OOH …Here’s One Thing

No One to Depend On

by Jim Johnsen,
Managing Director,  Johnsen, Fretty & Company

Taking a flight back from Phoenix (WM Phoenix Open is a bucket list item btw) and for some g*$d@M! reason the Super Bowl won’t play.  Urgh.   So what is a man left to do?  The next best thing- boot up a movie. 

In this case, it happens to be “Carlos”.  All I can say is, run, don’t walk.  I always liked Santana (newsflash…who doesn’t), saw them once live in San Sebastian (story for another day), and always knew Carlos was pretty deep…but OMG the lessons for business and life in this hour-and-a-half documentary make Tony Robbins look like Baba Looey.  

Here are my feeble cliff notes of some of his epic quotes:

“Do you believe in magic? Not props and illusions…magic is when you command the elements…to capture people’s hearts…magic is not tricks…but the flow of grace.”

“[Real music is] The music that makes you celebrate…and when you celebrate, the fear has to go away and ALL you have left is a delight”

“You can shake the world’s foundations…I’ve seen…Stevie Ray and Jimi Hendrix, Coltrane and Bob Marley, real musicians, they call it a force of nature…they create a different kind of transformation of molecular structure through sound resonance and vibration. 

“My father said to mi hijo…mira…and…and then he took the violin…started conversing with the birds…and then said see that, if you can speak to the birds… you can speak to the hearts of people.”  

“When I heard that sound (of an electric guitar hooked to the amp) for the first time that’s when I knew that’s all I was going to be for the rest of my life”

“This guy Javier Barros…I followed him like a puppy for 2 or 3 years…he had records…BB King, Ray Charles, And Little Richard and he was a composite of all 3…that was my first hero”

Paraphrase…”Dad, I’m out…no more mariachi for me…I’m not a [Mexican] victim and I’m not going to play that shit.”

“I go all the way from Tijuana to San Diego to a music store to smell the guitars, and as I am standing in front of the window eyeing them, I hear three sailors yell “Hey, hey you f-ing Pancho Villa, chilly-beanie MF”…it was the first time I felt the sting of racism and ignorance.”  

“Last day of high school…my friends – “Hey Carlos what are you going to do”…my reply – “I’m going to go on stage and play with BB King and Eric Clapton…and man they started laughing.”  

“Filmore (west) was my first alma mater…it was like my university…learning different subjects”

“I didn’t want to abandon my mom and dad…because I knew they needed me financially…but I said to myself they need to find another way…and I committed…you have to be a full-time musician… to do that you have to abandon the home…without their permission”

[To be successful in life] “Something has to stimulate your imagination, your determination and your conviction.”

“After sneaking into Bill Graham’s office, and giving him an impromptu riff, He asks if I have a band.  I say yes.  He asks. What’s its name?  I say it doesn’t have one.  He says, well you better get one because you will be opening for The Who, Steve Miller and Howlin Wolf.” 

Bill Graham said to me [paraphrase]…if BB King and Tito Puente had a baby, it would be you.

“I know my mom was suffering because she didn’t know where I was or who I was with or what I was doing…but I had to…I had to give birth to Santana and do my own thing and just out in the streets and go get it, you know.” 

Interviewer – Carlos In 1969 you blew an audition for Atlantic Records on purpose because you wanted to work with Columbia, is that true?  “That’s absolutely true”.  “Weren’t you nervous about blowing the audition?”  “No see like Nirvana or Metallica, when you have confidence in what you are doing…they will come to you”

“God, I know you are here, please keep me in time and in tune”  [Woodstock 1969…after Jerry Garcia slips him some hallucinogens and he thinks he has plenty of time to let them wear off but then gets called on to stage early]

“Jimi Hendrix died, Jim Morrison died, Janis Joplin is dying, all kinds of musicians are dying, and for me, it was really two roads, one was heroin, and the other was spiritual meditation.”

“At this point most people they either tell me that I am crazy or that I am crazy.  [They would say] Oh you can’t do that because you are a Mexican, Mexicans don’t do that”…they told me that for such a long time and was like “well maybe I am a multi-dimensional Mexican…I should be able to surf the cosmos of imagination”

“I strip myself every morning when I wake up.  I take a shower and I see it going down the drain- Guilt, Shame, Judgement, Condemn, and Remorse, Accusation, you know, and all that shit goes down the drain,  and I say, ‘that’s not who I am.” 

“Reality is just a perception.  when you go outside of this planet you see eternity, you don’t see day and night because day and night are built around the Earth going around.  Once you go outside to a certain height level you say “What time is it?” You go “Now” Because it doesn’t matter anymore”  

“You have to have three things to be in my band: stamina, stability and a great disposition.  If you don’t have those you can’t hang out…because the road is mean.”

“…a lot of families get destroyed…I mean adulation…Grammys and platinum and Wimbledon and the Super Bowl, man, the next day it’s over…the only thing that lasts is the real values that you teach your family”

“I am not what I do.  This is what I do, but this is not who I am.  Being married and being a husband and being a father, there’s no school to teach you that…your children become your teachers.”

“My father says when you play ‘Batuka’ and ‘No One to Depend On’…that’s the one that la calle (the street) knows you.  And somehow I didn’t even know my Dad was listening to my music.  I thought it was like he listened to his music and I listened to my music, but that night I realized that Dad was also checking us out.”

Long short, if you love Santana, and going deep in life, there is so much more to this documentary.  I recommend checking it out on Prime.  

https://youtu.be/JlWx1LthL3M?si=lxOT379dKUL03Tvh

p.s. Dying to get off this plane to find out what the final score was.  Congrats to somebody.  

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Securities transacted through StillPoint Capital Member firm FINRA/SiPC