China Entertainment 1997

USA, San Francisco Stadium

"Jerry, here."

Tom greeted him and saw Jerry with dreadlocks rushing over excitedly and hugging him.

"Good brother, you remember me."

"Haha, why do I think you are getting stronger again?"

The lively exchanges between the two brothers, who had not seen each other for more than a year, made them not feel alienated or strange at all, but full of joy of reunion.

These two good friends since childhood inevitably took different paths after graduating from high school.

Tom's life is not smooth. His grades are mediocre and he went to an ordinary university with his father's money. He did not find a good job after graduation. He is currently working as a warehouse clerk in a Wal-Mart supermarket.

Two years ago was his happiest time. He successfully pursued the goddess Tusi whom he had a crush on in high school.

Although this goddess is no longer as beautiful as she was in high school, has a bad reputation, and has a son whose biological father is unknown, but under the filter of first love, Tom still chooses to marry her.

Then Tom's already troubled life took a turn for the worse.

Although Tusi is beautiful, has a strong and cunning personality, and although she is married, she does not think highly of Tom, who is a licker, and lives a wasteful life. She has no income, but spends money lavishly. Tom is worried about the monthly bills.

In this way, Tom himself admitted it, only complaining that he was incompetent, but he gritted his teeth and held on to marry someone else.

As a result, he got a cuckold. Last year, he fell in love with a rich second generation named Butch and kicked him out.

This incident had a huge impact on Tom. He had only just recovered from it in the past two months. Coupled with the originally unsatisfactory work and life pressure, this cheerful boy who was originally interested in learning Chinese swords became increasingly silent and withdrawn. .

Only meeting a good friend like Jerry like today can put a cheerful smile on his face that has been rare in the past two years.

Compared to Tom, Jerry, who was thin and skinny when he was a student and always followed Tom as a follower, lived a much more relaxed life.

Jerry had better grades than Tom and went to a good university. Because he had some black blood, he made friends with a strong black classmate.

And this strong man had great sports talent. He later started boxing and became famous. In the past two years, he has become a popular boxing star in the United States.

The African-American community has always had a habit. If someone becomes successful, they are often surrounded by a group of black playmates or relatives.

It is most common for black rap stars and sports stars to get rich from the bottom. After they become famous and rich, they often have to support many black people, even hundreds in some cases. For this reason, there are many examples of black football stars and singers being dragged down alive.

The reason why they are willing to raise them has a lot to do with the habits of black people.

Out of contempt for black Americans, the environment for survival and advancement is extremely harsh. Therefore, black people tend to stick together.

If a black man has talent in sports or rap, he will be protected as a treasure by the black relatives and friends around him. When various conflicts occur, he will be the black man's biggest supporter. Similarly, after he rises, he will naturally Pay back to these people.

Moreover, this group of black people grew up together. They are used to having a group of relatives and friends together, and they can serve as his helpers, bodyguards and even emotional dependence.

If they are asked to give up raising children, it is equivalent to breaking up with their relatives and friends. Not only will they be stigmatized as ungrateful, but they will also lose family and friendship, and their lives will become lonely and boring. This is difficult to achieve.

I met this guy during the festival and he was in a relatively good situation. He came from a middle-class family and was not very dependent on this aspect. However, he still had a few good friends and he trusted black people more.

Jerry has the ability. He is no longer an ordinary helper and playmate, but has become the agent of this rising star in the boxing world.

He has his current status, his achievements are his own, and Jerry is behind a lot of his fame and influence.

Now that this new star has become popular, appearance fees and commercial value are increasing day by day, and Jerry has also made a lot of money.

He drives a Porsche and his personality has become romantic. He changes his girlfriend every now and then. Recently, he even plans to buy a house in Los Angeles.

When Tom compared with him, the miserable 7 points turned into 12 points.

It's rare for two friends who are in such a big situation to have no negative thoughts about each other. The relationship they have had since childhood is the first priority.

At most, Tom feels a little inferior in front of Jerry and talks a little less. Jerry also knows Tom's situation and is more considerate in his words and deeds.

At first, the two of them were vaguely dominated by Tom, who chatted endlessly every day. Now, it is Jerry who speaks out and makes decisions.

Things in the world are impermanent, and the world is a grind!

"Let's go have a drink."

Jerry took Tom to a bar to drink, and talked about the embarrassing story of how they tried to buy alcohol secretly when they were underage. Tom, who was taciturn and introverted, smiled and talked more.

"Do you still remember the brandy that my dad collected when we secretly drank it? We still mutter a few words now. It was a good wine he bought when he traveled to France in 1999 and spent nearly a thousand dollars."

"Haha, I remember that bottle of wine was your father's treasure. He was so angry that he took out his shotgun and almost broke us both. Later, you hid in my house for more than a week before you dared to go back."

When old friends meet again, they don’t talk about the present or the future. They only talk about the wonderful anecdotes from the past. The more they talk, the happier they become.

When Tom came out in a daze after drinking, Jerry took him to the disco. When he regained consciousness a little, he took him to a hotel room, stuffed a beautiful woman into his arms, and took one back to his room.

The next day, it was sunny and sunny.

Tom opened the door, and a refreshed Jerry came in with breakfast. He looked at the chaotic room with a smile on his face that all men knew.

"The battle is fierce."

Five years ago, Tom would have started bragging about how brave he was last night, but now he just smiled sheepishly and wolfed down the sandwich.

I was really tired last night...

Jerry enthusiastically checked the traces of last night and even went to the bathroom to have a look. After his curiosity was satisfied, he took out two tickets.

"Hey, let's go together tonight."

Tom picked it up and looked at it, and almost choked himself: "How did you get the tickets for Cao's San Francisco concert?"

As one of the important cities in the United States, Cao Xuan's concerts must be in San Francisco, and there were two concerts, both with 30,000 people.

The number is not small, but it cannot handle the large number of people. San Francisco has a population of nearly one million. If you include nearby radiated cities, there are at least three to four million people.

More importantly, San Francisco is the main gathering place for Chinese in the United States. The number of Chinese here is second only to New York. In the urban area alone, it is estimated that there are almost 200,000 people.

The Chinese are the largest fan group in North Korea. If not all of them, they must account for at least 20~40%.

60,000 tickets can be easily bought by these Chinese fans alone. Tickets for the San Francisco concert went crazy.

Tom has always been a fan of Cao Xuan. Even in the most difficult moments, he will support Cao Xuan's official album and movie release.

Or rather, during this dark period of his life, Cao Xuan's works were one of the few spiritual comforts he had.

As Cao Xuan's farewell concert, Tom naturally wanted to attend, but it was impossible to get tickets and the scalper price was too expensive.

Tom's income is not high. He also owed some foreign debts because of Tusi. He can still afford the normal album prices and movie tickets.

But the kind of scalper tickets that have doubled several times or even dozens of times is a slightly luxurious existence for him at this time.

Unexpectedly, Jerry, who was working in Los Angeles, returned to his hometown and got the tickets.

"...You didn't come back specifically for me, right?"

Tom was very moved, and Jerry grinned: "It's not as good as you think."

Jerry is not as obsessed with Cao Xuan as Tom, but he is still a loyal fan of Cao Xuan. Since he has money and leisure, he plans to attend more concerts, and naturally he cannot miss it in his hometown of San Francisco.

Of course, having said that, Jerry took Tom with him, and they were indeed good brothers.

You know, the tickets for Cao Xuan's concert are quite valuable, especially in San Francisco, which is short of tickets. It's easy and pleasant to take the tickets, go to the bar, hook up with a girl, and go directly to the hotel after the concert. One ticket can be used for multiple purposes.

In this situation, still thinking about Tom, Jerry felt that he was extremely loyal.

Tom also understood this and wanted to hug him and kiss him a few times. Jerry quickly dodged him with a look of disgust on his face. Who knows what he did with his mouth last night.

After finishing their meal, it was still early, so the two simply returned to Tom's house.

After the divorce, I rented a small apartment near my work. The decoration was very simple. The most impressive thing was the Hawkeye poster of "The Avengers" hanging in the living room.

The poster is very large, about 180×200, almost as big as a bed sheet. In the poster, Hawkeye is wearing a black suit, with a solemn expression, holding an ancient sword, and mysterious Qi floating around his body.

This is the official poster of "Avengers 2" not long ago, which can also be regarded as half a still.

In the plot, Black Widow was once captured by the villain Ultron in order to rescue the Hulk, and Hawkeye went to rescue her. At the critical moment of being trapped in a tight siege, she broke through, overdrafted, and unleashed a series of big moves, killing half of an army of robots by herself. Successfully rescued people.

"Avengers 2" is more of a group battle, unity and cooperation, with limited clips focusing on a single character. This is regarded as Hawkeye's personal highlight in the movie.

Tom likes both Marvel and Cao Xuan, and the combination of the two is his favorite.

This was an offline promotional poster jointly produced by the film crew and Wal-Mart. Later, when the film promotion task was over, he found someone to take this poster as his own and put it up when he returned home.

Otherwise, normally such a large poster would have to be customized, and Tom, who was in financial distress, would not be willing to spend this money.

In addition to posters, another impressive thing about Tom’s home is that there are a lot of Cao Xuan CDs.

He doesn't have a computer at home, and he doesn't like to use it to read, so he simply buys CDs, which he can collect and watch to relieve his boredom after work.

This is also very common in the United States. Even as the Internet becomes more and more developed, there will always be soil for the videotape industry.

These CDs include Cao Xuan's albums and his film and television works, not only Hollywood works, but also domestic ones.

He even watched "Water Margin", but it was fine before, but now because of Tusi, he particularly hates the character of Ximen Qing and has long since shelved it.

His favorite domestic works by Cao Xuan are "Xiu Chun Dao" and "Swordsman". He used to like the martial arts and the oriental style in them.

Now that I have watched it more and slowly understood the plot, I understand and feel the helplessness and frustration of the two characters Linghu Chong and Shen Lian better, which is in line with his state of mind, and I like these two works more and more.

Jerry has actually watched these two films. They liked Cao Xuan earlier and had an impression of these early works.

However, he personally prefers Cao Xuan's action movies, which are violent and refreshing, such as "Operation Hurricane". Although he is not incomprehensible to domestic martial arts movies, he is not very interested.

Tom liked all these movies, but he was more or less fond of them, so he just went with the flow. The two brothers ordered something at home and watched movies for a day.

It wasn't until it was almost time in the evening that I took a taxi and rushed to the concert venue.

It happened that the driver was also half a fan of Cao Xuan, and the two brothers kept hearing the driver complain about the San Francisco football team.

San Francisco Argonauts or 49ers. Originally, Cao Xuan planned to rent their home stadium, but because they had a home game that coincided with Cao Xuan's concert, Cao Xuan chose a venue with fewer people.

This is what it should be, but when you encounter fans who can't buy tickets, you will inevitably feel resentful.

San Francisco Reeves Stadium, home of the San Francisco 49ers, has a capacity of nearly 70,000 people. Even if it is not full, it can nearly double the number of people attending Cao Xuan's concert.

Now, if you want to see a concert but can't get tickets, you can only go to other cities, and the cost has soared.

"Los Angeles is not easy to grab. There are a total of 140,000 tickets for the three concerts. It is said that they were all sold out in less than 10 hours. The scalpers are going crazy. I heard that they even contacted the gang."

Jerry works in Los Angeles, so he must know something about it, and he is eager to help the driver with advice.

"Tickets in Seattle haven't started selling yet. If you don't want to go too far, this is one of the few opportunities. Otherwise, you have to find scalpers."

The driver really started to inquire. He liked listening to music and didn't mind going to Cao Xuan's concert, but he had a high school daughter who was celebrating her birthday soon. If he could get a ticket, it would be a good birthday present.

Of course, this premise is that the ticket price is normal or not too outrageous. If the scalper sells it too expensive, it is better to exchange it for a gift.

"There seems to be only one show in Seattle. I heard it was 40,000 or 50,000 people. There should be ticket information online. You can check it later."

The driver wrote it down, and then sighed: "Cao is really popular. Concert tickets are so hard to get. In my mind, it was Michael Jackson last time."

"We're fine here."

Jerry talked about the news online: "There are at least more than 20 concerts in China, covering most major cities in the United States. If you are lucky or grit your teeth, there is always a chance.

Canada is pitiful. I heard that there are only three concerts in one country, which is not as good as Los Angeles. Many Canadians are planning to come to the United States to grab tickets. "

"These disgusting Canadian bitches."

The driver immediately started to curse. If these people came to the United States to grab tickets, they would have fewer chances to get tickets. Who would he be scolding if he didn't scold them?

Jerry also joined in the scolding, but Tom listened quietly and said nothing. When he heard the sensation and heated discussion caused by Cao Xuan's concert in the United States, his face showed the unique and proud pride of a die-hard fan.