AUSTRALIA II Train from Perth to Adalaide

Erko outside the Indian Pacific train in Cook

Hi everyone

hey I made it to Adelaide almost exactly one month after leaving London! I have so much to say but wont write much right now... hopefully find time soon before I forget it all. Basically I am not regretting this journey at all. It has been very interesting and I think it is really helping me with my confidence traveling independently and besides I am having a wonderful time.

The train journey took 2 days from Perth in western Australia to Adelaide. A lot of desert but I was so busy having fun that I was not watching it too much. I was sitting next to a very mellow truck driver from Kangaroo Island who was plastered with nicotine patches, he said they were great, you can even taste the nicotine on your tongue. I asked him if there were lots of kangaroos on Kangaroo island and he gave me a little look then said that sometimes there are a lot. He said he once killed over 2 dozen because they jumped into his truck as he was driving. "Kangaroos just have NOOOOO sense of road safety! Same as Koalas, but you have to stop for them. Unlike the other animals which you would not mind killing, Feral Cats and crows... they get out of the way!" So for two days and two nights I spent my time playing music, chatting, eating, playing cards, making friends and popping out at the towns to run around and see what is happening.

Sadly we lost my fishing stool and football in Kalgoorlie the town with the biggest open mine in the world ... or maybe just biggest gold open air mine... I did not see that but it is the archetype cowboy town ... I felt like i was in the cowboy playmobile set I had as a kid. Wild bars staying open late for the minors to come after their 12 hour shift when then get drunk and eat and spend money on girls... maybe a little less honky-tonk than that but that was the impression.

Erko in a bar in Kalgoorlie

A very authentic gold rush atmosphere. I went into the first bar and introduced myself to everyone... i shook everyone's hand.. about 50 people... it only took a couple of minutes. Leonardo was celebrating his birthday with a huge gang of mates... all lads... we played happy birthday for him and they all went mad... cheering JIMMY JIMMY JIMMY then I breakdanced a bit and some other kid did a wicked worm so I did some more moves then moved to the next bar... and we climbed on the roof of hotel where Erko kicked the football but could not find the football and the owner phoned the police so we left quick! I was wandering down the road looking at the bright southern hemisphere stars for the first time in my life and a huge road convoy went past... a truck pulling about 4 container-sized trailers! Amazing and pretty scary!

Toilet in Cook

In Cook we also got out in the middle of the day for a short wander about and that was proper desert! Nothing but brush and dust for as far as the eye can see... amazing bright sunlight glare and a few ramshackle corrugated iron shanty huts, a couple of small prison cells under a tree and not much else!

Some nice girls I sketched in the train

We had a little concert jam session on our last night in the train and I took over the restaurant car with nice sing along like songs. Nicole sang very nicely with me and some of the other travelers too. Earlier in the day I did a sketch of the bar:

The Indian Pacific train from Perth to Adelaide - the restaurant car

After Kuala Lumpur, I am delighted to find that the weather at the moment is absolutely wonderful... not hot at all... just pleasantly warm and sunny during the day and the fresh side of chilly at night... So after much excitement and dozing and chatting and long train activities, including Chinese chess and all the different card games we have learnt these last 3 weeks on Asian trains.. we arrived in Adelaide this morning and my aunt Lindsy was on the platform waiting for me... lovey to see her... i was just introducing her to Erko and Louise and our new train friends when i noticed someone was standing quite close and stone the crows there is cousin Harry grinning his grinniest grin. Uncle Johney was on his heels and cracked jokes and had me in fits of laughter... he has a really infectious laugh and great sense of humour. they took me to their home and we had porridge together in the garden with the exotic birds and the freight trains passing behind the back hedge then i had a nap and have been exploring Adelaide for the rest of the day... very nice looking place except for the 70s tower block excrescence, at least it does not look too pretentious. Much bigger town than i thought and reminds me a little of New Orleans with its colonial lay out. I am sure I am going to have a lot of fun here! We are setting off to see a jazz band now in Light square (Colonel Light designed the town before dieing a premature death 3 years later from exhaustion it seems).

I go to the primary school tomorrow where i will teach to see what the deal is. I have to get a document from the police proving i am not a molesterer and a SIM card for my mobile phone!!! fancy that!!! and hopefully in the next few days i will be finished my paintings on the trains and towns of this journey and have some interesting new pictures on the website!
wish you all the best
lots and lots and lots of love
xxxxxxxx
jimmy
xxxxxxxxx

ps if you want to write to me here is my postal address until the end of November
JIMMY MONAHAN
C/O Martucci Family
9 Pulsford road
Prospect
Adelaide
South Australia
OZ

WEEKEND IN DEVON

I have just come back from a wonderful weekend with the HOTSY TOTSY in Devon. On friday we took a train from London to Exeter. There was a lovely Eritraen family sitting next to us on the train and the children were very excited looking out of the window and whooping at all the cows and horses and the rivers. The smallest boy had us all laughing when he told us about going to the sea to catch a fish or maybe a wooden whale and how he did not like the yellow trains because they were stuffy and when absolutely everyone in the train burst out laughing he turned to his brother (about 6 years old I think) and started pummilling him and saying "Its NOT funny!".

From Exeter we  took a little bus along very tight winding roads to Chagford. We had to reverse at lots of spots where there was no room in the tiny hedged lane for cars to pass eachother. We got chatting to a lady living in Chagford who was originally from California. I told her we had no place to stay and at the gig somehow a lovely lady found heard the news and put us up. Her lovely boyfriend Phil took us back to her house (she went to bed early to go to work next morning as a nurse) and we were treated like guests of honour. The next morning Phil drove us to Embercombe, a pretty hard destination to arrive at by local transport... door to door! He was our first guardian angel of the weekend. He is a bass player with THE INVISIBLE OPERA COMPANY OF TIBET and several other bands and has lived the life of a solid musician. He has definitely heard the chimes at midnight and was really lovely to all of us! He went out of his way to drive us to Embercombe even though he was going to arrive late for his auction at Bovey Tracey. What a wonderful guy!

It was great to see all the folks at Embercombe again! It is an alternative community on the western edge of Dartmoor (http://www.embercombe.co.uk/). The people there are so lovely and really sincere. Caring for eachother and their visitors and the earth and our common future! Jo, one of the chief organisers and organic farmers on the site was turning 60 and he was partying to the max. It was a lavish spread of food and we had a swim in the lake and eat our fill and more before playing a couple of sets on the small stage. It was really fun. Several other performers did their thing and I stayed up till around 3 or 4 am (a long time in the country where the nights get dark soon) getting in and out of the hot tub, dancing and jamming out with Tom beneith the wonderful firmament of stars. The next day was all about jamming outside our teepee where we had slept and more swimming and stretching and eating and music and nice shared conversations with the visitors. All lovely people! it was so relaxed and friendly and fun!

This is where our new guardian angel Greg took over. He is a professional guitarist and mouth harmonca player who has a studio for his wrapping paper company near the Dart river towards Totnes but mostly sleeps in the back of his beautiful van. We all piled in and he drove us to Totnes... once again door to door. We had a little picnic in the park on the island in the river dart then strolled up the hill to the Barrellhouse for the gig. We started when the first person walked into the bar and since we had nothing to loose I danced and gave it a bit too much... good time to test out stuff in an informal setting. The first set was fun but the second set really took off when lots more people came out of the night streets and started dancing like mad and after our last song Laurence came up with the wolds most perfect encore! I heard the first few chords and then sussed what he wanted to do and leapt up onto the bar counter and standing next to the spinning silver disco ball I started playing ITS A WONDERFUL WORLD! When Wednesday started singing it was so beautiful i wanted to hug everyone in the audience and I tried with one arm while playing the melody but it went a bit wrong anyhow, people got the idea. It was one of the very very very few times, or maybe even the first time, when i actually felt the thrills and shivers on my back while playing! It was truly wonderful and after the gig I went about with the hat and embracing everyone! It was brilliant! A wonderful shared experience. 

We said goodnight to Greg and he went back to the pub. We will meet again. He handed us over to our next guardian angel, Helen. She is the mother of a former flat mate of Laurence and took us to her small home outside Totnes where we filled the sitting room and spare room with our sleeping mats and bags but all to her delight. She is the loveliest lady and her boyfriend, an artist from a village not far away, makes wonderfully simple and moving watercolours and 3D models and automatons from scrap paper and card. He is so inventive and his work is so positive and full of unsophisticated beauty it reminded me of some great Japanese artists.

We slept long and hard and in the morning took a very long leasurly breakfast and a walk in the local hills before getting a ride to the station and taking the train to Dawlish where we all jumped out and messed around for a couple of hours on the beach and strolling around town watching the Dawlish carnival. The best part by far was the sack races with a bucket on your head! It was truly wonderful! About 60 kids were involved and we laughed and laughed and laughed as they hopped, fell, bumped into eachother and tried different techniques. The funniest was the little boy who moved off at a snails pace and the girl who did not even bother to look out of the hole in her bucket hat but just leapt forward at top speed bumping into anything in her way! 

The train was delayed at Exeter so Tom and I had a breakdance session for 40 minutes there before our train eventually arrived. Who should be on it but our little Eritraen friends who we had sat next to on our outward journey. I came to visit them but like me they were all very exhausted after a wonderful weekend and were all asleep. I followed suit and slept until Paddington station. I met them again at the platform but the small boy was too tired to care about who he met so i just gave his brothers high fives then tootled back home to kings cross!

 A wonderful weekend, lots of thanks to all the in band, Phil, Helen, Greg, Jo and the many others who were so kind to us!

  lots of love

 jimbino

 xxxx

Paintings from Asia

LUANG PRABANG on the Mekhong River

THE CAPITAL OF LAOS

Buddha statues under a tree

The ukulele player for Jaja band in Nagoya Japan in JAJA BAR!

Our hostess in Nagoya in a temple there with a hippy playing jewls harp in the background

Here is a small selection of paintings from Asia when I was there 3 years ago but which I only recently finished. Above is a Noh theatre performance in Japan and below are some of the characters in the traditional masked play:

A kind of devil dog

A royal hunter who slays the devil dog

Some priest or king or samarai

A chinese lady playing a kind of Tsimbalim

Tea cup and Lindyhop dancers sculptures and breakdancer

THE BUSCUIT AND TEA CUP

A mug I made for my dad, you can drink tea from the top and put buscuits to keep warm

in the mouth lower part!

My cup for my dads birthday, with a mouth where he can put his buscuits... not an original idea but an original nose for sure!

I based the figure a bit on my memories of the Green Man

of English myth... he is a wild fella who carries a huge club and represents fertility!

A present for my wild dad! May his energy never diminish! He he!

SCUPTURE OF ALEKSIS AND HANNA REETA

I made a small 15 centemeters high sculpture for our Finnish friends who invite Triin and myself frequently over to Finland for gigs in Tampere at the swing dance school there.

They celebrated their wedding in mid Febuary 2010 but the piece was not yet quite finished.

Hopefully by April it will all be glazed and maybe even painted.

They are a lovely couple and also very good swing dancers with an appetite for fun.

Breakdancer

This is a sculpture of a breakdancer which I made while studying Art Foundation at Filton College Bristol in 2001. I exhibited it in France that summer in Fougeres during my time as a Young European Artist in residence near the castle there and one of the local kids we were breakdancing with stole it from the gallery. Quite flattered! He could have taken the Video player!

artwork summer 2010 estonia

Stadium in tallinn with Edwin my Latvian friend posing.

Some paintings from Tallinn which will describe my life there a little in the summer!

A free open air concert outside the house where I live (Uus Maailm Community House) by visiting Finnish French duo called the bee and the blue sky.

Marta Marmor making string at the Uus Maailm street festival 2009

Some friends at Uus Maailm seltsimaja. Including Erko, Ivo, Eliisa and Maria. Funnily enough the picture of Erko on the top left looks a lot like my friend Bots! Close up pictures below:

Eliisa Ehin

Ivo

Erko, one of my living heros!

My football buddies who live near Triin's flat in Tallinn. From left to right: Artem, Erik, Maxim and Ahmed. They are all Russian speakers with virtually no understanding of Estonian. Ahmed's parents are from Adzabaijhan.

Hannis and his friend playing chess in the courtyard of Uus Maailm. They both work at the Velokuur, the community cycle workshop helping customers to fix their own cycles.

Maria, a lovely Tartu girl who bravely tried to make a documentary about our band in Tallinn.

A coloured in stencil of the bridge bordering Uus Maailm quarter from Kriistina. It looks like a cover of a detective novel. I really like this style and would like to experiment more with it.

The blues man, visiting musicians come and play concerts in our yard. This was a great show by a top New Orleans blues musician. This party continued until the police came.
Pirita beach lies a couple of kilometers east of Tallinn. It was the site of the 1980 watersports olympics and is a lovely spot to bath and relax.

The amazingly entertaining Estonian Blind Orchestra (find out more in my seperate blog all about them entitled Blind Orchestra of Tallinn).

Ago Niklaas, Triin's lovely flatmate. Like everyone in that flat he is a music student. A wonderful young lad who is now serving in the Estonian army for his 1 year compulsary service.

Clarinet player in the theatre in Tallinn

Estonian Banana

Drunk young Finn at my friends wedding carried to the sofa to relax.

My brothers Tom and Louis at New Romny Station on the minature railway in SE England

Tom, Louis (in chair) dad and Klara at our camping site on Romney Marsh July 2010

Brighton Beach, summer 2008 I think

Triin and some other musicians at Herrang dance camp July 2010

A summer's day in Tallinn May 2010

Then we go to the market around the corner where the Georgians and Azabaijanis and Russians sell their fruit and nuts and out of date canned food. I bought a packet of peanuts that should have been eaten in 2008, they tasted quite wrong.

Triin and I played a bit of music by the entrance of the market in the sunshine. The Russian drunks danced a bit. We played a bit of jazz but I feel much more connection to the people when we play Russian music and we actually earn more money that way too. I feel like a duke box when we play the American jazz but the Russian music really connects with the audience and many people smile and talk to us. There is a poor guy with a long beard whom I played a happy estonian song for. He looks like an Old Believer: barefooted and treading slowly, eating scraps of food left in the market and sharing his bread with the pidgeons. He does not care what other people think but seems to want to do nothing but good to the world and live like a bird. He gave us a russian magazine about healing plants that looked really interesting and I offered him money but he refused saying: "I dont need to buy anything."

I reflected about him for a while. And later when I saw the young estonian girl zooming along the street on a motorized soap box think that is popular these days, I wondered if my friend would do that, just for fun... unlikely somehow but I could picture his beard in the wind and a smile on his face. Maybe it is silly to think that, he probably loves his walks with nature.

An old sailor came and talked to us as we were packing up, he told Triin all about his rollocking life. He played violin and one night at sea he decided to learn a classical piece and he practiced it until the dawn and since that day all the crew called him Paganini so that became his nick name. He left the navy and joined the house of composers, a soviet kind of trade union and worked there as a secretary for years and knew many of the Estonian composers that Triin had to study about for an exam so she got a lot of inside knowledge there. I smiled when he talked to me not understanding a word he said but he did not mind.

I went back to triins place and watched TV - I was very tired. Triin cooked me a lovely meal with the food we had bought in the market and I cried a lot as I watched a programm about a Welsh choir. Welsh music has always touched me very deeply and I get very emotional about it. Maybe I missed my homeland, or I wanted a homeland to miss, anyhow, I felt lost and confused but the music was very beautiful and it make me want to come back one day and write songs about our valleys and hills and try not to feel like a fraud.

I left the house and sketched the street outside the market. The market had closed and I drew the big chestnut tree with the leaves all flying like hundreds of green flags in the wind. The road was empty and bare and and in the distance the factory chimney stood proudly. The grey housing blocks were still and clean in the sharp sunlight. My little friends came to talk to me: Erik, Ahmed and a couplle of others. They are russia speakers who live near Triin and we play soccer together a couple of times each week. They are all under 14 and very social with me but not so nice to Estonians sometimes. I offered to put them in my drawing and they patiently sat and chatted. They have a very free life walking around with their friends most of the day in the summer when the sun shines.

I played some music outside the old bookshop in the centre of town opposite St Nicholas church. The clouds above are fantastic. Tallinn truly has great clouds in the sunshine, real puffballs, rolling monsters in the sky beefing up and booming and crashing and such solid white you could drop a ton of lead from above and expect to see it bounce bounce bounce. After a little music I cycled to the community house where I also often sleep. There was a movie night going on. I painted a bit, getting ready for my exhibition, in fact I painted until the early dawn. At 3am a neighbour came by and asked if he could come in and he chatted to me as I finished my last painting. He has 6 children from two wifes, both divorsed, and is a writer. His daughter had her 7th birthday party today and she is such a lovely girl called Sissy, one of my best friends here. People here really are lovely but maybe a bit precautious for me. Too careful somehow, but the Russians provide my rougher entertainment if I so desireth.

The Russians are so open and although they are isolated from the world somehow they are also intelligent. I get a lot of practice talking to them. Estonians all speak good english it seems, so I find it harder to enter their mind word-world. Still trying to get there!

It is 2am again; the sky is a deep blue like the bottom of an exotic sea and in the distance a strip of white is shining where the sun is leaking over the horizon. I am going out on my bike to Triin's place through the empty streets clean from the sun and the wind and the silence. Going out alone at this hour and this time of year is a spiritual quest. The long days of sunshine steal your weariness away. Triin is cooking me a cake for a midnight feast and maybe I will paint a little more when I get there.

My soul is relaxed from a long day but not tired. My mind is as clear as a glass of green tea but mostly because it is not thinking about anything too much. The girls are all so beautiful here that you stop feeling attracted by beauty alone, since they are all so healthy looking.

What is most important it seems to me is the mental connection. That is definitely one of my priorities for falling in love, like Benjamin Zephaniah says: 

Sure I want to touch your body

Sure I want to touch your body

Sure I want to touch your body

 But first I've got to touch your mind!

And now, without any carnal feelings at all I will ride out alone on the streets under the theatrical orange street lamps across this flat town full of so much miraculous beauty, so beautiful at times that it feels like my mind is going to burst as I contemplate it all. 

BLIND ORCHESTRA RECORDING SESSION

On saturday I woke up early in the New World community centre and dashed round to the Blind Peoples House where the Blind Orchestra practices. I am a member of the orchestra but dont worry, my sight is still fine, people with good vision are invited to join to make up the numbers. There are only about 5 or 6 fully blind people and a few more with other sight problems but most of the rest tend to be pretty wacky characters, even though yours truly says so himself! On Friday we had a last rehearsal before the big recording session due to take place the next day in a church in Nomme, the leafy suburb of Tallinn.

During the rehersal the pecussionist, a wild looking man with a huge beard and beady eyes, made more beady still by his telescopic spectacles, had me in stiches. For one song there was no music for the second clarinet so I just watched and listened. For this song wildman on percussion has to play maracas. He started off sitting down but gradually worked himself up until he was standing next to the conductor almost turning piruettes and all the time puffing and panting through his toothless mouth. The thing is no-one really notices because they are looking at the sheet music and he is hilarious in the tiny movements and gestures and facial expressions. I chatted with him in the break and he told me in Russian that he knew the conductor from playing 30 years ago in the Soviet Army band. Back then he played euphonium but since he lost his teeth he could not play that any more... I cant imagine how he was on the euphonium.. something like a Red Army version of Thelonius Monk I expect! It must have been hilarious!

Triin slept in very late so I cycled with her to Nomme through the forest and past the graveyard. At the top of one hill there is a great view over Tallinn, the soviet appartment blocks, the industrial port and blue sea behind them. The clouds were beefing up in the sky. The fir trees had been cut down to allow strollers to look out over Tallinn but without them the hillside was eroding into a huge sand pit. In the small centre of Nomme we found the orchestra in the Pitbull pub. It was the sunniest day imaginable and they had somehow once again chosen to gather in a dismal basement pub. Anyhow, there was one cool thing, they had old receiver telephones on each table and you picked it up and ordered your salad. My vegan option was so complicated the cook came out and got it in person! I think the bar was based on some kind of Sherlock Homes theme but the huge mini cinema screens showing motorbike racing and tennis detracted a little from the mood. Anyhow, I saw some cracking womens tennis finals on the TV before Triin and I pottered off to the small church behind the station where the recording was going to take place. The mikes were being hung and chairs put out and since we had woken late for the rehersal and there was so little seating room anyhow the conductor asked if we minded supporting the audience. I can understand why on such a sunny day so few people had turned up to sit in even such a pretty little church. It was good to be outside. The few who had come looked like they did not have much choice... old ladies who had been wheeled there. One old lady was so small and shrunken and skinny that she could have passed for a 8 year old girl... she wore a coloured dress and stockings and her feet dangled from the pew a few inches from the ground while I squeezed into the same sized pew nearby. She had a shaking condition which meant she was eternally rubbing her hands like Shylock but she seemed very happy and spirited. When all was ready the unshaven priest made a little talk about music like a man talking to himself down a well. Triin told me it was nice what he said but not worth translating in detail. The music kicked off with some rousing polkas which were great fun. The little lady started rubbing her hands even faster like Shylock in the finals of the last round of 'Who wants to be a millionaire'. We should bring her round to New World community house kitchen, put her in front of the sink full of dirty dishes and turn some Shostakovich and the water on ... everything would be rubbed clean in minutes!

The action was getting more and more exciting and I was sketching away like mad! The maracas maniac was on a roll... hands in the air like he was a Russian soldier waving on the top of the Reichstag. The conductor tried in vain to get his AWOL pecussionist to stop shaking. He emphatically shook his head and glared at our rattling hear who in reply nodded affiably and started dancing around even more! Since he was at the back of the room there was nothing the conductor could do especially since the two sitting next to him in the corner were blind and unable to confiscate his maracas and since the whole place was all miked up to the gills for the live recording, words like 'put down those bleeding maracas' or 'won't someone disarm that cat' could not be spoken even in whispers! Meanwhile I was trying hard not to burst out laughing.

Luckerly for my bladder attention was drawn to the organ balcony where the blind girls (this time almost of all them blind) sang songs about happiness along with a cheesy cassette recording. The soloist was a young woman with sunken black eyes and a lovely soft voice. Quite moving. They were filmed from the balcony by the tenor player who was off musical duty today... I think he is a bit of a liability too. He was almost falling off the balcony to catch them on video.

The action returned to the nave where the blind clarinet player took a solo. He played very nicely indeed, such a beautiful tone and deft touch. I dont know if I sound like that but there is something lovely and soulful about the long clarinet notes. I can never tell if it is the musician the instrument or my mood. The accoustics were certainly very good. It is also amazing how different a clarinet sounds when you are not behind it but a little distance away! Totally different in some ways! He looked a bit like Bunyap Bluegum's uncle Wattleberry from the Magic Pudding, but without the sideburns. I sketched a few more of the other musicians, especially those with what I consider characteristic faces, very Estonian looking or special. The kind of faces that are too real to be ever shown on the telly!

I really enjoyed the music and would love to buy a CD. Even so, I was relieved they announced the last song, it had been a long concert but the drama was not quite all over yet. A gray haired and stern looking lady stepped up and presented some flowers to the conductor who bowed to the microphone. The lady said a few hefty words of praise and then said the priest was going to talk. I got the impression the priest was her son by the way she seemed to direct him. He hooted a little about this and that and how it was all down to god and then everyone stood to say the lords prayer but there was some confusion about if everyone should stand or not. By the time it was said most people had popped up and sat down a couple of times and then found they should sit down again. Just a bunch of yo-yo-ing to the Lords prayer! "Our father (boiingg) who art in (boiinggg) heaven... etc... etc..."

The grey haired soviet lady led the action out of the church into the lovely sunshine. I lingered by the doorway outside the locked toilet. A couple of minutes later two big musicians came out of the single boys cubical, both of them very chunky brass players. I was a little curious but as I locked the door behind me I smelt the sharp whiff of vodka! I think they had been having a little urgent communion in the boys' loo after a grueling hour long recording!

Triin and I cycled home in the lovely sunshine, stopping to pick marigolds by the railway track which she says she can make honey out of. We filled a whole plastic bag with marigold heads and came home in fine spirits.

one woman cant come... looking away

cant afford to come practicing at home

estonian government put in new pig flu vaccine for free go and vaccine yourself 

young... NOOOO!

not like the tartu orchestra they drink vodka we play instruments

give bottle of vodka to 17year old birthday boy

where is the cake that Ed promised to bring

his brains are sharp he invented a new note stand... he is a great chequers player, not chess, that is too difficult! chess ...no.....

He is the captain of the blind team but he is not actually blind

Tallinn May 2010