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Oh.

Near disaster averted.

This is a story about a dad,

not this guy, a real dad, mine.

This man is one of my dad's incomplete creations.

A character he made up

who tries to live an ideal life.

Could getting to know him help me

understand the parts of my dad I didn't

and somehow make me feel more complete myself?

I'm gonna get some water.

Here, listen to this.

Yeah.

You have one unheard message.

First unheard message.

Gonna throw it-

Hey, Wil, it's Dad.

I doubt you'll get this in time,

but I've got a computer guy

from school helping me here,

and we need the password to get into Windows.

No, to get into Outlook.

We need the password to get into Outlook.

It's not crabcake69.

So if you get this within the next four minutes,

give me a call back,

or else in general, I need to talk to you about something,

so give me a call back,

but I think we're packing 'em up.

All right, bye.

What he wanted to talk to me about besides computers...

End of message.

was cancer.

Bye.

Bye.

But first things first, this is my family.

I'm Wil Kristin, and I'm a filmmaker.

Wil, try that again.

I'm Wil Kristin, and I occasionally make films.

That's my twin brother or womb mate, Jesse.

Hey, Jesse.

I'm a minute older.

Jeez, Jesse, look where Jesse is.

Jesse, come down.

And it usually shows.

I also have a younger sister, Sarah.

I have to show this tape to Mom.

Let's see if it's a hardworking

American housewife, well?

Come on, go away.

Okay, go away.

Our mom was raised Catholic in rural Missouri

before running away to be a flight attendant.

Oh, there's Mommy.

Hello.

On a layover in Denver, she met my dad,

a Jewish actor and poet from Brooklyn.

By the way, if you think growing up Catholic

and Jewish sounds cool-

Barooch ate...

Try eating at a Passover Seder on Good Friday

and see what happens.

Extreme closeup.

Last day of preschool.

Other than that,

my childhood in our small Boston suburb...

Extreme closeup.

was pretty typical, except that when I was little...

Ah!

My dad stopped living with us.

It's not that he wasn't around,

we just didn't know what he did

when he wasn't being our dad.

Well, look at Mama.

One, two. - Cheese, cheese.

That, just keep your face like that.

Just like that, it's beautiful.

That's beautiful. One, two.

Perfect.

Where's her big blue eyes?

Oh, there they are! - Oh, there she is!

Oh, and there's Willie.

There's Willie. - I wish I could say

life continued like a wholesome snapshot.

Where's Papi?

But the years went on,

and I saw less of my father.

What happened to Dave?

You just got used to it, huh?

I dunno, where'd he go?

Something always got in the way

of me spending more time with him.

Plus my mom's house was more comfortable.

Then at age 62, he died.

And I was lost.

Suddenly without him,

I felt like I didn't have a compass

to help me navigate the big-life stuff:

relationships, health, spirituality, money, work,

and maybe one day being a parent myself.

It's not like my dad was a compass

I followed before he died.

He always struggled financially,

so I worked long hours to make sure

I didn't end up like him.

It's gonna be pretty interesting

if you leave all of the time

that you're typing the email in there.

He dabbled in the arts and I studied business.

Did I write a lot of emails?

Okay.

I became a consultant and he-

You want me to do that thing?

Yeah.

Needed consulting.

All right, you tried gulping a glass of water.

Yep.

When he died, I was in my mid 20s

with shingles from overworking.

I remember my bright screens

as much as our last days together.

I realized I'd never get to ask him myself.

Why didn't he stay with us?

Why couldn't he stick with any normal job?

And what was he doing instead?

During his life,

he disentangled himself from our family.

After his death, I was determined

to hold on to the threads.

Without knowing who he was,

I didn't know who I was.

I caught glimpses of my dad's utopian ideals

from time to time,

but I never understood what he stood for.

I did remember him telling me about a screenplay

he wrote for a movie called "Groovopolis."

Yeah!

Of course, I never read it,

I had emails to respond to.

But now I wanted to know

about my dad's unfinished dream.

Do you want me to keep holding this?

And about him when he was dreaming it.

You can stop.

What do you got?

I started through.

And in here, it looks like rough pages

of it, "Groovopolis."

Really?

Oh my gosh, there's so many copies of this.

My dad and I only talked about the project once.

There's a character named Sarah.

During a rare chat on one of my many

late night commutes home from work.

Surprise, surprise.

Wait, ahh!

♪ If they don't win it's a ♪

I remembered three things from that conversation.

One,

he wrote the screenplay in the early '90s.

Two. - Two,

he worked on it with someone in LA.

Three, the movie never got made.

Strikes, you're out!

♪ At the ole ball game ♪

Sure, Mr. Taylor,

that is what we have agreed to.

Good, handshake will seal the bargain.

Hopefully, you two boys will strike it rich.

♪ Do do do lit do do ♪

♪ Do do do do ♪

Hi, June!

Hello, Ward.

I'm home!

Hello, Beaver.

Dad acted here and there in the early '90s.

He was always playing parts.

This darn old carriage!

It's the darn old gate!

Darn!

But this was his script,

something from his own mind and experiences.

Hello again, everyone.

Howard Cosell, "Speaking of Sports."

Today, in the news, Jesse-

What could it tell me about who he really was?

Could his fictional world teach me about his reality?

Jesse, what have you got to say?

To find out, I needed to talk to the people

who knew him best back then

around the time I was born.

So I called Jeff who wrote "Groovopolis"

with my dad.

Hello?

Hi, is this Jeff?

Yeah.

Jeff, it's Wil Kristin.

Hey, Wil, how are ya?

I'm doing well. How are you doing?

I'm doing good.

I have the correspondence

that you and my dad, I guess,

sent back and forth in the '90s.

Wow, okay.

I'm like right next-

It's amazing that's even still around.

What was that again? What were they?

What kind of, what form are they in?

They're in a lot of different forms,

a lot of different formats.

And yeah, I mean, my dad was kind of a hoarder,

so I feel like I'm lucky that we found this.

Like, do you know if you have the most

recent version of it or anything?

Yeah, I actually found one.

I was cleaning out.

We were clearing out a bunch of storage bins

right outside of our house.

I had some old scripts in there,

you know, the hard copy.

That brings me to another question,

which could make this easier.

I'm wondering if maybe we can meet up sometime.

Do you wanna do something with this or what?

Yeah. - Or do you just wanna have?

Where is it?

Your destination is on the right.

I don't recognize this at all.

On my way to meet Jeff,

I stop by my old childhood home.

Escape. Escape into the big world.

Soon enough, my friends, soon enough.

That looks totally right.

Yep, yeah, yep, you were born there, dear.

Alright.

And then I found Jeff.

I had brought with me a copy of the "Groovopolis" script

along with an old letter from my dad.

"A final thought, I always liked the vocation of artists

'cause I felt the problems I was having with my art

showed me where the same problems

were in my real life.

If my writing is too wordy, if it lacks discipline,

if my acting is too busy, afraid to just be,

then lo and behold, those are the same defenses

"I use in my life."

A lot of the details are fuzzy for me now.

I mean, like reading that thing,

reading his letter was interesting.

It just kind of brought a lot of that stuff back.

Both of us loved music

in a very kind of strong way, passionate way.

We spent a lot of time listening to music.

We would always have music on.

And it just, you know, it just seemed natural

to be a natural theme for the script,

something to do with music.

I think the idea with "Groovopolis"

was to make it kind of a more, a hipper,

groovier, of course, version of "Footloose."

♪ Kick off your Sunday shoes ♪

♪ Oh jeez, Louise ♪

I gotta go now.

That was kind of the thought.

I had never even seen "Footloose."

Let's dance!

"Footloose" was an '80s

musical drama about a teenager

who attempts to overturn a small town ban on dancing.

I hadn't seen it either.

"Groovopolis" wasn't as straightforward,

but it was basically about a square businessman

called by a greater force to loosen up.

I thought the mysteries of my dad

could be hidden in this script.

And if so, making his movie might reveal them.

So I asked Jeff if I could try to finish what he

and my dad had started.

You have your script copy anywhere?

I do.

Ready?

And here we go.

"Elizabeth Tooley steps through a doorway

from an outside deck, toting a jumbo margarita."

It's pretty out there.

It's getting a little dark though.

Oh, but you know what?

I think I saw Bermuda

just a little tiny bit of the tip, way, way off.

"Phillip's in his mid 30s.

This is a dedicated, hardworking man

with a personality of a paper clip."

Oh, Phillip, look.

Rose and George are dancing, aren't they cute?

Yes. - [Jeff] "Impressive technique."

That's just the opening where you can get a sense

of their personalities.

Are you ready, folks?

Put your hands together for the president

and founding father of Soothings Inc., Mr. Calvin Rupp!

Look at you. What a fine brood.

You know, when I started this company back in 1957-

Could I see the world as my dad saw it

and understand his struggles with it?

Become the most successful producer

of mood music in the Midwest.

The rich rambling boss,

the desire to avoid becoming bland.

This year, I'd especially

like to commend our programming department,

Phillip, Randy, where are they?

The wish for companionship.

Yes, sir, those boys did an amazing job

with those bossa nova hip rap sounds.

And the paradox of work that feeds you

but doesn't feed your soul.

Gave us our healthy earnings

from Royal Nordic.

Was my dad trying to warn me

that I could become a paper clip?

Having said all that,

I am no longer the president of Soothings Incorporated.

Oh, what? - What?

Anyway, Ainsworth Dropo is a smart young fella

from the big city.

You'll like him.

Thank you, Mr. Rupp.

My, my, my, you certainly are a fine brood.

Oh my.

Phillip.

Yes, dear.

I think I'm feeling that way.

Well, we did schedule lovemaking for early morning.

I forgot, I'm sorry.

Oh, come on now. Sorries are silly.

And make the day hilly.

Hmm.

What's wrong?

My briefcase! I think I left it in the ballroom.

Back in a maximum of six minutes.

Okay.

Near disaster averted.

Headed east.

24.6 knots.

Ahh!

Hey, Dave, wave.

As I filmed the scenes,

I began to wonder if my dad's nature

came from rebelling against his own upbringing

or perhaps his generation's.

Phillip!

Bach is not funny music.

It's meant to be listened to

and appreciated for its glorious

and intricate precision.

Now sit down and listen, please.

Baba, baba.

Baba, baba.

Baba, baba.

Unlike Phillip's dad, ours openly encouraged us

to engage with the music we heard.

My earliest childhood memory is also my favorite one:

my dad taking my brother and I to a jazz concert

at the Santa Monica Pier.

♪ Rivers of Babylon ♪

It's obvious that our love of music came from him.

♪ Try to set the night on fire ♪

Without it, my brother

probably wouldn't go from air drumming

to becoming a touring professional drummer.

One time our dad asked us if he should sell his massive

collection of vinyl records.

"No way," we told him.

This became our only inheritance.

And while we got it far sooner than anticipated,

it was probably the only thing we were glad he hoarded.

We didn't get a chance to appreciate his records

when we were young.

But there was something that deeply influenced us:

a single mixtape played on the heaviest of rotations

in my dad's red Sunbird convertible.

♪ I love rock 'n roll ♪

♪ So come and take your time and dance with me ♪

Lighten up.

It was the soundtrack to our memories.

Memories that were fragmented, scattered,

and haphazardly stitched together,

like the songs on the mix.

It was just an old tape in a pile of stuff,

but it contained inexplicable power.

I think it's the one.

Here's what I've been sorting through all day.

Power to conjure up our dad at his happiest

and his most free.

And I'm excited because I just

came over here to set up music

not too long ago.

And I found this.

Just says, "L. A."

Hold on, Jess, I just wanna show you something.

♪ Where we can be alone ♪

I found it!

♪ We were movin' on ♪

♪ He was with me ♪

Dude, that's so awesome.

How? Where'd you find it?

♪ He was with me, yeah, me ♪

♪ Singin' I love rock 'n roll ♪

♪ So put another dime in the jukebox, baby ♪

♪ I love rock 'n roll ♪

♪ So come and take your time and dance with me ♪

Time unknown.

Heavy downpour.

I'm still unaware of where I am.

Odd rhythmic sounds coming from the palm.

Further investigation required.

Hello! Phillip Tooley, Soothings Inc.

It's incredible that you all are here.

Were, were you shipwrecked too?

Hello? Hello?

Excuse me, sir.

Can anybody hear me?

In the town where we grew up, everyone

and their mother was Catholic.

My dad was an outlier.

More spiritual than religious,

he constantly reminded us

that if there's a heaven,

there can't only be one way into it.

I looked for parallels in the script.

"Groovopolis" Phillip was pulled by some

higher musical force.

My dad was compelled to explore his

Jewish roots more as he aged.

He had run from and then back to Judaism.

I wanted to know more about that from Ami,

who I knew as my dad's Jewish friend.

He lives in Israel now.

And I remember the first time I actually met him

as I was cleaning out trash in the garage

on Crystal Cove, side of my house.

And I was taking the trash out.

And he had his red car.

And I think you guys were actually in the car

when he drove by.

He stopped because he liked trash.

And I understand.

No, I understand that, and people throw out

interesting things, you know?

And that was the first time

I think that we actually, like, met and connected.

Up until, I think where I met him,

his Jewishness was like a bagel and lox kind of thing.

Bagel.

Bagel. - Bagel.

Bagel. - Bagel.

What goes with a bagel?

He also wants sweet sauce.

What goes with a bagel?

Fish.

Fish? - Fish.

And also that stemmed from his mom

being, like, of the Holocaust generation

and that, like, if you're a Jew, you gotta hide.

Like, we used to, he used to come over

Friday night a lot for Shabbos dinner.

After we ate, sometimes we went for a walk along the beach.

We would ask questions, we'd talk.

Oh!

We'll get back to Ami in a moment.

First, here's my dad reading an autobiographical poem

during a performance in my hometown.

I was in high school at the time,

too embarrassed to be there myself.

Ladies and gentlemen, David Kristin.

I wanted to keep my kids safe from the Nazis,

and the booted Cossacks,

and the sidewalk bullies covered in tattoos and grease.

So I took Danny Sheldon Krivulin,

fat with schmaltz and gribenes,

and funny, and loud,

and cranking like the subways of New York,

and I mangled him

into David Daniel Kristin.

He never sweats, or screams,

or passes the potatoes with his fingers.

And I married deep into the flat Midwest.

The boys were born.

The boys are blonde.

None of the kids like smoked whitefish.

And none of the kids can make the "ch" sound.

So 'chally' comes out 'collie'!

That's pretty funny, huh?

And their mother sends them to church on Sunday

and brags that 'the father' blesses their throats.

And I stay home throwing up in the bathroom.

Praying to a white-haired patriarch

who talks in flames makes Job suffer.

And pouts while he bellows,

"Thou shalt have no other God before me."

And Christ dangles, smirking on the cross.

He knows that the next Nazis

will measure the noses of my children

and know they had a kike father.

And all my choosing out of terror,

babbling in the corner,

clammy-skinned terror will have achieved nothing.

And I'm left with the stain of my own cowardice

that will never ever come clean.

Dave Kristin, St. James.

Yesterday, Pops the Turtle,

was found located on a highway near Rolla, Missouri.

Today, Willie, Jesse, David,

and Virginia will return Pops the Turtle to safety,

a momentous occasion in nature.

It just stayed there. - Oh.

This turtle must go free today.

This turtle, that's the name of this video,

"This Turtle Must Go Free Today."

Oh, what a bumpy road.

♪ Heigh-ho, heigh-ho ♪

♪ Heigh-Ho, heigh-ho ♪

Three.

Okay, he's out. He's out.

Here's Ami again.

He was just all about compassion.

But in Judaism there's an idea that, like,

compassion obviously is a good thing,

but you have to weigh it with strength.

Because if you have too much compassion,

that can actually hurt somebody.

So you have to, like, you have to always

balance things out, you know?

Good morning, Papa.

What's your favorite breakfast?

Whitefish? Bagels?

And mushrooms and eggs.

As strong as he was in certain ways,

there were some ways that he was very, very weak, you know?

To have a companion was very important.

Loneliness, he hated loneliness.

You know, that was the thing

that cut away at him the most.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Douglas Edwards,

here with Virginia Land Kristin, noted costume designer.

David, cut the narration, cut the film, please.

I think he asked a lot

about, like, the Jewish afterlife

and like, what was gonna happen to him when he died.

And at the time, I didn't think that he, like,

that was gonna be it for him, you know?

'Cause I knew he'd gone through so much already, you know?

So maybe he knew it was worse off than he said it was.

I knew he wasn't fulfilled.

But Ami helped me understand just

how lonely he often felt.

Ladies and gentlemen, David Kristin.

It made me wish I had showed up

at that poetry reading.

And at other times too.

Ah, the juggler, summer of '87, Winthrop Beach.

Oh, dropped it.

Can you boys do that?

Can you juggle rocks like Papi?

Daddy!

One of the last things he said is,

"Don't forget you're Jewish."

That's what he said.

Kind of out of nowhere actually,

like, we weren't really talking.

He was like in his hospital bed.

He was like, "Don't forget you're Jewish."

♪ Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel ♪

♪ I made it out of clay ♪

♪ And when it's dry and ready ♪

♪ Then dreidel I shall play, oh ♪

Well, gentlemen, it's your first Hanukkah.

Second Christmas.

I never celebrated Hanukkah before.

I never celebrated much.

So it's sort of fun to have these two holidays here.

I want these kids to be filled up.

I want them to be filled up

so that when they become grownups, they can give,

and not be angry, and not be hostile

and 'cause they'll be filled up.

So it's the holidays.

It's the holidays.

I've decorated the nanny room for Dave

in case he happens to get here for Hanukkah.

Are you Phillip Tooley?

Your muffin's ready, honey.

Okay.

This is a nice tie.

Honey.

Yeah.

I'm leaving Dr. Kraufkin's phone number

next to the phone.

That sea disaster psychiatrist I told you about.

Call him, okay?

You can't be too careful.

Thank you, my island princess!

Back at my mom's, I started wondering:

if my dad hated being alone so much,

who was keeping him company all those years?

All right, here we go.

Let the games begin.

I guess I wanna know if there's anything

in here that I wanna scan.

Yeah. A lot of this is throwaway.

So I'm not gonna know anyone.

Like, you know these people,

I don't. - All right.

Oh my God, look at Sharon Steinman.

Oh, look, Tommy and Kendra.

Here's my sister and a prom date.

Bobby Delafano, so Winthrop.

Do you guys wanna eat before you leave?

Wait, what's this?

What?

Bea stuff?

I would say put that down on the highboy dresser.

Who's the?

And what it?

Is this?

Don't know.

♪ Oh ♪

Okay, so let me go back

Let me just tell you,

and I'll try not to go into too much,

you know, craziness.

And you just stop me if I go into too much, but-

It's okay, I wanna know about that stuff.

Yeah, okay, all right.

So I came to Harper College in 1967.

And here, right away, I run into your father.

And we became friends immediately.

The big thing I remember was that all

of his friends were extremely impressed with him.

He was a very charismatic person.

And he was like that all his life.

He drew people to him,

and they just, you know,

and he could charm them,

like he could charm a snake.

He worked in New York for a while in a job he hated.

I had this memory of, in the wintertime,

of where he was just so bummed out,

just really unhappy, hated the job.

What job was it?

It was, I don't know, insurance company.

Something very mundane.

And hated it, just hated it.

Really almost in tears, he was.

And talked about how much he hated this job.

And he had to get out.

And I said, "So get out.

Get out, there's nothing keeping you there.

Why do you have to stay in this job? You hate it."

And he did.

Our mom just said Dad was lazy.

It's Friday, I think? Uh.

Nobody said he might be suffering.

Heavy downpour.

In truth, I didn't remember my dad

working any traditional type jobs.

Rhythmic sounds coming from the palm.

Further investigation required.

I think, and then of course,

you know, when you guys were born,

you know, one of you had the, which one was it?

- Was it you? I guess it was your brother. - Is it you or your brother that had the...

Jesse was born with a cleft lip.

Jesse. - Cleft lip and palate.

Yeah.

That just really blew his mind.

It never occurred to him that you might have kids,

and the kid might have a medical problem.

I mean, it just never occurred to him.

And he didn't have any money.

And you know, he felt, I think.

And now, he had to provide for the family.

So that meant, like, real jobs.

He didn't like real jobs.

So he'd get, like a job, marketing job.

He had this team.

And I talked to the people on the team,

and they'd be like, "Wow, you know, David's great!"

"He's so, you know."

And it was just like everything I had always heard

since I was a teenager, you know, like,

"Oh, you know, your father was this big figure.

And they'd all look up to him."

But I don't think he felt that way about himself.

I think that he was sort of like a hollow man in most ways.

You know, he was diagnosed bipolar.

He was fundamentally a good person, but he was sick.

He was sick, and he didn't want,

he didn't deal with the fact that he was sick very well.

He didn't think of the effect of not taking the medication

would have on his family.

I didn't mean to cut him out of my life forever, you know?

I just wanted to, I just wanted to...

I just wanted to...

I didn't wanna deal with him when he was that crazy.

He didn't want

any kind of constraint,

right?

He wanted to be free.

Of course, that kind of desire for freedom

becomes a constraint itself.

I started to see a pattern.

He wanted independence so badly,

but always relied on someone else for help.

Who that someone was changed a lot.

The exact timeline of who my dad dated

and when has always been fuzzy to me.

I know he was with a few different women after he

and my mom separated

and at least one while they were together.

We'll get to her.

But Kathy was his last partner.

Maybe she could help me understand him

at that late stage in his life.

You met your dad, right?

You know, life was hard for him.

There was some, like, basic life skills that he didn't have.

He wasn't very good at,

you know, plodding through life

and doing the things that you're supposed to do.

I think in part, it was a choice.

And I think part, it was a restriction

of his mental illness.

And it's not like he really continued

being able to functionally pursue any creative stuff.

Like, even, he said "Brooklyn Boy,"

he was transitioning between contacts

and glasses or something,

and he just, like, could never get it together

to get the contacts.

So it's not like he,

like, really became a successful actor.

He made me laugh every single day.

And you know, he made me cry about every third day,

and he pissed me off every other day.

He had an interesting perspective

because he didn't have kind of a traditional life.

Hearing Kathy's stories made me

wonder how much control my dad had over his life.

My siblings and I were once part of a study

for kids of bipolar parents.

But we just figured we were doing it

so our dad could earn some cash.

By the end of it, his life seemed like a far cry

from the unregimented freedom

that his "Groovopolis" characters enjoy.

Did my dad still experience rainbows

or just rain?

What'd you get?

I don't know, we'll find out.

What's the charity called?

Community Servings.

See my dad.

See my dad use

the hard-ass money I've worked for

to feed his face.

Wait, you doing a documentary on me?

Let's see what we got.

We got sweet and sour chicken pasta and beans.

That's should be good for me.

Egg frittata fish.

I hate frittata eggs.

Okay.

Dad, how are the medical bills paid?

I have Medicare

and MassHealth 'cause I'm poor.

And it covers all of it?

All of it.

Really?

Wow.

Can you imagine?

So does that make you angry?

No, of course not. That's awesome.

Well, how does it make you feel though, you know?

It actually...

I don't know, people complain about health stuff so much,

I assumed there was a problem with people

not getting healthcare enough.

Well, it's good to be either rich

or poor in America.

One day, you looked up at me,

and you said, "You gotta work, right, Dad?"

Did I feel crummy?

Yes, the answer is yes, you gotta.

I didn't know my dad felt ashamed

of not being a provider.

Sometimes I felt ashamed

that I was working a, quote, "real job,"

instead of being a full-time artist.

The more I dug into the script

and talked to people from my dad's life,

the less foreign his struggles became.

I wish I had more talks like this with him.

I would've asked him about the good stuff,

what gives him hope and brings him joy.

And I also would've asked him about this other tape

that I found when I was looking for my dad's mixtape.

♪ I just wanna fuck ♪

♪ I know about pain and suffering and being cold ♪

♪ And I just wanna fuck ♪

I knew who this tape came from.

I knew about her because my mom knew about her.

It was from a woman named Lena,

who my dad had a son

with sometime during my childhood.

I overheard stories growing up,

like that she sent a picture of a burning airplane

to my mom

because she knew my mom was a flight attendant.

Wake up, you're dreaming.

But to bring up Lena was taboo.

Actually,

taboo is an understatement.

Did you want that Jeep?

So when I found another photo

of Lena's son in a card with my dad's stuff,

I fought the butterflies in my stomach

and showed my mom another piece of mail

that Lena had sent to see if I could learn more

about what really happened.

Aww.

Oh, when did he send this?

Did he get this?

I have no idea what that is.

'93, Sarah would've been

seven.

Yeah,

I got more pictures of that kid.

He looks more like your friend, Kenny.

Aww, that's very sweet.

Should I put this with the other stuff?

I mean, Dave always denied it.

She had five kids by five different men.

And then she had this one by Dave.

But that was her M.O.

That's how she supported herself

since she was 19 years old.

Do the math.

Five kids, 40 years old,

- and she's suddenly pregnant? - Wait, wait, wait, hold on.

With a kid that looks nothing like you.

Hold on, hold on. - That nobody would give a name to. - Hold on.

And then now she's supposedly all happy

with this lawyer man?

Oh, no shit, a lawyer, Lena.

Hey, Mom.

I can't do this.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

No, I'm not gonna do this.

Stop filming right now, William!

Okay, if you're puzzled,

that's because it's puzzling.

Here's what I knew for sure.

I had a half brother named Josh.

Our moms never got along.

And we often got caught in the middle.

Oh, and Josh's mom

was into witchcraft.

Anyway, I wanted to respect my mom's wish for me to stop,

but I desperately needed to know about this dark magic

and my half brother.

So I kept the audio recording.

Lena and I would work,

and he would watch children.

I came home from a trip

and your ass was all black and blue

because you didn't make it to the bathroom.

I could no longer leave you alone with him.

I had to hire help when I flew

even though you had a dad, who was the caregiver

the house husband, the home dad,

or whatever the fuck they call 'em.

Wil, you don't wanna record

what I feel, have to say.

Hey, Mom, listen, can I just tell you-

I have emails to answer. I'm sorry.

Home dad?

Cut the narration.

Cut the film, please.

I don't really remember physical abuse,

which each of my parents accused the other of doing.

But I do remember the yelling.

Being caught in the middle of adults

with their own pain to process,

I thought talking would help clarify things,

but I guess even now,

it was going to feel taboo.

While my mom's version is not totally accurate,

in fact, Lena only had one more kid than her,

this is how my mother felt.

Even after my father's death,

she still didn't wanna talk about Lena or Josh at all.

But I felt it was now possible to explore things

that were always off-limits.

So I went to my siblings

who were caught in the middle with me.

Weren't my brother and sister curious

about our dad's other family too?

Jesse. - Siblings!

Do you know why I want to go upstate?

I gather that you want to make a documentary about Dad.

Any other ideas why I might wanna go

to Upstate New York?

Oh God!

Why are you keeping this such a secret?

I'm not! Why do you think I'm telling you?

Why do you think we're talking about it?

Well, is it a bad idea?

No, but, like, it's us.

We're always caj about everything.

Yeah, I know, but I don't know.

You think we should meet Josh?

It's a little bit of a mind fuck.

Is it not?

Turn right onto East Cayuga Street.

My sister, Sarah, couldn't be swayed

to meet Josh and Lena, so she stayed home.

Should I park right in front?

Like my mom,

she didn't want to go anywhere near this,

which is understandable.

The destination is on your right.

I felt like I was getting closer to witnessing my dad

when he was making that mixtape

and writing "Groovopolis."

I was finally unearthing him at his freest.

But to my mom and sister,

that freedom just looked like abandonment.

I also felt anger toward my dad

for fucking things up for our family.

How could he do this to us?

How could he do it to me?

As a teenager, I remember him

once telling me in an exasperated way that,

"It's so hard to love one woman."

Sure, I understand that better now,

but did he feel responsibility to us

or just to free love?

What is your intent because there's some things

that are so intense

that have to do with you, Sarah, and Wil,

and things that he told me from his perspective.

I'm Wil.

Yes, Wil,

Jesse, Sarah, yeah. - But yeah, got it.

I know you're Wil.

Yeah, wait, so I know there's a lot.

And actually, I should say...

What I wanted to know, but was too nervous to ask,

was if my dad was happier with them.

Was he like that freewheeling character

he was writing about at the time?

Had he been somehow transformed

and enlightened on an island in "Groovopolis?"

The last thing I wanna do is, like,

cause you additional stress or cause my mom stress.

Oh, well.

I only met your mom once.

Yeah.

But I talked through the phone several times.

Just so you know,

when I first told him I was expecting Josh,

he was really happy.

He smiled.

He was happy.

And (sighs).

And everything kind of,

you know, it was okay for a while,

but then it started slowly getting worse.

And I was working.

And then I found out your mom

was calling there all the time.

He's going back and forth being called back

all the time, all the time, all the time.

And one day,

shortly after Josh turned two,

it was just out of the blue,

he says, "I'm going back."

I said, "What's going on?"

He says, "Well, what are we doing?

What's gonna happen to me when I'm older?

Who's gonna take care of me? You?"

And I said, "What?"

I didn't have enough money to take care of him.

He had quit his job at this point.

Yeah. - He had a job?

He had a job. - I didn't know about that.

He had a job where he made $100,000 per year.

What? What was he doing?

He was working as a manager at a telemarketing company.

He was doing very well.

There was nothing for him to do except sit there

and watch people on the phone.

He was loved by everybody

'cause he had such a great persona, you know.

Why did he leave the job?

I'll tell you what he told me.

He says,

he says, "It's just taking everything out of me."

I was always trying to get him back into his spirituality

'cause he was very much self-hating.

You know, self-hating Jew, it's Jewish.

He said he wanted to be the guy in Connecticut on the boat.

I don't know if he ever said that to you.

But he wanted to be the guy, you know,

with the khakis on the boat.

Not Danny Krivulin. He would actually do it like this.

He would go from persona, persona.

He goes, "I wanna be the guy on the boat."

My dad played plenty of roles,

but a guy in khakis on a boat in Connecticut

had to be the furthest from a Brooklyn-born

Jewish boy named Danny.

Start your lunch, I'll be right back.

We haven't had a radio breakdown, not yet.

Must have been hot.

Yeah.

I'm telling you Ivan Moser is half alive.

- Hey, it's him. - So what are you waiting for?

Your, uh, table's ready.

Thanks.

On the 4th of July, 1845

Thoreau put the busy competitive world behind him.

You're out of your fucking mind.

Fingers, did you finish those jello molds?

You know, all these things that he is are all personas.

He has a persona for this, a persona for that,

"'Cause the real Danny is like this," he says.

He's Danny Sheldon Krivulin.

He's very scared and tiny.

You know, he would all this stuff.

And then he'd have like, whoa, you know,

like these personas that were out there

and were very charismatic.

And they were all shields to protect him.

That's it, I mean, he was everything

that everybody says he was to them.

He was a hundred different people to everybody.

Okay, so he couldn't take the cubicle,

but did that make acting his one chance

to support our families?

Or was that just an opportunity to be someone else

to hide from responsibility?

My dad left Josh even more than he left us.

If anyone should feel abandoned, it was him.

So have you met David?

No.

There were times

when you guys were separated,

and he would come out and hang out with me.

I think we went to the zoo.

We went to the park a couple times,

and that's really all the memories I had of him.

What's with what?

Well, I mean, I've heard stuff, you know,

like that, you know,

that there was some level of narcissism

or ego behind his motives,

but like, I never knew him.

You know what I mean? You know, I don't

My dad's widespread love led to widespread loss.

It felt unfair that Josh knew less

about our dad than we did.

I let him know that my dad

didn't financially support our branch

of the family tree either.

I don't really say like, "Oh, he left me,"

and all this other stuff.

Meeting

after such a long time, I mean, do you,

what's going through your head?

Are there like-

Well, I mean, we're like blood, you know what I'm saying?

It's like we share the same genetics.

You know what I mean?

Like, you know, we're a family, you know,

that was kinda split apart, you know?

I don't really have much to say.

Can you show us your tattoos one more time?

Oh yeah, definitely.

You want me to show it to the camera?

Yeah, that'd be awesome, if you don't mind.

This is Bob Marley.

I thought meeting my half brother

would reveal my dad's mindset

while he was writing "Groovopolis,"

but all I saw was my dad constrained by the expectations

that he'd be a supportive partner or a nurturing parent.

And it made me wanna be more nurturing myself.

What's, like, a classic metal song that we haven't heard

that you think we need to hear?

A classic metal song?

"Smash a Single Digit."

"Smash a Single," there you go.

Yeah?

You could play "Smash a Single Digit."

It was a hypnotic state of lust and fantasy.

We were all headed for some sort of galactical orgasm

when we realized that we needed physical bodies

to achieve that climax.

Since we were in an ethereal kind of body,

that climax was impossible.

But still the desire for fulfillment

grew stronger.

Okay. - Okay, here we go.

Let's go with that guy.

Oh, okay.

This 1960s movie won an award.

Hmm, was it "How Green was My Valley?"

Right again, gumdrop. - Ah, so good.

Well, this might be an early evening after all.

We are losing big, hun.

Time to get on the stick.

Uh, before we start,

I have a hankering for the Vienna Boys.

Anybody object? - I will.

I mean, not at all.

I'll put it on.

Lena said that my dad

used different personas as shields

to protect his vulnerability. - Okay.

Is he seeing anyone?

We're, we're working on it.

He just seems a little bit off.

I was starting to feel like making "Groovopolis"

was my shield,

a way to not have to deal with the grief

of losing my dad.

I'm just really worried about him.

He's gonna be fine.

Oh, so. - You know,

that Bob Terwilliger sure has my vote.

- I mean, something has to be done - about these downtown riffraffs.

I know, why don't they just put a mall there,

like everywhere else?

Mm-hmm.

My turn.

All right. - Oh, looks good.

Okay, adventure heroes.

Oh, how appropriate!

All right.

How many movie stars played Tarzan?

Oh, that's an easy one. Okay, let me see, um.

What is this music?

Well, it certainly isn't the Vienna Boys,

but it does have a pleasantness to it.

It's awfully toasty in here with that fire, isn't it?

There's, um, Johnny Weissmuller,

"Tarzan, the Ape Man."

Huh. - "Tarzan, the Barbarian?"

No, "Tarzan, the Jungleman"

Yeah!

Ah!

In "Groovopolis,"

mythical sounds turn Phillip into Phil.

Whoever he shares the music with becomes better

and more free until there's some kind

of shared suburban paradise.

But his movie didn't reflect the pain

my dad caused in real life.

I realized I was trying to honor my dad

when what I really needed to do was forgive him.

♪ Sex is a misdemeanor ♪

♪ The more you miss, the meaner you get ♪

My dad once told a reporter,

"Acting is something that I can't not do."

Even if somebody had a role for me

and wasn't going to pay me at all,

"I would still do it." - Hey.

What's wrong with this picture?

He didn't even get credited

for his most noteworthy performance.

Nice night for a walk, eh?

In what was at the time,

a small budget indie film called "The Terminator."

Nice night for a walk.

Remember, art, it's good for your heart.

And I'm outta here.

Ooh.

After that, his career was a mixed bag

of poetry readings and public-access TV.

And the less he worked, the more he wrote.

I'll have the blood sausage

and a large glass of milk.

I'll have your largest bowl of fresh fruit, please.

Phillip's job for Soothings Inc.

Was selling background music to retail stores.

I seem to be having a confidence problem, Mr. Tooley.

Coincidentally, my first job

was also selling background music,

which is what sparked that first

and only conversation I had with my dad about "Groovopolis."

Toward the end of the movie,

a new product called X-Tool

promises to hypnotize shoppers into buying things.

I'm so, so sorry, Ainsworth.

I would love to help you be more confident.

Good.

But for it to work, the evil boss

has to harness the music that Phillip

recorded on the island while he was marooned.

But the X-Tool really isn't my passion anymore.

The same hypnotic rhythm that converted Phillip

into whatever the opposite of a paper clip is.

I'm offering you the opportunity of a lifetime, Tooley.

Yes, I, I understand,

but I'm actually more passionate

about the new music I found.

New music?

Imagine the peak of a summer weekend, Ainsworth,

lying barefoot on a grassy hill.

If the script was perfect,

maybe it would've been made

into a quintessential '90s movie.

In bringing its pages to life,

I could recognize the tension woven throughout

my dad's: how to balance his opportunities

for stability with his true passions.

And that's what this music does!

An amusing concept.

I'm gonna make you a deal, Mr. Tooley.

And I don't make deals like this too often.

You finish the X-Tool for me,

and the company is yours.

Um, the,

the whole company?

To produce whatever type of music you like.

Thank you very much.

You've worked way too hard for your paltry wage, Tooley.

You deserve a taste of the good life.

Hi, this is Dave Kristin for "ArtBeat!"

First, a question.

I'm at a very special building in Winthrop.

Anybody know?

My dad struck me as having been beaten down

by the proverbial man. - This is the building.

His poetry, while appreciated,

hardly got published.

He moved from Hollywood into community theater.

He started teaching English as a second language

to immigrants, but he still couldn't pay the rent

or buy his own groceries.

That is so hard.

The man had won.

But through making "Groovopolis,"

what I once saw as my dad's laziness,

I now saw as willingness.

His resistance, a subtle protest

against corporate mediocrity.

This dance between Danny and David,

between Phillip and Phil,

it's the dance between who we are

and who we aspire to be.

Despite his loneliness,

my dad never settled into a single path to happiness.

And while I looked for purpose in work,

he shared his very last words with me.

They were just like what he put in his letter to Jeff

when he was warning himself.

He said, "It's okay to just be."

Mr. Tooley!

Such a disappointment this evil little tape of yours.

Evil? Wonderful.

What are you doing?

How could you do that? It was good!

We were happy!

Happiness is a temporary delusion

a truly efficient person cannot afford.

The story we heard about my dad's earlier

skin cancer was that he beat it.

I liked to think of that

as a trade-off for his love of the sun.

And his love had to be stronger

than the hate of cancer.

This numbed us to the possibility

that he could succumb to it.

So when I was just 25,

and his doctor told me that

my dad had stage four cancer,

that it had metastasized to his brain,

and that I would have to decide whether

he should stay in the hospital or go into hospice,

I thought,

"I have no idea what the fuck

any of those terms mean."

All I knew was that I wasn't ready

to let go of my dad.

To learn from his unconventional wisdom,

to be his friend,

and to show him the love

that he tried to show me.

You have one unheard message.

First unheard message.

Hey, Wil, it's Dad.

Listen, they're putting me in the hospital.

I'm over at Beth Israel Deaconess,

and Kathy has all the information,

and I'll talk to you.

Hello?

Hello?

Hello?

Hello? Hello?

Hello?

Hello?

Bye.

And where are my twerps?

"Under the Boardwalk."

♪ Under the boardwalk ♪

♪ Down by sea, yeah ♪

And the same grandmother on the boardwalk.

♪ With my baby is where I'll be ♪

A decade after my dad died,

I had scoured my earliest memories

starting all the way back from the Santa Monica Pier.

And I also talked to everyone

I could reach that knew him then.

I thought I had found everything I was going to.

In "Groovopolis," Phillip eventually

discovers that his dad had a secret stash of records

that were nothing like Bach.

Listening to them made him realize that his dad

was more nuanced, groovier maybe, than he thought.

♪ Homeless ♪ ♪ Homeless ♪

♪ Homeless ♪ ♪ Homeless ♪

♪ Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake ♪

♪ Homeless ♪ ♪ Homeless ♪

♪ Homeless ♪ ♪ Homeless ♪

♪ Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake ♪

♪ Homeless ♪ ♪ Homeless ♪

Happy 38th birthday, Dave.

38 years old, I made it.

California!

West Hollywood.

♪ Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh ♪

♪ Somebody saying, hello, hello, hello ♪

♪ Somebody saying uh, chi, uh, chi, uh ♪

♪ Somebody cry, why, why, why ♪

Time rolled on and eventually,

my grandmothers did too.

Look at daddy, bye-bye.

- Like everyone I talked to - Ladies and gentlemen,

the hostess with the mostest.

I still had unanswered questions about my dad.

Then just as we were getting ready

to sell my maternal grandmother's farm,

the same place where I set that turtle free

with my dad when I was a kid.

Three. Okay, he's out, he's out.

I was given an article about him

that was written by his long-time therapist.

I wanted to run it by my mom and sister

because they love talking to me about him on camera.

Maybe she'll come back in after she has a cigarette.

Oh my goodness.

I don't wanna wanna talk about this.

Are you wearing sunglasses?

Well, they're transition lenses.

Okay.

It keeps nosy filmmakers at bay.

If you would have told me your questions,

I could concise state my answer.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't really,

I don't really have questions like that.

Okay, good, proceed.

Next.

Can I read you something and then ask about it?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, so after

dad died, you know, a few years later,

and I don't know how she got her hands on this,

but Kathy was like, "Oh, there's this, like, thing

that got published, you might be interested in it."

Oh my God.

- Yeah! Okay. - Read it to me. - All right, I'll read it to you.

So it just says, I think it was published in-

Jesus, all those fricking questions. Read it to me.

Here's how the article goes.

"Palliative Psychotherapy."

After hearing my doubts about whether

I had done anything to help

a middle-aged, talented,

but difficult patient lead even a marginally better life,

a trusted colleague said,

'I think you made his existence

"a little less lonely and painful.'"

♪ Give me land, lots of land ♪

♪ Under starry skies above ♪

♪ Don't fence me in ♪

Oh! - I'll be danged.

Sorta sends a signal and receives it, like-

"But after years of therapy",

shouldn't I have catalyzed greater change

in a patient's behavior and lifestyle?

"Perhaps." - That's pretty too.

"But then I realized that my treatment

could be thought of as palliative psychotherapy."

Jesse.

Jesse!

"After all, I had provided comfort, if not cure."

Want one?

"I had provided some humor

and perspective for a life

chronically lacking in both."

It's a video.

It's a video.

"What if fundamentally altering his

many decades worth of maladaptive coping

was beyond my skills and perhaps anyone's?

Despite my hopes and efforts,

my patient had not put away childish things

"and moved beyond erratic work."

And what kind of an audience did you have?

Oh, it was, you know.

"And stormy relationships."

Okay, Dave, that's enough.

"Palliative psychotherapy is for those patients"

whose unyielding constellation of character problems"-

Hey, Dave!

"Feels terminally unmodifiable",

yet who continue to seek some form of relief.

By stressing acceptance and adaptation

- "rather than behavior change," - Ah?

You got your hands in front of the camera.

"Palliative psychotherapy might offer patients

more help in seemingly hopeless situations."

Yo.

Yo, what?

Nothing.

Nothing. That's the voice! Nothing.

All right, let me do it.

That's the voice.

There it was, a prescription to just be.

Well, it's a beautiful time here at the farm,

and there's something I thought

I'd like to share with the future.

If I didn't work harder myself,

I wrongly assumed that

I would inherit my dad's harder life.

In reality, it wasn't really a struggle

between working and dancing for him.

It was simply a struggle.

And it's just beautiful here on the farm.

That's the way it looks.

And I'm gonna sign off now, bye.

Everybody's dad danced once, Ainsworth.

Even yours.

He would've been whipped with a strap, Tooley.

Because he couldn't dance

because his dad couldn't dance.

Because his dad wanted to,

but nobody taught him and nobody taught his dad.

Learning that my dad didn't always

have the same options I have made me

acknowledge my own agency.

There's no secret algorithm

that will optimize my work-life data.

All there is is me trying my best to be filled up.

Ah!

Ah! - [Virginia] We're in Brooklyn

Running off some of their energy this morning.

Okay. - Okay, now we can go.

Now we can go.

Losing my dad sent me

searching for remnants of fatherly advice.

Boys, watch out for L.A. women.

You guys, you made it.

Yay!

What I found was: relationships are messy,

being a parent is hard,

forgiving one is too,

and work is not the aim of life.

Smalls, how are ya?

Woo!

Sarah got a master's in psychology

and works in mental health,

which can come in handy for our family.

It's so definitely about our dad.

Right?

Jukebox

The Ghost.

Jesse, my younger brother by a minute,

has made a career in music.

Love the drums. Thank you, sir.

There it is.

And all of us are building a relationship with Josh.

Otherwise, we'll have to eat in the car.

Here we are on the Coney Island boardwalk,

covering a lot of ground today.

About to get a drink with Sarah Kristin.

I'm so grateful.

And then when his mom passed away.

I'm now about the same age my dad

was when he was writing "Groovopolis."

In the script after the tape is destroyed,

the characters realize that their ability

to be free was within them all along.

All right, keep dancing.

I, on the other hand,

had to grieve what my dad was and what he wasn't

before I could confront my own challenges:

I got over my fear that I might mess up my relationships.

Bravo!

And yeah, Dad, she's Jewish.

And I finally let go of the hustle

and became a dad myself.

Now, there's something I'd like to share with the future.

What are you doing?

Oh, go away from it. - Oh jeez.

Your grandpa taught me that happiness

isn't an emotion,

it isn't a feeling,

- and it isn't a sound.

It's a possibility.

And even if you're born with the demons that pull you

in the opposite direction,

you can still find what makes you happiest

if you're lucky enough to glimpse it,

however small it might seem

when you first see it in the distance.

♪ There once was land, ♪

♪ Endless land under starry skies above ♪

♪ But they fenced it in ♪

♪ Now it's interstates and interchanges ♪

♪ Monocrop and truck stops ♪

♪ 'Cause they fenced it in ♪

♪ I wish that every golf course became a WMA ♪

♪ And every politician knew the rent that we paid ♪

♪ Just to drink ourselves to death ♪

♪ And go to jobs that we hate ♪

♪ Oh, to be fenced in ♪

♪ Turn us loose ♪

♪ And let us rattle off our chains ♪

♪ And lift the pain from our faces ♪

♪ And every hour on the clock ♪

♪ Or in a classroom or a cell ♪

♪ Could not contain us ♪

♪ I just don't see any glory ♪

♪ In industrial cattle ♪

♪ And truckers' bodies twist ♪

♪ From a life in the saddle ♪

♪ Is freedom ringing in your ear ♪

♪ Or just a death rattle? ♪

♪ You won't fence us in ♪

♪ I wish ancestral lands ♪

♪ Belonged to Indigenous people ♪

♪ And I didn't have to live in fear ♪

♪ Of law from the steeple ♪

♪ Does grievance make you strong? ♪

♪ Or is it what makes you feeble? ♪

♪ You won't fence us in ♪

♪ Though you might try ♪

♪ You won't fence us in ♪

♪ Ain't you listening? ♪

♪ You won't fence us in ♪