Basketball Diaries

that movie is utter pants. I mean, really bad. watch it again without drinking meths and smoking a crack pipe and you'll see you've made a huge mistake. jim carroll, however, is a great little writer. living at the movies and the basketball diaries are top reads. [%sig%]

I tried reading one of Carroll's books - some kind of New York diary - and gave up after eighty pages. To me it was self-regarding waffle. I liked the Ginsberg anecdote though, which showed what a sweet guy Ginsberg was to put up with a twa*t like Carroll.

What's a sexual harassment suit as opposed to a Brooks Brother suit, Steve? Does it have poppers down the legs? Built-in codpiece? Handy little pocket to store your wolf whistle? And, yes Leonardo Da Vinci is a genius, but I think we all know that. I can't think who else you might mean. [%sig%]

de capprio is a terrible actor. I read the Basketball Diaries in the 80s. It had fallen out of favor at that time, out of print as well I think....then it was revived and made into a movie. The story is a very 60s NYC thing...lou reedish and all that. I liked it, but I'm not sure it travels well. I saw Jim Carrol at the West Side YMCA in about 1981. William S Burroughs was giving a live reading of some of his latest work and Carrol was in the audience. Interesting evening, that. Terry Southern was the MC.

de cap should be sent to jail whether he has committed a crime or not. i'm talking hard labour. the deep south....made into a "sweet thing" of some lifer called Bubba. has anyone seen that pic with david thewlis and de cap about rimbaud and verlaine? wowza! it's been about 12 years since I've read basketball diaries and living at the movies. basketball diaries has a terrific fizz and energy to it and there are some terrific little poems in living at the movies - some terrible ones too, admittedly. i don't know what he did after those books, but it wouldn;t surprise me if he disappeared up his own rectum given the absurd amount of gushing praise lavished on him - the new rimbaud etc. probably believed the hype and that was the end of that. i like the story of ginsberg with his boyfriend peter in cuba in the early sixties, meeting cuban officials, trying to meet castro, and all they talked about was legalising marijuana. in the end, one of the officials had to pull them aside and say, 'Look guys, we are trying to achiveve a revolution here. We need education, hospitals, a new society, marijuana is the least of our worries.' [%sig%]

Yeah, Basketball Diaries the film is pretty dull but I am still holding onto to the dream that De Caprio can once again perform like he did in 'What's eating Gilbert Grape?' Titanic, The Beach, Gangs of New York - cack.

Jim Carrol had a rock band for a while, but I think they only played locally in the NYC area. As far as I know, he's never done anything else, which is also a very 60s thing. At least he is true to his kind.

Well, at least we are getting a sense of humour now. I just wanted to strike the right buttons. I personally loved the Basketball Diaries.

It takes me ten minutes to spell your name, especially with that underlining thing stuck in the middle like bubble gum. It's heinous! Where'd you get it? At the grammarian's shop, clearance? And yet you defend Burroughs? The junkie guru of Drugstore Cowboy fame? You like Allen Ginsberg? The mediocre Jewish prophet/ poet? Lou Reed is a good singer, but don't tell me that you like that mediocre stuff that his girlfriend does, what's her name, Laura something or other? Beat is beat. Reality bytes bites. Language is homonomously eponymously infamously corrupted. I do like Kerouac. On the Road was phenomenally liberating book for me, but he only praises the lasses with that 36,28,36 figure. I don't much understand the workingclass in America and their Fascist attitudes. I suppose they hate foreigners like me who succeed in business without being corrupted. As for Burroughs, I see him as the beginning of Rap Music, of all the conspiracy theories that pop out of a homeless man's demented mind, and as someone who's taken so many drugs that he is as heartless as that other cocaine addict philosopher, yours truly, Wittengstein. If memory serves me right, that is the correct spelling. When I was homeless at Harvard Square for about 3 months, I realized something. People will do anything to be popular, for 15 minutes of fame, just like that dumb girl who's suing Kobe.

I can see how it is a 60's thing, exploring one's consciousness with drugs and hitting rock bottom, but why are so many athletes experimenting with drugs? Is it really their desire to know themselves? Isn't it simply to extend their pleasure, to feel something once again?