Family Feuds

I. I’ve been devouring my pal Liz Alterman’s memoir Sad Sacked, where both she and her husband lose their jobs at the same time. And let me tell you—it’s HILARIOUS! Or better yet, it’s uproarious. (I finally got to use that word.)

At my book release party back in July, Liz stole the show. I’d begged her to drive up from New Jersey and join me on stage because I’m terrified of public speaking, and, while I held my own, Liz killed.

Okay, so back to why I am so loving her book: there she is, in the midst of financial collapse while also raising three young sons, but she is able to joke about it.

I can post pull-quotes all day long to prove her prowess at turning misery into mirth, but it was one sentence in particular that brought me up short:

I’d remained hopeful when I ventured to the mall, but I knew I had a better chance of seeing Jesus in the shoe department than finding an affordable ensemble that convinced potential employers I was competent and bore no resemblance to the woman who’d just sat on her couch for the past four weeks debating which Family Feud host was best.

To be sure, this wasn’t the funniest line in the book—not by a long shot—but, without warning, it slapped a memory across my brain with such force, I had to close the book, then close my eyes so that I could travel back in time to the day…the day my family auditioned for Family Feud. 

II. Besides cheating on my mother throughout their marriage, and being a mostly-absent parent, my father was also a white-collar criminal.

As a child growing up in New York City he was dirt poor, and once he was honorably discharged from the army (he'd spied on the Russians while stationed in Alaska), his goal in life was to be rich. And rich he was—for a very short period in the 1960s, after he sold his electronics company for a couple million dollars. Instead of depositing the cash in a bank for safekeeping or investing it wisely, he squandered the money in a matter of years. From that period until the day he died, my father's sole mission was to rebuild his fortune. If it required lying, cheating, or betraying his friends, colleagues, and family, so be it.

For me, my mother and two brothers, that meant constantly moving back and forth between the east and west coasts so that my father could explore new opportunities. From launching shady start-up ventures with other people's money to promises of stock options for phantom companies to cutting union deals with Mafia-adjacent thugs, he certainly had a knack for pulling off some pretty outrageous deals with some pretty big players.

That is, until he was arrested.

(Objectively, the man who sired me was quite a character: a highly-intelligent narcissist whose stories could and would make for compelling reading. Which is why, at some point, I will pen another memoir, focusing on some of the more provocative aspects of his vertiginous life.) 

My brothers and I backstage with Wayne Newton

For the sake of this story, though, I need to mention that, through his many business dealings, my father made the acquaintance of more than a few celebs and VIPs: among them Wayne Newton, Tony Gonzalez, Michael Caine, Johnny Carson, Gabe Kaplan, Edward Patten and William Guest (two of the Pips as in Gladys Knight and the…), as well as—ahem—Vladimir Putin (who, when he was Deputy Mayor of St. Petersburg, escorted my dad through customs with four kilos of caviar for my wedding).

Another big shot my father went into “business” with was Ted Shanbaum, a millionaire who lived in a 30,000 square foot house in Dallas. Ted came by his riches from the optical business he started. He also owned a few television and radio stations.

When, during one of my family’s dry periods—with my mother working as a skip tracer to keep food on the table—Dad got the brilliant idea that we could earn BIG money by being on game shows. We were, after all, living near Los Angeles at the time.

A call to Ted secured us our first audition.

III. Other than my father, the rest of the family was less enthused, and not because we had to change out of our shorts and “put on something nice.” I can still remember sitting in the back seat of the car, smooshed between my brothers as my father lectured from the front seat while driving us to the studio in Hollywood.

“You have to pretend to like each, do you understand that?”

I gave both my brothers the side-eye. I hated my older brother. He was mean to me. He teased me nonstop. He played football and smoked a lot of pot, while I made out with boys and worked on my suntan. We had nothing in common. As for my baby brother, he was nice enough, but—being as he was five years my junior, I had nothing to say to him. Like, ever. 

My parents didn’t much like one another either. They seemed to simply co-exist in the many houses we lived in. When Dad got home from “work” at night, we five sat around the dinner table with the television blasting the evening news. We rarely spoke to one another.

And now we were supposed to feign being a close-knit, loving clan?  

As we were ushered into the waiting room for auditionees, I could see the desperation in my father’s eyes. Our family was struggling financially, yet my father refused to find an actual job. That was too demeaning for him. Thinking outside the box wasn't going to cut it—to succeed in the world, he would have to first steal the box before crushing it. The man truly believed this game show gig was going to land him on the other side of the rainbow.

When the well-dressed lady with the headset came in and told us we were next I started to sweat. Would I be able to answer any of the questions? What if they asked really hard ones?

We walked out on to the actual set and oh, the lights were so bright. We decided beforehand that my little brother would stand between my older brother and me so he wouldn’t look so lost. I took my place at the end of the podium and peered over at the other family. They were chatting among themselves, looking entirely comfortable and relaxed. My family stood stock still.  

I couldn’t wait to meet Richard Dawson (I had a mild crush on him) and was wildly disappointed when a smartly-dressed man walked in and introduced himself as the host. I was so crestfallen that I wouldn’t get to meet the swoon-worthy Brit that I momentarily forgot my manners and started scratching at my crotch. By now the thick pantyhose I was forced to wear caused my entire lower body to feel as if it were encased in crumbling cement and I needed relief, fast.

When my mother reached behind my brother and slapped my back, hissing, “Lisa! Stop it!” I pulled my hand back up. 

There was no first round where they see which family goes first—the host stand-in just started with the other family, asking them to “name” something. I have no idea what it was, but they all gave great answers, high-fiving and jumping up and down and hugging each other when their correct ones showed up on the big board. 

Then it was our turn. As much as I’ve scoured my memory, I cannot remember what we were asked to name. It was something like, “name a food you find at a movie theater,” because what I DO remember is that my father answered it correctly, as did my mother and older brother. With each flip of the board, we all clapped, but no one said, “good answer,” or “good job.” There was no hugging or high-fiving. Our feet never left the ground.

Then it was my younger brother’s turn. He gave an answer that was so utterly absurd and irrelevant—something along the lines of “peanut butter” that before the Richard Dawson substitute could even point up to the board, knowing full well that the loud BUZZ indicating a wrong answer was about to sound, my older brother screamed, “That is so stupid!! Why would you give such a stupid answer?”

The set went silent. I glanced over to the other, nicer, family. They were staring at my family in disbelief, as if we’d suddenly morphed into a buffoonery of orangutans.

IV. We were not called back. We did not appear on Family Feud, The Price is Right or The Joker’s Wild. None of us, it turned out, were game show material.

V. I haven’t finished reading Liz’s book yet, but there’s so much about the story I can relate to—far beyond the game show mention. At this point in her tale, Liz’s husband Rich still hasn’t found a new job and his year-long severance pay is about to run out. Liz is desperate. Desperate enough to have taken a job writing for a website she has little respect for. She is frustrated with Rich. Frustrated that he isn’t sending out enough resumes. Angry that he isn’t using his contacts. That he is holding out for something as prestigious and well-paying as the job he was fired from. How she is also making me laugh while recounting this part of her life is a feat I admire to my very core.

Because there was no laughter while it was happening to my family. My teenage years were shrouded in angst and ambiguity. By the time I graduated high school we were barely making ends meet. I can still remember—like it was yesterday—my mother’s look of embarrassment when we walked into a Mervyn’s Department Store to look for college clothes for me.

“I never thought we’d ever be shopping here,” she said, turning her nose up at the factory seconds. “When your father had money we had our own seamstress. Do you remember that lace and green velvet dress you wore to your brother's bar mitzvah?”

I did remember that dress and how pretty I felt wearing it. It even had green velvet buttons. I nodded.

“Jemma made it. To think that we used to have our own personal dressmaker,” she said wistfully. 

I barely remembered Jemma, but more importantly: I didn’t care what I wore to start my freshman year. I just wanted out of the house.

VI. Based on what I can gather from Liz’s present life, my assumption is that Rich will find a job and the book will end with a happily ever after.

For a time it looked as if my family would have that happy ending as well. While I was away at school my father finally called in a favor and took a “real” job with a company that manufactured prescription eyewear. It was a great job, with a great salary. I worked in the warehouse every summer during college and after I graduated, I helped set up some of the retail stores, then worked for a time as an optical assistant. By the time I went off to graduate school my father—now executive vice president—had helped the company expand across the state with forty optical stores. 

But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

In 1988, Dad was indicted for defrauding his own company by using their funds to set up two competing optical firms. It just so happened that one of the people he’d attempted to go into business with was an undercover FBI agent.

VII. Final question. Name four things your father left behind:

A gold-colored Mercedes that barely ran; A Rolex locked away in a pawn shop; A Russian wife who didn’t have enough money to pay for his funeral; The memory of a man who never appreciated how rich he truly was.    

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