Jim Carroll with Darius James
The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church
NYC, 7 October 1998
THREE REVIEWS: Amme Willowson, Claire Podulka, & Cassie Carter
Review by Amme Willowson
It was a cloudy day, and I dashed out of school when the last bell rang. At four pm we (my dad and I) began our drive to New York City, which would usually take about one hour, but i was not taking any chances. We got there way too early, so we went to eat. I went to St. Mark’s Church at around 7 pm, already there were a lot of people (shoulda seen me freak when I first saw the church!). The doors were supposed to open at 7:30, but of course it wasn’t open until around 7:45. I paid, then with a rush of energy, stepped into this beautiful place! I put all my stuff on the left side and began waiting impatiently. But it was worth it . . .
At approximately 8:30 it began, and after an introduction, Darius James started. He was fantastic, with a lot of power and humor, but as you may know, I was still waiting impatiently to see JIM CARROLL. Halfway through James’s reading, JIM CARROLL came out the side door {NOTE} and even though I couldn’t get a perfect view, I knew it was him and I started crying. Yes, crying!
Mr. James finished with a piece from his earlier book, Negrophobia, and then there was an intermission. I anxiously waited and then IT WAS TIME!!! (You can almost hear the 200-250 people’s heart beating). A woman briefly introduced JIM CARROLL, and then he started. He first read a short piece from his in-process novel, The Petting Zoo. It was funny and even though it was not like The Basketball Diaries, I wouldn’t say it was completely unlike it either. His voice was completely the same as on The Basketball Diaries Audio Literature. He was wearing a suit and glasses and his hair was a lot shorter than I had expected.
I could feel myself shaking as he read each word, and he seems to stop time. Each word is like the sweetest candy I’ve ever tasted, each sentence like the best present. His humorous words made me laugh, then it made me THINK (“gosh, that is so true! How could I have not thought of that before?” my mind exclaimed). He read a poem from Fear of Dreaming (“I’m Not Kurt Schwitters”), then he moved on to Void of Course. He read “8 Fragmants for Kurt Cobain,” and I felt his emotion and I felt his words (and I’m not a fan of nirvana!). Since I had chewed the book beforehand, I knew most of the poems and it was so A-M-A-Z-I-N-G to have JIM CARROLL read them. Some of the poem when I read them, i didn’t quite get it, but when he read them, everything became crystal clear. The jokes, metaphors and everything suddenly made sense to me! I recited with him in my heart what I remembered, and his each movement created a wonder for me. I especially love “what burroughs told me” (ha ha ha to you too!), his prose poem “The Ocean Below,” and the last poem, “My Ruins” on Pools of Mercury, which, along with Void of Course, The Basketball Diaries, and Fear of Dreaming, were on sale at the church. Also the poem “Message Left on a Phone Machine” was fabulous (I can go on and on about the poems I love cos I love them all!).
When he was done, he just said thank you, and everyone started clapping like mad. I went up to him so he can sign my copy of Void of Course, and I wanted so bad to say something like thank you!, but instead was too shaky, so I just said something about my friends and me loving his music. He suggested that we get his new cd, which I will, when I find it. Since there were about 200-250 people waiting behind me (i was in the beginning), there wasn’t too much time and after he finished signing his name in a strong and beautiful script, I left, melted back into the heat and light of New York.
On the way back, it started to rain slightly, and the rain washed away years of lies and faked smiles, as JIM CARROLL spoke of the truth in such a language that makes he so magnetic on that unforgettable night.
Here’s my “morning after” report on the reading last night…
After meeting Cassie (as she says, very briefly) my friend and I (who was not a JC fan before) took our seats and who walks into the room but Mr. Jim Carroll. This is the man whose writing had changed my life by convincing me to stick with poetry and writing in general and not give up my dreams (sorry for the lame cliche). I wanted to talk to him but of course I didn’t have the nerve and knew I wouldn’t be able to say an intelligent word anyway (when he signed my book, I said something typical like “that was an amazing reading”).
Anyway as to the actual reading…. Darius James, I must agree, was terrific… hilarious and really energetic. And JC was of course outstanding (although short). I’d never seen him read in person before, but I was definitely impressed. He did “What Burroughs Told Me” in a Burroughs voice; it was great. He also read a passage from his novel-in-progress, and one poem from Fear of Dreaming (“I am not Kurt Schwitters”). Mostly Void of Course stuff, including “Message Left on a Phone Machine” and “8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain.”
I was most impressed with his humor, I’m so used to poets taking themselves too seriously. I wish he’d read “While She’s Gone” and more of his old stuff, but I loved what I saw.
Great show, anyone who has a chance must see him read! I can’t wait to go see him with the band next month…
I wasn’t thrilled out of my mind with Carroll’s reading, but only because it was short: only about 45 minutes. How ironic that one of the few times I decide to contribute a review to my own damn website, it’s a negative one. Darius James was terrific. He gave one of the best readings I have ever seen in my life! James is the author of Negrophobia : An Urban Parable, and That’s Blaxploitation : Roots of the Baadasssss ‘Tude (Rated X by an All’Whyte Jury). AMAZING stuff!
Really, I have nothing to say about Carroll’s reading. I thought it was the most perfunctory, uninspired Jim Carroll reading I’ve attended in the 11 years I’ve been going to Carroll’s readings. Maybe I was expecting too much. First of all, the place wasn’t exactly sold out. About half of the seats, those in the FRONT, were reserved for people from Mercury Records who didn’t bother to show up. Second, in my experience, it usually takes Jim at least half an hour to relax and start showing his amazing performance personality. Since he read for only 45 minutes, he quit just when he started getting good. In any case, I think the highlight was “What Burroughs told Me,” featuring his fabulous Burroughs imitation, always a guaranteed hit with me.
Here’s what he read:
Excerpt from the in-progress novel The Petting Zoo: On top of the Empire State Building
From Void of Course: Am Not Kurt Schwitters 8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain Facts Poem (“Female as Thunder”) Poem (page 10 in Void of Course) Sick Bird Spy Radiation Poem (pages 50-51 in Void of Course) What Burroughs Told Me Poem (page 71 in Void of Course) The Ocean Below Poem (pages 94-95 in Void of Course) The Bakery Poem (My Ruins)
Even if I wasn’t thrilled by the reading, it was great to meet and hang out with several people I’ve “met” via e-mail and the Jim Carroll list. I was there with Steve Perrin (surely you’ve all read his dissertation chapter on the website by now), who came to NYC from Liverpool, England, especially for this reading, and S. Kevin Wojtaszek, whose fabulous review of JC’s Great American Music Hall (San Francisco) reading last year I’m sure you have all devoured! I also met Kosta, a Deaf guy who’s been e-mailing me for a long time. Amazingly enough, with some effort, we got a sign language interpreter for this reading. That was GREAT! And I briefly met Claire from this list. And I met a brand-new website discoverer, Daniel, who I hope will be joining this list soon. On top of all that, I talked to Jim a little bit as well as Lenny Kaye. If you’ve followed my Jim Carroll adventures, you know I met Lenny after the show he did with Jim at Cornell University in 1997–if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read my review of the Cornell show, but in short, after the Cornell show, and after our favorite party animal, Jim Carroll, headed back to his motel room at some hideously early hour, I was Lenny’s pool partner. Lenny is Patti Smith’s guitarist, was a member of the Jim Carroll Band, and he produced Suzanne Vega. He co-wrote “The Beast Within” with Jim and appears on Pools of Mercury.
When I first went up to talk to Jim before the St. Mark’s show, he was sitting with Lenny, who was seeing Pools of Mercury for the first time. The liner notes say, “This record could not have been made without sapient insight of Lenny Kaye.” I got to watch Lenny see this and give Jim a big juicy kiss on the cheek. It was wonderful.
As you may have guessed, I have a soft spot in my heart for Lenny Kaye. After I met him that first time in Ithaca, I seem to keep running into him . . . and he always remembers me. After the 1997 Allen Ginsberg memorial at the Jewel Heart benefit show in Ann Arbor, Patti Smith and band did an impromptu show at an Ann Arbor coffee shop. While the band was getting set up, Lenny kept running out from behind the curtain, so I snagged him at an opportune moment, and sure enough, he remembered me. He talked to me for a few minutes, disappeared behind the curtain again, came back out to borrow a pen from me, then returned it, etc. It was really funny to watch the Patti worshippers sitting next to me–who could have talked to Lenny just as I was doing, but who chose to instead sit there with their jaws on the floor, but I guess that’s another story. Anyway, shortly after I moved to NYC in July I went to see Patti again at the Bowery Ballroom. I ended up hanging out for a while after the show talking to another Patti fan I’d “met” on babel-list, and I figured I’d go backstage and get birthday greetings for Jim from Patti and the gang. Boy was that ever easy. So after I did that, I was standing outside the venue talking to my sworn enemy, JBolt, who runs the Patti Smith Website and hates Jim Carroll with a vengeance, when Lenny appeared out of nowhere. Holy cow, he recognized me.
I love Lenny Kaye. He is a sweetheart.
Okay, not much Jim Carroll stuff here, but hey . . .
Editor’s Note: Not to freak out Amme, but Jim actually arrived at the church quite a while before Darius James took the stage. He came in the main entrance and stood against the back wall for a few minutes, talking to The People In Charge at St. Mark’s, then he sat down on, er, those step things along the right side, where he talked with Lenny Kaye and the woman who came with Lenny. When Darius James took the stage, Jim walked towards the stage and disappeared into the doorway on the right side of the stage. Shortly after that, when Darius James was on stage, was when he came out again. [Back to article]