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!

Concentrate on the higher side of Oscar Wilde now (26th Nov 1997)

Concentrate on the higher side of Oscar Wilde now. They foam & froth, and try to punish me because I'm different. I remain their superior, with blithe disregard for their small, petty desperations. I'm beautiful, I'm a dark angel, that's why I can go to Astral and do what I want. Don't drink though. I do want Astral again, and I do want Sunset Strip. It is Christmas.

Enigma - Principles Of Lust

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.

Now I wish I'd gone to see Floria Tosca (23rd Nov 1997)

Now I wish I'd gone to see Floria Tosca (I prefer to think of it like that), sitting at the back of the balcony in my usual seat, seeing my gods from a respectful distance, my angels: but there was no one in F.Tosca I was mad about. But I should have gone all the same.

I can go to Sunset, Astral, Soho Cinema, Boulevard (21st Nov 1997)

I can go to Sunset, Astral, Soho Cinema, Boulevard: because I'm young, free, and single. I'm not cheating on anyone. I'm attracted to that side of life: the sleazy side. I find inspiration in its vitality, and colours and music. Pure sensation. Don't have to talk. I love the naked breasts of the girls at Carnival, I love the naked breasts of the girls at the Boulevard. That's it. I love it. It is intoxicating, that sex-dancing world. Liberate myself from such restraints, and learn to love the hour of the flesh.

"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.

Last night in bed I comprehensively decided against going to Boulevard/Soho Cinema (19th Nov 1997)

Last night in bed I comprehensively decided against going to Boulevard/Soho Cinema. Now this morning, putting on my tape, I straightaway want to go back to see the dancing girls. Isn't it terrible. This sexual festering disease in my brain, that Manu battled with, Dali, Lorca; so accept it, everyone of artistic temperament has it. 

I love the noisy sexy music and the girls stripping and dancing to it. In a debauched Parisian, Bohemian way. 

Even the Helmut Newton books turn me off now: I've had too much. Didn't go to pub and Astral, regretted it on train home. Perhaps I should have done. Better to let it out. Train girl wasn't there. Quite relieved. Perhaps she doesn't work there anymore, or gets a different train. Isn't there a lack of vitality, though, by not going? The shame speeds things up: Astral, Soho Cinema, Boulevard. You need to indulge, taste the mixture, inject it into your veins. 

The urge inside my brain to be alone is so overwhelming, and so driving, so central, so demonic. Peel all the layers away and what you get down to in the core is this urge to be alone. That's what obliterates my life, it is the black hole drive machine in the centre of me. 

Egon Schiele: cocks out: sitting in front of nude girl in stockings masturbating smiling: sitting in front of mirror: sitting in Astral Cinema. "Lautrec drawn to everything vital and beautiful:" what is more beautiful than an erect straining cock sticking out of trousers in Astral? "and so he was addicted to the lively colourful activities of the demi-monde." The inspiration comes from the rotting stuff in the gutter: "and so Soho, with everything that belonged to it, became a second home to him...he saw stars rising & falling in the cabaret heaven and found an inexhaustible source of inspiration for his work... But now he revelled in everything that Parisian night life had to offer his artistic eye: dance, theatre, circus and brothel. He became the interpreter and chronicler of this small world where it must be added, man in his individuality always remained in the forefront for him." I'm fascinated by the men with their penises out in Astral, the sexual tension. 

My favourite painters are painters of prostitutes: Manet, Grosz, Dix, Lautrec, Schiele. 

I am the interpreter and chronicler of the small world of Soho: Soho Cinema and Astral tomorrow. Men with their cocks out. 

Regain a healthy relaxation about the demi-monde, prostitutes, sex-dancers, actresses.

What else have I got? (18th Nov 1997)

What else have I got? I like the cold baleful stare back of the models, like Manet's Olympia, or any of Egon Schiele's models. He painted them to explore his own sexuality. I write about the strip clubs. I've had a sad life, that's not my fault, I need the colour & vitality of strip clubs and cinema. Because relationships are grey and indistinct. 

Zola and Manet didn't live in the sleazy prostitute realism of Paris 1860s just for a nine month project, the same vein occupied them for years. Vampirism will occupy me for years. 

The summer months were so empty because I was looking for some substitute for pornography to keep me occupied, failing, and entering the black hole. I only came out with my September visit to Astral & Soho Cinema, leading to Berlin 1890s idea. I have a grand ambition, but now I must return to work and earn lots of money to finance it. Do something useful with my life: does this mean going to work, or writing my book? I am a strong powerful spy, and the girls who want to love me (seduced by my mystery & glamour) must wait and be frustrated. 

I'm a writer, my models (like Manet's Olympia and Schiele's models) are the girls at the strip clubs: they don't come to my studio and lie there while I paint them: I go to them and write about them when I get home. Thursday 30th October, at Sunset then (very briefly) in Soho Cinema, was a disaster because I went so deliberately and nervously and premeditatedly, trying to fix the emotion beforehand, instead of relaxing and remaining very detached and light. I went looking for something and so didn't find it. Going with no expectations and with no sense of its importance, but simply as a time-filler, it is much more enjoyable and sensation-rich. 

So instead of no more going, go very very many times now before Christmas: Boulevard, Astral, Soho Cinema, Sunset Strip. For one day, I stop being me. I hang my normal uniform up here and go out in sinful disguise. My history resumes the next day. It is a page I tear out in advance. Tomorrow is one such "stopped" day, releasing me to do whatever my impulses demand, like the Claridges hotel room was made Yugoslav territory for one night only by king's decree.