“We drank hard and talked about what Debord, who drank persistently and prodigiously, had written about alcohol" (15th Sept 2006)

“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 hate me?” and she exploded back with real venom “Yes. Because you’re always drunk.”

What a fantastic memory when Irina turned to me and said to me “I’m sorry, you’re nice, but you drink too much!” before giving me the most awesome private dance of my life (19th August 2006)

What a fantastic memory when Irina turned to me and said to me “I’m sorry, you’re nice, but you drink too much!” before giving me the most awesome private dance of my life I have ever had or ever will have. It will be awesome to see Melani again, and Jolanda, followed by Deborah? Oh no! What are you saying? Not in August. Strip clubs, Tallulah, that whole world revolts me in August. It was after that private dance with Irina that I got close to Viktoriya, and really nothing has been the same since then.

I no longer have to wait till October 31st as that was predicated on seeing Violeta Urmana in the Mort de Cleopatra in Berlin. I could go mid September! Some people have got a mortgage, some people have got a car–I spend my money on travelling only, which is the greatest thing, and watching showgirls, and fucking the most beautiful whores in the world. I can have three more weeks at work, then go on 5th September. In Vienna, you will not see anything better than Melani, or Jolanda, or Deborah. If I get out of my depth financially after two nights in Brussels, and two nights in Munich, I can always cut and run and come home. There are two good reasons for going in September (1) to see Das Entfuhrung aus dem Serail at La Monnaie Brussels with Alexandra Lubchansky (2) the Maria Callas exhibition at Vienna KHM until 17 Sept. I will stay first night in Brussels SAS for Empire, then go straight to Vienna next day to spend Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, in Vienna Dorint, back to Brussels Ibis early Sunday morning to see Serail Sunday.
“Maria Callas (1923-1977) was one of the great divas of the 20th century. Both her voice and stage presence are legendary. In 1939, the New York-born Greek made her professional debut at the Athens Olympia Theatre and enjoyed her greatest success at La Scala in Milan throughout the 1950s. Until the mid-1960s, she made numerous appearances at the world’s greatest opera houses. She considered her signature role Norma, which she portrayed almost 90 times, somewhat autobiographical. Callas said, “Norma is in many ways like I am. Norma may appear strong, sometimes even brutal, but in reality she is like a lamb that roars like a lion.”
This exhibition focuses on the staging and self-staging of the artist Maria Callas in the operas La Traviata, Tosca, Medea and Norma as well as the film Medea. Splendid costumes, rare pictures, film sequences of Pasolini’s Medea and Franco Zeffirelli’s Tosca as well as numerous audio samples document her unique artistic personality. The exhibition also provides a detailed picture of the star off stage. The opera star was and remains well known far beyond her own artistic oeuvre. Spectacular cancellations of performances, lawsuits, rivalries and her private life caused sensations. Even today, this diva assoluta inspires not only the world of the opera but also literature and fashion.”
(3) MOZART. The Enlightenment: An Experiment @ the Albertina till 20 Sept
In the 1780s Mozart’s genius was unfolding in Vienna. His most intensive creative period – years of overwhelming success and remarkable wealth, but also of financial need, resulting from an inclination towards venturesomeness – took place in the Josephine climate of rapid reform. This open-minded, enlightened society was marked by the ideals of freemasonry.
(4) Round Table. Egon Schiele & His Circle @ the Belvedere till 24 Sept
“In Roeg’s films, characters don’t realise they are in hell because they have been having too much fun for the most part. And by the time they do realise what is happening, they have resigned themselves to the fact that they are past the point of no return.” Romantic Nihilism.
I am going to have an adventure in Vienna without constraint. I will fuck Maria and Harrietta and Irina double.

Who’s the person I miss most in my life? Sylvia–because it was never spoiled and never went wrong. Because we never got involved. I got "involved" (at a very shallow level) with Melani, & Florence, & Jolanda, and so they were all spoiled and went wrong. Sylvia remains a pure and untouched memory of loveliness. I suppose in a way I can say the same for Irina and Susi and Clarisse and Martina. Beautiful women all look the same whereas not so beautiful women all look unique. Sylvia reminds me of so many other women, Charlotte Rampling, Heather Graham, Meg White, Goldfrapp.

I have got £13,500 credit and I owe £5,900. With this Vienna holiday that will increase temporarily, but so what? It is just like taking out a loan. I have taken out a £5,900 loan which I will pay back when I come back from Vienna. And with this loan I am doing amazing, extraordinary things. Burning bright like a firefly. You have to push yourself to the edge. It is only there that you can observe things & record your observations. I am excited about going to work from now, because my journey to Vienna has already started. Remember how I always used to enjoy going to work because it was just getting me through the two or three weeks until I could get back to Munich again, or get back to Berlin again, or get back to Vienna again? Am I really spending hundreds of pounds going all the way to Vienna just to have sex? The sex with the Vienna and Berlin whores is more expensive but it is better. They will do anything. Remember how Yulia, Riccarda, Maria, Diana, did absolutely everything? You do not get that in Soho. Once you have paid your 100 euros you do get an absolutely mind-blowing experience. Now watching the Alizee J’en ai Marre video I know why I travel. If I had never travelled I would never have seen that video. If I had not gone to Berlin and bought the Observer that Sunday in the Cafe Zoo I would never have discovered the Libertines. If I had not gone back to Brussels I would never have discovered Elena Prokina. Travel enriches you so much. Just as the flat costs me a lot of money but it would be a false economy to give it up, so travelling costs me a lot of money but it too would be a false economy to give it up. That night coming away from Katarina & her Wild Horses with such a huge erection in my trousers it still had not gone down by the time I crossed the leaf carpeted Ku’damm. Meeting Clarisse in Brussels. On a wild goose chase to Nuremberg to look for Viktoriya I met the incredible Martina with the most enormous breasts I have ever seen in my life.

Yes, it is true I am travelling to Vienna for Tallulah, and I have always travelled for Tallulah, but by chance along the way I have also discovered so many things that I would not have discovered otherwise–the Libertines, Elena Prokina, Heidi Klum on the billboard. You always find things while looking for something else. While looking for Susi I met Patricia & B Rosa. While looking for Patricia I met Emily. While looking for Viktoriya I met Martina. While looking for Riccarda I met Diana. The Libertines and Elena Prokina were complete chance discoveries that I would not have made if I had not been in Berlin and Brussels respectively (bored in Berlin on a Sunday I brought an Observer & went to the Cafe Zoo to read it & there read about the Libertines and Pete Doherty for the first time. Bored in Brussels I wandered into La Monnaie and on the off chance bought a ticket for I Due Foscari that night & there heard the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my life when Prokina came on stage to sing), and they are now two of the most important things in my life. I am going to Vienna to see the Maria Callas exhibition but no doubt I will find something else instead. I always find something different to what it was I thought I was looking for. But if I had not set out looking for that thing, I would not have found the other thing. This is becoming the law of my life. I suppose if I go now expecting to meet some other thing I will find nothing but the original thing. Life is a see-saw. As soon as you think you have worked out its hidden laws and mechanisms, they swing back the other way and become the opposite. It is more than anything travelling, though, that keeps them swinging & keeps giving you glimpses into their internal workings, like looking inside a watch. As Kenneth Williams wrote, none of his trips to Tangier were ever what he could call truly successful, but they were important in that they kept the pendulum swinging. Ernest Shackleton kept going back South, even though none of his expeditions ever had any clear aim. It was enough to be heading South again. There is something in my soul that means it is enough to be just heading South again, and South in my case meaning my four Stations of the Cross, my four Cities in the Autumn Stars, Brussels, Munich, Vienna and Berlin, with occasional forays as far as Venice or Budapest or Oslo. 

I have almost forgotten what it is like to sleep at night. I just lie there and stare at the ceiling and have to give up. I love to be awake all night reading or writing while the world is quiet. Days are noisy and full of people, so it is a pleasure to sleep through them. It is cheaper that way, too. This “loan”  I have taken out of £6,000 is vital to pay for my travels which gives me my vital observations which go to form my books. You have to speculate to accumulate. To dare is to do.

But wouldn’t it be nice to go so I can just be in Vienna for three nights & relax, I am thinking now? I will be travelling to Berlin in January for La Traviata and Carmina Burana, and back to Berlin in April-June for Katarina Dalayman in Salome, and maybe Brussels on 11th June for Violeta Urmana. While the Continence of Scipio is upon me, and I do not kid myself it will last, it is a fantastic chance to finally make an inroad into my credit card debt. I may never get another chance again. Crazy to take advantage of this financial control by blowing it all straight away in a four day trip to Vienna, when there is not really anything special for me to go for at this time. I will take the week off in September and use it to do some writing in my flat. I will not be going to Vienna, I think, until maybe the New Year after the Berlin trip, or maybe even December just before Christmas. I have slept every day for three whole days. I slept all day Thursday, Friday, and even today. I left mother’s at 630PM to get my train straight to work. Another couple of rainy days coming up, and Monday should see heavy rain. It is not BORING to not be going out at all now, it is FANTASTIC! It finally gives me the chance to concentrate on the classical music and the writing.  Finally I have a chance to do something about the overheating of the planet, and stop it getting any worse at least. I have not felt any urge to misbehave at all over the past two weeks. It is not as if I even have to fight it. This will be the biggest and best thing I have ever done in my life, if I can do it.

Oh but I would so much love to be in Vienna! But really the nights are so light still. The sun will not be setting until 7:20PM when I get there. How much better to go in November when it sets at 4:30PM! Let that be my rule, never travel until the clocks go back at the end of October. It is exciting to think that by the end of December I could be at exactly the point I was at the end of December last year. I could have climbed back out of the valley of despair. Having gone from -2255 to -4235 I could be back to -2276. Could be. Only if I carry on like this, doing nothing but going to Calcutta for a couple of nights a week for a nightcap, and preferably going home to mother’s. Then I can reward myself with the trip to Berlin in January, maybe a trip to Vienna as well for Christmas, and the trip to Berlin in April for Katarina Dalayman as Salome. Wouldn’t it be more exciting to think of going to Vienna in December rather than the still light start of September?! Vienna at Christmas would be a genuinely exciting prospect. That is my new goal! Can you imagine sitting in the bar of the Dorint half past four in the afternoon having come in from the museums with the lights all glowing and black darkness already outside, maybe snow, and people rushing around in their fur coats back to the warmth of the hotel! Oh how could I think of going in September! If I went in September I would not be able to go anywhere for Christmas. In fact, I have never been anywhere at Christmas. I need to request the Christmas holiday soon as those dates always go really quickly. Now I can plan my Christmas trip! That will replace the emptiness I was already starting to feel at cancelling the September trip. Oh I am already so excited about Christmas in Vienna! By Christmas I could either have £2,287 sitting in my Woolwich account, or else only owe £3,900 on my credit cards, a level I haven’t reached since before I moved into my flat! But yes–Christmas in Vienna. Finally I have reached a compromise, between going and not going, and my devil and my angel have shaken hands with each other on the deal. I feel as excited now as I did reading the Sleeping Beauty is a Junkie article seven years ago. In fact I have never travelled anywhere in December, not even in November, until my one night seeing Prokina in Berlin. If I can keep up this continence, how I will have earned it, and how proud I can feel sitting in that Dorint bar come Christmas-time!

Did those things really happen? (13th August 2006)

Did those things really happen? Patricia, B Rosa, Susi, Irina, Emily, Yulia, Riccarda, Iga, Diana, Maria? It seems too fantastical. Incredible, unbelievable nights. Did that pink top blonde with the massive breasts on the plane to Munich really happen or did I imagine her? “The world is a book, and he who does not travel reads only one page”–St Augustine. Sunny dancing to No One Knows. Getting completely lacerated, pulled limb from limb, absolutely fucking soul murdered, when I went to Norway. Another missed call from Olga at 6:34PM. Did those things truly happen? Truly Munich and Berlin were my Cities of the Autumn Stars. Will I ever have a night as magical as watching England v Turkey under the bulb-lit trees beside the Frauenkirche before walking back to Atlantic City and entering with Irina approaching me smiling and saying she wants to come back to my hotel! Or going back in January to find Heidi Klum on the billboard outside my window, then walking into Atlantic City, hardly able to breathe, going into kabins first, but hearing Junior Senior, J-Lo Let’s Get Loud, Hip Teens Don’t Wear Blue Jeans blaring out from inside, to sit there drunk & dazed as B Rosa danced along the catwalk to Jay-Z’s Threat “dig the desert, they build The Sands on you”, Elena to Tu M’a Promis, before going into separee with Patricia and her letting me wank over her breasts with people standing just a couple of feet away from us! Or going back two weeks later into the separee again with Patricia but this time she told me “B Rosa, I-love-you”, so I staggered out into the deep deep snow & continuing never-ending snowstorm, to find the unbelievable Emily in see through black top, and going into the separee to have the greatest sexual experience of my life, as I pulled down her knickers and pulled out my cock, as she ran the champagne-soaked cotton wool bud around the tip of my penis, before letting me wank over her huge huge breasts! Or going to the brothels for the first time in Berlin, walking around the corner from my Kanthotel to Stutti Frutti and fucking the incredible big breasts black haired Yulia in that Charles Rennie Mackintosh bedroom on the four poster bed! Or going back to Berlin a month later & going into Mon Cheri for the first time to meet Riccarda, back to the Mackintosh bedroom, the same bed, where I felt like I was fucking Marilyn Monroe! Meeting her two nights later as she was slowly stripping on stage! Or going back to Berlin to meet the incredible white haired black dressed Iga! “Liebling. Darling. Will you kiss me?” Or going from Staatsoper’s La Traviata to the Erotic Centre, coming out with the erection into the falling snow, to go back to Diana, the huge breasts blonde in black catsuit, and sucking her pussy on that same Mackintosh four poster bed! 

In Munich and Berlin, in particular, I have had nights so magical, that I can scarcely believe that they really did happen. Did they really happen? Why then have my last six trips, Berlin twice, Munich twice, Frankfurt and Brussels, been so unmagical? I think it is because of the steadily accumulating crippling debt which weighed like an ever heavier millstone around my neck, and I become over-emotionally involved just looking for Riccarda, Iga, Diana, Viktoriya, instead of having new, exciting, open experiences. I will feel fresh and open to new experiences when I go back, I will walk with the huge swinging cock between my legs, pulsing, sore, swollen, swinging from side to side like a ship in a storm, looking for the first voluptuous whore I can find, be it Clarisse, or Alla & Olga, or Erika. I will use Brussels to get me turned on so I am bursting to release it in Berlin. I will use Munich to get me turned on so I am bursting to release it in Vienna. Let us not forget that magical night I met Martina, walking around and lounging around the Pils Bar with the most massive breasts you will ever see in your life! The magical night I met Clarisse in Brussels dancing on stage when I went in with breasts every bit as big! I have got to go back to Copenhagen and Malmo and Oslo one day. Will I ever have a night as magical as watching England v Turkey in the Cafe Belge of the Brussels Ibis and having Nephania come to me & then come to my room! And I haven’t even mentioned the night I walked back into Atlantic City to be hugged by Patricia, then finding Susi up on stage in diamond dress smiling down at me, then peeking into separee to find naked Irina on some man’s lap in a white phosphorescent light, and ending with Viktoriya! I could not enjoy Pils Bar the second & third times I went there, because I could not afford to even buy a girl a drink, let alone touch her. My debt is the reason for everything going flat and dull. 

If I can keep up my hoarding ways, I can be free of the debt.  Already in one week I have saved 130 Euros. By the time the clocks go back at the end of October & the start of the witching months, I should have saved 1,300 Euros. Enough to fuck every whore I want in Brussels and Berlin. Still I wonder if I shouldn’t go to Munich & Vienna first. But the end of October has Violetta Urmana in Berlin & Elena Prokina in Boccanegra in Hamburg. Although January in Berlin has Anna Samuil in Staatsoper’s La Traviata! 

I always let girls ripen and then turn rotten and die. There’s a couple of new ones ripening right now. Oh man, I cannot wait to get back to Munich! Isn’t this amazing after the awful January visit? Every time I see the pictures on the Beate Uhse website I want to get back there–but this time only as a turn on before the consummation in Vienna. Atlantic City can suddenly come back to life because I am using it only as a warm up, it no longer is the be all and end all that everything depends on. That takes the pressure off it, I can go there & relax because I know the real climax is still to come. It is funny how I am thinking so much about Vienna and Munich now? The other night feeling filled with Vienna Westbahnhof and now thinking so much of Munich. Everything except Berlin in fact. Maybe Berlin is something I know I can sink back into at journey’s end, when I have got everything else out of the way. So it maybe will be Berlin in January, and Brussels, Munich and Vienna in October when the clocks go back. But I miss the Berlin Radisson SAS! I miss the Berlin Plaza! I miss the knesepfanne! But really it seems I still miss Atlantic City, Lamm's, and the Dorint more? Let me get Munich and Vienna out of the way first. Two days in Brussels for Wiertz, Modern Art, Empire and Gare du Nord, just two nights in Munich for Atlantic City, Nuremberg Caribic, before pushing on to Vienna for Butterfly House, KHM, Belvedere, Manhattan and Pour Platin. Oh God I cannot wait to get back to Vienna! Fridays & Saturdays Atlantic City is open to 5! 

Now I feel the cold icy air of the mountains. I cannot wait to get back to Europe. In the meantime I will have some drinks at the Calcutta on Saturday night, drinking myself into oblivion just three pints at a time, to get these three months over with as cheaply as possible. For all these magic trips, how can I regret owing £6,000 on my cards?? I regret the £4,000 I have spent in London on nothing but drink & strippers that is what I regret. If not for that I could be free to travel now.