Jim Carroll, Poet and Punk Rocker, Is Dead
From the NYT
Jim Carroll, the poet and punk rocker in the outlaw tradition of Rimbaud and Burroughs who chronicled his wild youth in “The Basketball Diaries,” died Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 60.
The cause was a heart attack, said Rosemary Carroll, his former wife.
As a teenage basketball star in the 1960s at Trinity, an elite private school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Mr. Carroll led a chaotic life that combined sports, drugs and poetry. This highly unusual combination lent a lurid appeal to “The Basketball Diaries,” the journal he kept during high school and published in 1978, by which time his poetry had already won him a cult reputation as the new Bob Dylan.
The full obituary by William Grimes can be found here.
Labels: Jim Carroll
Posted by Unknown @ 9/13/2009 05:57:00 PM
8 Comments:
Great loss! RIP Mr.Carroll.
To put Jim Carroll in the same league as Rimbaud and Burroughs requires a tremendous stretch. I'm sorry to hear that he's passed away so young, but let's be honest. The man's talents were severely limited at best.
These are the people who....aaarrrggghhh!
Joe, since you enjoy cracking the whipe to ensure that people stay on topic, maybe you can tell us how this guy dying relates to "The Home of Los Angeles Politics"?
I can't find a single connection.
Maybe you can enlighten us, Mr. Stay on Topic!
Sorry that he died but no-one cares. Unless you have his position on the DWP pipe breaks. Anyway this is a guy who sold blow jobs in the bathroom in Times Square station.
Well maybe Larry Craig might be interested.
In 1978 I lived at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. One afternoon I heard a knock on my door. When I opened it there stood a tall, drugged out looking, skinny guy about my age with stringy red hair. With him were two other guys that were larger and even scarier looking than him.
With a fast talking New York accent and a desperate tone the red headed one held up an LP and blasted into this rapid fire sales pitch: "Listen, I know you don't know me but my name is Jim Carroll and I have a band called The Jim Carroll Band and I am on Rolling Stones Records and Tapes. I have a single coming out next month called "People Who Died". I just this minute got back from England and what I have here in my hand is a copy of the new Rolling Stones album called "Some Girls". This THE ONLY COPY THAT EXISTS IN THE UNITED STATES. I haven't even heard it. Nobody has heard it, not one single person in the U.S. has heard it, but YOU can be the first. My only question to you is: DO YOU HAVE A STEREO?"
Now wait a second, yes I had a stereo, a very nice one as a matter of fact. More importantly I also had a fair amount of drugs in my room that took a whole day of hustling to get and I wasn't about to let this trio of losers bust into my room and take my shit. The album did look authentic though with the Rolling Stones logo and the red-head’s story had a ring of authenticity so I let them in.
As everyone knows the first song on the album is "Miss You" which begins that opening line "nah nah nah nanana" in falsetto. We all had a hard time figuring out if I had the turntable set at the right speed but of course I did. We then listened to both sides of this fabulous album and it was of course, great.
On the way out Jim flipped a paper back book to me which of course was "Basketball Diaries" and said: "Check it out, this is the story of my life. One day you can say you met me."
Now I am glad to say that I did.
Michael Higby - you are wrong many people care that Jim Carroll died and i am one of them. he was a true artist, a true poet, a true fringe/underground person/creator/supporter-not to mention a fabulous and hilarious reader of his work. We need more people like him in this world where art and commerce mercilessly unite to the detriment of individualistic artistic voices. and he was a sweetheart...i met him when i was 17 after his band's show and he was very very shy but sweet to me.
I'm quite sure that people do care. I was lucky enough to hear him read and he was very funny. His accent was amazing, authentic NYC. Maybe he never lived up to all the hype that people made about him because it is pretty damn hard to have people telling you how great you are all the time. You start believing it, and then you disappoint yourself. It sucks. As far as I can tell, Jim was not out to sell himself out. Even his records that flopped were sincere, not pandering. He just wanted to live and create. Amen.
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