31 December, 1999
What a terrible year it has been for the red squirrel!

In May I became a painter. Danke Jens!

4 February, 1998
Spelling mistakes on the moon.

Dreamt up a rather good film called 'Sayonce on the Moon'. Sadly, can't remember much about it. If I could write in my sleep I'd have the script. If I could spell séance, I'd write about one. About astronauts on a space station. A catastrophe down there on earth. Darn. Had the whole thing worked out before I awoke from that speedy-brained, heavy-bodied state akin to being 'on' something. Some kind of natural trip.

In my late teens, over-tired and on the verge of sleep, I would drop through myself into an 'out of the body experience'. I believe now that the visions were linked to ultra-complicated shifts in the balance of brain chemicals. One night they stopped altogether, and the strange fear of falling asleep was gone. But I miss them like a kid misses an illness which granted him privileges. The dreams were frightening at first. One was simple: crawling along the yellowed wooden skirting strip on the corridor floor towards Mum and Dads' bedroom; a place we never, ever entered at night in any case. I would attempt to shout myself awake, calling to Michael! Michael! in the next room, or try to bang on the wall between us: but I was paralyzed, unable to get the words out. (Mike himself would have been paralyzed within a drunken stupor). The relief when the spell at last broke and the sunshine hit! Later, I gained control. Eventually I could drop out of my bedroom window (it always started foggy - a 'pea-souper' in Victorian terms) to soar over Blake House and South London, glide through clouds and hover over roofs, always careful not to be spotted by people going about their normal businesses. I learned to plummet toward the ground, pulling up just in the nick of time, roller-coaster-like. Then WHOOOSH, I would gain new heights, daring to travel straight upwards, beating all previous records. In the stratosphere it was terribly quiet and lonely and cold, though in the latter case, pain was not a factor. In earlier dreams I would fly inside a great hall filled with other 'floaters' - object-like beings, hard to say which ones had consciences, in Alice-falling-through-Wonderland fashion.
Through those early experiences I know that, with practice, I can levitate.

Update: Feb, 2003:
Last night, accounts in a documentary on Near Death Experiences rang some distant bells. There were realistic or cynical explanations of cases by a researching psychologist. She believes the visions always occur going into or coming out of the 'death state' due to a massive release of endorphins. Then, from a woman with an aneurysm in the brain, came a typical tale of an approaching light and communication with strangers and people she had known. An overwhelming feeling of love. 'I was standing in the breath of God'. She also described her own brain surgery, during which she was extensively monitored and quite dead for an hour, according to known criteria. (She needed to be dead as long as possible due to the difficulty and danger of the life-saving operation.) Unless some trick was involved she could not have known the bits of procedure and conversation among the doctors and nurses which she later related. Afterwards, her life, beginning with her spirituality, was forever changed. Then a woman, profoundly blind since birth, who had never seen the slightest shadow and could not even visualise the concept of 'black', was brought in for surgery after a road accident. She, too, was 'dead' in theatre. Although her sight was not restored, she did pop out of her body and watch the events of her emergency treatment from a place above the surgeons shoulder. These things she saw, noting such things as the gold wedding ring on a nurses finger.
The revelation for me came when an American professor introduced the probability that Quantum physics played its part at a fundamental level inside the brain; a process until now hardly imagined, let alone understood. He said that the tiniest objects within atoms have incredible properties, including being able to exist in two places at the same time. In different parts the brain for instance, perhaps the universe too - with obvious implications regarding premonitions, telepathy, ghosts, transcendental travel, reincarnation...

Back to 1998 and serious matters:
My dreamed film, now called 'Ghosts on the Moon'. The earth is a waiting station for drifting spirits. Or the earth itself is Heaven, or Hell, or both. A cosmic haunted house. What else was there? Two couples in space. Two touching love stories. Sex in space. A lost astronaut. A failed rescue attempt, hence the séance. More sex in space. Our heroes discover more than they bargain for whilst sitting around a weegie-table in fish-tank helmets at the centre of the largest crater on the dark side of the moon. Filming is to take place on location. Space-séance candles to be developed by NASA, the film's sponsors.

I heard they are going to build a super-duper, internationally coordinated space station, to be assembled in bits, ready for use in 2002. Big as umpteen football fields. Fifteen countries involved. Should cost 200 billion dollars or euro-credits or bum licks or whatever. Leaving the astronomical sum aside, I like the idea. In fact, I like the astronomical sum as well. If they gave me 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of 1% of the cash, I would design the toilet seats or the buttons on the haunted space-knickers. I'll do it for free if I get to test them on location.

Where, then, on a ghost-stuffed earth (just for the sake of argument) are all the real people? The Solids?
Mass emigration must be the answer.

LEAVE THIS EARTH DUMP
(ALMOST EXACTLY AS WE FOUND IT)

In space, nobody can hear you plot.

The original ALIEN trailer was a mini masterpiece. Seeing it at fifteen at the cinema in '79 was like having my helmet snatched off. I gagged for more. Haven't stopped gagging since.
Remember PIGS IN SPACE!
Or THE CLANGERS - whistling mice on a junk-yard meteorite, visited by a story-telling soup dragon made of copper scrap.
Disney's THE BLACK HOLE
SILENT RUNNING
SATURN 3
BLAKE'S SEVEN
THE FORBIDDEN PLANET
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS... and:

'SAYONCE ON THE MOON'

starring
James T. Scott as himself & Captain Maximillion,
who got cast & crew lost in the first episode.
Leonard Cohen as Scott McClanger,
ship's bad tempered clairvoyant cook.
RT FA: Black Master of the Old Universe
& slapstick genius in his own world.
K TO THE SQUARE ROOT OF 9: weird pet & scientific advisor to:
Ripley Asimov, stunt space-walker & derelict but cute android hooker with private hopes of turning out really to be a robot.

spiritual guidance by
Hal B. Cloudbuster
silicone powered producer, merchandise pirate
& real hero of the $300,000,000 triple tripology.

with the voice of
MAD UNCLE WALLY

"Sole survivor of spacecraft Nostamina - signing off, not drunk, not comatose, not writing a screenplay for angry Clangers sealed up since the outbreak of the First Silicon Fish Revolution in an abandoned animation workshop in London's Docklands..."

Hello P,

I got the English energy before going to bed thank you. I can't believe these words can make all this long way just in one minute (they do). There's a shop in Budapest called 'Little Paul', maybe you should have a look in it. I don't mind if you tickle my body... you can start...
Yours sincerely, whatever it means,

p.s. What wouldn't you do... (clever Hungarian saying).

K.


13 May, 1997
The hardest work is dragging the finger to the first letter on the keyboard.


16 December, 1996
All the things I cannot say to others, I yell at my own brain, over and over and over. I never let up.


24 October
Am having a fit of un-industry.
My shoulders are sloped to the ground.
In the small of my back there are goosebumps.
My ducts are dry, and my lungs,
Gilded leaves, folded and veined,
Are drenched in dark treacle, bitter to the taste.
I cannot be raised like easy bile.
But cannot be slain.
My neutrality defeats all enemies.
I have no intention of forming a plan.
Washing my cool skin
Deeply upsets my lack of routine.
I'm living in a large comfortable cell,
Locked from within.
My pillow is a chest filled with keys,
Locked from within.
My dreams clink and whisper and follow me through the day.
My head is thick and drools,
Locked from within.

I be the rat wot sank the ship.

(Black Winter is on my scent.)


17 June
Escape from Berlin

A moment of confused clarity.
This bloated stomach has rebelled again on the sour juice of 'blood oranges'.
Earlier, threw the wicker basket into the bath. The water turned grey with best Berlin cellar mould. Scrubbed for a while, then hopped in myself for a soak. The stink caught under these bitten finger-nails, clung well about this wicker basket face.
Ate spongy-soft nail skin for a cheap supper.
Oh! But then was I whisked away like Dorothy's dog to a bar filled with mothers and daughters direct from Peru!
"How old are you? Vee highsen doo?"
and melancholic Bulgarians heartily pumping accordions.
Whilst huddled back there at a safe distance, a few German women celebrating the end of a study course without laughter.
Prettier chat sploshed about with those bronzy foreign mothers, though: and all those silky daughters. Was invited to watch Latino-Americans dancing at a joint called Friday.
Such fine clucking, grinning brown eyes, wide yellow teeth, rings, bangles, hair clips, musty stockings; and big, big, big, big hips...

Let's fuck off and sail to Peru, Bob, where they know how to laugh and have babies. Let's live in a painted stone house, under a wholesome cliff, with fat bronze wives as beautiful as life, in skirts easy to lift, among oxen and goats and washing on the shrubs, drying in the long day's sun. Let's adjust to greener greens in the scenery and chase little bronze children, all beautiful as life, forever around a pyramid farm...

Or face Frau Ratchet (real name Frau Löffel) at the social security complex (real name SS) at day break on Thursday, to feed her the triplicate proofs that she craves of my most intimate untergang. Others crave sunlight, sex and cliffs. She loves puppy dogs, this much I know. Her office is plastered with puppy dog calendars, and coffee machines which are never switched off. She never sleeps, has no other home. At night she stands watch over her cabinets of ghosts, deep in the maze of cellars. She is built of cardboard folders and clauses, and filled to the beak with dull little pebbles from Camp Wansee. Black mould-water trickles through those birdish veins, encased in grey and black plastic, individually stamped MADE IN GERMANY.

"HERR WUTZ! REAZONS FOR LIVING IN DEUTCHLAND?"
"That's a tough one. Send me the forms."


1 June
Just visited Tina, who I love, Peter, who is dull, and new baby Leo Elias, who is theirs.


28 April
There are many ways to say nothing. The red spit isn't come, but I'm freezing to death is one I don't understand, though I could work it out. Wearing red and black tartan is easy. Seeing a green girl prancing in shredded rubber hair is jolly. I remember well stomach choked with food and still feeling hungry. A white spot at the end of it all foretold doomsday. Mad cow disease in England and we're all in for another plague pinpoints the period. A chess board with clay feet and too few pieces was a game I never finished. I gave it to Dagmar for her Manfred. A soldier with spikes was the thing I bought to impress Daniela at the flea market. A boss who doesn't watch or show was Klaus. Ridiculous hair was my own, painted blond. I can no longer imagine sawdust in the socks and a workmate dressed as a short cowboy - some form of work, I guess. A wooden batmobile and no ink was a present from Krizstina. No fish, no sea, no beach, no hut, no hammock is Berlin. A light which won't go off was a broken light switch. Lots of buttons and I don't know what they do remains a dull mystery. Hard fingering, hard waiting is self explanatory, whilst hard painting too easy will be mural painting at the restaurant. A drunk Russian in the high-bed was Alosha and a flat to be deserted was number 40 Danziger Street. Itching, itching, itching refers to itching. 25 bags of Pekoe herzhaft orange tea were delivered upstairs by Jon the greasy haired dictionary.
The rest is history.
The demo, thousands strong, on its way to the red town hall. Stood outside the hairdressers waiting for a government cut.
Aussie Chris at the door (which one?) collecting numbers for the tour. Two months off. When he gets back there'll be no more broken light switch, no more Pekoe tea, no more fat landlord Weinert - Gott sei dank. I fed him broken tea in a cup with a candle. The others are filming at the factory. English Bob goes with them as far as Italy, as far as Rome. I got as far as Pompei before I knew where it was or what was painted on the wall. Chris will be in Hungary on the 17th. Earlier, after finding food, Krizstina phoned from that place. "When are you coming?" I asked. "Oh," I said. "I'll ring then."
Stopped drinking quantities this week. Feel sick. But enjoy vivid, vivid dreams. Sex dreams and others. Thank the stars for dreams. Drink up the rumours till they're true. Where did the good old dreams go? Got paranoia in Uta's bed, but that's not the same thing. There's life in dreams.
And tomorrow. The unemployment agency. Nightmare in German. Only the human ones are human, its true. The black bread eaters who know you hate them.
Earlier still; red light inside, green light sucked into the street. Otherwise, pitch black through which you can see. Outside is cold. Colder than the beer. Advertisements run by on the sides of trams. As people move down the isle they're framed in this window like spy TV. Flat figures of paper with pinned limbs a-dangling.
There is wood, too, with nails; and a fan that never spins.
I'll dream dull dreams of this place, if I haven't already.

Yesterday, I washed the sheets. The machine bobbed and jumped because it wasn't filled, Norbert said. I thought I had filled it. Four months of sleeping day and night, unsleeping and fucking and fucking while sleeping or watching TV or wanking or dreaming of fucking or reading a page of a book. I thought it was filled, like the sheets. When the stuff is back on the bed it will start again. Krizstina sometimes asked, "is it going to be like this?"
Hers, the quietest voice heard across the laziest room, under a church.
The humans and the Germans walk to and fro from the tram stop. Only the trams don't stop there for long. The shop opposite is called Komma 10, in red ink. Its on a one way street, which the cyclists enjoy because its a one way street on a gradient.

Now is early morning. Tonight, somewhere near, is Spring Space Monsters party, but I won't go.


April
Found something called 'Bachelor Dust' dated April, 96.

It says something like, I was remembering... first coming to Berlin. Staying at the Kings flat. Privileged and penniless. Sleeping into afternoons. It says something about Birgit dropping by late one night. First encounter with green hair. Like the first human-being I ever met. She wanted bladder tea. No, that was Irish red hair. (Collectable leggings.) All visits were nocturnal then. In the basement flat. Orange, white and mint green paint. Bits of carved and un-carved wood. Dust-thick windows. Bed. Fridge. Bottled beer. Dust. More dust - Denise dust.
And later, the puppets and the puppet girl. Big rosy cheeks. Toothy painted-on smile. The three of us in that empty restaurant. Whispers in a porcelain ear: don't trust him. It was Esters ear. Delivered on a platter; compliments of the most excellent Stefan. Those miniaturised feet, the much publicised triangular back and the hedgehog penned across that rare Dutch chest. Up in the high bed. Bobs high bed. She knelt by the royal green armchair: Am I disturbing? Of course you're disturbing. You're all bloody disturbing (stay right where you are...)

...Remembering the club on the bridge (the nazi; scarier for his kind interest). Follow my lead. This way and that. Out of the rain into twenty-four hour steamed-up bars. Cascades of whiplash faces. On-route to the high bed. That's pretty much what it says.

Last week I dreamed I was in the arms of a soft and careful woman who seemed to be part animal. It became clear, as if out of fog, lying next to her: she had fur on her legs up to her lower belly. Wondered whether it was possible to do it with such a horrible, fabulous thing. Her act was pleasingly unconvincing. It dawned on me she wore woolly pantomime leggings and that she was real and fleshy and wet beneath. I was equally sure she spoke the Truth. Certain that, although eerie as perfect women are, her motions and her sighs were genuine.

Made the decision to merge for all eternity and awoke with that awful groan in the only empty bed in Lychener Street.

The next night, lying alone in the same bed, half watched a film I half remembered seeing in some other bed years before. The tale of a mysterious traveling fair come to a small, middle of nowhere town to expose its corruptions and to divert its fate. It doesn't take much to shame the bigots who make up most of its population. A side-show overlooked by most (a steaming jungle in a tent or a trailer) is visited by Miss Pretty Spinster. Here a skulking Pan, wimpish and horny (high cheek-bones and a great big nose), courts her in his dance and captivates her with his love-pipes. Spinning in ecstasy, sweating away a life-time's store of prudery, she notices her lovers legs. The pantomime fur and clog-like hooves are real...

When I draw families they are invariably naked and comprise one male child, a disdainful father and a sweet smiling mother - angelically sexy despite large, triangular feet.
How many people are thirty-odd? A billion?
I am not the only one waking up to unsettling questions of offspring.
I expect to wonder forever who it might all be done with.


13 March
i could use a beer . what about you ?
typemachine's fucked .
piano's fucked . no middle c .
shoes need cleaning . and i've no phone .
with which to call for help .
who cares . are you still there ?
what colour is your hair ?
longer than mine ? do i still grow any ?
show any ? do i give any, take too many ?
is it all a mistake ? have i had my cake ?
for god's sake . is there a crust left ?
any trust left ? krisztina's bus left !
took away the bleeding cleft .
took away the happy rest .
leaking nob is all that's left .

norbert's listening to the radio .
in the next room . i'm listening in .
but it's ever so hard . i still have no eyes .
elastic fingers though .
the curtain's pulled asunder now .
and me not drunk . for the first time ever .
at least . since the train left .
since the end of the cleft .
evaporated breast .
singular pest (i am i am) .
plague and mess .

did you know charles ludwig dodgson ?
died on my birthday . aged sixty six .
thirteen days before his own birthday .
sixty-six years before mine ?
he photographed naked women . too .
but sadly wrote nothing after his death .


4 February
INERTIA

I amount to more than nothing.
Blind optimism saves each day.


30 November, 1995
In the room (Part I)

desk (door on folding legs)
red carpet (worn in places almost through)
red metal meat-mincer (filled with red plastic flowers)
lamps with bulbs painted lilac (not working)
scales (decorative use only)
compass set - blue felt interior (pieces missing)
papers, maps, letters, programs, photos, books, cards (english, german, hungarian)
sketchbook
large pair of scissors
cactus in earthenware pot
long stem rose (dead, no thorns) in blue brandy glass (with dirty water)
charcoals and paints in decorative wooden box
hair gel
marmite
pills
wound cream
turpentine
vaseline
foot powder
broken boomerang
unfinished manuscript
pictures: puppet infant floating on lake (black and white), man and woman kissing with tongues, woman's face over song lyrics (dead rose attached), renaissance venus, stills from two films (legend, the wall)
postcard from an island
letter from america
coloured pens and pencils (in tin chocolate box)
bendy lamp (blue base, red bendy neck, yellow head)
candlestick (two lit candles)
big candle (blue, unlit)
two black typewriters
pottery tools in coffee tin
counterfeit railway tickets to budapest (expired)
coins, dice, sea-shells, address book, herbal sweets, empty folders, empty packet, business cards for restaurant
broken ceramic boy (torso and stand)
loose typewriter keys and one thousand six hundred marks (in moulded tin box)
tree stump
matchstick
extension lead
plastic ribcage
print of medieval stain-glassed window (framed)
tinted postcard of naked girl with knife (framed)
wooden necklace, brushes, large plate (with fish design), tibetan incense sticks, carved furniture section (two parts), silicon moulds for puppet pieces
clear plastic ruler
section of furniture (used as shelf)
tv
ceramic fox (broken)
micrometer
porcelain jesus (broken)
gold pigment
etched garlic cutter (wooden handles)
typewriter (burnt, rusted, no keys)
paperclips (in small wooden box)
metal printing blocks
decorative stone fragment (from the zions church)
doors (to hallway, to norbert's room, to balcony)
spare light bulb
bed (krisztina, asleep)


1 October
L et's see what it does...
It's a bit stixff. Needs some oil, I guess.
"YOURE A BIT STIFF!"
where do I put the oil?
Its a bit loose in places too.
"YOURE A BIT LOOSE!"
Its called  O   'OPTIMA'
Not as robust as the Mercedes, nor as ancient. But its cute.
"HEY! CUTEY!"
Today today is 123456789000"/%&()_ first OCTOBER 1995 and
krisztinas gebornstag. I bought her a box to put my paints in.
Black, like the Mercedes, but not so rusty. Not at all rusty.
Locks into its own case.zzzzzzzzzzz   ---''
Top flips open.
h
jjj     bit jittery. Gets stuck.
"JITTERY!"
"STUCK!"
WAS HOPING IT WAS QUIETER THAN THE MERC.
It is, just a little. Does it need a new ribbon?
"DO YOU xxx ffFUCK   BBBBBBBBBBB
FUCK FUCK   thats better. looooook. Kuc mal.
Self correcting, obviously.
Norbert says put some 'fett' in there...
Dont know about that.
"FETT!"
(you want some fett?)
Jon and Bob are still on tour in Czech or Moravia or some place.
Lisa's on her own (THEREFORE) down stairs, without gas or electricity.
                                                                                            (Pretty 'PING')
We all went to a housing advice center this week. Looks like we
have to go anyhow. (Owners want to turn the place inside out
xxx & into X-mas cake yuppie ie penthouse.)
Idontknow if I like this machine, but for 35 marks... at the market at Tacheles, 1 hour ago.
"NOTHING PERSONAL!"       (Happy birthday!"
Two schreib-machinen must be better than one.


13 May
Awoke briefly last night from a drunken sleep to put out a fire. It burned the corner of the mattress, destroying the pillow under my head, a watch, some dolls and some books. God only knows what dragged me awake. We hadn't blown out the candle.
Bonked, then easily slept again.
We were arrested today in the street by a little girl who demanded to know what I was doing reaching into a broken cellar window in the rain.
"Was macht der da? Was macht der da?"
Nasty black-eyed fat little girl. Incredulous, humourless, mechanical.
"Was macht der da?"
Couldn't shake it. Chills up the spine. Youngest Nazi I ever met.
Wandered off in a deepening paranoid daze in search of the Jewish cemetery. The one by the police station. It was closed. It is the weekend after all.
Looked for a Kneiper in which to warm and cool an irritated heart. Ordered Grog. The barman repeated "Grog?"
"Ya, bitte."
Received a coke.
Set out too late to catch Catch 22 at the cinema in Acud.
Walked home alone. In the road, a jeep swerved as if to hit me, but didn't. Caught up with him at the lights. Luckily, he was a bigger coward than I, and screeched off fast, impressing his blondino girlfriend for the second time.
Wasn't mugged by four thugs kicking a tin-can.

Two good things however, about today.
* Found a rusty metal skeleton on which to stick candles.
* Krisztina.


25 December, 1992
Three pretty girls knocked me up one evening -
one prettier than the rest -
students, they were, of town-planning.
Wanted to learn English, they did;
and they drank from my pot of tea.
Results of my most successful poster campaign!
(All over the place I stuck them.)
Ten marks each for an hour, they paid, for a rather lame chat.
Late that first night they drank my health,
at the Kommandantur, where we fell in love.

"I think I need this!" declared Silke, writhing gladly at the end.
So I left for France.


31 February, 1990
Dates here on back are even more wildly guessed at.
Sharing a house in Wimbledon (Bob's old place) with Danny Flynn, dating Amanda, selling wine, delivering motor parts for London Buses, doing telephone market research. Met Tanja in the Ye Olde Leather Bottle; planned our trip to Europe. I remember kneeling by her chair one cold night.
"Let's just go somewhere. Europe or Spain or somewhere."
"All right!"
Happily surprised to make three-hundred quid at the car boot sale selling a few bits of rubbish. Bought two one-way ferry tickets to Santander, North Spain.

16 November, 1989
Snapshot memories...


16 March
Meet Ding from Belfast - if you dare.


1 January
Ooh, I love my little yellow spitfire.
(Searched all over and couldn't find a photo.)


3 September, 1988
Bob, sanding rooves at Alistair Bowtells, London,
before the move to Berlin (where he will dance on them).


7 June
L ove-sick travels in Scotland.
I lost my zoomable fish-eye lens on this hill-side
(threw it away in a rage).
So this is likely taken with a standard 35mm lens using the timer.


23 August, 1987
Model-maker into mount-maker.

I didn't work with the mummies. I did mount Queen something-or-other's priceless golden bracelets in front of the mayor, in a roomful of security on the last day. Quite pleased they didn't drop off the mounts as Colin waved them around, like Micky Mouse conducting, to demonstrate his supreme confidence in our good British workmanship. Lucky I was sitting down. I had just learned to solder brass and my joints failed more often than not.





23 May
Ooh! I love my car.

Continue to 1986 - 1914

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