Vienna 9-12 November 2014

Watching the Spieler Frauen nightclub scene on RTL [27 Dec 2005]

Watching the Spieler Frauen nightclub scene on RTL, the blonde in pink strapless top, in the toilets, and the loud pounding music, including Junior Senior! makes me want Munich so much. I have booked the InterCity Hotel for Thursday 12 January, for three nights. Just 6½ more hours of this shift to get through, then I can be back to Boadicea, Sunset Strip, Flying Scotsman, Renata. I have to gamble while the dark nights are still here. Three nights in Munich, then three nights in Berlin at the end of January—just to see Arrica again??? Better [Vienna by Ultravox starts on the radio at this point] to go to Vienna? The thrill of the Dorint which I have not seen for a whole year, those white-shirted barmaids? ML Revue then back to Manhattan and Pour Platin, and Angelique. It is better to travel now (1) the nights are still dark (2) the flights & hotel are cheap. Ah, Vienna or Berlin? Berlin would mean one thing only—Arrica. That is quite a lot. PUT ALL THREE TRIPS ON THE EGG CARD & HOPE I GET A PAY RISE! LIVE MADLY!

I was attacked so incredibly viciously on my first trip to Europe

I was attacked so incredibly viciously on my first trip to Europe. When I got in the door of the Freud Museum, the woman there immediately started attacking me. In the street after looking for a torch for The Third Man tour. In the streets of  Nuremberg. The housekeeping attendants in the Rathaus. As I stepped out of Berlin Zoo station! In Stockholm on the tube platform! And how I was savaged when I went to Oslo! The streets were a feeding frenzy of hilarity & fun at my expense. The man spitting at the ground as he passed me by the tube station on the way back from the Munch Museum. The girl walking her dog outside the Munch Museum. The receptionists laughing behind their hands as they checked me out! The Norwegian train ticket collector, stepped back into her compartment so she did not have to bid me farewell, after saying goodbye to everyone in front of me, & re-emerging to say goodbye to everyone behind me! The old woman in my compartment making the laughing remark about me being “melancholisch”. Arriving back in Gothenburg, the attacks on the long platform as I walked back to the station. The tramp spitting at my feet as I made my way to the Hotel Opera. The receptionist attacking me as I checked out early next morning. Fantastical, unbelievable, horror show. The American kids taking my picture & laughing in the top of the Venice St Mark’s belltower. The many attacks in Budapest. Now, however, things seem so different. I seem to get desired wherever I go. Going to Antwerp & Brussels, I never even got out of Waterloo before I had come to the attention of the café girl. Then the McDonald’s girl, the white coat subway girl. Ursula in the Boadicea. The red bandanna Lemon Tree girl. So many girls in Berlin.

So do I go to Berlin on the 11th November or not to see Elena Prokina in Eugen Onegin?

So do I go to Berlin on the 11th November or not to see Elena Prokina in Eugen Onegin? And if I do, do I stay the Friday night as well to see Ciro? I feel a kind of revulsion even as I ask it. Like it is too much, too soon, even for me. Like trying to eat something more after a big meal has already filled you up enough. If I forego even Elena Prokina for one night only, I will feel better about going to Vienna in December. How much better to go back to Berlin in January, really yearning to see Arrica again. And back to Munich to see Viktoriya again after so long. After my disgusting debauchery on Friday night with Anya, not to mention Monday & Tuesday with Pamela & Renata, I am feeling very conservative. The thought of going back to the Flying Scotsman is certainly abhorrent. Next week I will look for a studio flat, & see Salome on Friday night. But why go to Vienna, where I have nothing in particular to do & no one in particular to see, when in Berlin I have two particular people to see—namely Elena Prokina & Arrica? Simply because it feels too soon to go back to Berlin. I am bored of the thought of going back so soon to the same place. Vienna offers the delights of the Dorint bar in the morning, before going out, and at night for my Alt Wiener Rostbratens, before exploring the Gurtel. In between—Kunsthistoriches Museum, the Leopold, the Albertina—and try to find that fabulous staircase again. Maybe Volksoper or Staatsoper? Isn’t the fact that I have nothing in particular to do in Vienna one of its advantages? It means I am under no pressure there. I can relax, & devote myself just to eating & drinking. The memory of Mando Diao, Saybia & the Libertines, and arriving at 1130pm in the falling snow is still rich with me. The jealous, envious, spiteful man who attacked me laughably all the way from Heathrow departure lounge, all the way through Vienna airport, right the way on to the bus, till we arrived at Westbahnhof!!! The girls in the club who laughed when I said I always take my beer to the toilet with me! I have got a couple of tabledance clubs to explore, I think, as well. And the graves of Beethoven, Mozart, and Schoenberg.

So a dispiriting night but not crushingly so. Certainly the relationship with Olga cannot survive a night like that

So a dispiriting night, but not crushingly so. Certainly the relationship with Olga cannot survive a night like that. I have so overdosed on Tallulah and Esmeralda and Tingel-Tangel. It has all become tired and old, mude and alt. Yet I have five nights in Berlin! Time to connect to my writing self, my W G Sebald Vertigo self.
I have a problem with emotion & attachment & affection, so much so that when Sylvia came to me, the girl I most adore in all the world, I completely kept my eyes down & did not speak to her. I can only be cold to the people I feel most affection for.
Vienna is La Rondine, Richard Strauss. Elektra, Arabella, Salome. Thus Sprach Zarathustra. I don’t think I would go back to Frankfurt, except if I stopped off for just a night on the train ride to Munich.
Can anything surpass the excitement of those two visits to Munich in January last year? The first visit ending in the extraordinary experience with Patricia in the separée of Atlantic City, the second in the extraordinary experience with Emily in the separée of Femina. Suede ‘Saturday Night’ is so much the King’s Cross Flying Scotsman in winter song.
I like to pursue a girl with such intensity, at the same time knowing she will be ever elusive. That is why I look for love in the broken world, with Esmeraldas & Tallulahs. I can pursue them, yet know I will always actually be safe, & it will never lead to anything.

I hesitate to go back to Munich because there is no resolution (Patricia? Emily?) [12 Oct 2005]

I hesitate to go back to Munich because there is no resolution (Patricia? Emily?) despite the excellence of Lamm’s [Lamm’s restaurant, now closed]. I think Vienna offers better entertainment close to the Berlin model. Drink & resolution together, after finishing with dance & films. I am leaning towards Vienna in November—with all the Christmas lights up! I actually got turned on several times in Caribic in Nuremberg, though, & I can imagine the same in Atlantic City Munich, Salome, Irina, etc. But Vienna it has to be, & not Elena Prokina in Berlin again, alas. I perhaps have been guilty of missing my chances, not going to the end of the experience (the £3,800 I owe influences this), like with Clarisse—I didn’t even accept a 5 Euro dance in my seat!—and Katerina in Frankfurt. But I could not have afforded another 60 Euro cocktail, that was crazy, or 200 Euros for an hour with Clarisse. It is just expensive in those places to mix drink with resolution or even fondling & having them touch you, the way it is not in Berlin, and Vienna is not SO bad. Really spend myself out this autumn, these five days in Berlin next week plus Vienna in November. There were some sexy girls in Berlin last time, the Pole Orien in Mon Cheri, the Brasilian Lady in Stutti [both clubs now gone]. I need to find a Brazilian in Munich again. God, just two more night shifts to get through, then after a night out in Flying Scotsman Saturday [now closed], back to Berlin. I would like to see those Brussels windows again.