Sebastian Horsley

MY INDECISION IS FINAL

Well I’m back my darlings. Titter ye not. Did you think you could get rid of me that easily?

No matter how cynical you get, it is just impossible to keep up.

Besides, nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.

I guess my editor Jocasta has become a bit of a muse in the way that her husband Matthew was when I was writing the book. And my muses never have an easy time. I magnify my muses. Clothe them in symbols and ideals, but in these ideals there is little of their real selves. My first muse was negative. Father. Do all normal people wish their loved ones were dead? Well, some times negativity don’t pull you through. So I took Marc Bolan. And the muses went from there. In my mind they go from foe to friend to foe faster than a bullet.

“Do remember that I am on your side” Jocasta said when I got angry at being censored. “The bottom line for me is that I want your book to be a great success and I want to do everything I can to make that happen.”

What Jocasta doesn’t realise is that part of me just wants to ruin everything. I don’t like Art. I don’t even know why I’m in it. For me, art has always been the means to an end - winning esteem, causing irritation, changing the nature of reality. But the real truth is, I'm not actually interested in art. I’m interested in the passion behind it.

Rage and opposition are key motivational factors for me. Despite my need for harmony and good feeling in all my relationships, there is something in me which needs conflict, challenge and a good fiery battle of wills in order to feel deeply and passionately attracted to someone. There is a kind of spark which is kindled in me only when I meet resistance or refusal to compromise in a woman as strong as I am, whom I know I cannot dominate; and equally, there is something in me which will try to dominate in any intimate relationship.

And of course, it is in my nature to push things. It is only by going too far will you get anywhere at all. I was fired from the Erotic Review. Then Fourth Estate. Then The Observer. What I need is conflict - from it my ideas are born. And so I fuel the battle myself in all kinds of subtle ways because combat always fires my desires. No doubt you would feign to be above the battle. But you’ve got to understand the battle - to feel it palpably, to smell the sulphur, to taste the blood. A man who could not be scorched, then drenched, and who saw no point in such extremes of experience, is missing out on life. It is necessary to have known strong passions in order to depict them.

There was one year I remember well. I lost my wealth, my health, my book, my looks, my column, my other column, my gallery, my salary, my hair, my despair, my teeth, my talent, my tailor. Did I mention my girlfriends? As a failure I was actually quite a success. But I was happy. It always nicer when people think you are a genius and everything you do is wonderful. But I’m sure that being on the other side is probably, ultimately, better for the artist. Opposition pushes you into new regions of your own soul, more than people telling you you’re great. So I am thankful for everybody who describes my work as trash. Thank you.

And now I have two women editors. Jocasta in England and Carrie in America and both interest me. Who are they? Do their lives divide between mad laughter and sobbing tears? People fascinate me whose qualities are opposed by a wholly contradictory set of qualities.

I have always imagined that Dandy will fling itself suicidally upon the market - which suits my nature. Clean my perspective remains deathlike, as it was on drugs. On junk. Off junk. I am essentially suicidal. I yearn for destruction to sit enthroned, for the landscape to come tumbling down, for the skies to be empurpled with vultures, the streets to run red with the blood of the dead, the earth to cover me and entomb me in its fall. I guess the girls don’t want this until we’ve sold a couple of books? “The apocalypse is coming, let’s look busy” I can imagine one of them saying.

And so I shall carry on with this writing. What else can I do? The fear of being silent has struck me dumb.

Besides, only great men change their minds, only the wise contradict themselves. Better to be flexible and float than to go to the bottom with your principles round your neck.

I have learnt that nothing that actually occurs is of the smallest importance. No siree. Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all.

The odd problem about censorship is small fry really given that this time two years ago I was almost dead. And now? I am jaunty and murderous. I bob up irrepressibly from every disaster, as unkillable as hope. I am unkillable precisely because I am without hope. I have a beady eye for destructiveness and my pessimism is unwavering.

And self destruction always has meaning. The fist shaken at Heaven! The defiance of the state! But in a Godless, pointless world, how could even death have any real meaning? I raised my fist and lightening struck it. Thank you J. xxx

I WAS SO BRIEF I HAVE ALREADY FINISHED

Well my darlings, you will be delighted to know that as of today, this Blog is no more.

My publishers have decided that the content is too disgusting.

No doubt, these same people would have passed on American Psycho.

Or how about The Tropic of Cancer?

Naked Lunch anyone?

I am a writer.

Sometimes it excites me to write about violence towards the things that I love.

Big deal.

They won’t let me be a writer.

They simply do not realise that there is no such thing as moral or immoral. There is only witty or boring. Readable or unreadable.

Political correctness is merely censorship under another name.

The only censorship which is permissible is one of quality.

But now at least I know I am great.

You see, for a man to be great opinion must be divided on that score.

And when the critics are divided the artist is at one.

And me? Well darlings, as a writer I am in the top one.

Good Day.

“FUCK OFF” I EXPLAINED.

The doctrine of dandyism is not seen as a spiritual doctrine. Spirituality, after all, is such a difficult pose to keep up. But certainly I have become more spiritual in my old age. And the greatest thing about becoming more spiritual is that you can tell more people to fuck off.

I have told three people to fuck off this week. That is three more than I have told to fuck off in my entire life.

You see, I don’t really believe in swearing. I feel that I can express myself adequately without dragging my genitals into the conversation. Swearing is the verbal equivalent of wearing gaudy clothes. It is amazing how vain some people are over what they look like, but how vacant they are about what they sound like. In today’s climate if the words “Fuck” and “Cunt” were removed from the English language, England would be speechless.

Well, If speech is a way of trying to cover nakedness I have just got naked.

The first episode was with Rachel 2’s ex. I saw him barrelling toward me at a party and moved away. He followed me. “The rumour is you have dumped Rachel” he sniggered. I said nothing and walked away. Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn. He followed me again to the other side of the room. “Come on, spill the beans” he goaded.

“Fuck off” I said. “You are as vile as you look.”

I was right. He is an ugly cunt. But don’t mock. One day his looks will go. Fat, greasy, pot marked - there’s no way he’d get on Noah’s ark : they couldn’t possibly find another animal that looked like him. Ugly on the inside too. He refuses to pay his own daughters school fees. He has robbed Rachel of her home. When he saw me arm in arm with a Page 3 beauty the other day he called Rachel to gloat. “But I sent Kathy to him as a gift” Rachel replied airily.

The second time was on the evening of the ICA performance. I called Elaine a gorgeous friend of Rachel and mine. “Darling, would you come and be a prop for me this evening? I don’t want you as a person - just a trumpet of my glory. Can you do that sweetie?” “Of course darling“ She purred. “I love being a prop. What would you like me to wear?”

A couple of hours later the phone rang. It was her boyfriend. “Elaine will not be coming tonight” he began. “Oh yesss?“ I said. “For a start you didn’t invite me, and second you phoned her rather than Rachel which was double sly and ...

“Fuck off you wanker” I said and put the phone down on him.

This man is coarse and gross beyond measure! Hypocrisy it seems is the Trade Unionism of the married. Rachel and I introduced these two. He takes Rachel out all the time. Only last week he and Elaine turned up at Rachel's house and proceeded to fuck all over it. He attempted to get Rachel to suck his cock I’ll have you know. I ask you!

Have Rachel, Elaine and I had a Menagerie a trois? Well, yes of course we have my darlings. Rachel bought Elaine for me for my birthday last year as it happens. And I did have one on the house as well since you ask. I can’t help it if I am unfeasibly handsome and girls like me. Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change. Fancy a fuck?

Later that night at the ICA I scored my hat trick. Towards the end of the evening I had raised my hand to ask a question to the panel on hedonism.

“I’d like to ask the panel if I can go home. I’m really bored.”

I heard a woman at the back slagging me off. I was getting ready to go when she came over to me. “That was really rude of you” she reprimanded. “But I suppose you can get away with being rude because you are posh.” she spat.

Am I posh? Really? I always thought that I was a parvenu. Flash brash trash. But lets say I am posh for the sake of this argument shall we? It is bad enough to suspect that you are loved for your background alone; to discover that, because of it, you are openly despised is too much.

I waited a few minutes until she returned to the back of the room and was sitting cosily among her friends. I walked over, levelled my face six inches from hers, flared my nostrils and widened my eyes.

“FUCK OFF” I said.

And then I walked out.

God I felt good! Normally in a situation like this I say nothing. A repartee is what a person thinks of after he becomes a departee. Then I go home my mind still smoking. Later, I build a cathedral with my resentments. Then I plot revenge. Then I execute it.

I usually do it with writing. As you well know, anything from my pen must expect no quarter. Naturally people criticise me for being rude but for someone who never forgives himself, insulting other people is a form of recreation. But often it is to do with the writing. You see, there is no possibility of being witty without a little ill nature : the malice of a good thing is the barb that makes it stick.

But this is different and I have to say I am rather impressed with myself. Courage is the bravery to act beyond character. And I have done it. You see, I have always believed that rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength. I grew up with verbal bruisers - sheer rudeness masquerading as honesty. And it turned me against it.

So, wit became the fluid in which I suspended my most controversial thoughts. Coded, loaded wit can carry serious, even violent messages. It is the way we send our true feelings into frontline action safely camouflaged. Better still, wit enables us to act rudely with impunity.

And of course I believe in manners. When I am not being rude I am politeness personified. There should always, no matter what, be politeness. I’m sure there is politeness in Hell. It is the way the outside world should work, selfishly but honestly. Manners are far more important to me than morality. Even though I am a cannibal, I do say grace.

But the true test is not whether a man behaves like a gentleman, but whether he misbehaves like one. Well darlings, I have just misbehaved as one. You see a gentleman never insults someone unintentionally.

I am here to tell you that telling three people to fuck off in as many days made me feel close to God. It was completely liberating to say exactly what I felt. We have lost our real directness. We talk in such a dreary, bourgeois kind of way. Nothing is ever directly said.

Human language is but little better than the croak and cackle of animals. But I feel as strong as a shark right now. And at least the shark is sincere and honest with his intentions whereas man conceals himself behind veils of evasion. At their best words are strange, untameable creatures. Like the shark. Apart. Feared. Respected. Invincible. Untameable.

NO DOSH. NO DANDY

My performance at the ICA was memorable and not because I was the star of the show. That was a hollow victory. Like winning a marathon against a bunch of paraplegics. No, it was an historic performance because it was the last time I will work for free.

The ICA did not pay me. They used my name and image in the press to sell the tickets. Tickets that cost £8 a head. The reason it sold out was because of me. My fee? One free ticket. When I threatened to pull out they gave me two more tickets.

It is always the left who are the shoddiest. The Observer. The Guardian. The New Statesmen. The ICA. All these left-wing wankers go on about exploitation and women’s rights and one armed dyke niggers from Walthamstow and yet they exploit their own workforce. No one pays as low as the left - if at all. You see, people who love humanity hate humans.

Well, I’ve had enough. At the ICA everyone got paid apart from the person, without whom, the event couldn't have taken place - me. This happens all the time. It is the same with Television. The production company gets paid, the editing people, the lighting, the presenter, the crew etc etc - everybody, that is, gets paid apart from the people who you can't make the programme without. The programme then gets sold all over the place and what makes the programme saleable - i.e me - get nothing.

This is the difference between England and America. The meanness of England and the generosity of America. The English are a puritanical, tyrannical, ungrateful, hateful race. But in America? They pay you and send a car to pick you up! They want you to feel loved. To feel good about what you do. They go to the readings hoping, longing to be entertained; they want performers to succeed. In England they will come because they despise you, to laugh at you.

Well, I have had it being raped of my experiences. I’m not against rape. The difference between rape and consenting sex is salesmanship. I shall now be paid to be raped.

It feels right. The condition of an artist is much like that of a prostitute. And the reason I rate prostitutes is because they obviously rate themselves. They obviously rate themselves because they charge for their services. Normal girls give themselves to you for nothing and then wonder why you piss all over them.

The worst things in life are free. If they are free they are rightly abused or simply not taken into account. Value seems to need a price tag. People will pay thousands for a Faberge egg and then tread on a beetle. Quite right. The Faberge egg is simply more beautiful and valuable. How can we respect a woman or a cockroach who doesn’t value herself? Talk about low self worth. No respect insect - you had it coming. Next time charge cockroach.

Maybe as a result of my new policy I will become an unwanted cockroach in the kitchen of life?

So what? Cockroaches can live for two weeks without their heads. They can live for a month without food. The female produces one million children a year. If there isn’t enough food they turn cannibal.

So I’ll turn cannibal. Fine. A cannibal is someone fed up with people. And boy am I fed up.

Most people are fakes; they’re like plastic thrones covered in gold leaf veneer; it doesn’t take much to make them peel and crack and reveal the inferior substance at their core.

I am the opposite. I am real but in an artificial way. But this is my fault. You can only be treated badly with your consent.

Well no more baby.

What is a rebel? The man who says No. To be implacable, unshakable, immovable is almost the strongest thing a man can be. People admire this. History and myth celebrate defiance as the noblest courage of all. So ...

NO

NO DOSH. NO DANDY

My virtue will withstand everything now - except the highest bidder.

NO DOSH. NO DANDY

BOREDOM OR SEBASTIAN. YOU CAN’T HAVE BOTH.

I performed at the ICA on Friday night. The Institute of Contemporary Arts.

About 100 people turned up to hear about hedonism. Like I cared. I am not interested in hedonism. I am interested in heroism.

I got on the stage. I took the mike stand off it and put Rachel 2 on it. I obliged her to remain motionless and silent and only to look up at me adoringly as I spoke. And then I began.

“Good evening. My name is Sebastian. I know you all want to fuck me, but you are just going to have to wait ten minutes.

I’m amazed that so many of you have bothered to turn up. I mean, what kind of loser comes to a TALK about hedonism?

But it gets worse. A TALK on hedonism at the ICA. The Institute of Cunts and Arseholes.

As you all know culture is anything too boring to be shown on Television. Art Galleries are the cemeteries of the arts. Where art goes when it is dead. A public urinal is more interesting than a public gallery.

So that only leaves me. What kind of toss pot does a TALK on hedonism at the ICA un fucking paid? What a fucking loser. So when this talk is shit, which it already is, don’t blame me. The worst things in life are free.

Incidentally, they did offer to pay me with food. Do I look like the kind of cunt who eats food? I don’t eat - even in my weaker moments. I hate food. In fact the only thing I hate more than food is free fucking food.

So here we are. The audience, the venue, the speaker. We are all loser friendly. Beneath us is only a social void.

The reason I am here is because of this book. A fucking book on decadence and hedonism. I was asked to contribute to this book by the editor, Miss Rowan Pelling. I gave her an evasive answer. I told her to go fuck herself. To which she replied : “Can you pad it out a little?” So I did and the bitch had the last laugh : she published it.

What’s it about? It’s about as much as you can take. And if when I’ve finished there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon

Before we begin I’d like to dedicate this to a very dear friend of mine who is here this evening. I pointed at Matthew. Matthew Hamilton - yes him, in the blue jumper. He loves the ICA - he has a season ticket here. Anyway, I love Matthew like a brother only we don’t have sex quite so often."

And then I let them have it.

I began the reading from the decadence book (see below May 03 entry). I strutted and posed and shouted and pea cocked and why not? The most important thing in the world is to love and adore yourself and if you can’t do that why the hell parade yourself around in front of an audience?

When I had finished they clapped. They were exhilarated that I had stopped.

Then there was a panel discussion about hedonism. A panel discussion about hedonism! About 8 people sat in a line and took questions from the floor. It was excruciating. I guess you had to admire them all. To say nothing even when speaking is quite an art. My ears slammed shut. My eyes glazed over. My whole body began to embalm itself. I will tolerate most things. Sexual deviancy, drug addiction, people who murder other people; but I won’t tolerate people who murder the English language and bore me to death.

Eventually I could take no more. I raised my hand.

“I’d like to ask the panel if I can go home. I’m really bored.”

And I left.

Boredom or Sebastian. You can’t have both.

I AM APPLAUDED LESS FOR MY GIFTS THAN FOR MY GALL

“I have worked in film, theatre, painting, writing, music, but all of these were just branches of the same tree, and that tree was called poetry.”

Jean Cocteau

“I have worked in film, theatre, painting, writing, music, but all of these were just branches of the same tree, and that tree was called lavatory.”

Sebastian Horsley

One of the many reasons I irritate people is because I have the airs and graces of a genius and no talent. My art is not even trash. My talent, such that it is, is mediocrity on stilts. In fact, I don’t even like my work, but what is my opinion against that of three others? Indeed, I am an artist whose works are so little known as to be almost confidential.

That said, I have always spelt art with a capital “I“. I don’t really hold with exhibitions unless they are of myself. And I shun openings from vanity - they tend to obliterate my individuality. For me, art has always been the means to an end : winning esteem, causing irritation, changing the nature of reality. But the real truth is, I'm not actually interested in art.

What, you may ask, have I got against painting? What have you got against the wall? Pictures deface walls more often than they decorate them. What have I got against sculpture? What have you got against the sofa? Let’s face it, there is no furniture quite so dull as art. Worse still, producing art is essentially conservative. Being creative is having something to sell, or knowing how to sell something, or having sold something. Art in a capitalist society is only available in commodity form.

Because of this I never go to galleries. Art Galleries to me are the cemeteries of the arts. Where art goes when it is dead. A public urinal is more interesting to me than a public gallery. And the comments of prostitutes as valuable as the comments of artists.

Indeed, the condition of an artist is much like that of a prostitute; both exposing ourselves and our reputations to feed our greedy appetites. Careering and whoring and pamphleteering and selling something sacred which should be free. Both are scandalous professions. What is art? Prostitution. What is prostitution? Art. Prostitution is a successful attempt to flog sex at bargain basement prices; - you ejaculate without the sticky mess of emotional or financial entanglements. Art is a successful attempt to purvey wallpaper for more than its worth. Voila tout.

I know this to be true because I have sold both my art and my arse. Generally my works fling themselves suicidally upon the market. I don’t make enough out of art to keep a dwarf in doughnuts for a day. Not a really healthy dwarf anyway. Oh well, If people don’t want to buy my work, nobody’s gonna stop em. Fortunately, art is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money. Occasionally, very occasionally, I get lucky. Some months ago I managed to sell a piece for £10,000 to a man who had more money than taste. To my shame I actually knew this man. I could have gifted it to him. But as a rule I try not to give away too many paintings - I mean, if your friends won’t pay for your work, who will? It was very hypocritical of me. I really believe in empty spaces. I sold him a painting for his wall, which I believed would look better blank. I helped him waste his space. I put a frame round the picture for him as a warning that the wallpaper was not art. And then I took his money. You'd be surprised what people will put up with if only they have to pay enough for it.

I went into prostitution looking for love, not money. And what better proof of love can there be than money? To some extent women paid me to mask my disgust at being in their company but I didn’t care. I took the view that if you were a lousy, smelly, idle, underprivileged and over-sexed status seeking neurotic moron housewife, then give me your money, bitch. And they did. I remember one time being paid £500 to fuck a fatty Jonah who had evidently swallowed the whale. She had disgusting flabby thighs but fortunately her stomach covered them. I remember thinking as I was fucking her that I would have fucked her for free she was so foul.

Art is the sport of rich men and prostitutes. I was both. Prostitution is the mirror of man, and man has never been in serious danger of becoming bogged down in beauty. But when it comes to whoring at least the ladies are more genuine, which is what I tried to be. As you can see, I can be bought. And I am honest. When I am bought I stay bought. On balance, I have to say that I found selling my heart more virtuous than selling my art. In fact, don’t tell my mother I‘m an artist. She thinks I’m a prostitute.

 

 

I AM A PERFORMANCE IN SEARCH OF AN AUDIENCE

As you well know my darlings, life is a sensational bore played to an audience of one. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens and then everybody disagrees. But who cares? You can’t make a fool of yourself as long as you’re on the stage.

I am a performance in search of an audience. Occasionally, very occasionally I get a real one.

I’m doing a show at the ICA next week. They are billing it as “A late night ‘Speak Easy. The subject? Decadence and Hedonism.

Here’s the blurb :

“Contemporary London life is a minefield of prohibitions, from the total ban on smoking in public spaces, to restrictions on junk food, binge-drinking and harassment in the workplace. Today’s rock stars are just as likely to drink smoothies and do yoga than sleep with groupies and shoot heroin. Is hedonism an embarrassing relic from ‘60s ideals of rock ‘n’ roll living or is it still possible to do it in style?”

Speakers include: Simon Munnery, comedian; Sebastian Horsley, writer, dandy and author of Dandy in the Underworld; John Noi, Editor of Spektacle; the magazine that describes itself as ‘not for everyone but neither is good taste’; Travis Elborough, freelance writer; Alexander Mayor of Alexander's Festival Hall; Sam Roddick, founder of Coco de Mer; Simon Clark, director, Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (FOREST).”

I was approached because of The Decadent Handbook which I appeared in - against my wishes. Rowan Pelling who was my editor at The Erotic Review asked me and many other writers to submit a piece for this crappy little book.

I wrote to her :

Here is my piece (unpaid) for Rowan Pelling’s and Dedalus’ book on decadence. Perhaps you could use it as a Z-list celebrity endorsement?

What the fuck does a mummy from Cambridge know about decadence? Doesn't Rowan realise that not believing in the future is the essential mark of the decadent? That the worst of children is that they give you the greatest disadvantage of them all ; hope?

Choking hope and being a nappy slave is not decadent. Smoking dope on Jim Morrison's grave is not decadent. Exploiting writers and their petty vanities is also, by the way, not decadent.

Decadence is for heavyweights. You need to posses the resources of character, the resilience of mind and the physical stamina to make of decadence a kind of moral virtue and spiritual strength. It is not for silly lightweight school girls.

You don’t even fuck! I was on my way to a brothel the other day when I met you: “Would you care to join me my darling?” I said. She looked at me as if I had just dribbled sherry trifle in front of starving Biafrans. “Er, um, no thank you.” you stumbled. Whore licks? Off home for Horlicks more like.

What is the point of a woman who doesn’t fuck? It like a bank without money. A lighthouse without a light. Christianity without Christ. The only brilliant thing about women is the fact that they are guaranteed to have on them at any time, any place, a pair of tits for sucking and a cunt for fucking. But what of you? You quiver and shiver, but never deliver. Let me tell you baby, a woman who doesn’t fuck, doesn’t do anything else.

I wouldn’t even object if you were a nun. Halibut. In decadence as in religion, the blasphemers operate shoulder to shoulder with the believers, enjoined by passion. It’s the don’t knows you want to watch out for, the in-betweens, the lukewarm. And because you, Rowan, are neither hot nor cold I will spew you out of my mouth.

It is intolerable. You pose as outré but you are about as decadent as the St Trinians hockey team. You are a non swimmer working as a life guard. A sheep in sheep's clothing. A gong at a railway crossing clanging loudly and vainly as the train whooshes by.

In the 1830’s, one gentleman, when charged with pushing his pregnant mistress into the Seine defended himself by saying, “We live in an age of suicide; this woman gave herself to death.” That’s decadence, Miss Pelling. Put your brat in an orphanage and come down here bitch and milk my fucking cock.

So fuck you - I’m not appearing in your crappy book. Every word in it is a lie, including “and” and “the”. You want me to be an electric eel in a pond of goldfish? Pah! My work is not companionable. And there is no such thing as co-starring with Sebastian. Especially with straight-to-video performers. Middleweight, middlebrow, middle-aged, middle-income, middle-class, middle-of-the-road, middle-England, middling twats.

All of you have learned to write but evidently can’t read. If you could read your stuff you’d stop writing. If asked to sign your book, I would whip out my cock, and piss all over it. “There. There’s my fucking signature.” I would say.

In the absence of piss I have used ink.

HRL His Royal Lowness. Sebastian Horsley.

 

So incensed was I that I added a letter to the readers of the book :

 

Dear Reader,

There are losers who borrow books from the library; there are more enterprising losers who have stolen them from the library (or the remainder bin) - but you, a loser who has actually bought this book?

Was it difficult wading through these shallows? Was its attack like being stoned to death with popcorn? Was it like watching a chicken try to fly?

You deserve everything you didn’t get. Reading about decadence is like dancing about architecture. Writing describes the unlived life. Reading is a lonely and private substitute for experience.

And just what the fuck have you done? Have you fucked a 1000 prostitutes? Or sold your body to the lowest bidder? Have you run a brothel? Cut off the end of your own finger or come over your own sister? Deliberately electrocuted yourself or jumped out of an aeroplane on amphetamines? Surely you have swum naked with the great white shark or been crucified with real nails? Have you been buggered by a mass murderer? Have you fucked an old lady? Or what about an amputee with no arms or legs? A limbless trunk full of your own spunk? Even a blow up doll would be a start. Have you played Russian Roulette? Or been shot at by a whore? Or what about eating a big bowl of your own faeces? Or even a big bowl of fuck? Surely you’ve made a million in a year and spent a million in a year? Or smoked £100,000 of crack? Injected heroin into your cock? Watched someone die? Overdosed your girlfriend? Jumped off a cliff? Had a shot in the dark, a shot in the arm, a shot in the head? Have you fucked in a church and prayed in a brothel?

No, I didn’t think so. I have. The hand of God, reaching down into the mire, couldn’t elevate me to the depths of depravity.

But you? What of you sad reader? Sitting there with your book. What can be explained with words is only the waves, the foam on the surface, but decadence has its place underneath the waves, in the silent depth of the unspeakable.

Wake up. A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death. By doing this, you will awaken from your dreams.

Your Mother’s a prostitute and I shit on the corpses of all your past ancestors.

HRL His Royal Lowness . Sebastian Horsley.

 

Well, Rowan had the last laugh : She published it.

 

I don’t know how this ICA event will go. I hate places like The ICA. Culture is anything too boring to be shown on Television. I’ve only set foot in the place once before.

My film “Crucifixion” was screened at the ICA. On the opening night there was a talk. “Nailing an illusion : Will Self and Sebastian Horsley in conversation.” It should have been called, Will Self in stream of consciousness and Sebastian Horsley in quite a lot of silence. It was a sell out. I think they had come along to see Will - probably because his face looks like a bag of genitals.

After the film was screened Will cross examined me. He used lots of big words, strung together in sentences that probably ended somewhere near East Harlow - I don‘t know, I never bothered to go and look. He was using words around people that they couldn’t understand which meant he was stupid in a sophisticated way.

“You’re profoundly post-Christian, aren’t you?” said Will. “This was a purely existential act.”

Me : “What does existential mean?”

Sarah Lucas reeled up, belching and swearing and talking while I was interrupting, which was rude. “Lord Byron, LORD FUCKING BYRON FUCKING FANCY A FUCKING SHAG?” was her considered opinion.

Will was incredibly irritated. I was quite frankly relieved. I‘m more at home with drunken bores than post Christian existentialists. The evening soon wound up and was parodied afterwards by some prim tart in The Times.

I’m sure that no one will come to my second visit to the ICA. But I don’t care.

I am the solipsistic star performing for my ideal audience - myself.

I am a narcissist - when I hear thunder, I take a bow.

When I hear rain, I assume it is applause.

And so like the sun, I shine, having no alternative.

I wonder if I should finally give in to my narcissism and marry myself?