Jim Carroll: 8/1/1949 – 9/11/2009 RIP

For most of us, Jim Carroll will be remembered as the author of this book. The Basketball Diaries is  Carroll’s autobiography, his own diaries, written as a boy from the ages of 12-16. And unlike most of us who passed through those ages, Carroll actually had something to write about other than the tortured inner dialogue of adolescence. He led this  tri-furcated life, you see. Basketball star/heroin junkie-hustler/poet-literary prodigy tri-furcation is one mighty feat to pull off, no matter what age you are.  His first book of poetry was published at age 17, Organic Trains. The crowd he traveled with in the years to come included Ginsberg, Warhol, Patti Smith, Dylan, Mapplethorpe; all of them, all of the anti-heroes of my own adolescence. For such a busy kid, Jim Carroll still had a whole lot to do in his 20s and 30s.

Of course in that environment, of New York City, there was punk rock. It was everywhere, unavoidable, viral in an airborne sense of viral; anyone who was anywhere near the Eastern seaboard (and eventually LA), near any city larger than 50,000 people or within reach of late night a.m. radio waves  listened to and/or performed punk music. And so, Jim Carroll, (the once-basketball star/ heroin junkie/poet-literary star) formed the Jim Carroll Band and gave us Catholic Boy with the great track, ”People Died” in 1980, which seems way too late for such a thing, but looking back it all just happened so damn fast. I mean from 1976 when we were first listening to the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and Siouxie & The Banshees and Blondie and X-Ray Spex, to 1980 when we had the Talking Heads in a big way and so many more post-punk bands the whole thing had transformed and gone through two or three mutations including hardcore and Oi in a matter of 6 – 7 years. So yeah, 1980 was really late and “People Died” sounds very tame for so-called “punk.” I was 16, I remember seeing this on television and thinking it was so very, very, very cool and thinking I just could not wait to get the hell out and to New York City! It wasn’t until I did get out that these people became my anti-heroes. It wasn’t until I got far enough from my own cage to see how far the space was between the bars in theirs by comparison. It took me much longer to become polished enough and even years longer still to get educated enough to appreciate Jim Carroll’s intellect as a literary figure. I do now, but I still hold it against him, in my own way. Forgive me. Mourn his death. Appreciate his genius as he reads “Terrorist Trousers” from Praying Mantis … buy it. Pick up a copy of Catholic Boy here.