It appears the phrase “footloose and fancy-free” was created to describe the life of career homeless adventurer Poppa Neutrino. Random Lunacy: Videos from the Road Less Traveled is a feature-length documentary masterfully crafted and directed by Victor Zimet and Stephanie Silber out of years of home video recordings taken by this wandering minstrel and his family. That’s it embedded above. Watch it.

Poppa Neutrino is one of the most intriguing and fascinating characters ever caught on film — or, video, as it were. So, it’s fantastic that so many of his and his family’s adventures were well documented by themselves because you wouldn’t believe what they did if you didn’t see it firsthand yourself. Run a Mexican circus? Yep, they did it. Build a homemade boat and sail across the Atlantic ocean? Yep, they did it. Is that insane or inspired? You decide!

In addition to the home video footage, Zimet and Silber have also recorded modern-day interviews with Neutrino, his wife Betsy and their now grown children that you see as very young in the videos. While it’s interesting to listen to Neutrino’s philosophies of living on the open road and sea, it’s the interviews with the children are the most enlightening, because you see them in the videos and you have to wonder, “What the hell’s going to happen to those kids when they grow up?” Well, Zimet and Silber provide the answers.

Random Lunacy was reviewed on the Underground Film Journal several years ago and it was such a fun, engaging documentary that it’s really stuck with me since. So, after a highly successful film festival tour, I’m thrilled that it’s now available to loved and appreciated by an even wider audience online.

Random Lunacy photo gallery: