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The needle and the damage done >> Jim Carroll on spoken word, prostitution and what it's like to be America's favourite literary junkie by JOHNSON CUMMINS
The Mirror spoke with Carroll--who is presently working on two novels--by phone from his Chelsea apartment to get some thoughts on the topics that have made him so damned famous. The Basketball Diaries Most books about youth are usually written in hindsight, but because I was so young when I wrote it I think it retains a sense of camp and naïveté that a lot of kids can relate to. It's full of very honest and bare moments that are not necessarily literary, because I didn't know how to be literary. I wanted to write but I couldn't sustain a plot, so I just let the unveiling of my life be the plot. >>> Heroin When I started doing heroin most of my friends were really into drinking. I would just get sick if I drank, but when I did heroin it felt really good. I can understand the resurgence that heroin is having now because the drug cycle always returns to it. People get into speedy drugs and then eventually want to come down to a womb-like place. Heroin slows down the landscape so you can see all the bullshit: it can be good artistically, but after a while it gives you permission not to work. Unfortunately, I'm seeing that happen to a lot of lot of talented, young artists right now. Heroin invokes a great feeling and to me there just is no other drug, but quitting cocaine was a piece of cake compared to quitting heroin. I'm still paying for it to this day. It's really vicious stuff. >>> Dogs I love all animals but I especially love dogs. Dogs are the greatest things in the world! >>> Junkie icon It's weird when I hear that people took up heroin after reading my book, but I also get letters from people who stopped doing heroin after reading it. I don't know what to think, because I didn't have an agenda when I wrote it. And I really don't want people to see only heroin addiction in my work, because that has so little to do with it. Even now, people assume certain poems or stories are about heroin, when I haven't done the drug in years. And I'm always the first person people call when they do a story on it. >>> Sexual abuse I was molested three times growing up and one of them marked my first orgasm. At the time I just thought of it as a new experience. Now I realize there is a residue of pain--it was something that was snatched from me before its time. It was a degeneration of my natural processing in growing up sexually. >>> Prostitution After I was molested I figured I'd already been violated, so why not make some money off of it for drugs. I was pretty terrible at it, because I couldn't be with the same guy twice--that proved to be a very bad financial move. I was a real homophobe back then, so I wouldn't let guys do much to me and I would have to get nullified beforehand. >>> Spoken word I think it's great that spoken word is getting popular. For the first time in my life I'm writing certain stuff not just for the page. The main problem with spoken word, though, is that it is always the most shocking, clever and stupid poems that get the most reaction from an audience. But when you read those kind of poems on paper, they just seem to be vapid--which goes against everything poetry is supposed to be. I try to combine the best parts of spoken word and make it poetry. Jim Carroll was supposed to appear at Foufounes Électriques on Oct. 18 as part of Yawp! Carroll was mugged in New York on October 15 and is currently in hospital with a concussion. His appearance has been rescheduled for the beginning of december. Tickets refundable at point of purchase
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With the success of the 1994 film adaptation of his the book The Basketball Diaries and with the passing of William S. Burroughs, Jim Carroll now seems to be the media's favourite literary junkie. After all, the highly biographical Basketball Diaries was not exactly your typical Judy Blume fare. Written when Carroll was in his early teens (he's now 47), the book tells the tale of a young man turning tricks in Manhattan's seedy 53rd and 3rd district to maintain his heroin addiction.