Jim Carroll, who wrote “they were all my friends when they died” has died. He was an artist, but most notably he was a teenage junkie who played basketball. As someone who got kicked off his own high school basketball team for showing up to practice barefoot and giddy on Mandrax, I owe Jim Carroll for inspiring my own dysfunction.
I used to see Jim around in the 90s and he was always cool, the personification of a fashionable rakehell. He was a lifer and it was his life, more than his art, that made him a NYC icon. Almost in spite of the partying, rakes are in it for the long haul. Perhaps the pursuit of sex is a viable hedge to lives strung out on art world decadence. By my thinking, a fountain of youth tied to dressing like a dandy and hustling anything that moves is in every way preferable to the prospect of colloidal silver enemas or wheatgrass shots.
Jim had been an eerie specter for the last twenty-five years and the fact he was alive last week is the real shock. Dead at 60 of a heart attack isn’t a particularly romantic exit, but at least he didn’t quit life. Becoming a punk/counterculture legend for stuff you did as a kid must be a strange notoriety to live with, yet I don’t think he was sweating his legacy and, who knows, perhaps checking out on 9/11 actually offers one final shot at poetic allusion. RIP Catholic Boy. I’m just glad he didn’t OD on Drano®.
Leave a Reply
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Yeah, this one hits hard for me. Thanks Trace.
09.15.09 at 10:50 am
“By my thinking, a fountain of youth tied to dressing like a dandy and hustling anything that moves is in every way preferable to the prospect of colloidal silver enemas or wheatgrass shots.”
Bingo.
09.15.09 at 10:54 am
Dude was Dash Snow with a tolerance and despite the obvious junkiness of cats like JC he was a preferable option to the Connecticut sweater set that now dominates downtown.
09.15.09 at 11:00 am
“He was sixty when he died! He was a friend of mine!”
09.15.09 at 11:25 am
Looked like 65 when he died
09.15.09 at 11:28 am
I wonder if this means all of Burroughs jack off buddies are gone.
09.15.09 at 11:43 am
Solid guy. Backed hard. He looked 80 ten years ago.
09.15.09 at 11:53 am
Le vrai bon vivant.
R.I.P.
09.15.09 at 11:59 am
Never knew anything about the guy, but I always loved the manic sincerity of that song. I like that it feels like both an anguished lament and a rockin’ celebration of his friends. RIP.
09.15.09 at 12:08 pm
Basketball Diaries one of my favorite movies. Strangely enough it only grossed like half a mil.
09.15.09 at 12:22 pm
Here’s to gym rats and white knuckles. I’m sure Lux has a nice hot pot of coffee waiting for him.
09.15.09 at 12:32 pm
This should be a warning shot fired across your bow Agent Mule
09.15.09 at 1:27 pm
May I be granted the grace and affection to be given an obit by Trace. Now to do something interesting with my life….
09.15.09 at 1:51 pm
I still have him on vinyl, and some of his books. He was a part of my growing up. RIP I never saw the movie though…
09.15.09 at 2:17 pm
put a donk on it.
09.15.09 at 2:53 pm
I can’t believe he made it to 60. My dad was 43 when he died, and he did not let old guys blow him in subway bathrooms for cough syrup and heroin money.
09.15.09 at 2:55 pm
Great song, great influence. At 44, my list of dead friends is unfortunately growing.
09.15.09 at 3:45 pm
Great man, great influence. I think some of my friends are dying now
09.15.09 at 3:46 pm
i always hated that song. it’s like a shittier version of “88 lines about 44 women”.
09.15.09 at 3:52 pm
RIP LEO! My ass is still making blood babies for you, after all these years. being a junkie poet is about as useful a job as being a plumber poet but even less cos you can’t fix life’s toilet when ya fill it full of shit. I’ve written a haiku about Jim Carroll I’d like ta share with you all N.O.W. (Now Oh Wow)
People Who Dieded
reminds me of being younger
and it wasn’t a happy time so good riddance
(green day reference)
anyway thanks for letting us see the doublemint/sweet valley twins as sluts, that’s helped me cum hard in girls I don’t really like but don’t want to upset many timers
09.15.09 at 4:02 pm
Jesus his song is about as valid as the one the Waitresses did about Christmas. I guess my book will flop unless I confess to stealing from the collection plate at the Cat-lick church so I could wear leather pants and boot up in the middle of the street during a Puerto Rican day parade. His sleepin’-jive-ass-white-boy bullshit makes me look bad even mentioning. Being a methadone flunky roach with a case of ,”MONSTA FACE!,” who can’t even sing good is all this dude will ever be. In Jr. High School we would put quarters on the radiator and then tell the love-tards (THAT’S YOU) we had some money for them, all they had to do was catch it. There you are screaming in pain with a bright red-hot quarter in your hand trying to somehow stuff it in your pocket fast because, ‘Itsa burmin meye fingurrs!”
09.16.09 at 2:42 am