Natural Essays

Interview with a vampire (oh, no, sorry, it’s just Aaron Weisblatt)

By Richard Phelps
Posted 5/12/22

Author: “Aaron, when you were a student at NYU Film School you made a short documentary about my father called “SAM” and it was nominated for an Academy Award. What year was …

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Natural Essays

Interview with a vampire (oh, no, sorry, it’s just Aaron Weisblatt)

Posted

Author: “Aaron, when you were a student at NYU Film School you made a short documentary about my father called “SAM” and it was nominated for an Academy Award. What year was that?”
Aaron: “1987.”
Author: “Have you ever recovered from your early success?”
Aaron: “Recovered?”
Author: “Mmmm.”

Aaron: “That’s a trick question.”
Author: “What kind of questions did you expect?”
Aaron: “I have never recovered from it.” (Smiles apprehensively.)
Author: “What remedial efforts have you made to recover?”
Aaron: “I have never stopped dreaming.”
Author: “Your most recent film “Land of Little Rivers” was the dream child of local renown, Bruce Concors. How would you describe that film.”
Aaron: “It’s a film about the passion and the history surrounding a sport born in the Catskill Mountains. The sport of American Fly Fishing.”
Author: “Did Bruce ever pay you?”
Aaron: “I was paid in ham sandwiches and Newcastle Brown, the favored drink of the legendary fly fisherman Dave Brandt.”
Author: “Is this movie available for viewing today?”
Aaron: “Yes, it is available on many of the streaming services, like Apple TV, Tubi, YouTube and Vudu.”
Author: “Vudu? Never heard of it. Lucrative?”
Aaron: “Yes, I get letters from fishermen who have watched it ten, eleven times.”
Author: “Why do they contact you.”
Aaron: “Just to say how much they love the film and the sport and seeing the legendary places we filmed.”
Author: “Recently you wrote a short story about how your father tried to kill you with lead poisoning by giving you a giant cable coated in a lead shield. He wanted you to smelt it down and pour the lead into ingots which you used to pay for college as a teenager. He took the copper; you got the lead. Is there anything else you can blame on your father?”
Aaron: “He tried to instill ethics and morality in me as he was a great reader of philosophy and this, to me, was reprehensible bullying.”
Author: “Why did you do a film on my dad?”
Aaron: “One evening while tipping a pint with Richard Phelps at Louis’s Shady Lawn, I mentioned I had to do a class assignment but didn’t know what film I wanted to make, and Richard said, why don’t you make a film about Pop, and I thought about it for five seconds and decided that was a great idea.”
Author: “What do you remember most about my father?”
Aaron: “I was always amazed at how your father did so many successful things: farming, raising livestock, wood craftsmanship, writing a weekly nature column, and taking time to look out for his community.”
Author: “What makes you think he was successful?”
Aaron: “Because I made a film about him, and he became an overnight Hollywood star.”
Author: “What would you say was my father’s worst quality?”
Aaron: “Sam was at times stubborn and lacked patience especially with lazy writers like his son who would spend Sundays reading the New York Times laying on a couch, dreaming of his next trip around the world, when Sam thought he should be out plowing a field.”
Author: “Well you make a solid point, but he was very forgiving. What is your next adventure?”
Aaron: “Most of my projects might not happen, like so many already have not happened, but I have a lot of footage of Levon Helm in the can and might do a concert documentary on Levon’s final year of life behind the drum kit.”
Author: “Wow, how did that happen?”
Aaron: “I was hired by Levon’s manager to come in and film five magical nights at Levon’s Midnight Ramble and one of them was his last performance.”
Author: “Good luck with that. What else?”
Aaron: “I wrote a romantic comedy, “Lucky Charm,” set in the Hudson Valley, that I am anxious to find financing for. It’s a very funny film. All I need are five people with $200,000.00 each and we can make this happen.”
Author: “Sorry, I’m not one of them, but I will gladly purchase a ticket. What brings you to town? I know you moved to LA.”
Aaron: “Selling our house in Woodstock, visiting family, and going to my mother’s grave because she passed during Covid and I was unable to visit her.”
Author: “‘Our house?’ that’s right, you are married now after all those one nighters. How is that going?”
Aaron: “I couldn’t be more happy!”
Author: “On that note we are bumping up against my deadline. Thank you Aaron.”