Santana imagines his way to happiness

The happiness movement in America has forged many wellness paths — yoga, meditation, mindfulness and breathing exercises — which have been clinically shown to improve people's lives.

But some Americans have been riding the happiness train ever since the 1960s, the open-your-mind gateway decade.

Las Vegas' most celebrated member of this be-here-now wave is Carlos Santana, who moved to Las Vegas several years ago (and he performs at the House of Blues on Saturday, Sunday and Feb. 3-6.)

How's life been going for the enlightened one lately?

"Better than ever," Santana, 68, told me at his music studio. "It's really wonderful to arrive at a place where you can really savor, enjoy and be conscious. Being conscious is a whole other kind of energy. It makes you feel lighter, brighter and stronger in belief that we are all productive beings living in universal abundance."

Santana speaks in these loving tributes every time I talk to him, so I asked him who gave him this attitute. Was it Ram Dass, Eckhart Tolle, psychedelics, books, therapy or other sources?

"All of the above," Santana said.

Largely, he credits imagination for uplifting his life and career.

He said imagination has long fueled world changers from Beethoven to Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Paul Allen, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

"'Imagination is more important than knowledge,' to quote Albert Einstein," Santana said.

"So if you see your kid in school, and he's tripping, and he's looking at the ceiling, and he's not listening to what you're saying, why don't you ask him, 'Where are you? Can we go there with you? Take us with you,'" Santana advised. "You'd be surprised at what he might say."

As it happens, Santana was just such a child who used his imagination to envision the future he created for himself.

"I remember looking up at the ceiling, and beyond the ceiling, and my mom would say, 'Where are you? What are you doing?' And I'm like, 'I'm watching me with B.B. King,' or 'me with Eric Clapton,'" he recalls.

"I literally envisioned myself with Tito Puente (writer of 'Oye Como Va') before it happened. You have to see it. You see it and you can do it. For me, imagination is not a pipe dream, wishful thinking. To me, imagination is a very tangible world that I can access."

Santana's broader point is everyone creates his or her own future. Some are just more focused on making productive positivity out of their lives.

"You're the one projecting the film on the silver screen. If your life is filled with loneliness, and misery, and you're grumpy, change the damn picture!

"I've been saying this since I can remember: Some people aren't happy unless they're miserable. Somewhere between 5 and 12 years old, they made an arrangement to continue this vicious cycle of being a victim in your home, like our parents.

"We're all victims of victims of victims of victims," he said.

"I like breaking the cycle, and I'm going to make every day the best day of my life. And I'm going to show myself and everyone that I can break the cycle of being a victim, because you're only a victim in your head. Everybody else doesn't see you like that."

I said to Santana, some people probably think this is easy for him to say, since he made it and he's rich.

"I get that a lot. People who say that — they're shucking and jiving," he said. "I'm like, 'It's easy for me to say, because I don't have your brain. My insanity works. How does your sanity work if you're miserable?'

"If you want to have access to the same parameters of frequencies of abundance that I have, you have to be crazy to believe it can happen."

Why does he think he's crazy?

"Because I'm outside the norm," he said. "I want every day to be as triumphant as triumphant can be."

As we talked, we discussed ego and ambition, since it sounded to me like Santana was shooting down ego yet endorsing ambition. But he put me straight.

He's not ambitious or hewing to ego, he said. He's about aspiring from the soul.

"Aspiration and soul is very efficient and it always works," he said. "Ambition and ego — it always fails."

VEGAS MOVIE GETS DEAL

The only Las Vegas-based movie that went to the Sundance Film Festival this week, "Frank & Lola," on Friday was bought by Universal Pictures for worldwide distribution.

Producers will know in a few weeks when the film will be released.

The drama was produced by Vegas-based Lola Pictures, headed by founder Chris Ramirez, with help from UNLV film school alum Charles Cantrell.

"Frank & Lola" is a psychosexual noir set in Las Vegas, with some scenes filmed in Paris, directed by first-time feature filmmaker Matthew M. Ross, starring Imogen Poots, Michael Shannon, Justin Long, Michael Nyqvist, Emmanuelle Devos and Rosanna Arquette.

Deadline.com reports it created buzz at Sundance and landed a $2 million minimum guarantee.

GAMING THEATER

YouTube stars such as CaptainSparklez (9 million followers) will host Super League Gaming (video games) during side-by-side gaming in a movie theater, starting about 10 a.m. Saturday at Century 16 South Point. About 400 gamers are already signed up for this "Minecraft" spectacular. For info, check out SuperLeague.com.

Doug Elfman can be reached at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman. On Twitter: @VegasAnonymous