Jim Carroll, We Salute You, Brother
My voice has a quiver.
A quiver is where you keep arrows until you shoot them.
–Jim Carroll, “The Child Within”
Punk rock poet and memoirist Jim Carroll, best know for The Basketball Diaries and his band’s morbid 1982 hit single “People Who Died” just died of a heart attack in his Manhattan home on September 11th.
He was a prolific talent who led a fascinating life, and a true NYC iconoclast. The body of work he leaves behind is a bristling brew of passion and nihilism, low-balling humor and highbrow intelligence.
You gotta admit, sixty full years of life yielding an illustrious career in writing and music ain’t a bad inning for a scrappy juvenile delinquent who got hooked on heroin at 13. I’m glad he made it. Rest in peace, Catholic Boy.
September 13th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
I was a young fella when the film version of The Basketball Diaries came out and adored the film then (hasn’t really aged too well though) and quickly was on the hunt for his work. After the hype of the film faded I was still happily reading his work and enjoying the fact he’d do readings and the like well into an age he probably never thought he’d see.
The liner notes for The Best Of collection of his music is worth reading and checking out, has a lot of nice little bits of info. My favorite pic of him remains the one with Patti Smith.
Rest in Peace.
Think I’ll go listen to “No More Luxuries” a couple of times…
September 14th, 2009 at 2:43 am
Holy serendipity batman! Having spent the whole weekend buried in work, I missed the news but less than a couple of weeks ago I finaly got a chance to see the (not really faithful) movie taken from the Basketball Diaries book. That set me up on memory lane big time: I remember stumbling on a copy of the book at my library when I was fourteen and getting blown away while reading it with the fact that he managed to do so much (both good and bad) at such an early age…
September 15th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Never heard him before. He’s great!