We've had 11 days of continuous rain and gloom (26th June 1997)

We've had 11 days of continuous rain and gloom. It's been lovely. September weather. Phnom Penh monsoon weather. We've just got a month of hot July to get through, then we're up to August 6th, when everything should get better. 

I can hardly wait for September gloom, rain, darkness, going to pictures, Chandos with my Evening Standard, then walking through the black volcanic cauldron to Dean Street and Sunset Strip. Then coming out to go to Chelsea or the Coliseum. It's a good life. I just need enough to live on. Work for short spells to give me this. 

"But when Wilde put aside the tragic role which he played with such zest, and gave rein to his intelligence, he realised that he had not altered in the least, and that if anything prison had intensified his individuality:" "'At every single moment of one's life one is what one is going to be no less than what one has been.'" "'To regret one's own experience is to arrest one's own development.'" "'I don't regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it to the full, as one should do everything that one does.'" "'I am far more of an individualist than ever I was. Nothing seems to me of the smallest value except what one gets out of oneself. My nature is seeking a fresh mode of self-realisation.'" "'My ruin came not from too great individualism of life, but from too little. The one disgraceful, unpardonable, and to all time contemptible action of my life, was to allow myself to appeal to society for help and protection.'"

Only a week to go then we're out of June! (25th June 1997)

Only a week to go, then we're out of June! Yesterday was the darkest, stormiest, rainiest day I can remember. I can't remember the last time it rained so much. This is the rainiest week I can remember. This time next week we'll be into July. Then we'll be counting down to August 6th. In February/March 1991 I grew so much, and progressed so much, having been held back for a year. I was held back for 6 months at the Post Office. 

"Rayfield reveals Chekhov as a Don Juan, promiscuous and ferociously unwilling to allow further intimacy after sex. Since he was very attractive to women and moved in advanced Bohemian circles, there were not a few cast-off women in distress whom he repulsed and kept at bay by teasing. He also used their painful experiences as material for his plays. Not only this: from the age of 13 he frequented brothels, and liked to boast to his men friends about the exotic prostitutes he used, dusky-skinned, Japanese and French. Writers are complicated beasts. Chekhov needed privacy and freedom more than he wanted loving intimacy with sexual partners. Out of this privacy came the great stories and plays. How do we measure the sufferings of the women he hurt and abused against his greatness?"

 

 

I felt like Oscar Wilde leaving his rent boys as I left the Astral (18th June 1997)

I felt like Oscar Wilde leaving his rent boys as I left the Astral, walking the streets back, everyone watching me. I suppose I just imagined it. The films were very good. Perfect Pair. Cliffbanger. Busting Out. Shock. The very tall blonde in pink swimsuit in Cliffbanger, she was fantastic. NEVER AGAIN. £8.80. 

I'm a writer. I'm like Vincent. I'm like F.G.Lorca. I'm like Franz Kafka. Weak pathetic creatures, can you imagine them sitting at a desk in an office? Keep them at arm's length as much as possible. I just want to be left alone, in my own little world, to write my stories. 

It's no good making me go against my nature. They won't accept me. You wouldn't either. I found it difficult. Like a homosexual for a long while finds it difficult to accept his own nature. You should help me accept it and make the best of it. Was this the end of Cuba? Maybe. Already I want to see the pink bikini tall Cliffbanger girl again. 

I'm ashamed of my sleazy life, but it's my nature. Control it. Put it into my writing. 

The necessarily secretive world of Victorian homosexuals. I'm beautiful like Federico. Fucked up like Vincent, writing pathetic helpless scribbles. Cowardly like F Kafka. 

Vampires get great pleasure from sucking blood, but it's a very lonely and empty life. Oscar Wilde's shame was his rent boys; mine is the Astral Cinema, and Sunset Strip. It is a nasty, unpleasant, necessary hygienic ritual, weekly it seems. It is my gutter. I'm a prince, in dark blue & black. 

They are all Fu Manchu films.

 

 

Carmen very good (13th June 1997)

Carmen very good, very enjoyable, especially the Toreadors song, and 'Carmen, I love you', when I thought of me and Sarah, Cleopatra's temple, Tristan & Isolde day. From then on I had Tristan & Isolde in my head all the time, the emotions of that day. I felt the same thing tonight. Carmen seduced me and then turned away. £8. 

Stupidly went to Boulevard. Sensational black-haired girl in black & gold underwear, eyes met and held as I came in. She then held my eyes very directly a lot. She is another black bob. Absolutely sensational, eyes flashing electrically from man to man, missing no one, smiling warmly and beaming sometimes. The vampire blonde girl was sexy too. Only four girls, saw black hair four times then left. £14.23. 

Bought £4.50 Si-Fan Mysteries Fu Manchu book and £10 Oscar Wilde biography (1946). Extravagant, but probably necessary.

 

 

What people reproach you for, cultivate (9th June 1997)

What people reproach you for, cultivate. They're jealous, of my riches. I am powerful, secure, safe in my black fortress. 

I've got my quiet intelligence. Abuse is the best thing, because it sparks your spark of originality into life. It makes you see what valuable riches you have got. Makes you cultivate your riches more, and get more out of them. They've got no inner riches, so throw abuse is all they can do. 

I like pushing the edges of the pocket; pushing people to the edge. I get what I want from them, bouncers which I can leave alone, with relief. I manipulate them into hostility which leaves me untouched. But I have to remain alert all the time, lest someone creeps up on me unawares and is nice to me, then I am beaten.

7th June 1997