{"id":4033,"date":"2022-01-10T22:17:49","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T06:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8000\/?page_id=4033"},"modified":"2025-03-02T18:36:36","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T02:36:36","slug":"notes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"ext-thesis-heading\">Notes<br><span class=\"ext-thesis-title\">Jim Carroll&#8217;s <em>The Basketball Diaries<\/em> and <em>Forced Entries<\/em><\/span><br>By Cassie Carter <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ext-thesis-submenu\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"4148\">Title Page<\/a> &nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/table-of-contents\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"4510\">Table of Contents<\/a> &nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/abstract\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"4141\">Abstract<\/a> &nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/shit-into-gold\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"4139\">Chapter One<\/a> &nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/the-basketball-diaries-writing-as-a-weapon\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"4140\">Chapter Two<\/a> &nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/1990-ma-thesis-conclusion-writing-as-redemption\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"4045\">Chapter Three<\/a> &nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/1990-ma-thesis-conclusion-writing-as-redemption\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"4045\">Chapter Four<\/a> &nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/a-jim-carroll-chronology\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"4046\">Appendix<\/a> &nbsp; <strong>Notes <\/strong>&nbsp; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/works-cited\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"4034\">Works Cited<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:50px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">CHAPTER ONE <\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1<\/strong><br>All biographical information is based on a composite picture I derived<br>while researching my annotated bibliography of Carroll. I am drawing from<br>Carroll&#8217;s diaries as well as his interviews and articles about him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2<\/strong><br>Carroll&#8217;s song &#8220;Crow,&#8221; on Catholic Boy, is a tribute to Patti Smith.<br>The song is a sort of mini-biography, documenting the time she &#8220;fell from<br>the stage and landed on the concrete floor fourteen feet below, suffering<br>a concussion and fracturing several vertebrae in her neck&#8221; (Moritz 537);<br>Carroll writes: &#8220;It must be strange to just fall from the stage \/ and<br>snap a bone that is so close to the brain.&#8221; The song also describes her<br>job working in a book store and her residence at the Chelsea Hotel (536),<br>emphasizing her boundless passion and compassion: &#8220;You covered me with<br>blankets in the Chelsea Hotel lobby.&#8221; Finally, he sings, &#8220;I&#8217;d start reachin&#8217;<br>for the scar along your belly&#8221;; Smith had a child by caesarean section<br>when she was 19 (535). The title, &#8220;Crow,&#8221; probably derives from the one-act<br>play she co-wrote with Sam Shepard, titled Cowboy Mouth, whose<br>&#8220;female character, Cavale, . . . imagines herself to be a crow, [and]<br>has kidnapped . . . a family man . . . with the intention of making him<br>a rock-&#8216;n&#8217;-roll star&#8221; (536). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3<\/strong><br>The Jim Carroll Band eventually ended up on the Atco-Atlantic label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4<\/strong><br>Clarice Rivers asked why Carroll called his album <em>Catholic Boy<\/em>;<br>Carroll replied: &#8220;I wanted to call it Dry Dream because I really<br>don&#8217;t like the kind of attitude of rock and roll that is so dominated<br>by sexual images&#8211;it&#8217;s a kind of cock rock . . . So rather than a wet<br>dream these songs are dry dreams.&#8221; Of course, <em>Dry Dreams<\/em><br>became the title of his second album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>5<\/strong><br>I derived the &#8220;real&#8221; identities of characters in <em>The Basketball Diaries<\/em><br>while researching my bibliography; however, no source directly documents<br>the aliases in <em>Forced Entries<\/em>. I concluded from a comment Carroll<br>made to Chet Flippo that Frank Smith is &#8220;Mr. Brothers&#8221; (BBD 34), and Carroll<br>unveiled the identities of &#8220;Jenny Ann&#8221; and &#8220;D.M.Z&#8221; to me personally when<br>I talked with him in July of 1989. I gleaned the identity of &#8220;Gloria Excelsior&#8221;<br>from Victor Bockris&#8217;s biography of Andy Warhol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">CHAPTER TWO<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>6<\/strong><br>This is a lyric from &#8220;City Drops Into the Night,&#8221; on <em>Catholic Boy<\/em>,<br>which I discuss in the final chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>7<\/strong><br>See my discussion of Carroll&#8217;s song &#8220;People Who Died&#8221; in the final chapter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>8<\/strong><br>It seems clear that in this first entry Carroll is establishing his illegitimacy&#8211;his<br>status as an imposter&#8211;in the Biddy League, as well as the illegitimacy<br>of the whole system he wants to enter. He does precisely the opposite<br>in <em>Forced Entries<\/em> where, in the first entry, he legitimizes himself<br>by naming off famous people who share his birthday (and also places Jerry<br>Garcia in the same category as Melville and Claudius).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>9<\/strong><br>To illustrate the effects of a failed performance, Carroll describes the<br>ultimate &#8220;un-punk&#8221; performance by John, &#8220;a rookie at the top&#8221; like Carroll:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Scared shit and mouth wide, he peeped one more time into the river, waved<br>at the waiting sightseers, took one step back, five hundred deep<br>breaths, muttered, &#8220;Fuck it,&#8221; then yelled out the same thing,<br>clutched his balls with both hands and jumped. Down he was going,<br>legs spread far apart, and jitterbugging like he was doing the<br>Popeye or something, still clutching his crotch. &#8220;Bad form,&#8221; I<br>sighed, as he hit the water, and what a fucking understatement<br>that was. It was pitiful, he hit the water like a fucking octopus,<br>limbs flying everywhere, and the splash contained a smacking sound<br>that hurt all the way up to me at the top of the cliff. When he<br>came up to the surface he swam to the shore with one hand paddling<br>and holding onto his sore, sore ass with the other, so that he<br>was slow enough to get attacked by a fair sized shit line. . .<br>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The fact is that, if you&#8217;re going to perform, you&#8217;ve got to do it right. John&#8217;s<br>performance provokes no response from the audience, with &#8220;the whole fucking<br>scene having Danny,&#8221; the only experienced jumper, &#8220;in stitches over near<br>the tracks.&#8221; In other words, John made a fool of himself. (49-50) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><strong>10<\/strong><br>In Catholicism, confession is the second stage of penance, which is &#8220;one<br>of the sacraments . . . relating to the expiation of sins after baptism.&#8221;<br>The three steps comprising penance are: (1) contrition (&#8220;sorrow that one<br>has sinned coupled with intention to abstain therefrom in the future&#8221;);<br>(2) confession (&#8220;acknowledgment of one&#8217;s sin to a priest&#8221;); and (3) satisfaction<br>(&#8220;carrying out works of penance assigned by one&#8217;s confessor; almsgiving,<br>fasting, praying, reparation&#8221;). . . . &#8220;Upon completion of the three steps,<br>absolution, or reconciliation with the Church, is granted by the priest<br>as a temporal sign of the sinner&#8217;s reconciliation with God&#8221; (Reese 421).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>11<\/strong><br>He does find two good souls within the institution, however. The priest<br>in the confessional &#8220;knew I was shitting in my pants and told me it wasn&#8217;t<br>my fault and just step out and don&#8217;t worry about a thing&#8221;; Carroll says,<br>&#8220;He was an o.k. mug&#8221; (26). Also, Carroll calls Brother Kenneth &#8220;the only<br>good dude in the joint.&#8221; When Billy &#8220;Dong&#8221; Burlap goes into an epileptic<br>seizure, Brother Kenneth isn&#8217;t afraid to get involved: &#8220;Brother Kenny&#8217;s<br>hand was bloody from teeth marks as he tried to get ahold of Billy&#8217;s tongue<br>so he wouldn&#8217;t choke on it. His whole hand was scarred from handling fits<br>over the years.&#8221; By comparison, Carroll&#8217;s teacher, &#8220;a snoot intellectual<br>but all freeze in a clutch, didn&#8217;t know what the hell to do&#8221; (28).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>12<\/strong><br>As I discuss in my final chapter, Teddy Rayhill is the first person Carroll<br>names in his song &#8220;People Who Died&#8221; on Catholic Boy: &#8220;Teddy sniffing<br>glue, he was 12 years old \/ fell from the roof on east 29.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>13<\/strong><br>Both &#8220;2nd Train (for Frank O&#8217;Hara)&#8221; and &#8220;Red Rabbit Running Backwards<br>(for A.W.)&#8221; mention clocks falling on him; the latter also cites &#8220;The<br>aesthetic value of a red tee shirt.&#8221;<strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>14<\/strong><br>Carroll reiterates the last line of the poem, &#8220;I just want to be pure,&#8221;<br>throughout the rest of the Diaries, and in fact these are his final<br>words in the book. Apparently, since it is not included in an earlier<br>version published in Paris Review, Carroll added &#8220;I just want to<br>be pure&#8221; to the end of the last entry quite a while after the fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>15<\/strong><br>Some of the later entries describe events which chronologically came<br>earlier, when he was 18 and 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">CHAPTER THREE<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>16<\/strong><br>&#8220;Dial-A-Poem&#8221; was a service in which one could listen to assorted recorded<br>poetry over the telephone. Apparently, Carroll&#8217;s earliest recording was<br>in 1969, when he read two excerpts from <em>The Basketball Diaries<\/em><br>for Dial-a-Poem (1972). The same readings appear on <em>You&#8217;re a<br>Hook: The 15 Year Anniversary of Dial-a-Poem<\/em> (1983).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>17<\/strong><br>All works mentioned are cited in my annotated bibliography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>18<\/strong><br>In his 1969 feature on Carroll, Ted Berrigan notes that <em>Living at the<br>Movies<\/em> is &#8220;due out in the fall from Cape-Goliard&#8221; (9); the book was<br>not published until 1973.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>19<br><\/strong>Some of Carroll&#8217;s earliest published poems have never been collected,<br>including &#8220;Christmas Lists,&#8221; &#8220;The Marketplace,&#8221; and &#8220;Ode,&#8221; all published<br>in 1967. Uncollected works are listed in my annotated bibliography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>20<\/strong><br>One basketball diary, published in <em>Adventures in Poetry<\/em> in 1968,<br>is not collected in <em>The Basketball Diaries<\/em>. See preceding note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>21<\/strong><br>Carroll makes reference to this twice in <em>Forced Entries<\/em> (27, 68).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>22<\/strong><br>While the Grateful Dead represent a different drug culture from the one<br>in which Carroll is involved, there are some interesting implications<br>in his reference to Jerry Garcia, and some striking similarities between<br>Carroll&#8217;s career and the Dead&#8217;s. Aside from the obvious connection with<br>Carroll&#8217;s later venture into rock (the idea of which Carroll toys with<br>during the period of <em>Forced Entrie<\/em>s), the &#8220;Jerry Garcia of the<br>Grateful Dead&#8221; potential represents a certain way of being, and an identity,<br>that Carroll finds appealing. First, based on Ken Tucker&#8217;s analysis of<br>the Grateful Dead, the band&#8217;s history parallels Carroll&#8217;s own, with their<br>&#8220;average record sales and minimal impact on the music world.&#8221; That is,<br>like Carroll, the Dead had their &#8220;following,&#8221; but it wasn&#8217;t quite enough<br>to launch them to superstardom (for Carroll, this would be Melville-dom),<br>yet their impact was and has remained strong enough for them to &#8220;persevere.&#8221;<br>Also, like the Dead, Carroll&#8217;s self-indulgence has often been a point<br>of contention, and &#8220;the point of much of&#8221; Carroll&#8217;s work has likewise<br>always been &#8220;that self-indulgence had its place, in art and in life.&#8221;<br>Furthermore, Carroll&#8217;s &#8220;self-indulgence was one of the qualities [his]<br>fans treasured most&#8221; (&#8220;Rock Endures&#8221; 579). One hopes that Carroll will<br>eventually approach &#8220;superstardom&#8221; as have the Dead in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>23<\/strong><br>The epigraph highlights the confessional nature of <em>Forced Entries<\/em>:<br>&#8220;&#8216;All writers of confessions, from Augustine on down, have always remained<br>a little in love with their sins&#8217;&#8211;Anatole France.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>24<\/strong><br>This entry is a prime example of Carroll&#8217;s careful structuring and ordering<br>of events in Forced Entries: in fact, he did not write the diaries<br>until at least a decade later. In a 1981 interview, Clarice Rivers asked<br>if he had continued to keep diaries since <em>The Basketball Diaries<\/em>.<br>Carroll said, &#8220;No, I don&#8217;t have them written, but I have notes of what<br>happened.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>25<\/strong> The &#8220;new poem of mine in the recent issue of Poetry Mag&#8221;<br>Carroll refers to is &#8220;The Distances,&#8221; the only poem he ever published<br>in <em>Poetry<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>26<\/strong><br>Victor Bockris, in his biography of Andy Warhol, uses Forced Entries<br>as a source in his discussion of AWT-BAG. Apparently, AWT-BAG existed<br>from July 25 to August 5, 1969; hence, these are the approximate dates<br>of Carroll&#8217;s diaries describing his job at the theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>27<\/strong> When I (informally) talked with Carroll in 1989, he expressed<br>his concern regarding how various people view his work and, in the process,<br>made it clear that he despises Paul Morrissey. He said something to the<br>effect that, &#8220;With someone like Paul Morrissey, I don&#8217;t give a shit.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>28<\/strong><br>According to Ronald Sukenick, the creator of the laser beam is Frosty<br>Meyers. &#8220;Frosty drills a hole through the window of his studio, which<br>is a couple of blocks up Park Avenue South, aims the laser through the<br>hole, and puts it on a timer. . . . It draws a red line diagonally across<br>the street, goes through Max&#8217;s front window, then hits a little mirror<br>and goes on down the bar into the back of the room&#8221; (207). While Carroll<br>apparently doesn&#8217;t know this, Sukenick indicates here that the beam originates<br>practically across the street from Carroll&#8217;s own apartment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>29<\/strong><br>Victor Bockris notes that Andrea Feldman began &#8220;calling herself Andrea<br>Warhol in the hope that Andy would get the idea and marry her.&#8221; In Warhol&#8217;s<br>film Heat, Feldman &#8220;played a borderline psychotic who kept her<br>baby quiet with sleeping pills and couldn&#8217;t remember if she was a sadist<br>or a masochist. . . .&#8221; Bockris cites Forced Entries in his discussion<br>of Feldman and, in doing so, establishes the dates of the &#8220;Andrea&#8221; entries<br>as September of 1972, shortly after the release of Trash (359-60).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>30<\/strong><br>I have been unable to ascertain the precise dates of Carroll&#8217;s stay in<br>California. He lived there approximately five years, part of the time<br>in San Francisco&#8217;s North Beach. In 1978 he returned to New York to arrange<br>the publication of <em>The Basketball Diaries<\/em> with Grossman and met<br>with Earl or Paul McGrath. Whether Carroll returned to New York between<br>1974 and 1978 is uncertain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>31<\/strong><br>Only William Hochswender finds merit in &#8220;The Move To California,&#8221; yet<br>his praise is confined to one lone sentence: &#8220;When, ultimately, Carroll<br>finds his redemption in California, detoxing in the bucolic confines of<br>Bolinas, we sense that enormity of the underground experience, as lived,<br>in ways a documentary history can only grope for.&#8221; Other reviewers, including<br>Delacorte (cited in text), devote even less space to this section, finding<br>it boring or worse. After running through an account of Carroll&#8217;s escape<br>to California and methadone treatment, Mark Stevens decides that &#8220;The<br>tinsel [of &#8216;The Downtown Diaries&#8217;] is better.&#8221; Tony Perry barely mentions<br>the section in passing, while Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, Margo Jefferson,<br>John Mutter, and the reviewer in <em>Jim Kobak&#8217;s Kirkus Reviews<\/em> don&#8217;t<br>mention it at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>32<\/strong><br>Here, in &#8220;The Move To California,&#8221; we meet the author of <em>The Book of<br>Nods<\/em> and the rock lyricist of <em>Catholic Boy<\/em>, and find the beginnings<br>of <em>Dry Dreams<\/em> and <em>I Write Your Name.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>33<\/strong><br>His concern with time is evident in his uncollected poem &#8220;Kitten (Self<br>Pity).&#8221; The poem is dated July 30, 1974, just two days before his birthday;<br>Carroll writes, &#8220;I will never be twenty-three years old again&#8221; (9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>34<\/strong><br>This existential notion is perhaps best described by Albert Camus in <em>The<br>Myth of Sisyphus<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>I don&#8217;t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends<br>it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is<br>impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside<br>my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.<br>What I touch, what resists me&#8211;that is what I understand. And<br>these two certainties&#8211;my appetite for the absolute and for unity<br>and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and<br>reasonable principle&#8211;I also know that I cannot reconcile them.<br>What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in<br>a hope which I lack and which means nothing within the limits<br>of my condition? (38)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>35<\/strong><br>Reese notes that Gnosticism is marked by the basic duality of good and<br>evil, dark and light, and aims toward personal salvation through the pursuit<br>of wisdom. The &#8220;great mother&#8221; of Gnosticism is Sophia, goddess of wisdom,<br>and she is often paired with the archetypal &#8220;primal man,&#8221; whose task it<br>is to set her free. The union between Sophia and the primal man leads<br>to salvation (192-93). Carroll&#8217;s best illustrates his fascination with<br>Gnosticism in &#8220;Sophia&#8221; (BN 142). At the end of the poem, he writes: &#8220;She<br>steadies a magnifying glass \/ Before her breast, burning open \/ The abcess<br>of her heart, releasing \/ that wisdom and that shame&#8221; (28-31)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">CHAPTER FOUR<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>36<\/strong><br>At the Spirit club in July of 1989, Carroll read several new selections<br>he plans to include in the novel he is presently writing. He made a point<br>of saying this new book will be fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>37<\/strong><br>Beyond the structural aspects I note in my analysis, Carroll&#8217;s allusions<br>are quite complex. Mayakovsky was a Russian poet, political activist,<br>and propagandist. Like Carroll, the city was one of his favorite subjects,<br>and through the use of often vulgar, violent imagery he condemned conventions<br>of all sorts. Rene Magritte, too, often utilized shock tactics in his<br>paintings to unsettle otherwise banal scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>38<\/strong><br>The titles of some of the articles during this period reveal the &#8220;image&#8221;<br>Carroll&#8217;s critics have imposed on him: &#8220;Pain Paved Way to Better Life<br>for Rocker&#8221;; &#8220;Mean Streets&#8221;; &#8220;Carroll&#8217;s Got an Interesting Story&#8221;; &#8220;Jim<br>Carroll&#8217;s Rock &#8216;n&#8217; Roll Heart-On&#8221;; &#8220;The Catholic Boy Confesses&#8221;; &#8220;Jim<br>Carroll&#8217;s Second Coming&#8221;; &#8220;Latest &#8216;Urban Poet&#8217; Singer Fails with &#8216;Catholic<br>Boy'&#8221;; &#8220;Subterranean Urbanesque Blues&#8221;; &#8220;Jim Carroll&#8217;s a Legend Before<br>His Time.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>39<\/strong><br>That <em>The Basketball Diaries<\/em> has become the undisputed definition<br>of Carroll is revealed by the front covers of the Penguin editions of<br>his books. L<em>iving at the Movies<\/em> and <em>The Book of Nods<\/em> are<br>both by Jim Carroll, &#8220;Author of The Basketball Diaries&#8221;; <em>Forced<br>Entries<\/em> is &#8220;The sensational sequel to <em>The Basketball Diaries<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>40<\/strong><br>At the end of the &#8220;Author&#8217;s Note&#8221; in the Tombouctou edition of <em>The<br>Basketball Diaries<\/em>, Carroll quotes Hassan Sabah, leader of the cult<br>of the assassins: &#8220;Nothing is true; Everything is permitted&#8221; (xi). However,<br>Carroll says, &#8220;I first read it in one of Mr. Burroughs&#8217; books&#8221;; as he<br>puts it, &#8220;Burroughs quoted that line so much that it&#8217;s kinda like . .<br>. public domain&#8221; (Norton, &#8220;Heart-on&#8221; 33).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>41<\/strong><br>Since the lyrics for <em>Catholic Boy<\/em> are not printed on the album<br>sleeve, I have transcribed them as best I could; I have bracketed lyrics<br>I&#8217;m not sure about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>42<\/strong><br>In &#8220;Barricades,&#8221; on <em>Dry Dreams,<\/em> Carroll takes up a related issue,<br>describing the hypocrisy and senselessness of war, as well as emphasizing<br>the void left by those killed in battle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Who makes promises for the Neutron bomb?<br>It will sign your lungs to death<br>And leave the corporate walls unharmed . . .<br>Who makes promises with such insidious charm?<br>But it would have made things cleaner<br>In old Vietnam . . .<br>That&#8217;s when Kevin got called up<br>Ritchie got called . . .<br>And Kevin never came back<br>Ritchie never came home<br>Theirfolks got a letter in the mail<br>THEY GOT A LETTER IN THE MAIL . . .<br>I ain&#8217;t gonna die for Standard Oil!<br>I.B.M. . . . I wouldn&#8217;t die for them!<br>G.E.? Not me! <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>43<\/strong><br>Carroll told me the &#8220;Author&#8217;s Note&#8221; was written by lawyers as libel protection;<br>he only made it funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>44<\/strong><br>This is a funny story in itself. At the time, I was compiling my annotated<br>bibliography on his work for the <em>Bulletin of Bibliograph<\/em>y and had<br>arranged with Rosemary Carroll (his agent\/ex-wife) to meet with Carroll<br>after his reading at the Spirit club on July 7, 1989. After the reading,<br>I met him in the &#8220;green room&#8221; and introduced myself. When I told him I<br>had been unable to find <em>Organic Trains<\/em>, he pulled a copy of it<br>out of his duffel bag and said, &#8220;I don&#8217;t usually have this with me, but<br>here. It&#8217;s worth about $500. . . .&#8221; Shortly after this, he bummed a ride<br>off me to his motel (the EZ-8); sitting in the cab of a Mazda pickup,<br>we talked until almost 3:00 in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:100px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table is-style-stripes\"><table><tbody><tr><td>Previous: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"3990\">Appendix<\/a><\/td><td class=\"has-text-align-right\" data-align=\"right\">Next: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/table-of-contents\/\" data-type=\"page\" data-id=\"4510\">Works Cited<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"ext-copyright\">\u00a91990 Cassie Carter. This material may not be reprinted except by permission from the author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NotesJim Carroll&#8217;s The Basketball Diaries and Forced EntriesBy Cassie Carter Title Page &nbsp; Table of Contents &nbsp; Abstract &nbsp; Chapter One &nbsp; Chapter Two &nbsp; Chapter Three &nbsp; Chapter Four &nbsp; Appendix &nbsp; Notes &nbsp; Works Cited CHAPTER ONE 1All biographical information is based on a composite picture I derivedwhile researching my annotated bibliography of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/notes\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Notes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":4148,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"folder":[83,27],"class_list":["post-4033","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9VlUH-133","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4148,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/","url_meta":{"origin":4033,"position":0},"title":"1990 Master&#8217;s Thesis on The Basketball Diaries and Forced Entries","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Title Page \u00a0 Table of Contents \u00a0 Abstract \u00a0 Chapter One \u00a0 Chapter Two \u00a0 Chapter Three \u00a0 Chapter Four \u00a0 Appendix \u00a0 Notes \u00a0 Works Cited JIM CARROLL'S BASKETBALL DIARIESAND FORCED ENTRIES: SHIT INTO GOLD A Thesispresented to theFaculty ofSan Diego State University In Partial Fulfillmentof the Requirements for\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4510,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/table-of-contents\/","url_meta":{"origin":4033,"position":1},"title":"Table of Contents","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Table of ContentsJim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries and Forced EntriesBy Cassie Carter Title Page \u00a0 Table of Contents \u00a0 Abstract \u00a0 Chapter One \u00a0 Chapter Two \u00a0 Chapter Three \u00a0 Chapter Four \u00a0 Appendix \u00a0 Notes \u00a0 Works Cited Abstract Summary of the thesis. Chapter One - Introduction: Shit Into\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4043,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/home-research-academic-studies\/","url_meta":{"origin":4033,"position":2},"title":"Thesis TOC","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Home > Research > Academic Studies Table of Contents Shit Into Gold: Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries and Forced Entries By Cassie Carter Title Page If you want to cite this thesis, here's where you find the bibliographic information. Table of Contents This page. Abstract Summary of the thesis. Chapter\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4141,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/abstract\/","url_meta":{"origin":4033,"position":3},"title":"Abstract","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Abstract Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries and Forced Entries By Cassie Carter Title Page \u00a0 Table of Contents \u00a0 Abstract \u00a0 Chapter One \u00a0 Chapter Two \u00a0 Chapter Three \u00a0 Chapter Four \u00a0 Appendix \u00a0 Notes \u00a0 Works Cited By the time Jim Carroll was 16 years old, he was\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4046,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/a-jim-carroll-chronology\/","url_meta":{"origin":4033,"position":4},"title":"A Jim Carroll Chronology","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Appendix A Jim Carroll Chronology Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries and Forced Entries By Cassie Carter Title Page \u00a0 Table of Contents \u00a0 Abstract \u00a0 Chapter One \u00a0 Chapter Two \u00a0 Chapter Three \u00a0 Chapter Four \u00a0 Appendix \u00a0 Notes \u00a0 Works Cited This chronology was compiled in 1990. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4034,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/masters-thesis-1990-basketball-diaries-and-forced-entries\/works-cited\/","url_meta":{"origin":4033,"position":5},"title":"Works Cited","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Works CitedJim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries and Forced EntriesBy Cassie Carter Title Page \u00a0 Table of Contents \u00a0 Abstract \u00a0 Chapter One \u00a0 Chapter Two \u00a0 Chapter Three \u00a0 Chapter Four \u00a0 Appendix \u00a0 Notes \u00a0 Works Cited Allen, Donald, ed. The New American Poetry. NewYork: Grove, 1960. Appel, Alfred\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4033"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8363,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4033\/revisions\/8363"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/folder?post=4033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}