December 31
END OF YEAR REPORT:
Bank balance: 1 euro, 12 cents.
At the end of a year in which I sticky-taped together a gallery plus graphics business with approximately zero money, I now have about a hundred-and-fifty poster designs, or posher described, art print designs, represented on this website, with at least fifty in reserve. All kinds of art, don't matter what, plagiarised or invented trash, my best designs and my very best, yanked out from any place between the Horror Child and Daddy Love. There are also at least five hundred pictures, many deeply hidden amongst these pages, patiently awaiting posterization in my self-made Frankenstein factory - a prison, too, in its way - in Photoshop and 3DS Max. While here and there doze hundreds of original doodles, drawings, paintings, photos, montages, buried in cardboard boxes across Berlin, London, the Isle of Wight. A lazy lifetime of material, food for my other self, the poster artist. Since realising around Spring of this past soddin' hard starvin' bleak and bloodless year, that presenting images in poster format is not only exhilarating fun compared to doing nothing at all, but has been as important in my development as an artist as would be discovering, one surprising brilliant dawn, my own Style; which they say, some artists NEVER find. However, a self-taught Jack of All Trades is not taken seriously in Arty-Farty World. Wouldn't I be better off turning a book or two out of these lying diaries, the schoolboy poems, and dozens of unfinished one-day-maybe illustrated stories? Or start recording the Wallywoods sessions on my birthday in two weeks. Nikki Sudden will play with Kevin Junior, though I can't imagine how I'm gonna pay them, let alone burn them on CD's I can't afford.
Yes, yes. Still looking for investment, or partner, or pretty barmaid to kick things off, as I dream around the point again and again, blabbering about obstacles which don't exist, with time going by and by. Still looking to start this life-long postponed adventure, in a place and job wot suits me, in a Turkish-tinted suburb of West Berlin, where I've never lived, till just about now.
LIFE BEGINS AT FORTY, I wrote on the poster for Robert C's party, as we both still are. It was the darndest thing. As predicted from that attic, since moving into my first workshop since La Fabrik in 2001, it all went up-side-down. My life and all that. I even ate food whilst sticking together, without glue, a business from scratch which will support me to the end, in the end, if I'm greedy, and stay on terms with as many as will help. Would enjoy employing Paul H. one day, to help with the posters and other stuff, although last time I suggested that to him in person he correctly blew fire in my face, exclaiming I had used up all the people I might call friends; eaten their whittles, drunken their booze, smoked their smokables. Well, maybe baby. But since then I've met Mr Shakin, who fills the place with confidence and his organ, and got to know Thomas the auctioneer - only no bidders at the moment. Oh, to earn a real-life buck! One day I'll grow cannabis and be a happy, wholesome man for the first time in.., er.., er... Tobacco is another matter, although that's beside the point. The tobacco lacing my doobies will kill me before the doobies do (if I don't get flattened by a truck, first, as always suspected, admiring a distant woman's arse). But I'll die having lived, as Paradox Paul put it, having swapped heads with the Gods; having achieved far more than I could possibly have imagined in any normal, frigid, state of mind. I could do without drink, no doubt about that, but that's also beside the point. I grow to hate the stuff, merely swallow it like tea, by the horrible gallon, out of habit, boredom, and the lack of a green cigar. When I can't puff on a green cigar (money is ALWAYS the reason), I sleep and sleep and my skin gets bad, until I stop going out, and stare at the phone, and the brush, and the pen, and do nothing. When I can't get potted, I return to myself; and that's a dull, pointless place to be.
On the flip side, in that place and time where the moon is aligned with my excellent eye, in that mood which puts all depression to shame; I know again that I'm a genius. Don't even need to prove it anymore. Just want to pay my rent and pizza bills. Until then, could make some dosh from the sessions, maybe (wish to record conversations, too). Just need to beg or borrow the equipment, and find a sound man who needs bossing around and no money. A weekly turnover of art openings, or whatever 'happening' seems good at the time, is probably the easiest thing to do first. An hour or two hanging a show which somebody else has sweated over is light recreation. Those well made-up gallerists, in their uptown, downtown property vaults along Berlin's Strip of Artists, will fleeced you for up to 60%. I'm overjoyed with 20%. So can't lose.
Meanwhile, decided I need a microscope and whatever equipment it takes to photograph tiny life, like bits of me and others, from disease to spunk, for churning into more virtually useless art prints. Signed in blood.
Other things to do this year:
Informal painting 'therapy' sessions aimed at anybody and nobody in particular.
Rework and complete the film Bucket.
Build a big chair at the shop to serve as background, or centrepiece, for photo portraits.
Do something with Hand Portraits.
New year's resolution:
Tomorrow morning I shall learn all languages, past and present.
Tomorrow afternoon I shall chat amiably with a loud football fan, a silent suicide-bomber and a happy, lippy, leggy blond.
Then, tomorrow night, I shall weigh my sanity in a lengthy chat with Isidor the Serb, and ultimately speak with King Andreas, to understand him at last, and with Jaz, without the bashful, and with Jon, not just when it suits him, and with Jens, minus rivalry, and with Neil, without bits of paranoia, and with Norbert, without condescension, and with x, without feeling sabotaged, and with xx, without feeling sodomised, and with xxx and the other fuckers, without feeling merely tolerated.
December 25
XMAS AND NEW YEAR
on the Island. Lovely to see Mike's kids. What a great bunch!
December 15
CIGAR ROLLING
...in the back room before the guests arrive.
November 25
FEWER TURNED UP
than hoped and planned for, but still twice the number as came to the first opening, and all I believe (except perhaps Bora's pretty but acutely introverted Hungarian friend) had a stomping good old time.
Earlier: Awake at six in the morning, breakfasted in luxury at Corinne's, got my hands on Alan's pics at last, and best of all, checked my post at Kopenhagener Street. Expecting only dreary news from the Social, or to be cut off, bad boy that I am, for not attending, the great fat wad of bureaucracy they flung at me turned out to be a thoroughly unexpected bonus of one and a half grand.
MANAGED NOT TO HAVE A STROKE
Instead bought a wonderful, beautiful, delicious heat-pumping gas-fire, and stocked up pretty darn good on drinks and goodies for the party. Got the exhibition up - absolutely knackered by this hour - as the first guests arrived (Kerstin and Carl bearing slabs of chocolate - what a day!) and the only spanner in the works, or rather the only spanner missing, was Nikki Sudden. After some phone calls he did arrive at last, with friends, groupies and long faces, all dazed and clearly reluctant, having been dragged away from some homely wind-up-then-chill-out session one hardly dares to imagine. But the alcohol flowed, a couple more dedicated fans arrived, and Sudden's two f*cked-looking guitar-strumming mates were top-notch and the resulting un-plugged jam session got everyone well involved (I observed from the drinks-cabinet over a cool cigar) and rocked the foundations non-stop for two to three hours.
(*Kevin Junior, US, from The Rosehips & The Chamber Strings, and Darrell Bath, UK, from Crybabies & Dogs D'Amour.)
Crashed at George's place. Unable to tell why.
Serious business also accomplished: Booked another bash for December 15th, plus three exhibitions over the next three months (Sig Bang Schmidt, Günter Haring, George Nickels), and finalised a super-8 film evening with Thomas Heger for the 23rd of each month.
November 24
KLAUS SCHITTHELM
from Restaurant Brazil dropped in for a herbal tea, politely bore the cold, would like to make an exhibition here next year on a current theme, signs, (WEAR GOGGLES! THIS FORBIDDEN! THAT FORBIDDEN! FORBIDDEN! FORBIDDEN! FORBIDDEN!) or even haul one of his large sculptures into the place(*). He thought the posters plan is a good enough one (though "the Big Art Money is in the South"), but having been ripped-off good and proper on his last three renovating jobs in Berlin by double-dealing Arabs, plans to withdraw from the city completely by next Summer to live full-time in the country residence he's been preparing for so long. Therefore has no overwhelming urge to go into any kind of partnership. He still has very good contacts though, and will keep me in mind as they occur to him.
Meanwhile, it is two in the morning on the day of my second grand opening and I've given up waiting for Corinne to finally arrive with Alan's paintings for the show. Hope nothing monumental happened to the car, to the exhibits, or to her womb; hope she arrives in the morning, or at least before Nikki Sudden does at seven-thirty this evening. Assuming he does. He was gigging in Greece for two weeks, which was why it was impossible to reach him even with a telephone until a few hours ago, with appropriate relief. Plan B was Bruno Adams (well again now, I hear - good on you Bruno!), until Chris Russell informed me he was leaving soon, today even, for a well-earned trip to Australia. Chris himself is renting his keyboard out this evening at Schokoladen but will be happy to do the occasional set in the future. As for my other artist, Heike, and her teddybear-art, she stood me up on Monday afternoon, after I had shown her on Sunday the 'chill-out' part of the shop I've been preparing for her to fill as she pleased (she's been going on about us doing something like this since I awoke in her bed last Christmas), saying she didn't like the idea of ash falling on her cuddly furniture. I had planned, and actually still intend, to put her Kuschelstuhl (armchair made of stuffed animals) superstar-like in the window, with jazzy lighting and huge price-tag, but that may be a better bet for the Christmas period, during which time I hope to be on The Island eating myself plump.
(*Neither happened.)
November 22
CYCLED
to Corinne's in the pouring rain to make necessary phone calls and get on the net, dried shoes and clothes upon the two wonderful, beautiful, delicious heat-pumping ovens, ate potatoes, fish and fruit, drank fresh orange juice, showered as if for the first time; but decided not to over-pleasurise myself at Cocktail International's so-called last concert (baby due end of January) at Eschloraque, where the mutants live, which was apparently a good send-off.
November 21
SEEM TO HAVE PLUGGED
all major draughts. Achieving bearable temperature. Waited in all day for Alan and Heike - my first two artists, as Gerda might put it. Maybe tomorrow they'll breach the staggering distance, great art in tow, from Prenzlauerberg to Kreuzberg. Feeling somewhat isolated. Hardly been further than the two big local Friedhöfe in a month. Nor showered, laundered or changed clothes. The little boiler in Toilet #2 gives enough hot water to wash hands or quickly rinse head. Very productive for all that. Working on twenty things at the same time - all vital to the success of the mission. Probably shouldn't use words like MISSION around here, given what's been going on in Holland. Got followed into an Imbiß by a particularly nasty Turk the other night. Living off one kebab a day. Get serious looks from the neighbours, who wonder what goes on behind the curtains all night. First to ring my jolting-loud bell yesterday evening were two policemen. Imagine what went through my head. "Sprechen Sie Deutch?" the short one asked looking oddly uncomfortable, as the big one wrote down everything we said. A white van had either been rammed while parked or joy-ridden onto the pavement in front of my shop window. Said I had been working (sewing actually), had heard the bang half an hour before and couldn't help further. Disappointed not to have been asked what I was working on: would happily have shown them around, made a cup of tea and demonstrated for them the Principles of Wallyism. (Thankfully ran out of Stinktier cabbage the day before). Went back to work. All night, every night. Everything now in place but for telephone/internet, and a few other things, i.e., tons of other things. Haven't been able to reach Mr Sudden. Fully expect him not to turn up on Wednesday.
Hope Klaus Schitthelm will call in this week. Shall invite him to be my sleeping partner.
(Tanja's sleeping-bag has probably saved my life.)
November 20
FIRST SNOWFALL
and the window has steamed up, flooding the cheap display.
November 12
GOT THE CURTAINS UP
so have a little privacy now. Expensive but worth the investment. Haven't spent much else on the place anyway. Mainly sweat and blood. And enormous hopes.
Living in a shop window is odd, but you get used to it.
November 8
BUSY BUSY BUSY
with this and that, but not the other. Still trying to get the curtains up.
November 3
LOOKS LIKE BUSH
2pm Berlin time. Just turned on the radio. Oh dear, oh dear.
November 2
IN BUSINESS
After collecting dog-eared boxes of OLD STUFF last week from bedrooms and cellars across Berlin, arranged the wonderful, obscure and useless contents flea-market style here at the new
GALLERY WALLYWOODS
under the banner
BILLIG ABER KUNST (CHEAP BUT ART)
and actually sold a couple of sketches. Mr Nikki Sudden kindly dropped in to play his special brand of Nostalgic English Drug Ballads; kindly brought a small entourage of giggling teeny-groupies, and kindly agreed to play again on Wednesday, 24th (first date in the calendar of a string of such pleasure evenings, I hope. Am planning at the moment a two-weekly turnover of exhibitions plus the odd event - the odder the better - so CONTACT ME if you can DO SOMETHING UNUSUAL). Another girl Nikki impressed went off to fetch her flute and together they looked as cool as they sounded in their little white jackets, here in the quaint streetlamp-lit Schaufenster, where the computer is now very publicly set up.
Technical bod Thomas Heger was the first to arrive and instantly gave the plotter a big thumbs-up, injecting new hope into the idea of running it from this pc. He then proceeded to chalk arrows on the paving-stones outside leading to the welcome mat (found in a skip on the day I moved in); but didn't take my advice and draw them as far as Bergman Street where the real yuppie-scene traffic is, three or four corners away. Better than that, he documented the whole evening through a cute digital camera. Australian Lady Gaby popped in - I hope she'll perform or read from her book here, kicking off the reading evenings. She did something once at the stupidly named Friends of the Italian Opera, the English language theatre around the corner, and describes them politely as a bit tightly-knit. Shall work on a buttery poster to hang there, however, and steal a little custom.
URGENT MESSAGE FOR ENGLISH PERFORMANCE-POET BRIAN (DON'T KNOW YOUR LAST NAME) or anyone who knows him: SWING BY SOON!
Bob, Paul and Stef swung by with crates of beer and sound-system, a much appreciated surprise, but were impossible to budge after the place had emptied and kept a splitting headache company till the sun came up. George, who dreams of doing Manfred if he can remember all the lines ("Here George! Do it here..!"), passed out on the sofa beneath one of my two thin blankets, so neither of us froze - but neither were we cosy. Fxxcking freezing. Haven't got the heating on and the temperature, in tune with the clocks going back, has plummeted.
The idea of throwing up a thick curtain and running a private bar is tempting of course, but needs careful consideration after the night's drunken bickering.
Slept most of the day, went shopping for tea-bags and instant coffee and had an Indian. Surrounded for a change by excellent eating places.
Paul returned with a mega hangover to pick up the gear and puked outside. Bob and Stef are in better condition, apparently. They're all off to Krakow (the one in Germany) tomorrow.
I, for the time being, am confined to Kreuzberg. My visiting hours are weekdays, 4pm till 8pm.
Tanja and a writer guy called Christian called in - a day late, having misread the e-mail; after which I went for a cycle ride into deepest Kreuzberg to find warmth and live music. Almost gave up and keeled over until discovering BLUES JAM SESSION WITH JAN HIRTE at Vollmond (Full Moon). Don't know which one he was, but three super guitarists worthy of The Old Grey Whistle Test were almost destroyed by a young lad practising the mouth-organ. He kept diving into a snug little case containing about twenty of the bloody things, all equally cat-like. If he's there next time I'll throw his pride and joy into the street onto a passing Greyhound bus bound for New Orleans, which he can chase in the way of a little breathing exercise.
First rent money (85% of my sozial benefit) due tomorrow. Spent most of it yesterday on bits and bobs, like toilet paper, sticky price tags and Mr Sudden.
GALLERY OPENING (photo: Thomas Heger)
November 1
Put a little typed card in the corner of the shop-window at the new premises. This, cost-free, for the amusement of the students of the 'Free Art School', which has also only recently moved into the building:
THE PRINCIPLES OF WALLYISM
1. Ignore all principles, rules and teachings. Replace them with:
PRESENTATION, PRESENTATION, PRESENTATION!
2. Notice the environment before taking a step.
3. Have no fear of scale.
4. Worship symmetry.
5. Be as free with medium, style and cost as would a child.
6. Contrast is achieved through a limited colour palette.
7. If a route (material, technique..) leads primarily to frustration, it is the wrong route.
8. Hear all criticism - reconstruct the positive from the negative.
9. All time constraints are self-imposed.
10. Work with others.
this link leads
to four examples of
early expressionistic wallyism
(promo-blurbs in german)
October 23
Dad,
Stayed on at Krakow to finish a mural for Stef. Leaving this afternoon for Berlin with stuff for the shop - should get keys today. Need to ask another BIG FAVOUR if you get the time, would be most helpful. 'Workshop Wallywoods', or whatever I write on the door, will also be home to Big Chairs. I'm going to hang the material I have, but could use more; especially some items from the IOW exhibition. First and easiest, could you take the A4 printouts we did out of their frames and send them together in a hard-back packet? (I don't yet have a colour printer). Don't worry about damaging them a bit in the process, they'll be used mostly for reference - but if any are too well taped to their hardboard backings, maybe send the backing as well? (I don't need any of the normal photographs, only computer montages).
The other things are the small oil paintings, too expensive to send, but I thought next time someone visits from London they could take them to Mike, who has offered to send me anything at no cost. That may take some time, but no worries - would be a nice bonus.
Actually, I'm going to start painting in the atelier, to get things on the walls to sell, as well as basing the design/decoration work there. I should find out soon if I get a lease for 3, 6 or 12 months - though Gerhard has said that eventually I can have one of the other spaces as the renovation work progresses. Finances will be a struggle for a while, as I said, so I can't help adding something about sponsorship. I haven't found any! (outside kind donations from the family). You might mention to the others that Paul is almost straight now, is on the last lap of attaining the target he set for his fortieth year (which has been a hard one): of finding a place to work, sleep and eventually be independent. So if there are any final donations headed my way, of any amount whatsoever, now is the time to do a last bank transfer!
Will be off-line for a couple of weeks, setting up shop etc., but will check my mails everyday if possible at internet cafés.
Love to mum and everyone...
October 18
I've almost finished reading my first book in German. A small one with lots of pictures by Marc Chagall. Coincidentally, its the only thing in any depth I've read about Jewish culture; the extravagant meanness of it. I picked it off the wobbly, dust-caked shelf in that little attic room at Norbert's out of sheer boredom. It then became one of the pseudo-exercises I set myself to prove that I can still learn, progress; perhaps enjoy something stone-cold sober. Truth is, I don't even like reading in English. My eyes get bored. I'd far rather spend the entire evening and half the night a few feet from the TV screen flicking from war reports through endless Hollywood shite movies, trying to find the Simpsons, soft porn, Czech short films or incredibly long, unfathomable, beautifully made or utterly crass art movies of any nationality on any subject whatsoever.
TV's only real advantage is the 'off' switch. Norbert threw his out a fortnight ago - ostensibly because the TV licence extortionists were due to listen at the door any day; but mainly I think because I spent so much time planted in his room stuck to it like a fly on fly-paper.
Erste Begegnung by Bella Chagall is a love story, although that is only realised in the last, brief chapters. It is one of the saddest things I've ever read.
Mal schauen ob ich es fertig schaffen kann, und dann schnell! schnell! schnell! wie möglich zuruck zum South Park, den Bushding, und die actuelle Welt Krieg...
this link leads
to a love story
with a happy ending
October 17
Gobsmacked. Mr Leidinger says I can rent the shop.
this link leads
to a mean little story
called 'pet shop'
October 16
Pinned up half a dozen new sticky fly-papers (smell like gasoline) trying not to get them in my lengthening hair. A record twenty-five flies caught by midnight. The rodent who lives under the fridge and the spiders we leave alone as they keep themselves to themselves and NEVER TAKE THE PISS.
Stefan gets ripped off regularly here in the Old Stassi Woods because he's hard working, honest and superhumanly easy-going. The main culprit - though I fear there lurk many - is a seventy year-old local Scrooge for whom he has built and looked after these lakeside holiday chalets, kept up the grounds, felled trees, erected fences, renovated other homes, odd-jobbed and run errands and lord knows what else for a good many years - for as good as absolutely nothing. He gives an inch and Scrooge, acting like a Von-Something-or-other, swallows him whole every time. The day after we got here, Stef realised he'd been ripped off again, once for 10 bucks, due to the old mans switching a customer's TV off, and then for 600 bucks, for more complicated reasons, which Stefan doesn't have, but which he will pay off in instalments merely to avoid another headache. Released occasionally from slavery, Stefan builds for himself such things as a motorised raft, an outside oven (with which to form the raft stabilisers), an igloo-sauna, his own little house with a funny cast-iron stove, furniture and appliances and an excellent spicy curry. Whenever he gets the chance he flies to England to work for some other honey-mouthed, bull-shitting landowner, saving money to pay off debts over here; and perhaps to visit his girlfriend. He called her yesterday and got an earful. The old man, who charmingly keeps in touch by phone since being introduced, told her that Stefan has found a new girlfriend, which is untrue. Very rarely does Stefan let things get to him. He is accepted in these parts despite driving around in a crappy old banger instead of a BMW, and commanding only a rudimentary grasp of the language (although he understands far more than he can put into words), for all the above reasons and because his mum is German. Last night he was uncharacteristically restless. He climbed down from the cubby-hole where he sleeps and shattered the serene atmosphere with:
DIE GERMANS SIND UNGELEBT BEI DIE NACHBARLÄNDERN. IN NORWEGEN, DIE SAGEN DAS DIE SEHR GRAU SIND. EINER AUS HAMBURG HAT ERZÄLT, DAS DIE INS KELLER GEHEN MÜSSEN UM ZUM LACHEN. WIESO KOMMT DAS?
I said, 'I'll try to write that down,' to which he added, 'then write down: Bitte antworten!'
Alright:
BITTE ANTWORTEN!
this link leads
to a polite letter of complaint
October 15
On the raft that Stef built. On the barbecue-pram: three chicken legs. On the way out, two beers and a box of wine. On the way back, outboard motor at full power (needed a piss).
October 14
Things to do:
October 13
Notes for diary update, Krakow am See, 200k from Berlin, October (now) 14, 2004
Feels like a brand new day.
The only music here is:
mark knopfler
(love will find a way
van the man
x
x
There is nothing left
But the clean blue mauve-blue skies
The clear blue mauve-black skies are mine
And yours, and yours, and yours...
I've been used, abused
Ma brown-eyed Mom...
Feels like a brand new day.
Christopher Reeve died yesterday.
Listened to last BBC interview.
Good man. No superman. Believe in him.
Principles of Wallyism (update)
number 11: Attain striking minimalism
Dead men who have:
Mies (fanatically)
Warhol (obviously)
(I.P.E.T.T., who lives in my flat, is not at all dead. Never-the-less:) Kaiser (painfully)
Lennon (prettily)
Dali (rarely)
Spear (wonderfully)
Polanski (sweatily)
Picasso (boringly)
Da Vinci (lavishly)
Gaudy (cathedrally)
De Niro (childishly)
Ernst (sleepily)
(Japanese Twin Towers architect (catastrophically))
Louis (humanly)
Bin Laden (predictably)
Van Gogh (best of all)
Surrealistic women who have:
K. Bush (enchantingly)
K. Bognar (enchantingly)
A. Lee (enchant - TINGLY)
Principles of Wallyism (update)
number 12: One does precisely as one wishes.
Snippets of convo with Stef in the hut...
What are the chicks like around here?
Fat and ugly.
Good. Fat ugly women go for skinny ugly men...
Paul and Jane met here
They MET here. God, I bet that was horrific.
Well, they got off here. I can't say they actually met here.
I bet there were fireworks over the lake.
Over breakfast as I remember.
Right.
Hauled out of Stef's barn the Hewlett & Packard GL/2 Language Draftmaster RXplus plotter
(last owner a chemist with several patents out - hard to work out what he used it for...) and two slightly rusty draftsman's tables (one computerised). Impressive stuff for the new Laden, whether I can get them to work or not (presentation, presentation...)
The plotter cleaned up lovely. Like needle-new. Smooth action. BRILLIANT.
(Must find pens, paper/roller, software for pc on internet).
Repulsion! Urgh. Kill those flies.
As for the environment, my skin is bad. Geff Goldblum looks at me from the mirror in the Jacousian bathroom. Interesting effects of acid rain, though, in the region (made mushroom soup today). Woods, now, prettier for it anyway.
More bluebottles enjoying cubic vacation space than counted even in Schliemann Strasse.
October 12
Heading for Krakow am See for a while. Collected the computer from Norb's. Only took three minutes - enough time for Misty, who's never been there, to multiple crap the place out.
Arrived cold in Krakow am See, but Stef got the fireplace cooked and stoked a sausage curry.
Dog got a bone. Black Misty. Found in the woods. You shouldn't do that! Looks too big for a deer or a pig. Vertebrae type thing; goes CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP!
Sounds like Hawkwind.
Can't see the moon from here.
October 10
Mauerpark fleemarket.
76 euroes earned plus beers and eating: woke up with a monday morning hangover with 30 E left for shopping for N. and Krakow. Jon brought records. Bob brought good shit. Martin's girlfriend brought jewellery from deceased grandmother whilst Martin brought bad atmosphere. Sold the Optima to a mum for the kids to play with. Geezer didn't believe the wads of bank account slips were for sale. Also took 5 A1 BC posters from the Way & Sun show. Didn't rain. Gave Strawberry Reichstag to Jon. (Age Of The Big Chair hangs at Paul's since last week.)
October 6
Good tip: met Vera at the traffic lights, shared a beer on the Bastard roller-coaster, then met up again at midnight at Herr Henkel (wrongly recalled I think) the barber-shop come jazz club in Kopenhagener Str. (every wed) YES: FREE FOOD & ALCOHOL buffet. Good jazz, too (for jazz). Nice people. All gay, though I hardly noticed between ping-pong visits to the banquet spread.
Mike (i.e. Andrea) is having sprog number 5. Planned for or otherwise, if its anything like the other jolly little nutcases: WELL DONE GUYS. Don't wet its head without me.
Nina is extremely nice, I've slowly come to realise. Despite Nigel's eloquent and once entertaining ranting, almost thrilling bitterness.
Did Tanja feel the need for a chaperone when we met behind Tacheles last, or did the guy just happen to be there, hanging around, saying nothing? I'm afraid she thinks I'm a bit mad. No problem with that - none what-so-ever - but, considering the amount of cain&able I'm capable of consuming, I'm surprisingly unparanoid. Usually my instincts are correct, no matter which distorted lens I'm looking through.
Wonder how Neil is doing on his home-made island.
More importantly, would like to hear from Krisztina. Haven't for over a year. The loss is hidden so deep, now, that I'm sure whole days go by without thinking of her.
Would be good to live like Van Morrison sings.
October 2?
Hella's birthday - Impressions
Had an appetite after a day on the computer, Norbert mentioned a party at Hella's and my brain cried BARBECUE! even before it cried DRUGS! I arrived first with a cheap poem while Norbert went for wine, but the front of the house was dark and shockingly barbecueless. Greeted by Hella's wild boys and Sabina's daughter, funny little thing behind pebble glasses, who immediately declared 'Wieland is drunk'. Headed for the kitchen whilst they explained that the chocolate cake was inedible having been used in a food fight, and it did look worse for wear, but tasted just swell, as I began to feast to their mild astonishment. Around the back, a few blokes sat at the garden table by a good bonfire, while Sabina, who skinned up like a chain-smoker throughout the night, and an ex-scaffold worker, Andreas, exchanged stories of their abused childhoods, one worse than the other, while I chatted in the pauses with the wild ones for light relief. They showed me the rabbits, who were astoundingly tolerant given the rumpus, and asked if I liked rats as they plonked a good sized albino on my shoulder. Andreas related the story of his stabing by 'Easties' just after re-unification - which should never have happened. A West Berliner, he grew up with the Status-quo. Of course he was joyful when the wall came down, but after that everything went down, leaving every promise unfulfilled (They should have left things the way they were). Some of the men left, Hella wobbled out to face a barrage of verbal Wieland, who I don't wish to write about, and I got a single glimpse of Benny in his dressing-gown in the back doorway, looking furtive. Norbert arrived and the party, or the guests at least, began to swing. In fact, the next time I looked up from my discussions with Serious Andreas, as we kept the bonfire stoked, among other things, the garden was half filled with guests. Günter Haring arrived to declare:
I will NEVER make an exhibition with you, Paul Woods!
Why not, Günter?
Du willst mein Arbeit nur verarschen!
Not true, but point taken. Günter is one of the top artists I know in Berlin. The big child.
this link leads
to a huge work by
Günter Haring which covered the facade
at arthouse/kiffhouse Acud
September 30
Should pick up one or both of Magdelena's lovely plump mattresses before she moves out tomorrow. The one I just got off is a bed of nails - long curly nails, suspended between bits of fluff, spiced with dead moths and the DNA of a hundred drunken previous occupants.
this link leads
to a short story called 'sofa sponge'
about paranoia at a party
September 29
Never having been the largest fan of Jimi Hendrix (unquestionably a genius) I am almost reluctant to say I can now no longer stand the cxxx. Hand on heart, I hope never to hear that dead xxxxx chicken-squeak bawling and xxsturbating that poxy noise-box xsshole guitar of his ever again. Bury the xastard. Burn his records. Collect every xxxx-clogged, grease-spattered cassette re-re-re-recorded in hippy kitchens all over the world, wrap them in lead and sink them in the deepest, blackest, smelliest ocean. Amen Fxck.
Bob had his knee operation today.
this link leads
to a script for a film called 'bucket'
about a man who loses his head
(bob was cameraman)
September 28
The Missionary
In a cave behind a village in Africa is
rumoured to live the most beautiful wild savage.
It is said that, when the moon is new
and all the land dark, he creeps out to gather
sleeping vines, from which he produces
the snares, from time to time discovered
by locals, who cross themselves
(they are Christians)
and mumble weak prayers of protection.
Occasionally a goat will go missing,
or a dog or a cow or a villager.
At the back of that cave is a secret
tunnel - not gloomy or tight, rather
shimmering and high as a chapel.
Two or three times in a year, or a
decade, two figures may be seen
passing through it.
this link leads
to a twit
September 27
The other thing to remember about city-dwelling scarecrows is that they are able to pay, from moneys legitimately earned during the course of each week, for weekends crammed to busting with sensual pleasures, as opposed to rural-dwelling scarecrows who receive no wage for working right through.
this link leads
to more scarecrows
September 26
Did not rise with the birds.
this link leads
to heike clemens
a.k.a. irmgard puschel
(dj & fashion artist)
September 25
Moved into my old room at Norbert's, two, three, four, five weeks ago; who knows, time has less and less meaning, especially up here, with so little to do down there. It has all the attributes of an attic closet without actually being one. An L-shaped room, wallpaper stripped from one wall, oddly sized windows, a brilliant bit of sky above dirty red-tiled rooves, yellow brick chimneys, ladders and ledges (remember Mercy) and birds squabbling as if the days are normal. Much sunlight, considering the height of the great tree, yet full and green, though dry and ill-seeming, which rises from the centre of the courtyard five stories below. Other normal sounds, voices of crass youths and clueless babes, TV shows, bad music, cooking activities and smells; rising to tempt me out of my cot, out of my 10, 11, 12 hour slumber, patiently demanding I join the normal day; which I do, in my own time, which is plentiful - and in my limited way.
The last time I lived here my problems were insurmountable, our friendship suffered badly, and I retreated to England to make a fully-partial recovery. Now, the problems are all exactly the same, but I have a firm grip on them. The outside world is not half so terrifying. The inside world, I'm fairly convinced, is healthier than ever.
But where is my home? Cut off with no phone, no TV, the computer still at Bob's; everything here is dusty or damaged or both. My official residence is not far away, but these days my tenant and I only argue. Eventually he can have the place, which is his by now in any case, in exchange for even more freedom. Meanwhile the arrangement is my only serious source of income, and the only way I can imagine paying the rent on the Laden in Kreuzberg, if that ever comes about. Everyday, somehow or other, I check my e-mails, and am never surprised not to have heard from Gerhard. When or if he gives the thumbs up, Wally will be turned on his head. There will be so much to do; a business to make, with a bed in the back, a gallery-workshop to build and fill with God only knows what - money to make.
Yes, I remember now, that was the plan. Money to make.
Today is Saturday. I even have dosh in my pocket - though I can't think how. And I have nothing to do.
Notwithstanding that, I shall heat up a large tin of horribly sweet ravioli, and later go visiting, and later than that set off for the Luna bar to witness the first ever Drumantix concert. Tomorrow we want to do the flee market again, if I can rise with the birds, which would surprise them mightily.
Joint efforts.
With Bob & Jon, came up with 6 versions, stored now in the archives - though
due to lack of funds only two posters and a pocket full of flyers saw the night.
The first is a computer scan of Bob's bad knee, the third a packet of condoms.It is a beautiful day, the last bit of Summer. A small plane is buzzing overhead, perhaps on its way to the Wansee to land on the water, to the delight of tourists and thousands of families acting out normal lives in and around this surprisingly peaceful city.
I'm long since sick of Saturdays.
this link leads
to some cd covers
by wallywoods design
September 24
Big splash
bang bang!
sang the whale
as she dodged
the hunter's best harpoon.
you shon't get me
darlin' weather-chiselled sailin' boy!
big splash
bang bang
BANG BANG!
this link leads
to the 'poetry school'
September 23
Strokes a gilden god
I be cheer to stay
Aye!
Silently, I drops me anchor
(Bottomless, the bay).
Burns a wicket god
Rush to sail away
Aye!
'S all that I be blowin' up for
(Dried up, now, the bay!)
this link leads
to a little oil painting
of sandown bay
(from 'diaries part II')
September 22
Spy Pie
Don't believe a word of it!
Said the baker to the spy:
My cakes is better than anyone's,
TRY ONE, YOU'LL SEE WHY...
And he did, he ate all six of them;
Got stoned, and put in a pie.
this link leads
to a cake-eating event which did not happen
at parliament in berlin
(in english and in germen)
September 21
Where dreams collide.
Shut hard these eyes till sleep arrives
till spirals sing and moons like shards
of nightness void of grey or black
divide me from myself.
this link leads
to a nonsense place
where worlds collide
with verse
September 20
The day is no match for greedy sleep.
this link leads
to the bones of a novel
in which children sleep
to wake as adults
September 19
Somehow rose at 6am to do the new flee-market at Mauerpark. Made a killing selling quality trash like Third Reich stamps and Pompeii erotica, but during the course of the day spent what I made on beer, sausage and cake. Norbert came along later, was also successful, also got drunk, but couldn't shift his two 98 year-old panoramic postcards of Hamburg, hand-written on the back to his granddad.
I brought along some
typed on the Optima, but didn't sell a word; nor even a spelling mistake at half price. I would have sold the Optima, but staggering along without trolley or transport at that ridiculous hour, I couldn't have carried a letter more. One woman laughed, a little hysterically I thought, weirdly in fact, upon opening the brass-handled box to read:
I mxet a man in a puddle xx
xxx In West Ham
'Txwas a little past lunchtime
I xx said:
Aren't x you peckish?
He said:
Thankyou, I've just eaten fourtxxn spelling mistakes in a row. I had to cool off.
Then he said:
Too much corxx coriandox coriander.
I said:
You are a terrible cook then?
And I added, to smooth over my bad manners:
They say my cooking is the pits.
Do they.
They say my cooking stinks.
Do they.
They say I'm just rubbish in the kitchen.
Who do?
I couldn't make a pudding if it bit me.
Who says that?
My customers.
You are a cook then?
Literally, yes. A xxxxing bad one.
Fake me xx a cak, then, he hissed, XXX I'll be arond aboot sex !!
this link leads
to the 'library of bad ideas'
September 18
In the room (Part II)
teapot, 2 x teabags, 2 x mugs
2 x palms
chairs, big desk, lamps, photos, books, records, cassettes, cds
painting of a screaming man (green on black, 1 x 1.2 m) on wooden easel
rusty fish candle-lamp
clothes horse, washing
bed, duvets
large artwork on wall (wood frame with 3 trash fashion outfits on hangers)
ashtrays
half a joint (gone out)
fake antique miniature globe of the world (present from victoria)
stack of green wallywoods posters
robot sculpture/lamp (on)
circular table heaped with stuff (including this typewriter)
slide projector
chess set
assortment of flyers
empty satchel
tobacco, lighter
salt pot
assorted aftershaves
small red wooden horse
camera, tripod, film developing canister
35mm film pot (containing grass seeds)
2 x arched windows (closed)
door leading to hall (open), double doors leading to bedroom (open)
chip wallpaper (painted white), ceiling (painted white), stucco (painted white)
red-brown floorboards
half-room-sized red carpet with fake inca design (recently vacuumed)
2 x brightly painted bits of wood (by victoria)
candlesticks (no candles)
black & white photo transparency taped into little window in door to hall casting luminous 'schattenbild' on wall
brightly painted cuban potency icon hanging on aluminium doorknob (to bedroom)
old yellow pocket lamp
children's drawings (cut out, pasted on card)
shoes, cowboy boots
lightbulb hanging from ceiling (no shade)
2 x 98 year old panoramic postcards (hamburg harbour)
2 x black leather armchairs
alarm clock (set for 6am)
bottle opener
tv, remote control, video recorder
beavis & buthead (original language), the clerks (original language)
norbert (watching the clerks)
this link leads
to norbert's gallery
September 17
Scruffy poem
if all the world were neat as me (neat as me)
and sharp in thought and slick (and slick)
in dress and blessed with more godly attributes
than you, scruffy git, could possibly count...
just wouldn't we all be wonderful!
yes, wouldn't it all be wonderful!
wouldn't we all be beautiful!
yes, wouldn't it all be
(more words, more cents!
more words, more cents!
more words, more cents!
more words, more cents...)
this link leads
to nigel the tattoo artist
September 16
My bed
When hollow hills join sorded seas
And vapours rise and venoms splash
And salt-sick fish collide in froth
To dash their brains 'twixt rock and bone
Or drown in honeyed pools of tar
Where pale birds flock to madly sup
'Tween blasted sheets of storm-whipped spuck
Thrown off that south-most craggy mount
Late shunned by mistress moon who clings
'Neath shrouds of winter fog so dense
'Neath season's shadow cast so long
'Neath endless foreign nights so chill that
No sane beast adores that place
This place of adventure abandoned.
September 15
The Debt Collector
A man in a city could always be seen clattering along with a shopping trolley. Here he would go and there he would go and never did he speak to a soul. Beneath clouds low and cold or skies high and bright he was common on every street corner. His clothes were not rags, but nor were they chick: he had never been spotted unshaven. A number of times each day he would stop to examine the wares in his cart. Delighted with this or tired of that, he'd replace them with new things he found. The trash and the treasures retrieved from the streets, from condoms to wigs and lost poodles, were over and over newly arranged, with slap-dash, cool logic or love. The number of items at once that he owned, or begged or bartered or stole, never exceeded seven in all (excluding the wagon, his shoes and his clothes). One springtime some noticed he stopped trundling by, and a constable immediately went searching. A month and a day it took him to find the cart on the outskirts of town. Two shoes and some clothes led off to the hills - the missing items were never recovered.
September 14
Abducted
A man in a grey coat takes a
small girl into a bar. It is
Tuesday afternoon. When the
taxi-driver arrives to take
them to the airport, the small
girl is legless drunk, and he
refuses to take their fare. A
bag-lady is very upset and
demands, "What you bloomin'
well doin' with that poor
young thing!" But she receives
no reply, as the man speaks
only one language and the
girl is legless drunk. Amid
stares and gasps, they take
the airport express, but are halted
at passport control. The man
speaks briefly in his language,
which is not understood, and is
detained as the girl recovers.
Agitated at the separation, he
grows angry, then pathetically
weeps. Whilst pacing his cell, he
points to his watch, then the air,
then his watch and the air: but his
guards are extremely unhelpful.
At last a translator is found, and she
says, that he says, over and over,
"We shall be late for our wedding!"
September 13
Manthing
In a tank filled with a phosphorous fluid, buried in the frozen ground behind a useless mountain, is suspended alive and plotting, itching and cursing, a creature once known wider in the world. This wretched foetus-beast, this wraith, had been in its time a gigolo, a Romeo; a dandy of high notoriety. The punishment, this banishment, was apt, perhaps, and very cruel. The ones who hadn't worshipped Him were jealous, vengeful, cowards and sods; amongst them, three fat officers of the people's common court. Discourteous disappearance! mused half the dames in half the Realm; whilst, abandoned in their husbands' beds, the other half went mad overnight beneath a grief like infanticide.
Now the moon hangs low to illuminate that distant, silent, throbbing place, its resident wide awake: It is escaping!
A woman ignores the dusted gilded mirror in her room, expecting NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING! A gust of wind lifts away the curtain from her view, and the stone walls in her mind are suddenly shattered. The Manthing-thing that dripping ghost has now become is staring up from close beneath; and swiftly rises. To her shock, the Vision rises, to His task, He promptly rises; toward her shivering womb, the Monster rises, rises, rises. Gripping breast, losing legs, she fends a hand before a slathering mouth, then opens wide her own, as like to shout. He crashes down upon her, tearing cloth, bending bone; till she poses for His pleasure, for His rancour, for her life... Till she bursts at last with the glowering sun, some seven hours after.
Investigators ascertain that she (though far from dead) was victim to some atrocious crime. But the lady, dull and silent, voice used up and gone, is hardly present: like Manthing, who is never caught. A trail of broken damsels leads North for a couple of years, whilst murdered men with morals litter hotel corridors. Reporters do not bother, though, with fact and reason why; they build instead upon the Manthing myth: like Him, it will not lye.
September 12
"The world bobs up and down feeling pukey on a woman's hips."
(Wally Byrne, 1877)
September 11
Anne kindly gave me a couple of figs and a peach today.
Yet still my world is not at peace.
In this place and that (blah blap) Hell erupts beneath our feet.
Whence gloating devils spring to reek unchallengeable death.
Dismissing souls of strangers they dare to name Unworthy.
Scattering Love to particles, to nothingness (blah blap blah blap).
To Allah, perhaps? (Blah blap?) To God?
These tumbling shards and sinews and secrets of my life,
I do not entrust to You, God,
But rather to a humbler fellow,
A geezer I like to share a beer with,
A gal I met and captured time with,
The kids I left behind in England;
My Father and my Mother.
Anne gave me two figs and a peach today;
(blah blap blah blap) my God is in my belly.
September 10
Got up to watch the midday news. Norbert, who has a fantastic aversion to world events, puts it best:
IRGENDWAS MIT GEISEL DRAMA, BOMBEN ANSCHLAG, IRAQ KRIEG...
North Korea wants a cold war with South Korea who, in defence, say they only messed with uranium out of scientific curiosity. The little boy kneeling at the bomb-rigged foot of the monster in the Russian school gym got out alive, it turns out. A drop of good news in an ocean of sweat, urine, tears and children's body parts. More bad news for the boys at Nasa:
capsule from Nasa STOP smashed into desert STOP priceless heavenly sun-dust on board STOP tracked world-wide till the second it hit STOP at exactly pre-destined spot on salt flats STOP speed less than 2 hundred miles an hour BOOOF !!!
Had they mentioned it, I would have built them a net. Meanwhile, their colleagues in the Pentagon bombed a village in another desert, killing women, children, and two or three suspected Enemies of Freedom.
Later, I found myself sitting for three hours on the cold tiled steps outside room 201 of the social security complex - before reading the note on the door and leaving without killing a soul. Headed for Hufeland Street to roll up a Czech fiver with Bobbit, who span off in different directions, leaving me frantically pacing the flat, after defeat at the Permission To Live Factory, to
CONCENTRATE, PRIORITISE & FIND MY OWN SOLUTION
which, touch a wooden god, I accomplished with a single phone call. Architect Gerhard, who I'm reluctant to call when I'm normal, is looking for tenants for his Kreuzberg project. Made a date for early next week, though pretty much accepted on the spot, regardless of how to pay the rent. Stuff the details, just
GIMME A PLACE!
Thus, in a calm whirlwind of high spirits, I cycled off to the barbecue at George and Kornelia's, who I hadn't seen for ages. This was only possible because I now have a bike - though whether I own it or not is another matter. I got it for 15 bucks from Mercy, so called because he fell off a fifth story roof onto paving stones, dead drunk, and lived to tell the tale. Spent only two years in a wheelchair, apparently, before finding his legs again to steal bikes. Jon, who remembers him spitting in his face each time he refused him a free beer at the Gentleman Loser's bar, was unmoved: 'Oh, is that what happened to him. Behind every fruitcake there's a hard luck story.' The deal done, I made to shake Mercy's hand, which he refused, preferring to lift his leg and fart like a horse before trotting off. I was equally unmoved. As it turns out, he fancies Laura the roller-coaster-tempered road-crash victim who lives here part-time, whittles curious wooden sculptures and breaks window panes. Talking of which, back at the barbecue, my mistake on arrival was a mere inkling of catastrophes to come:
"Hi Suzanna, er... Krisztina, er... Katerina..."
That's the nice Hungarian lady, one time joint-curator at the museum in the Budapest castle, who I went on a date with in the Spring. But I battled on, ate a sausage, demanded future business from my hosts and their cute little fashion boutique, drank some beers brewed by punks in the south somewhere, or Munich, and headed for a location called 'Becket-pi' (that's Becket minus pi, plus accompanying sigh) where I half watched two short films. I half watched them, opting to haunt the bar instead or pose amongst some bails of hay, because they were dull. The porno-art flick was over-staged and self-conscious and therefore broke the only two porno film-making commandments in existence; whilst the badly, cheaply shot road movie seemed to have been produced, edited and voiced-over in a bathroom. A German girl travels across America asking everyone she meets 'Wot iz the American dream to you?', all the while unable to get herself fucked, as the droning monologue constantly, pointlessly points out. In the end she does, of course. I say, 'Chris, did she get fucked?' 'Yeah.' 'With Boy Number One?' 'No, some black guy.' 'Right.' The conversation I had with the film-maker was almost as brief, before she back-stepped away in hurt silence. The conversation I had with the film-maker's friend, Anita, who I've fancied for years, but who's never been sure of me - until this intensely personal defining moment - was the briefest:
YOU ARE AN IGNORANT, ARROGANT FUCKING ASSHOLE!
September 1
My hard drive is haunted. The fan is on its way out. It rattles and whines like daydreaming whales - if only I could understand them.
BITTER, BITTER, BITTER, SAG MIR WAS IST LOS HIER!
Also; I'm investigating filters through which to pass my images. Those I hung at "Way & Sun" yesterday, while it rained outside, are unfocused - bold but unfocused - like their maker, the seer, who only sees pixels by now. In the secret garden in Pankow, near the church, three of my posters went missing, along with Norbert's yellow painting, and the smart-looking friend of Andreas. Not Andreas the starving writer who lives in my flat, but Andreas the starving writer who finished with Kathrin the gorgeous. Katrin now has a baby, like everyone else around here. Benny, who's wife shot him in the neck once and who just got out of drug rehab, though you wouldn't know it, says he'll sort out the paperwork, some kind of insurance, so I may make a profit after all. I can't help feeling something dodgy went down. Ironic understatement - something dodgy goes down in that place every time you see someone. But he's a good man, Benny. Manic, but better than most. He constantly weeps from the eye on the side of the head she didn't like. Those people in Pankow belong in a book. Or a jail. Johnny the painter, country singer, father again at sixty-three and one time jail-bird for counterfeiting a million, if you want to believe it; went blind through drink but had his cataracts removed ten years ago and rejoiced. He voiced-over three films for Richard Widmark. Grillmaster Flash, barbecue king and one of the many gardeners who potter around the place for no obvious reason, winked and nodded at his beer bottle while we watched a Kung-Fu film together with the three wild lads who live there, way passed any normal bed-time. Funnily enough I saw that movie, perhaps a year ago, and in German. Widmark, the honourable detective who treats his wife bad, gets killed at the end in a hotel room whilst saving a broad from a vicious fruitcake. He had old Johnny's voice, no doubt about that. Whilst the other Jon's voice, on that Friday the Thirteenth, was big enough to fill the midnight suburbs with Berlin cops, who arrived to get screamed at beyond all justification or comprehension by Boss Wieland, the nutter, who I can't bring myself to write about. They came back five times in all, apparently, but not for my stolen posters; no no. Tanja was also not there on that night, that down-pouring Night of the Big Chairs: she has stood me up by now thirteen times over the thirteen years since we split up; after that disastrous holiday on that Sahara scorched Canary Island. 'That's thirteen times too many,' I scoffed to myself as I kicked around later in the Tacheles mud. More locally, I walked to a wedding in the park at the end of this street, but got lost behind the communist statue, the one with the bulls, if that's what they are. Una - no, Orla - was there, at the wedding, if that's how to spell her name. Don't remember what we talked about, but I imagine she does. Similar blackouts in White Trash Fast Food, losing my chocolate pea-nuts, chatting with shocking Heike Puschel about her boyfriend who sleeps in the other room, though she's not really shocking at all; and, oh yes, discussing everything under the sun with two nineteen year-old visitors from outer Munich. The one who wants to marry the boy in the Lebanon refused to leave me alone until breakfast, concerned that I eat something; her sleep-walking, mink-wearing friend trailing a little behind, like a ghost in a silent movie. The next time I saw her, the ghost, she had a deep cut on her back, where the mink should have been, but she couldn't remember a thing about it. She thought perhaps she'd been date-raped, as far as I could make out, but didn't seem certain what date-rape meant. All the while Klaus Kinsky did Fitzgeraldo to a wonderful death on the screen in the cosy back room. American Alex, masseur and friend of American Brian, was there on both occasions. But Alex is a nice man, one of so many nice men, and ladies too, and I'm confident he didn't do it. Which makes me pause to wonder what I've been up to, since landing on Bob and living this Dracula life. I should more often refer to my diaries. Oh yes, I re-wrote this website, got back on the Social, washed all of Bob's doors and got stoned - stoned at the gnome garden in Pankow, stoned at the Girls Rock Against Bush palaver in Mitte, stoned with Phil and the bookworms at East of Eden English books in Freidrichshain, more stoned than anyone at a dinner-party on the river in Kreuzberg (uninvited, I couldn't pay for my drink), stoned on a helicopter pad in Anarchist's Forest at Kesselberg; and stoned again here beneath the full moon in the cockpit of my haunted computer.
It rained a lot today. And Parveneh, or DJ Butterfly, till she bore little Leo, saw a white rat beneath our park-bench. She let out such a scream! It must have been terrified. I thought it was a sweet thing, a poor Haustier in distress. It came back three times for one of Leo's biscuits. After that, Butterfly said I could move into her place to play with Leo and pay half the rent. I don't have half the rent. But Leo's a great kid, we get on best of all. I taught him to say 'bitte' today.
"Siehst da?" I say, with a poke, "wenn du BITTE sagst, kriegst du alles! Alles das du willst!"
August 11
E-mail to a young lady:
Hi,
Was really nice to see you last night - sorry we didn't talk. I had an excellent drunken stupid night which continued at a party later till the sun came up. A lot of people came to the vernissage who I had invited who I hadn't seen for a long time, some unexpected, so it was special for many reasons. Now its Saturday evening, I just got up, checked my e-mails (18 e-mails! a record) and I just read yours. Yes, I did think you had stopped our conversation after I told you I'm in love with you, and I guessed xxxx knew about that (he gave me such a wry look when we met - do you know what 'wry' means - I don't know the German), which made me feel awkward/stupid, so it was a double surprise to see you both. You are right, xxxx is a good man - a lucky man too - but I don't understand how he didn't notice your 'belly problem' all this time. He must have seen you were depressed about something. Sure he did, just didn't know what to do, or how to talk to you about it. Anyway, now I'm jealous of TWO men in your life. And you are right again - my advice is: listen to your pretty belly and have some FUN. Experience everything you want to experience - if you do that you will also experience amazing things you NEVER expected. When you are older you will know that you can, and should, love more than one person - even at the same time. Otherwise life would be dull wouldn't it! That doesn't mean you should hop into bed with someone new every week, but on the other hand, you are not a nun. Or are you the type who needs security above all, which means a fixed relationship, putting up with the difficulties, having children at a young age just to fill the emotional gap in an empty belly... A young woman has a huge need for romance, which is a silly word for sex, but most men don't realise or understand it. Myself, I don't hop into bed with someone else each week (though it sounds like a good idea). Even if I was good looking and successful enough to get the chance, I just can't get attracted if there's nothing in common or nothing 'behind the eyes'. The truth is, just like I'm a perfectionist in my art, I'm also fussy when it comes to women. I get bored easily. Even with a sexy lady, the interest can run out soon if there is not a soul connection. Many women avoid my soul because its weird, but that's also why, when I do find a partner who's soul I love, there can only be brilliant times ahead - and two lives have a better purpose. We are here to enjoy life, to learn from experience, tragedy, and everything in-between. The best thing us ridiculous human beings can offer this belasted planet and the universe, if it ever cares, is naturally, love.
August 10
Released the following memo:
Coinciding with the launch of Wallywoods Posters I would be very happy to see you this Friday the 13th at NORBERT WINKELMANN's little open air exhibition in Pankow.
I will be hanging the very first Wallywoods posters,
Grillmaster Flash will be grilling,
Jon Evans will be Unplugged Horror,
further music & performance will be provided by Phil Hickey and other madmen.
If Günter Haring returns from France he will do something he calls Teekesselvorschau(*).
(*He never did, to the relief of everyone conscious.)
'FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH'
Galerie Sonderzug nach Pankow
Damerow Street 5, 13187 Berlin
Starts at 18.00 (music to be killed at midnight).
Anlässlich des Stapellaufs von Wallywoods Postern, wurde ich mich freuen, Dich am Freitag den 13. bei Norbert Winkelmann's kleiner open air Ausstellung in Pankow begrußen zu können.
Ich zeige die aller ersten Wallywoods Poster,
Grillmaster Flash grillt,
Jon Evans ist der Horror Unplugged,
und noch mehr music von Phil Hickey u.a...
July 20
I met a beautiful woman at White Trash who wore a tight red Asian dress which fitted the surroundings, though I told her straight the colour was wrong. Anything but red, I said. She was with a large friend and I was with an Aussie backpacker who paid for the drinks and wanted to pay for more. We walked home at sunrise (the Aussie and I). By now he's in Scandinavia, perhaps Ankara, who cares. The woman is funny, on top of everything else, and hopefully in Berlin.
My graphics went all ghastly, so spent the night defragmenting the hard-drive and writing e-mails. My brain is now defragmentised. All the red bits have turned light blue. Between bouts, wrote a song called The Battle Plan...
Dear Phil,
I have to meet to Norbert and work out the details of my bit of the exhibition. I'll let you know more as soon as I do. If he's still cool about everything I'd like to invite you to do whatever you like - alone, unplugged (naked if you like). In the 'Kunstfleisch' days I invited everyone possible, the more hideous the better, but the venue is a little garden in Pankow so extreme caution is necessary.
Wherever it takes place - on Friday 13th with a bit of luck - my thing will be called Poster Portraits. Can I have a recent picture of you to use for a poster, maybe to hang in the suburbs with Klaus Kinski's Lips, Drummerboy, Icon, Experiment #5a and the others? I feel a need to illustrate your story about the Mushrooms from out of Space, with yourself as The Drunken Hero.
The Metho's were good again at Tacheles the other night whilst, concurrently, I burned eighty bucks...
Dear Harry,
Thanks for the compliment - I hope so too, but it's a lot of work. I have time for little else. Now Photoshop has stopped opening big files because the scratch disks are full, whatever they are. Will defragmenting the hard-drive cure that?
I hope you can come to my exhibition on Friday 13th August in Pankow?
Otherwise I don't make it as far as Wedding these days, due mostly to being pleiter. But let me know when you're in Prenzlauerberg next and we can meet for a drink, or you could visit here.
Bis dann...
Dear Robert,
Could you let me know S.A.P. if it would be possible to stay at one of those addresses - even with the witch? Much obliged either way (there's still a bunk at the hostel).
Was nice to meet you (both) this time around.
At White Trash last night I met Ben Becker. He and Mad Nigel were dancing around like legless lovers. I could think of no sane way to introduced myself so I asked him if he had any pot, as ours went missing. I think he's a regular there (I'm making a poster starring Grumpy Sailor Blue, entitled Your Friendly White Trash). Next time he'll be better impressed if I tell him about your film - what do you think? In Prague you can show me the script...
Bis dann...
Dear Bob,
Looking forward to seeing you and the Mrs in Prague - hope you make it. You can buy me a beer whilst I explain why the bailiffs took away your shirts. Anyway, the Summer finally hit here and people are walking around in t-shirts. For the wedding I'll be wearing my luminous white shirt - its my last one since the soap-powder ran out.
Paradox P.
(unsent)
Dear Jon,
I don't have your e-mail address, but will you write a song to fit my new poster - Klaus Kinski's Lips? If not I'll change them for someone else's.
(unsent)
Dear Mike,
140 Euros received with big thanks. Its helped a lot, but I'm afraid I'm still up to my neck. I'm trying to get my on-line account linked to Wallywoods Posters so that I can sell some, but I'm not having much luck with the programming.
Meantime, I'm at the Social this week trying to get back on the books. The dole place wouldn't help me because I didn't contact them for two years - but I'm appealing against that.
Tell me what you think of the posters plan as it looks now, and whether any of your cockney contacts want to help out.
Love to the family...
July 7
Just up-loaded the new title page and as James would say, no word of a lie, I found that I was exactly the 5000th visitor to my own website since joining Google.
Double congratulations to me, then, as posters bloody posters are all that lie ahead...
June 17
Message for Louise, Mike and James:
I wanted to let you know how I'm doing, what I'm up to, and then ask you all for some help. This is not easy to do (understatement) and I've put it off for as long as possible but things are getting fairly urgent, as I'll come to in a minute. Actually, apart from financial worries, I'm feeling very well, am getting on with people better than ever, i.e., opening up more than ever; and have never been so creatively productive and flexible as right now.
Over the last three months I've been working on my Big Chairs project full-time, designing new sculptures and posters, mixing in all kinds of influences and materials, mostly here on the computer at Bob's place. For reasons too complicated to explain here I've not been able to get work and its going to take a while before I'm able to get 'dole' or whatever. Anyway, the point is, I wondered if you three would like, or be able in any little way you can, to sponsor the artist in the family (again!) for a few months? Its such a simple question, but sounds so stupid. You see, since waking up as an 'artist' in 1999, and especially since working on Big Chairs, I simply don't have the physical or mental energy to do anything else besides. When I say I'm working 'full-time' on a project, the truth is that I put in a lot more than 40 hours per week. I start when I - finally - get out of bed and often don't stop till the sun rises again. There are no weekends off, and in my head I NEVER stop working. So it doesn't matter a bean if a few people think I'm a lounging bum, notoriously ponsing off friends or anyone around for a meal, a beer or a smoke.
I should mention that finding 'Big Chairs' has been like finding God, or the right woman, or heavy drugs. A lot of the time that's what art is - a replacement for other things in life not found, or just not available, and its the best therapy I could wish for. (If you haven't guessed it already, I've been clinically depressed for a good number of years now - though some people here would be surprised to hear it. I'm still occasionally guilty of being the life and soul of the party.) But that's by the by. We all have our crosses to bear, and mine, when I can finally relax amongst good people, really weighs nothing at all. The most important thing is knowing that one day my visions and the years of intensive, physically destructive, but supremely satisfying work, will somehow pay off.
I'm trying to stick to the point. The main thing is that at the moment I've found an excellent place where I can set myself up almost for nothing - and start about building my first Big Chair sculpture for real. (If you read the last diary entry you'll see what I mean). My costs are tiny. I eat like a sparrow - though my appetite for cheap meat is growing by the day. I haven't owned anything of worth outside the computer for a decade and I need nothing now apart from food and to pay some bills. (I won't complicate things, here, by going into my business ideas - they'll sit safely on the back-burner for another few years until I find a partner, or a clever and generous investor). I'm talking short-term as my stomach is rumbling. If you had a whip-round and between you could help pay a few bills and for some food shopping, I truly can't describe to you how much weight would be lifted off me, so that I could make my art in peace, here, and practically in freedom.
I know you all have commitments, you live in the real world and nothing should come before the kids, of course. But for the cost of a couple of bottles of wine each week, Mike, a few pints James and perhaps postpone ordering that new coffee table Lou... well, you wouldn't believe how cheaply I can live here, and what a difference it would make to my life - which seems so filled with problems. But I love it here, for what that's worth; the opportunities are enormous and I have huge hopes for the future.
What do you think? By the way, Mum and Dad have done more than enough before now, so I want to leave them out of this for a change. Either way, please contact me S.A.P. by phone (before it gets cut off) or e-mail.
O.K., it's 6am. This hasn't taken all night to write, its taken a month.
P.
June 1
Spent a couple of days at Kesselberg outside Berlin. 'Kettle Mountain' is a more of a hill really, in a man-made pine forest where about 40 anarchists are building a life for themselves away from city stress and ultimately independent from nuclear power - if they can achieve it before imploding from beery slanging matches over politics, daily practicalities and unpaid bills.
Good to be in the countryside again; mooching around the open fire, cooking up huge communal pots of supper, hoarding fire wood and horse manure; occasionally exploring the wider woodland accompanied by any number of dogs. Over the last half century the site has been a quarry, a Stassi spying compound, an NDA army camp, a motorway developments industrial site and a cultural centre. Now its just a place where a bunch of people share some ideas and anything from a distrust to a fuming dislike of the various systems they are escaping from. In the surrounding area are networks of overgrown bunkers and trenches, small mountains of concrete blocks, old communications towers, countless felled trees in varying states of decay: and an old helicopter landing site. Well away from any building or pylon its a perfect circle, eighty meters in diameter, cut out of the forest. Tranquil, even eerie - when the dogs shut up - its hard to imagine the place was ever disturbed by such an eco-unsympathetic monstrosity as a helicopter.
(On another level, I instantly recognised the place, as if from a forgotten childhood memory, as being the very clearing in Noah's Vinewood from my never-to-be-finished novel Ark of Colours - at the centre of which is hidden the ancient well into which Phyllis and Felix famously venture in their search for the Last Animal... The Hopwood Ogres may live there, too, for that matter: so my eyes, as we rolled up on a little pile of logs which marks the centre, were widely peeled, lest they finish the day as baubles for the ogres' drop-dead gorgeous virgin daughter...)
By no means an artists' commune, the people at Kesselberg are none-the-less creative as can be seen in the gardens and occasional features and heard in discussions of how to fix the wind machine (i.e. who gonna climb up to grease the blades), how to harness best the few solar-panels, how to generate money from the coming Summer party season, and how to utilise a gleaming consignment of toilet bowls unattractively scattered around the place (grow weeds in them, mostly). Recycling is a loud priority for some, and disposal of trash another rich source for argument.
My marvellous idea of building a Big Chair sculpture on the helicopter-pad appealed, I think, to all but one (a rather attractive complete nutcase) sitting around the fire-place later. Sobered up the next day, a few were understandably more wary, but none more than I.
I over did the humping of logs on the second day and since returning to Bob's (he's still in England) I've been taking it easy again, trapped between the news headlines and this computer screen. Above all I've been trying to work out just what to build at Kesselberg - and more exactly why, since the site is arguably perfect as it is - a pair of Big Chairs perhaps, a circle of Big Chairs, or maybe something on ground level only to be seen from the air...
Whilst awaiting inspiration I'm also penniless and slightly starving once again, having found no work and no wealthy sugar-mummy to soothe my skinny brow, but no matter. Though my Aufenthaltserlaubniss (permission-to-exist-visa) ran out and it will take months now to slash through this hated bureaucracy in order to receive the lowest social assistance, I have at least found myself a soul-saving project for the Summer, at a place where I can eat and work myself fit, spend time amongst humans again, throw sticks at the dogs, get high, drum to the devil and dance with the other drop-outs at full moon.
First pics produced on the current 3D Studio-Max learning curve, supported by a pile of flat-mate Martin's meat baguettes, a pint of coffee (his), visually enhanced with a mildly illegal substance compliments of the Good Mother Magdelena. The seat may be a hammock/netting affair to sprawl upon while the sun goes up and down.
(Click to enlarge.)If anyone wants to sponsor the project (i.e. me) in any shape or form (i.e. money for toothpaste, rope and, oh yes, food) I would be delighted to receive your philanthropic e-mail
On the other hand what I really need is a couple of thousand euros to pay off debts and get my hand-made posters business off the ground. I could start producing at Norbert's print-shop tomorrow. I did a crash course there recently (without breaking my knee-cap) and am more convinced than ever that the posters will go down like very big, very flat hot-cakes at the various outlets I've been lining up. The layout work is no problem, materials are affordable, but the costs quickly rise as we need to visit bigger off-set Mafioso companies to produce the transparencies (up to four needed for each poster - about a hundred euros each job) from which Norbert and I etch the nice metal plates which then get wrapped around the rollers. That's the simplest option. I dream nowadays of having my own printing facilities in Berlin, or at Kesselberg for instance where there is plenty of space; but actually anywhere in the world. If I could live a life making my art somewhere without this ceaseless, crippling burden of not knowing where the next meal or rent money is coming from I would remove myself to that heaven, wherever it may be, without a second thought. Probably without a first thought.
I knocked myself out for the first two months here screaming my frustrations, hopes and plans into the ears of the most likely contacts I've made in Berlin over the years, from gallerists through so-called artists' agents to restaurant cronies and real business people, ex-partners, ex-girlfriends and the occasional plain-clothes policeman - in the soulless search for something called, though I may have been using the wrong word, 'sponsorship'.
(As for cultural grants - such an attractive expression - previous Kamikaze attempts at squeezing money from the Stone State include Holy Playroom and Portraits from the Edge of Berlin.)
I'm almost convinced I should trot off again on my happy-go-lucky search for the Holy Grail, for which I believe there is now a 25 million dollar reward. A breeze of a job as I recall - less horse-shit, better views, a thousand-fold improvement in self-esteem.
One after the other my contacts inform me that
GERMANY IS BROKE
at which point I roll up my sleeves and limply point to the yuppies at every corner café and at the magazine stories of Other World misery they casually peruse. Then they say
AND ANYWAY, MY MONEY IS ALL TIED UP
and only Corinne of my closer friends has shown practical interest without stifling a yawn or not stifling a wry chuckle. "Posters? You want to make Posters?" Together she and I are supposed to be window shopping in Friedrichshain where I plan set up my first studio-gallery in 2036 when I'll be as old as Berlin's other chair-artist, Bob Rutman.
(Bob by the way - who doesn't remember who I am since the Big Reichstag Plan didn't come off - plays at the King Kong Klub on June 2nd with his superb Steel-cello Ensemble. I may go along, though I haven't been to the KKK since Konrad changed his mind about financing a small posters exhibition, including the ones I designed for his club as a favour, which would otherwise be running now, with the words "oh, those posters. I thought you were going to make some new ones..." Apart from which he keeps demanding I pay my tab.)
So now we come to the carrot, or the maggot on the hook. Whether I am a truly rubbish businessman or not, and I have no opinion either way, though a great deal of suspicion in both directions, ANY assistance I receive in the VERY near future will be humbly appreciated with a yodel from this top-floor balcony and might, one bright day, be rewarded with a signed stack of the first Big Chair Posters hot from the oven, together with permission to sell them wherever and to whom-so-ever they (i.e. you) like at enormous profits. For, little though my dead friend W.N.P. Barbellion suspects it
THE AGE OF THE BIG CHAIR IS COME...
Forget all that now and look at some nice sculpture proposals for the botanical gardens at Ventnor, I.O.W. As far as I know building permission is still being sought, though I haven't heard a bean from my only living mentor Mr Goodenough since leaving England. As usual, I'm stubbornly reluctant to enquire.
MAY 20
Today is Männer Tag (men's day) - a national holiday. The sun is brightly shining and rowdy groups of blokes have been boozing on every street corner since knocking-off time yesterday.
I love Berlin, but I think I'm going queer.
MAY 19
Thinking today of the many children blown up by missiles in separate attacks in two poverty-ridden countries carried out by the two most powerful nations in existence.
Both 'incidents' are crimes against humanity. Neither will ever be punished.
Is Israel trying to reek its revenge on history, indirectly or otherwise, by sheer numbers of innocents killed across the globe?
Is nobody concerned with its nuclear agenda, at the finger-tips of some of the most paranoid and ruthless men living? How long will the subject remain taboo?
That one little country has de-stabilised the planet for too long. Its rulers, with their black-mailing grip on American politics, will not stop of their own volition. The western media in general pussy-foots around, terrified of making the slightest hurtful remark in consideration of the six million murdered last century, to its shame and to the detriment of everyone.
I am not a fan of any hypocritical, woman-pounding Arab or Muslim society and spit on the grave of ANY suicide bomber who has slaughtered civilians of ANY nationality on his way to so-called martyrdom (and a heaven over-flowing with grateful blond virgins with no sheets over their heads); but the justification of Israel? History will judge, to be sure - but by then it will be too late for too many.
Unfortunately, only America has the means to harness Sharon and the like and halt the fits of fury - in which case... blah blap blah blap... forget it.
(Who was it who recently proclaimed John Lennon to have been A TOTAL WANKER. I hardly dare say. Never-the-less, imagine a world in which the Jews-in-power behaved responsibly, bravely, and even loosely in accordance to their own God's teachings of forgiveness and neighbourly love...)
MAY 4
What use be a flower
Held up against thee
If that flower be more subtle
Yet opened up to me?
MAY 2
Thought for the day:
Reality TV is unstoppable. Youngsters everywhere want to see themselves strutting and swanking in the rosy mirror of the newest flattest widest television screen. Big Brother and all that LOOK AT ME crap, as it inexorably spreads across the Middle East and the rest of the universe, no matter who hates it or for what reason, is going to rescue our peculiar race from the suppression of blah blap authoritarianism blah blap fundamentalism blah blap blah blap deliver the Eurovision song-singing family of man unto the godless chaos of free-choozin' free-zappin' blah blap blah blap free-market blah blap blah blap...
Alleluia. Let it be so.
MAY 1
A greetings message (not finished yet):
**** Cyprus!
Na Zdravi Czech Republic!
**** Estonia!
Egeschegedre Hungary!
**** Latvia!
**** Lithuania!
**** Malta!
Na Zdravi Poland!
**** Slovakia!
**** Slovenia!
Borders are bad,
Poverty as well,
Friendship is cooler,
So 'cheers' mate(s) to you (all)!
Closer to home: went for a stroll and a bit of rioting in Mauer Park last midnight (the Wall used to run through it). Shame on both sides. Drunken teenies smashing windows all over town - tut, tut. Their mummies and daddies should keep them at home to happily smoke dope, watch MTV and study in first world comfort my new novel '1001 Ways to be Wealthy'. As for die Bullen (bulls/pigs), infected with power, charging around like it's National Sportsday; Darth Vader's storm-troopers behave with more intelligence and dignity.
APRIL 30
As of yesterday the Americans, and therefore the British and the rest of the comic book-entitled 'coalition against terror', can no longer win this Iraq War. The best that may now be hoped for is a tragic draw - and that only if Iraq finds itself at some kind of peace in the not too distant future.
Yesterday's images of naked, humiliated, mentally tortured Muslim prisoners at the hands of happily posing US troops, women among them, give enough fuel for 'insurgents' everywhere to fight for another 10 years; whilst more harm has surely been done in the minds of Americans re. the case for Another Moral War than almost any amount of neatly flag-draped coffins.
Those few pictures will certainly have a bigger effect than this week's historic, eloquent and damning letter written to Tony Blair (who commands more respect in the US than the President) by 52 British ex-ambassadors criticising his unwillingness to extract himself from the deepening quagmire. If that story made any impact Stateside at all, it will soon have been buried beneath hours of more marketable live footage direct from the front lines at Fellujah and elsewhere.
In the heat of America's battle a great deal of focus has been lost. Proof is the enormous support enjoyed at home by George Bush - a man who does not have the wits or courage to face the September 11 Committee alone, nor in public, nor taped for the record.
His diplomacy throughout the region is hammer-handed and trigger-happy. Yesterday's petulant, knee-jerk claim that the rare bombing of the Syrian capital was their own doing (regardless of whether it was or wasn't) was intended purely to pressurise and alienate. The seemingly casual U-turn over the occupied territories in Sharon's favour last week underlined the massive bias which observers around the globe have long taken for granted, and which lies at the core of so many related problems. It is almost superfluous to mention yet again that when Israeli children are killed by deluded suicide-bombers, America is officially outraged; yet when more stone-throwing Palestinian children are killed by Israeli heavy armour, America is officially very quiet indeed.
The US ought to recognise its own tendency, in the military if not elsewhere, to think of the people they are in conflict with as Untermenschen (as that British General embarrassingly pointed out) i.e. 'ragheads'; and must openly seek to understand why they as a nation can so easily be despised or distrusted by countless people across so many lands.
Counting themselves beyond the constraints of international laws and conventions on an increasing range of issues only dents America's injured reputation further.
The initiative in Iraq should be handed over as soon as possible to the UN. Better late than never.
APRIL 23
M. at Charité Nut House sofort melden - re: catastrophe ubung; dna/tel.# exchange; Bongland meeting; self-help/organ-dressing/opfer-rettung/scent-testing; Devil's contract signing session...
