Sugarman

I don't believe it.

And even a cursory read of Wikipedia tells you it's not true. Hell, this is a guy who toured Australia with Midnight Oil!

Did you watch the "60 Minutes" piece? I'm loath to write this because Rodriguez appears to be such a humble, good-hearted soul. But the bastards promoting this movie are not. Hell, they even duped CBS news.

I haven't seen the movie. I will. But from square one it smelled bad. You mean a guy was hit in South Africa and didn't know it and labored in obscurity for decades, until some filmmaker in Sweden found out about it and made a movie?

Let's start there. With the filmmaker. He was looking for a story. That's what studios do. They swoop down and buy the rights to books, to real-life events, all in the pursuit of cash. That's why this guy made the movie, for his own personal glory. It's not like this story was near and dear to his heart, he just needed a story!

And then he gets it into Sundance, who knows what shenanigans he effected to pull this off, and the company that bought the film has been spinning tales for months, trying to get you to go to the theatre so they can get rich. They don't care about Rodriguez, they just care about your cash.

And you love a feel good story. So you spread the word. You're doing their work for them. To the point where even weasels like me are afraid to rain on your parade, because of the tsunami of b.s. that's gonna come down on me as soon as I hit send.

This is old school marketing at its worst. This is why both the right wing and left wing can get away with excoriating mainstream media. "60 Minutes"... Did you just surrender to the hype? Did you do no personal investigation? Did you not want to ruin the arc of the story?

This is no different from Jonah Lehrer. The truth is messy, it's hard to compartmentalize, it twists and turns and almost never results in a perfect story. If "60 Minutes" said Rodriguez toured Australia with Midnight Oil, that his records were rereleased by Sony long before this movie came out, the story wouldn't work. But what's even worse is these facts are hiding in plain sight and "60 Minutes" didn't even do the research. It's kind of like my old friend Tony Wilson, who screwed up the football scores in his first TV news gig. His boss almost fired him, not because anybody cared about the results of this minor game, but if the station couldn't get it right on this trivial matter, viewers wouldn't trust them on the big issues.

Kind of like the "New York Times." When Judith Miller supported invasion of Iraq because she liked the access to the Republican brass. They snowed her, she got it wrong, and now even liberals take the "Times" with a grain of salt.

Then again, there are numerous news outlets who refuse to fall on their sword, who won't admit they're wrong, like the "Times" did in that case.

In the Internet era, you can't mess with the facts. Lehrer's book was in release for months before he got busted, not by a major news outlet, but an essentially unknown Dylan fanatic. The truth always outs. And self-satisfied old wave news outlets decrease in revenue and power when they refuse to search for truth and just publicize press releases.

I love it that this guy made so much of the movie on his iPhone, but that's probably a lie too...

I love that Rodriguez is getting recognition.

But I hate being manipulated.

Call it fiction. Write a story from scratch. But when you do a documentary, when you do TV news, you've got to present all the facts.

Or else you just become a laughingstock.

Like "60 Minutes."

P.S. Hell, he was sampled by Nas back in 2001. "Sugar Man" was featured in the film "Candy," released in 2006, starring Heath Ledger. This guy wasn't hiding, he was in plain sight!

Rodriguez Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodriguez_(musician)

Rodriguez discography: http://sugarman.org/rodalbums.html


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