Yes I miss those nights at Atlantic City and Sexyland and Golden Gate & Mon Cheri & Monte Carlo & Ciro & Pour Platin and Empire and the Bell and Sunset Strip & Sunset Cinema but you cannot keep doing it all the time [25th Sept 2006]

Yes I miss those nights at Atlantic City and Sexyland and Golden Gate & Mon Cheri & Monte Carlo & Ciro & Pour Platin and Empire and the Bell and Sunset Strip & Sunset Cinema, but you cannot keep doing it all the time. You cannot do it every week, 52 weeks a year. Yes I am missing out on all those experiences and all those heady nights and all those new people like Janet or Martini that might be arriving--but it is great to have some months when you do nothing, and then have some months when you go back to it. You have to deny yourself some things for a while, in order to enjoy them again. The longer I leave it the more I will appreciate it when I go back to my Pope life, my Francis Bacon life, my George Grosz life. The Broken World. The Shining Road. Once again I pore over the weather forecasts. For signs, auguries, of when the right time will be to resume my former sinful profligate life. I divine things from the weather. My sexuality is linked to the weather as much as it is linked to finance and to justice and to cathedrals. I will indulge my sexuality when the weather indicators are right, and the financial indicators are right, and the scales of justice feel right, and when in the cathedral it feels right. 

I love the wicked women. I have met some women I could trust in that broken world, Lela, for example, Ana Maria, Pamela. Diana in Berlin or Riccarda. Probably not Iga, as much as I love her! You can genuinely touch someone in that world and be touched by them, I think. I always go into that world looking for love, as I think they are the only women I could ever love. The clink of gold in the glass. The Tallulahs are probably no more cynical than the Esmeraldas. They are only nice to you as long as you are filling their glass with gold. Still, I think you can meet some exceptions, when something genuine passes between you, with Susi, with Janet, with --. And if I am wrong, then it does not matter. Fleetingly, it felt nice to real there was something real between us, if only in the blink of an eye. It is those moments that you keep go out looking for. That is what you keep gambling for, throwing so much money down on the roulette table for the very occasional moment when you get back more than you put in. That is what you keep trawling the broken world for, those fleeting moments when eye meets eye and some spark of electricity passes between you, and that current brings you back to life, for a couple of hours, or for one night, at least. That is what the poems of Hart Crane speak to me of: "The flesh assaults outright for bolts that linger". How you put on your beer goggles, so everything looks magical, everyone looks beautiful and desirable, and everyone seems to find you beautiful and desirable in return. If it is all commerce, simply, then no matter. There are just those brief moments when it seems so real, comes so close to being real, that it is as good as real. 

In every city there is Helen of Troy locked up somewhere in a room. She lives on like Orlando, like Emilia Makropolus. You go out every night searching for her, as David Tennant's Casanova always searches for Laura Fraser. "The sight of a whore is profoundly thrilling to a man". As a scopophiliac, sight is everything to me, and I lose myself in that world. For two months I have had to abstain completely and withdraw from it, only so that I might return refreshed and enjoy it anew. "There is only one woman in the world for me, you know that". "Who is she? Tell me!""No. She is cruel to me." "Maybe you were cruel to her." "Ah, that's what a bleeding heart does to a man. It drips and leaks into his soul, and before long floods his soul, and saturates him, and all his thoughts and all his words and all his deeds become bloody." "What could a woman do to help such a man?" "Well, if you would just give me your hand for a moment..." "No! You're an animal!" "If you would just step into this dark corner with me for a moment..." "No! Never again! No more dark corners with you!"

How I walked away from Irina without seizing my moment. How I walked away from -- without seizing my moment. How I walked away from Susi without seizing my moment. Maybe Riccarda, too. Pamela?

I live in the Ernest Dowson world. Don’t stick your head above the parapet unless you want to get shot at. When I hear Maneater I want to see -- dancing to it. I am obsessed with her.

"As Nietzsche put it, while recovering from his intoxication with Wagner: 'What can be done well today, what can be masterly, is only what is small.'"

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.

Yes I miss those nights at Atlantic City & Sexyland & Golden Gate & Mon Cheri & Monte Carlo & Ciro & Pour Platin and Empire and the Scotsman and Sunset Strip & Cinema but you cannot keep doing it all the time (25th Sept 2006)

Yes I miss those nights at Atlantic City and Sexyland and Golden Gate & Mon Cheri & Monte Carlo & Ciro & Pour Platin and Empire and the Scotsman and Sunset Strip & Cinema, but you cannot keep doing it all the time. You cannot do it every week, 52 weeks a year. Yes I am missing out on all those experiences and all those heady nights and all those new people like Janet or Martina that might be arriving—but it is great to have some months when you do nothing, and then have some months when you go back to it. You have to deny yourself some things for a while, in order to enjoy them again. The longer I leave it the more I will appreciate it when I go back to my Pope life, my Francis Bacon life, my George Grosz life. The Broken World. The Shining Road. Once again I pore over the weather forecasts. For signs, auguries, of when the right time will be to resume my former sinful profligate life. I divine things from the weather. My sexuality is linked to the weather as much as it is linked to finance and to justice and to cathedrals. I will indulge my sexuality when the weather indicators are right, and the financial indicators are right, and the scales of justice feel right, and when in the cathedral it feels right. 

I love the wicked women. I have met some women I could trust in that broken world, Lela, for example, Ana Maria, Pamela. Diana in Berlin or Riccarda. Probably not Iga, as much as I love her! You can genuinely touch someone in that world and be touched by them, I think. I always go into that world looking for love, as I think they are the only women I could ever love. The clink of gold in the glass. The Tallulahs are probably no more cynical than the Esmeraldas. They are only nice to you as long as you are filling their glass with gold. Still, I think you can meet some exceptions, when something genuine passes between you, with Susi, with Janet, with —–. And if I am wrong, then it does not matter. Fleetingly, it felt nice to feel there was something real between us, if only in the blink of an eye. It is those moments that you keep going out looking for. That is what you keep gambling for, throwing so much money down on the roulette table for the very occasional moment when you get back more than you put in. That is what you keep trawling the broken world for, those fleeting moments when eye meets eye and some spark of electricity passes between you, and that current brings you back to life, for a couple of hours, or for one night, at least. That is what the poems of Hart Crane speak to me of: “The flesh assaults outright for bolts that linger” The wine menagerie. How you put on your beer goggles, so everything looks magical, everyone looks beautiful and desirable, and everyone seems to find you beautiful and desirable in return. If it is all commerce, simply, then no matter. There are just those brief moments when it seems so real, comes so close to being real, that it is as good as real. In every city there is Helen of Troy locked up somewhere in a room. She lives on like Orlando, like Emilia Makropolos. You go out every night searching for her, as David Tennant’s Casanova always searches for Laura Fraser. “The sight of a whore is profoundly thrilling to a man”.

How I walked away from Irina without seizing my moment. How I walked away from —– without seizing my moment.How I walked away from Susi without seizing my moment. Maybe Riccarda, too. Pamela? 

 

Some beautiful new pictures of Sunset Strip on the website, what a surprise! Including two absolutely gorgeous pictures of —–. Oh you just look at those pictures and you see how attractive that world is, how easy it is to lose yourself in it, and submerge yourself in it, and let the waters close over your head, and disappear into another world. When you think of —– dancing to Promiscuous Girl. They are the best things in life. Maybe one day I will settle down with —–. Hahaha. I am abstaining from that world completely, just so I can dive back into it so completely when I am ready. Yes I owed £3,600 on October 1st last year, but I then still went ahead & went to Frankfurt for 4 days, Berlin for 5 days, Berlin for one night only, not to mention the last visit to Munich. What real nice warmth did I ever find in that world: —–, Janet, Sylvia, Martina, Amanda. Maybe Luana? I live in the Ernest Dowson world. Don’t stick your head above the parapet unless you want to get shot at.

When I hear Maneater I want to see —– dancing to it. I am obsessed with her. “As Nietzsche put it, while recovering from his intoxication with Wagner: ‘What can be done well today, what can be masterly, is only what is small.'”

I pore over the weather forecasts with such interest (25th Sept 2006)

I pore over the weather forecasts with such interest, as it tells me when the best time is to go back to the shining road. Weather therefore assumes a special significance to me, the same way Justice Palaces do, the same way Bourses do, the same way Cathedrals do. Everything is Eros.

Natalie Maines used to be such a happy go lucky always smiling always laughing kind of girl, then after one throwaway line at a concert, America turned against her and actually tried to destroy her, actually tried to make her want to kill herself. The same way Britain turned against Beckham after one split-second momentary error of judgement, and tried to destroy him, totally crush him, make him want to kill himself. To survive this sudden amazing breathtaking unexpected onslaught, to survive this sudden hate, which you could never have believed if you were not seeing it and hearing it for yourself aimed directly at your person every single day, you must become hard and tough, a fighter, you must kill something in your heart, and you will never be quite the same happy go lucky smiling laughing person again. It will age you very quickly, and make you grow up very quickly. Natalie Maines suddenly looks older, quite drawn, though still of course unbelievably beautiful. But you can see she is an older, wiser, sadder person now, not quite so ever ready with the laugh & the smile. There is a shadow on her, the way there was on Beckham forever after. You find it very hard to trust again. Your faith in the goodness of human beings is almost completely shattered. Almost. Those who keep on loving you, keep on being warm to you, are what keep you going.

There is nothing better than travelling around Europe to see my favourite opera singers (19th Sept 2006)

There is nothing better than travelling around Europe to see my favourite opera singers. While there enjoying the brothels and strip clubs and pubs as well. Travel seems the only point to life. To travel is to be held in suspension. As soon as you come to rest, everything stops and falls. You are just left waiting until you can travel again. Between travels I will just drink and drink to make the time go faster. Four in the Calcutta. Managed to keep the box seat the whole time. Two more stunning big breast girls on the 87 to Vauxhall, black ponytail black glasses black T-shirt, and white blond, black shades, orange top over purple bra. I will go home today so I can get drunk while listening to music. That is all I do every day on my days off, get drunk. Just waiting for the time I can travel again. Thursday should be thundery, and Friday showers. The paper says we are heading for a period of high winds, torrential rain and abnormally high temperatures! Phnom Penh weather. It remains to be seen whether I can resist the lure of the illicit thrill during these atmospheric conditions. I do not want to go back to the Bell and Cotton Club and Cinema and Demi and Pamela until I am also ready to travel. Even when I get September out of the way, there is still all of October, all of November, and all of December to get through! Can I really resist travelling in December? Maybe I will just pop to Brussels? I travel to wallow in nostalgia, not see new places. But just going to Brussels would seem such a dead end, wouldn’t it? Brussels should never be a terminus, it can only be a starting point. A jumping off point. Better to wait till the New Year and combine it with the Berlin trip. One hot steamy, rainy, Phnom Penh weekend I could just pop over to Brussels couldn't I, just for a Thursday Friday Saturday night, back home Sunday morning, back to work Sunday night? Just for a couple of days drinking in the Maes Bar, couple of nights at Empire and Gare du Nord? What is the difference from a couple of days drinking in the Calcutta, couple of nights at the Bell and Soho? 

I live for gambling, I live for saving my money in periods of abstinence just so I can blow it again on wicked women in London and Brussels and Vienna and Munich and Berlin. This boom and bust is what I live for. 

“What Rodin depicted in the Burghers was the birth of a specifically modern form of despair: an acceptance that there is no external source of redemption and the knowledge that one’s life might not be capable of generating its own capacity for redemption. What solace is available in the face of this dilemma? One possibility is work, the unswerving devotion to a craft that so impressed Rilke. The other is the sexual promise offered by women. In his later years Rodin achieved a blissful combination of these possibilities, devoting hours and hours to making thousands of drawings of naked women, often in states of sexual rapture. ‘People say I think too much about women,’ he explained. ‘Yet after all, what is there more important to think about?’ In Milton–as in the Bible–the Fall comes after Adam has tasted Eve in all her tainted sensuality. This inverts the reality of the situation: that the lure of sex is one of the things that makes the fallen state not simply bearable but desirable. Wittingly or not, Milton provides a glimpse of a paradise that is endlessly regainable: ‘Carnal desire inflaming, he on Eve/Began to cast lascivious eyes, she him/As wantonly repaid…’ Rodin trained himself to draw without taking his eyes off the women who were happy to surrender themselves to him as he abandoned himself to his gaze, (William Rothenstein, to whom Rodin made the remark about the importance of women, recalls him ‘caressing his models with his eyes, and sometimes too with his hands’.)” 

I abandon myself to my gaze. I have a deep attachment to Brussels, Munich, Vienna and Berlin. I used to spend all my spare money in the Bell and Cotton Club and Soho. Now I save it all for travelling in December and January. I can moan about all the money I have wasted on sex and strippers over the past few years, but isn’t that the point of life?!!!! There is nothing I would rather do with my money. I just need to control it in London so I can also enjoy the womanly delights of Berlin and Brussels and Vienna and Munich.