(this is even later than JL wrote it 'cos I was away)....
Sorry to be late with this Deep Pool - i've been managing difficult circumstances - the social equivalent of a crisis in a nuclear submarine:
"May i have a word Captain?"
"Not now - can't you see i'm managing a crisis in our nuclear submarine?"
"But, Captain, you are late with your copy for your column in the next edition of the nuclear submarine fleet staff magazine - The Deep Pool - retired naval officers the world over are awaiting your thoughts on the countryside, life in general, and new advances in torpedo technology"...
"Zen zey vill chost hev to vait or ve vill oll be blown to SMITHEREENS and zer vill be no more "oh ze blackberries are looking nice".
I am a great admirer of Floridan crime writer (oh no, not another one i hear them say) Carl Hiasson's attempts to make characters speak in Mexican accents, so that was an attempt to be a German commander, as in Das Boot - one of my most beloved films (most beloved film - The American Friend by Wim Wenders).
The crisis is now over and, of course, it is not yet time for wild blackberries, or brambles as we call 'em in Scotland, but the flowers of the fruit are out, tinged violet, speaking ahead of time of the great collective dark juicy bramble mind. Sometimes i pick them, but nobody in my house really wants to eat them except out of a weary sense of duty - probably
because they lack the uniform look of supermarket fruit - this isn't really a criticism, just an observation -
"What's wrong with this one?"
"Which one?"
"This bent looking one."
"It's a bit bent".
"Why is it bent?"
"Don't eat it if you don't want it".
"They're ALL a bit bent - can i have a tin of fruit cocktail instead?"
"No".
(I could go on, but i won't).
If you're going to Larmer Tree Festival in the white witch country of southern England, i shall be playing there in the accoustic tent on, i think Saturday afternoon - hope it's not Friday as i want to analyse various farmhouse ciders, like Old Screeton's Mate, Red Sickener, Oysterbandylegs, Right Royal Flush, Owen's Sweetheart, and - a very special one this - Baked Alaskan Boom Time.
For those of you who don't know, Larmer Tree is a very charming small festival which you don't really see advertised as it sells out as quick as Glastonbury. Great tribes of old Dorset hippies meet here to share medicines, stories, and sighs for those who have fallen by the wayside, courtesy of Red Sickener. Many years ago, in a pub not far from the festival site, in the village of Wimborne St Giles, i had an extraordinary Sunday lunch with the American thinkers James Hillman, Rober Bly, and my good friend Richard Olivier. As lunch proceeded, i went outside for a few minutes to be on my own after a week of serious intensity with a hundred other men. I looked out over a brook meandering toward an ancient bridge with some young willow trees waving in gentle sunlit unison.
In those few minutes the entirety of the song 'In Search Of Stone' (from my fabulous Sir Vincent Lone album) came into my head - well, more accurately, left my heart to lodge in my head. I returned to the bar in time to catch Robert Bly stealing a section of my enormous Yorkshire pudding - he was frantically trying to make it look properly round without the missing bit, piling roast potatoes on top of the join - James was in the toilet and Richard was at the bar, ordering another round of Fine Old Cowshed. I was so much older then...
Next week i'm playing a festival in Calgary in Canada - i don't know much about it except i've got performances on Friday and Saturday. Come and say hello if you're there - i know i look a little insane, but i'm pretty user-friendly these days - just don't say - 'any news about the Doll By Doll records"........
Oh, i'm also playing the Boscombe Festival with the Bewley Brothers next week, on Wednesday - think it's in a park - might be free - sorry i don't know more...
I've been finessing the artwork for my next studio album ELEGY FOR JOHNNY CASH which goes into production this week. There's a photo of a bar on the isle of Paxos,Greece, in the middle of the record - nobody knows who took this photo, but it was given to Spiros, owner of the world's greatest bar Taxidi, in Loggos, Paxos. Spiros is a slightly mystic gent who plays accordian on one song on the new album - In Memory Of My Mother, by Patrick Kavanagh. When i saw the photo i knew immediately that i wanted to put it on the record - the bar is in the hamlet of Fontanya, and it regularly features the loudest games of backgammon on the planet, played by very old fellows who smack fuck out of the pieces and the board - it takes a bit of getting used to - luckily the bar has sickly sweet crystallised whole lemons that you can eat with a spoon whilst drinking ouzo as you get the hang of the atmosphere. ANYWAY, Sheila at my record company - one of her many jobs is to ensure that Cooking Vinyl does not get sued for breach of copyright, defamation, and any other brand of 'you must be fucking joking' - asked me who took the photo. I knew immediately that if i said nobody knew, she would have to err on the side of caution and say that really wasn't good enough, cos what if the photographer was actually well-known etc, and anyway we only had Spiros' word for it that he didn't know who took the photo - not a lot
to go on in the world of 'Hi, i'm ringing on behalf of my client, Daniel Famoussnapper - it's about a photo of his that appears without permission on one of your artist's records'...
I took a deep breath and said "i took the photo".
There was a pause at her end - the pause which says i don't believe you, then Sheila said -
"Ah, well in that case we'll have to credit you".
"No no - that won't be necessary - you see i want the photo to remain enigmatic within the entire array of images and info on the record, so that the point actually is that you DON'T know where the photo is from - it just makes it sort of, more - archetypal".
Another pause - then -
"It's a very very good photo - what sort of camera did you use?"
(Oh Shit) - "Er, well it was my brother-in-law's camera - he was on holiday with us and lent it to me for the day as he had a hangover and didn't want to take any photos that day".
"Oh, poor man - but what kind of camera was it? - i mean it's certainly not a digital image"...
"No, not digital - in fact a very old Leica, a bit like Joe Dilworth's, (fabulous famous photographer) i think it's called the 'Magnum'".
"Blimey, Jackie, you must be good if you can just pick up an old Leica and know your way around it well enough to take a shot like this, but not actually know the model of Leica, an eccentric brand whose technical configuration has often changed over the years".
"Well, i don't even know the model number of my guitar Sheila - i just know nothing about these sorts of things: Guy just said "look in there and press that lever really".
Sheila couldn't call me a bloody liar, so that was that: i had a bad image of her discussing her doubts about this with Martin my record company boss, him listening in silence, then looking down and shaking his head slowly, saying -
"I really wish Jackie wouldn't do things like this to us - we'll just have to hope for the best, again..."
I'm back in Munster, Germany at the end of October - three evenings at Augenweide Gallerie - 27,28,29th - at that time the gallerie will be exhibiting works by Allan Black and Manfred Bruckner. The people who run this gallerie are extremely kind and i loved working there last - November?
One of the founding spirits of the gallerie is the artist Mirjam Ruckert, one of whose beautiful paintings is the front cover of ELEGY FOR JOHNNY CASH, so this is a place to play that means more to me as the years go by. A wild young man called Crispin came to my garden and chopped down three trees very quickly - he did it quickly because he had to get off to a cider festival at a nearby cult pub called The Hampshire Bowman.
"They're gunna have Red Sickener, Jack, and a limited amount of Gay Loft Conversion".
"No Dismal Shepherd this year Crispin?"
"No Jack, that farmer's stopped makin' cider - he's reckons he's got a better job bein' Paul McCartney's hair colourist."
"Bloody hell - i didn't think he'd have a skill like that".
"'Ave you seen Paul McCartney's hair colour? - there 'ain't no skill there Jack."
It disturbed me recently to have three venerable trees cut down in my garden - Pete, one of my neighbours was distraught to hear they were going.
"You can't do that - squirrels LIVE in those trees!"
"Pete - they'll have to move to other trees, there's plenty of other trees."
But it was the venerable element that anguished me: once something has spent that long growing - you look at the girth as it rises from the ground, the patience, the applied levity, the sheer enterprise of soul required to stretch towards the speeding sky, and you want to bring it to an end because in the summer months you can't see the sunset? But would it be easier if they were, relatively speaking, young trees? If they were young trees they wouldn't be blocking the light (good name for an album by Kid Creosote).
I wanted to talk to Crispin about all of this (to chop or not to chop), although quite what he was going to have to say about it, i can't think. I was waiting in my front room for he and his cohorts to arrive, but they went round to the back of the garden without announcing themselves. I sat in the front room till well after the agreed start-time, thinking - these bastards aren't coming after all. Then i heard the steady whine of chainsaws from the west, went through the house and saw the guys taking down the third tree.
"Makes a right difference" said soaked-in-sweat/making-room-for-Red Sickener
Crispin as we stood together surveying the end of the secret garden and the start of the open garden. I could only agree.
Already young green apples were falling close to the stable, apples that Basil, our tiny young rescue terrier was playing with madly - bringing them to you to throw for him, but not allowing you to take them from him - he does this with the post too - brings it to you in his mouth, wagging his tail, then drawing back at the last moment as you try and get it out of his
mouth. The problem is, if you give up and just let him have the post, he rips it to tiny shreds.
It seems like the thing is this - you've got to get out of the museum of childhood. It's a fascinating place but you can't live there - the wooden toys will never move again and the waxen hands will never reach a destination and will neither implore nor beckon: there is no inner child, only the inner certainty of the promise that the child makes to the adult, only to fade from view leaving you with the harsh choices that will decide the quality of how you live or die.
in the museum of childhood
i stood alone
early music rising
from quarried stone
frozen figures
toys of wood
they coudn't get out
of the mystery wood"