I did enjoy those Astral films didn't I (29th April 1997)

I did enjoy those Astral films didn't I, even if they weren't the best. I miss the Carnival Club. I've got to go back. Sunset or Boulevard. Sex makes the world go round. Doing something sinful stimulates my brain. 

By the time I go to Chelsea on Saturday, we could have a Labour government.

Carnival Strip Club was just getting good (26th April 1997)

Carnival Strip Club was just getting good. Now it’s gone. Boulevard always has very big voluptuous girls but so American and open. Sunset Strip is so drab and ordinary, though there have been special moments. Astral Cinema is OK (it it remains) now and again. But I think I’m clean till Winter now. 

Carmen in a month’s time. It’s sexy to take risks. 

It feels so sexy to go into a whore’s room and strip absolutely nude and be rampant in there, waiting for her to come in. That’s the good part, when you give her the money and she tells you to strip while she goes out for a moment. If the Astral films had been better Friday I might very nearly have been tempted. To be in that warm room stark naked, waiting for her to come back in. 

I've got an intense resentment of people, and I want them to prove me right. That's a relief. Lets me off the hook. They can say these things but I'm never going to submit to that. They're never going to take away what's special about me. I have to put up with so much nastiness in my life, but I will rise above, and remain beautiful, like F.G.Lorca. People are always trying to look you in the eye, demanding something of you, and that's very tiring.

I love going to the models! But I can’t feel anything (19th March 1997)

I love going to the models! But I can’t feel anything. Going up the steps is so exciting, standing outside door reading the sign, knowing you can touch them in a minute. Rachel, voluptuous chubby red bob girl. Black bra, breasts hanging over the top, see through tights, nothing underneath. As I lay in bed, she took bra off and pulled tights down. What a sight. So voluptuous sitting next to me, I touched breasts, her pussy, her slit. She put me in, and it was warm, I could feel her clamping me. I pulled out, and put it back in again, back in the warm clamp again. Try it sober maybe. You do what you want. W--ked in Astral to get ready for model. 

I can always go to Brewer Street when I want to now. 

I want to spend lots of money, and go back to work, earn lots of money and spend it all in Brewer Street. Write off for jobs, start signing on, when the money goes. Spend it fast as you like. All those doorways to be investigated, and stood outside. I wouldn’t want to go back to Carla, but Rachel I definitely would.

I stay very pure (16th March 1997)

I stay very pure. I’m going to follow my own path, and not be deflected. 

“Theo had long since liberated himself from such constraints. He had managed to adapt to a world of night life and love, a world where absinthe and ‘the hour of the flesh’ were there to be enjoyed. The prostitutes in Dean Street, there since Marx.

I miss that black skipants, big tall black-haired Amazonian girl in Carnival so much! And big breasts blonde black jumper. 

It’s there to be enjoyed.

Love how you want to love; love who you please (9th March 1997)

Love how you want to love; love who you please. 

Give me greater self-knowledge, but that doesn’t mean I dislike what I feel inside. I don’t want to open up and let people inside my Swiss bank vaults because they’ll take everything. I trust you. This self-knowledge has just given me the belief that I have got the strength and inner riches to stay on my own. 

Summer’s coming and perhaps I will come into my own: Misadventures finished at last, money to spend, films to see, strolling around London under the trees, I’ve removed the last taboo with the prostitutes. I felt I was deliberately stopping short of something which I didn’t really want to think about. I was deliberately limiting my experience. Now I’ve done everything, I can get on my with my work. 

It was fascinating to be on that bed and have her putting condom on and wanking me wasn’t it? Then lying back for me, and putting me in. The Astral kept me permanently turned on and bored at the same time.

"Walking with a yellow star on my coat, some woman spat at me" (6th March 1997)

"Walking with a yellow star on my coat, some woman spat at me....You have to look straight through people like that, without seeing them, or else how could you bear it.....They came to watch us at the station; they expected wailing and crying. We had a dignity which made my heart overflow with respect." So I did it. Went in model's room in Dean Street. Big breasts blonde in Carnival again. Plus big new long black-haired girl, with green shockwave tattoo round bottom. Big voluptuous bottom, in black ski-shorts over white knickers and bra. Great dancer, sensational big girl, big hips, big bottom. Her bottom dancing in front of me. I had a permanent erection in Astral but you don't really see anything. I go to prostitutes. Whatever turns you on. Prostitutes turn me on. That's what I want. I've done it now. I can do it whenever I want now. I am Wedekind. Toulouse Lautrec. Van Gogh.

I don’t want a real woman (6th Feb 1997)

I don’t want a real woman, that would steal my time and freedom; my peace and quiet, I only want to go to prostitutes when I feel like it. I really don’t want a girlfriend, you know that, I couldn’t bear that. I do want a naked girl to myself every few weeks just to relieve the sexual pressure, I do know that. So that’s the problem solved then. Real girls I definitely don’t want. Prostitutes I do. That is my ideal perfect solution. Find where the models work. That is my desire. I don’t need to be ashamed and repressed like Hugh Grant. Be like Sickert, Wedekind, Toulouse-Lautrec. Sitting in the front row of Carnival Strip Monday and feeling so ruthless and in control decided it, told me I could do it. I was surprised to realise at last I could do it, I was ready for it. It is necessary for the next stage of my development.

Good it's a challenge, it's an expedition; to the Lost World (25th Jan 1997)

Good, it's a challenge, it's an expedition; to the Lost World.

Sex is good, sex is healthy (27th Nov 1997)

Sex is good, sex is healthy. Nothing erotic, and sexually stimulating is bad. The more erotic stimulation the better e.g. the Kinsey biography, the sensual, erotic, decadent Pre-Raphaelite Symbolists. Beautiful girls at Sunset and Boulevard: I like the sex dancers. Ruth St Denis inspired Egon Schiele. Anita Berber inspired Otto Dix. 

I've had a long erotic abstinence, but what have I gained? My brain being eaten away. 

EGON SCHIELE FREEDOM & RELIEF, no erotic repression. 

My Soho Cinema & Astral visit in September cleared the blockage and got me moving again. It is an injection of life blood, regular shots to keep the red blood hot & flowing, and the brain on the edge of illicit shame & stimulation, bubbling along: it helps my creativity. 

Pornography is my secret, shameful addiction: I've tried to break away from it several times. 

"Symbolism, the most literary, sensual, erotic, decadent (even degenerate and depraved), mysterious and melancholy movement in the whole history of art...The first room of the exhibition is full of these ideal creatures--Helen of Troy, Lilith, Mary Magdalene and The Beloved--all of the same kind, no matter who played painter, all of a brooding lubricity that unsettles a man schooled in sexual restraint and the belief that the lasciviousness of women is a fire of damp kindling." 

"She sees a connection between the Dracula of Bram Stoker's novel, and the mythical figure of the Wandering Jew. She also sees another link between the nocturnal Count and the Whitechapel serial killer Jack the Ripper. The Jack-Drac narrative, she writes, plays out a 'constellation of similar fears, raging from syphilis to alien invasion'. She also throws in homosexuality, feminism, decadence and imperial decline: something for everyone....Women can be bad and wicked in Gothic. Gothic is all about transgression, dealing with taboos." Why can't I visit Soho every week, like I did during the Grosz period? Looking at that picture of Talyn, I do want to go back, don't I? Astral & Sunset Strip. 

The biggest thing in my life is pornography. Philip Larkin had his pictures. Wagner had his erotic urges, which produced Tannhauser, Tristan & Isolde, etc. It is necessary fortnightly hygiene: Van Gogh did it. So I like sex films, that's the way it is. BACK TO BERLIN, 1890s, WITH A VENGEANCE!

Jacqueline Bisset in a white T-shirt in The Deep (24th Nov 1997)

Jacqueline Bisset in a white T-shirt in The Deep, that's why I go to Soho Cinema & Astral. 

My chest is nervous, and gripped with tension, and excitement, because I'm going back to Astral & pub. Keep earning a bit more money and keep on going to London. Just that. I'm a sleazy person, in Berlin, that's the way it is. 

To lose myself in Astral for a full 5 hours, what a luxury! 

H.C.'s pink lace stare (so like Nana) will always remind me of dark black windy September afternoon, 1992, when I first went down Dean Street. I will always go back because of that. Sex is all there is to life: Soho Cinema/Astral/Sunset/Boulevard: I will remain in Soho permanently: that is what I work for.

"Collective lust roared unashamed at the theatres" (20th Nov 1997)

"Collective lust roared unashamed at the theatres": Berlin 1928, Paris 1860, London 1997. They are beautiful girls in the films. Wouldn't it satisfy my curiosity if I just went to Astral and did it? What good does it do, boasting proudly how long I've lasted, 20 days, 21 days, if I'm being eaten away inside my brain every day. Like Toulouse Lautrec, make myself at home among the sex cinemas and sex dancing. The colours & intoxication & pounding music can fuel me, give me energy. 

I love the openness & relaxation of the girls in the sex films like Egon Schiele loved his models. 

I tried giving up sex cinemas and clubs but I couldn't, it would just be on my mind. The more I try & resist, the weaker I become. How strong I felt the day after Soho Cinema's shame, how strong I felt the day after Astral and red room--it is a strong part of my life. 

Your injunction to me to "do something" takes me in the opposite direction to that what I think I want to go: as I sail down this "do something" river I feel the sense of danger increasing, the sense of being up a creek without a paddle, and moving full speed away from the main river to my destination and the territory I know increasing. But, this is my problem. I wouldn't want to bore you with my problems. I must make this choice for myself, of course. 

Haunt the balconies of the Coliseum. 

I've become sex-obsessed this year, more morphine-addicted than ever. 

I am nothing without the sleazy nightlife, don't just go to musicals, opera, cinema, I do want Boulevard, and Soho Cinema/Astral. So it's my little naughty vice: everyone needs to let off pressure. I've done nothing today, because I wasted it, consumed by sinful desire, so better to have gone and gone it, and been relaxed for the next few days: do what you need to do: a little of what you fancy. It is my project. "Theo had quietly adjusted to Parisian nightlife and the 'hour of the flesh'". Your sexuality is your most powerful force: you must indulge it. Remember that girl watching me as I read the Eric Cantona headline: how thrilling to turn by her and go in sex cinema. The day after going, I made such huge progress, because I'm no longer preoccupied by thinking should I go or not. 

IT IS VITAL RELEASE VALVE FOR ME AS A WRITER. The vampirism returns! I've got a crippling addiction. Laudanum-head, like Miranda Richardson in Kansas City. 

"They are the typical ramblings of a drug user eager for a fix but without the means to pay....But the previously unseen letters show that as well as his desperation to acquire the drug, he also shared the addict's paranoia about his habit. Although Coleridge's habit was widely known--one reference book describes it as a 'crippling addiction'--the letters reveal the large quantity of opium he took...Coleridge admitted two years before he died that despite repeated attempts, he had never broken his addiction, describing it as the 'poison, which for more than 30 years has been the guilt, debasement, and misery of my existence'. Sotheby's specialist Peter Beal said 'These letters offer a particularly vivid and rare first-hand glimpse of the compulsive habits and routine of one of the most famous drug addicts in literary history.'" This hysteria of erotic excitement. The sleaziness of life is its vitality.

To Louise the city's erotic smorgasbord was the most pervasive and intriguing attribute of 1928 Berlin (4th November 1997)

"To Louise, the city's erotic smorgasbord was the most pervasive and intriguing attribute of 1928 Berlin, 'where the ruling class publicly flaunted its pleasures as a symbol of wealth and power.' No account of the city's sexuality at that time is better than her own: Sex was the business of the town. At the Eden Hotel, where I lived, the cafe bar was lined with the higher-priced trollops. The economy girls walked the street outside...Collective lust roared unashamed at the theatre. In the revue Chocolate Kiddies, when Josephine Baker appeared naked except for a girdle of bananas, it was precisely as Lulu's stage entrance was described by Wedekind: 'They raged there as in a menagerie when the meat appears at the cage.'" 

"Wedekind's controversial writing embraced Freud's thesis that civilisation is based on the suppression of the most basic human instinct: the erotic. He preached a 'revival of spiritual sensuality and bodily pleasure'--an unattainable freedom of the flesh that outraged late Victorian morality...Wedekind also practiced what he preached. He delighted in scandalising the fin-de-siecle bourgeoisie with his capes and extravagant Mephistophelian garb, and he kept company with avant garde artists and con-artists, prostitutes and petty criminials. He loved bordellos, opium dens, and particularly the circus."  

The excitement and colour of Kansas City last year (26th October 1997)

The excitement and colour of Kansas City last year, marking the return to sin. The relief of that, the feeling that the new year was going to be a year of sex. And so it was, so it has been. But what do I feel at the end of this year? That is more difficult. It seems outdated now, to keep going to Sunset and Soho Cinema and Astral. But what else is there? Just lead a quiet life as much as possible. Enjoy the films, and the opera, and Sunset. Meanwhile, keep writing. 

What am I tense about? There is nothing to be tense about. I'm free till November 17th. If I had train girl Louise to talk to, how much warmer and fuller my life would be. 

"No one could deny that you have been under pressure -- but still you keep coming back for more. And so you should, because current developments are guaranteed to bring out the best in you. Who cares if others insist on springing a few surprises? No one will catch you out. You're well equipped to stay ahead of the game. You will, however, need to conserve energy if you are to keep up the pace for much longer. The trick lies in using the minimum of effort for the maximum effect. Cut corners and lighten your load. You've got a long way to go."

Try going to red boudoirs tomorrow (6th October 1997)

Try going to red boudoirs tomorrow: that's the plan. Because I love being naked in the boudoir with the prostitute. Be gleeful, mischievous, relaxed and powerful about it. Because, like Toulouse-Lautrec, I prefer going with prostitutes. I totally, openly prefer going with prostitutes, rather than -----, for example. I would happily choose prostitutes every time. Because I love being naked in their boudoirs. Get up tomorrow, knowing from the first second this is my prostitutes day. The world is my oyster tomorrow. Powerful. Volcano. I am the volcano. Get out of my way. I am Geoffrey Firmin, the Consul. I am Toulouse-Lautrec. 

I love painting myself naked, like Egon Schiele. I love writing myself naked, and erect, in my pinks, and reds, and purples. 

Stop pontificating around in the middle. Go all out with prostitutes, 1890s, Moulin Rouge, Toulouse-Lautrec, Egon Schiele, go all out with work, in blue overalls. Discover my power now, discover my volcano. 

In June I felt so embarrassed leaving Astral Cinema, it was written on my face, I was red & ashamed, and everybody could see it. But the last two times I've been strong and powerful. Now be strong and powerful with the prostitutes, 1890s, Moulin Rouge, Toulouse-Lautrec, EGON SCHIELE. It is a whole new world I am stepping into. The black & purple Emperor butterfly is about to leave the chrysalis. 

Egon Schiele is the most honest, now you be honest. Toulouse-Lautrec, Moulin Rouge, 1890s. Then I could have Louise. I went into the prostitutes world of the 1890s to discover the power to enable me to have Louise. I needed sexual power to enable me to cope with the emotions necessary to cope with my need for Louise. This is my Tannhauser, in black & purple, in 1890s Paris. Find out about Tosca. 

Back to Grosz again. Enjoy life. Enjoy sex with prostitutes.  But mostly, watch myself like Egon Schiele.

I want lots of money so I can go to floozies all I want (25th August 1997 Vienna)

I want lots of money so I can go to floozies all I want. So I can see new gold dress dancers all I want. Just four more weeks to get through. I can't wait to lose myself in degeneracy, nihilism, the Gurtel again. Those black rainy nights. The orange cauldron.
Stay serene and smiling, like that little old bag lady rustling her carrier bag in the NFT back row. I just want to live in naughtiness and masturbation.