Sebastian Horsley

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AMERICAN IN MY (ARTIFICIAL) HEART.

Something rather disorientating has just happened to me. As you well know, my career such that it is, is a headlong rush, usually downhill. I am a connoisseur of failure. I can smell it, roll it round my mouth, tell you the vintage. I love failure. I often luxuriate in its delicious emotional state. I find it gives one a pleasant mournful glow. And of course, the great thing about failure is that it is so easy. So easy to keep on being a failure.

My book has just been bought by America.

Come again?

My book has just been bought by America.

Fucking Hell. I wasn’t anticipating this. Was it really my book that had been sold? Does this happen to everyone? Apparently there was a book fair last week. Fifty thousand people turned up. Five books were sold.. One of them was mine. Fucking Hell. I didn’t see my little book getting out of Great Britain, Ok England, Ok London, Ok Soho, Ok Meard Street, Ok 7 Meard Street, Ok my Flat, Ok my bedroom, Ok my lavatory. It seems so hermetic, unknowing, deformed. It doesn't seem of the world or in the world.

Well, it could still stiff which would give me a legitimate excuse to go back on the smack and crack - so all is not lost yet. I live in terror of being understood. But surely there is no way the yanks will understand me? All the Great Brits fail in the States. Marc Bolan, John Lydon, Jarvis Cocker, Nick Cave. They don’t understand the language you see. Shaw or Wilde said : “Two countries divided by a common language.” Now the thing is I’m not Wilde about Shaw and I’m not Shaw about Wilde, however, you’ve got to admit they had a point. If you said irony to an American he’d think you were talking about shirt pressing.

It is the reason they are so violent out there. America is in danger of being exterminated by its weakest link - macho man, a physically strong, emotionally volatile, and intellectually limited creature who is now obsolete in evolutionary terms but who is capable of causing the death of all of us through his paranoid plots. He cannot be out-gunned, out-bombed, out-missiled - he can only be outwitted. The tongue is the only weapon that gets sharper with use. But Americans have no wit. So they can only hit.

I know what you are thinking. “What about Dorothy Parker?” Sorry, she wasn’t that good. The pen may in theory be mightier than the sword, but I for one wouldn’t like to go into battle brandishing the Dorothy Parker 51.

Right that’s enough bollocks. Let’s look at it another way round shall we? KISS are American. Now, KISS are one of the greatest, most authentic bands of all time. The music of the Beatles is just KISS on the wrong notes. That was a good sentence wasn’t it? The music of the Beatles is just KISS on the wrong notes! When you read it you just wanted to fuck me didn’t you? Well, you’ll just have to wait an hour until I finish this.

Now, KISS just go out and serve. As loud and calculated as they appear, they are a relief from most of the lame, white, phoney Country rock singer - songwriters that everyone drools over, who are just as calculated, but no one wants to admit it. Tom Waites? For God’s sake! What a fake!

KISS embody the spirit of America which I identify with. America is the only country in the world where failing to promote yourself is regarded as being arrogant. There’s a whole group of English people for whom the idea of success, even wanting success, is just not done. And that’s what I hate. Britain’s rugged will to lose. You see, in England failure is all the rage. And in America there is no room for failure. In America, they love a loser turned winner as much as we love the opposite. Why? It’s because of our hearts. The English have shrivelled hearts. The Americans plump, peachy, warm ones. Success in England inspires only envy. In America : hope.

Life for the Americans is always becoming, never being. As a dandy I love this. The important thing in life, is how you present yourself. To be conscious of presentation - of how to make the best of oneself. I’ve worked on myself a great deal - I’ve tried in all kinds of ways to remake myself. In that sense, I’m artificial. I’m probably the most artificial person there is. And look at America! The “forging of a nation” is an appropriate term for USA. Most nations are forgeries. Americans are forgeries. I am a forgery. But I am the most beautiful fraud in the world.

Of course, if one had enough money to go to America, one wouldn’t go. But when I do I think I am going to be happy there. America believes that God is dead but Elvis is alive.

But the story just gets better and better.

My book has been bought by Harper Perennial which is part of Harper Collins - the same company which fired me in the UK.

In 2001 my memoir was commissioned by Fourth Estate which is owned by Harper Collins.

And here my dear is what happened. After three years of work I delivered the manuscript. At last! It was done! Time to celebrate. I cracked open the crack. I was summoned to a meeting at Fourth Estate. I prepared myself carefully - I shot up in the loos.

The meeting was not what you might call a success. I was fired. I was given the full advance and told to go away. The book was the product of disturbed mind, was Fourth Estate’s opinion. It was deeply misogynistic. They were shocked and disgusted.

On one level I was pleased. This was just like the Sex Pistols, constantly hired because they were cutting edge, as quickly fired because they wouldn’t comply. Fourth Estate had hired me because they wanted their Johnny Rotten. They fired me because I wasn’t Val Doonican. I suppose if I had any complaints I could have written them on the back of their nice fat cheque. Oh well, if you cannot brag about doing something well, then brag about doing it badly. At any rate brag.

But in truth all my dreams had just been eviscerated.

What was I going to do? There was always suicide - superb literary criticism. Or a move back to Hull? Failure is less apparent in the suburbs.

Instead I got off drugs and rewrote the book. Finally after a year of hard work and with wrist limp at the weight of the bound crimp-edged folio - I was out. A bigger, better book was bought by Sceptre for a bigger better advance and they will publish it in the UK in September.

And now I have been hired and adored by the American arm of the same company who fired and ignored me in the UK.

Well there we are. I guess one should always forgive one’s enemies - after they are hanged. First turn one cheek, then the other cheek. Once the scriptures have been fulfilled give the cunts a good pasting.

I met my American editors Carrie and David and I like them enormously. Tired of artificial flowers aping real ones, I wanted some natural flowers that would look like fakes. I sent two bouquets one to Pippa and one to Jocasta my English editors who had sold me gift wrapped to the world. Together we shall create a walled garden in which anarchy can flourish. For, the flowers of evil are in bloom.

I wonder what will happen?

Popularity is the one insult I have never suffered. A year ago I was unknown throughout England. In a year I shall be unknown throughout America. It is marvellous news. I don’t see why Americans shouldn’t be allowed to hate me too. Americans are sympathetic for the development of individuality. They shoot you to show they are individual. And I do so want to be worthy of assassination. Or maybe I shall become an honorary American and commit my first murder?

And I wonder what will happen next?

Well, I hope it comes out in Braille so blind people can hate me too.

SEBASTIAN GOES TO SAVE IRELAND

When a gentleman realises that life is utterly worthless (it doesn’t take long) he either commits suicide or travels. Suicides, as all self -respecting dandies know, is the only really serious philosophical problem and I certainly am always very disappointed that I persistently fail to commit it. As for travel, there is little point in England for me. England used to be a land of beauty but now it is a land of beauty spots, of which I am the finest. Two steps to the mirror and I’ve done England. As for a trip round the world - there are just so many other places I want to see first.

I travel not to see but to be seen. As a tourist, I am exclusively narco-sexual : I go where the drugs are cheap and the vice is nice ; not to broaden my mind but to broaden my anus. Fancy a fuck?

And so it is, that in the gloomy month of April, when the people of England happily hang and drown themselves, I find myself on the way to Dublin. Dublin? What’s Dublin? Can you play it? I wiggled off to try and find my aeroplane. There are about one millions gates but there is only one airline for me. Debonair.

Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photograph. In mine I look exactly like Ian Brady. In the “any distinguishing features” column, I have put “handsome” so there you are Ian - I do hope that stops you starving yourself to death.

As we approach the barrier we are told to put all liquids into plastic bags in case we decide to wash our hair on the plane.

“Does this count Sir?” I said to the armed policeman showing him my Rimmel Sweet Jelly Lip-gloss, and looking up at him in a way I felt to be worthy of assassination.

It did. But surely there is a solution? I mean, if everybody flew naked not only would you never have to worry about the passenger next to you having explosive shoes, but no religious fundamentalist would ever fly nude or in the presence of nude women.

I waltzed through the metal detector setting it off with my unfeasibly large testicles and sashayed onto the tarmac. On the plane I am horrified to find out that there is no first class. (Can you imagine me getting on a plane and turning right? I am someone who never knew there was more aircraft behind the six seats in first class). I am surrounded by all these funny little things that look like the minor relatives who swarm on at the end of This is Your Life.

I call the jet slag over. She has a gormless, pools-winner face which I long to violate. “Madam, you can tell the captain I’m here. We can go now.”

We are told to strap ourselves in, in case the plane comes to a sudden stop (like against the side of a mountain), which I refuse. I don’t care whether I live or die, but I do care if I crease my velvet suit.

The flight is uneventful. The fact that the boiled sweets keep falling out of my ears is slightly compensated for by how delicious the cotton wool is. In fact, my passage was rather too safe for my liking. I fantasised about the plane crashing into the sea. I see my own fate as even worse than that of Icarus who may have plunged into the sea but at least had that sea named after him.

The pilot is really getting on my tits. Why do airline pilots have to tell us everything they are doing - I’m taking it up, I’m bringing it down, were at 10,000 feet, Oh, we’ve just passed a cloud. Do I knock on the cockpit door - Oh hello sir, I’m having peanuts now, I just thought you’d like to know?

At the other end I am held up for two hours (quarantine, darling) and then I take a little bus to the centre of town. Within two minutes a woman comes up to me and takes my arm. “May I tell you, you look absolutely gorgeous.” “Thank you darling” I replied. I caught my refection in a shop window. She was right I did. I am absurdly, unfeasibly, almost illegally handsome. Encased in emperors purple velvet three piece, white T& A shirt, cerise tie, and two tone Lobb boots with buttons the only thing missing was a crown. Yes, I was born to the purple, even if I live mainly in the red.

Naturally this went immediately to my head (well, did you expect it to go to my foot?) and I shimmied across the road feeling as tall as a tree and twice as shady - when suddenly a car pulled up along side me and the window came down.

“You fuckin ponse wanker” a cross little Irishman shouted.

“Thank You darling.” I replied. I caught my refection in a shop window. He was right I was. People are always calling me a ponse and a pimp. I wish they’d just make up their mind, so I would know how to dress.

Well, what a lovely day! Praise makes me humble. But when I am abused I know I have touched the stars!

It makes me realise why I love the Irish. I have always felt Irish by sympathy. As you know Satan is my only role model. But I do have eight heroes and five of them are Irish. Johnny Lydon, Samuel Beckett, Francis Bacon, The Yeats brothers, Oscar Wilde.

I mean, compare the place to Scotland and Switzerland will you for a moment?

In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce ? Nothing but Money. Taste. Style. And very nice cheese and chocolate if you don’t mind. In Scotland for 300 years under the drunks they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed and what did they produce ? They produced nothing but vomit, haggis and the Bay City Rollers.

But the Irish! What a race! Other people have a nationality. The Irish have a psychosis. And insanity is to art what oxygen is to life. Art has given me the opportunity to do things that normally you’d be locked up and executed for. The Irish themselves don’t know what they want and are prepared to fight to the death to get it. You've got to admit there's a perfect symmetry. Ireland is a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent. That's where I come in darlings.

I am over to see two of their greatest products. Shane MacGowan and Victoria Mary Clarke. When I get there Victoria and Shane are being photographed by a wall of paparazzi. Shane takes my hand and bows' down and kisses it. “The Queen has arrived” he says.

Shane is a living Saint over here and behaves accordingly. Saints are ok in heaven, but they’re hell on earth. Actually, Shane is all there. You underestimate him at your cost. In the same way that my humour is a kind of filter to weed my social garden so Shane's’ drunkenness is a shield and a sword and a crown. It is true heroin, alcohol and crack cocaine is an unusual combination, usually only found in dead people but, take my word for it, he is jober as a sudge.

It is Victoria’s book launch. “Angel in Disguise” is about channelling angels. I have to say I’m not really a channelling kind of girl, I am more a Chanelling girl if that’s alright with you. But I love Victoria so much I don’t care what she does or says. She did once channel me and the angels told me what to do but I can‘t recall what it was. One always forgets the most important things. It’s the things one can’t remember that stay with you. Actually, I just wanted to seduce Victoria at the time so I think that was really on my mind rather than angels.

“Angels fly because they take themselves lightly” I remember Victoria saying to me as I was stroking her red hair. I was on drugs at the time. I was the fallen angel, and I had his face. It was an odd affair. Angels make love without fluids surely? But in the sobbing frustration of human love making?

Victoria is one of my favourite people in the world. If I was in a lifeboat and was allowed four people I would choose her, the two Rachel's and Sarah Lucas. It is nice to be in the same boat as one’s betters - especially if it’s sinking.

Both the Rachel’s, Sarah and Victoria proposed to me. When I went to be crucified I took Sarah to wail at the bottom of the cross. She promptly fainted which was sweet of her. When I came to she proposed to me which was not. She then bandaged my hands and back and went out and bought me a book. It was Casanovas memoirs. Well, of course I never read it because, well, I don't read books if that is alright with you. Lucas went to Mucus. I went from errection to resurrection. But the book and I looked lovely together. The undead and the unread.

Victoria proposed not long after she had channelled me. You would have thought the angels would have told her that I was not really the marrying kind. Like most men really. Marriage is not a man's idea. A woman must have thought of it. “Let me get this straight, honey. I can’t fuck anyone else for the rest of my life, and if things don’t work out, you get to keep half of my stuff? What a great idea!”

So I said no to the marriage proposal. Occasionally I am good - I have to be. If I kick out my angels, my devils might leave.

We are all guilty of hammering on the knuckles of those who try to climb into our lifeboat. But I don’t begrudge Victoria any of her success. She is beautiful and sexy and funny and odd - all the things I love in a person.

The party is full of beautiful odd people. JP Donleavy gives a speech, then Victoria and lastly Shane sings “Angel in Disguise.” with his sister. He has such a sad face Shane that sometimes when I look at him I want to cry. I wince and have to turn away. I wonder if he is sad or just has a sad face? I don’t know him as well as Victoria but there is something about him that I love. He also gave me a quote for my book which I like.

"Sebastian is a beautiful person who belongs to The Silent Clan of which I am the head. Sebastian is one of the outstanding members of this Silent Clan. Sebastian's work is outstanding. He is a beautiful Christian. He is a beautiful artist. He is Sebastiane. He has taken over Derek Jarman's role and I am going to paint him in the style of Caravaggio."

He may be the head of The Silent Clan but I would make a most marvellous Pope I think. True I am an atheist and a drug addict and a pervert but these are incidentals.

I meet JP Donleavy and thank him for my name which came in part from his book “The Ginger Man”. You must agree that the most beautiful word in the English language is “Sebastian”. Sebastian Flyte, Sebastian Dangerfield, Sebastian Venable; the title is divine - all gleaming with vermilion? If you agree with me, how will I know I’m right?

For the rest of the evening I just stand there receiving. “You are taller than I imagined but not so effeminate” says one who has the ruined beauty of the fallen angels. “You are taller than I imagined but older” says another.

There is much love in the house. Shane and Victoria have announced that they are to marry. It’s funny, I don’t believe that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn’t been told about it. It’s like abroad. No one would want to go there if they hadn’t been told it existed. But I left abroad wishing that I had married Victoria - and Shane.

My Crucifixion

THERE IS NO STIGMATA ATTACHED TO BEING CRUCIFIED

Good Friday.

I have to say, Easter never really meant anything to me. That season when we remind each other of the judicial murder of a Jewish revolutionary two thousand years ago by distributing chocolate eggs to the children of people we dislike.

It started young. “Easter is cancelled this year” screamed Father “They’ve found the body.” As I grew up I tried to forget about the whole fucking thing which was quite useful. The good thing about having Alzheimer's is that you can hide your own Easter eggs.

But then I got crucified. Now, I’m not religious. Well it’s true I worship beauty, and beautiful people like myself, but I never seem to be able to find the right church. But I’ve always had a bit of a thing for the crucifixion. A host of ideas are seen to meet at the site. God and Religion, good and evil, life and death. A gentleman should always test himself in the most superficial areas of existence.

And I liked Christ. He had profound style. He was the ultimate dandy. He created a stir through force of personality and example alone. One does not become a guru by accident. If Gandhi proved that you can rule the world by being polite then Christ proved, once and for all the power of personal magnetism and what it can accomplish. What's more, on the cross he created an image to be gazed at and adored. He is worshipped on church walls. And style is a way of buying people rather than things. Its values are spiritual values. All great stylists borrow a lot from the wardrobe of Christ - everything in fact except those dreadful clothes.

I mean who says spirituality has to be dressed like a frump? Does wearing feather Boa’s, lace knickers and lipstick disqualify you from reading the Bible? Marc Bolan wore more clothes in one day than Gandhi wore in his whole life. But one “Metal Guru" to me, is worth a million flesh gurus.

Me and Jesus had a few other things in common while were at it. Jesus' life was also an awesome study in self-destruction. Of course, it has been valuable for us to deceive ourselves about the depth of his destructiveness. Clearly, as a great religious stylist, he knew that, without his crucifixion, he would be no one. Where would Christianity be if Jesus had got eight to 15 years with time off for good behaviour?

I didn’t die on the cross which was disappointing. I have always wanted to have a significant death. I yearn to go out in a blaze of glory. I’d settle for a blaze of ignominy. Yet it seems even a cheap death is hard to come by.

Well there you are. Plagiarism is when someone steals your original idea and does it two thousand years before you were born.

Now every Easter I get articles written about me in the press which is nice. Somehow whether you like it or not, the Horsley has got into Easter.

But so what? It’s better than what you normally have. I mean, have you any idea how the rabbit got into Easter? Pagan fertility stuff or Walt Disney cuteness?

Whatever the reason, my feeling is : eat the fucker.