Jim Does Rutgers
By Cyndi Gentile
The Medium: The Satirical Entertainment Weekly of Rutgers University
September 27, 1995
If you didn’t go see Jim Carrol last Wednesday night, you should be ashamed of yourself. Carrol gave a chilling performance, one in which the true spirit of this seasoned artist came shining through.
Todd Colby, a published poet and musician, began the eveningwith afew intense and feverish poems of his own. The most well received piece was entitled Taking the Bull By the Horns (I think). In it, Colby exploded with wit and anger, employingthis trite clique as a vehicle to a “motivated” moment, as he watched the “bull” drown in the Hudson River. Later, he read a new poem called “Hippieshit”, where he bashed the silly nature of the modern day hippy. (Aside: Colby may not look like your average tie-dye wearing, bead-making hippy, but he certainly rolled a mean joint and smoked up back behind the Rutgers Student Center with the ease of any decent sandal-footed hippy.)
Jim Carrol was quite a different story. Carrol is a slight man with pale red hair, cut haphazardly, but with careful regard to his small, deep-set, dark eyes. Despite his size, he is quite a commanding force. His voice is gruff but clear, and it is easy to imagine him fronting his hardcore punk band, aptly called The Jim Carrol Band. Their greatest hits album entitled World of Gravity was released to a surge of critical acclaim.
But Carrol is more than a rocker turned author, he has been writing all his adult life. The recent movie. The Basketball Diaries, starring Leonardo DiCapprio, was based on Carrol’s novel bearing the same name. He began thatjournal around age thirteen, and it chronicled his life throughhis addiction to heroin and his days of junk-sickness. Carrol has also written several other books filled with short stories and poems, from which heread several pieces.
The first story he read was entitled Curtis Charm. In it, Carrol told the story of a fellow recovering drug addict that had taken a fall from the wagon. Curtis was a bit on the loopy side, and in this funny tale,Carrol is inclined to created a talisman for Curtis to ward off evil spirits. Curtis Charm was recently made into a movie by an independent Canadian film company, and won second place in the Toronto film festival just last month. To that news, Carrol seemed to be quite flattered, if not a littleconfused.
Carrol read several other pieces dealing with a wide range oftopics – from insanity to Kurt Cobain. His most moving piece was one about at welve year old Bosnia girl who had witnessed the execution of her entire family. Though RCPC billed this as a “lecture” Carrol really did anything but. The question and answer period at the end was a big flop, but that’s no surprise. Those who remained were either blown away by his hard-hitting words, or were awe-struck. Jim Carrol is an underappreciated, but talented author. His words serve to inspire and to educate, and it is worthwhile to listen.