{"id":4185,"date":"2022-01-10T22:17:48","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T22:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8000\/?page_id=4185"},"modified":"2025-03-05T20:11:23","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T04:11:23","slug":"jim-carroll-cool-poet","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/feature-articles\/jim-carroll-cool-poet\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Carroll: Cool Poet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Lewis MacAdams
Entertainment Weekly<\/em>\u00a030 June 1995 (p. 50)
Special Summer Cool Section<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Jim Carroll’s ‘The Basketball Diaries’ tells of his Catholic boyhood to basketball star, to living on the streets as a junkie. His book was made int o a film that premiered in January 1995 at the Sundance Festival.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Jim Carroll missed the world premiere of The Basketball Diaries<\/em> at Sundance last January. He wanted to stay in New York City and meet with a Vatican monsignor who investigates miracles, “like the image of Christ burnt into a tortilla,” he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readers of The Basketball Diaries<\/em> know the miracle of Jim Carroll: Groveling for a fix, he wrote like an angel, creating a transcendent autobiography of his fall from Catholic grammar school golden boy and All-City basketball star to junk-sick 15-year-old scavenger selling his body in public toilets, ripping off old ladies’ purses, puking his guts out in a burnt-out basement, moaning “I just want to be pure.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First published in 1978, The Basketball Diaries<\/em> has sold an estimated half a million copies; on the heels of the movie version, it returned to best-seller lists. At book signings with Leonardo DiCaprio, the film’s star, it was Carroll the crowds clamored for. Over the years, moody heartthrobs from Matt Dillon to River Phoenix jockeyed to play Carroll. In the late ’80s Phoenix carried around the Diaries<\/em>, claiming it was the only lead role he wanted to play. The option money from at least 10 scripts has kept Carroll in relative financial ease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now 44, his athletic body amazingly unblemished by the ravages of heroin, his skin still translucently pale, his once orange-red hair dulled to the color of ginger, he is divorced from music industry lawyer Rosemary Carroll and lives alone in Inwood, his old neighborhood in upper Manhattan. Late some afternoons, he likes to go to church. He misses the old Latin Mass, he says: “I liked it when the priest faced the altar. These days it’s like a cooking class.” He says he never takes Communion. “I always think I’m going to find the ideal priest, but they all end up with booze on their breath, like when I was a kid.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has a famous first album, too: 1980’s Catholic Boy<\/em>. The Diaries<\/em> soundtrack opens with Carroll, backed by Pearl Jam, singing a sped-up ’90s version of the title cut. His cult hit “People Who Died,” a raucous valedictory to boyhood amigos, also figures prominently. Now Carroll is trying to decide whether to put a new band together (Rhino Records released World Without Gravity: The Best of the Jim Carroll Band<\/em> in 1994) or get back to a novel about a rich young painter in spiritual crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poetry is a constant. He rises early to write. Fear of Dreaming<\/em>, his selected poems, was published last year by Penguin Books. He still writes in schoolboy marbled notebooks, and though he lives the isolated life of a committed writer, he tries to stay in touch with the world. His major vice is watching too much television. “I got rid of cable,” Carroll shrugs. “Now I just watch the infomercials.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirty-two years after he began The Basketball Diaries<\/em>, Carroll remains mystified by the book’s staying power — “Actually, I wanted to write a novel, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to sustain a plot or character, and I was too young to make it literary” — and by his notoriety, which, he understands too well, keeps pulling him back into his own adolescence. “Kids are always coming up to me with a bottle of Carbona and saying `Let’s go up on the roof and sniff.’ God, if they only knew how boring my life really was.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the movie treats Carroll with a respect bordering on reverence, he admits he’s never been comfortable with the film’s climax: Fresh out of prison, neatly dressed and squeaky-clean, he gives his first poetry reading to torrential applause. “It seems like a Narcotics Anonymous meeting,” he cracks, as big a wiseass as ever. “It would have been great if they’d just [killed] me off.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 1995 Entertainment Weekly<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lewis MacAdamsEntertainment Weekly\u00a030 June 1995 (p. 50)Special Summer Cool Section Jim Carroll’s ‘The Basketball Diaries’ tells of his Catholic boyhood to basketball star, to living on the streets as a junkie. His book was made int o a film that premiered in January 1995 at the Sundance Festival. Jim Carroll missed the world premiere … Continue reading Jim Carroll: Cool Poet<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":4163,"menu_order":11,"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":[39],"class_list":["post-4185","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9VlUH-15v","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8855,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/works\/jim-carroll-music-and-spoken-word\/spoken-word-lecture-recordings-by-jim-carroll\/basketball-diaries-audio-literature\/","url_meta":{"origin":4185,"position":0},"title":"The Basketball Diaries (Audio Literature)","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"March 7, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Cover Art: The Basketball Diaries Audiobook The Basketball DiariesBy:\u00a0Jim CarrollRead by:\u00a0Jim CarrollPublished:\u00a01995Publisher:\u00a0Audio LiteratureFormat:\u00a0audio cassetteCover photo:\u00a0Michael ZagarisMusic by:\u00a0Lenny Kaye In this Audio Literature presentation, consisting of two audiotapes, Jim Carroll reads his cult classic book\u00a0The Basketball Diaries, which he wrote between the ages of 12 and 16, from 1962 to 1966.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Cover Art: The Basketball Diaries Audiobook","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/bdaudio.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8657,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/works\/literary-works\/diaries-and-fiction-by-jim-carroll\/the-basketball-diaries\/the-basketball-diaries-1995-film-tie-in\/","url_meta":{"origin":4185,"position":1},"title":"The Basketball Diaries (1995 Film Tie-In)","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"March 6, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The Basketball Diaries: Fourth EditionBy: Jim CarrollPublished: 1995Publisher: PenguinFormat: PaperbackCover photograph: Leonardo DiCaprio by John Clifford The 1995 Penguin edition of\u00a0The Basketball Diaries\u00a0is a tie-in with the\u00a01995 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. The cover features photo of Leonardo DiCaprio (by John Clifford. Film credits and a new blurb are on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/bd4cov.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4003,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/works\/literary-works\/diaries-and-fiction-by-jim-carroll\/","url_meta":{"origin":4185,"position":2},"title":"Diaries and Fiction by Jim Carroll","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The Petting Zoo: A NovelPublished:\u00a0November 8, 2010By:\u00a0Jim CarrollPublisher:\u00a0VikingCarroll was putting the finishing touches on his first novel,\u00a0The Petting Zoo, when he passed away in 2009. Protagonist Billy Wolfram, a hot young artist in late 1980s NYC, suffers a psychological and spiritual breakdown while viewing the Met's Velasquez retrospective and desperately\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/PettingZooLarge.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/background\/","url_meta":{"origin":4185,"position":3},"title":"Background & Context","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"May 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"These are some special feature areas on individual topics to provide more in-depth information on Jim Carroll. About Jim Carroll Overview of Jim Carroll's life and works (see also Biographies). In Memoriam Acknowledgment and documentation of Carroll's death Behind The Basketball Diaries These pages offer background and context for\u00a0The Basketball\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/carroll-dicaprio-bd-film.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/carroll-dicaprio-bd-film.webp?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/carroll-dicaprio-bd-film.webp?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/carroll-dicaprio-bd-film.webp?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4035,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/photos-video-audio\/photo-gallery\/the-jim-carroll-website-image-gallery-misc-new-images\/","url_meta":{"origin":4185,"position":4},"title":"The Jim Carroll Website: Image Gallery: Misc. New Images","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"> > Misc. New Images > 8 January 2001 >These are images for which I haven't yet created pages. Portraits Jim Carroll -- Portrait from Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart (PBS) Jim Carroll, Spring 1971 (by Gerard Malanga) Jim Carroll, Ted Berrigan, Lee Crabtree, and Julius Orlovsky (1969) Jim\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4163,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/feature-articles\/","url_meta":{"origin":4185,"position":5},"title":"Feature Articles","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Feature articles are general interest articles about Jim Carroll. Some of them include interviews and reviews and, as such, are also included in the Interviews and other areas within the Research Library of the site. These articles are arranged in chronological order. Ted Berrigan, \"Jim Carroll.\" Culture Hero 1.5 (1969).Poet\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\/4185","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=4185"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8578,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4185\/revisions\/8578"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/folder?post=4185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}