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?
