They're ugly (7th November 1997)

They're ugly, they open their mouths and ugliness comes out, they want to smear me with their ugliness because they resent me for my beauty and my intelligence and my serenity. They hate me for being happy in myself. Well, I'm sorry, but I can give them no satisfaction. They destroyed Oscar Wilde, but they will never destroy me, I'm terribly sorry for them. They want to take my serenity away from me, well I'm very sorry for them, but they haven't got the ability to be able to succeed. They must continue to be frustrated. 

"This strategy is consonant with the tendency of Weimar society in general to test continually the limits of sexuality in relation to legal (or moral) jurisdiction. The cultural artifacts of the Weimar Republic evince a fascination with sexual transgression and the violation of traditional taboos through the exploration of pornography, prostitution, androgyny, homosexuality. Modernity to the Berlin of the mid-1920s entails a sexual expressivity outside the constraints of love or convention. Sexual secrecy--aligned with the bourgeois repression confronted by the newly popular psychoanalysis--is annihilated in an excessive exhibitionism. Accounts of Berlin, such as the following by Stefan Zweig, were common: 'Berlin transformed itself into the Babel of the world'." 

I am exploring pornography, like Egon Schiele. 

 

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."  

I love the secrecy of Astral & Soho Cinema (1st November 1997)

I love the secrecy of Astral & Soho Cinema. Now winter is here, I want to spend the whole winter in the sex cinemas in the mist and blackness.

How strongly and how repeatedly Soho Cinema and Astral turned me on (31st October 1997)

How strongly, and how repeatedly, Soho Cinema and Astral turned me on, and how little Sunset Strip does. Watching the girls at close quarters, I thought how sexy I would find this sight now if it was on a screen now and I could be rubbing my cock in the dark. Perhaps £6 spent in Soho Cinema without staying wasn't a mistake: the sexual tension in Soho Cinema and Astral is incredible. In Sunset Strip so non-existent, dry, dusty & polite. Soho Cinema & Astral is wet and sticky and there are slopping sounds, dicks sticking out of trousers and being rubbed gently: how sexy it is! Like Oscar Wilde found rent boys exciting, I find the cocks out in Soho Cinema & Astral exciting. I should have stayed in there yesterday with my £6 ticket: Sunset Strip was the mistake. 

The September blackness: it was only the visit to Soho Cinema and the visit to Astral that improved me, brought relief, blood pulsing back through my veins, excitement to lift me out of the blackness: and then just the prospect of going back again sustained me for the next 3.5 weeks, that heart pounding, illicit excitement. You need something to make the blood pulse through your veins, and stimulate you: if you haven't got a relationship then you need Soho Cinema & Astral. The nerves and excitement of doing something illicit & shameful. The only thing that helped me get through the death and the funeral was the thought I'd rush back to Soho straight afterwards. It is my peace, my relaxant, my chocolate after the medicine. To escape from relationships, I go to sex cinemas. How dull & useless I feel in relationships.

I can't wait to get back to Soho Cinema and Astral Cinema and Sunset Strip (29th October 1997)

I can't wait to get back to Soho Cinema and Astral Cinema, and Sunset Strip: masturbate my life away like Salvador Dali. I love the thrill of being in those places with all those men.

The power I felt in the ----- today, because I felt however they tried to attack me, I was still powerful and strong, and invincible to them forever. So, Wilde and Sunset Strip and Tosca. Go back sexily, powerfully to work, and enjoy the dynamics I set in motion again: be a notetaker, a biographer of the reactions. Like Ranulph Fiennes went to the North Pole, write my book for Foyles when I get back.

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."

Remember Egon Schiele and go back to Sunset Strip (25th October 1997)

Remember Egon Schiele, and go back to Sunset Strip. 

Being at work makes me unhappy. Following my secret desires is marginally better. I can't escape this basic equation, and the solution seems unavoidable. 

"La Belle Epoque became a celebration of women's sexuality and beauty, in turn-of-the-century Paris. That acrobatic frenzy of limbs called the Can Can was born, where dancers high-kicked in frilly petticoats flashing glimpses of white flesh between bloomers and stocking tops. Girls drudging as laundresses ten hours a day for peanuts could suddenly have more money and fun by dancing. Star dancers such as the brazen Paris sex symbol La Goulue (the Glutton) emerged--she was the first nude cover girl and became rich and famous. Meanwhile: 'The sinuous moving of a voluptuous body, the open sexuality of an uncorseted woman and the exotic attraction of the mysterious eroticism of the North African coast made the arrival of belly dance a catalyst for the birth of striptease.'" 

Go to Sunset Strip often (but briefly): three pints inside me will make even one hour bearable, even if the Glutton isn't there. But I have to keep checking. Fine. Weekly visits to see blonde bob Glutton, like I had weekly visits to see black bob. If I could afford it then, I can afford it now.

I rather enjoy it it makes me feel better, they play into my hands (24th October 1997)

I rather enjoy it, it makes me feel better, they play into my hands. "You have hidden ambitions and it is to these you should look and try to advance this Friday. There's no need to be shy or coy as it's possible that whatever your career is may not be where your heart lies. So make a promise to yourself to follow your secret desires."

I can only communicate by letter now (22nd October 1997)

I can only communicate by letter now. It is like Beethoven slowly went deaf. I slowly lost all sense of emotion. "You can do as much as you like to resist the inevitable but, like it or not, the dice of life have been rolled and you can do nothing to prevent what is coming at you. It's futile to fight fate, so why bother? Save yourself the pain and in the end you will gain."