José Luis Rodríguez is back from everything. At 79, he found new meaning in his existence, not just because he returned from the dead on December 17, 2017, the day he received a double lung transplant-, but why he had to learn to breathe and sing again. Then on October 5th at the Gran Rex Theater there will be a party, because Puma will celebrate life and its over 60 years of career with “The Return of an Idol”.
Assuming his international star status, he descends into the lobby of a hotel in Pilar, where he has lived since becoming a member of the jury. sing with me now, The cycle of Marcelo Tinelli in El Trece. He looks impeccable: blue blazer, plaid shirt, matching scarf, jeans and sunglasses, crowned of course by his legendary well-groomed hair. He doesn’t distance himself, as a celebrity might assume.
-How do you say: Puma, José, José Luis …?
-Puma. Puma looks good on me.
-At your house or do your friends also call you that?
-Yes everyone. My wife (former Cuban model Carolina Pérez) also calls me Puma, but when she gets angry she calls me José Luis, José or Jóse …
-Your nickname is already part of your DNA.
-Yes, he never bothered me, huh? It is that in the story of Delia Fiallo’s soap opera (A girl named Miracles1974) on which my role was based my friend the cougarSandro’s song.
The dreams of an artist and his own pandemic
-Have you ever imagined being something other than an artist?
-No. I saw myself in front of the audienceI didn’t know whether to sing or speak because my mother’s influence was political, she was a fighter against Pérez Jiménez (Marcos, a Venezuelan dictator) and all those things. But in the end I realized it was going to be singing. When I saw the films of Elvis, Pedro Infante, Hugo Del Carril or Gardel, I said: “This is what I want to do, what I like”.
-You started serenading when you were in school and today you celebrate more than 60 years of career.
– More or less yes, because even though I was always there, I went out of circulation with this from the lungs for five years, but Do those five years count or not?
-Since September 2014, when you were diagnosed with pulmonary fibromatosis, you have experienced the same pandemic as you.
-Yes, completely isolated and I take care of myself, and it went well.
-Your latest album is called “Yo retoré” and the tour, “El reto de un idol”, are you back in every sense, even from death?
-You define it like this and it is like this. I felt I was leaving my body about three times. And that moment is hard … And the most difficult thing is the separation, because you cannot leave your wife, children, friends … So, where your heart is is your treasure. If you stay in that thought …
What is the first commandment? Love God above all with all your mind and all your heart, right? Above all he is above his wife, children, wealth … above everything!
For us Christians there is no loss, because if I am here I am with him, if I left I left with him. So what’s the loss? The body must still be delivered, because it has an expiration date. Nobody can get out of here alive!
-But it is one thing to say it and another to live it.
-This is the point that you have to repeat all the time in your mind, that you have to go and leave things. But in the middle you say: “I would like more time, give me more time please, please, I ask you with tears, with tears, whatever …”. There are things that I miss, that I have not finished, of course I do not tell you.
But yes I have changed a lot compared to people. I was more alone, more withdrawn and more isolated. Not now, when I see people who hesitate to ask me for a photo, I tell them: “Come, I want a photo with you”. I have already broken the pattern of the isolated artist that no one can approach, for me it never was, but now less.
A difficult process with health
-Since the disease was detected, you have gone from hoping for treatment that didn’t work to double lung transplantation and the operation that brings you back to life. I guess you have undergone some changes.
– Totally. You spend time alone, but without God and without Carolina and without the affection of my daughter Genesis and some other people, this is not possible. Doctors ask you, “Do you have a person who will be with you 24/7?” If you don’t have it, they don’t operate on you, because it is impossible for someone to do it alone and without love.
In my case I have my wife, who spent three months in intensive care sleeping with methat is, we are also companions of the disease.
-And how did you come back?
-With triumph over death. Coming back after almost dead and still in the body is a definitive victory, because it is life.
-The first major test was to re-record an album.
-Yup. She went like this …I had to start from scratch, learn to speak and sing. I was at Jackson Hospital in Miami with speech therapists and singing teachers. After the operation you cannot run, you cannot do many things, slowly you adapt to your new life.
Nobody knows what they have until they lose it, then you take everything for granted, the air we breathe, the sunlight, the food … Everything is as if everything belongs to you, but when you are missing you say: “I am blessed! I have health!”.
-How do you feel now?
-Well, I just have to take care of myself, I have permanent checks and I try to do exercises. There are three things one has to do, but they are not easy. Before the operation: eat, sleep and exercise. I couldn’t put on my shoes or get dressed, I didn’t have any strength. You get tired with two steps. I used twenty liters of oxygen to give my wife a bath and I didn’t move.
Those who wait for an organ know what this is, the suffering they have. Here because it is important that people donate organs, because one person who leaves the body can extend the life of ten other people.
The things you have learned now
What other things have you learned during this time?
-To say no. This is very important in life, because being a Christian person and being a singer it’s like I have an obligation to look good with everyone, not to hurt anyone and start saying yes to everything. Even if you don’t want to.
– Did it cause you a lot of trouble to say yes?
–looooots problems. When you start saying “no”, believe me, there are people who get angry. “Do you want to drink?” they ask you. And when you tell them: “No, I don’t want to”, they don’t understand, they force you to drink. Y I can’t drink liquor.
-This is one of the things you can no longer do.
– Yeah. I didn’t like liquor either. I’ve had two drunks in my life. Two. And I said, “This is not for me”. My father was a womanizer, a drunkard and a party animal. And my mother had twelve children in the house with a midwife, that is, she was a stallion, every year she got my mother pregnant. He died when I was six.
And the same thing happened to me with the cigarette. How do you learn with the cigarette? For Hollywood! Hollywood taught how to smoke, drink and kiss. Humphrey Bogart had like 30 or 40 cigarettes in one scene. It was the cigarette, it was the whiskey and it was the kiss. So all the guys have absorbed what Hollywood has sent and continues to send of course. I smoked, threw up and said, “This is not for me.”
-You like to look good, you are a person who takes great care of your hair.
-Yes, haha. Well, water and shampoo.
I’m saying you care …
-Of course! Go figure! The Puma without hair! Oh! God was kind to me, even allowing me to get back on tour. I have already sung in the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, I haven’t been to my country for twelve years.
-The Great Rex is waiting for you on October 5th, do you sing without oxygen?
– Yes, without oxygen. The stage is already the climax, it’s the best for me. The album is sensations, vibrations, emotions, tunings … but if he’s not alive, nothing happens. That’s all you’ve been waiting for: album, promotion and stage, if you don’t have this last part it won’t work.
That’s why I admire Raphael, that man doesn’t stop! It’s impressive, with a liver borrowed almost three hours ago on the showThis is worthy of admiration and respect. And I continue too, not so with Raphael’s speed … I go slower, haha.
Argentina and jury of Canta Conmigo Ahora
-How does Buenos Aires treat you?
– Look, me I am not Argentine by birth, but of heart. I have been coming here for 40 years, it is a beautiful country, a country for 200 million people, a country that has a lot of land and a lot of agriculture, a lot of fertile land and those who live there are prepared, trained, awake.
It is a country that has attracted my attention since I was little, when I watched black and white films. We all grew up under the influence of Argentine and Mexican cinema, then the North Americans came and destroyed everything, but that cinema was precious. Y I was in love with Mirtha (Legrand) and she knows itI’ve told him several times.
-I was wondering why you too came back as a judge for Canta Conmigo Ahora with Marcelo Tinelli.
-Yes, this format is very agile. I love! I enjoy what happens in the studio. There are a hundred people seated! Y there is a lot of camaraderie, because they are all professionals, beautiful people inside.
-How does it make you feel to have ninety-nine colleagues at your side who treat you like a legend?
-Maybe it’s because I’m the oldest of all (laughs). But there are people who have an impressive track record, with talent, and they notice that the rhythms are so different, there is folklore, opera, reggaeton, there is L-Gante who is a spectacular, transparent guy who says what he thinks without deviating. I love them, because they surprise me and I don’t want to lose the ability to wonder.
-Coinciso that while you debuted in Canta Conmigo Now, Ricardo Montaner was in La Voz in Argentina, do you compete?
-No! There is no way. Montaner is a boss, he and Marlene have formed a beautiful and close family. I love him very much, he has been very consistent with me. D.I made sure he was the first one to go to the clinic, with Marlene, on the fourth day after transplantation. And he even recommended me for this program. Ricardo told me: “Crazy, Marcelo is calling you, look, I told him your name”.
– Of your songs, which is your favorite?
-There are two. owner of nothing, because the lyrics don’t say much, but the title does. Owner of what? What do we really own? Y Hold your handswhy meit invites us to unite, to love, to fraternityto friendship.
-Does it define you?
-Yup! I couldn’t supplant that song for the closing of a show, Hold your hands it’s irreplaceable, because without it I’m not the Puma!
-Can you imagine singing to the end?
-God willing. If he’s not singing, he’ll be talking, clapping or whatever, but in show business.
-On January 14, you turn 80, do you already have a wish in mind?
– Now I have a double birth. On December 17th I will turn five and in January I will turn 80, but I want to continue for a while longer in the body. They say the cycle is 90/95, the queen left with 96! (Series). When the prophet asks God for more time, he says, “Well, I’ll give you another fifteen years, but fix your life.” He was a prophet who was a little messed up, haha. I go for five, I miss ten …
wd
Graciela Guinazu
Source: Clarin
