Comments on: ‘It’s too late - there’s no one leftthat I even wanna imitate’RIP Jim Carroll, 1949-2009

By: macaroo

macaroo — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:30:13 +0000

Carl: Scanning your site for the most signifigant items of 09. The death of Jim Carrol has to be #1. I too remember taping the 6 o’clock rock report and Bob Makowitz saying “that’s my pick for the best song of 1980″ refering to “people who died”. That was the first time I had heard the song and wondered why CKOC hadnt had it on the top 40. Carrol’s work (both written and in song) has emerged as influential . Still not sure if folks really do understand the scope of this.
P.S. Thanks for turning me on to Tom Waits, I would have thought “ol 55″ was an Eagles song…

By: tom clark

tom clark — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:02:27 +0000

Carl,

Really appreciated this sensitive, understanding, heartfelt response to Jim’s work. He did indeed work hard at the work. The writing (which after all came before the public figure, and obviously enabled that) did not come easy for him, and the proof lies in the complexity and power and reach of its impact–to which your essay is a lovely testimonial. You have done him proud.

FYI, to sort out my contribution, it came in two parts, the memoir is here:

Jim Carroll

And also I’ve commemorated the funeral service (and the “Catholic boy”) here:

Jim Carroll: Pax Aeternum

By: Tom Wilkie

Tom Wilkie — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:02:26 +0000

Well Carl I’m glad the Waits whiskey jazz image eventually triumphed the Carroll cranking heroin persona, you would have made a lousy heroin addict, as opposed to a good one….

By: zoilus

zoilus — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:36:41 +0000

Oops, the “second” above was - reading Joyce at all was by a lucky accident that involves a funny story about science fiction and my Grade 8 vice-principal, too involved to tell here. Suffice to be said I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.

By: zoilus

zoilus — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:35:15 +0000

Just on the Joyce thing - first, it was Portrait and Dubliners, not Ulysses, which I found too daunting (although listening to lots of a marathon BBC reading of it one Bloomsday sometime in high school helped, I still haven’t done a straight-through reading, tho I think I’ve read most of the episodes by now). Second, it was

And yes, Tom (hi!), I’m not sure whether Waits or Carroll came first, but the effects were different - Waits stirred up dreams of whiskey jazz and the Beats, Carroll heroin punk and poetry… both pretty crucial. (I didn’t explain the heroin thing above - between Carroll, Burroughs and a few other things I for a while had a romantic-fatalistic feeling that I would end up a heroin addict someday, which in real life had the effect of scaring me away from any contact with it. It just seemed so powerful.)

By: Tom Wilkie

Tom Wilkie — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:08:47 +0000

Carl,
Around the time you found Jim Carroll you were going through somewhat of a musical renaissance, you also discovered Tom Waits around this time. At the time I found the music rather dark and imposing but I also knew you were onto something, little did I know it was also the beginning of something. In retrospect Jim Carroll helped you define your tastes, helped you grow and was a part of your adolescence.
Sorry for your loss.

By: Matt Collins

Matt Collins — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:29:10 +0000

Can I join in on the “I read dense modernist prose at an early age” back-pat?

And mention that it is only because of Jim Carroll that reading that sort of thing can get you laid.

By: Brad Nelson

Brad Nelson — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:03:42 +0000

Good to know someone else was reading Joyce at 12, not in the “Ho ho! We were both smart fuckers!” sense (and any scenario involving that line should be immediately followed by “WHAT HAPPENED TO US?”), and I ain’t even going to pretend that my initial clawing through Ulysses retrieved understanding, and I don’t pretend to have any knowledge about you at 12, Carl, but it’s just strangely nice to know that someone else also went for Joyce when he made that jump for “serious literature,” that that was another’s thick spell.

By: sean

sean — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:13:48 +0000

i don’t know jim carroll. now i do, a little. will find more. thank you. this was a good gift to him.

By: Saelan

Saelan — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:55:36 +0000

I only know Jim Carroll by reputation, so the thing that sticks out most to me in this piece is that you read Joyce when you were 12. Quite the prodigy, Mr. Wilson.