FlexXBronco - Volume 2 Sampler (CD Review)

FlexXBronco - Volume 2 Sampler (CD Review)

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Jim Carroll (08/01/1949 - 09/11/2009)

My voice has a quiver. A quiver is where you keep arrows until you shoot them.
- from "The Child Within" by Jim Carroll


I am sort of in the midst of having waves of sadness and loss sweep over me on varying levels of intensity as Amy just told me that one of my great literary heroes, Jim Carroll, passed away on Friday.

According to his official website, Jim died at his desk. This brings me some small sense of solace, knowing that he was working on new material and obviously died doing what he loved. I always compared Jim to Rimbaud, child poets who embraced all that life had available, especially the "bad". It wasn't that they wanted to rebel...it was that they wanted to feel life in all of its varied nuances. One only truly feels alive the closer one comes to Death. And like Rimbaud, Jim knew this. He had danced to the edge of the abyss, even dipped a foot in, but was redeemed through his art. His story writing, his poetry, his pure punk-influenced rock n' roll, surging from his heart and soul in an explosion of what defines true art.

I had the pleasure of seeing Jim perform years ago at The Great American Music Hall in S.F. I went alone and made sure to get there early, staking out my seat right in the front. I had a clarity of understanding of the quote I have included above as soon as he spoke. He spoke for about an hour, alternating between poetry and prose, spoken word at it's best, delivered with an intensity that only a few could possibly muster, and yet done so effortlessly.

I have to admit to tears welling up in my eyes as I wrote this. While many only know Jim from the performance Leonardo DiCaprio gave as him in The Basketball Diaries (if you watch closely, you can even catch Jim giving a cameo as a junkie, rapturously describing a dream to Leo in the depths of a shooting gallery deep in the bowels of New York...), I would almost beg everyone to explore further, deeper. His life, his words, his experiences are drenched in color and stab into the mind and soul in an effort to rip out your heart and show it to you. Jim's writing got me through some very dark times in my life, helped me to overcome whatever deep funk or situation I had allowed myself to fall into. In him I felt a kindred spirit. I know I wasn't the only one.

Jim was...well...he just was, man. Never assuming an attitude, seemingly fragile in body and yet coming to full life with his words. Sadness cannot really truly describe my personal feelings at this moment.

The world has lost a true artist.

There will always be a poem
I will climb on top of it and come
In and out of time,
Cocking my head to the side
slightly,
As I finish shaking, melting then
Into it's body, it's soft skin
- from "Poem", by Jim Carroll (from Void of Course)