CHARLES AND JAKE

 I do believe that words like “Genius” (alongside “Brilliant” and “Hero”) are bandied about far too easily nowadays, but I have recently been re-introduced to two creative people whose work might just qualify them.

The first is Charles M Schulz, whose cartoon work I briefly mentioned in passing yesterday, but it does deserve another mention, because it is utterly, to use the vernacular brilliant.

About eight or nine years ago, I was lucky enough to be visiting Santa Rosa and that just happens to be the home of the official Charles M Schulz museum. Naturally, and in an appropriately “Charlie Brown” manner, on the one day we were actually there, the museum was closed for the day, but, as is the American way, the shop was open, and I treated myself to a large format book about his life and career, a book which was (naturally) chock-full of examples of his “Peanuts” strip cartoon and, as is the way of these things, I was soon roaring with laughter and the content of these four-panel masterpieces of storytelling and observations upon life.

I promised myself there and then that I would track down more of his back catalogue, got into the car, drove off to Bodega Bay, and then did nothing much else about it.

Then, last week, because I was looking for something “light” to read to help me to get to sleep, I noticed my five slim Coronet paperback editions of selected “Peanuts” cartoons sitting on the bookshelf in our bedroom. I’ve had these books since I was probably about eight years old and, whilst I haven’t exactly been reading them every week, I’ve dipped into them from time-to-time, although it must be at least a couple of decades since I’d last done so.

Anyway, not to put too fine a point on it, all five books were devoured, and I’m once again truly astonished at the genius of the man at getting so to the heart and truth of the human condition in such a seemingly simple (although it isn’t) and direct (although it can be quite subversive) manner.

I’m certain that most of the jokes must have sailed over the head of the eight-year-old version of me. After all, I wouldn’t have had a clue about things like baseball or ice hockey or philosophy at that age, so I probably just laughed at the funny little cartoon people, got bewildered at some of the references, and hung onto those books in preparation for my brain to grown “adult” and “sophisticated” enough to appreciate them more fully.

It’s been a long wait, and I’m still not completely convinced that I’m there, yet.

The other creative genius that I’ve recently rediscovered is Jake Thackray.

Regular readers will know that I’ve dabbled a couple of times lately with my own bits of doggerel, the style of which might have been more than a little influenced by both the work of Ian Dury and my vague memories of Jake from my little black-and-white portable TV that I had in my bedroom as a teenager.

Apart from that, and a slight resurgence of interest when an acquaintance of mine did a poster for his appearances at Stoke Art College in the early 1980s, Jake and I had rather lost touch.

In fact I’d pretty much forgotten all about him until I heard of his death in 2002, at an age not too many years older than I currently am, my response to which was greeted with an almighty “Who’s that?” which struck me as a bit of a shame even then, and I was determined to find out a little more about this most obscure-seeming of performance poets.

Well, because it’s me and I am a bit of a procrastinator, it’s taken me more than a decade to decide to follow up on that, but, having trawled around on the interweb a couple of weeks ago looking for some of his work, and having had a particular DVD recommended to me, one which has now been delivered, I have to report that the rumours of his genius are completely and unequivocally true, at least as far as I’m concerned.

As a word-wrangler and story-teller, his songs are a sheer delight – they’re mostly very funny, too, whilst occasionally being thought-provoking, poignant, or downright angry and political.

I know that some of the references, and some of the lyrics, remain unapologetically “Un-PC” to modern ears – a lot of this stuff was performed on the “Folk Club” circuit way back on the early 1980s after all – and maybe that’s precisely why some of his performances on TV have remained buried in a vault somewhere for all these years.

There have been a lot of performance poets down the years. Household names like Pam Ayres, Mike Harding, Ivor Cutler, and John Cooper-Clarke and, to be honest, I’m surprised at how familiar I am with so many of them, despite my regular claims that I don’t really “do” poetry.

Perhaps it’s just that I don’t read poetry… Who knows?

Or maybe it’s just because, at an early age, whilst watching late night telly in my bedroom, a man called Jake managed to get one or two of his silly little songs to lodge inside my mind and make me appreciate the sheer fun that words can bring.

Despite being a regular stalwart on television shows throughout the sixties and seventies, Jake Thackray never had the glittering showbiz career that he perhaps deserved but might not have wanted. Rather sadly, instead he descended into alcoholism, and died in relative obscurity at the beginning of this bright new century, and, although modern poets like Ian McMillan have tried to champion his cause, he still seems destined to remain something of a cult pleasure only to be appreciated by the lucky few who have stumbled across his work.

But his frankly rather brilliant songs and his poems are his legacy, and they are well worth a listen if you get the chance.