So You Think YOUR Family Is Crazy?

If you pay close attention, you'll notice that animal rights activists try to focus the public's attention on endangered species that have a strong emotional appeal. Save the whales? Sure. Save the giraffes? Of course. Save the bees? Duh!

Save the fruit flies? Dead silence.

During the Bay area's recent heat waves, fruit flies continued to emerge from kitchen drains and other hiding places in increasing numbers. Thanks to the wisdom of the Internet, I was able to learn "How To Kill Fruit Flies and Get Rid of Them For Good." Frequently refilling small cups with a half inch of apple cider vinegar and covering the fluid with some liquid soap quickly turned me into a serial killer -- of fruit flies! But then a strange thought crossed my mind.

I flashed back to that wondrous day when Oprah Winfrey made so many people happy as she walked into her audience screaming "You get a car!" "You get a car!" You get a car!" You get a car!" -- "Everyone here gets a car!" And I wondered....

What would it look like if, in an alternate universe, Oprah pointed her finger at members of her audience and hollered "You're from a dysfunctional family!" "You're from a dysfunctional family!" "You're from a dysfunctional family!" "You're from a dysfunctional family!" -- "Everyone here today is from a dysfunctional family!"

At first there might be shocked silence. But then, I'm pretty sure the people in Oprah's audience would burst into applause once they realized that someone had finally acknowledged them. After all, it wasn't like they'd been called child molesters. Or, even worse, Republicans!

That's when I reminded myself that dysfunctional families include our neighbors, our relatives, our business partners and loved ones. Their stories are told daily on stages and screens, in books and in therapy sessions. Instead of "becoming the person you want to be," in a cruel twist of fate, many folks find themselves living lives other people turn to for vicarious thrills and voyeuristic entertainment.

Let's be honest. Most of our lives contain moments that could be categorized as Theatre of the Absurd. The other day, I was riding a crowded bus while seated opposite a woman and her young child as they returned home from a visit to the San Francisco Zoo. The child held a plastic toy that looked like a pastel-hued lightsaber but, as he proudly informed the person sitting next to him, was a magic wand. When another man asked the boy to name his favorite animal at the zoo, there was a moment of intense thinking before the boy opened his eyes and said "The carousel!" As his mother quietly rolled her eyes, the people seated nearby all smiled.


Two recent examples of dysfunctional family life were on display during the 2019 San Francisco Fringe Festival. Another showed up in a dizzying family drama screened during the 2019 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

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Most fringe festivals feature an assortment of monologues. Happily, two of the monologues I attended at the San Francisco Fringe Festival were extremely well written, beautifully performed, and shone a spotlight on the kind of craziness to be found in homes across America. Performed by Jamie Brickhouse, I Favor My Daddy delivered an often hilarious description of what it was like to grow up in Beaumont, Texas in a deeply Christian and devoutly alcoholic family. As it turned out, Brickhouse's father adored bikinis, martinis, and had a secret history of cross dressing in his hotel room during business trips. A subsequent discovery made his gay son wonder if his father had essentially been a sodomite lush as well.

A gifted storyteller, Brickhouse's book ("Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir of Booze, Sex, and My Mother") is filled with vignettes like the ones found in the following three video clips:

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In Grief is Horny, Jonathan Euseppi describes what happens to a 13-year-old child whose father dies, leaving him to struggle with grief and puberty as his family reacts to any crisis with the mantra “I am fine, we are fine,
everything is fine.” If only that had been true!


Jonathan's father was a man who threatened to pistol whip furniture. His aunt had a habit of taking pictures at the funerals of family members. And Jonathan (bless his heart), was convinced he had developed a way of masturbating that only he and God knew about. Wearing white tights and Cats-appropriate makeup, the genderqueer Euseppi moves around the audience in a state of wonder when he is not sitting in a chair delivering jaw-dropping stories of his childhood.

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Directed by Hannah Pearl Utt (who co-wrote the screenplay with Jen Tullock), Before You Know It is a quirky family dramedy which, though it may get overlooked by mass media, has a surprisingly genuine appeal. The Gurner family (which is struggling with all kinds of financial, emotional, and codependency issues) includes:

• Mel (Mandy Patinkin), an aging playwright who owns a small theatre in Manhattan but, shortly after being told that his immature behavior has prevented one of his daughters from having a life of her own, dies of a heart attack.
• Rachel (Hannah Pearl Utt), the conscientious daughter and part-time stage manager for Mel's theatre who has had to become the family's voice of reason. Still living in her childhood apartment, she is constantly forced to clean up the messes left behind by her father and older sister's misguided acts of "spontaneity."
• Jackie (Jen Tullock), a single mother bursting with enthusiasm and neediness but cursed with mood swings and a limited attention span.
• Dodge (Oona Yaffe), Jackie's moody and intelligent, but lonely 13-year-old daughter who is wise beyond her mother's years and has few, if any friends. When first seen, Dodge is in a therapy session with Peter (Alec Baldwin), a child psychiatrist with problems of his own. Later in the film, the precocious Dodge tells her mother that she really has to stop throwing herself at men.

After Mel's death, chaos breaks loose when Rachel discovers that her father was flat broke and didn't even own the building which housed his theatre and family. Having been told since childhood that their mother was dead, Rachel and Jackie become curious after learning that the building's mortgage has always been paid by a woman whose identity is a mystery to them. Their benefactor turns out to be Sherrell (Judith Light), a soap opera star who is their biological mother.

What follows is an emotional roller coaster filled with some farcical moments and some exceptional writing as the two sisters (living through their own family's soap opera) crash the set of Sherrell's soap opera. Though numerous men appear in supporting roles throughout this film, the story is written, directed, and acted primarily from a woman's point of view. Filled with surprises, this is the kind of movie one might expect to find programmed as an inflight entertainment, but is well worth your time. It's an extremely satisfying film -- and a genuine sleeper. Here's the trailer: