The Vienna visit feels like such a waste when I have nothing particularly to go for except that it will be Christmas (13th Sept 2006)

The Vienna visit feels like such a waste when I have nothing particularly to go for except that it will be Christmas. At least in Berlin I have got La Traviata and Carmina Burana to see in January, that is the hook I can hang the visit on, and in April I have got Katarina Dalayman’s Salome. But Vienna seems pointless and totally obscenely extravagant when I am already so much in debt and probably by then paying such huge interest on it. What other chute moments have I had? The American girl on the Eurostar to Brussels. That ruined my entire four day stay before I got there. I could not get over it. A crippling indecision what to say and inability to act meant I let her just walk away from me and killed myself. The pink top blonde on the plane to Munich. The crippling fear is that once I start talking to them they will realise I am not the man they thought I was from looking at my pretty eyes and sweetness. Once I try to get involved with a girl, my total inablilities in that area become exposed, as they did with Lotta and Chess Goddess, when normally I keep them so well covered up by my silence and my reticence, which attracts them and lures them in. Florence hushed me with a gesture when I arrived, that is her revenge for me turning away from her when she tried to say “It is nice to see you again” last time. And the last time she collected she didn’t just hold out her jug, she plumped both elbows on the bar and leaned there next to me as if this was an invitation for me to say something but again I just put the pound in without a word and she quickly turned and left. It is like it took her so many months to lure me out of my shell, and now I am never going to let her lure me out again. I have crept back under my stone and I am going to stay there. I had my chute moment with Chess Goddess too, that is why I left a trail of blood along the Exhibition Road. And of course with Pooky, that led to the psychological destruction during my trip to Oslo. When you are going through a psychological meltdown people seem to sense it and rush in to give you a kick while you are down. It is like a joyous, gleeful feeding frenzy. Indeed people are like wolves to me. As they were to Kaspar, to John Merrick, to Van Gogh, to Oscar Wilde after his imprisonment. All these beautiful, sensitive, gentle people were absolutely ripped to shreds by gleeful, vicious society.

I feel an almost physical revulsion at the thought of going back to Cotton Club 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 Florence or anyone have a relationship with a strange man like me. I am like Ralph Fiennes's 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 Bell and the Cotton Club 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. Florence’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.

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!