I got to the Calcutta at 4 Wednesday and I knew it was ominous when I felt how easy the beer was going down [28th Sept 2006]

I got to the Calcutta at 4 Wednesday and I knew it was ominous when I felt how easy the beer was going down. It was one of those rare special days when the beer goes down so easy. Up to the Scotsman after two pints. Didn't take me long to realise -- was not there as I did not hear her laughter. A new barmaid! Very sexy brunette. A good line up, Lucky, Vicky, Amanda, Helena, Tequila, Nicky, Crystal and Aussie Victoria. -- gave me a nice welcome back, where you been? Where you been I said. In italy? That was fucking July! Where have you been going she said. My mum's house. She was pulling shocked faces. My mind is boggling! After she danced she came & stood in the dark centre corner with me talking. She has got a private party tonight, Tilly's. Next time I will ask her to put me on the list. I got there about ten to six I think, and -- finished at 7. The last two times she collected she leaned right against me till I put the money in. After she left a little brunette girl came in, and mentioned she was a better dancer than them and had better tits. I pulled her back and stopped her from leaving. And after that she was with me for 30? 40? mins. Me with my hand on her tits and she with her hand down my pants around the base of my cock. Francesca, she is in love with Jazmine. We made a deal, she will help me with -- and I will help her with Jazmine. Helena was grinning at me as she collected. Because of all this, I completely lost count of my number of pints, but it was a lot. And this was even before I started watching the Levski v Chelsea game on tv! I think I left before half time, and fell asleep on the 87 home and had to get one back. 

Straight away I am reminded how attractive this world is, and how much I love it. 

"We drank hard and talked about what Debord, who drank persistently and prodigiously, had written about alcohol"

"We drank hard and talked about what Debord, who drank persistently and prodigiously, had written about alcohol. 'I admire Debord as a perfect and dedicated drinker.' We talked about how, in the early years of his career as a drinker, Debord was always in pursuit of or just arriving at a perfect point of intoxication which, unlike paid labour or any other servile activity, would reveal 'the true taste of the passage of time'. Drinking was a beautiful poetic game, with its rules and protocols. Debord devoted pages to describing this notion."

Irina suddenly leaned over to me and said to me "I'm sorry, you're a nice guy, but you drink too much" before giving me the ultimate private dance. I said to Viktoriya "You don’t like me, do you", and she exploded back with real hatred "Yes. Because you're always drunk". *****************I insist on the primacy of my own experience. My own vision. I can only be alone. I can only be in cold icy mountains. ******************Don't be unhappy, be happy! Think what immense power you have got! You have made the great separation & now live for pure Priapism. You have got money. Winter is coming. I can go to the Bell, the Sunset Strip, Sunset Cinema, Demi and Pamela. In January I can go to Berlin. This is going to  be a season of the flesh. I have got a nice little job I enjoy. I have got money coming in. I have got my own little nest. I have got a week off in December and another week off in January to go to Berlin, for La Traviata and Carmina Burana.

"Where do you live actually?" said Pamela to me. The discipline of saving money is actually a really exciting one. It has made the Bell more exciting for me. It will no doubt make Sunset Strip more exciting for me eventually. I love the things I have got away with in the past, the things I get away with now, the things I will get away with in the future. 

I have got my book-lined London home, filled with ferns, and classical music. I live like a church mouse in a little hotel earning the money to write my books, while enjoying the girls taking their knickers off to loud music, and travelling a couple of times a year to Berlin. I am still sad about --. Do what you want with your genitals, otherwise you will regret it when you're dead.

I feel an almost physical revulsion at the thought of going back to Sunset and Demi and Pamela [13th Sept 2006]

I feel an almost physical revulsion at the thought of going back to Sunset and Demi and Pamela. But what else is there, so I will eventually. When I know the pleasures I have felt in those places felt so intense. I feel a physical revulsion for going back to those nighttime Vienna places and the nighttime Berlin places. I feel a physical revulsion for spending any money when I am in this saving mode. That is good. I have become allergic to spending money when before I seemed addicted to it. I feel an almost physical revulsion for women. I am a strange man. How can -- or anyone have a relationship with a strange man like me. I am like Ralph Fiennes Spider. I only learnt how to be alone when I was a baby, and I always will be. I love places where I can be alone surrounded by loud pounding music and naked girls, that is why I love the dream world of the Scotsman and Sunset Strip so much. It is the ultimate detachment. The ultimate transcendency. The ultimate lens. The ultimate gateway to the state of bliss that is the Kingdom of Death. Ultimate nothingness. --'s finger to the lips in a hushing gesture seems a very big moment. That nervousness so intense I cannot breathe as the train nears Nuremberg & as I got off and walk along the corridor to the entrance hall, and the nervousness I felt so intense I could not breathe as i went down the steps at the Astral, I now feel when I walk to the Scotsman from the north from the 91 stop. I feel it too when I enter Sunset Cinema, hoping to find a woman being monickered, and also when I go up the models' steps. That is the high. That is the drug.

"Berlioz's unstinting lionisation of Beethoven in the pages of La Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris" [12th Sept 2006]

"Berlioz's unstinting lionisation of Beethoven in the pages of La Revue et Gazette Musicale de Paris,the most important and influential music journal in 19th-century France, also played a major role in establishing him at the centre of the repertory for the concert hall." In my journal, what would I write about, who would I lionise. I would lionise the Midnight Bell, perhaps, and its dancers, extolling the virtues of Sylvia and -- and Janet above all others. Extolling them in messianic, apocalyptic, grandiose, diva-esque terms, like they are Sarah Bernhardts. Invoking Hungarian history. Giving reviews of their performances just the way one would with reviews of violinists or pianists. They are all on a stage, why not? Instead of one paragraph reviews of Anita Berber's Bethanien or Marlene Dietrich's grave, extend them into full page articles, enabling me to digress into talking about the Blue Angel, Lola, etc. Berber at the Romanisches Cafe, Tucholsky. It would be a journal devoted to the strip clubs of London, the pubs, to Berlin, and Vienna, and Brussels, and Munich. Talk about them the way you would about great opera singers of the 1880s, from the stage side box. Write a magazine where on one page there is a review of Barbara Fritoli at the Wigmore Hall on Wednesday night, and on the facing page, a review of the Flying Scotsman on Thursday night, each with equal analysis. My reviews are scurrilous and scandalous, like James Ellroy, Charles Bukowski. Winter is coming. Remember those cold icy days when I first moved in here? Remember the excitement of those Astral  nights? Miising in Action Painter film? The unable to breathe shaking with excitement as I headed down the steps not knowing what I was about to see? Remember that unbelievably huge breaasted beautiful Czech girl at the Boulevard? It is almost like a dream. I cannot believe I witnessed something so spectacularly sexy as her and made so little of it. If only I knew where she was now. 

I would like to write my own magazine like the Fackel, full of my hard-hitting sometimes scurrilous articles and reviews of London life. Write about Barbara Frittoli and the tyranny of not being able to write about the singer's beauty, and sexual allure, as if this must not be mentioned, like some guilty secret. Write about La Traviata at the ENO, a weepy opera about "some consumptive whore, when in real life whores are treated like the lowest of the low, yet here she is celebrated as something glorious". 

I am a great believer that you carry the weather with you [9th September 2006]

I am a great believer that you carry the weather with you. If you travel with a spark, a dancing flame inside you, you will have a great time. If you travel unhappy, and in a black place, weighed down by worries and debts, you will have a sad time. I cannot say the well in Munich has run dry; probably it is my well that has run dry. When my well fills up again, by making myself happier, ridding myself of obsessions, financial worries, anxieties, paranoid depressions, I will find Munich’s well is full to overbrimming again, stars filling the throat to the crop, as it was absolutely full to overbrimming when I met Susi, Irina on the night of Turkey v England, Patricia, Emily on the Night of the Snow, Viktoriya in those four magical life-changing visits in the space of six months. 

I love loud pounding music. Muse Starlight. Even in the Scotsman standing looking up at the screen I loved hearing the loud pounding music from behind me, Pink Who Knew. Miami Vice suddenly starts with loud pounding music in a club & a girl poledancing.*********I think after all it might be possible to achieve a balanced lifestyle for myself. Paying my rent, and allowing myself one night out a week, so I can still get to wallow in the Libertinesesque/Hogarthian/Rabelaisian/Rake’s Progress life, and still seriously paying off my cards so I can get to Berlin or Vienna a couple of times a year.

It is always hard to drink, go to cinema, then start drinking again. I was tired & run down yesterday & still quite enjoyed Zoe and Jane and Leah, how much better if I am sober and excited? The Francis Bacon Gilded Gutter Lily/Ernest Dowson/Frank Wedekind/Oscar Wilde Feasting With Panthers/Vincent Van Gogh Hour of the Flesh life. Kanye West Number One. Kelis Bossy. Junior Senior Get to Know you better. On my last few trips I have been hoping to get lucky and have a great time on just a very small budget with just a very small outlay & that is why I got so little back. You have to speculate to accumulate. I had so little starting capital to gamble with so I was only ever going to get little back. You have to gamble big if you are going to gamble at all. I should have gone with Alla & Olga and to hell with it. I should have gone with Clarisse & to hell with it. What memories that would have been! Justin Sexyback. Sugababes Red Dress. After all, the great thing about the Bell is that it can cost as little as £5. One pint and two girls and then push off. Sunset Strip is a minimum £19 to start off with. How I always remember Munich girl dancing to Global DJs. That is why I travel. I will go back to Vienna, I will go back to Munich. I will owe £6000 or £7000. So what? For those memories. Habit encrusts itself to us, like barnacles. Every few years one finally makes the effort to scrape all the barnacles off, and uncover the shiny ship’s hulll underneath, as if new. Such I have just done.

I think Brussels was so exciting because I knew it was just the first leg of my European tour (7th August 2006)

I think Brussels was so exciting because I knew it was just the first leg of my European tour, and after sampling the delights of the Museum of Modern Art, Wiertz, Pullman bar, and Gare du Nord, I could head off later in the week on the long train journey to Koln and Munich, and that night be heading over Bayerstraße to the White Coffin, on Saturday getting the train to Nuremberg for the Pils Bar and the Caribic, before then heading off again to Vienna, knowing that Manhattan and ML Revue and Pour Platin were waiting for me, before heading off a few days later for Berlin, knowing that Stuttgarter Platz was waiting for me and the Berlin Erotic Centre. Maybe this time I can finish up in Copenhagen for the The Makropulos Case? I want that Interrail pass again! £380 for the train pass, then maybe cheap Radisson hotels in Brussels, Vienna and Berlin? Ah but it is spending money that is the thing. Now that I have given up Sunset Strip and King's Cross, perhaps my finances will improve a bit? JUST IN JUNE AND JULY ALONE I HAVE SPENT £424 ON STRIPPERS ALONE!!!! What did Pete say? I need to see how it is destroying me. Get this: Since the New Year I HAVE SPENT £1,778 ON STRIPPERS ALONE!!! What hideous wastefulness on something that I was increasingly starting to despise. If I could have that £1,778 back now, it would pay for the Interrail pass, and every hotel for two weeks, and give me all the whoring money I could ever need. Since moving into the flat on November 17th I have spent more than £2,000 on strippers alone. And it is worse than that, because the vast majority of my drinks bill in that time---£515 in June and July alone! £1,867 since December 10th! has been consumed in the strip clubs. Without the Bell and Sunset Strip I reckon I would now be owing just £2,400 on my credit cards instead of £5,900. These are sobering figures. For sure I could go on that long train journey to Europe in December if not for that. PLEASE GIVE UP THE STRIPPERS!!!! Just concentrate on the Calcutta, Sunset Cinema, and Demi and Pamela from now on. By the end of August and September that should save me £900 alone. DO IT. Do it, so I can see Brussels again, I can see Gare du Nord again, I can go to the White Coffin again, I can go to the Pils Bar and Caribic again, I can go to Pour Platin and Manhattan again, I can go to Berlin Ciro again.

As good as Wednesday was Thursday was bad (6th July 2006)

As good as Wednesday was, Thursday was bad. It was ever thus. I was strangely not in the mood for Sunset. Stacey & Helen sitting at bar as I stood between them waiting to get my drink when I arrived, Samantha, Giselle, Daniella, Lana, but I felt uncomfortable & awkward. Had four Fosters before going up to the Scotsman but it was the worst line up ever, not one worth staying for. I could only finish about a third of my pint and left again! I felt like going straight home but felt I would feel like it had been a missed opportunity if I sat at home all Thursday night, so forced myself back to the cinema for the same films. It was a mistake. The same films never seem so sexy second time around. Resisted the thought of forcing myself to Francesca as well, and came home via a KFC, another mistake, and a tuna & mayo roll. The blonde girl grinned at me so much as I approached and said “tuna mayo!”. As I left I said cheers, and she looked up at me with the most gorgeous huge grin and a “cheers brother!”. Someone likes me at least. At the start, I finally made it to the Courtauld–what treasures! At the 87 bus stop going home to pick up my dirty washing, lovely big voluptuous Eurasian/Kazakh? looking girl was looking how to get to Leicester Square so I told her, but as I was demonstrating & explaining, she pressed her huge breasted voluptuous body in blue T-shirt & jeans right up close to me, and our bodies kept bouncing against each other. It was so erotic & she was hot.

This is Fu Manchu weather (5th July 2006)

This is Fu Manchu weather. Black, steamy, hot and humid, but raining all the time. A permanent mist of rain in the hot, steamy conditions. It is like being in Phnom Penh. This is Cambodia weather. Two in the Calcutta with white shirt Katerina with no eye contact. Sylvie was first on in Sunset followed by Jolanda. Nina was next. She is so much like Melani, but Melani is Nina x100. Nina does not turn me on though she is so beautiful. Also there Angelina, and doing the middle shift, Sandra. A quiet small brunette but she was so sexy! She made eye contact with me a lot & really turned me on. I left about 5 because it is so empty on early shift I feel uncomfortable. 

At the Scotsman was ——. After dancing she marched straight to back & sat down with me again. I bought her another Red Bull. She was so sexy in little red tartan bra & knickers only. Drinking so much so quickly on empty stomach I was feeling randier than normal, and when she left to collect, & asked me to keep her drink safe for her, I stroked her bum and had a good feel of it. She looked at me in mock shock but she was so sexy on stage. While she was dancing however, a huge voluptuous red haired girl came in with two blokes to talk to Tina. They exchanged numbers & then she came & sat where —— had been sitting, so I could get a good side on look at her. Those tits are the most massive I have ever seen in my life. Her arse was practically hanging out of her jeans & that was massive as well. She glanced at me a few times. If she ever danced there I would die with pleasure. It would be the greatest striptease I have ever seen in my life. Knocking even fat-bottomed silver-dressed girl at Carnival into the shade. They were like zeppelins. Looking past her, —— suddenly seemed so ridiculously small. —— came back for her drink & found the girl there & was then in animated conversation with her & they exchanged numbers as well. After that —— came & had a drink with another man sitting at the side bar in front of me. After collecting —— sidled up to me again, whispering "a drink? Vodka & coke". After she finished I bought it for her & she came & collected in by the gents but just walked off with it & stood talking to other men with my drink in her hands!

Vicki was quite friendly, not scowling at least. Stella smiled hello as she passed me by the gents, but I don’t think I stayed long enough to see her dance, or Kelly (Enlgish). 

I went back to look for Francesca but she was busy, so I went back to Sunset for Lana & Nikita, the end of Elektra, and one more from Sandra before she left at 9. I watched most of the France v Portugal second half then went to Sunset Cinema. The films were great. Magma Swing Party, Nympho Nurses Naughty, and Tittenalarm 17—all German films!—plus Fresh Meat 18. I thought I was turned on enough so I went back to Francesca. She lived up to her description. Her breasts are sensational. She is pretty enough as well. For an extra £5 I got her to turn over but still could not come. She offered a hand job AND TOOK THE CONDOM OFF TO GIVE IT! It is true, she lets you come over her tits just like that. Still I could not come, so I apologised & kissed her goodbye. She works Tuesday to Saturday but only to 10PM. I will for sure go back many times. 

I went back to the cinema again for more of the great films. Upstairs was bald bloke with pretty brunette girl from last week but they do not seem to do much. This time I was ready to explode, & though I wanted to carry on watching the films, I made my way to Demi, but another girl was there, Savannah. She was pretty but £30. I was tempted but she walked off angrily, so her attitude turned me off though her body was great. I went back to Pamela. It was so nice sucking her tits and the edge of her nipples at least. I could not stop sucking and love biting her. For £25 she turned over & I came very nicely again. I made her lay with me for just a couple of minutes, but could not stop laughing for some reason. She did not stay with me as I got dressed this time. I was too drunk to ask her anything. I came home after that. There was a sexy brown ponytail girl stood behind me at bus stop then she came & sat in the corner seat just beneath me, in little pink vest & I could not help keep looking down at her cleavage & her face, and she knew I was looking & I think liked it. She got off Wandsworth Road just before me. Sitting in back seat opposite me our knees touching was most beautiful blonde in long skirt, jacket over little green top, with nice big tits & cleavage on show. I grabbed a few ogles & she was so beautiful. On the next corner seat was the purple blouse girl from before! In brown leather jacket, low cut shirt with tops of breasts visible, and tight brown skirt. Red lips. She was so sexy. Sitting side on ready to get off she knew I was looking at her so much. All in all, a very sexy night. A night of a thousand breasts, and a dozen super-voluptuous vixens. Jolanda, redhead at the Scotsman, Francesca, Pamela, girls at bus stop & on bus. Sandra.

How fantastic like on Wednesday night to be able to see girls as outrageously sexy & voluptuous & beautiful as Martina (28th April 2006)

How fantastic, like on Wednesday night, to be able to see girls as outrageously sexy & voluptuous & beautiful as Martina, as Kelly, then as Melani. How much I take that for granted. 

I’ve got a very safe sinecure in the —— Hotel which gives me the pocket money to pay my rent & to write my books, while sustaining my addictions to drinking & to strippers. Everyone at Sunset seemed cool to me Wednesday. That long unreadable look from Melani, Alison never smiling at me once, Juliana behind the bar stonily giving me two tens for a twenty without any eye contact or a smile. It is funny just as the girls at the Flying Scotsman have never been nicer to me, the ones at Sunset Strip have gone very cool. 

dook_sucks said @ 8:17pm GMT on 8th Jul My favorite physicist, Richard P. Feynman used to go to strip clubs all the time. He’d sit there and work out equations while they’d be dancing in front of him. That he could concentrate oh high level advanced physics and strippers at the same time is testament to his genius. Sorta like Sensible Erection, no? Glad to see the hawk-meister is of the same caliber. 

matt said @ 6:15am GMT on 9th Jul [Score:1 Insightful] I dunno, strip clubs are pretty good places to go to get time to think. I’ve a long history of going to them to get away from people. the Beauty of them is no one looks at you or pays you any attention at all (apart from the girls trying to convince you to have a paid private moment with them). You can just sit there with your drink, think, write, ponder, whatever, and when you look up, there’s something pleasant to cast your eyes over. Hell, you could consider them muses.

Ernest Dowson and Hart Crane would both get drunk every night and usually become violent & almost insane (24th April 2006)

Ernest Dowson and Hart Crane would both get drunk every night, and usually become violent & almost insane. I am driving myself almost to insanity every night at the Flying Scotsman. So where are my poems? Try to get into the habit of going to the Scotsman just once a week, and never again on a Saturday. If I go just once a week, then I can also go into Soho afterwards, for Sunset Strip, Sunset Cinema and maybe Pamela as well. The other two days off I will concentrate on staying and writing through the night.

I always love seeing Pamela. How good it felt to be in Sunset Cinema going up & down stairs between the two cinemas with my big swollen sore cock rolling inside my trousers. The sexual charge in those places is fantastic, and now summer is coming there may be more chance of finding some girls in there, too. All artists have to throw themselves into the gutter. Face it the greatest memories of my life have come in the Astral Cinema, the Soho Cinema, and the Sunset Cinema. All the incredible hot erotic memories from those places! I drink to derange my senses & go into the dream world. From there I can go back to Soho and the Sunset Cinema. Just imagine if the Flying Scotsman did private dances as well! Thank God they do not! There is something glorious in my drunken stupidities at the Scotsman. But please–once a week! Then I will allow myself Sunset Cinema as well. Like Hart Crane cruising the violent & dangerous Brooklyn, Manhattan & Hoboken shorefronts I cannot help but going back into Soho cinemas, despite the shame & ignominy & ruin it brings on myself–because the highs are so great & so exciting! 

“…All the couples part abruptly and pull up their trousers. That’s the flâneur, caught in the spotlight, blushing perhaps but with a wry smile playing around his lips. This, at least, is Edmund White’s kind of flâneur , cruising for sex while a few yards away tourists are paying through the nose for grim dinner-dancing experiences as they float along the Seine. When White lived in Paris between 1983 and 1998, he quickly found the best places to cruise. The Palais Royal and the Tuileries gardens (especially the gravel walkways by the Orangerie) sound like delightful places for outdoor sex, though why he thought the quay near Gare d’Austerlitz would be is, frankly, beyond me. He writes: “Most people, straight or gay, think that cruising is pathetic or sordid – but for me, at least, some of my happiest moments have been spent making love to a stranger beside dark, swiftly moving water below a glowing city.” Paris: city of light, but better, city of darkness and anonymous sex. White maintains, not very convincingly and rather half-heartedly, that cruising is an extension or application of the art of the flâneur. Those practitioners and theoreticians of the art, Walter Benjamin and Charles Baudelaire, wouldn’t have had much time for that idea, and nor should we. The whole point about a flâneur is that he or she is an aimless stroller. By contrast, a cruiser is utterly directed, as Schopenhauer might have put it, towards the extinction of his desire. The flâneur's desire is much less ardent, perhaps approaching non-existence, and thus resembles the disinterested appreciation that Kant argued was characteristic of aesthetic experience.”

****************

I like getting wilder & wilder. Audit Day today. The —— is going to be audited. I am going to get caned. Infernal’s From Paris to Berlin is No.4 in the charts! Reminding me so much of my travels. Also the Out of Touch, Out of Time video in the Calcutta. I love the excitement of travel. IN THE LAST TWO WEEKS I HAVE SPENT £422! I COULD HAVE GONE TO BERLIN INSTEAD & USED IT TO PAY FOR THE £165 BA FLIGHT & £225 BERLIN PLAZA FOR FOUR NIGHTS, STILL WITH BEER & KNESEPFANNE MONEY LEFT OVER! I COULD HAVE SEEN THE HEATHROW PON DE REPLAY WOMAN. THEY’VE SHOCKED US AND HELPED OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD. 12 BOOKS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD. THE HMS BEAGLE LANDED ON THE GALAPAGOS 1835. I AM A GENTLEMAN SCIENTIST. A SYNOPSIS OF HIS LIFE’S WORK. PUBLISHING IT WAS LIKE CONFESSING TO A MURDER. I shrunk from all contact with the other children in nursery. I shrunk from all contact with other pupils at school. I shrink from all contact with people now as an adult. One of the great things about me is my blissful uncaredness: I couldn’t care what ——, or M—–, or G— think of me. I am in my private world, going there for my private reasons.

I am glad I am ruining myself & becoming increasingly mad & crazy at the Flying Scotsman (23rd April 2006)

I am glad I am ruining myself & becoming increasingly mad & crazy at the Flying Scotsman. I am deliberately becoming a grand wreck. It is part of my project to experience new things, push an experience to the extremes. “Crane wrote to a friend, “You may not think it, yet there comes a great peaceful exaltation in merely reading, thinking, and writing.” Yet this was not enough to ward off sporadic spells of intense depression; he first attempted suicide at the age of 15 by slashing his wrists and taking an overdose of sleep medication.” Think of the kindness D— tries to offer you. C——, too. I am lonely. That is why I keep gravitating back to the Flying Scotsman like a moth to a flame, to the girls I know so well & the drink I know better. “Mariani brings alive the doubts and self-recriminations that constantly bedeviled Crane and the accusatorial inner voices that must have haunted him during his frequent hangovers. Alcohol and depression exacted a truly terrible physical and emotional toll on Crane, and his hair turned from premature gray to white by the age of 28. He was frequently jailed or beaten for his drinking, and Mariani’s index lists 17 instances of Crane’s “outrageous and violent behavior” due to alcohol. He embarrassed himself, alienated friends and damaged his ability to concentrate on his writing, but Mariani notes, “Like [Charlie] Chaplin, he meant to pick himself up, brush himself off, and go on whistling into the teeth of fate.”” 

“Like Hopkins, Crane sought an epiphanic vision, and Mariani notes, “In spite of the absence of any God he can name, there is a desperate vulnerability about Crane’s prayer for meaning” in poems such as “O Carib Isle!”….Crane once signed a postcard to his mother with the name “Atlantis.” As Mariani notes, “Even to himself he seemed a lost city.”….Mariani leaves us with the tragic image of a brilliant mind struggling with the desire to push the borders of poetry beyond the familiar and traditional to “new thresholds, new anatomies,” all the while contending with interior realities that were the source of both his greatest inspiration and his greatest unhappiness. Although Crane sank beyond the reach of lifesavers, thanks to Mariani’s book we retain a strong sense of the spiritual gates this poet sought to enter.” Very much on Saturday night I was thinking how fake all the smiles & friendship from the girls is, as they only smile & pretend to like you for the money. There are some exceptions to this, I think. D— is not nice to me just to get pounds from me, nor is C——. Maybe M——, too, and for a while —–. I could of look back at all the arguments I have been having at the Scotsman with a detached amusement. It is just an adventure I am having.

Whenever I feel depressed my old sexual demon returns and that banishes my despair in mad displays of wild exhibitionism (15th April 2006)

Whenever I feel depressed, my old sexual demon returns, and that banishes my despair in mad displays of wild exhibitionism. It is the Weimar Berlin spirit. It is Josephine Baker on the stage in nothing but a girdle of bananas. It is Anita Berber the sex dancer losing herself in opium and gin. It is George Grosz and Otto Dix. I progressed from The Flying Scotsman to harder stuff and then back to The Flying Scotsman again. I am pushing the boundaries of what The Flying Scotsman can offer however. How much I would like to fuck J----. How much I would like to fuck K----. How much I would like to fuck L---. I like to be on the edge. I like my CALCULATED madness with -----, just pushing things as far as I wanted them to go---and then pulling back. So I had an effect on people & stirred things up. I like pushing things CALCULATEDLY with A---. I would like to see Clarisse in Brussels again. Tuesday is the anniversary of Lulu at the ENO and VIENNESE EROTICISM. Immerse myself in Berg, Webern and Schoenberg, the most sensually decadent music ever written. And, immersed in it, soaked in it like whisky, go back to The Flying Scotsman!

All I care about is my magazine, my Fackel. I have nothing else. I am a broken down man living in the ruins. ----- thought she wanted to get involved then changed her mind. What is important is to give style to one's character, and to turn one's mistakes into something that had to happen for the overall good, and one must not be without. The world's so quiet & silent at night.

I am lonely so I like to be surrounded by beautiful scantily clad women in nothing but their bras & knickers & corsets while I drink myself to death (24th March 2006)

I am lonely so I like to be surrounded by beautiful scantily clad women in nothing but their bras & knickers & corsets while I drink myself to death. Sometimes we smile & flirt a little bit but whenever I get too close they move away, or whenever they get too close I move away. How lovely to stand in the corner watching the football with M-- just a foot away from me talking to the other man, so I could gaze & gaze at the lovely voluptuous arse cupped in those white cami-shorts. The night before when L-- had stood in the same place and I could gaze at her even more voluptuous arse in nothing but a g-string under black see through top. The power of the gaze, John Berger. How lovely to have some hot eye contact with scantily clad women like A--, H--, M--, and --. I am a disappointment to girls, when they discover I have nothing to say. I am lost in my own dreamworld, my own underworld. I cannot be roused out of it. I will always be the lost boy. I think -- is still fond of me. I think she still has tenderness & affection for me. When you are a loner, and have lived in your own world so long, it is hard to give it up, even when you want to. This was Will Penny's problem. This was Stephane's problem. This was Peter Pan's problem.

It was quite strange that C——- was there last night but —— wasn’t. She was nice to me, smiling and laughing and asking if I was OK. J—— is always lovely to me. A—– was giving me such hot looks. M——‘s look, and comment to Helena. “Hello trouble”. I am Aschenbach in Death in Venice. Because I want you some more. I want you some more. I really wanted someone, but tortured by my own repression, I did not act, and missed my chance. I am drowning in booze since I got my own flat, but at least I am doing something. After sucking my ear, C—— let me touch her arse again, and then stood so close to me while collecting from the men behind me that her bum was still resting against me. The great value of the flat to me is that I can just be alone and silent here. I consider a day wasted if I cannot spend it in solitude and silence.

Despair & depression. This is how Noodles felt after he saw Deborah off at the railway station & went back to his opium den. This is how Stephane felt as he sits at the cafe table & watches Camille drive off for the last time. I deliberately destroyed my relationship with —– to stay safe. Like Noodles I am a gentle & tender man, and yet I act animalistically, like the way he rapes Tuesday Weld on the bank raid. It is the only way I know how to relate to women. Broken and empty. I want to take all my comforters back to the flat with me; my Hart Crane, my little black diary.

A lot of the girls like me but I never do anything. —– was the only one who got close. It is like I wanted to remain unknown even though I was tempted.

REMEMBER THE SWEETNESS OF KRISTINA LAUGHING & TELLING ME IT WAS HER FIRST DAY (17th March 2006)

REMEMBER THE SWEETNESS OF KRISTINA LAUGHING & TELLING ME IT WAS HER FIRST DAY. REMEMBER THE SWEETNESS OF THE MCDONALD’S GIRLS. REMEMBER THAT —— WANTED ME ALL THOSE MONTHS. I AM ERNEST DOWSON. I AM VINCENT VAN GOGH. I AM PATRICK CAULFIELD, SITTING ALONE IN LONDON PUBS JUST WATCHING THE WORLD PASS BY, AND LEAVING WHEN IT STARTED TO GET BUSY. GOING TO THE BAR AT THE THEATRE INTERVAL & NOT GOING BACK IN FOR THE SECOND ACT, BUT STAYING DRINKING ALONE IN THE EMPTY BAR AS THE BAR STAFF CHATTED AMONGST THEMSELVES & BUSIED THEMSELVES CLEARING THE EMPTY GLASSES. I AM A STRANGE CREATURE. A STRANGE, ECCENTRIC, & DEPRESSIVE CREATURE. —— KNOWS NOW THAT ALL IS NOT WELL WITH ME. I HOPE I SEE HER AGAIN. —— KNOWS NOW I CAN NOT BE THE BOY FOR HER BUT SHE WILL ALWAYS HAVE FONDNESS FOR ME, I HOPE. THE WAY SHE STOOD IN FRONT OF ME & LET ME PULL HER HAIR TWICE, AND JUST TURNED ROUND & GRINNED EACH TIME, AND THEN NEXT TIME PUT HER HOOD UP & WAITED FOR ME TO TURN ROUND & NOTICE HER, BEFORE WALKING OFF GRINNING, SUGGESTS THAT. THE WAY I LOOKED AT HER FROM THE SIDE AND SHE JUST LOOKED BACK TELLS HER I CARE ABOUT ONLY HER & SHE KNOWS THAT.

I so much want to go back to the Flying Scotsman--and yet Saturday was so awful (15th March 2006)

I so much want to go back to the Flying Scotsman--and yet Saturday was so awful. I want to feel some huge massive breasts in my hands and in my mouth. 

I like to hurt myself it seems. I am Peter Pan. Deliberately hurting himself by refusing to go through Wendy's window & join the Darling family, but instead staying outside on the tree branch looking in, crying. No one was going to capture him. This is my last night. Tomorrow is my fifth anniversary at the Flying Scotsman. 

I behaved badly with -----. So the next time I met her, I thought she wouldn't want to know me, but as it turned out she was more lovely than ever. I, therefore, behaved even worse than I did the first time, so shocked that she was still being so lovely to me. I cannot cope when someone treats me with love & tenderness. "You sometimes take a very long time making up your mind about your feelings. In fact, it's safe to say that the more you care, the longer it takes you to admit it to yourself."

YOU CAN BE STRANGE AS YOU WANT AT THE FLYING SCOTSMAN! (13th March 2006)

YOU CAN BE STRANGE AS YOU WANT AT THE FLYING SCOTSMAN! BE STRANGE & ECCENTRIC, NOT DOWN & DEPRESSED! IF YOU ARE POSITIVE, & RADIATE HAPPINESS, PEOPLE WILL BE DRAWN TO YOU. I WILL LOSE MYSELF IN NIHILISM & SELF-DESTRUCTION TO PUNISH MYSELF FOR LOSING ——, LIKE BERLIN IN THE 1920S.

I never connect with anyone (12th March 2006)

I never connect with anyone. I never want to become friends with anyone. I want to stay the stranger, alone & unknown. All the years I have been going to the Scotsman now, I do not know anyone there. I do not talk to anyone. Only one person has broken through my defences,and that was —–, and when she gave me my chance, I just let her leave without saying a word. She is nice to me still, but will never give me another chance. 

I should have been a week & a half, or even two & half weeks into my relationship with —– now. Instead here I am still shut outside the window, longing to be inside, but knowing it is too late. 

I am Stephane in Un Coeur en Hiver. I am Noodles. I am Will Penny. I am Edvard Munch. 

At this moment, I do not like anyone. I do not care about anyone or anything. I am bitter and nihilistic. “I have long passed the point at which one is seriously moved by hostile criticism of anybody in these questions or can feel any more than a tolerant contempt for the point of view from which it is uttered…God or the Flesh or the Devil—an artist may be in bondage to any one or other or all of these powers and retain his self-respect—but the world mustn’t, positively must not exist for him–or so much the worse for his art.” (Ernest Dowson, 1892). 

This is the anniversary of going to the dark opulent claustrophobic Berlin bedroom with Diana. Clarisse’s breasts in Brussels! Martina’s breasts in Nuremberg! Andrea’s breasts in Soho! I really so much want a girl with massive breasts again. Where can I find one? Travelling is out of the question for me. There is just the Berlin trip in May I am committed to, when I can see Erika in Ciro, and the sisters Alla & Olga. Maybe even Evalina in Golden Gate. It turns me on just thinking about it, but I will not be able to afford it in May any more than I can now. My financial situation is stuck in a downward spiral. It is getting worse not better. I would love to jump on Eurostar over to Brussels just to look for Clarisse in Empire, and check the Gare du Nord girls, but it is out of the question. Dowson frequently quoted Baudelaire, ‘Il faut etre toujours un peu ivre’. [It is necessary to be always a little drunk]. 

I so much want to search the clubs of Berlin again. I am aching for it. To meet a Diana, a Yulia, an Iga, a Riccarda, an Erika again. If all there is is Evalina and Maya, then I will fuck them instead. I still haven’t come with a girl since Maya in Berlin in October! 

I don’t want to be liked. I make no effort to be liked by anyone at the Scotsman or the Calcutta, the only two places I ever spend my time. Except —–. I am frozen. There is a wall around my heart. I was so depressed Saturday morning at work, and then woke up with such a black fist of pain around my heart, and then had —- and —– being nasty to me at the Scotsman. You carry the weather with you. I am fighting against the consequences of that Thursday night.

THOSE INCREDIBLE FELICIEN ROPS PICTURES I WAS LOOKING AT THIS MORNING SO MUCH MAKE ME WANT TO GO BACK TO BRUSSELS AGAIN (13th Feb 2006)

THOSE INCREDIBLE FELICIEN ROPS PICTURES I WAS LOOKING AT THIS MORNING SO MUCH MAKE ME WANT TO GO BACK TO BRUSSELS AGAIN. IT HAS BECOME AN INCREDIBLY EROTIC PLACE AGAIN—THE TOWN OF ROPS, OF WIERTZ, OF CLARISSE. JUST TWO MORE NIGHTS TO GET THROUGH THEN I CAN GET BACK TO THE CALCUTTA & THE FLYING SCOTSMAN, AND OSCARS & THE ABCAT—I AM ADDICTED. I AM AN OPIUM ADDICT. HERE IN LONDON, IN KING'S CROSS AND WHITECHAPEL; UNDER THE CHANNEL ON EUROSTAR TO BRUSSELS; IN BERLIN, AND IN VIENNA. MY THEME: “THE VISCERAL PLEASURE IN DETACHMENT OF AN AUTISTIC PERSON”. THOSE INCREDIBLE FELICIEN ROPS AND WIERTZ PICTURES MAKE ME WANT TO GO BACK TO BRUSSELS (AND NAMUR, AND THE EMPIRE AND THE GARE DU NORD). THOSE INCREDIBLE GEORGE GROSZ & OTTO DIX PICTURES, AND TILLA DURIEUX AS CIRCE AND VIKTOR MULLER’S SALOME HOLDING JOKANAAN’S HEAD MAKE ME WANT TO GO BACK TO BERLIN (AND MON CHERI & GOLDEN GATE & MONTE CARLO & CIRO). THOSE INCREDIBLE HANS MAKART PICTURES MAKE ME WANT TO GO BACK TO VIENNA (AND THE GURTEL). 

MY OPIUM ADDICTION HAS ALREADY CAUSED ME TO RUN UP A £5,060 DEBT ON MY CREDIT CARDS. “GET TO GRIPS WITH THE IDEA THAT IT IS EATING AWAY AT YOUR MONEY, YOUR LOVE AND YOUR LIFE.” NOW I WANT TO PLUNGE BACK TO BERLIN, & VIENNA, & BRUSSELS. DIVING DEEPER INTO DARKNESS! I AM COMPLETELY UNRESPONSIVE TO A WOMAN’S PROMPTINGS, LIKE AMANDA IN SUNSET, OR --- IN THE SCOTSMAN, OR THE BLONDE ON CHARING CROSS TUBE PLATFORM. I AM NARCISSUS, I AM DORIAN GRAY. I SEEM TO HAVE FORGOTTEN THE PASSION, AND LOST THE DESIRE. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES IS “REALLY A CHARACTER STUDY OF A MAN FOR WHOM LOVE SEEMS AN IMPOSSIBILITY, AND SO HAS THROWN HIMSELF INTO HIS WORK IN AN EFFORT TO ESCAPE HIS SAD PREDICAMENT.” 

SOLIPSISM: “YOUR WANTS & WISHES ARE ALL THAT COUNT, AND YOU MUSTN’T EVEN THINK OF GIVING WAY OR GIVING IN.” THE GREATEST THING THAT HAS HAPPENED THIS YEAR WAS SEEING M-- AGAIN. THERE HAVE BEEN NO REAL GREAT EVENTS THIS YEAR, INSTEAD JUST THE LOW LEVEL PLEASURE OF BEING IN MY OWN HOUSE, AND DRINKING IN THE CALCUTTA, AND MAKING SLOW PROGRESS ON AUTISMUS, AND LOTTA, AND THE COLD ICY AIR OF THE MOUNTAINS. THIS IS WHAT I AM PAYING £541 A MONTH FOR. IT IS AN INVESTMENT TO GIVE BIRTH TO MY FUTURE PERSON. I WILL WORK HARD TO GET ME THROUGH TO BERLIN IN MAY.

I rounded off my year in style by getting thrown out of the Hogarthian place for my appalling behaviour (31st Dec 2006)

I rounded off my year in style by getting thrown out of the Hogarthian place for my appalling behaviour. In five years I don’t think I have ever seen anyone thrown out, unless they were actually cracking bar stools over other people’s heads. How low can a boy sink? I think it was watching the Consul in Under the Volcano the previous night that inspired me to these dizzying depths of depravity. I was already worse for wear when I arrived, had one more, discovered Lucky now has dark hair, Crystal discovered I now have dimples, headed off to see La Antonacci. I had a standing place, but found I kept nodding off, and coming round just as my knees were about to buckle. I left after an hour, not even making it to the interval. As Carmen made her escape from jail, the lights momentarily dimmed, and I made my escape from the opera house, running in the direction of rain-soaked Kingsway where I made my fateful decision to get the 91 BACK to King’s Cross. Things then went from bad to worse. Israeli Helen, —–, Stella, Chloe, Arleni, Sindy, Demi. I seem to remember buying Demi a box of chocolates as she told me it was her last night [it later turned out it wasn't].

The Flying Scotsman was only great as an interval between visits to Berlin and maybe it can go back to that again (30th Nov 2006)

The Flying Scotsman was only great as an interval between visits to Berlin, and maybe it can go back to that again. 

You work hard to earn money so you can throw it away on your pleasures. How I admire that man at the hotel who drank 8 bottles of wine a day. 

I had such great high times in Berlin Munich Vienna I had to keep my fix going while stuck in boring London till I could get back again, that is when The Flying Scotsman started to become special to me. I love starting to drink, and then it hits your blood, then you get high, and lit up. 

Benassi Sex’n’Money. 

I have had some great nights on holiday, but they were all nights where I spent money wildly, like it was no object. That is the only lesson. Fuck the pain away.