Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA)
15 August 2001
Review by Rainabird
I have been seeing Jim Carroll perform in S.F. every time he’s been in the bay area since ’96. After logging onto his official website, I learned from other reviews that he does meet-n-greets and even occasionally gives hugs!! Damn, but was I jealous! Every time I’ve seen him perform at the Great American Music hall, he has always dashed off stage IMMEDIATELY after the show, but after reading some of the other reviews I was determined to met this amazing man face to face. Little did I know all my plans were for naught…
From the beginning I knew something was wrong. Jim showed up late and out of breath. It was obvious that he needed some time to unwind, but I figured I’d just ask him to sign my first edition of The Basketball Diaries and then I’d be out of his way. No muss, no fuss.
He was in the middle of an intense conversation, so I figured I’d wait. Just then a short troll-like homeless woman pushed past me. (I knew she was homeless because I saw her park her shopping cart outside the building. And yes, at first glance a homeless person who is willing to sacrifice $13 dollars of their hard earned money seems like an admirable thing . . . but wait ’till you hear what happened next….) Without even asking, she interrupted Jim’s conversation by running up and tugging on his sleeve. “Jim! Jim! I want you to meet my old man! He’s just like you, only he’s black and never been on methadone.” Yes, those were her opening words to him. Truth to tell, aside from being black, her old man was also 6 inches shorter then Jim, over 50 pounds heavier and sporting a large beard. I was hard pressed to see any resemblance, myself.
Jim was polite and tried to continue his conversation, but the woman came back not once, not twice, but three more times until Jim gave up and fled into the back, disappointing the patient line of about seven people waiting to talk to him, alas!!
Once Jim got onto the stage, he was in fine form, starting off with one of those free-flowing monologues that he does so well about how he almost didn’t make it to the show because of serious plane trouble. No wonder he was out of breath! He barely made it to the show in time and he had to transfer planes a number of times. Aside from having a pretty bad cold, Jim was his usual amazing self. The only disappointment was that he didn’t get around to performing any of his songs. That, and the troll-woman ended up sitting right in front of me and she must of been on something stronger much than coffee because she spent the whole time repeatly going through her purse and assorted bags, talking to herself, and pacing the aisles. Oh well. . .