Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “The Holy Mountain”

The Holy Mountain is undoubtedly one of the most bizarre films ever created. There’s never been a film quite like it, and there probably won’t ever be one like it again. Made by Alejandro Jodorowsky during the drug fueled, social unrest of the early seventies and financed by the deep pockets John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the film is a dazzling, mind-fucking, surrealistic critique of religion, politics, art, mysticism, spiritualism and even film itself. There are so many different things going on in this movie and that’s part of the reason it’s so great. Not only is it a wonderful film, but a very challenging one. It’s abrasive and uncomfortable. At times it feels like a surrealistic nightmare. But underneath all of that, there is a very beautiful and visually poignant movie.

The relationship between art and film is ever evolving and the distinction between the two is often blurred. At what point does film become art? Are some films closer to art than others? I’d certainly say so. The Holy Mountain definitely blurs the line between the two more so than say, a Michael Bay film, or whatever Marvel comic book movie Hollywood has vomited up for the masses.

Great works of art should be challenging. Great art should make you think, make you feel small, make you wonder, make you feel SOMETHING. And every once in awhile it should make you uncomfortable. It should push the boundaries of everyday thought, breaking away from the mundane patterns and motions of an everyday reality. It should never be boring. The artist should never cater to anyone but themselves. Honesty and artistic integrity will, in theory, always prevail over mass production and consumer accessibility. And all of these things are part of what makes The Holy Mountain such a unique film.

Jodorowsky makes the kinds of films that Hollywood is too apprehensive and frightened to make – surrealistically symbolic, bold, honest and torn straight from the pit of his own strange soul. While filming in Mexico, Jodorowsky’s blasphemous film angered the Catholic Church so much, he was chased out of the country by Government Officials and paramilitary groups, but that didn’t stop him. He had to deal with public marches and angry mobs protesting the film, eventually having to flee to New York to finish the remainder of the movie.

The Holy Mountain’s extremely negative depictions of religion,authority and state would never be touched by today’s film industry. “Every picture is a fight. It’s a lot of work. We need to fight against business, because business swallows you,” Jodorowsky doesn’t make “industry” films. His film’s have certainly never been profitable. These works of art were crafted for the sake of creativity itself. They weren’t even widely available until recently. But thanks to the internet, his films are reaching a new and wider audience. You can watch the film, in all of it’s bizarre, poetic entirety, right below.

I listened to all of Neil Young’s Weirdo Eighties Albums So You Wouldn’t Have Too

There is something to be said about an artist who came to fame in the late sixties and still continues to consistently produce albums on a very regular and frequent basis. The artist in question here is none other than the great Neil Young. Now, most people would probably agree that his best material came out before 1975. It could even be argued that Zuma was Young’s last great record. Not that he hasn’t put out decent music since then, just nothing has had the same sort of druggy, visceral, raw emotion that was so frequent in his earlier work. Neil Young is the perfect example of a true artist. He strikes me as someone who has never catered to critics or public opinion. Everything he has produced has been for the sake of music and personal expression. And with any true artist, there are bound to be some experimental missteps. Most of Young’s missteps took place in the 1980’s after a very infamous lawsuit in which Geffen Records sued Young for not producing music that represented himself. In other words, Geffen sued Neil Young for not sounding like Neil Young. With that being said, here’s a list of my favorite awkward Neil Young songs from his weirdo 1980’s Geffen period.

We might as well start out with the obvious. Transformer Man was one of stranger songs from Neil Young’s album Trans, released in 1982. Heavily influenced by Devo and Germany’s Kraftwerk, most of the music is comprised of early synthesizers and vocoders, which give it a wonderful and weird sound.

This next little number is from Young’s 1987 album Life. The backing vocals and piano are particularly creepy and almost sound like they could have been lifted straight from a David Lynch film.

Neil Young and his backing band, The Shocking Pinks (a band made up just for this particular album) took at stab at rockabilly with their 1983 album Everybody’s Rockin’. The bulk of it is less than memorable, but this song stands out thanks to Young’s quavering, warbly harmonica.

Landing on Water is overall a straight up bizarre and awkward album. The drums are overproduced and the vocals are muddled behind weirdo eighties synthesizers. It’s one of my least favorite albums of his and definitely his least accessible.

Computer Age is actually a pretty sweet song. This is one of the better tracks from Trans.

Neil Young’s This Note’s For You is a kind of concept album dealing with corporate commercialism in music during the late eighties. While the underlying themes of the album are pretty cool, the actual music falls short. Most of the songs are cheesy, jazzy and feature a heavy horn section. The video for the title track is pretty fucking goofy and was actually banned from MTV for a short while thanks to legal threats from Michael Jackson’s attorneys.

Mr. Soul is an older Buffalo Springfield song rerecorded for Trans. There’s actually some pretty cool guitar work in this one. It also kind of sounds like Devo, who Young was collaborating with at the time.

Arc technically came out in 1991, even though Young had already recorded an earlier version for a film he made around 1987 called Muddy Track. Young showed the film to Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, who then persuaded Young to release a full album in a similar manner. The album is comprised of one thirty-minute long “song”, and features the lyrics of Like A Hurricane, while musically it’s really nothing but noise and feedback. Imagine a slightly more accessible Metal Machine Music.

Speaking of Neil Young and Devo, this last clip is from Neil Young’s strange foray into film making. Human Highway came out in 1982 and has been described as “The Wizard Of Oz” on acid. It’s a pretty bizarre brand of comedy and you should totally check it out. The video features Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, dressed as Booji Boy, the closest thing to a mascot Devo ever had, playing synth in a crib, while Neil Young wails away on his guitar until everything devolves into noise and feedback. It rules.

Living in a digital abyss

Being a creative-minded millennial in today’s workforce can feel like a rather bleak existence. We live in an age where everything is free and accessible, everyone is connected and information flows rampant and uncensored through out (most of) the internet. We inhabit a very technologically advanced world, a world that didn’t exist ten years ago. A world that is rapidly changing. Most of my generation witnessed the birth of the information age while we were still in high school or middle school. We were all lead to believe that we had very promising and rewarding futures through college and career. Well, the corrupt institution that college is turned out to be a financial pit of never ending despair for most people who weren’t lucky enough to get grants or scholarships, while careers in the creative fields are pretty much nonexistent unless you’re willing to teach high school English or Art in a broken education system.

Making a name for yourself and your creative trade in this technological age is quite the daunting task. It can feel a bit overwhelming sometimes. This digitally advanced world we exist in can feel very cold and impersonal, regardless of how connected we think we are through social media. In an endless sea of faceless bands, writers, and artists it sometimes feels impossible to make yourself noticed. Most of us want to make waves, but more often than not, it feels like our efforts don’t amount to anything other than ripples. But you have to start somewhere, right?

I don’t have any advice to give that hasn’t already been published in some other forgotten corner of the internet. All I know is that I want to create. I want to be my own, self sustaining, creative entity. I decided along time ago that I didn’t want to be part of a bigger institution. I wanted nothing to do with managers or corporate workplace politics. But somewhere along the way I lost track of that vision and became another apathetic wage slave. I became insecure about my writing and art. All of these anxieties and insecurities overpowered any sort of creative goals I once had. And so I got trapped in a mundane, working class lifestyle. So this is me saying fuck it. I don’t care anymore. I’m sick and tired of waking up and drudging through an eight hour shift, repeating the same mindless, monotonous motions I’ve been repeating for years. So I guess that is more or less the purpose of this blog. Not necessarily to chase some fabled, bullshit million dollar book deal, but to make a conscious effort at relaying my thoughts and interests in an unabashedly honest and open manner. And hopefully some of you might want to listen.