I never really bothered to have a strong opinion about Jim Carroll, the poet, diarist, and rock star who died suddenly last Friday at the age of 60. He swam in the same current as many of my favorite writers and musicians, so I've long known and admired much of his work. But I've never felt much more than that. He was in all the right places, knew the right people, but it always felt like he was opportunely a few steps behind.
Take his cult classic, The Basketball Diaries, which never struck me as even a very good example of writing about drugs. Looking at it again recently, it seems to me it isn't much more than a disjointed collection of clever observations, with a certainly dated shock value, which all suggest raw talent that might lead to something solid with the right influences. But the book itself never gets too deeply into why this nice Catholic jock would go so far off the rails, nor about what any of these misadventures might have to tell a disinterested reader.
His poetry was, I guess, alright, but not really that distinctive from a lot of the kind of stuff happening around New York in the good old days. The Jim Carroll Band, his game effort at rock n' roll/poetic fusion, never went far enough (see the perfectly serviceable version of "Sweet Jane" below, which really doesn't give you any reason not to just listen to Lou's original version again).
The only thing he did that is truly timeless is the song "People Who Died," an unrelenting, upbeat, almost hypnotizing rocker that transcends the ghoulishness of its subject matter to become a very profound assertion of life in the face of impermanence. But even then, the song was just an adaptation of a poem by his friend and mentor, Ted Berrigan.
Carroll gave a reading at Penn when I was there, and I came away impressed. The thing that I remember most was his voice -- this incredible, authentic New-Yawk honk, which sounded incredibly strained and weary croaking out of his tall, frail body. There was something in the way he read that suggested a kind of humility. The kind of deep appreciation many recovering addicts possess, especially one that pissed away what many think could have been a really promising career in professional sports. There was something about him that made you want to root for him, a kind of everyman sense of wonder and awe.
Of course, there is another way to look at this -- Robert Christgau acidly described him as being a phony "who's been charming suckers ever since he ran away from home." (He then goes on to acknowledge that charming this successfully takes real talent. "He's got a great eye, a great memory, great connections. He knows how to put himself across.") I wouldn't be that uncharitable though. You have to imagine him as a fifteen year old kid with a lot on his plate -- one of the best young basketball players in the city, already turning tricks around Times Square to fuel a drug habit, and still finding the time to stalk Frank O'Hara as he walked home from work, just to see what he saw and maybe get an insight into what made his poetry tick. They really don't make them like that anymore -- poetry has become ossified and ridiculous, promising athletes are channeled into the game so thoroughly they barely develop personalities, and the great American stewing pot of New York is a pathetic shadow of itself. He swam in some amazing slipstreams.
Take his cult classic, The Basketball Diaries, which never struck me as even a very good example of writing about drugs. Looking at it again recently, it seems to me it isn't much more than a disjointed collection of clever observations, with a certainly dated shock value, which all suggest raw talent that might lead to something solid with the right influences. But the book itself never gets too deeply into why this nice Catholic jock would go so far off the rails, nor about what any of these misadventures might have to tell a disinterested reader.
His poetry was, I guess, alright, but not really that distinctive from a lot of the kind of stuff happening around New York in the good old days. The Jim Carroll Band, his game effort at rock n' roll/poetic fusion, never went far enough (see the perfectly serviceable version of "Sweet Jane" below, which really doesn't give you any reason not to just listen to Lou's original version again).
The only thing he did that is truly timeless is the song "People Who Died," an unrelenting, upbeat, almost hypnotizing rocker that transcends the ghoulishness of its subject matter to become a very profound assertion of life in the face of impermanence. But even then, the song was just an adaptation of a poem by his friend and mentor, Ted Berrigan.
Carroll gave a reading at Penn when I was there, and I came away impressed. The thing that I remember most was his voice -- this incredible, authentic New-Yawk honk, which sounded incredibly strained and weary croaking out of his tall, frail body. There was something in the way he read that suggested a kind of humility. The kind of deep appreciation many recovering addicts possess, especially one that pissed away what many think could have been a really promising career in professional sports. There was something about him that made you want to root for him, a kind of everyman sense of wonder and awe.
Of course, there is another way to look at this -- Robert Christgau acidly described him as being a phony "who's been charming suckers ever since he ran away from home." (He then goes on to acknowledge that charming this successfully takes real talent. "He's got a great eye, a great memory, great connections. He knows how to put himself across.") I wouldn't be that uncharitable though. You have to imagine him as a fifteen year old kid with a lot on his plate -- one of the best young basketball players in the city, already turning tricks around Times Square to fuel a drug habit, and still finding the time to stalk Frank O'Hara as he walked home from work, just to see what he saw and maybe get an insight into what made his poetry tick. They really don't make them like that anymore -- poetry has become ossified and ridiculous, promising athletes are channeled into the game so thoroughly they barely develop personalities, and the great American stewing pot of New York is a pathetic shadow of itself. He swam in some amazing slipstreams.
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