Just Being Pure
When I was in college, drinking way too much, and generally under the impression that my life was coming irrevocably unglued, I had a professor assign The Basketball Diaries. This professor divided the class, where we sit, upon our self-perceived ideological lines. We could switch whenever, if our mood changed. Real liberal arts college stuff.
In the course of reading the book, towards the end, after the part where our protagonist and his friends go and get blown by some uptown Boricua trannies for drug money, the professor asked who supported Mr. Carroll’s lifestyle. After some snickering and some wise-ass hands being raised, he asked why the conservative side of the room did not unanimously support Mr. Carroll’s MO.
The right side of the room spat out the usual excuses, ‘Duh, he’s a deviant, junkie, chauvinist, thief, bum, poet etc. etc.’
The professor did not disagree. ‘But,’ he noted ‘he did it himself.’ All-City basketball (which at that time in NYC, would have been regarded as All-World), teenage poetry savant, hustler, drug addict, recovering drug addict, relapsed drug addict, artist. Fuck, read the book.
And read his poetry.
Listen to the ‘Catholic Boy’ record and ‘Pools of Mercury’.
He did it himself. And made it work. Most of it is very good, some of it is great.
Jim Carroll died on 9.11.o9
I get the impression he was more comfortable writing than reading