Artist Carroll fills Pig audience with words, music
The Michigan Daily
When he speaks extemporaneously Jim Carroll's voice is a sputtering motor. It drones to churn out words and chokes on 'um's, hurting the potentially sensitive ear. Anyone familiar with Carroll's most well-known work, "The Basketball Diaries," understands that an infamous heroin addiction in his younger years must be the origin of his rough voice.
Yet when Carroll reads his poetry, or short stories, from the page, his voice flows in lucid motions like a canoe cutting across a stream. His tone is as smooth and vibrant as the boyish red hair, which he brushes away from his eyes in mid-speech.
The urban "post-beat" poet captivated around 200 listeners at the Blind Pig Friday night with a 70-minute performance, including a monologue and poetry from his most recent book, "Void of Cause."
Carroll's narrative styles on and off the page differ greatly as he evolves from a long-winded, raspy-voiced comedian, reciting a monologue about avoiding the literary taxi drivers in New York City - his home town - to a sensual poet whose words evoke imagery. "Once I told a girl she had breasts like bleeding lemons, and she thought that was a beautiful thing to say."
As quickly as he shifts from the raspy, in-your-face monologue to lucid poetry, he falls back on the storytelling voice during his "de-briefing" after the show.
Upstairs, above the Blind Pig he asked Ann Arbor poet, and close friend, Ken Mikolowski how the monologue went over with the crowd - mostly students, and a few older artists. Carroll described reactions to this same monologue at other gigs: "When a heckler doesn't like my monologue and approaches me, usually I use Paul Newman's line from 'The Hustler,' 'Don't mess with me. I don't rattle, kid.' But this one time in California, before I got my calm on stage, I just hollered at the guy, "I'm gonna kick your ass, man!"
Combined into one act though, his two different styles open a window into the fascinating, if not provocative, life Carroll has led. Growing up in a strong Irish-Catholic neighborhood, the tall and lanky Carroll developed tremendous basketball skills, and he used them to land a scholarship at posh Trinity High School. His days as an athlete were short-lived, however. Carroll fed his growing heroin addiction by stealing and hustling gay men, and he recorded all this in his journal between the ages of 12 and 16, (1962-1966).
These tales later bore fruit when he published "The Basketball Diaries" in 1978, his most famous book to date. Most of Jim Carroll's fans know of him through this work, since it was adapted into a film in 1995, with star-studded Leonardo DiCaprio playing the role of Carroll.
Despite the acclaim and money that "The Basketball Diaries" have brought him, the book has also been his Achilles' heel. Carroll, a different man who successfully kicked the heroin addiction when he moved to Bolinas, Calif. in 1974, has written four books since then. He'd like to think his talent as an artist, and not the awe people have for the DiCaprio-Hollywood typecast who battled the mean streets and came out OK, make him successful.
"I was a total recluse in California," Carroll said as he unwound with two cups of coffee, cream and sugar, after his show at the Blind Pig. "I never would have been able to get away from the heroin in New York. California was conducive. The highlight was walking my dog (Jo-mamma) down to the post office."
"The Basketball Diaries" have also fallen under intense scrutiny in the last half-year because people have drawn a connection between the mass murders in Columbine, Colorado and the book. Each of the culprits, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris owned a copy of "The Basketball Diaries," containing a dream sequence in which Jim strides into his classroom wearing a trenchcoat and swinging a shotgun, then proceeds to massacre the teacher and the other students, in slow motion.
Fearing that the book's sales were on the plunge, (the book was banned by conservatives in Georgia in 1998), Carroll tried to put the anxiety to rest by appearing on "The Today Show" and explaining himself.
Carroll is, after all, far from a political man. He is an artist - a poet, an alternative comedian, a musician and a great storyteller.
When he speaks extemporaneously Jim Carroll's voice is a sputtering motor. It drones to churn out words and chokes on 'um's, hurting the potentially sensitive ear. Anyone familiar with Carroll's most well-known work, "The Basketball Diaries," understands that an infamous heroin addiction in his younger years must be the origin of his rough voice.
Yet when Carroll reads his poetry, or short stories, from the page, his voice flows in lucid motions like a canoe cutting across a stream. His tone is as smooth and vibrant as the boyish red hair, which he brushes away from his eyes in mid-speech.
The urban "post-beat" poet captivated around 200 listeners at the Blind Pig Friday night with a 70-minute performance, including a monologue and poetry from his most recent book, "Void of Cause."
Carroll's narrative styles on and off the page differ greatly as he evolves from a long-winded, raspy-voiced comedian, reciting a monologue about avoiding the literary taxi drivers in New York City - his home town - to a sensual poet whose words evoke imagery. "Once I told a girl she had breasts like bleeding lemons, and she thought that was a beautiful thing to say."
As quickly as he shifts from the raspy, in-your-face monologue to lucid poetry, he falls back on the storytelling voice during his "de-briefing" after the show.
Upstairs, above the Blind Pig he asked Ann Arbor poet, and close friend, Ken Mikolowski how the monologue went over with the crowd - mostly students, and a few older artists. Carroll described reactions to this same monologue at other gigs: "When a heckler doesn't like my monologue and approaches me, usually I use Paul Newman's line from 'The Hustler,' 'Don't mess with me. I don't rattle, kid.' But this one time in California, before I got my calm on stage, I just hollered at the guy, "I'm gonna kick your ass, man!"
Combined into one act though, his two different styles open a window into the fascinating, if not provocative, life Carroll has led. Growing up in a strong Irish-Catholic neighborhood, the tall and lanky Carroll developed tremendous basketball skills, and he used them to land a scholarship at posh Trinity High School. His days as an athlete were short-lived, however. Carroll fed his growing heroin addiction by stealing and hustling gay men, and he recorded all this in his journal between the ages of 12 and 16, (1962-1966).
These tales later bore fruit when he published "The Basketball Diaries" in 1978, his most famous book to date. Most of Jim Carroll's fans know of him through this work, since it was adapted into a film in 1995, with star-studded Leonardo DiCaprio playing the role of Carroll.
Despite the acclaim and money that "The Basketball Diaries" have brought him, the book has also been his Achilles' heel. Carroll, a different man who successfully kicked the heroin addiction when he moved to Bolinas, Calif. in 1974, has written four books since then. He'd like to think his talent as an artist, and not the awe people have for the DiCaprio-Hollywood typecast who battled the mean streets and came out OK, make him successful.
"I was a total recluse in California," Carroll said as he unwound with two cups of coffee, cream and sugar, after his show at the Blind Pig. "I never would have been able to get away from the heroin in New York. California was conducive. The highlight was walking my dog (Jo-mamma) down to the post office."
"The Basketball Diaries" have also fallen under intense scrutiny in the last half-year because people have drawn a connection between the mass murders in Columbine, Colorado and the book. Each of the culprits, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris owned a copy of "The Basketball Diaries," containing a dream sequence in which Jim strides into his classroom wearing a trenchcoat and swinging a shotgun, then proceeds to massacre the teacher and the other students, in slow motion.
Fearing that the book's sales were on the plunge, (the book was banned by conservatives in Georgia in 1998), Carroll tried to put the anxiety to rest by appearing on "The Today Show" and explaining himself.
Carroll is, after all, far from a political man. He is an artist - a poet, an alternative comedian, a musician and a great storyteller.
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