Today, a popular video of Zhengzhou's 96-year-old grandma insisting on cooking steamed buns on the street is popular in the circle of friends. It comes from a Douyin blogger. The grandma is extremely positive and has no complaints about her hard-working life in her 90s. In the end, the People's Daily also forwarded. After reading it, I downloaded Douyin, found the original author, and roughly understood the area where my grandma set up a stall. I must arrange a time to go to Zhengzhou to buy her buns. Compared with the vertical height that can be achieved, the charm of another dimension of life comes from the toughness and width displayed by the elderly. To a certain extent, it is far from the instrumental success of today’s people, but it is closer to human nature. itself. Thinking of the documentary "Finding Sugar Man" I watched some time ago, the most recent music list after watching it has always been Sixto Rodriguez's album fifty years ago. This is a story that is still magical today, and may be difficult to replicate with the development of the Internet. After the musician Rodriguez released two albums in the 1970s, he was terminated by the record company due to poor sales. He has since disappeared. But the amazing thing is that in the faraway South Africa, he became a household name singer in 25 years based on some coincidental music transmission channels, but everyone does not know the information of this singer, and there are even rumors that he was in a concert. Suicide on stage. So someone set up an organization to find Rodriguez, and finally in 1997, he was found still alive, on the other half of the world, in Detroit, USA. The story starts here and progresses into a deeper realm.
In the quiet village, a window opened, and Rodriguez looked out the window with his sunglasses. Reporters sat down and interviewed him and asked him what he was doing after he left the recording industry. He said doing manual labor, demolishing houses, repairing houses, etc., and jokingly said that this work keeps blood circulation and is good for health. The reporter asked again, do you know that you are more popular than Elvis Presley in South Africa, that your records have sold millions of copies, and he said he doesn't know at all. When asked about his memory of poor sales after the release of the record in 1970, he calmly said that it was the record industry, and you can hardly guarantee anything. At this time, he should be 56 years old. Several adult daughters said in interviews,
Dad never said that he was disappointed, he will continue to survive, because people can't simply give up. He read a lot, joined community service, participated in protests and demonstrations, and he always supported doing things for the people, those whose voices may have been buried, or who had no chance to speak up. He's just doing normal carpentry work, but really cleans the whole house. He would do things no one else would do, and would come home full of dust and sawdust after a long day at work. "But I know he works harder than a lot of dads I know." The family lives in a city where you don't want too many unrealistic dreams, but his daughter recalls that he often took them to places only the upper echelons could go, and he seemed to be telling them that no matter how many bank accounts they had Money, his daughter can go anywhere. "Dad exposed us to a lot of art, he would take us to libraries, museums, tech centers, and that became our daycare, we walked through the museum halls, it was Picasso, Delacroix, we started Recognize life outside the city." And his co-workers said that his way of doing things is different from most people, and his attitude is very, very serious, like accepting the sacraments, and the dirty work has to be done 8-10 in a row. hours, but he can come in a tuxedo. Even if the dream of music is gone, the spirit is still there. He just needs to continue to find his own place and re-refine the process of realizing his self-worth. He knows that life is more than that.
After finding Rodriguez, South African fans strongly invited him to have a look. After being repeatedly invited, the family boarded a plane to South Africa. At this time, all the fans who had already bought tickets still couldn't believe that Rodriguez would really appeared, and there were even rumors that it was the biggest PR scam. In March 1998, Rodriguez stepped onto the stage, and the crowd in the stadium boiled. They called his name and screamed for about ten minutes. Everyone felt that they had witnessed history. Rodriguez opened his mouth and said, thank you for keeping me alive.
"I was so confused for him, on the contrary, he had a calm face. Like he finally got to that place, the place he's been looking for all his life, home is, do you identify with it. This man, who lives on earth On the other side, it's a completely different place, but it's like, he found a home here." That trip to South Africa, 6 shows with 5,000 people, all sold out. Rodriguez returned to the stage after more than 20 years of manual labor. Facing the shouts and spotlights of the crowd, he was calm and calm. Years of physical labor kept him in good shape. A superstar away from the stage.
Here, the story is reversed again. After the show, he returned to Detroit, and he didn't live the life of a superstar as we imagined. He continued to help others clean lawns and do manual labor. His co-workers didn't even believe it was him in the news. He has returned to South Africa to perform performances one after another, and his income is basically distributed to his family. He still lives in the old house where he has lived for 40 years.
At the end of the film, his co-worker said, "What he told us is that you can make your own choices. He took all the torment and pain, all the troubles and doubts, and turned that pain into something beautiful. He was like It is a silkworm, with these raw materials, processing and changing them, and then getting things that were not there before, those beautiful, transcendent, eternal things, he did these things, representing a kind of human spirit, telling you what is possible Sex. You can make your own choices."
Today's video makes me want to take the time to record the roar of Rodriguez. It comes from the echo of the big ship of humanity hitting the vast ocean in the dark night. No matter how deep the night and the wind, it is worth standing on the deck to enjoy it alone. .
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