The Automatik

The Shim Sham Club
January 18, 2002

Jim Carroll is a legend, but my friends, I was a Jim Carroll virgin. Sure, I’ve seen The Basketball Diaries and even heard some of his “hits,” but never read any of his poetry or heard any of his more recent music, spoken word or otherwise.

The place was pretty dead when I got there, except for all the Shim Sham employees, who I see so often I feel like we should start exchanging spare house keys. People eventually started trickling in and though some of them were fairly normal and/or nondescript, my “favorite” was a group of people sitting at a table near the bar having the most pretentious conversation I’d heard in while: “So, in London, in the thirties, the streets were clogged with thousands of hoboes.” HOBOES! Who uses that word?

The show didn’t start on time (but what New Orleans show does?), but opening act Wammo did not disappoint. One of the singers of Austin, TX’s Asylum Street Spankers, he was almost as rip-roaringly funny as a stand up comedian. I loved the bit about the “Kmart Racist” as well as his speculation that Hell is just a bad disco where Modern English’s “I Melt With You” plays on a constant loop while the poor, tortured souls are forced to do “The Molly Ringwald” for all eternity (complete with re-enactment!). “And the only break they get,” he assured us, “was the part in the song where the music fades away and you hear only the lead singer humming.” He proceeded to do a dead-on impersonation and we were all in hysterics. I love 80s music, but man, I hate that song. Another good piece was the revamping of the U.S.A. as One Nation, United under the Mullet.

Mr. Carroll took the stage, wearing a baggy velveteen blazer and trousers, as skinny as a coffee straw and as pale as a shard of bleached rock. His features were sharp and skeletal; an elfin Andy Warhol. And his NYC accent was so thick; all I could think was, “He sounds just like he did in Tuff Turf!” (I should explain that I watched this movie at least 150 times in high school during the height of my obsession with James Spader. Jim Carroll’s band appeared in a scene in a warehouse and he actually had a few lines of dialogue. Ever since I was thoroughly intrigued by his music, weird voice, lank red hair, and piercing blue eyes.) He is an unusual and arresting individual with nervous gestures and a trembling voice. I was surprised, perhaps because I thought his stage presence would be more like that other legendary, skinny, red haired New Yorker named Jim, Foetus that is; a barely restrained serial killer/rock star.

But this Jim was almost shy, not looking much at the audience until near the end of the show, fumbling with all his typewritten works extracted from piles of rubber banded papers. His silly gestures and stammering belied a true poet’s genius. He read several excerpts from different published works and I was totally captivated. I particularly enjoyed the ones about his “firsts”: the first time he shot a deer (it’s not what you think) and the first time he “vanquished an intruder.” One hilarious piece was a note that he and his friend allegedly saved after it fell from Tupac Shakur’s pocket. Another, which featured a series of facts that he explained were either real or facts he made up, was truly clever, especially when he interjected his own thoughts after an Oscar Wilde deathbed quote: “These drapes are horrendous; one of us has GOT to go.” He laughed and said, “That one’s true. What a genius!” with pure, unscripted awe and amusement. You’re never quite sure where he’s going, he seems like he’s almost frazzled, then he gets you with a perfectly phrased, excellently timed zinger at the end so that you’re left feeling like you’ve been swindled into enjoying his stories.

The last piece of the evening was slated to be a new song he’d written, performed a capella. It was so new he explained, he might even forget the words, so if he did, he’d just start singing another one. His voice shaking, he paced the stage speaking/singing (think Lou Reed) this amazingly well-written evisceration of gun culture. I literally could not take my eyes off of him. That’s when he pulled the whammy: suddenly his blue eyes burned with a mad fire and his voice transformed into throaty, insistent drawl. I think I locked eyes with him for a few minutes, my mouth open and smiling in amazement. Then suddenly, it was over. “Thanks, goodnight,” he smiled, gathering his things, stoop-shouldered. That trickster. Now I’m hooked.