At Please Kill Me, home of Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil’s latest projects, Margo Tiffen posts a previously unpublished 2001 interview with Jim Carroll, recorded at the Bendix Diner in Chelsea, where they were joined by Carroll’s friend Stephen. “He really opened up once we got talking,” Tiffen recounts. “After the interview, Jim and I walked around for awhile, he asked me a lot about myself.” They begin by discussing their friend Daniel Grey Marshall’s book, Still Can’t See Nothin’ Comin’, which Carroll blurbed and which initiated the interview. From there:
Then I walked him home to his apartment in Chelsea. He was super nice and cool. I did end up interviewing Daniel as well. This was all just a few weeks prior to 9/11. After that things went so crazy that I never finished the piece on Daniel, and as a result, Jim’s interview has sat unpublished until now.
Jim passed away 8 years later on September 11, 2009. He is one of my all-time favorite writers and I’m glad to finally share this interview! – Margo Tiffen
Stephen: Jim and I have breakfast every Monday and Friday. After he read Dan’s manuscript, I started bringing Dan. Once you bring Dan, then Jordan comes. All these guys are from Wisconsin. Jordan moved into my old space in Brooklyn.
Jim: Stephen and I know a lot of the same people from the scene. Stephen’s a musician and a decorator. He’s a Renaissance Man. Stephen and I started talking after I was in here for awhile, eating breakfast. He turned me on to Dan’s manuscript. Stephen did the cover photo for Dan’s book.
Stephen: I did the whole cover. Then they hired someone else and they totally destroyed it. That’s Dan on the front cover. We shot it up in Hudson where I have a little weekend house. Dan and Jordan used to come up every weekend. I shot pictures of Dan doing all kinds of things — walking the railroad tracks, and this is in front of a cool bar called the Iron Horse.
Margo: It’s a great shot. What’d they screw up, the lettering?
Stephen: See this? This is the worst design. You don’t put this kind of lettering over a photo, something that you can’t read. I do typography and I invented a whole new typeface. There was one block, and one block here. It framed all this chaos. Actually the French edition of this book they’re going to maybe use my original cover, which is a lot cooler. It’s Dan standing underneath the Flatiron building and it reminds me of the cover of… remember the last City of Night cover?
Jim: Uh-huh.
Stephen: That kind of cover. We hope that they use something. Harper screwed up.
Continue at Please Kill Me. [broken link]