'Ich'

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"I need love! Avete capito? The endless theme of my life is my longing for love. I just can't get enough love." -- Helmet Berger


'Unfortunately, Helmet Berger's autobiography Ich has not been translated into English yet. So it is my duty and a pleasure to introduce you to the contents of Helmut Berger's autobiography and provide you with a few anecdotes from the life of this great actor who was born in 1944 in the small Austrian town Bad Ischl. He wrote the book together with his friend Holde Heuer, a journalist from Munich.

'As a sort of prologue Berger tells the reader: "Yes I am tainted by the beautiful things in life. But to all those who only want to see my as an agent provocateur and an excentric I can only say: With every day of my life the number of people I don't give a damn about grows and grows. All my friends know: This book belongs to Luchino Visconti the great director. By the end of the book all my readers will know that the world is not only round and that love is the only true source of life."' -- Holde Heuer




Berger begins with his biggest personal problem: He has two sides - one nice and kind as an angel the other bad as the devil. He goes on and tells the reader a few examples of people who got to know his dark side: Alain Delon who wanted to take his part on Visconti's side.

"I fucked Delon's wife Nathalie. I really liked her. We had fun in bed together with Maria Schneider who became famous on Marlon Brando's side in The Last Tango in Paris. To make my success complete I contacted a journalist and made sure that Delon got to know about the whole affair. It is dangerous to pick a fight with me."





Richard Burton was an alcoholic and had another quarrel with his wife Liz Taylor. Berger sprayed chocolate truffles on a couch just before Burton lay down there. When he stood up again to go to the film set his trousers were all brown. Berger: "Richard looked shit."

"Sometimes I don't understand myself. I drink all night long I fight I destroy bars... I ask myself why I have to do this. After one of my excesses I was imprisoned in Rome for four days. A terrible time. But that other thing in me was stronger once again. That satanic devil just won't let me be."





He then goes back to 1974 and talks about the famous "Bad taste" Party on his 30th birthday in the famous "Jackie O."Nightclub in Rome. Everyone: Valentino, Bianca Jagger, or Ursula Andress dressed in strange kind of ways. The more cocaine there was the crazier the party people became. Everything was fun to Berger back then. Over the past few years he became more and more thoughtful about many things in his life.

After arriving in London, Berger took his first acting lessons and worked as a waiter in an 'In-Restaurant' on King's Road and as a model. All of the houses of the stars (for example Cat Stevens) were open, joints were smoked and free love - to be precise: orgies - were en vogue. Berger made his first sexual experiences involving men.

"There were so many of us. You touched your neighbour. It just happened. You are relaxed, a bit high, you caress and want to be caressed. Everything gets very erotic and you feel horny. You undress. Feel free from rules and morals. Oh, I, I, you play with yourself and with others. We are all sisters and brothers. A sweet boy turns me on, it feels natural."





His first LSD-experience was in the USA, during the promotion-tour for The Damned (it must have been 1969). He was there together with his friend Ylia Suchanek from Austria. Berger took it in the house of Hair producer Michael Butler, "a master of this drug". He describes his trip - thank god, a good one! - and tells the reader that it is necessary to drink a lot of juice to clean the body. No alcohol! But we all love Berger because he is so human. He makes mistakes. Berger's cocaine-career started in 1971 in Rome (Nightclub "Number One").

"It was the jet-set-drug. If everybody was on it, I had to be too. You know, I am very easily influenced by other people. I like modern things. I wanted to be "in" back then. Immediately I took half a pound..."





The craziest thing happend on the ball of Monte Carlo. Berger sniffed cocaine of bad quality. Then he sat down to eat, but a fart become very liquid and landed in his trousers. He wore white trousers! So they became brown and he could not stand up and had to sit still from 9 till 4 in the morning. All his friends thought he was sick because he did not want to dance with them - usually, Berger is a passionate dancer. After he got home he changed his clothes and danced ecstatically in a club because he had to get all the stress of the evening out of his head.

"I become the opposite of what I really am. A person that I hate. This liar, this monster, this anti-human being, it acts as if it were the devil himself. A horror! It started after Visconti's death in 1976. The shock of my life. I used strong alcoholicas, drank them more and more often. I knew: My life is divided in the Helmut Berger before Luchino Visconti and the one with L.V. And, of course, the one after L.V. And this one could be a nightmare."





If Visconti was the Number one man of his life, actress Brit Ekland is the Number one woman. They are friends for over thirty years and he says he loves her since then, but there was always something between them. Back then Ekland was married to Peter Sellers (who died because of a overdose of cocaine; Berger: "Brit had such energy, he could not keep up with her pace".) Then she was the wife of a rich man from Venice and then she was married to an American film producer. After that she married singer Rod Stewart. Berger even made a marriage proposal to her after her divorce from Stewart during a dinner in his flat in Rome. But Ekland didn't answer. Maybe Ekland knew that it would not work and that Berger is not the guy to live with for the rest of her life.

"Love is easier with men. They all have a mother complex, they don't look at the eyes of a woman or at her hands, but at her breasts. Men don't think about love and rainbows. You go out and then you do it, simply because you are horny. You say "Ciao" afterwards and not "Ti amo"."





Then Berger prints a few recipes from himself and his mother which, as he says, "a lot of my friends ask for all the time". They include the famous Wiener Schnitzel (Berger's recipe, most embarrasingly, is not right), but also a nice pasta alla gecca (with the "gay sauce", as he likes to call it: You mix small chopped tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, garlic, basil, salt, pepper and olive oil. Then you put it in the refrigerator over night. On the next day simply pour it over spaghetti al dente. A nice summer dish, we tried it.) or the traditional Italian vegetable-soup Minestrone (basically you can take all vegetables of the season, add some soup, you can also add mini-pasta. Berger says you should not add tomatoes because the soup gets too sour, but we don't think so. When you serve it, add a little parmesan cheese!).

His first meeting with Luchino Visconti was fate: When they had lunch, Visconti would not leave Berger for one second, but the young men was afraid of his feelings. Berger wanted a real relationship. He wanted to live in Paris. And - he wanted luxury. They lived together in Paris. He tells us that Visconti was the man, he was the woman in their relationship. So Visconti was the one who was the sexually more active part. Visconti was a bit conservative. Visconti wanted correctness. As a result, Berger has a few strange obsessions now: He is hooked on cleaning his flat up, it cannot be clean enough. Then he loves to rearrange his furniture - all night long. And he has a passion for packing suitcases. He describes it as a sort of science. He says he needs a whole day to pack his thing when he travels. The most important thing is that his clothes do not have creases afterwards. He prefers rearranging his furniture or cleaning his flat to drugs and alcohol nowadays. But he sometimes still feels the need to drink or to other nasty things.

"I will be Visconti's widow until the end of my life. Sometimes a merry one, sometimes drunk, even hysteric, but always mourning. He did not really show feelings. But his films show his understanding for the real truths and necessities of life."





Sometime when Visconti wrote scripts, Berger visited pop-concerts. He loved and still loves the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan. The Beatles played a concert in Rome in 1967. Visconti wanted to make Berger happy, so he invited the Fab Four to a private dinner. They talked about music. Visconti said that pop and classical music should come together, they should make a concert with Leonard Bernstein. The Beatles were enthusiastic about this idea, but their manager did not like it. It was too soon for such a project back then. Berger liked all four of the Beatles, but he had the best relationship to Ringo Starr, they are still friends. The superstars were all a bit shy and nervous because of Visconti. But when he talked about his opera productions for too long, they also got a bit bored. Still they talked until six in the morning. Visconti wanted to understand Berger's passion for pop music. He was the perfect host, but after the Beatles had left he said: "Why don't they cut their hair?" Berger also wanted to have long hair, but Visconti had forbidden it.

Berger talks about his friendship with Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger. They were partying in New York, Paris, everwhere. No city was safe from them. Bianca Jagger was there, too. Berger liked both of them, he even landed in bed with them. But he tells us that there was no sex. The window of their hotel room was open, so they awoke at noon. Beneath their window was the garden of the hotel, with an outdoor cafe. Mick and Helmut could not fall asleep again. Angry, as they were, they urinated on the heads of the guests of the cafe. Of course, their hotel bill was enormously high. There are bans on Berger entering the Paris "Plaza", the Munich "Four Seasons" and "Palace".

"Without sex I get nervous and hysterical. I take a cold shower. I am not one of those men who have to fuck every night. My libido is quite controlled. I need one or two drinks before I can really feel free. When I was young, I wanted to be seduced. Now I take all the pretty young men into my bed and say: 'Rock me, babe.' My affairs never last long. I often ask myself 'Why?'. I am too critical. I am bossy, aggressive. I ask for too much. If I think about it, sex really is not that important for me. Why not masturbate for six months?"





Then Berger tells us about The Damned, the fact that he was very nervous when the shooting started and could not sleep. Berger is really a shy person. His biggest problem is his fear that people do not love him. Of course, the premiere of The Damned in New York was a success. And of course, the boy from Austria was nervous again, so he needed a few Bloody Marys. His friend Egon von Frstenberg lead him to the club "The Glory Hole", a nasty place. There were holes everywhere. The two men put their private parts in there. You never knew who or what was behind there. They had great fun there an stayed until six in the morning. Visconti had to leave America soon (he was not wanted as a communist and only allowed to stay for the premier of The Damned. Visconti did not like the USA anyway, but he must have enjoyed the "dirty" T-shirts Berger brought him.)

Berger went skiing again in the winter time. Visconti wanted him to go to Kitzbhel, because he thought that Berger would only be doing nasty things in St.Moritz. Of course, that could not stop Berger. He spent the annual income of many people in four weeks (although he had a cheap room). Visconti feared that Helmut hurt himself when he skied, so he had a good insurance for Ludwig II. which started a bit later. Berger liked playing Ludwig and still can identify with this man who was against war. He says that Ludwig is the role of his life. He was very nervous at the shootings and could not sleep. (I guess there is a little Ludwig and a little Helmut in all of us).

"Who understands the schizophrenia of an actor? You play a role for months, as if it was your real life. Then you are at home for a while, but after that you play the next role. What a chaos. And then there are all the people, they want to know what sort of life you lead. The looks behind your back. I don't feel good all the time. It is a very exhausting job. And if I have a problem, I simply leave and travel around. That's me. I don't want to talk about problems. I just leave."





When Visconti did not go to Salzburg in one of the following years, Berger gave wild parties. But the wildest parties were those with his craziest clique, rich friends from Paris. They were in St-Tropez over the summer. "We let girls from Sweden fly in. We fucked them for three days and sent them home again. We were a famous clique, but people did not really like us, especially the nobility."

Berger writes about his friendship with Liz Taylor. They shot Aschermittwoch ("Ash Wednesday" 1973) together. Richard Burton was very jealous when Berger and his wife had to play a love scene. They all celebrated new year's party in Switzerland afterwards, Burton broke his arm, because he was drunk and fell. Berger liked him, although Burton often treated his wife Liz Taylor bad. At the same time, Visconti suffered a stroke after cutting Ludwig II. the whole night through. One half of his body was paralyzed after that. Visconti had smoked 80 cigarettes a day his whole life. Berger went to Paris again and talked to Romy Schneider. Her brother was a famous doctor and chief of a hospital in Zürich, Switzerland. They brought Visconti there for his operation. It was a success. After some time he even started to walk again. Visconti could not stop working. Berger was very tired so Visconti told him to visit Florinda Bolkan in her house in Rio de Janeiro. Florinda and her friends behaved strangely. Berger knew that something was wrong. After a few hours they told Berger that Visconti had died while Berger was flying from Rome to Rio.

"I had a black out. I beat up Marina, Florinda's friend. After I had come to my senses again, I packed my suitcases and drove to the airport. I wanted to buy my first-class-ticket to Rome, but the Italian "Alitalia" took me to Rome for free. There was a state funeral for Visconti. Everyone was there: the government, Fellini, de Sica, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon, everyone. They all wore dark sunglasses. Only I didn't. I wanted that people could see my face. I wanted to say goodbye to Luchino naked. Everything else seemed unreal to me. I was acting in a film, without sound, without soul, without Luchino. I was alone. God, I think I deserved it. No! One year later, March, 17, 1977, I wanted to follow Luchino. I believed and hoped to meet him in his new world. What should I do down here on earth withouth him? My preparations were perfect. I had collected all the pills I could get. When I had enough pills, I was happy and swallowed them. But by chance, Maria, who started working in the afternoon already arrived in the morning on that day. She found me. I don't know if this was good or not. I don't know that, even now, twenty years later. Scusi! My feelings jump from yes to no, just like a Yo-Yo. Done, basta! Let's think big. I was never interested in mediocrity. I wanted to play big parts."





And so he did, in The Voracious Ones (Sergio Gobbi), Vittoria (Antonio Ribas) or in the American movie Entebbe with Liz Taylor, Richard Dreyfuss, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster and Linda Blair.

"Linda Blair - we had a wild, fast flirt. We had an affair in the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. But I also had sex with her brother. He seduced me. It was a family-affair. I hope that God will not damn me."





When Berger became a member of the cast of the TV series Dynasty - Denver Clan he was not allowed to even speak to colleagues and friends who played in Dallas, because there was a rivalry between the two tv-series. His colleagues Linda Evans, Joan Collins, Pamela Sue Martin and John Forsythe were friendly in the beginning, and so were Spelling's secretaries. But Berger immediately realized that they did not mean what they said. As said before, he never liked America and its citizens. The Denver people said that Berger was not allowed to meet people like Nicholson or Marlon Brando because everyone in Hollywood knew that those people were sniffing cocaine. He was also not allowed to visit the best night club, "Studio One", because it was known for his homosexual guests.

"I could not believe it. All those jerks. Puritans. But secretely they all watch porno movies. I did not follow their rules. I had to come to the office every second day. They told me that my role would slowly disappear, if I would not do what they said. I answered: 'You really believe that I stay at home and don't meet my friends? Really? Heil Hitler.' So I was only part of Denver for eleven episodes. In the end my airplane crashed against a mountain."

"I was out of my mind for the next years. For the other directors I was a 'Viscontian' actor. Without Luchino I was not half the man and actor I used to be. He had tainted me. Tainted by the beautiful things in life. The taste in his films, the style, the design. ... All those things were reasons for my suicide attempt. I want quality in the films. Is that too much? The producers fear that I want my own make-up artist, Alberto del Rossi, that I want my own secretary. They fear class and style. But I believe in the creative power in artists. I don't give up. A project with Fassbinder did not work out. He wanted to work with me. I sat in the cafe and waited. He arrived an hour late together with a friend, just as I was about to leave. He was full of cocaine. I told him that I could not talk to him in the state he was in. And I left. Fassbinder tried to get me for two of his films later. But I did not like the fact that Fassbinder never had a script and only followed his intuition. And I also did not like Fassbinder's looks, his dirty leather-clothes and that he had not shaved for days."





A very strange fact is that Berger says he is attracted to Fidel Castro, he calls him "a sexy bitch" and states that Cuban men are "well-built". Berger would like to be alone with Castro and a video camera....!

"I take a lot of power from nature nowadays. I go to the country, visit friends in Upper Austria and relax. I read Musil and erotic books. My wildest days are over. Only sometimes I allow myself to act crazy. When I travel. Shopping- and party-orgies. But even when Luchino was alive I could have a quiet day without any action. Well, of course I became a bit restless on the second day. If I don't feel free, I just leave. There are so many beautiful things, I would not want to miss them. I went out or drove to Ischia. You know, life goes on. And today? I am still curious about new roles, new impressions, my friends and about myself. You know, I like myself. I am what I am. Take me or leave me!"



Helmut Berger ICH ICH ICH
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*

p.s. Hey. A bit sleep-deprived, spaced out today. ** David Ehrenstein, Hey. Agreed about 'ToL's strange critical reception, but I find the reviews most interesting as signs of how unused American critics are to having to assess and write about aesthetically daring films that aren't thirty years old and long since classified as legitimate, significant, etc. Although they're very different kinds of films, there was the same strange defensiveness, cluelessness in the receptions of 'Enter the Void' and 'Inland Empire'. The quality of film criticism in the US is at a low ebb with some exceptions. Not here, but sometime when I see you, remind me to tell you what my pal Christian said about the experience doing Malick voiceovers. ** Tomkendall, Oh, ooh, thanks a lot for that, Tom. Somebody clear the dance floor. ** Joel Sagiv, Hi, Joel! Welcome and thanks a lot being here. Oh, and thanks for posting that thing on Facebook. I meant to thank you there, but I get vague with FB sometimes. Yes, you're right, and I had forgotten about that. Supposedly, 'Jerk' is/was supposed to have at least one gig in Israel, and the word was that I was going to be invited to do a reading or talk or something. I don't know whatever happened with that. I'll ask Gisele in the next day or so and find out. Yeah, if it's happening, your tour guide offer would be most welcome, as I don't know a soul there. Thanks! Anyway, I'll find out, and either let you know or put it in the news column thing. ** Changeling, Hey! Yeah, well, duh, I've missed you, wondered how you are, checked your not very updated lately blog for reports, etc. Anyway, it's very, very good to see you! So, are you de-woed? Or getting there? I do that with famous people too, or I have. It's trippy. When people recognize me and start talking to me, I always try to ask them about themselves right away so we can even out and become mutually interested peers to some degree 'cos that's much more interesting and comfortable, for me anyway. Speaking of, or sort of, I forget if you live in or near London. If so, come to 'The Weaklings' art show opening thing if you want and can. Obviously, it would be great to meet you, but, if you can't, inherently understood. Are you writing? Is that okay to ask? What's going on? ** Schoolboyerrors, Thanks. Back in the old, pre-hacked, etc. days, this blog used to be maybe 50% NSFW. Ah, youth-ish. Mm, I think I have heard of that Herbert Ponting film, maybe because of the Simon Turner connection, as I'm a ST fan. If it's reissued, there's a real chance the Cinematheque here will screen it, I would think. How are you? What are you up to? ** Alan, Hey! Welcome back! Oh, Killer Luka is in NYC now, of course. Her opening is ... tomorrow? Are you going? Well, I hope you get the galley. I've now written to them three times asking them to please send you and Mr. Greer galleys, and I've been assured they would each time. If you don't get it, I guess I'll try calling them and adding an intimidating tone of voice to my arsenal. Jesus. ** Bill, Shit, are you out of software hell now? ** David, Hi, David! Nice to see you! 'ToL' = 'Tree of Life'. Gracias re: the whores. Oh, webcam boys, interesting. There are quite a number of webcam escorts whom I seem to never include. Hunh. Let me see what I can put together. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yeah, I guess try never checking the blog at work on the 15th and last day of the month, although when those days occur on a Sunday, all bets are off. New flat, great front room, ... wonderful! Yeah, I'd love to see pix. As always, I'll peruse 'Cabin: Codex' as soon as I get out of here. Everyone, Yuck 'n' Yum, the Almighty's gift to zinedom, hosted an event the other night called 'Cabin: Codex' and you can get a visual read on what its fuss was about here. Where did he get the title Zazou? I'm probably blanking. The only Zazou that's springing to my sleepy mind is this ancient comedian/ actress Zazou Pitts. Bon settling in, man. ** Steevee, Yeah, I loved that Robbe-Grilletian slave profile too. Hence, its spot at the top. How unfortunate about the new Monte Hellman given that a new Monte Hellman is exciting in and of itself. ** Benjamin S., Hi, Benjamin! Thanks! I would definitely like to see his work if it's performed here or to meet him if he's here and game. Yeah, I can imagine about the naked thing, Obviously, it worked beautifully. Jonathan Capdevielle, who's in all of Gisele's and my pieces, was recently asked to star in the new film by Philippe Grandieux, and he was of course very excited, but he would have had to be naked in most of the film, and so he was tortured trying to decide if he could handle that, but he finally realized that being in a Grandieux was such an honor that it didn't matter, but he had waited so long to decide that Grandieux found someone else, so it ended up being a sad story. Many thanks again, my friend! ** Ken Baumann, Hi, Ken! Yeah, I obviously really understand your post-'ToL' state. I'm still in mine two weeks later. Fascinating. I can feel that my next novel or whatever is going to exist in the light of the film's experience somehow. Crazy, rare thing. I guess I mostly feel really grateful or something. But, yeah, lips ... *zip*. How is that new novel you mentioned having begun proceeding? ** Sypha, Hi, James. The story is terrific. Man, I wrote the worst gobbledygoop dumb-ass stuff at that age. Pretty amazing. ** Mark Gluth, Wow! I thought you were going to link me a thing about El Nopal, a new taqueria I liked a lot but that seems to maybe have folded, but this is great news! Man, I may wander down there tonight. That place is like two or so blocks from the apartment I lived at in the Marais for a year and hardly a few steps away from the building where most of 'TMS' is set. Holy shit! Thanks, Mark! ** Chris Cochrane, Yeah, it was as productive as it could be. Looks like it's going to be a bit of a tortoise race to the finish line, ha ha. ** Oliver, Hey. Oh, that makes it easy. I mean the two Klossowski-derived Ruiz films being in one DVD package. Thanks much! I'll track that down. Ha ha, yeah, the not having to be good at games thing is a lure for me. As I've surely said before, if I can't beat a boss in, like, ten tries, the game is over for me. Almost no patience for that stuff. Wow, 'Tale of Tales' stuff does look potentially amazing! I hadn't heard of them. Yum. I'm going to download 'The Path', which I guess is their previous game? Fantastic! Thanks, Oliver! Oh, ... Everyone, Oliver tips off whoever is interested to the work of the videogame'company 'Tale of Tales', and their games do look really interesting, to me anyway, so I advice clicking this and having a look. ** Brendan, Yes, today, in fact. How short are these 'Very Short Introductions'? I mean, I can imagine Oxford University thinking 700 pages is 'very short', ha ha. Is Flash hard to learn? ** Postitbreakup, Hey. Oh, first, your post is fucking awesome, and it will appear here on Thursday, June 16h, so mark your calendar or whatever. Thanks a lot! Wonderful! I never want to go to movies by myself, and I avoid doing that as much as possible, but when I actually see a movie alone in theater, I always really like it, I guess because it's kind of melancholy and also because you get to own the experience of the movie and kind of soak in it for a longer time. The 'saltwater aquarium' line was kind of prize winner, I agree. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey. I think if you've gone for a long time without having a pet like I have -- since my teen years -- you only notice how it puts a routine into your pet-owning friends' lives, and you don't get the gravy part of pets or something. On the Gisele book, I'm pretty sure they'll say yes, but first I have to finish the text and show it Gisele, and she has to say yes to it. If I can win her over, the rest should be easy. Oh, Sonic. I wish they had them here. I like their soft ice cream things dipped in chocolate. And they look cheerful. Oh, wait, I'm wrong about the ice cream thing. I was mixing up Tastee Freez with Sonic, which makes no sense, but I'm kind of sleepy, like I said. I loved your friend's McDonalds story. That was hilarious, although it was sad for her, so now I feel bad for laughing, oops. That's interesting, I mean that you bought a Douglas Clegg book. I haven't read him, but two days ago my FB friend count got down to 4998, and I slipped two new friend request people in, and one of them was Douglas Clegg. Are his books good? My day: I worked on my usual of late stuff for a while and then I walked down to a cafe near the Centre Pompidou and met up with Gisele so we could do a last minute prep before the big festival meeting, and we did. Then we walked the block to the Pompidou office and met with the performance and visual art curators. I thought it was going to be a short meeting, but it turned out to be a marathon meeting that lasted over three hours. We presented our proposal, and then they sort of daydreamt aloud about it and other possibilities, and it was good because they want us to do even more stuff for the festival, but it also made everything seem huge and vague in a way, so that was a little confusing, although ultimately it was very good. We want to turn the Pompidou project space into a kind of theme park walk-through attraction featuring 60 to 80 of our performance dolls plus the photographic portraits of them plus 'Last Spring, a Prequel' plus a secret theater where events would take place. They were all yes, yes, but they think we need more room, so we're going to get to use a really large gallery space as well, and I might get to curate an art exhibition in there too, which would be great. Plus, there'll be concerts and hopefully 'Them' and other stuff. It's turning out to be huge project that, if it goes through, will be a gigantic amount of work but well worth it. Anyway, all of that took up most of my day unexpectedly. Then I came home. Yury came back from work a little early due to his sickness, but he's getting better really fast, and he's back to work today. In the evening, I talked to my sister and my nephew, and I worked more on some stuff. Arte shows three episodes of 'Twin Peaks' on Tuesday nights, but they start kind of late, so I watched the first one before I got sleepy and slept or tried to rather. 'Cos Yury was watching the other two episodes, and I could hear them from the bed, and they were the episodes that go from Leland killing Maddy to Leland killing Bob/himself in the jail cell, so I got all excited and caught up in remembering them and couldn't fall asleep for hours and hours, which is why I'm a spaced out and baggy-eyed person today. So, that was yesterday. How did today find you? ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Hey! You know, I had this deep suspicion that the reason I hadn't seen you for a bit was that dreaded restrictive internet access of yours, and I hoped you would pop up as soon as May turned into June, and I'm happy I was right, although sorry for your brief isolation, and more sorry about your food poisoning, yikes. Nasty stuff. Yes, absolutely about the 'saltwater aquarium' line. It was my bingo moment when assembling that post. ** Misanthrope, Hey, G. I had two escort assholes in the post originally, but one was being, uh, greatly enlarged by a master's fingers, and while the image was quite striking, I had last minute thoughts about pushing the NSFW angle too hard and deleted it. You were very gay yesterday, it's true. I guess I was little gayer than usual too. Weird how that shit sneaks up on one. ** Nicolás, Hi, welcome! Yes, of course it's okay if you you use those images, I would be honored. Your blog looks really amazing, My second language skills are terrible, but, even so, there's a lot there that I'm going to investigate this afternoon. For instance, I'd never heard of Fredox before, and his work looks very, very interesting. Anyway, great, and thank you a lot! Everyone, new guy Nicolás has a really interesting looking blog that covers some really curious, compelling looking art, among other things, and I highly recommend you go have a look. It's here. Thank you a lot again! ** Okay. Oh, I forgot to mention up above that the post today is here because of a great tip off by Kiddiepunk and Oscar. Enjoy, see you tomorrow.