Anti Blog

(photo NY Times)

I had refrained from posting an obituary about writer-musician Jim Carroll for personal reasons. Perhaps unintentionally, his book “Basketball Diaries” had assisted many of my young friends into a deadly life that would eventually kill them. I liked Carroll’s rock album “Catholic Boy” but wasn’t sure what had happened to him after that. I suppose I imagined him riding out his junkie poet fame amongst the self congratulatory New York art and lit crowd. But a recent story in the New York Times reports what really happened and it humanizes Carroll in stunning and heartbreaking relief. The model looks and leather pants are gone. Instead there is a heartbreaking portrait of an intensely self aware and troubled artist. I will definitely read Carroll’s novel when it is published next year.

Read the New York Times article here.