20 Questions: Jim Carroll
Biography: If the Hudson River could talk, it might sound like Jim Carroll: It has been 15 years since Jim Carroll’s autobiographical tale of heroin addiction and These days, the 44-year-old Carroll wakes up at four in the morning and starts His band, the Jim Carroll Group, broke up in 1986 and he has turned down many offers Carroll will be reading at the Tin Angel on Saturday, July 22 at eight and ten p.m. Are you still inspired by the energy of New York City? I suppose I could draw some energy from being downtown or going to a show or At this point in my life I don’t draw my inspiration from anything except my own Sometimes it’s just straight inspiration, usually it’s some overwhelming event, like Have you always wanted to write novels or is this a recent development? I like writing prose. All my prose has been autobiographical, aside from the prose in The These ideas for novels were like a gift. I’d never had a sustained idea before, where The other book is more fragmented, closer to my other work. They’re both in the third You’ve been clean for a while now, right? Yeah, Yeah. How do you feel about being a role model for the creative use of drugs? When all this publicity came after The Basketball Diaries came out it People thought that they really knew me and thought I hadn’t changed. They thought What do think about The Basketball Diaries – as a movie, as a The few people that know me from those days that saw the film think there’s a I remember when I saw the first rough cut of it with Lou Reed. He knew me when I was There were some scenes like, when he’s crying outside of his parents’ door, that hit a I like the movie on its own terms just because the acting was so good and Leonardo was In the movie I’m in Catholic school all of the time. I thought Marky [Mark] and Gene They brought in Ernie Hudson’s character, Reggie, to try and get Leo straight. When Leo was wising off to Ernie after he got straight, saying: “Hey get me a bag Scott Calvin, the director, is a real techno guy and he tended to tune things out. The With The Basketball Diaries I didn’t have any agenda. It’s not a pro-drug book Are there any young poets that you like in particular? My taste in poetry is not the gods of poetry slams or the people who are on MTV Are you religious? I like the rituals of Catholicism. I like the feminine side of it — the cult One of the novels I’m writing is about two priests. So I’ve had to read the Gnostic Are you in contact with Patti Smith much? Well, Fred, her husband, died and then Todd, her brother, died a month later. I I did speak with her because the Mapplethorpe biography came out. I hate to do those What do you think is the staying power of The Basketball Diaries? That book is very old; I guess it’s honest, and it’s written from the point of Jim Carroll will be reading at the Tin Angel on Saturday, July 22 at 8 & 10pm. ©1997 CP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. The original article was found here
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