Zoe Adieu. Rihanna Love on the Brain. Again reward for doing something DIFFERENT? By taking that long walk down to Le Coin yesterday I have revolutionised my future trips to Brussels (perhaps)

Zoe Adieu. Rihanna Love on the Brain. Again, reward for doing something DIFFERENT? By taking that long walk down to Le Coin yesterday I have revolutionised my future trips to Brussels (perhaps). The old Gare du Midi nexus suddenly regains pre-eminence over the Max Nexus. More than anything I look forward to getting back to the good honest butt-naked knickerless strippers of London. Topless only strip clubs are an abomination, and I take them as a personal insult. Joe Dassin Et Si tu n’existais pas. That song I only heard in Empire’s topless only strip club here in Brussels.

So many times on the bus or the train you see an incredibly beautiful girl you would like to —- but coming in to the strip club or the brothel you see no one you like AT ALL

So many times on the bus or the train you see an incredibly beautiful girl you would like to f–k, but coming in to the strip club or the brothel you see no one you like AT ALL; this is where gamers like Mr Francis win over me. However, there are exceptions. You always occasionally find a jewel in the strip clubs of London or the floozie bars of Brussels or Vienna at least. Adelina, Lucy, Andrea, Diane, legends of my life. I love the OPEN sexuality of prostitutes and strippers. The completely OUT THERE sexuality of them. I love this world, this broken world maybe, but I love this world. I have no interest in teasing, coaxing their sexuality out of them (or ability); I want it all out there, in the open, full frontal, primal, BESTIAL.clyda-rosen-06

I decided better to hang around in Fifth Avenue as too late to waste 14 euros in Cine Paris then I could go straight to Empire strip club

I decided better to hang around in Fifth Avenue as too late to waste 14 euros in Cine Paris, then I could go straight to Empire strip club, so that is what I then did. Some new girls on the street at this time. In Empire 4 or 5 girls, ——– included but as I say, even she did not move me, and if even ——— does not inspire me then no point coming back here at all. Unless I find myself in Brussels on a Friday or Saturday night when there are likely to be more girls to see, I will not bother again. Back to hotel via a little kebab/burger shop and brought a Bicky burger & chips back to my room, then—out like a light. To 7am initially then again till 1030ish. And here I am in the Max lounge, just finishing my second beer, 130pm. The day flying by already.

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So on our way to Wien, 4 hours 39 minutes away

So on our way to Wien, 4 hours 39 minutes away. A grey cloudy morning. My mood slightly improved from 24 hours earlier. I went out after 9pm and found the Hot Legs strip club/videokabins/peepshow was completely closed down! Another one gone. So the ice retreats. I went in Caribic opposite (proper name Stage 2000) and they have very good videokabins. Upstairs in the strip club (now called Crystals Tabledance) there was only one other customer, and 5 or 6 skinny looking girls. I left after one beer and I could not finish it fast enough. If you like Browns or Horns you might like Crystals but it is not for me. The Sterntaler Bar (scene of my legendary encounter with the mega-bosomed Martina years ago) was still there but its door was locked so not sure if that is still in business or not. Then I started my long walk along the windows of Frauentormauer. My god, the quality of the girls is stunning. If I rate Brussels Rue d’Aerschot as a 9, then Frauentormauer must be a 9½. I did not stop as I was really keen to go to Cabaret Bella Napoli which is at the very end of the wall. As always it had some nice looking girls and they strip NAKED—the only club in Belgium, Germany or Austria I have found where they take their knickers off as well. I queried this with one of the girls and she said “that is because this is a CABARET, not a tabledance club”. Oh. Then I wish there were more cabaret clubs. Drink for the girl is 38 euros, a private dance is 50 euros. I did not indulge this time, as I preferred to keep my powder dry for Vienna, but might on the way back; although I just realised I will be back in Nuremberg on Sunday and I do not think they open on Sundays. Back to the station for a roll and a McDonald’s, then to bed. Certainly I will enjoy the Caribic videokabins and Frauentormauer windows on my return.

Coming back from Domino’s last night with my gorgeous pizza I came to Boulevard Adolphe Max to cross the road

Coming back from Domino’s last night with my gorgeous pizza, I came to Boulevard Adolphe Max to cross the road and there was about 8 people on my side and 8 people on the other side all standing waiting for the green man to light up to cross, even though the road was completely empty of traffic. Not one of them made the move to cross. What idiocy is this. Let them come to London, and see how people cross the roads in London! Even if 4 lanes of traffic are speeding at you from all directions, people plunge into the traffic and expect it to slow for them. Other cultural differences, strippers in Brussels (and Europe) never take their knickers off. Quite bizarre that repressive old London still only has fully nude striptease. Though that of course just makes you long for more which in London is very hard to come by but in Europe is very easily available. Christ how amazing was ——-’s big arse in that little black thong; and then she even took that little thing off and showed you EVERYTHING. How amazing ——– took her shoes off, and stockings off and knickers off and danced COMPLETELY naked for me.

What is this addiction of mine to strip clubs & brothels?

What is this addiction of mine to strip clubs & brothels? I think it’s because it is an outsider’s world, and it was the first time in my life I ever found a place where I felt comfortable. Even the girls there are kind of outsiders, having some kind of pariah status simply by the job they do. So I always found it easy to get on with girls who were outsiders every bit as much as me. Coupled with that, I am also a scopophiliac—I love LOOKING at women. I generally avoid getting involved with them even if they offer it, as I just want to carry on looking. The relationship is perfect as it is and I see no need to change it. A girl usually has to hide the fact she is a stripper or a prostitute as much as I hide the fact I spend all my time with these women; therefore we both live the “double life” every day of our lives, and I find the double life attractive.

I am scathing and bitter about how awful the strip clubs and strip pubs of London now are

I am scathing and bitter about how awful the strip clubs and strip pubs of London now are, but I suppose for someone coming from western Europe it is a real thrill to see so much striptease where the girls take everything off; in the few strip clubs I have found in Brussels, Munich, Vienna and Berlin the knickers never come off, at best will be pulled down just below bottom cheeks for a split second before the music stops and they quickly pull them back up and step off stage. It is one of the specialties of London that we still have full nudity striptease. Strange that London and England of all places should be more liberal in this regard!

I’ve got no interest in going to see and review any art exhibition

I’ve got no interest in going to see and review any art exhibition, or theatre performance—it seems much more important to me to review a great stripper, or a great pornographic cinema, or a great brothel. These are the things that really matter. Sexual desire is the lifeblood of existence. Men and women think about sex all the time, they rarely think about theatre, or cinema, or opera, or art exhibitions. But it is not seemly to write about sexual matters; it is “dirty”. My happiest moments in life, when my spirit really soared, came when repeatedly watching my favourite strippers, usually on the stage of the Flying Scotsman, or in long hours in my favourite pornographic cinemas, or sitting for hours in some hooker bar, just drinking and watching the hookers, nothing more. Nothing comes close to that except the tenderness of my wife; the little things; going shopping in Sainsburys, debating whether to buy pork or chicken, little moments like that. The absolute happiest period of my life was the 8-9 days we spent together in Madeira; well, the first 6 days anyway. The last 2-3 days we were unable to leave the island, trapped by the bad weather.

Every day I am in Brussels

Every day I am in Brussels, I wake up (always 12, 1am, 2am) and think today I am going to go to the Old Masters Museum, and the Fin de Siecle Museum (both in the same building) and have a few drinks to prepare myself for it. But then, after a few drinks, I just start to think all I really want to do is have some more drinks, and then go to the porn cinema and doze off. So begins my last day in Brussels. My last few hours in fact. The Bourse. The Bourse. The Bourse dominates Brussels more than any of the other cities I go to. Bourse symbol of Eros. Symbol of money and money buys you sex and strippers and pornography. Therefore the Bourse is Sex. It is like the G-spot of every I city I go to. Although, what am I talking about, I have never been to the Berlin Bourse, if there is one, never been to the Vienna Bourse, if there is one, been to the old tiny Munich one that fell out of use decades ago. Oh. So this, perhaps, is why the Brussels Bourse seems so very powerful and symbolic to me. Even this Bourse is not operative anymore I think? But the building still stands for what it always did when it was operational. The Bourse in Brussels, indeed, one my most special buildings in the world. The Justice Palace in Brussels is also this special. The Justice Palace in Munich—this I have stood under its portal crying for first Romanian Emily, then Ukrainian Viktoriya. What else? The Bank of England and Royal Courts of Justice in London I pass so very often as to render them quotidian, yet I never forget their meaning—to me personally. I love my wife; and always will. Now you gauge how drunk I am as I write these words. It is at this point I also realise I will not be going to any Old Masters or Fin de Siecle museums. When I become maudlin about my ex wife is when I know I will be drinking until the last moment before I have to leave a city.

How happy drinking and strippers and whores make me

How happy drinking, and strippers, and whores make me. How relaxed they make me feel. (Oh, now it’s dark, and I’m stuck with a giant 0,5l bottle of beer which I cannot finish). This for me is real spirituality. All the spiritual moments of my life have been ‘dirty’. All the little small jealous people tried so hard to destroy me for the ‘dirty things’ I did! Haha, they had no idea; how strong those dirty things made me feel. A Munich night always starts with Atlantic City. Only when disappointed with Atlantic City do I move on to the other places, just to tick them off.

Vienna is a place where sexuality and eroticism is celebrated & enjoyed & indulged

Vienna is a place where sexuality and eroticism is celebrated & enjoyed & indulged, as they know that sexuality is a vital part of life and people must have somewhere to go to enjoy it. This is one of the greatest most basic pleasures of life so it should be allowed, because it is a pleasure. How different from London, where sex is something disgusting, to be ashamed of, and stamped out. How disgusting that even in a London porn cinema a man is not allowed to masturbate!, and if an inspector goes in and sees it the cinema can be closed down. Private parties where middle aged men can enjoy strippers are raided by police, for what? What harm is it doing to anyone?? No one knows it is there! If consenting men and women want to hold these parties for their mutual pleasure and benefit, then what harm is it doing to anyone?? London is disgusting. Eventually you know all of Europe will go the same way, even Belgium and Holland and Germany and Austria. For now we must enjoy and treasure them while we can. No sex please we’re British, how true that is. Puritanical pricks who get a real hard on from closing down strip clubs and porn cinemas, they are so full of themselves after every triumph in denying people a little bit of sexual pleasure in their lives.
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Now that I am mostly working day shifts I try to get the first train at 05:30

Now that I am mostly working day shifts I try to get the first train at 05:30, what my parents always called the milk train, so it is still pitch dark when I leave home, and I can imagine I am still on the “sheer threshold of the night”. I feel so happy then, travelling when it is still dark, when most people are still fast asleep. I put my earphones in and have reduced my songs to just those tracks that I want to be in the BBC4 Arena documentary of my life when they get round to making it. There will be lots of film of European cities at night, scenery rushing by outside train windows, some actor reading passages from my books, and lots of strippers dancing to my favourite stripper tracks, Chanson d’Amour, Tallulah, Strict Machine We Are Glitter Mix. “You’re making yourself out to be very special aren’t you” my therapist always used to say to me, in a tone which suggested she didn’t think I should. You want to make us think we are not special? And that is supposed to make our lives happier? It is only my sense of my specialness that has kept me alive and given me the strength to keep going.

The villagers stormed my hilltop castle with their flaming torches and their pitchforks

The villagers stormed my hilltop castle with their flaming torches and their pitchforks, shouting “Shame on you! Shame on you for having no shame! Shame on you for continuing to absolutely enjoy and luxuriate in your massive breasted and massive arsed strippers and whores while we are trying so desperately to make you feel ashamed for it! How we hate you for your insouciance and your joyful flaunting of your pleasures in our faces!” And like moths against a lighthouse they smash their tiny feeble brains out against my iron studded wooden doors, leaving little purple and red squidge marks like on a car windscreen in summer; as like the king in his counting house I count out all my money; as I play them like a piano. “Oh no!” I laugh, embarrassed. “My friends! Your jealousy is showing! You have come undone! Tuck yourselves in!”

The ice has been been retreating, well, for all our lives

The ice has been been retreating, well, for all our lives. When I first set foot on the ice in 1992, I had no idea that so much of the ice I could see all around me would be gone in a few short years. We polar explorers and mountaineers have been pushed further and further to the edge of the continent, like wooly mammoths, and if Europe does become a ‘society without prostitution’ then we will finally be pushed off the cliff, and our time will be over. We are the last of a dying breed. Yet, yes, the great Esmeraldas of Vienna and Berlin (Hamburg and Amsterdam, where I have never been), will instead move to the ‘cellar bars’ one finds in Munich, tempting men with expensive fake champagne and nothing more, and if that is all that is on offer, men will spend all their money on that. They may become Tallulahs, strippers, and Europe could see a massive revival in striptease and ‘sex dancing’ without the sex. Even apparently bad news can have unexpected good consequences—a huge flowering of strip clubs in great orchid fronds. But let us say you take a dancer or one of these Munich cellar bar girls to a separée for a private dance or private drink, and she lets you have a hand job or a blow job, that is not sex as such, so would that be against the law as well? Back in 2003 and 2004 one could find this kind of pleasurable enjoyment even in the bars and strip clubs of Munich, but already when I returned after a long absence in 2010 even this had become strictly verboten. What will they ban next? Having sex with anyone other than your wife? Will monogamy be compulsory? Will masturbation at a peep show or a video kabin or an adult cinema be outlawed as well? Already these places are dying out due to market forces and the dull hand of the internet—people can ‘drain their swamp’ without ever leaving home these days; but there are some of us who still like to force ourselves out to look for the ice and the mountains, for the glory of the sex kino, and the adult cinema, to sit in a room full of men all with their huge swollen cocks out in the glow of the screen, and the peep show, and the videokabins, and the wonderful florid & lurid women of the go go bars, and the puffs, and the tingel tangels, the bordellos and the night bars! But they are dying out one by one, so fast.
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There were so many great songs I saw on TV on my arrival in Vienna

There were so many great songs I saw on TV on my arrival in Vienna, which I now have on my ipod, but oh wouldn’t these songs have been so much greater if I could have seen some strippers dancing to them. I did nothing naughty in Vienna anyway, in a city where there is so many places to go if you want that kind of thing, so I might as well have gone to Munich where that kind of thing is not on offer, but they do at least have at least one much loved strip club.

The more my debts mount the more I want to lose myself in the oblivion of pure erotic pleasure

The more my debts mount, the more I want to lose myself in the oblivion of pure erotic pleasure; but the strip clubs and whores are rubbish these days, the few that are left. So it comes increasingly down to cabins. No girls keep coming up hustling you for money, drinks, private dance. I feel depressed now, and I have developed a twitch under my left eye. I don’t want to be home, and I don’t want to be here. More than anything I’d like to be in Rosa Lux kino watching the Nadine Jansen films. Or in Kamilla la Dee.

But the world of Tallulah and Esmeralda has provided all the richness to my sad lonely young man’s life

But the world of Tallulah and Esmeralda has provided all the richness to my sad, lonely young man’s life, and I am eternally grateful to it, and I wil always love all the strippers and whores who gave me so many high nights of most exquisite pleasure—from the high-stepping Welsh brunette with red boa at Sunset Strip who always, always, always danced to La Vie En Rose, to Swedish Pamela in Soho, Berliner Riccarda in Berlin, Martina in Nuremberg, all of them, I revere and worship them all. For me the word whore is far from being a pejorative—exactly the opposite. They have kept me alive, and enriched my life. It is just sad that all the beautiful ones have now gone, as the ice disappears.
Brussels Oct 2011 (9)

It is who I truly am

It is who I truly am, and I have found many loves among the whores and strippers I met initially as just a customer or audience member, and it is through them that I learnt how to have normal human relationships, not just with women, but with anybody. It is a truism that ‘strip clubs taught us how to live’ to massage a Godard quote, and to massage another, ‘all you need for a happy life is a stripper, and a stage’.

I could sit on the side of the Dome facing the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique and the bright neon light of the Brussels Grill

I could sit on the side of the Dome facing the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique and the bright neon light of the Brussels Grill and the Tulip Hotel and all the traffic and the big crossroads; instead I prefer to site Adolphe Max side, where I can see the ABC (and shells of the California and Gascogne). I only feel calm near the sex places. I am thoroughly perverted, depraved, turned toward sin, but I am also very intelligent, very cultured, very refined. I think that is why strippers and whores have always fallen in love with me; they don’t meet many like me. Perhaps.

My subjects are whores and strippers

My subjects are whores and strippers, even though I scarcely enjoy either anymore, as the beautiful ones have all gone, driven away from the dying business, and just the rough scraggly ones are left, who I do not stay for. Increasingly I find myself writing about a lost world, though it was just a few years ago when I was right in the midst of it, a vital, vibrant, throbbing scene. Its demise and incredibly swift decline I blame on the arrival of the internet. Now it may be only video cabins are left to provide any of the old excitement, and as that is the only place one can still see the 10 out of 10 beautiful women.
Brussels Oct 2011 (19)

It is incredible how sexy I find looking at oil paintings in an art museum

It is incredible how sexy I find looking at oil paintings in an art museum. They set me up so well for the night of debauchery later. In fact, the debauchery usually falls totally flat, one club full of scraggly ugly crones after another (the beautiful girls have almost all got out of the sex industry now it seems, only the rough desperate ones are left); it is the eroticism of the oil paintings that stays with me. Willy Jaeckel and Hans Baluschek were the great discoveries of the Brohan Museum. Tingel Tangel, a beautiful brunette girl in red dress, brown stockings, brown shoes, beginning her strip for a crowd full of bewhiskered, suited Berlin gentlemen, 1900, the pick of them. If only I could still find such a beautiful Tingel Tangel (such a beautiful dancer). The Fly back in London is still the closest I have come to it; perhaps also Atlantic City in Munich; but in Berlin nothing like that anymore.
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The inescapable fact is my hobbies are strip clubs and brothels

The inescapable fact is my hobbies are strip clubs and brothels, and that is what I write about. The art museums and cathedrals are the salad at the side of the plate, but the strippers and whores are the meat and potatoes of my life. When I come to Berlin I live like money is no object, whereas in London I count every penny and feel the expenditure of every penny so painfully. Because in London I pay cash, and on holiday everything goes on the card, so it seems painless. One day this mountain of debt will fall down on me; the volcano I am dancing on will erupt. But, what can you do, you have to live.

When I am in the Fly I always imagine I am in Berlin

When I am in the Fly, I always imagine I am in Berlin and this is a Berlin strip club. I look up at the Fly’s ceiling and tell myself the Berlin streets are up there just above us. This makes it sexy for me, and I can imagine the strippers are available for more as well. The irony is there is nowhere remotely as good as this in Berlin. I want to meet girls like —– or —– in Berlin, but I never do.

My holidays need to have a strong cultural element at the heart of them then it makes me feel I have earned the nighttime explorations

My holidays need to have a strong cultural element at the heart of them, then it makes me feel I have earned the nighttime explorations (I was going to say pleasures but it is more than 5 years since I have actually indulged). I really had such strong feelings for Swedish Pamela, Siberian Olga, Spanish Ana Maria, Romanian Lela, Ukrainian Viktoriya, Slovakian Susi, Romanian Emily, Berliner Riccarda, Polish Iga; I fell so passionately in love with all of these strippers and whores. It is I suppose because I had no one at home and never had so I was really craving love and passion, so that gave me a kind of ‘beer goggles’ when I went to these women. Now five years later, on the other side of finding love with the woman of my life, having passed through that looking glass, I go back to these same places and in some cases meet the same girls and I am stunned how disappointingly unattractive they seem to me; how did I feel such lust for them before? I cannot believe I was ever turned on by them, let alone falling in love with them. I think Swedish Pamela was my favourite of them all. I went to her more than any of the others and at a time when I was so heartbroken in my attempts to get —– to go out with me and thinking I had missed the chance of a lifetime. I was ‘stuck in a moment’ with —– and thought I would never get another chance and that made me need Swedish Pamela so much; and she did have the most amazing breasts. Like a Swedish Brandy Talore. As Melani behind the Atlantic City bar is a German Laura Orsolya.

Who else writes about strippers and whores?

Who else writes about strippers and whores? Who else writes about the Fly, Mon Cheri, Golden Gate, Monte Carlo, Chocolat, Stutti Frutti, Ciro, Mazurka, Atlantic City, Sexyland, Empire, Pour Platin? It is a unique world, the world of feather boas and suspender belts in a red half light of a basement, and no one else documents this world, and charts its rises and its falls.

To write I have to be in extremis. In intense solitude, loneliness, despair, isolation

To write I have to be in extremis. In intense solitude, loneliness, despair, isolation. That is why I keep travelling. I am piling up a mountain a debt, dancing on the volcano, by continuing to go back to Berlin and Vienna, time after time. I am loading —– and me with such a financial timebomb. I miss feeling like a sexual instrument, a finely tuned violin, my strings quivering at every slightest erotic stimulus. Every breath of wind made me quiver with lustful pleasure. Reading Lotta, I remember how much I fell in love with her. An 18 year old Swedish blonde girl, with big breasts. I wanted her so much. Amazing to think that was nine years ago, and she is now 27, probably married with kids. Just ships that passed in the night. Writing is my life. As are —–, and strippers. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” I was alive then, but in such pain and despair. I am calm and content now, but feel less alive.

The girls of the ——– seem so sweet to me I now think because there is absolutely no hustle for money

The girls of the ——– seem so sweet to me, I now think, because there is absolutely no hustle for money, as it is the last place left with no private dances. For someone brought up on Josephine Baker, and Anita Berber and Mata Hari, great sex dancers of the stage, the inception of private dances a few years ago was the death knell to the world of Eros as much as the arrival of the internet. How I yearn for the days when a curtain would open, a girl would dance for two songs, and then the curtain would close again. Those were the glory days. The ——— is the closest place remaining to that innocent concept. But it is this innocence that drives me back to Europe to search for bigger kicks which then do not materialise. I am a George IV, a Henry VIII, a glutton and voluptuary, wasting money I no not have on food, drink and women. Through England in the rain. There used to be an intellectual foundation to all my journeys. I would go to the art museum, and cathedrals, and justice palaces, and bourses, and important places during the day, and the strip clubs was the icing on the cake at night. And if the nighttime places proved tawdry empty experiences, I was left with the enriching memory of the intellectual sustenance I had gained during the day. Now I do nothing but go just to the nighttime places and come away with nothing but the feelings of tawdriness and emptiness. There was no one I wanted in Atlantic City or Sexyland, or either of the other two places I barely set foot in. Well, at least I tried. Going to Atlantic City was a miserable experience and going to Sexyland was a miserable experience—so why on earth do I still keep going? A ridiculous addictive behaviour. It is eating away at my love, my life and my money. But it is only in these degradations that I find the harmony. Wurzburg is the least pretty German town I have seen in all my travels. I have felt totally calm on this trip, not a moment of stress. Though like an actor or sportsman needs to feel a little nervous before the start, otherwise he will not give a good performance, I do not have high experiences either. Just a deadness. “Like a zombie”. Was that Angel comment directed at me? I take myself to these clubs, and make myself stay, even though I am totally not enjoying it.