Summer of my Netflix Streaming I: A Psychedelic Odyssey

It's the time of year when people come to me and say "Dude, how can you just sit there watching movies when it's so nice out??" Splayed upon the couch, limbs fecund with moss, I retort "duuuude, I'm going to get up any minute." They wait, but I do not stir. "OK, guess I'll go home," they finally say, "but I need some good Netflix recommendations. What should I watch tonight?" To this, I lurch forward in a great beverage-toppling spasm. "Welcome, then," I say, "to part three of a one part series: Summer of my Netflix Streaming; a psychedelic odyssey. Take two with grapefruit juice and call me in the void between six and sixtereen.

First Up:  Do you believe in death after life?  Roll the shizz, mon Scarab...

To remove your anxiety about what to watch in what order and when, I suggest you check all whatever of these in the order listed.. Empty your cue.... empty.... your....cue. By dawn things will make sinse (hic).

DMT: THE SPIRIT MOLECULE

(2012) Hosted by Joe Rogan

Go Rick Strassman go-ooo--ohmmm! In case you were born in some inane, counterintuitive dimension where all the chemical shortcuts to spiritual enlightenment have been made into felonies, you should know Dr. Rick Strassman actually got official clearance by the government to do DMT studies in clinical trials. The results? Mind-blowing, of course, but inconclusive, equally of course. See this and answer the question only you can answer: is there really any difference between hallucination and reality? If what you experience in the DMT-verse feels a hundred times more real than your waking, consensual reality, then doesn't that mean--as quantum physics and bioverse theorists contend--it's realer?

The only answer is.

Even so, enough bad trips happened under Strassman's watchful eye that he now feels a little guilty for messing up so many minds. So is he a Pandora's box cutter, a modern messiah, an apex predator Albert Hoffman, or just a scientist who, like Dr. Eric Vornoff before him, tampered in God's domain?  Only the machine elves know for sure --and they only tell the silver spiders tat spin together crystal cities that cohere out of our universal thought web. Deep down, you sense you already know the answer, and you do. 

Heads talking include my boy Daniel Pinchbeck and that 'other'-other McKenna. There's lots of groovy Alex Grey art and deep hallucinogen-ready kaleidoscopes. Joe Rogan narrates while standing in front of a blackboard --for extra validity. (more from Tripumentaries)

See also: Ayuhuasca Vine of the Soul

ENTER THE VOID

(2009) Dir. Gasper Noe

Drifting around Tokyo's pinku parlors, orbiting the heated copulations and floating into light bulbs (like Hitchcock's POV if it didn't find its way out of the black tunnel connecting the drain with Janet Leigh's pupil in PSYCHO), we never know what the late Oscar's free-floating POV soul orb is thinking or trying to merge into (though we can guess, heh heh) Drawn to the gravity of the flaming sexual heat of the sidpa bardo's intertwined coupling, the film's/Oscar's disembodied POV drifts towards any old giant sun egg in which to be reborn, looking for the white light to absorb it/us into the 3D space time groove. But it/we find only the respite of 60 watt bulb lamps, black light art exhibits, frenzied and deserved narc-bashing, and sex that goes nowhere as far as reincarnation opportunities. The Oscar/our POV/soul matrix winds winding up floating off to the ceiling again and again, ever on the move, falling via the abortionist's knife, and bumbling onto passenger planes, floating along he way we used to walk around outside the Dead shows when we didn't have that miracle ticket, looking for that unlocked fence, that lax security guard... that one ripped condom, the missed pill.. (from: Die Like an Eagle) 

FANTASIA 

(1940) Start at the 7:32 mark (and avoid the 2000 version)

(From Acid Sound Symphony:) Walt Disney was determined to not just blow minds and thrill art lovers with his 1940 epic animated classical music film FANTASIA, but to bring what critic James Agee referred to as "middlebrow highbrow" culture to an America on the edge of war. It didn't work, but when re-released in 1969, FANTASIA caught on with a new kind of American at the edge of war, the dosed hippie draft dodger. Seen today, whether you love or hate it it really depends, however high you may be when you come in, what you're feeling, how loud the sound is, and how receptive you are to a non-linear narrative concept of this painterly magnitude. The wonderful thing about trippers, is that a long, nonviolent movie full of nonlinear painterly abstraction and music is like heaven. The big fear, having to leave your comfortable spot on the floor and face the downstairs neighbors. But with headphones cranking the Bartok, the colors dripping off the page, it's either transformative perfection or the movie equivalent of the chill out tent. Either way, now you can scroll ahead if a segment is tedious or too square. Your bound to find something, especially if you start watching at the 7:32 mark, to avoid the draggy intro, and stick with the original. 

 METROPOLIS 

Giorgio Moroder version 
(1927) Dir. Fritz Lang (new version1984)

With wild color tinting, sci-fi sound effects, and Giorgio Moroder's 'great' 80s rock soundtrack (w/ Pat Benatar and Queen among others), Moroder's often unjustly-forgotten FANTASIA style protean music video narrative is way more fun and engagingly goofy than the digitally restored super-long original cut (also on Streaming) that got a theatrical rerelease back in 2005 (I've seen 'em both on big screens). I know it's cineaste heresy but I think Lang would have roared in indignation-cloaked delight to see his 1927 sci-fi parable turned into a stoner rock musical instead of slathered in the orchestral pomp most versions use for their soundtrack. If he could see the genius in Jess Franco's SUCCUBUS, Lang could surely see Moroder's grandiloquent disco cocaine-shiver synth 80s synth grandeur is the perfect fit for his cast's Weimar-rabid frothing-at-the-mouth acting style and the sped-up herky-jerk of Karl Freund's silent 'crank' camera.

Great moments of rock synergy include the factory workers' FLASHDANCE-style pop anthem, and the upper class brothel debut of the robot Maria, which is given growling rock authority via Bonnie Tyler's "Sweet Jane"-chorded "Here She Comes." If only all silent sci-fi films were given such loving attention from synthesizer-twiddling Italian disco composers! You'll be wondering where lurketh thy holy copy of 1980's FLASH GORDON after this, for the two would be a great double bill. Some detractors say the story's harder to follow this way (it's condensed to a brisk 90 minutes), I say those people are just not high enough, and neither is their stereo. 

CHARIOTS OF THE GODS

(1970) based on the book by Erich von Däniken 

The History Channel has been laden now for years with ancient alien-related programming and Erich von Däniken is there, but so is repetitive narration and whiplash editing and enough catheter commercials to give you panic attacks. But this is the original, the groundbreaker. The wild locations where Von Däniken found his archeological signifiers are still fecund with overgrowth, under-explored, and surrounded by indigenous tribespeople; von Däniken is obviously the first white man some of these natives have seen since the last 'god' came down. Shot on 16mm with the earthy 60s-early 70s In Search Of vibe, most all the talking heads are translated / dubbed (from German and Russian) giving a nice weird alienation affect. An illuminating highlight: some valuable footage of cargo cults in the Pacific help us understand the root of all religious thought, drawing such a clear parallel with sky cult Christianity you'd need to be blind no to see it. These natives keep watching the skies, praying for the return of the white brothers in their big silver birds and their cans of delicious peaches, if we want the aliens to land on the White House lawn, why don't we visit these islands again, drop off some canned goods and lighters, and thus kickstart the engines of sky god karma?

THE SOURCE FAMILY
(2012) Starring: Yod, The Source Family

At one point does a divinely inspired lysergic-macrobiotic sage remember that way down deep he's just a lusty huckster?  Yaweh-O, or whatever Papa Bear's name in this incarnation, was a Gilgamesh-esque mountain man messiah and ex-bank robber who, like the greatest of modern gurus, was able to waken peoples' kundalini with just a touch or a glance. Alas, poor Yod, he was deluding even himself if he thought he could hang glide (he crashed and died). That's why my own spirituality will always stop short of wearing long flowing robes and divesting my worldly possessions. It's a curse as well as a blessing to be so wary and spiritual at the same time - it's only the twin signs like Pisces can do it, and we have no choice - we're never taken in totally, not even by our suspicions. Wether your kundalini sleeps or crawls, watching this crazy documentary and hearing these crazy beautiful starry-eyed people proves to be a solid trip that can charm your inner electric serpent into crawling up your spine and sparking off your third eye like an Olympic torch struck by a cobra bite strength tester hammer gong. (see also CinemArchetype Senex: The Sage)

And now... two episodes of STAR TREK 

(1968-70)

1. "This Side of Paradise" (season 1, ep. 25) finds Kirk as the only member of the crew not bewitched by space poppies. Everyone who beams down on this certain Edenic planet becomes too happy and content to do anything but loll around in the sun and love one another. Kirk tries to convince them they need goals... and challenges... to evolve... as people, but the crew are too busy mooning over the flowers; it's not until he stirs their more violent emotions that they snap out of it. Turns out humans need to be miserable and angry to evolve, to move forward. Without negativity we lilies-in-the-field it like a bunch of blazed welfare bums.

And though we get cogent arguments for the validity of both sides, it's one of the earliest examples of Kirk seeming a killjoy, especially when Spock gets the closing line: "For the first time in my life, I was happy."

2. "The Way to Eden" (season 3, ep. 20) finds a band of itinerant space hippies trying various scams to convince the Enterprise crew to take them through the 'forbidden zone' to an allegedly pristine planet named Eden. The hippies include Charles Napier, on space guitar! He invites Spock to sit in and jam with the flower people. Spock does! ("He is not Herbert! We reach!") Vulcans, Spock explains, consider the way these groovy brothers and sisters live to be the highest form of sanity. But just as the Source Family found disaster following Father Yod to Hawaii in the last film, so this Eden planet carries its own tricky backhand bitch slap reward for their bucolic naiveté. (Sex, Drugs and Quantum Existentialism: The Acidemic STAR TREK Short Guide)

MICROCOSMOS

(1996) - Starring: insects (les bugs)

With all the machine elf aliens dancing and the dangerous space microbes and cosmic mind-altering spores of the last films still percolating in your toasted brain, let's, in the words of Steve Martin, get small. Without any music or narration, this day-on-the-leaf insect documentary provides the kind of 'close' reading nature's been primping for all this time. Finally, special cameras show how truly fucking bizarre insect interactions are. We see ants milking droplets of water they stole from clingy flea-style bugs; ants kicking ladybugs off their precious droplets, but gently... etc. This weird 'right under our noses' insight is what head trips are meant for. The utterly strange fractal aliveness of our world--what our mind usually screens out unless it recognizes a threat or a desire--is made suddenly front and center. Only as small kids were we attuned to the crazy scariness and odd joys of the insect community. Remember back when turning over a garden rock was like opening the door to a gross weird world? Was that before DDT wiped it all away, or did we just get too tall to see and too distracted to care?

Well, when you tune into the 'other' realms you get all that kid's eye view back, so let the bug show begin.

On the other hand if this gets too boring or gives you a minor dose of delirium tremens, skip ahead!

JOHN DIES AT THE END

(2012) Dir. Don Coscarelli

What if those weird bugs from Microcosmos were also hallucinogens that let their user see through time and space and transmute dimensions? And other bugs were constantly taking over human hosts and killing them while preparing for a sixth-dimensional Lovecraftian tentacle crossover? Whaaat? Slow down, man. Thing about what you're slaying... 

Unlike Gilliam's Loathing, this is truly a film where the weird turn pro.

HENDRIX: HEAR MY TRAIN A COMIN'

(2013) Dir Bob Smeaton

There's one thing that never gets old when you're super tripped-out, and that's the crunchy delicious sexually far out sounds of Hendrix's guitar. On good psychedelics, his blazing electric sound is one long warm, trippy current that zaps your saliva glands like patchouli lemons and makes all other music seem pointless (aside from Ravi Shankar and Otis Redding). Let it take your mind wild places, and wonder what new sounds might have come forth from his giant hands, if not for the always bad idea of mixing excessive Valium and alcohol.

In fact, I actually tried to go back in time to prevent Hendrix's death, as a kind of Reverse Terminator, but instead I just aged into oblivion. (see: Hippy in a Hell Basket - left)

---

From here of course you can greet the dawn's early light with The Other One, the Bob Weir Story; or the occasionally not pretentious and over-budgeted Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or you could go to bed. I mean, the sun's coming up, dude. People are getting up for work! They'll know! 

Too bad W.C. Fields isn't on Netflix because what you really need now is Never Give a Sucker an Even Break or International House, Mississippi or The Fatal Glass of Beer. 

IF AT ANY POINT YOU WIG OUT:

TELETUBBIES

If the walls start closing in, switch to this televisual equivalent of a Wavy Gravy chill-out tent immediately. This is way better than Bruce Dern handing you thorazine but insisting on touching your hand in a weird soft way when he does so, or Jack Nicholson and Adam Roarke melting into zombie monsters while trying to stop you from cutting off your own hand with a circular saw at 'the gallery'. Not that you ever would, because you're not a lightweight. And because you know when to change the channel on the escalating hellfire pit of Bruce Dern-handedness.

TELETUBBIES will save you!! It was designed to stop kids from crying so I think you'll be able to handle it bro, so nut up. 

Coming up Next in the Summer Series: "Post-Giallo Dream Logic"