Actor Comedian Bob Golub created the documentary Dodo, about his father Donald and family that feels at times like a true life Scorcese movie. All the people in the film seem ripped from the cutting room floor of Raging Bull or Goodfellas, with all the pathos, angst and drama. But it’s not fiction. It’s a collection of edited home movies and interviews with Golub’s kin. The result is an interesting and often moving trip through memory lane.
The rough and tumble Golub family grew up poor in the small town of Sharon, Pennsylvania. Donald was a self-employed working man. The economy in the town was bad enough. Donald, aka “Dodo,” drummed up business by schmoozing in bars when he wasn’t getting hammered or beating on other people who got on his nerves. Dodo was a local legend in his time. His impact on his kids was immense.
Born into a working class Polish-American family, Donald was an athletic kid who had to go to work fast. The options in Sharon were limited. He decided to go into roofing instead of a factory job. Those were dying off even back then. But being a roofer in the North East is a tough job, especially in the winter. Donald was up to the task, but there were a lot of downtimes and he spent them at the bar “trying to get work.”
Dodo was a dispenser of tough love. Free with the belt, his kids may have been scared of him, but none of them seem to hate him. They understood the rules. They learned how to work with them. They understood the realities of their existence. This wasn’t a navel-gazing family. They were looking to survive and tough it out. They had the bond of their culture and their favorite sports teams. Even when they were fighting they clearly seemed to love each other.
Bob Golub plays his father in some bits to give a sense of what he was like. Donald is long gone, with only the occasional video clip to remind us what he looked like. Kind of a cross between Bing Crosby and Rudy Giuliani. You can see him in all his kid’s faces and the son’s hairlines. The Golubs are a large family and they had their share of dramas and misfortunes over the years. Bob went to jail in his misspent youth selling drugs. He cleaned up his act and went on the road as a comic. Now a middle-aged father himself, Bob reflects back on his developing years and the adventures that followed. The sense that their parents are still with them in spirit.
Bob takes that understanding and sees how it has impacted his own parental skills. The film is interspersed with interviews with his siblings and clips from his comedy act and one man shows. It’s a tour down one man’s memory lane that will ring true to anyone who experienced those times or know what being from a blue collar family is like.
Dodo will be released on DVD on April 20th. It’s written by Bob Golub and comedian Evan Sayet.