Ray Sweeney sold Studebakers and he was born into it: Studebakers were the stuff oflife for William J. Sweeney and Sons. Ray's own son Skip makes video art: poeticlicense is his birthright, and My Father Sold Studebakers in part explores why."What I want to know," Skip Sweeney asks in this funny and painfulsearch for a father now gone, "is, am I the only one who thought he was anasshole?" Not exactly...the truth comes out in candid interviews with Skip'smany and varied siblings, and with Mom. But it seems that no one suffered thechill like little "Skipper," the nudnik of the family who only grewmore alien when, as Uncle Bill "Who wants to think at my age?" Sweeney(a born philosopher) puts it, "he went into puberty...and into a hirsutearea." Skip, of course, grew up to be a Bay Area video pioneer in theseventies; lately he has become a chronicler of the magnetic forcefield betweenparents and children to rival Douglas Sirk, turning the archival materialfaithfully saved by his mother to his own uses. A self portrait/family portrait,an exploration of how an artist sprouts from weird normality: with My Father SoldStudebakers, "Skipper" finally gets a word in edgewise.