{"id":4108,"date":"2022-01-10T22:17:47","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T22:17:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8000\/?page_id=4108"},"modified":"2025-05-31T02:44:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T09:44:18","slug":"chasing-the-dragon","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/chasing-the-dragon\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing the Dragon: The Junky as 20th Century Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

\n Chasing the Dragon: The Junky as 20th Century Hero
\n<\/span>Stephen Perrin<\/a>
\nDoctoral Dissertation
\nUniversity of Manchester (UK), 1993<\/span><\/p>\n

CHAPTER 4: THE TRICKSTER<\/h2>\n

Dragons live for ever, but not so little boys.<\/i>
\n— “Puff the Magic Dragon”<\/p>\n

Like lesser mortals the hero does not come into this world fully formed. As Powers
\npoints out, even comic book heroes begin their lives with what is known as an “origin
\nstory” which purports to explain the source of the hero’s extraordinary powers and
\nhis motivation for dedicating his energies to the good of the community rather than merely
\nseeking personal gain. 1 <\/sup><\/a> The first of Alexander Salkind’s series of Superman<\/i>
\nmovies (Richard Donner 1978), it will be remembered, showed the young Clark Kent in a
\nstate of confusion over the nature of his identity and his mission on earth. The reason
\nfor this was that the powers-that-be did not consider a raw adolescent to be a suitable
\ncandidate for the job of saviour of the Western hemisphere, whatever his physical prowess.
\nAncient wisdom confirms this theory. The initial cycle of the hero myth, as outlined by
\nPaul Radin in his 1948 study Hero Cycles of the Winnebago<\/i> and later elaborated by
\nJung and Henderson, is the Trickster cycle. By no means unique to native American culture
\n– Greek, Chinese, Japanese and Semitic variations on the theme exist – the Trickster cycle
\nfollows the progress of the embryonic “creator of the world and establisher of
\nculture” through forty-nine, frequently bawdy and often hilarious, episodes as this
\ninitially unconscious being learns to differentiate between good and evil, order and
\nchaos, pleasure and pain. 2<\/sup><\/a> Initially at one with nature and at odds with
\nhumanity, Trickster slowly and painfully reverses his position and moves towards
\nsocialization as he comes to accept the bounds of his physical identity, his sexuality and
\nhis responsibility for his own actions. According to Henderson:<\/p>\n

The Trickster cycle corresponds to the earliest and least developed period of life.
\nTrickster is a figure whose physical appetites dominate his behaviour; he has the
\nmentality of an infant. Lacking any purpose beyond the gratification of his primary needs,
\nhe is cruel, cynical, and unfeeling. 3<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Jung Trickster “is obviously a ‘psychologem’, an archetypal psychic structure
\nof extreme antiquity. In his clearest manifestations he is a faithful copy of an
\nabsolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly
\nleft the animal level” (Radin p.200). Or, to use the more widely recognized Freudian
\nterminology, Trickster is pure id and, as such, has the potential to be the type of
\nrevolutionary hero likely to give way to the excess which certain Romantic minds
\nconsidered to lead to the Palace of Wisdom.<\/p>\n

Once again, the hero and the dragon are one, Jung seeing Trickster as a collective
\npersonification of the shadow and stating:<\/p>\n

He is a forerunner of the saviour, and, like him, God, man, and animal at once. He is
\nboth subhuman and superhuman, a bestial and divine being, whose chief and most alarming
\ncharacteristic is his unconsciousness. (ibid. pp.201-2)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not bound by sex, Trickster is able to change gender at will (cf. Episode 20) and,
\nconsequently, is associated in some myths with the primal man-woman who created the
\nuniverse. Karl Ker\u00e9nyi (ibid. pp.175-9) sees European parallels in the Greek gods Hermes
\nand Heraclese and in the “picaro” (central character of the picaresque novel),
\nTrickster showing a similar refusal to be tied down to geographical or social situations
\nand frequently causing disaster owing to his unconscious nature. Like all aspects of the
\nhero, Trickster is a dynamic symbol with constantly renewed historical relevance. Radin
\nstates:<\/p>\n

The symbol which Trickster embodies is not a static one. It contains within itself the
\npromise of differentiation, the promise of god and man. For this reason every generation
\noccupies itself with interpreting Trickster anew. No generation understands him fully but
\nno generation can do without him. Each had to include him in all its theologies, in all
\nits cosmogonies, despite the fact that it is realized that he did not fit properly into
\nany of them, for he represents not only the undifferentiated and distant past, but
\nlikewise the undifferentiated present within every individual. This constitutes his
\nuniversal and persistent attraction. And so he became and remained everything to every man
\n– god, animal, human being, hero, buffoon, he who was before good and evil, denier,
\naffirmer, destroyer and creator. If we laugh at him, he grins at us. What happens to him
\nhappens to us. (169)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Back in the early 1950s the middle-aged junky William Lee, while hiding from the law in
\nMexico City, was amazed to hear stories from the States of a new breed of adolescent
\nopiate addicts. 4 <\/sup><\/a> Since that time, however, much ink has been spilt in
\nall branches of the media in documenting the activities of juvenile junkies. Inevitably
\nthis has led to the emergence of junky Trickster heroes whose stories, as I shall reveal,
\ndisplay a number of striking parallels with their mythical precursor. From The Wild
\nBoys<\/i> (1971) onwards Burroughs shifted his own centre of emphasis onto adolescent
\nprotagonists, the central persona of William Lee giving way to that of Audrey (later Kim)
\nCarsons, in fact a move back in time to examine the early fantasy existence of the same
\ncharacter. Taking a more conventionally chronological approach, writers like Jim Carroll
\nand Danny Sugerman have reported on their own adolescence, creating characters who, like
\nTrickster, reject the principle of order to lead the instinctual life and are eventually
\npunished for doing so.<\/p>\n

According to Radin there are two sides to Trickster’s character, that of “divine
\nculture hero” and that of “divine buffoon” (p.125). Wakdjunkaga, the
\nWinnebago Trickster, for example, begins his existence as a desocialised being, “an
\nutter fool, a breaker of the most holy taboos, a destroyer of the most sacred
\nobjects” (p.133) and, as such, he is not unique to American society. Looking back on
\nthe English punk phenomenon ten years after its inception Iain Chambers describes the
\nmovement as “a dramatic illustration of the alarming advancement of Britain’s
\ndiseased state”. 5 <\/sup><\/a> That a sensible commentator could use such
\nextreme terminology for what now appears such a harmless historical event seems
\nextraordinary. Hindsight, though, can sometimes cause culture-blindness. Marcuse, of
\ncourse, famously claimed that mainstream capitalist culture castrates the deviant by
\naccepting him into its bosom with open arms. This process takes time, however, and it is
\neasy to forget the general hostility towards punk in Britain in the late 1970s.<\/p>\n

Both Nina Antonia’s biography of Johnny Thunders and Fred and Judy Vermoral’s Sex
\nPistols: The Inside Story<\/i> (1987) show that during 1977 the Heartbreakers, a gang of
\ngenuine New York junkies, were wandering around the British Isles making very little
\neffort to conceal their drug preferences yet remaining unmolested as the media, the police
\nand the patriotic yob element showed themselves to be more interested in the Sex Pistols,
\na group of lager louts from London who happened to have broken one of their society’s most
\nholy taboos by making a record which expressed less than flattering ideas about the
\nreigning monarch.<\/p>\n

The most obvious Trickster figure within the Sex Pistols organization, and the most
\nrelevant for our study as he made the transition from lager lout to junky, was bass
\nguitarist Sid Vicious. The undifferentiated state of Vicious’ personality is undisputed.
\nSex Pistols’ secretary, Sophie Richmond, described the twenty-year-old in her diary as
\n“Very insecure and young” while Antonia suggests that Vicious’ use of opiates
\nstemmed from his “childish admiration” of Thunders. 6 <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Added late to the band as, if the animated credits to Julian Temple’s The Great
\nRock’n’Roll Swindle<\/i> (1979) are to be believed, “The Gimmick”, Vicious was
\nhospitalized with hepatitis only two months after being recruited (Vermoral p.74) but, as
\nvisual documents of the time display, he played his given role well. Previous to his
\narrival the one visual asset possessed by the group had been the Dickensian dementia of
\nsinger Johnny Rotten. Vicious added a brooding violence to the proceedings and a keen eye
\nfor outlaw chic. As can be seen from the God Save The Queen<\/i> video (May 1977), Bruce
\nSpringsteen stole the bandanna-hanging-out-of-the-back-pocket idea from Sid and by the
\npromotional clip for Pretty Vacant<\/i>, three months later, the bassist had the black
\nleather jacket and stoned slouch perfected, gazing at the camera with hooded eyes like the
\nshadow incarnate.<\/p>\n

There was, however, always something quintessentially English and adolescent about the
\nSex Pistols and when stretched over a longer period of time – Temple’s dramatized
\ndocumentary, for example – it becomes obvious that Vicious has taken the Keith
\nRichards\/Johnny Thunders junky look back to its source: the British cartoon Trickster
\nDennis The Menace. An archetypical naughty schoolboy and junior Anarchist first drawn by
\nDavid Law in 1951 and ascending to the front page of the Beano<\/i> in 1974, Dennis
\nbelongs to a comic tradition in which rebellious youth strikes against the arbitrary adult
\nauthority of parents, teachers and police with the weapons of “play” and
\n“fantasy”, though, in true Trickster fashion, the rebellion is quelled at the
\nend of each episode through the pain of a spanking from the adult controllers. 7 <\/sup><\/a> His Trickster-like affinity with the natural world is shown by his close
\nrelationship with his practically identical, though somewhat less articulate, dog,
\nGnasher, and his equally anarchic occasional pet pig, Rasher. In true Trickster fashion
\nthe Menace has managed to inspire antipathy right across the political spectrum – from
\n“concerned” parents and right-wing law enforcers to feminists, librarians and
\ndeconstructionists – while keeping the youth of Great Britain entertained for over forty
\nyears, and in the cartoon credits to Temple’s film the representation of Vicious is
\nclearly based on the figure of Dennis, no doubt sparking off a whole network of cultural
\nreferences in the minds of the audience. As the film progresses we see Vicious playing out
\nhis Trickster role to the hilt. For his performance of Somethin’ Else<\/i> Sid perfectly
\nparodies his own public image, staggering out of bed in soiled bikini underpants, the
\ncrotch of which is emblazoned with a swastika, and climbing straight onto the motorcycle
\nconveniently parked in his bedroom, from which he obligingly mimes the old Eddie Cochran
\nnumber while girlfriend Nancy Spungen lifts her pink sunglasses to look on with heavily
\ndrugged eyes. After feigning his famous slashing-the-chest-with-a-broken- bottle routine
\nSid goes on to add further to the coffers of Cochran’s heirs by performing C’Mon
\nEverybody<\/i>, once again on the bike, this time in front of a countryside backdrop.<\/p>\n

The scenes in Paris show Vicious’ Trickster-like lack of ethics and desire to shock as
\nhe wanders the streets wearing a swastika t-shirt frightening housewives, threatening an
\nold man with a knife, eating too much strawberry cake and hitting a prostitute in the face
\nwith the residue and just generally being a naughty schoolboy. As a climax to the film the
\nerstwhile bassist’s legendary white-tuxedoed performance of My Way<\/i> is cut with news
\nclippings detailing his arrest for the murder of Spungen. To emphasise his junky outlaw
\npersona Sid mimes “I shot it up and kicked it out” – replacing Sinatra’s equally
\nindelicate “I ate it up and spit it out” with something at least grammatically
\ncorrect – and then goes into what Jung would no doubt describe as one of Trickster’s
\n“pointless orgies of destruction” (Radin p.196), pulling out a pistol and
\nshooting several members of the audience before making his disgruntled exit. The film ends
\nwith a collage of “Sid is Dead” headlines documenting an event which those who
\noversaw Vicious’ career had seen for some time as being inevitable. An extract from
\nRichmond’s diary recording a conversation with the Pistols’ manager, Malcolm McLaren,
\nshows this to the case: “Emma found Sid a flat in Maida Vale, unfurnished, 7 year
\nlease – (1984 it ends up). When I phoned Malcolm to OK it he said that’s fine, he’ll be
\ndead by then. True enough…” (Vermoral p.107).<\/p>\n

Despite these comments it would be wrong to accuse McLaren of controlling Trickster. It
\nis in Trickster’s nature that he is out of control, as the Vermorels’ interviews with
\nVicious show. Though often incoherent and confused, however, Vicious can, at times, be
\nquite articulate in an adolescent sort of way, stating clearly his disapproval of adult
\nhypocrisy – “I hate insincerity” (ibid. p.172) – and his desire to stay in the
\nTrickster state: “Grown-ups have just no intelligence at all. As soon as somebody
\nstops being a kid, they stop being aware” (ibid. p.170). Vicious, in fact, presents
\nhimself as being at such an undifferentiated stage of development that he has yet to
\nacquire personal tastes of anything other than a negative nature – “I don’t like
\nanything particularly” (ibid. 173) – and it was only when Spungen introduced him to
\nopiates that he could find anything to do with his newfound wealth: “I can think of one
\nthing<\/i> to do with money. (He and Nancy laugh.<\/i>) One thing. That’s what I do with
\nall my money. Every halfpenny of it” (ibid. 172). McLaren, then, did not control
\nTrickster but he did find ways to successfully market Trickster and this process did not
\nstop with Vicious’ death.<\/p>\n

In Alex Cox’s dramatized film biography, Sid & Nancy<\/i> (1986), we are
\npresented with Vicious’ story couched in the director’s own ideological framework. Cox’s
\nviewpoint is telegraphed by the fact that Sid’s famous swastika t- shirt is replaced in
\nthe film by a natty hammer and sickle number. Though an Englishman, Cox was in America
\nduring the British punk explosion and, hence, his stylized view of the English scene often
\nlooks suspiciously like the Californian aftermath with every audience member a Vicious
\nclone. Then again, perhaps the director was attempting to emphasise his subject’s
\npervasive cultural influence.<\/p>\n

In the film’s early English scenes Sid, despite the well publicised environmental
\nalienation of the punks, is the Trickster at one with his surroundings, playing out his
\nDennis the Menace role to the full. Whether smashing the windows of a Rolls Royce in Maida
\nVale then conversing tenderly with the small dog he finds inside the car, beating up a
\njournalist in a club or messing about in the street with his friend, Wally, Sid is a
\nworking-class hero who has transcended the mundanity of his given social position and
\nfound his true self in the world of play. The targets of his violence are always
\njustifiable within the political framework of the film, being representatives of the music
\nbusiness or wider British establishment. What is more, his Trickster’s luck keeps him free
\nfrom external forces of authority, his wild antics simply serving to beef up his public
\nimage. In the group sequences he is shown as musically inept but providing an edge of
\nvital anarchic energy to the band, an energy which contrasts sharply with our first view
\nof the languid Nancy, lying back smoking heroin and complaining about the lack of
\navailability of needles in the British Isles.<\/p>\n

As the film’s setting moves increasingly onto American soil Sid is robbed of his energy
\nand becomes completely alienated from his environment. He has been in New York for a week
\nbefore Nancy informs him that that is where he is and he is presented as a victim of
\nauthority from the opening scene in the Chelsea Hotel where the police find him in a
\ncatatonic trance beside Nancy’s corpse. Not surprisingly, before Nancy’s death when she is
\ntrying to persuade him to carry out their suicide pact, Sid states that he wants to go
\nback to England as that is the only place where he believes he can straighten himself out.
\nUltimately his lifeforce enjoys a brief triumph over her deathforce as he stabs his
\nover-demanding lover.<\/p>\n

Between these two scenes Vicious is shown falling increasingly under Nancy’s vampiric
\ninfluence. At their second meeting – when our hero has gone gallantly to the defence of
\nthe damsel in distress after she has been insulted by a washed-up rock star – Nancy tells
\nhim that he should “Never trust a junky”. She then goes on to prove the wisdom
\nof this statement by taking his money and leaving him to wait all night in the rain for
\nher return. Sid is presented as so innocent that he literally does not have the sense to
\ncome in out of the rain. When the couple are eventually reunited Sid loses his virgin
\nveins to Nancy, initial vomiting gives way to sex and the evil American goes on to use
\nopiates and sex to take away the vital Englishman’s lifeforce, reducing him to a stoned
\npuppet who repeats every word she says. The dragon, it would seem, has overcome the hero
\nbut the Pistols’ chief image-maker can see the iconographic possibilities of all of this.
\nWhen Sid’s colleagues complain about the standard of his musicianship McLaren tells them:
\n“But Sidney’s more than a mere bass player. He’s a fabulous disaster. He’s a symbol,
\na metaphor. He embodies the dementia of a nihilistic generation. He’s a fuckin’
\nstar!”<\/p>\n

Freed from the object of his desires on the Pistols’ American tour Sid regains some of
\nhis lost energy and reverts to his Trickster role. We see him insulting audiences,
\nfighting with cowboys and carving “Gimme A Fix” on his chest with a razorblade
\nin an attempt to entertain half a dozen Texan groupies, but with the band gone the final
\nthird of the film turns into the chronicle of two collapsing junkies.<\/p>\n

Again this part of the story is not free from Cox’s ideological commentary. In a set
\npiece scene in a methadone clinic a black Vietnam veteran relates the story of the CIA
\nflying heroin paid for by the taxpayer out of the Golden Triangle on US planes while he
\nand others fought the Cong “because smack is the great controller. It keeps people
\nstupid when they could be smart.” On the whole, however, what we get are the old
\nmundane junky details: scoring on the street by the bucket on a string method, being
\nmercilessly manipulated by the sleazy pusher, Bowery, shivering with junk sickness on the
\nsubway, vomiting in pain on a cold cell floor, endless hours of television, longer hours
\nof waiting, Sid mumbling “When was the last time we fucked?” and Nancy screaming
\n“And you didn’t even save me any” while she beats him for lapsing while she was
\naway.<\/p>\n

Nancy’s death is telegraphed in a number of ways. In this film’s version of My Way Sid
\nfinishes his act by shooting Nancy in the chest. She rises again, however, and joins him
\non stage wearing her blood-stained white wedding dress and a barbed wire tiara which
\nclosely resembles a crown of thorns. Later the couple discuss a suicide pact and Sid tells
\nNancy’s grandfather: “We’re gonna go out in a blaze of glory. But don’t worry, you’ll
\nbe proud of us”. An indifference to danger is displayed when the stoned couple are
\ndragged out of their burning hotel room by firefighters and, finally, Nancy buys the knife
\nwhich will be the instrument of her death. By this stage of the film her dialogue has been
\nreduced to variations on the theme of: “I wish I was fuckin’ dead.”<\/p>\n

It is worth noting here how much, by the late 1970s, rock and roll and junky ideology
\nhad become fused. While trying to persuade Sid to go through with their suicide pact
\nNancy, who is convinced that her lover’s career is washed up, yells: “Sid…the
\nglory!” The glory she is talking about includes the car crashes which ended the lives
\nof James Dean and Eddie Cochran and the plane wreck that finished off Buddy Holly, Richie
\nValence and J.P.Richardson as much as it does the overdoses of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin
\nand their ilk. The Romantic concept of the early death has, of course, existed at least
\nsince the demise of Percy Bysshe Shelley and, by this point in history, the junky had
\nbecome one of many conspicuous cultural martyrs but there is still the sense that taking
\non the dragon is the most heroic of deaths in that it lessens the element of chance
\ninvolved in road, air or sea travel as the hero confronts the beast with his eyes open to
\nthe possibility of danger.<\/p>\n

One must ask, however, what exactly Alex Cox had in mind in making Sid & Nancy<\/i>.
\nVicious was, at best, a flawed icon who could never decide whether he wanted to be Eddie
\nCochran, Johnny Thunders or the third Kray twin. Equally, Cox never seems sure of the
\nimage he is trying to present. As stated above, the political stance of his film presents
\nSid as an innocent victim of external forces mainly portrayed through the character of
\nNancy. At times, however – the scene in which the hero and heroine act out Rodin’s The
\nKiss<\/i> on a New York street while slow motion garbage falls around them – a romantic
\nwistfulness invades the vampiric treatment of the relationship. This particular scene is
\nso out of character with the rest of the film, though, that it smacks somewhat of a film
\nmaker who had for the first time got his hands on enough money to try a little
\nexperimentation. The romantic theme continues through to the conclusion of the film,
\nhowever, when, in a direct parallel of the final episode of the Trickster cycle (Episode
\n49) in which the Winnebago hero consumes one last meal on this earth before achieving his
\napotheosis, Sid polishes off his ultimate sublunary pizza and dances on the wasteland with
\nsome little black kids to a backing track by KC & the Sunshine Band as Nancy comes to
\nmeet him, wearing another white wedding dress, in the final taxi. As usual the groom wears
\nblack and the happy couple ride off into the sunset locked in a passionate embrace.<\/p>\n

Vicious’ real end was, of course, much more sordid. At twenty-one, the traditional age
\nof maturity, this particular Trickster seemed unwilling to become a “grown- up”
\nand thus opted out of the individuation process and gave in to the dragon, evoking the
\ndestructive power of the shadow and taking the overdose which Nancy had always wanted him
\nto take. As a modern myth maker, however, Cox is obliged to show Trickster’s symbolic
\npassage to maturity and this he does through the women’s initiation rite of the marriage,
\nthus transforming tragedy into comedy, the meaningless into the meaningful, divine buffoon
\ninto divine culture-hero and neatly tying up the Trickster myth. Perhaps, however, the
\nfinal comment on the film should be left to its subject who, when asked for his comments
\non the cinematic medium, stated: “I don’t like any sort of film. I hate
\nfilms…Because people have to act parts in them. Play people who they’re not<\/i>, do
\nyou know what I mean? And it’s pretence, it’s lies, it’s just shit. It builds things up to
\nbe not what they are” (Vermoral p. 100).<\/p>\n

If Vicious resembles the typical British Trickster figure, Dennis the Menace, the young
\nJim Carroll, in The Basketball Diaries<\/i> (1978), must be compared to Dennis’ American
\nprecursor, Tom Sawyer. Carroll’s book begins with the hero as a twelve-year-old naughty
\nschoolboy. The episode in which the youth steals a “Food Carnival” delivery bike
\nto ride home during a power cut and sets off down Broadway with the restaurant’s
\noverweight Italian manager giving chase on foot is pure Twain, transformed a hundred years
\nin time and a thousand miles in space. 8 <\/sup><\/a> What is more, to conform to the
\nheroic stereotype, the youth displays the early exceptional ability traditionally
\nattributed to the embryonic hero. A star basketball player in his early teens, Carroll is
\nsubject to media attention – newspaper stories with titles like Beatnik Basketball
\nPlayer <\/i>(p.128) – and peer adulation. Suitably he is an individualist who refuses to
\nfollow prearranged strategy yet remains his team’s top scorer (p.71) and an athletic
\nscholarship to a high-class educational establishment takes him out of his impoverished
\nLower East Side background to become “a big time basketball star and all around hip
\nmotherfucker at a private school” (p.113).<\/p>\n

As with Twain, however, Carroll’s seemingly innocent childhood garden has a dark,
\nsinister side, the Trickster- like “meaningless cruelty” (Radin p.141)
\nmanifesting itself in membership of a group which the press christen “The Diaper
\nBandits” – a more literal version of Tom Sawyer’s robbing and murdering gang which
\nspecialises in snatching handbags from old ladies (p.6) – and later mugging dog-walkers in
\nCentral Park and threatening them with a knife in order to get money to support his
\ngrowing heroin habit as the youth becomes increasingly interested in a form of scoring
\nwhich takes place away from the basketball court. Drugs, in fact, are so endemic in the
\nLower East Side community that, for Carroll and his peers, sniffing Carbona cleaning fluid
\nand vomiting on the head of a fellow traveller on the Staten Island ferry (pp.3-4) is a
\nnatural progression from playing tricks on the nuns at school. As a rebellious
\nindividualist Carroll’s drug use becomes simply a part of his “Fuck dumb rules”
\nattitude (p.56) and his vision of mood-altering substances is typically adolescent. Most
\nof the fun comes from scoring when one is not supposed to, an activity which provides a
\nsimilar excitement to playing truant with friends. Thus drug taking becomes a game as
\nCarroll jokes about using cough syrup to get him through “the little day-to-day
\nhassles of our post-puberty years” (p.67), ruins a basketball game by taking downs in
\nmistake for ups (pp.70-2), smokes marijuana in a the toilet of a commuter train (pp.97-98)
\nand sneaks out of his posh private school between classes to cop heroin and shoot it in an
\n89th Street basement (pp.81-2).<\/p>\n

That the thrill of danger is the motivating force for these adventures is revealed by
\nCarroll’s comments on the bomb paranoia that has haunted him for as long as he can
\nremember, which demonstrate the youth’s ability to transform fear into a positive
\nsensation:<\/p>\n

Today I was hustling around Times Sq. and thought about it and got a strange rush of
\nunknown sex giddiness off the idea of leaning here and now against a wall in leather pants
\nthrowing pouting eyes at customers strolling by dead in the centre of the target… (p.93)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What the adolescent Carroll is doing, in his narrative and his life, is transforming
\nhimself into a hero of his time. Having captured an audience through his sporting prowess
\nhe attempts to keep its attention through more elaborate means, taking on the only dragon
\navailable to him and, typically, he images his own heroism in terms of cool. When asked
\nwhat he does by the work- obsessed pupils at the local drama school which his girlfriend
\nattends Carroll replies: “I’m cool, that’s all, you motherfuckers” (p.103) and,
\ntypically of the Trickster hero, achievement of specific goals is set aside for entrance
\ninto the world of play. As Carroll says of himself and his fellow junkies: “We’ve
\njust mastered the life of doing nothing, which when you think about it, may be the hardest
\nthing of all to do” (p.105).<\/p>\n

Away from this rationalisation after the fact, however, this Trickster’s introduction
\nto the dragon is, if not unconscious, at least confused:<\/p>\n

I never did write about the time I took my first shot of heroin. It was about two
\nmonths back. The funny part is that I thought heroin was the NON-addictive stuff and
\nmarijuana was addictive. I only found out later what a dumb ass move it was. Funny, I can
\nremember what vows I’d made never to touch any of that shit when I was five or six. Now
\nwith all my friends doing it, all kinds of vows drop out from under me every day. That day
\nI went down the cellar of Tony’s building, all sorts of characters were in this storage
\nroom “shooting gallery”, cooking up and getting off. I was just gonna sniff a
\nbag but Tony said I might as well skin pop it. I said OK. Then Pudgy says, “Well, if
\nyou’re gonna put a needle in, you might as well mainline it.” I was scared to main,
\nbut I gave in, Pudgy hit it in for me. I did half a fiver and, shit, what a rush…just
\none long heat wave all through my body, any ache I had flushed out. You can never top that
\nfirst rush, it’s like ten orgasms. After a half hour of nods and slow rapping I shot the
\nrest of the bag, this time myself. I was high even the next morning waking up. So, simple
\nas a walk to that cellar, I lost my virgin veins. (pp.24-25)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though an unconscious realisation that something has changed seems to pervade the above
\npassage, at this stage junk is just another way for the youth to get “fucked
\nup”, no different from cough syrup, alcohol, marijuana or glue; just something to be
\nconsumed on the passage from boyhood to manhood. Carroll’s early poem Sure…<\/i> shows
\nthe attitude of cynical bravado typical of the New York street addict:<\/p>\n

I got
\na syringe
\nI use it
\nto baste
\nmy tiny turkey 9 <\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The fact that Carroll’s turkey is still “tiny” suggests a small habit which,
\nin the Lower East Side of the mid-60s that the poet describes, would be considered as
\nlittle to worry about as the habit of taking a couple of martinis before dinner in the
\nmore conventional neighbourhoods of Manhattan. The extent of opiate use in this particular
\nghetto is revealed by the twelve-year-old Carroll’s early comments about the parents of a
\nfriend, both of whom are on junk and the mother, as a consequence, is on the corner
\nlooking for trade (p.8). What is more, the area is subject to a general breakdown of
\njustice, with narcotics officers confiscating drugs then selling them in the street
\n(p.105). In this moral wilderness we see how historical changes affect Trickster. Tom
\nSawyer’s friend and alterego, Huckleberry Finn, it will be remembered, had to make the
\nchoice to go to Hell, Carroll is convinced that he is already in the Inferno with no
\nopportunity for escape. All he can do is refuse to accept the hypocrisy of his elders and
\ntheir attempts at social control; not only the magazines “where they take the new
\ndrugs and make them seem horrible demons for the dumb-ass public” (p.59) but also the
\nmore direct invasions upon his personal privacy:<\/p>\n

What did set me thinking was this therapy rap session I went to last night with a few
\nother H pals. Some lady professor there asked at one point if we weren’t scared of the
\ndrug scene, then weren’t we at least feeling guilty about using junk. I think now and that
\npisses me off. Like just what is guilty or who is guilty for fuck’s sake? Big business
\ndudes make billions come out of their ass and they ain’t shelling out a reefer’s worth of
\ntax. Kids walk through some jungle I don’t know how far away and shoot people, and
\nwhite-haired old men in smoking jacket armchairs make laws to keep it all going smoothly.
\nI swim in the river and have to duck huge attacks of shit and grease and “newly
\ndiscovered miracle fibres” every five feet I move because those smokestack companies
\ndon’t give a flying fuck…Shit my man, it’s so all there<\/i> that no one’s seeing it
\nany more. And it’s dumb-ass of me to bring it up even now because it’s all so much
\nbull-pap corn and I cut out of that a long time ago, so maybe that’s why I don’t feel too
\nguilty right now…come back later, prof. (pp.161-2)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given the inconsistencies of adult society, heroin becomes a way for the user to hold
\non to some kind of reality and a way for the initiate to achieve a rite of separation from
\nthose around him for whose values he can have no respect: “I am sane, it takes a
\nlittle dope now and then…but I have maintained sanity” (p.86).<\/p>\n

The realities of gender, however, seem a little more difficult to hold onto as, in true
\nTrickster fashion, Carroll appears to be in a state of undifferentiated sexuality.
\nInitially the youth’s closeness to nature keeps him in auto-sexual state, preferring to go
\nonto the roof of his building to masturbate under the stars without the interference of
\nreal or imagined female images (p.34). As the diaries progress, however, a harsh
\njuxtaposition develops between Carroll’s teenage romances with girls of his own age and
\nhis business dealings with the older men to whom he sells his body for money. The hustling
\nexperiences are introduced without any preliminary buildup (p.93) and narrated in such a
\ndetached manner that, once again, one is forced to think of the Trickster myth;
\nspecifically those episodes in which the embryonic hero sends his (detachable) penis over
\nthe river to have intercourse (Episode 16) and that in which he changes sex, marries a
\nchief’s son and becomes pregnant simply because he is hungry and believes that he will
\nbenefit from the wedding feast (Episode 20). Just as Vicious’ habit of carving slogans on
\nhis chest showed a fundamental alienation from his physical identity, Carroll’s
\ntransformation of his body from a sporting machine to an ambisexual erotic toy for the use
\nof others to a simple channel for drugs highlights this separation from the self and, like
\nTrickster, he has to learn that his body is an essential part of his being before he can
\nstop hurting himself.<\/p>\n

This realisation may begin with the hero’s traditional performing instinct, the
\njousting spirit emerging as Carroll admits to enjoying having oral sex with a client
\nbefore an assembled audience in a 14th Street porno movie house (pp.152-4) but, as with
\nTrickster – who only discovers that his anus is an essential part of himself and not a
\nrebellious “younger brother” when he attacks it with a burning piece of wood
\n(Episode 14) – the main lessons are conveyed through pain. There are, of course, the usual
\njunky punishments of getting sick and being unable to cop, which Carroll sees as an
\nequalization process, robbing the hero of his cherished individuality: “Yep, I’m good
\nand sick without that fix now my rap of being the one who can keep it all under control is
\nin that breeze cluttered with the same raps a million times run down by a million other
\ngenius wise ass cats walking like each other’s ghosts around the same sick streets in my
\nsame sick shoes” (p.152). Further torment is added, however, when, at the age of
\nsixteen, Carroll receives a three month sentence in Riker’s Island Juvenile Reformatory
\nfor possession of three bags of heroin and a syringe (p.145). Carroll served only a month,
\nowing to the intervention of his headmaster, but during his time on the Island he was made
\nfurther aware of his body by the violence of the guards and “the asshole bandits of
\nshower room rape” (p.149).<\/p>\n

In the Winnebago version of the Trickster myth the hero’s passage to maturity is marked
\nby his acceptance of the domestication of a wife and children, something which
\nWakdjunkaga, like any warrior, does reluctantly. As we have seen, Alex Cox chose to end Sid
\n& Nancy<\/i> in a similar manner but by that point, with his subjects safely out of the
\nway, the director was free to impose any ending he chose upon his tale. Carroll’s process
\nof maturation, on the other hand, is slower and more painful, confirming Jung’s statement
\nthat “every step forward along the path of individuation is achieved only at the cost
\nof suffering”. 10 <\/sup><\/a> Halfway through the narrative the hero’s affinity
\nwith natural justice – he beats up a sadistic pervert and liberates the cat which this
\ncharacter is planning to torture to death (p.87) – suggests that he may be losing some of
\nthe self-centred lack of concern for the wellbeing of others which is essential to the
\nTrickster persona. Interestingly, however, it is Carroll’s first dope habit which
\nincreases his sense of responsibility:<\/p>\n

I’m gonna be fifteen soon and the summer’s “Pepsi-Cola” heroin habit is
\ntightening more and more around me. I’m getting that feeling for the first time since I
\nlost my virgin veins at thirteen that I gotta start getting my ass together ’cause
\nschool’s coming at me mighty quick and no way of doing that scene with a habit. A
\n“Pepsi-Cola” is a small habit, a first habit that finally sneaks up on you while
\nyou’re telling yourself, “Shit, I been fucking around with junk for three years and I
\nknow when to lay off and I ain’t getting me no habit.” But one morning you wake up,
\nsuddenly your nose is running and your eyes are tearing and the leg and back muscles start
\nfeeling tight and heavy. The laugh’s on you finally, no matter how long you think you got
\nit “under control”. So now I look in the mirror and realize I better cut loose,
\nno jiving myself any longer. (p.99)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Further forced maturity comes through the comments of Ju- Ju Johnson, the middle-aged
\njunky who once used to con welfare offices out of money by telling the social workers that
\nhis wife had recently died of cancer and he and his son (Carroll) had become homeless
\nafter settling the hospital bill. At Carroll’s suggestion that they resume their
\npartnership Ju-Ju informs him that he would no longer be able to pass for his offspring:
\n“that long hair of yours, your features filling in, naw, like you got the junk halo
\nnow all over. No more innocence, man. And frankly you look totally seedy” (p.167).<\/p>\n

The most important maturation process which takes place in The Basketball Diaries<\/i>,
\nhowever, is Carroll’s development from basketball star to junky to writer as this
\nTrickster escapes from “the narrow confines of law, custom, circumstances, fate”
\nthrough the Hermetic art of poetry. 11 <\/sup><\/a> Extracts from the Diaries<\/i>
\nwere published in various magazines throughout the 60s and 70s, the teenage author
\nreceiving the patronage of Ted Berrigan and the praise of Jack Kerouac and William
\nBurroughs and, as the text of the Diaries<\/i> progresses, Carroll comes to find that
\nwriting poetry gets him “stoned as on whatever you got in your pockets right now,
\ndig?” (p.131) and plans to take the Trickster’s revenge upon society by tapping the
\ncreative aspect of the shadow and channelling his violence into art:<\/p>\n

Now I got these diaries that have the greatest hero a writer needs, this crazy fucking
\nNew York. Soon I’m gonna wake a lot of dudes off their asses and let them know what’s
\nreally going down in the blind alley out there in the pretty streets with double garages.
\nI got a tap on all your wires, folks. I’m just really a wise ass kid getting wiser and I’m
\ngoing to get even somehow for your dumb hatreds and all of them war baby dreams you left
\nin my scarred bed with dreams of bombs falling above that cliff I’m hanging steady to.
\nMaybe someday just an eight page book, that’s all, and each time a page gets turned a
\nsection of the Pentagon goes blast up in smoke. Solid. (p.131)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In fact Carroll had his first book of poetry, Organic Trains<\/i> (1967), published
\nwhen he was seventeen and, with the benefit of hindsight, claimed that an artistic product
\nhad always been the aim of his dabblings with junk, telling John Milward in 1981 that the
\nphrase “I just want to be pure,” which recurs throughout The Basketball Diaries,
\n“came because I was trying to find purity in decay. Other junkies were oblivion
\nseekers…but I wanted to see what oblivion was like without staying in that pit…”.
\n12 <\/sup><\/a> Whatever the truth of this statement, Carroll survived the hero’s
\njourney into the pit, overcame the dragon and found the passage to maturity through the
\nactivity of writing, which seems a suitable fate for a Trickster when one considers that
\nthe Winnebago believed that Wakjunkaga was the creator of literature. 13 <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Having worked through Dennis the Menace and Tom Sawyer it seems a natural progression
\nto move on to Holden Caulfield. Though ostensibly an autobiography Danny Sugerman has
\ndescribed Wonderland Avenue<\/i> (1989) as the “Rock’n’Roll coming-of-age
\nnovel” which he had wanted to write since reading Catcher In The Rye<\/i> at the
\nage of fifteen. Jim Carroll is named, along with his wife, Rosemary, William Burroughs and
\nother luminaries, in the list of “friends, associates and heroes” which appears
\nin the Acknowledgements<\/i> to Sugerman’s book, which seems appropriate as Wonderland
\nAvenue<\/i> can be seen as a continuation of The Basketball Diaries<\/i> with one vital
\ndifference, that while Carroll was a poor boy whose sporting abilities gave him upward
\nsocial mobility Sugerman was excessively rich and the move from the Lower East Side to
\nBeverly Hills affects the archetypical story chiefly by a quantitative increase in excess.
\nUnlike Carroll, or most other junkies for that matter, Sugerman was free from economic
\nrestrictions and thus indulged in even more outlandish Trickster-like behaviour. The boy’s
\nnatural chemical imbalance may also have had some influence on this, however. A
\nhyperactive Beverly Hills brat, Sugerman was banned from the homes of his mother’s friends
\nat the age of three and prescribed tranquillizers by the time he was five. At thirteen he
\nwas forced to take Ratlin in an attempt to regulate his metabolism and behaviour but even
\nthe efforts of the medical profession and their ideal of “Better living through
\nchemistry” could not stop this Trickster believing that trouble is “much more
\nfun (and definitely more interesting) than being good, any day” and “that it’s
\nmuch easier to apologize than it is to get permission”. 14 <\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Though Sugerman’s early sporting success at baseball may have had something to do with
\nhis father sponsoring teams (p.27) he does show a precocious business sense and after
\nwitnessing a performance by the Doors at twelve years old and deciding “It was the
\nend of the world as I had known it” (p.38) he began working for the band at thirteen
\n(p.58). Doors vocalist Jim Morrison became a surrogate father to the youth, providing him
\nwith journalistic work which found Sugerman interviewing Mick Jagger, among others, while
\nstill at school (p.193).<\/p>\n

In Sugerman’s tale we witness not so much a maturing out of the Trickster persona as a
\nrefining of the art. The Doors, he claims, opened his mind to “more creative,
\nintelligent trouble” (p.41) than he had been involved with in the past, which
\nincluded not only blowing up the plumbing at his school and closing down the water supply
\nfor the whole area (p.45) but, inevitably, drugs. As with Carroll, Sugerman’s use of
\nintoxicating substances – initially marijuana and beer – is part of his general
\nrebelliousness and seen by the protagonist himself as a way to achieve cool:<\/p>\n

Getting high gave me the freedom to be whoever I wanted, to escape who and where I was.
\nJust being on drugs makes you feel cooler because other people think you’re cool and you
\nsee the reflection of yourself in their eyes. Or maybe you just project cool and they pick
\nup on that. That other people didn’t think it was cool, weren’t impressed at all, but
\nrather condemned it, only enhanced its overall appeal. (pp.99- 100)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The slowness of Sugerman’s maturation process is revealed by his desire to stay in the
\npre-sexual state – “Music and getting high was all I wanted, all that mattered. Good
\nloud music and good strong dope.” (p.128) – but the youth is not cut off from all
\nemotion and does admit to “an almost psychotic need to belong” (p.96) which is
\nheightened by his family situation. Blaming himself for his parents’ divorce and feeling
\nalienated by his mother’s love for his violent, ultra-conservative stepfather, Clarence,
\nSugerman is forced into the first stage of the hero’s rite of passage, separation from his
\ncultural nexus: “I had been ejected from the family unit of which I had felt an
\nintegral part, and been sentenced to a separate existence […] Clarence could go ahead
\nand persecute my body, my spirit, but he couldn’t touch my otherness […] I didn’t place
\nmyself above or below, only separate and against” (p.16). Like the oblivion seeking
\njunkies whom Carroll criticised, however, for Sugerman the initial appeal of opiates comes
\nfrom their negative, non- heroic qualities. Refusing hallucinogens because under the
\ninfluence of LSD “Nothing seemed solid or dependable” (p.148), despite
\nMorrison’s attempt to warn him off opiates Sugerman comes to see heroin as the natural
\nsolution to all of his personal problems, rejecting wealth and interrelation with others
\nfor a more reliable substance: “…drugs kill pain, new cars don’t<\/i>. Where
\npeople hurt, drugs comfort. People come and go while drugs remain reliable and loyal”
\n(p.295).<\/p>\n

Before admitting his desire to be swallowed by the dragon, however, Sugerman attempts
\nto stress the heroic nature of his battle with the beast, casting off the riches of his
\nfather in order to live the Trickster lifestyle to the full, to “practice a complete
\nand total absence of any and all available limitations. To live in a way I hadn’t, except
\nin my dreams” (p.218). Having been provided with a house in Laurel Canyon and a
\ncredit card by Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek (p.235), Sugerman responds to Morrison’s
\ndeath by going on a Quaalude, cocaine and alcohol binge, an action which he sees as his
\nown heroic confrontation of death: “It was almost as if I wanted to be the one who
\ndied” (p.206). As with Carroll, however, whose addiction was a response to a
\nparticular geographic and socio-economic situation, Sugerman cites history as a
\ncontributing factor to his own excesses, stating of the early 1970s: “Using drugs
\nwasn’t merely recreational any more, it was mandatory. There was nothing else to do”
\n(p.220). Into the precarious poly-drug cocktail on which Sugerman exists, however, heroin
\nenters like a personal saviour: “That first time I did it, I knew. This is it. People
\ngo to jail for this and it’s worth it. I knew why people would rob from their family, lie
\nto their best friend, or risk freedom and even their life to get it. This is how I always
\nwanted to feel, but couldn’t, didn’t know how to, until now” (p.272).<\/p>\n

Despite his initial attempts to warn his girlfriend, Tiffany, off the drug – “I
\nknow it’s so good you shouldn’t even try it once” (p.279) – even more than for
\nCarroll and his friends copping and shooting becomes an elaborate game for the couple:
\n“It was a fun and important game, including all the ingredients a game should possess
\n– danger, teamwork, excitement, and reward. To say nothing of agility, cunning, and a lot
\nof luck” (p.292).<\/p>\n

Analyzing his chosen role, Sugerman sees himself as the hero taking hold of his own
\ndestiny by confronting the dragon head-on and, again, his comments reveal how the rock and
\nroll and junky mentalities had become fused:<\/p>\n

I knew it put me on a collision course with death, but at least I knew where that path
\nled. It wasn’t uncertain – unsafe, maybe, but that just made it all the more interesting
\nas far as I was concerned. I’d come to the conclusion I much preferred mystery with my
\nlife and certainty with my death to mystery with my death and certainty with my life. At
\nleast it put me in control of my destiny at a time when I felt out of control in relation
\nto everything else. Besides being interesting and fun, it feels good, too. Who wants to
\nlive to an old age anyway? That was never one of my priorities. Better to burn out than
\nfade away and all that. What would you rather do? Live a slow boring life to eighty years
\nold only to die of some unknown cause, maybe cancer, slowly and painfully, first the
\nhearing gone, then the sight, then the mind, a burden for family and friends? Or live to
\ntwenty-one but have eight years of experience and action packed in tightly under your
\nbelt, looks and pride intact, and be in a position to choose your own means to an end?
\nBesides, dying didn’t scare me. Growing old scared me. (p.294)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Trickster’s luck seems to work better for rich junkies like Vicious and Sugerman than
\npoor addicts like Carroll and on the one occasion that he was arrested Sugerman found that
\nhis brother was the doctor on duty at the jail and, consequently, the evidence that could
\nhave landed him behind bars was conveniently “lost” (pp.319-20) leaving the
\nyouth to continue living out his romantic outlaw fantasies: “You have no idea how
\ngreat it feels, the power it gives you, carrying a half gram of pure heroin around on your
\nbody, ready to be used. It’s enthralling – better than having a gun or a rifle by your
\nside; better than a million bucks in a suitcase – thrilling, but scary too…”
\n(p.329).<\/p>\n

Whereas we saw Vicious implode rather than become a grown-up and Carroll gradually
\naccepting the individuation process, in Sugerman’s book we observe the protagonist
\nfighting with increasing desperation against anything which will take him out of the
\nTrickster state. In his constant internal battle to break away from parental conditioning
\nopiates form an important means of escape as the hero steps into the shadow:
\n“Narcotics were a deliberate and final elaborate step away from the world into which
\nI had been born and the first step into a new, thrilling unknown” (p.297). As with
\nTrickster, then, the process of maturation has to be forced upon Sugerman through pain.
\nEventual physical degeneration leads to him interrupting a performance by Manzarek’s band
\nby going out onto the stage to ask the audience “if they had any drugs for a
\ndope-sick manager” (p.364). As the group’s tour progresses so does Sugerman’s
\ndegeneration, to the extent that he has to be met by a wheelchair at airports and, what is
\nmore, his Trickster’s luck begins to run out. He is robbed at gunpoint by a black kid in
\nHarlem from whom he was trying to score (pp.367-8) and forced by a lack of ready cash to
\nlet his gay dealer to perform an act of fellatio upon him in exchange for drugs while his
\ngirlfriend looks on in disgust (pp.384-5). On his first attempt at injecting heroin, after
\na considerable period of inhaling the drug, he spends seventeen minutes dead on an
\noperating table – “First I saw God.\/Then I died.” (p.375) – during which time he
\ndescribes himself as floating above his body, torn between heaven and hell before being
\nbrought back from the gates of the Inferno by the voice of his sister (pp.378-9).<\/p>\n

Following this Sugerman’s friends begin to be eaten by the dragon: Suzette, an
\noccasional lover, overdoses and is repeatedly raped after he has refused to give her
\nsanctuary (p.395), Pamela Morrison, wife of his surrogate father and the woman with whom
\nhe lost his virginity, also dies of an overdose (pp.399-400), and, finally, while he is in
\nthe mental hospital to which he has been committed by his father in an attempt to make him
\nkick the habit, his girlfriend, Tiffany, overdoses, two-and-a-half months pregnant with
\nthe child he had told her to have aborted (p.445). Once more a remarkable parallel with
\nthe Trickster myth occurs as, in describing his physical degeneration, Sugerman’s emphasis
\non the scatological aspect of his withdrawal symptoms recalls the fact that Trickster was
\nsimilarly punished with flatulence and diarrhoea for the crime of going against nature and
\neating forbidden fruit (Episodes 23 and 24). Sugerman goes on to compose his own version
\nof Trickster’s lament: “Well, what a foolish one I am. This is why I am called,
\nFoolish One, Trickster” (Radin p.25). Typically he is more wordy than his Winnebago
\nprecursor:<\/p>\n

…I thought I’d done everything right, followed my best instincts, stayed true to
\nmyself whenever possible, taken every appropriate step in achieving my version of the
\nAmerican Dream. I was twenty-one years old. I had a gorgeous house in Laurel Canyon, a
\nbeautiful girlfriend, the best car in the world, all the money, drugs and hot shit a young
\nman could want. I was young and successful in the business of my choice. I had it made. I
\nhad it all<\/i>. And look where it got me – laying in a bedful of puke and sweat and
\nshit, locked inside an honest to God loony bin with two giants for my own personal
\nsecurity guards. Now, everything I had was gone and all I had left was a
\nfive-hundred-dollar-a-day drug habit and maybe, if I didn’t die in this insane place
\nfirst, just maybe<\/i>, my life. (pp.xvii-xviii)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sugerman’s maturation out of the Trickster role, then, comes in a negative manner,
\nchiefly through disillusionment with the way his life has developed. Just as Carroll came
\nto realise that “You just got to see that junk is just another nine to five gig in
\nthe end, only the hours are a bit more inclined towards the shadows” (p.162) Sugerman
\naccepts that “being a drug addict was a full-time job” (p.351), bemoans the fact
\nthat he has allowed the dragon to gain control of his existence – “I wasn’t doing the
\ndrugs any more. The drugs were doing me.” (p.412) – and despairs that his active
\nstruggle with the beast has given way to an alienated passive voyeurism: “Every day I
\nwatched myself kill myself a little more and I found it endlessly fascinating and that
\nterrified me even more” (p.413).<\/p>\n

Desperate measures fail to yield results as Sugerman’s tolerance is so high that a gram
\nof heroin plus a gram of cocaine can neither get him high nor kill him (pp.414-6). Faced
\nwith this failure Sugerman initially returns to heroic rhetoric in resuming his war
\nagainst the beast: “It was war and one of us was going to have to win. I could not
\ngive up. I might never begin to forget the pleasure of drugs, but I couldn’t live with the
\npain, the humiliation, the lack of living anymore” (p.418). Ultimately, however, on
\nthe point of death Sugerman is most concerned by the fact that all the heroic elements
\nseem to have disappeared from his life: “My life – hell – had become boring. It
\nwasn’t tragic, it wasn’t interesting, it was incredibly, achingly dull” (p.432).
\nThus, more bestial than divine, he enters voluntarily into therapy, deferring to external
\nauthority in a most unTrickster-like fashion, essentially reversing his earlier rite of
\nseparation through a rite of incorporation which confirms the essential tenets of a
\nsociety in which psychology has come to replace religion, and works his way out of the
\nTrickster persona and into the next stage of life as a successful businessman; more like
\nhis father than his surrogate father and more like an average adult member of the tribe
\nthan a juvenile outlaw Trickster hero.<\/p>\n

\n

Notes<\/h2>\n

1<\/b> Richard Gid Powers, “Myth, Ritual and the Comic Strip
\nG-Man”, Ray B. Browne (ed.), Rituals and Ceremonies in Popular Culture<\/i>
\n(Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1980, pp. 206-25) p. 213. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/b> Radin, Paul. The Trickster: A Study in American Mythology<\/i>.
\nLondon: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956. p. ix, p. 125.
\nFor the duration of this chapter all further references to this work appear in the text. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/b> Jung, Carl G. Man And His Symbols<\/i>. London: Picador,
\n1978. pp. 103-4. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

4<\/b> Burroughs, William S. Junky<\/i>. London: Penguin, 1977. p.
\n143. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

5<\/b> Chambers, Iaian. Urban Rhythms: Pop Music and Popular
\nCulture<\/i>. London: Macmillan, 1985. p. 175. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

6<\/b> Vermoral, Fred & Judy. Sex Pistols: The Inside Story<\/i>.
\nLondon: Omnibus, 1987. p. 74.
\nAntonia, Nina. Johnny Thunders . . . In Cold Blood<\/i>. London: Jungle, 1987. p. 50.
\nFor the duration of this chapter all references to the former work appear in the text. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

7<\/b> Carpenter, Kevin. Penny Dreadfuls and Comics<\/i>. London:
\nVictoria and Albert Museum, 1983. p. 101.
\nBarker, Martin. Comics: Ideology, Power and the Critics<\/i> Manchester: Manchester UP
\n1989. pp. 85-8. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

8<\/b> Carroll, Jim. The Basketball Diaries and The
\nBook of Nods<\/i>. London: Faber & Faber, 1987. p. 112. For the duration of this
\nchapter all further references to this work appear in the text. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

9<\/b> Carroll, Jim. Living at the Movies<\/i>. New York: Penguin,
\n1981. p. 58. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

10<\/b> Jung, Carl G. Psychology & Religion<\/i>. Trans. R. F.
\nC. Hull. New York: Pantheon 1953. para. 413, p. 273. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

11<\/b> Ker\u00e9nyi, in Radin, p. 190. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

12<\/b> Cassie Carter Kuennen, “Jim Carroll: An Annotated,
\nSelective, Primary and Secondary Bibliography, 1967-1988”, Bulletin of
\nBibliography<\/i>, Vol 47, No 2, June 1990, pp. 81- 112, p. 96. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

13<\/b> Ker\u00e9nyi, in Radin, p. 191. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

14<\/b> Sugerman, Danny. Wonderland Avenue<\/i>. London: Abacus,
\n1991. p. 89, p. 3, p. 67. For the duration of this chapter all further references to this
\nwork appear in the text. [BACK]<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Questions? Comments? You may contact Dr. Stephen Perrin at perrins@livhope.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chasing the Dragon: The Junky as 20th Century Hero Stephen Perrin Doctoral Dissertation University of Manchester (UK), 1993 CHAPTER 4: THE TRICKSTER Dragons live for ever, but not so little boys. — “Puff the Magic Dragon” Like lesser mortals the hero does not come into this world fully formed. As Powers points out, even comic … Continue reading Chasing the Dragon: The Junky as 20th Century Hero<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":3990,"menu_order":9,"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":[35],"class_list":["post-4108","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9VlUH-14g","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3990,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/academic-studies-of-jim-carroll\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":0},"title":"Academic Studies","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Book-length Discussions Cassie Carter, \"Jim Carroll's The Basketball Diaries and Forced Entries.\" 1990. San Diego State U. Master's Thesis.This was the first MA thesis written about Carroll. Jennifer Skye Hunt, \"An Unfinished Heart: Jim Carroll and Ted Berrigan's Collaborations and Mutual Influences.\" 2001. California State University Northridge. Master's Thesis.Pretty sure\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"The Jim Carroll Scholars (L-R): Me; David Gallant (U of Rhode Island); Stephen Perrin (Liverpool Hope University College, UK); Richard Campbell (Winona State University, MN)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/scholars.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/scholars.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/scholars.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5865,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/performance-reviews\/the-black-cat-1996\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":1},"title":"The Black Cat (1996)","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"January 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Jim Carroll at The Black CatWashington, D.C., 16 February 1996Preview by Brett Anderson,\u00a0Washington Post It's a shame that after spending the majority of his years putting a fresh slant on the tragic boho lifestyle, Jim Carroll had to gain fame in a longform MTV-video version of his teen-junky manifesto,\u00a0The Basketball\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4620,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/performance-reviews\/preview-university-of-montana-1999\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":2},"title":"\u201cOne wrist in heaven, one ankle in hell\u201d: Jim Carroll to Speak in Missoula\u00a0","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"University of Montana (Missoula, MT)8 November 1999Nate Schweber, Eye Spy Reporter\u00a0Kaimin Online19 October 1999 When I discovered Jim Carroll a week before my 20th birthday, it took me 30 seconds to adopt the last sentence of the first chapter of his book \u201cForced Entries\u201d as a personal motto. After a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4064,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/works\/jim-carroll-lyrics\/misc-lyrics\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":3},"title":"Misc. Lyrics","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Lyrics Index From\u00a0A World Without Gravity: The Best of the Jim Carroll Band: Differing Touch (also recorded by the John Tiven Group) Plain Division From Rancid's\u00a0... And Out Come the Wolves: \u00a0Junky Man From Boz Scaggs,\u00a0Other Roads: Perfect Water From Blue Coupe, When Legends Collide: Angel's Well From Herman Brood\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3998,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/jim-carroll-bibliographies\/jim-carroll-a-secondary-bibliography-1969-1996\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":4},"title":"Jim Carroll: A Secondary Bibliography, 1969-1996","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Home > Research > Bibliographies > Jim Carroll: A Secondary Bibliography, 1969-1996 Jim Carroll: A Secondary Bibliography, 1969-1996 By Cassie Carter Updated 7 June 1997 My original, annotated bibliography appeared in Bulletin of Bibliography 47.2 (1990). I occasionally update the secondary works section (works ABOUT Jim Carroll) via this page,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4010,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/jim-carrolls-interviews\/nods-of-days-gone-by\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":5},"title":"Nods of Days Gone By","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Interview by\u00a0Karl IrvingUC Santa Barbara\u00a0Daily Nexus,Arts & Entertainment, 22 May 1986, p. 5A It was a brisk and foggy morning when I called Jim Carroll at his office in New York City (\"The greatest hero a writer needs,\" he once wrote). I could sense a tense anticipation for the first\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\/4108","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=4108"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9902,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4108\/revisions\/9902"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/folder?post=4108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}