Month: April 2013

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Movie review: Searching for Sugarman

I don’t normally do movie reviews, but I rely very heavily on reader comments on Amazon and Netflix before I watch a movie, so why not spread the word about movies I like as well?  This past weekend, while trying to find a movie to enjoy after a long day of work, I stumbled upon a movie called Searching for Sugarman.  I kept clicking past it, not thinking it looked like anything good. Who cares about where Sugarman is — whoever he is?  But then I noticed that the movie had a nearly perfect rating out of several hundred reviews.  So, I took another look.

It turns out that Sugarman is the nickname of a 1970s singer-songwriter named Rodriguez.  Never gaining popularity in the United States, his recording career fizzled out after a couple of years, even though his hippie-era music and lyrics fit right in with the Bob Dylan-type music that was so popular at the time.  Because Rodriguez was a little late to the scene is the reason that his music never took off; after all, the US had been getting a steady dose of anti-establishment hippie music for a few years and perhaps there wasn’t room for yet another peace-loving guitar strummer.

However, I think that any good singer-songwriter will find a niche eventually; it just depends on what part of the world really needs that music at that time.  Turns out that Rodriguez’s music struck a chord with apartheid-riddled South Africa.

The problem was that Rodriguez never knew that his music had sold half a million copies there.  When his career failed to take off and his label eventually dropped him, Sixto Rodriguez faded out of the tiny spotlight he was in and settled into regular life in Michigan, eventually working in the demolition business.

Fast forward twenty years … a journalist became curious about where Rodriguez had ended up after his brief career.  Part of the reason why no one had searched fro him is because the rumor mill had a fantastic story about the night that Rodriguez supposedly killed himself — in front of an audience.  For years it was passed around as true, and no one thought that the rumor may just be a bunch of crap.

So, as all good “driven journalist” stories, this one didn’t give up.  He kept digging until eventually his story about his search reached Rodriguez’s daughter, who promptly contacted the journalist, eventually leading to a phone call from the man himself.

I couldn’t help but smile as the journalist recounted the night he received a phone call from this artist.  In fact, the movie sets up the viewer to believe that the rumored on-stage suicide was really what happened to Rodriguez, and as the mystique of this man grows, so does our own curiosity.  Imagine finding out that Elvis was still alive and that he decided to give you, his biggest fan, a call to say hey.  That’s how it felt to this journalist, and his excitement comes across to the viewer at full blast.

rodriguezFinally about halfway through the documentary, we meet Rodriguez.  We first see him in dark profile, then in an interview setting.  Despite being out of the public eye for decades, the man has the “rocker” look down pat, but he comes across as extremely shy as he hides behind his dark glasses.   The documentary takes us on a journey to South Africa as he plays his first concert in over 20 years to a packed arena.  The aging songwriter, clad in black, looks every part the Johnny Cash of folk singers as he owns the stage as if he hadn’t been working a blue collar job in his “other” life.

Movie reviewer Marshall Fine (from the website Hollywood & Fine) nicely summed up the overall parallel of Rodriguez to his sudden thrust into fame that he sought 30 years before:

“And that’s the beauty of this film: that it captures the resurrection of a dream. There is something so even-tempered, almost Zen, about Rodriguez that this sudden revival of a dream deferred, while obviously gratifying and fulfilling for him as an artist, doesn’t change him as a man.”

I always enjoy documentaries that tell stories I have never heard, and this movie entertained me from beginning to end.  It’s always refreshing to hear the stories of humble people who do things not for fame and fortune but simply because they enjoy doing something.  It’s refreshing to know that for every computer-aided Barbie or Ken doll out there who is groomed to be a face rather than a true singing talent, there’s someone like Sixto Rodriguez who cancels them out, so to speak.

That’s right, Justin Bieber … I’m talkin’ to you.

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The spirit of neighborliness is still alive and well

I’ve written before about how it’s very easy to get up in nostalgia, forgetting the negative points of life at that time.  I think there are times when our eyes are opened to this; I know some of my friends and family experienced this first-hand in the past week after they were hit with a massive ice storm in South Dakota and many were without power for a couple of days at the least.  Some are still without power.  Some people, like my mom, enjoyed having to hunker down in the candlelight, layer on the clothing, and cook on the woodburning stove.  Others cursed as each hour of darkness went by.  However, I still saw Facebook posts about how neighbors would drop by with chainsaws (to move the huge branches that had fallen from the heavy ice coating) and car chargers for phones so that even without power, people could stay in touch with friends and family.

As I was reflecting on the thought of whether the desire to help others is a thing of the past, I ran across this letter to the “Neighbor Lady” in her 1942 cookbook (the first edition):

Hi there neighbors all.
After listening to this helpful program day after day reminds me of the close neighborly spirit of long, long ago when people, especially farmers, did and could rely on their neighbors in time of need.  Yes, in those days, even without telephones, somehow when help was needed, help came, voluntarily and generously.  This old world certainly has changed, but the people, contrary to popular belief, have that same helpful feeling toward each other now that our parents and grandparents shared between them so long ago.  Some 25 years ago I had a recipe for raisin cake that was made with one cup of bread sponge.  I have lost the recipe years ago and I wonder if one of the neighbors could help me with it.  I’d be so thankful.
Mrs. Elise Hecht
Dunnell, Minnesota

 

On another page, this letter appeared:

Dear neighbor lady:
This morning as I was doing my Saturday’s mopping I was listening to the radio and happened to have it turned os that I got your program.  I have heard several ladies talk about your program and what help they get from listening to you but I never had listened until this morning.  I think it is very nice to be able to help one another in this way.  I noticed one lady asked for a cake recipe which called for one cup of bread sponge and I happen to have a recipe which my mother used every time she baked bread years ago.  I hope it’s like she wants.  My sister … Mrs. Robert Huber … is a great neighbor lady fan and has had her name mentioned several times … she even won a dollar!
Mrs. Elvin Jacobsen
Woonsocket, South Dakota

 

Today, this spirit of neighborliness still exists online; one only has to peruse through blogs to see how people still take the time to trade recipes, ideas, hints, and advice.  What strikes me now is the time it took “back then” to be neighborly, and sometimes I think we measure our desire to be helpfulness in how many clicks of the mouse it would take in order to be helpful.  Mrs. Jacobsen, in response to Mrs. Hecht, would undoubtedly have to hand-write the recipe, place a stamp, and mail the letter.  She did it for one reason: she had a recipe that someone else wanted.  She received no monetary gain — just the notoriety that came with being published in the Neighbor Lady cookbook.

The ice storm in South Dakota — while incredibly destructive — has brought back that neighborly spirit in many cases.  I saw several posts about how meals were brought over, or home opened to friends, or yards cleaned up.  Starbucks tried to do their part by handing out free coffee to police and firefighters — which, although generous, left out two other obvious categories: paramedics and power linemen.  But what impressed me most of all were the random acts of kindness that no one had to do — they just simply did them because people knew that they were all in the same boat (or, in this case, all on the same ice-skating rink!).

It’s easy to claim that neighborliness has died simply because we get so comfortable in our everyday lives that we don’t take the time to do things that don’t directly benefit us.  The spirit is there, just as it was in 1942.  Whether it’s passing along recipes for raising cake or wielding a chain saw to clear out fallen branches, the desire to help others is alive and well; unfortunately, it takes a tragic event for that spirit to emerge.

 

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