High Performance Magazine Interview/profile_jim Carroll

I

-, MUSIC/POETRY

diM CARROLL Tuningin the Stationsof the Cross ByMARKDERY

V

i

EUCENIA H. POLOS

"Whenthingsare bad, peoplelookto artiststo clarifythe chaos.I think theyshouldnowtoo, they'restupidto let up." JO/HICH PERfORMANCUlssue 2711984

ou know Jim Carroll. Chances are he was the gawky altarboytop row, third from the left in your parochial school class picture, the one who dropped the dead fly into Father O'Rourke's communion chalice. Or maybe he was the smooth-talking Eddie Haskell-type who talked your kid sister into his Chevyand out of her virginity. Probably he was all and none of the above. Most people know him as the New Yawk wunderkind who dunked his first literary basket with LIVINGATTHE MOVIES, a collection of poems, at age 22. Carroll later knocked off the blockbuster BASKETBALL DIARIES,now in its umpteenth printing, a sortofblack leather CATCHERINTH ERYEthat trails a teenaged Jim Carroll as he cores the BigApple with a vengeance. After a hiatus in Northern California arm wrestling his smack habit into submission, Jim joined Patti Smith onstage in San Diego in '78 and soon after clinched a record deal with Atlantic. The hit single "People Who Died" (title from one of Poetic Godfather Ted Berrigan's poems) propelled CATHOLICBOY,jim's first lP, into the upper regions of the pop charts, and Carroll released a second disk, DRY DREAMS.The latter fared not so well, and beleaguered by buddy John Belushi's death, record company politics and a growing disaffection for the newest new wave, Jim Carroll began to seem more and more an endangered species of the Patti Smith ilk. Now, with a new volume of vinylverse, IWRITE YOURNAME,Carroll is back in the ring and ready to take all contenders to the mat. In an age where your neighborhood pop star sports a hassidic bowler and a full head of dreads, Jim Carroll declares, "I'm here to give you my heart and you want a fashion show." Who cares where the beef is, anyway? Wouldn't you rather have heart? MD: What did you think of Ron Mann's movie, POETRYIN MOTION, which you had a spot in? JC: That whole [Charles] Bukowski thing was bullshit. I think his work's pretty funny; Iwish he'd read acouple poems. Allthey did was sit around and get the guy drunk and he just rambled on about how much bullshit is in poetry. People were cursed to make fools of themselves. He should've read a poem himself and put up or shut up. That shit's easy-it's like shooting fish in a barrel. I love the poetry scene. There's a sense of community at poetry readings that's still maintained, whereas it's completely lost with rock n' roll. Church for people who don't go to church any more. . . . It's very ecclesiastical. There's some sense of liturgical coloring to it. That's why it's only right to have readings in a church. In a recent ROCKBILLinterview you said you were reading the Gnostic Gospels. Have you finished them, or are you still burrowing deep? Well, I haven't finished them-I mean, who's finished the Bible, in that sense? First of all, there's so many words missing that they're practically indecipherable, and there's all these symbols in the text and cross-references and stuff. It's a consuming thing with me. It has been since Iwas livingin the country and started to get back into Catholicism. With all these things, it's like one step

I

1964/lssue

27/HIGH

PERFORMANCE/31

EUGENIA H. POlOS

I

Jim Carroll leads to another. Fansgive me things. LikeI say in an interview that I was reading the Gnostic Gospels and then this girlgives me this book about EdgarCayce's visions.They just throw 'em up onstage, like hand grenades that come back at you later. Most of it's crank things, envelopes with syringes in 'em, but this book had this long letter in it and the girlhad a pretty good take on what I was thinking about at the time. It all gets more and more baffling and I don't know why it gives me such great pleasure to get bogged down in this stuff and then have some sudden little illumination abo~t it You once made the statement that lithe kids need a mythology." It seems that people are starved for a mythos these days; could that account for religion's attractiveness to you? Of course. I've always said that from the beginning. I said it on the Tom Snyder show when my first album came out, that punk rock is just like the Stations of the Cross. What could be more punk than this guy getting a crown of thorns, being scourged, carrying a cross up a mountain and being crucified? What was Synder's reaction to your theory? He said, "Not me, of course, but some people might think that's very blasphemous." I got tons of mail about that-you can't believe how many nutty people watch that show, all these moral majority people! Alot of'em wanted to convert me. But I was converted already, and I didn't mean what I said in any blasphemous sense. It just seemed like a very simple statement to make. I mean, my whole mythology was Catholicism and Snyder was asking why I called the album CATHOLICBOY. Did your parents have any adverse reaction to being on the record cover once they heard the music? No! Are you kidding? They loved it!! I mean, my parents hated the fact that Igrew up and gotinto poetrybutatthis point they don't care. At least I'm making more of a living, and financial security's the bottom line with them. They don't find the recorded particularly outrageous. What's to be outraged about? There's no songs that are really offensive on that record, I don't think. It depends on your sensibility. What did Roman Polanski think of "it's too late. . .. to fall in love with Sharon Tate?" I don't know. I spoke with Jack Nicholson about it once; he liked that album a lot, that's alii know. The thing about that song is that the second line was about Reverend J2/HICH PERfORMANCE/Issue 27/1984

Moon being shot and we had to edit it out because those people are litigation happy-"it's too late to fall in love with Sharon Tate/it's too soon but a bullet's gonna dance in the brain of Reverend Moon." I put in a more innocuous line"it's too soon to askme forthewords Iwant carved on my tomb," because everyone was setting up to die, to 0.0. any second, and that was the overwhelming push Iwas getting-"Why don't you just die right now, it's be a much better record if you did." It always that way, especially if your work has some stench of relic about it. But to get back to the point here, I don't know why Roman Polanski would get upset about that line. Iwas always very attracted to Sharon Tate-she was incredibly sexy to me. .Audiences seem to plug into the song. there's no doubt.. .

the way Jim Jones did, pulling chicken bones outof people and saying he was curing them. Anyway, he was the guy who said, "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." Burroughs has that line in every book! When I wrote that song NOTH ING IS TRUEpeople said, "Where'd you get this Burroughs line?" Burroughs has a good take on it but it's not his. For me it was just some repetitive riff. I don't believe that shit, for God's sake-"nothing is true; everything is permitted"-I'm too much of a Catholic guy! let's talkaboutthe new lP, IWRITEYOUR NAME. Would you say that the counter~ point you mentioned earlier in reference to poetry is present in your recorded efforts? lyrically it seems to be there but the music has always struck me as one endless expanse of no-frills rock 'n' roll snipped to fit the words. . .

I remember some kid about 11 years old quoted the whole thing to me on the beach one time, outside of Boston. Hewas in thralls of ecstasy. He knew this song and he saw me on the beach and he could never come to any shows because he was too young but he'd always listened to tpis song. I told him to come to the show that night and stay. backstage. I love kids that come to shows, little kids coming up to you with braces, like some kid came up to me in a parking lot outside a show in Santa Cruz, he was about 14 or 15, and he said, "Y'know, I love The BasketballDiaries but I hope your next book of poetry isn't gonna be as academic as Living At The Movies was." I said, "What are you, a little critic?" (laughs) But he made me think about that more than anybody else. Some girl just gave me the same thing-she thought my work was too controlled. I said, "Listen, if there's no control, there's no bang." Don't you think that lack of control is a disease that's afflicting a lot of modern writing? It seems that everybody's hopped on the Burroughs bandwagon. He's spawned a whole generation of writers who believe that "everything is permitted." It's true. Burroughs knows this. Funny thing is, that's not even a Burroughs line! "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" is from Hassan ISabbah, the founderofthe Cult of the Assassins. He used to have these guys get high on hash, guys who were all physicians and lawyers and astrologers, followers of his. He'd do these Jim Jones tricks, have one of his followers supposedly beheaded (he'd really be buried in the sand) and a week later Hassan would uncover a basket and show the guy's head talking, "I can't rest, I can't even die, my head lives on, it's because Idisobeyed Sabbah." He had all these stooges and tricks,

Well,J'vealwaysliked rock 'n' roll although

I don't think I'll ever make a record like that

again. I really don't know what I wanna do with music at this point. You're right, that counterpoint is what I miss musically; I've been working too much with just setting up a background for the lyrics. Maybe I just don't like rock 'n' roll enough. That's the problem. The fact is that I don't like rock 'n' roll at all, to tell you the truth. . . But at the same time, you don't want to be

Frank Sinatra or Michael Jackson.

..

I couldn't be; I'm not that good of a singer. Y'know, I don't think Jackson writes his lyrics. I don't think he has enough experience in the world. I can see" Beat It" more than " Billy Jean"-I don't think he knows how babies are made, never mind writing a song about "the child is not my . son." It seems to me that America, being in an economic slump, is really ripe for innocuous, sacrificial lamb-type pop stars. Could that be why some of your recent stuff hasn't really gone over? Because people don't want to see the skin-popping side of life right now, the ugly images? People want bullshit; they don't want songs that are interesting. It's completely different than it was in 1980. I think if CATHOLIC BOY came out right now it wouldn't sell a lot of records like it did then. You'd have to wear a little more

shadow.. .

eye-

You say that in passing but there was a point where I was thinking about all that psychologicalparaphernalia.Iwore a lot of make-up and thought, "If this wasn't such a pain in the assto do, I'd be smart to do it, because this is what people want, they want you to get up there and be something larger'-than-life." I mean, it is entertain-

men!, after all. So maybe I'll get_ out my fucking thigh-high boots, put on more eyeliner and look pretty again on my next rl'nml. lIul J)C'r~ulI.llly I ('.11I'1 W.lit (or this ~hil 10 IWI ov(~r, IIIl! w.ay musk is riy,hl now. Your lIu,ory Ih.11 pl'oplc~ W.III! fluff ill (uuy,h lill\(,~ 1II..k('s SCII~(!. WlwlI (!VI!ryOlH! W.IS

asking me why my firsl ..Ibum was so successful, I said because poets have a vested interest in bad times. Things are getting better now. I don't think it's gonna last but people see these things in a day-to-day, ephem~ral sense, you know. When things are bad, people look to artists to clarifythe chaos. I think they should now, toothey're stupid to let up. The one big change that's occurred in pop music is that it has traditionally been rebellious whereas now it's becoming obsequious, easily manipulated by conservative interests. I think that video hassomething to do with that, actually.That raunchy, cartoon-like, cheap surrealism, like when Duran Duran has that video of the kid who keeps following the ball through the forest. Surrealism, ifit's not done right,ifit doesn't havecontrol, then again,it's not going to be shocking but just lethargic. Since music is abstract, it should remain abstract. I mean, I've said a thousand times the reason I don't like video with music is because it takes awaythe joy of just saying,"This is our song," unadorned, y'know. There's this group R.E.M.,I was listening to their new record and there's this cut where the guy keeps saying,"I'm sorry, I'm sorry... ," and I was sitting in the Chateau Marmont, a hotel in LA. (it's the "Hotel California" in that song by the Eagles), Iwas sitting there watching this cat eating a bird in front of this retaining wall. You couldn't see a better video than that, seeing a cat kill a bird while a guy's screaming, "I'm sorry" through an echoplex. That's what music's about, for God's sake!! What do you think about the new breed of poet-songwriter- Debora Iyall of Romeo Void, for instance? Ireadan interviewwithheroncewhere she seemed over-anxious to impress on everybody the fact that she doesn't care about poetry in formal sense. r'm big on studyingand gettingitright.I mean, I can't

sayJ'vefound anyrules that I didn'twanna

EUCENIA H. POlOS

There's a lot of woman in what I write, believe me. I've always been very proud of the feminine side of my work. I write a lot of songs in character, in a feminine voice like "Lorraine," songs like that. To wrap up, you said in an interview some months back that at the age of 6 you were looking for a meeting with Christ and that you once invited him to watch the World Series with you. Are you still looking for that meeting? Sure. I'd love that. The World Series was an

break. but I wanna know what rule I'm interesting event that I thought Christ breaking. If Debora lyall's a noble savage might wanna watch; it was the most specthen morepowerto herbutthe thing I read tacular thing I knew-it was the World was just her going overboard to say some- Series, for God's sake. The Yankees were Ihill~ which didll't r".tl1r h.1\'" 10 lit' :,.Iid, Slw ..Iso :,.Iid :,oll1l'lhillg .lbOUI not liking , "'1111' "IiIIt.,.---

pl.lyil1~ 111<'11,/'/11 :,ur,'. a.II\' glj\:: Ji"~' R~.1Il Dur.,n ,1Ild '\\"ntk' .)I)d Billy ,\ l.1Itin- I'm :,ur,' I", IIl)ulcf"l' Il), ,'d to :,,',' RiII,- ,\I.utin

Well, from a woman's per'ipective, I'm sure you can understandBut from a writers perspective, I can't.

play. But I was seriously praying that he would just be with me while I was watching the game and we'd be talking. My father

was a bartender and he'd lend guys money and they'd always pay him off in fucking appliances, you know? Sowe had three TVsat one point and we didn't have three rooms, practically. I had this little 10-inch; it had a huge box the size of a 30-inch television with a fucking 10 inch screen. I used to watch that and have these little dialogues with the Great One (I don't mean Jackie Gleason), If Christ was on the Yankees, what position would he play? I'm sure he'd probably be a gutsy little catcher, a Jewish catcher with a lot of chutzpah.

(At thi:: point the tape ran out and the m.1,'hin~' did,ed off .1U~om.l:ic.ll"_ p:Jr:ctllating Jim's .:tnecdote with ,) sudden pop. Grinning, Carroll observed, "He did that.") 198~/I"ue

27/HICH PERFORMANCU33