But First, Coffee.

Meeting the Sugar Man

A journey through jazz, zombies (well, one zombie), almost Starbucks, with Dad, to Rodriguez

RODRIGUEZ AND I EMBRACE - photo by my dad, edited by me

A few months ago I posted a summary and response to the independent film, "Searching for Sugar Man," which tells the unbelievable true story of the humble yet legendary musician, Sixto Rodriguez. I had viewed the film’s SXSW Festival premier by pure chance this past spring with a friend, and have ever since adored the talents of this beloved human being, Rodriguez. Today a free poster from the event is proudly tacked on my bedroom wall.  Just a few inches from the computer’s glowing white Apple icon, a Rodriguez sticker is pasted onto my MacBook Pro. “Coming From Reality,” Rodriguez’s second album, sits at the top of my small CD collection. 

I remember peeking out from behind a pillar of a hotel in downtown Austin, Texas with my friend Kim the day after we saw the film back in March. There he was, to our surprise, in all his glory; Rodriguez, in the flesh, about to step into a car. He had attended and spoken at the premiere of "Sugar Man" the night before. Now he was here before us, a wondrous surprise dropped right in the middle of our stroll through the city.

  

 

                 RODRIGUEZ (THIRD FROM LEFT) SPEAKS AT SXSW                KIM (RIGHT) AND I (LEFT) AT 'SUGAR MAN' 

                       "SUGAR MAN"  PREMIERE - photo by me                                         PREMIERE - photo by Kim's mom

 He was surrounded by about five or so people, all chatting casually with him – probably part of his publicity team, manager, crew; whatever you call those who have the privilege of working with touring musicians, but of course could never love and appreciate them as much as I do...

Kim and I implored each other in what was basically an exchange of, ‘You go ask him! No, you go ask him.’ He was busy, though, of course. We didn’t want to bother him with requests for autographs and pictures. He was talking. He was about to step into a car…

How I never forgave myself for my chicken-hearted, yellow-belliedness that day. I had the chance to meet Rodriguez – Rodriguez! – and I never walked the 20 small strides that separated us.

So, when I was scrolling through Facebook months later and saw a promotion for a Rodriguez appearance and autograph signing at Waterloo Records & Video in Austin, I’m sure I forgot about whatever funny cat picture I had been looking at, and I frantically shared the post with one of my best friends, who I knew would understand my excitement. Rodriguez was close by, and easily accessible.

The event was scheduled for Oct. 21, the upcoming Sunday; about five-ish days after I first saw the announcement from Facebook. This close date was disheartening to learn, for I, a university student, had made the oh-so wise decision to put off a massive amount of studying for that weekend; at least a couple hundred pages of textbook reading, most of it concerning jazz music history (which, had the study load consisted of less content, really wouldn’t have been a bad thing, but when you have to read about 150 pages on a subject, you come out so dazed from exhaustion that you can barely tell a piano from a trombone, let alone Lester Young from Roy Eldridge), the rest of it about libel and media law, which of course makes for light and quick reading. Top it all off with the ball and chain of suffering from medicine-worthy attention and focus problems (which makes dense reading take exponentially longer than it should), and I wasn’t going to be traveling anywhere beyond my bedroom desk that weekend, let alone to Austin to see Rodriguez.

But then something God-sent happened. On what I believe was the night after I learned of Rodriguez coming to town, I had a dream.

I’m very proud of my dreams, because they’re usually full of detail, meaning, and make about as much sense as the scene of the cartoon film “Yellow Submarine” where the Beatles enter the Sea of Monsters.

SCENE 'THE SEA OF MONSTERS' FROM "YELLOW SUBMARINE" - image obtained from 

                                           yellowsubmarine.wikia.com

In this dream, my grandpa owned a dark, spooky, Persian-carpeted mansion with a wide, winding staircase. I went to stay for a visit in this house, and as I was unpacking after my arrival, my grandpa told me,

“I just want you to know that Rodriguez is coming by at 4 a.m. He’s having car trouble and I’m going to fix it. Be nice.”

 In reality my grandpa is not a car mechanic; lives in a middle-class suburb outside of Houston; and might not, unless he’s been watching the show “60 Minutes,” even know who Rodriguez is. My grandpa is also a nice, non-Dracula type guy, and would never own such a creepy old place. This misrepresentation of character didn’t stop from me anxiously awaiting Rodriguez’s arrival at the spooky mansion; nor did any of the illogic that ran rampant in that dream.

The house was so dark and gloomy, and not completely un-reminiscent of my elementary school cafeteria with the lights turned off. When Rodriguez arrived, however, he had an angelic glow about him. He was an exact copy of his image on the cover of his album “Coming From Reality;” well-combed, shoulder-length black hair, a crisp white shirt, and of course, dark glasses. And young.

ALBUM COVER OF "COMING FROM REALITY" - image obtained from

                                                          tyme-machine.blogspot.com

In my dream Rodriguez’s presence elicited such an atmosphere of comfort. He was warm, kind, quiet. His broken-down car was parked against the side of a small hill that bordered my grandpa’s yard. When Rodriguez stood near his car, I noticed that the hill became speckled with a multitude of tiny white flowers.

Not long after awakening from that peaceful dream, I made the decision: I was going to go to Austin. I was going to see Rodriguez. I was going to hug him, take a picture with him, and get an autograph. The man is 70 years old. I was not going to miss this opportunity to see and meet him.

This was going to mean work. This was going to mean labor. This was going to mean the sacrifice of what should have been a restful three-day weekend for me.

I was cut off from all of the world but for my roommates and the clientele of the store I work for. When I wasn’t at work or performing functions necessary for survival, I ate, slept, breathed, bled, sweated, and sneezed the swing jazz era and New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. I was a drill sergeant to my conscious; threatening, bribing, and smack-talking my brain to attention. Two blue Post-It® notes read, ‘Remember Rodriguez!’ - one on my computer screen and another on the fridge door. I refused to let myself miss the opportunity of a lifetime because I’d gotten distracted thinking about what outfit I wore last Wednesday or playing with a bowl of popcorn kernels, as is the plight of so many others with focus problems.

I counted; over the span of two days I had read for a cumulative 15+ hours. I was spent physically, mentally and emotionally. But, by gosh, on Sunday, I was going to see Rodriguez.

I go to school in my hometown, so my family’s house is only a quick, 15-minute drive from my apartment near campus. Sunday, Oct. 21, I stopped by to collect my friend I was attending the show with: my dad. I might not dedicate more than a few sentences to an uneventful car trip on a ride to see Rodriguez, of all people, if that car trip hadn’t have been with my dad. But those rides are often half the good stuff of any trip with him.

I have a very blessed relationship with my parents. Both of them are, each in their unique way, two of my best friends. My dad is the single person in the world I can relate to the most in terms of interests. I could spend a whole day with him - and I have many times – just talking, and we’d never run out of things to talk about. We’re both so alike in many ways, and care about a lot of the same things. Music, film, art, history, humor – we like a lot of things pretty much the same. We’re both writers. My dad has been a journalist since he was out of college, and, well; guess what subject I happen to be majoring in?

At least two times a year, if not more, Dad takes a day off of work that I don’t have class or work as well, and we have a ‘Father-Daughter Day.’ We’ll pick a city or town of interest anywhere within about a three-hour drive of where we live, and go exploring together. We’ve been to Austin before, visiting Waterloo Records & Video, Whole Foods Market, Book People, etc. We’ve gone to Fort Worth, Texas, and spent nearly the entire day checking out all the art museums we could get to. We once went to the tiny town of Brenham, Texas, where we visited antique shops, and Dad took us to a small monastery of nuns that raise miniature horses for visitors to pet. In Fredericksburg, Texas we dined on German food, poked around downtown, and went hunting for an old graveyard of late German immigrants that I knew existed out there because I’d once taken a high school field trip and seen it. Dad and I spent half an hour at least at that graveyard, Dad taking pictures of headstones he found interesting, while I searched for a grave a girl in my class had claimed to have found that said the occupant had died at about age 120 (which I never did uncover). When my family went on a cabin trip to Navasota, Texas, Dad and I just had to break away from the group to visit the Navasota Blues Alley museum and store downtown. Even though this trip now to Austin would be short and not as quantitatively full of adventures, it was nonetheless special.

                               ME AT A FREDERICKSBURG, TEXAS GRAVEYARD ON A 'FATHER-DAUGHTER DAY'

                                          - photo by my dad

It can be hard to link what exactly influenced what in our lives. I have an emotional connection to a lot of the music I love that is unique to me and not really influenced solely by one individual, movie, story or experience. Though I can’t remember every single way my dad influenced my interests directly, or fathom all the ways he did it indirectly, the ways he and I are similar are uncanny. At least, to me they are. As far back as my memory stretches, I have been extremely proud that he is my dad. Anything he’s introduced to me; from Laurel & Hardy, to the Beatles, to the university I attend; I recall taking interest in, sometimes to a vast extent (with the exception of that one time in sixth grade he tried to convince me to join marching band. Nice try, Dad. Ain’t happenin’!).

Though I always thought it was cool that Dad and Mom, as well, had been journalists, I didn’t have any desire whatsoever to be one (my only idea of journalism for a long time being that of a person standing in the gusting wind with a microphone stuck to their face, telling you how bad the traffic is on I-35, and that wasn’t really my what floated my boat) until influenced by my college experience, but Dad and I have always shared a love of writing and telling stories. And I have to believe that at least some of the reason why I love music like Rodriguez’s, as well as a lot of the music, movies, etc., that I do, is because of my dad’s influence. I was raised surrounded by walls and walls and stacks of my dad’s book and record collections, empty wall space in our family game/computer room plastered with old movie posters, empty shelf space decked with treasures ranging from a Roger Rabbit doll to figurines of 30 or so of the U.S. presidents.

 

 A WALL IN OUR GAME ROOM, WITH PART OF MY DAD'S LIBRARY AND

 COLLECTIBLES - photo by me

Even though I didn’t start doing things like collecting my own vinyl records until this past year because of the influence of one of my professors, I’m thrilled by how closely Dad and I ‘happen’ to relate; that we both love similar types of music; that we’ve spent evenings watching Hayao Miyazaki films and laughed over absolute gazillions of Monty Python episodes together; that he introduced me to the Beatles when I was about five, and in seventh grade I did a project on why I thought that I thought John Lennon should run for president of the United States (yeah, um, well… the cartoon version might be okay…); that Dad used to write Mad Libs for my friends and me when they came to visit, and could tell inhumanly wondrous stories, while I would also spin adventurous tales to my friends to entertain them when sleeping over at their houses; that Dad’s worked for the university I now attend since before I was born, and as a small child I would proudly, and still do today, tell people – that’s where I’m going to school! 

DAD READING TO ME WHEN I WAS A KID - photographer unknown (probably Mom)

DAD AND I SHARED A LAUGH - photographer unknown (also probably Mom)

Not once did he sit me down and say, “I want you to be like I am. I want you to be a journalist.” My sister and I have been left primarily to our own devices. I can't recall him ever saying, “This kind of music is best,” or, “Look how unique and well-scripted this movie is compared to all that crappy stuff your friends are watching.” Dad was just always himself. He showed me stuff, I liked it. 

Making my way back from the rabbit trail, the car ride to see Rodriguez that day was, as those kind of rides always are, a significant part of the day’s adventure. Dad and I talked about life; mostly my life, because I was so stressed with it at the time that I had to pour out my soul about all my homework and study troubles. We talked about journalism, my dad telling me not to be too mad at those reporters who ask musicians they interview surface-level questions, as I was explaining that I was seeing my favorite musicians being asked lame things like, “So, how’s the tour going?” Being the infallible, seasoned expert I obviously am in music writing as a college student, I told him that if I ever got the chance to sit down and interview Rodriguez, I’d ask him the really good stuff. 

Had I ever heard the true story, my dad asked me, about Abraham Lincoln and the man who asked him about long legs? Dad proceeded to tell me that once a guy had asked President Lincoln how long a man’s legs should be. Lincoln had responded, “long enough to reach the ground!”

Dad said that he had an idea for a short story; it would be about a reporter at a press conference who had the chance to ask one question of President Lincoln, and asked him, “How long should a man’s legs be?”

“Wouldn’t that guy’s editor just kill him?” my dad remarked, laughing. He said he had a lot of ideas in his head for stories like that, but he often didn’t get to writing them down.

We saw this pickup truck drive by, and I was startled to see a person, not only in the bed of the truck (which isn’t that uncommon in Texas); but facing backwards with legs dangling out over the edge, flapping furiously in the wind. Once we got closer, though, we saw that this ‘person’ turned out to be plastic, and had lived at least once before. He probably didn’t mind putting his undead life at risk if it meant he could have the ride of a lifetime.

    A PASSING ZOMBIE - video by me

At some point in the trip, we reached a Starbucks, and Dad offered me to buy me another coffee (I’d already been nursing a bottled Frappuccino from the convenience store). I gladly accepted - until I saw that it was a drive-through-only Starbucks - like Sonic, but with better coffee. I absolutely refused to order anything.

It has long been a strict policy of mine (as long as Starbucks has existed within my own personal experience), not to use the drive-through at Starbucks. And that’s any Starbucks, anywhere. I have this strong attachment to Starbucks as being a place where you go to sit and chat with a friend over a cup of Joe, as the theme of this blog suggests; not as a fast food restaurant. Despite the fact that I’ve considered buying stock in SBUX, and buy Starbucks drinks when I intend to rush off all the time, there’s still some part of me kidding itself that by refusing to use the drive-through window, I’m performing some act of loyalty to the aspect of Starbucks that is a warm-hearted little sit-down watering hole of the community. Dad didn’t understand why I couldn’t at least get out of the car and physically walk up to the pedestrian side of the drive-through, especially since there were places to sit that made the place like a sit-down Starbucks, but I wouldn’t budge. I told him I’d rather have no coffee than go against my coffee principles.

Dad and I arrived at Waterloo an hour early and did some browsing to kill time, but as it has been my experience most times I’ve been in Waterloo, there’s never enough time to look at everything you want to. Despite the five-album limit at the LP listening stations, I usually take up to ten records from the consignment section of the store and test out the music to see if there’s something worth buying. Maybe there’s value to some people in buying music with eyes closed, but I like to know what I’m getting before I spend money on it.

I was already in a bad mood when Dad told me we needed to get an early spot around the stage. I’d received an email on my phone in which I was being chewed out by someone, and I couldn’t get their words out of my mind. Dad and I took our places standing in an already growing crowd of people around Waterloo’s tiny stage, which was wedged between the two cash register stations. I had to abandon all the records I’d planned to try out in exchange for a good spot. I was having trouble displacing a cloud of stress from my mind. As much as I love other human beings, I do not like being squished into a casserole of chatty bodies for any significant period of time, and the place was getting very crowded. The Ebenezer Scrooge section of my mind was seething at the people around me, though I tried my darnedest to force myself to be positive. All I couldn’t help but see, though, was a mass of Austin-ites who, I’d assumed, had probably only just heard of Rodriguez and needed something to do to fill the time in their weekend; not anyone who cared so much about Rodriguez that they’d given up their entire weekend and taken a two-hour car trip to come see him. My dreams of seeing Rodriguez hadn’t involved other people. So much of me did not want to share him. I buried my head in Dad’s shoulder as we waited for the show to start.

Waterloo was packed. I can only hope the sales of Rodriguez’s music countered the inability of anybody to access some parts of the store that were crowded with his audience. This made me nervous, because too many people meant limited access to Rodriguez.

At one point in time, a short, middle-aged woman standing close to me turned and asked me about switching places with her, in order to give us both the optimum view of Rodriguez once he came out. This started a conversation between a few ladies standing nearby and me. I was actually put much at ease when we all began discussing Rodriguez and “Searching for Sugar Man;” especially when the women took an interest in how I came to know about his music.

Rodriguez was introduced to us by an older guy who worked for Waterloo. I pointed out to my dad that the guy was holding a “Cold Fact” album that appeared to have a lot of wear and tear. When the man came to the microphone to speak, we found out that he was holding an original “Cold Fact” album from the 70s, back before the music had ever been a blip on the radar! He said he’d once been a radio DJ and actually played Rodriguez’s music on the air here in the United States; a very rare thing! 

The store was filled with elation when Rodriguez ascended the little stage. Rodriguez has changed a bit physically since his recording days, though not enough for it to matter. He still dresses the same, cuts his hair the same, and I can’t imagine him having acted too differently than he does now. He did have to be led by a friendly elbow up the steps to his spot on stage, which was semi-ready for him with the guitar. He was creaky and wobbly in the legs. He was happy, but very placid. He was, at least in my non-musician eyes, meticulous about tuning his guitar.

I was waiting for him to give some sort of introductory speech; speak valuable words that I could treasure as having heard said in person, but he had nothing to say to us other than a friendly ‘hello.’ Perhaps the only reason for this was that he was tired or in a rush, but I couldn’t help but see a simple humility about him that made him seem nothing more than a man setting out to do his daily bread-winning. If I were to go simply on spoken words I’ve heard from Rodriguez in person, I wouldn’t have thought him to be much of a deep, complex spirit. But all you have to do is listen to the words of his music.

                                                           RODRIGUEZ SINGS AT WATERLOO- photo by me

His voice had aged, but was no less spectacular than it had been when he was young. He started off by singing “Inner City Blues,” to which I knew all the words. I sang very softly along as I held up my camera. When he performed “Crucify Your Mind,” I was pleased to revisit a feeling I had once felt the first time I’d ever heard Rodriguez. I’d listened to “Inner City Blues” - which I had bought as a one-track purchase on iTunes - many times in my room at home, walking around campus and in the car, and the song had memories from those times imprinted on it for me. I don’t yet own a copy of the full album “Cold Fact,” which is the album containing “Crucify Your Mind,” so I hadn’t listened to that song very much. Its foreignness had preserved that virgin feeling of chilling wonder I’d had when I first saw “Searching for Sugar Man” with Kim.

Rodriguez continued to fiddle with his guitar in between songs, trying to make sure that it was in tune. He would fill long moments of non-music with simple words, saying that he liked Austin (a statement to which the audience about lost its mind in excitement) and that he was going to vote for Obama (which elicited more excitement, as well as pleas for Rodriguez to run for office). Dad and I later that evening would chuckle that we, being probably the only two Republicans in that store, should have shouted, ‘ROMNEY!’

Rodriguez’s statement about his political views came as no surprise to me whatsoever, though it did make me question my own personality of almost unyielding idealism. I often wonder how I can be a fan of people like Rodriguez while still being a conservative person. My favorite Rodriguez song, “Cause,” contains what I consider to be one of the most insulting curse words in the English language, to which I always adjust the volume knob to mute. I like to think that there are still things that I can love about his music without having to agree with him on everything. Maybe I’m just fooling myself, and there will be a rude awakening to reality one day – a reality that permits me nothing but Beethoven’s symphonies and Stephen Curtis Chapman songs, but after being raised with a strong Baptist youth pastor who follows the Beatles like a second religion and attends Police and U2 concerts, something tells me I’m doing things alright.

When Rodriguez slowly exited the stage, a man stepped up to the microphone to let us all know how to line up for autographs and pictures. Preference, he said, would be given to those with posters and albums to sign. I had not purchased anything that day, but held in my hand a “Coming from Reality” CD booklet that I had brought from home – one from a CD I had bought right there from Waterloo earlier in the year. That counted, didn’t it?

The line wrapped quickly around the store, in between shelves of CDs and memorabilia. Dad and I got our spot around what I think was the ‘C’ section of CDs. We stood there for a long time, but I didn’t care. A single-file line was much more comfortable than a crowd, and Dad and I had things in front of us to pick up and look at. We looked at the CDs, telling each other about bands we had heard of or whose music we owned. Dad was getting tired of standing after awhile, though, and the line was not moving.

This Rodriguez performance was not actually a concert; it was a free appearance given to precede a real concert Rodriguez was having later that night at a totally different place. Rodriguez was going to have to leave Waterloo sometime to get ready. 

After what felt like perhaps a half hour, the line started to really pick up the pace. Dad said the people managing the autographs must have finally gotten wise and seen that people needed to be mercifully hurried through so that everyone could get a chance to meet Rodriguez. We were finally so close to Rodriguez that I could see him, standing behind a table with some assistants against a wall of movies.

A man acted as buffer between the line and the table, letting about three people at a time advance. He told us that we were allowed to take candid shots of meeting Rodriguez, but could not pose with him, for time’s sake. This was a little disappointing. Yeah, he would probably take a picture with you if you asked him for one, the man said, because Rodriguez was such a nice guy. But really we needed to move quickly.

I stood right behind the person in front of me as she talked to Rodriguez and gave him something to autograph. She hugged him and he hugged her back, which excited me. He then bent over whatever she was having him sign, and went slowly at it with a permanent marker. He wore a tireless smile, but his eyes were hidden by his dark glasses, and his words were mumbled so quietly. She told him how much she loved his music, and he thanked her. Suddenly one of his assistants leaned over and muttered in his ear.

He had to get out of here, she said. They were going to be late for sound check for the concert.

No, no, Rodriguez insisted. He could get to everybody in line.

Then it was my turn. He was exactly the same in person as I’d dreamed he would be, though not as young, and not glowing. He gave me a warm hug when I, arms extended, went to meet him. I still remember feeling his long hair against my cheek. His jacket was scratchy, like tweed, although he wore all black. I behaved no better than the journalist in my dad’s story idea, because I had nothing better to say to the great Rodriguez than ‘I love your music,’ and ‘I’m so glad that I got to come here.’ He smiled and thanked me quietly. My dad, all the while, was taking pictures like a Pap with a deadline. CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK! As Rodriguez autographed my CD booklet, he asked his assistant something along the lines of,

“Can we stop with the cameras, maybe?”

 “Oh,” I interjected. “That would be my dad.”

 “Oh. Well, okay,” Rodriguez said, grinning. “Then that’s alright.”

                                          RODRIGUEZ AND I MEET AT THE AUTOGRAPH SIGNING - photos by my dad

What I liked about the autograph was the peace symbol Rodriguez drew under his name. To me it meant that he wanted to say something to me; that I was important enough to him that he cared for me to receive his message. It wasn’t just, ‘here’s what you came for.’ It was, ‘here’s what I want you to know.’

                                                       RODRIGUEZ'S AUTOGRAPH ON MY CD BOOKLET - photo by me

Dad bought me a Waterloo t-shirt and then it was time to go home.  The moment we got in the car to leave, my heart started sinking. This happy blip in time was coming to a close. We stopped off at FREEBIRDS World Burrito to eat dinner on our way out of town, and the caffeine from the bottled Starbucks drink my dad bought me from a convenience store did cheer me up a bit.

We were driving home at dusk. We talked about Rodriguez’s music, though it’s hard to remember what exactly was said. Dad, who still hasn’t seen “Searching for Sugar Man,” said he was taking a liking to Rodriguez’s music, now that he had really heard it.

For some reason I remember Dad telling me about the old days of colored vinyl, and I complained that Hastings was really the only place in our town that you could buy music, and he remembered how annoying it once was to not be able to listen to music before you bought it. Then one way or another Dad got me talking about Radiohead, which is quite an experience. I was gushing and trying to find words to express myself. I whipped out my iPhone and played some of my favorite Radiohead songs for him, though they were hard to hear over the rushing sound of the open road.

I admitted to Dad that I have sometimes felt conflicted about whether it's okay to listen to Radiohead. So much of their music has a depressing, painful, even hopeless tone to it. What if someone who was depressed listened to Radiohead and felt worse afterwards? Was I, by listening to them, supporting... suicide music?

No, Dad said. He didn’t think so; as long as the songs weren’t encouraging the listener to commit suicide. Sometimes people need to express those feelings of sadness and hopelessness, Dad said. I agreed. I sure remember listening to Radiohead during my period of depression brought on by my battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and Radiohead never did anything but good for me.

I was shocked as we drove along when I saw something that l thought might be a small plane crashing in the distance. Dad was excited, though.

Wow! “A shooting star,” he said.

I hadn’t seen one since I was a little kid. Dad said he remembered that there was supposed to be a meteor shower that night. I didn’t know what this sighting meant, but I knew that it somehow would be perfect to mention in the retelling of how I met Sixto Rodriguez.

                                                        "I THINK OF YOU" by Rodriguez

                                          DAD AND I AT WATERLOO RECORDS & VIDEO, WAITING FOR RODRIGUEZ TO 

                                          PERFORM - photo by me