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Searching For Sugar Man

BudLiteGood morning, y’all. Another beautiful day in the mountains. The temperature is just right, and the recent rains cleared out enough pollen to make it tolerable. I was able to get my mulch spread and the weed and feed spread. It was a good workout without leaving me completely depleted. As long as the temperatures stay below 85, I’m good. Throw a gentle wind in and I’m even better.

So it was a good day to head back to the Walmart to do our part in keeping the economy going. I’m sure there’s not been anything more instrumental in getting the DOW above 18,000 than Mulva’s frequent trips to Walmart. If you think about the number of businesses and industries represented in a Walmart, there is sufficient opportunity for Mulva to effect the bottom line of thousands of companies. Maybe I’m just making one of those self centered observations that I am prone to do, one that places me as the hero of the story, when I’m really only a bystander. Regardless, I’m convinced Mulva is single handedly keeping our Walmart open.

I did my trips around the giant superstore while Mulva did hers. We always meet back at checkout counter number two. Number two, like our residence at TackyToo, is sometimes the only number I can remember. It’s a system that has worked flawlessly for years. If it works, don’t fix it, I always say.

Anyway, I picked up an unusual find in the $2.99 movie bin today. It was the documentary “Searching For Sugar Man” released in 2012. I had seen part of a “Sixty Minutes” piece on the topic some time back. I saw just enough of the “Sixty Minutes” piece to make me real curious. We were headed out to prayer meeting, and I didn’t get to see how the story resolved. Now for just $2.99, I’d get the complete down low on what I thought was a fascinating narrative. Most times, truth is stranger than fiction, and I’d say this Sugar Man story was one of those times. I couldn’t wait for 9PM to come so that I could close the Rec room and Mulva and I could begin our Date night.

Now, straight up, let me say this is not the Jennifer Aniston, Hugh Grant type of movie that Mulva prefers for our Date night. I can occasionally slip in an action movie if the stars are attractive. “Zero Dark Thirty” would be a good example. Academy Award winners will generally get a pass, just in the interest of staying current. I pointed out that “Searching For Sugar Man”  had won the Academy Award for best documentary, so we owed it to ourselves culturally to give it a watch. After all, Mulva loved “March Of The Penguins”, so a documentary was not that far fetched. Even if it was about somebody we’d never heard about.

Not having heard of Sugar Man, or Sixto Rodriguez, is kind of the point. The story starts in South Africa where a rumor has circulated that the most popular artist in South African history has  committed suicide. We are talking Elvis popular. We’re talking Beatles popular. The kind of popularity where ever kid knows every word to every song on the album. Rodriquez was the “bomb” in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately, he was not as successful in the U.S. As a result of low record sales in the U.S., Rodriquez retired from the music industry and became a construction worker. He was completely unaware that he was crushing it in parts of the United Kingdom. Rodriquezs ignorance of his popularity was aided by the fact that his record producers were not paying him the royalties they owed him.

Without success in America, Rodriquez had no reason to suspect that he was ridiculously popular somewhere else. His fans in South Africa and Australia assumed he was dead since there were no tours or other news. The rumor of his suicide brought about the search for what really happened to Sixto Rodriguez. As the documentarians discovered more and more about the curious case of Rodriguez, it became more important to tell the story to a wider audience, and the movie was made.

As a result of the movie, Rodriquez has done some tours, and is releasing a new album. It was a great movie to give you a warm and fuzzy about life. Rodriquez took lemons and made lemonade, and you can’t ask a fellow for more than that. The fact that his lemonade stand only became famous later in life is a little ironic. Rodriquez was successful as a man, and a father in spite of the twists of fate. Give a listen:

 

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