I attended both of Jim’s shows at the Bottom Line 9/9/00. I can’t say these were the best Jim Carroll performances I’ve ever seen, but they were still among the most memorable, perhaps because of the flaws.
I think the Bottom Line must be the most difficult venue for Jim to do. I’ve seen him there three times and it’s never been sold out. The audiences are tough. It’s the kind of place where people come in just for something to do (why, I do not know—it’s ugly, dirty, uncomfortable, and the drinks are expensive). Last time I was there, a very drunk guy came and sat down next to me, telling me he’d just gotten out of jail and had wandered in because it looked like a good place to meet people. The Bottom Line is completely different from what you’d find almost anywhere else Jim reads. Anywhere else, typically, the place is packed with people who are there specifically to see him. Not at the Bottom Line.
Additionally, the Bottom Line represents a general hometown audience for Jim, and that’s tough, too. Figure that Jim is famous on three levels: (1) he is a “living legend” because of his biography; (2) he was a rock star; and (3) he is a celebrated and highly respected poet. In New York, the biography doesn’t carry as much punch as it does elsewhere in the world because his story isn’t that unique. Likewise, his rock stardom has collected some dust. As a writer, however, he is worshipped in arts circles and by the hip crowd, as can be seen by the masses of people hanging from the rafters whenever he reads at St. Mark’s. But the Bottom Line crowd doesn’t care much about literature, isn’t interested in a nice turn of phrase or clever metaphor, and doesn’t necessarily know or care who he is. Even though it’s only a few blocks away from St. Mark’s, the Bottom Line is a whole different world, and each time Jim performs there it’s a challenge.
A spoken-word performer depends on the audience’s energy, and the audience energy at the first show was nil. It may have been the opening act, Carl Hancock Rux, sort of a jazz/beat spoken-word thing that, while good, was somewhat depressing. The music was great (standup bass and guitar), Carl Hancock Rux’s voice is fantastic, and the prose poetry was quite evocative. But somehow the combination seemed both too much like beat readings of the 50s and overly melodramatic. The content of the writing was potent enough on its own, but pairing it with such intense music and voice (again, great in themselves) seemed like overkill. In any case, the second show audience responded better than the first to the opening act. The first show audience was dead in the water.
Jim began the first show with a monologue describing a short story he’s working on, then read a bunch of poems from Fear of Dreaming and Void of Course. The pieces he chose were, to my disappointment, almost the exact same selections he read last November at the Bottom Line, with a few exceptions. I was especially aware of this because I’d spent the day dubbing copies of my tapes of the November shows for Allan Pepper, the owner of the Bottom Line. (There’s a no-taping rule at the Bottom Line; Allan let me tape, so I’d promised him I’d copy the tapes for him.) So I was quite disappointed by the reading. However, when Jim introduced the fabulous Lenny Kaye, the show really took off. It was amazing! They did “I Want the Angel,” “Still Life” (duet with Lenny), “Runaway,” and a slow version of “People Who Died.”
Before I get to the second show, I want to say more about the monologue at the beginning of the first show. Jim began by explaining that he had a story he was working on but couldn’t print it out because the printer doesn’t work (suddenly big chartreuse arrows hung in the air, pointing at me), so he was going to just do a monologue. He started off with a bang by saying stating that he had decided to retire because he can’t write anymore, saying the story explains why. He said the story is “true, too, and it’s a distressing period in my life because I’m retiring because I can’t write anymore.”
He began talking about that fateful day when he was about 16 and he ditched school. He was sitting in a restaurant, waiting on his friends, and found a piece of paper someone had left behind; it was a list. The first item on the list was “The Basketball Diaries.” He thought that was an interesting title. Next was “Living at the Movies,” which was followed by a sublisting of titles: “Blue Poles,” “The Distances,” and so on. Then “The Book of Nods” with another sublisting, then “Forced Entries,” then “Fear of Dreaming,” then “Void of Course,” which also had a sublisting. Intrigued, he took this list home and pinned it up on his bedroom wall, beside his girlfriend’s photo (he went into some detail about how hot she was).
A short time afterwards, he was invited to submit some of his work to a prose issue of the St. Mark’s Poetry Project’s literary magazine, The World. The only prose work he had to offer were some diaries he’d been keeping. The editor asked him for a title, and since he didn’t have one, he decided to use the first title on the list he’d found—after all, a couple of the entries referred to basketball games. A few years later, he did the same thing when publishing his first major collection of poetry, calling it “Living at the Movies”; he also used the sublistings to title the poems in the book. So he just kept on doing that with each book and for every poem, drawing titles from the list. He was especially amazed that “8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain” had been included on the list back in 1966 (before Cobain was born). Well, following “Void of Course” there were a couple of other things, but the last item on the list was “The List,” so “The List” (the story he is telling) will be his final work.
I decided to go ahead and summarize this monologue because when Jim came out for the second show, he announced that his opening monologue for the first show had been such a huge flop that this time around he was going to stick strictly to reading from his books. This intro/confession was one of the highlights of the evening, I thought, because it was so damned funny. He described how, in the monologue, he could see the words coming out of his mouth and dropping down to the floor, and he thanked god Lenny Kaye had saved his ass. It was hilarious. In any case, I suspect he’s not going to try that one again soon, but since I think this monologue is significant, I wanted to make sure to document it.
I disagree with Jim that the monologue was a flop; it wasn’t a success with the audience, but it wasn’t a flop either. The “list” monologue is one of the most daring pieces Jim has ever tried, and I was checking out the crowd all the way through it to gauge reactions. When he said, “I’m retiring”, the crowd reaction was a strange mix, with the die-hards up front gasping in horror and the “just hanging out” folks staring blankly. It was interesting watching everyone try to figure out what he was doing, although it was a little difficult for me to be objective because I assumed everyone would recognize the book titles at least—of course not everyone did. I was sitting in the middle section, and I paid special attention to a man who’d come in and sat across the table from me just as Jim went on stage. He got it. A group at a table on the other side of me didn’t have a clue. The folks up front either got it or sat fretting about the end of the Great Poet’s career. Overall, I think most people got it, but Jim told me that after the show that people came up to him asking if he was really going to retire.
Although what I saw at the Bottom Line was very much an aborted attempt, the “List” monologue is a milestone, and I hope Jim will try it again. (I told him afterwards the only problem I saw was that he bailed on it and cut it short –obviously because he thought it was falling flat.) The beauty of Jim’s monologues is in the telling–in the tangents and excesses of detail that you only get when Jim is talking off-the-cuff and has the space to circle around and around and around and finally swoop down and surprise you at the end, when you’re still dizzy. Even if he’s telling an old chestnut of a monologue, it’s always different, always unique, but rarely “perfect.” Perfection is a static quality, and it’s what happens when he sits down and writes it all out, revises it a few thousand times, and publishes it, or records it on an album. I heard “Curtis’s Charm” as a monologue before it was published, and it was magnificent. In fact, the same night he did two other monologues: “The Loss of American Innocence”—it was 100% better than what’s on Praying Mantis; and the raven story from his novel-in-progress—WOW. And he did the Jayne Mansfield monologue beautifully last year at the Bottom Line, second show. Yes, the perfection of the final, written piece is a wonderful thing to behold, a thing to read again and again and find endless sources of amazement. You can always go out and buy the book or album. But nothing compares to a Jim Carroll monologue, which leaves you dizzy in that moment that can never be recaptured.
That said, I want to talk about why the “list” monologue” is important. I began this piece by talking about different audience contexts and the “framework” of Jim’s fame. The intersection of these is the typical audience’s expectation of truthful autobiography from Jim. With most audiences, some knowledge of Jim’s reputation as a diarist can be taken for granted, and this is significant when Jim comes out and does the Jayne Mansfield monologue or any other fictional piece with a first-person narrator. Many people will, without fail, approach him after a reading and ask him for details about the fictional characters he’s created, assuming the stories are true autobiography. It’s also clear that Jim is aware of this, because whenever he reads a piece like “Just Visiting” or “Locked Wing,” he will preface it by saying the first person narrator is not himself. But the “list” monologue is the first time he has brought the audience’s expectation of truthful autobiography to the foreground, consciously manipulating it.
It is amazing how he did this because it reveals how powerful that expectation is. He introduced the monologue as “a story.” But there was enough truth mixed in with the fiction to blind die-hard fans to even the most absurd fictional details he could dream up. His announcement of his retirement would put any fan into a state of shock. That, combined with real autobiographical details, was enough to reel in any die hard. Truth: I talked to Jim probably three or four times on the phone during the week leading up to the Bottom Line shows, including the day before. We specifically discussed the Bottom Line shows and he talked about what he was going to do. He told me Lenny was going to be there—that was decided the day before the show. Well, when he appeared on stage and said, “I’m retiring,” I just about had a heart attack. I was a caught fish DESPITE the fact that he had introduced the piece as “a story” and “a monologue,” DESPITE the fact that he was grinning like a fool, DESPITE the fact that the whole premise of the story was absolutely absurd, DESPITE the fact that I KNOW 99.9% of Jim’s monologues are fiction, DESPITE the fact that I’d been talking to him to him all week. I mean, I listened to him rattle off the names of half his books and “knew” this was a fiction, but, caught up in the “true” details and the sincerity of the delivery, even though I knew “the list” was a fiction, I honestly wondered if he was telling the truth about retiring. I mean, hey, I know how much trouble his computer is giving him. He got me, and he got me good, at least until he started rattling off names of specific poems on the list. That, my friends, is powerful. And the fact that Jim knew the audience expectation, that he manipulated it, is absolutely brilliant.
Meanwhile, the second show was a little shorter than the first, but, even without the monologue, better (here’s a tip: if there are two shows, Jim is always better in the second one). After telling us about his flopped monologue, he read a couple of different pieces, including “With Van Gogh” and “Days” from The Book of Nods (I love the shark imagery in “Days”). I should note that he played with the “I” identity in “Days” as well. He explained that the story is couched in the mother’s admonition before “we” (the narrator and his sister) kill her. No, Jim doesn’t have a sister, but he didn’t say so. Then he did pretty much the same batch of poems again, unfortunately. This time, he introduced Lenny earlier and they did more songs—no “Runaway” this time, but “I Want the Angel,” “Still Life” (duet with Lenny), “Jody,” and a wonderful medley I’ve seen Jim and Lenny do before based on a song called “I’ve Had It” by The Bell Notes (1959):
When I saw her on the corner
Then I knew that I was a goner
I’ve had it, ohhh, I’ve had it
The song begins with the original lyrics, then Jim starts inserting his own lyrics into the song (the examples here are from “Nothing Is True” and “Voices”):
She’s got inscrutable poise
And nihilist charm
She gets her kicks through tubes in her arm
She’s had it, ohhh, she’s had it
Sal and Liz
Sitting in the bus stop
Staring in the eyes of Lazarus
They’ve had it, ohhh, they’ve had it
It’s pretty funny. In any case, they concluded the show with “People Who Died” and a momentous event: Jim forgot the words!
I started this piece with the premise that the flaws may be what made these shows great. Neither of the Bottom Line shows was by far the finest performance I’ve seen Jim give. (They weren’t the worst, either.) But the flaws do reveal a lot about how my favorite artist works.
The biggest flaw, I thought, was that Jim read, with a few variations, almost the exact same pieces he read last November at the Bottom Line. I know why he did that. As a spoken-word artist, as much as a rock performer, Jim gauges and draws upon the energy of his audience. If the energy is positive and strong, he will venture into new material. If it’s not, he’ll stick with what he knows works. The latter is what happened at the Bottom Line, and given the dynamics of the place, it is amazing to me that he did one of his two concerts for Pools of Mercury at the Bottom Line two years ago. That took a lot of guts. And it took some big time balls for him to try out the “list” monologue at the Bottom Line.
The other flaws were technical, in the music presentations. It really took balls to do music sets, unrehearsed, at the Bottom Line. Well, maybe that was suicidal. But, especially given that Lenny agreed to do the show only the day before, the music sets were awesome–Jim and Lenny work together like peas and carrots. However, there were two moments that, as errors, in a way made the shows great. The biggest and most unforgivable glitch was when Jim forgot the lyrics midway through “People Who Died” at the end of the second show. That was an awful moment. People in the front were yelling out the second line of the stanza, but Jim couldn’t remember the first. Finally he got it. What was interesting was that he started rattling off nonsense phrases—the idea was to get the lyrics by capturing the phrasing. He finally got it. But, the first show presented even better worst moments. In the first show, the songs were almost flawless. Lenny was a little off-key on “I Want the Angel,” but the supreme bad moment was when they were doing “Runaway” and boy, oh boy, did Jim ever hit a sour note. He has to actually sing on that one, you know, and anybody who knows and loves Jim as a rocker can’t have any illusions about his singing voice. Holy shit, did he ever miss that note. It was hilarious. He backed away from the microphone, shaking his head with a big grin on his face, mouthing “Fuck,” and “Oh my god.” The audience laughed. You know, the worst thing would have been for Jim to pretend it didn’t happen. But he didn’t. And we all laughed with him. He finished the song, and it was magnificent.
Perhaps it’s just my own fetish, but I love watching Jim Carroll fuck up. When he delivers a flawless performance, you walk away in awe of the power of his words and in awe of his presence. When he fucks up, the seams are laid bare; you see the human being who is the source of those words and know that you’re seeing an ordinary person possessed of extraordinary genius. The real miracle is that this tall, skinny, red-haired character delivering the words is able to carry such tremendous weight on his fragile shoulders. He rarely makes a mistake, but when he does, he acknowledges it, invites the audience in on it, and sails on so that you barely remember anything went wrong. When you’re there, you are aloft with him, mesmerized by his words and his voice, or you’re down on the ground, laughing with him.
I’ve been watching Jim’s performances since 1987, and it’s always like watching a tightrope walker. The beauty of his performances is their rawness, the fact that they are unrehearsed and straight from the gut. You may get fiction from Jim, you may get poetry or autobiography, you may get some pieces he’s rehearsed, and you may get an unrehearsed concert . . . but in a live performance, you are always getting raw Jim, no matter what. He never plans a performance in advance. What you get, always, is Jim At That Moment. Whether he’s reading poems or telling stories or doing songs, it is always a tightrope walk. If you get to see Jim do a monologue, you are experiencing something that will never happen again. When he takes a chance like he did with the “list” monologue, or does music unrehearsed, I remember why I got hooked back in 1987. Every time the man steps out onto a stage, it is a tightrope walk. What is exciting is seeing him venture out onto that rope, every time, on-stage. There is never a net below him, no matter where he is or what he’s doing. That rope is always hung out before him, wherever he goes, and he always takes that walk.