Carlos Santana
All That I Am

I have the scene clear in my mind... don't think I don't, everyone has it clear in their mind because sooner or later everyone, men and women, of any age or social background, experiences the primordial, extraordinary experience of creation in their life! I was saying I have the scene clear, it couldn't be otherwise! Carlos, with a longing gaze, arrives in the toilet of his shack (a little villa worth about 5 million dollars), drops his (Armani) trousers and places his flabby, wrinkled, and saggy ass on the toilet seat. Carlos, at this point, starts to push, first gently then increasingly harder, gritting his gorgeous teeth sculpted by some Dutch artisan, contorting in spasm, contracting his limbs, and clenching his fists, until a splash in the water and a sigh of relief mark the end of hostility. Carlos is visibly satisfied, he smiles like a fool, but he has every reason to, because once again Carlos has been the protagonist of the extraordinary process of creation, the birth that has brought forth the most colossal mountain of foul-smelling and steaming dung ever produced by the human mind and rectum, namely his latest effort, titled "All That I Am"... almost prophetic! You might say: "Well, what the h*ll does Carlos have to laugh about?!" I answer: "Has anyone ever paid you tons of money to produce tons of sh*t?!".

Silence takes over us... Carlos is the classic example of a music wh*re, a top-class hooker, even though in a miniskirt I believe he'd make you barf. After having been an author of important records and personal and inspired songs, Carlos embarks on the so-called downward spiral and so not even stray dogs give him any attention anymore, and rightfully so since our guy enjoys repeating the same tired guitar riff an indefinite number of times. So Carlos disappears for a while, until some pimp from Mtv decides that it's time for Latin music to come back in style, and they put a seemingly endless line of hookers in heavy rotation, Ricky Martin in front with everyone else behind! What does Carlos do? Obviously, he jumps on the bandwagon, but accompanied, lest the strays keep ignoring him... the rest is history, three carbon-copy records that reek of latrine, sell like hotcakes, stimulate like Gutalax!!! Carlos is a spiritual man. Carlos likes spirituality. Carlos loves titling his masterpieces with spiritually strong titles, "Supernatural", "Shaman", and the latest "All that I am". Carlos smiles, gives interviews (live worldwide on Mtv of course...), talks about his unfortunate childhood, spirituality, and gets emotional (it's the check?!... Behind those designer glasses you can spot two deep eyes marked by life’s events, but today Carlos is a happy person, he has achieved his own balance (income/expense = $)... Carlos is happy, he smiles, rather he laughs heartily, a constant unchangeable facial paralysis! The record. It’s not worth a word, maybe one, and it begins with an S!

Ok, let's give it a try: take the usual smelly mix of pop music and Latin rhythms and sounds (but not too much, just enough so even a halfwit would recognize them), add the usual "masterful" guitar interventions by Carletto (the usual scales, the usual bends, the usual tremolo picking or trill effect, just to make it look like he knows how to play fast, he always finds some fool who falls for it), season it all with a bunch of trained monkeys, namely first-class musicians, including that old relic Steven Tyler (he has false teeth, did you know?!), Big Boi from OutKast (the new Hendrix with straight hair), Sean Paul (who you can never understand what the hell he’s singing!!!!) and last but not least Kirk Hammett (he doesn’t have false teeth but Alzheimer’s, otherwise it’s unjustifiable)... There are many more guests, including the brilliant Bo Bice, the legendary Mtv American Idol star, practically the USA version of our Lollipop, and will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas (notice the brilliance of the name... a phenomenon).

If you stick pens up your ass you don’t become a chicken, a guy once said, if you stick a guitar up your ass you don’t become a musician, I say... at most a businessman, like the good old smiling Carlos! Do like him, and you’ll have a million good reasons to give yourself facial paralysis! :D