. This is, in fact, my shirt brother.

It’s not a mistake Mom rented Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory AND Young Frankenstein every. Single. Time I got sick as a child. Is there better company on a sick day than Gene Wilder? Is there a better example of freedom, whimsy, outspoken anger, danger, irony, and humor than Willy Wonka ‘71? And Young Frankenstein begins the Mel Brooks pipeline as quickly after the bris as humanly possible– as is tradition.

Later on she’d speak glowingly of the Smothers Brothers. How David Steinberg would give these uproariously funny sermons¹, but they pissed off the network. CBS (surprise) told the Smothers they were not allowed to have Steinberg back on the program unless he stopped performing the sermons. In direct response, Tommy Smothers invited Steinberg back on the show, had him perform a sermon, and got the show cancelled, kicked off air for good.

Mom talked about this incident specifically. I might recall a Smothers Brothers bit or two, but the real association I have with them is their earnest fucktoitiveness. They did the right thing and Mom found the entire anecdote absolutely righteous. Imagine ten-year-old me in 1997 trying to figure out who the fuck Tommy Smothers and David Steinberg were without the sparkle of Youtube in anyone’s eye.

Weisman Women on the Steps in the Old North End

Sophie, Sarah, Eleanor, and Grandma Ruth

One time after my niece was born– probably 2001 or 2002, my Grandma Ruth came to visit. It may have been her last visit to Vermont for all I know. She spent most of her time on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn. She was born a Polish Jew sometime in the 1920s and there’s still a debate over her actual age. Nevertheless Dad always said she was a Witch. Not in a negative, euphemistic way, but rather quite literally a Witch from the Woods. She knew things. She could sense things.

My relationship with Grandma Ruth was sitting silently in her living room watching stories. Or in my aunt’s side room watching stories. She was very quiet and had a thick accent. I could almost never understand the actual words coming from her mouth– but she was always fuckin’ clear. And sharp as a tack right to the end. Her silence and wit kept her alive; a genuine Survivor.

We were visiting my sister in the Old North End of Burlington (I grew up in the New North End). Sarah Donegan, thirteen years my elder and my oldest sister, was holding her year-old first daughter Sophie at her side. This must have been Grandma Ruth’s first visit meeting Sophie as she was born in Oregon and her whole family had recently moved back to New England.

It was a sunny day. We had just parked in the driveway and were heading inside. I stayed back by the car with Dad. As Sarah held Sophie, unlocking the door with Grandma Ruth in tow, Dad grew a big smile and let out a huge laugh! As if it was the greatest thing he’d seen in a very long time; a sight of true pride.

“Look!” He playfully knocked my shoulder and pointed to the Weisman women lining the stairs, “Three generations of stubborn!”

This is a picture of my father

The S.

When people ask me what the S. in my name stands for I usually say “Starchild.” I don’t like telling people my middle name because… (gesturing to the aforewritten article)... I’m annoyingly obstinate. But I can’t tell this story without letting the cat outta the bag.

Jews don’t do “Juniors.” It’s a funny- but solid- superstition dating thousands of years about the Angel of Death mistaking the young for the old. Names very much confuse the Jewish Angel of Death. The confusion stems from the other side of the traditional coin; the honorific side². We name our children after passed loved ones. My middle name was my Grandfather’s name– my father’s father, who’d died ten years before I was born. Grandpa Sol.

I treasure the stories about Grandpa Sol. There are only a handful of them, some I can share, some probably not. The man is a towering figure in my life. I wonder if people have MacGuffins in their lives like my Grandpa Sol. A man to admire, to look up to, and to never know. To be named after, to feel wholly connected, and to have never met or seen with their eyes.

A few focused and blurry photos over the old mantle in the family room: his official dress Polish Cavalry photo and the one of him in his uniform leaning against the fence the same way Dad leans against a wall. Both of those black and white photos were in my Dad’s wallet growing up.

Grandpa Sol and my aunt Natalie

There’s a photo of my dad in lederhosen, must be five or six years old. He’s on top of a horse and smiling bright. You can see Grandpa Sol’s hands and a little bit of his head behind the horse’s mane. My favorite one was a color photo my father took in the 70’s with a camera he’d been gifted for his graduation; in my memory it’s sorta blurry, sorta orange, sorta backlit.³

If Grandpa Sol is the MacGuffin, then there is one singular story concealing the theme of my life’s movie. It’s not the first family story I was taught– that’s the blending of my folks and their kids into one cohesive, legal, whole Weisman family. That’s Genesis; the first scene of the flick. But once that exposition is set, Dad shares much needed backstory to the audience by instilling the story of his father– who will not physically be in the picture, but will establish our theme, our character motivation, and a firm basis of the world’s morality.

Once Upon A late 30’s Poland, my Grandfather Solomon joins the Polish Cavalry. He protects his country on horseback with a sword. The Germans roll in with tanks and machine guns– Poland falls in two weeks.⁴ Grandpa Sol is a captured prisoner of war. The only reason Grandpa Sol survives is by lying to the Nazis. Directly after capture, the SS (or whothefuckever in charge) asks the Jews to step up, raise their hands. My grandfather was crafty enough to keep his hand down, as opposed to some of the other Jews in the Platoon who were summarily shot and killed.

Authority for authority’s sake would have murdered my grandfather. Quick wit and brass balls saved him. How am I supposed to ignore that story? I’m One Dad away from this fuckin’ beast. A physically huge Jew who survived the Holocaust, then worked the black market til he could bring his family to Brooklyn; my father the first Weisman born on American soil.

I’ve been told his community used to call him “The Bear.”

Generations of Stubborn

Me, Eleanor, Sarah, and Sophie

Every once and a while, Mom will hit me with a: “I wish I could have made this happen for you,” or “I wish I could grant you all of your movie dreams,” or “I wish I knew somebody that could get you in,” or “I wish I had all the money in the world for you to do this.” It’s not often– once every few years, from a very genuine place in her heart. To be fair, I wish I had all the money to give my family for them to do whatever it is they want.

The last time Mom offered this sentiment I made sure to thank her for the things she has given me. A painful independent streak. An irritating righteousness. A four-dimensional model and living real-time example of doing the thing the way she needs to do it because that’s the way it needs to be done. I’d say the same thing to my father if he asked, but he knows if I’m smart, creative, and don’t force it– all the success in the world will come to me. If I wanted to do things the traditional way, I’d follow the rules 10 outta 10. Climb that golden ladder and leave Filmstack forever for Traditional Corporate Hollywood next door.

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As a little, little kid in daycare, sometimes the floor was lava. And sometimes the other kids started getting full of themselves and too dictatorial, so sometimes I’d hop off the pillow to remind them it’s not lava. It’s a rug.

1. Though fly-over America read the bit as “blasphemous,” or “sacrilegious.”

2. Cuz we Jews tend to be equal parts honorific and superstitious.

3. Dad, find that picture and frame it for me. I know you’re reading this; you know exactly the one I’m talking about. I recall it under an oval matte– but that may be a faded memory.

4. As Dad always tells the story.