The Basketball Diaries/Jim Carroll

[DanCollins]

Hey everyone! This is my first thread I've really started myself, so, let's celebrate!
But first, I was wondering, having read all the different "opiate movie/movies with opiate use" threads in the film and footage place, and seeing how people always mention the basketball diaries with leo dicaprio.
And it kills me.

I don't want to start any arguments about it, because I'm sure the movie is good if you haven't read the book, and possibly even if you have, but The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll is one of my favorite pieces of literature ever, being incredibly well written, and the movie just destroys that for me. It adds a lot of things to make it more of a hollywood story, and basically ruins a really down to earth, gritty, true story of a 12-16 year old kid falling into heroin addiction. ugh.

So! That said, I'm really curious who's actually read this book, or any of his others, and what you thought of it.
Personally, it's a huge influence on my writing (I'm trying to become a published writer, and studying creative writing in college currently) and my music (I've even written a song dedicated to Jim and the last line of his book)

[Leave it ta Beaver]

I've yet to read the book but have had many friends that have & they say the same thing, that the book is much better.
I have seen the movie & thought it was a good movie, but i'm sure if i had read the book first i'd not like it as much cuz they allways hollywoodize the original stories!

Props on ya 1st thread, take care! the beave...

[DanCollins]

yeah man, i mean, the thing for me is they tried to dramatize and emotionalize the story so much, making scenes where jim would be down about basketball and his junkie self or his friends would be worried or dying or this or that, but in the book he's totally unapologetic, doesn't give a fuck, and accepts everything the world throws at him. Plus, the stories in the book are MUCH more interesting/disgusting/raunchy than hollywood really allows. I mean, the sheer amount of weird homosexual encounters and stuff like that, plus the characters are much more interesting on paper.
And his 1960s nyc street talk in the book is just so damn fun.

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm glad you enjoy the movie, but I do recommend reading the book if you even remotely enjoy reading haha. good stuff

[The_Highwayman]

Movies are never as good as the book, usually because they have to take 300-400 or more pages and jam them into a 120 page script so you don't have a 4 hour movie...I rememebr the Da Vinci Code being so much worse than the book, all you can hope for is the best and they stick to the book as close as possible but the rarely do...

[Dan Steely]

Never read the book but agree that the movie sucked ass.

[DanCollins]

I agree that movies are typically much worse than books, but in this case they didn't just take out hundreds of pages (hard to do with such a short book anyway), but added drama that was never there in the first place to appeal more to middle america and not turn them off because of the wise ass, junkie protagonist.
ugh

[Duckfeet]

I read it a long time ago, and I know I liked it, but I think I liked it the same way I liked "Junky" or "Cain's Book,": autobiographies of junky life...I have a feeling that even tho it was a bit of a cult classic, he was also kind of "in the right place at the right time," which you could also say about the other two junky writers...in other words, I don't know if any of these are really "literature," just mean a lot to us...I've never heard a *non* junky get that excited about them, but still, I just got thru reading the BBC blurb on Carroll, and liked the guy, and was glad he had a bit of fame fortune and NYC cool for a bit...

[DanCollins]

See, I know a LOT of non junkie, normal people who really love jim carroll's writing. He's just got a very, very good style and he's a very good writer who's been featured in a few very good magazines in his time too, so I think it stands out a little bit above junky, though maybe I'm just biased haha
not arguing or anything, though.

[euphoricontin17]

Yeah, I recently read the book after seeing the movie and I thought the book was great in comparison. The Jive talk like you said, makes it a lot of fun. I love the way he talks. " I'm digging this codeine head i've got going on " haha.

[DanCollins]

haha exactly! but it's not a cheap gimmick either. It's like reading requiem for a dream too, the way harry and tyrone speak in the book is fantastic.

[EleusisII]

Personally, it's a huge influence on my writing (I'm trying to become a published writer, and studying creative writing in college currently) and my music (I've even written a song dedicated to Jim and the last line of his book)

Interesting! What other writers do you like? What else have you read bookwise or periodicals? What sort of writing do you see yourself doing, just fiction in some form? Is creative writing the only subject you study?

[nick]

His poetry is actually good,but his prose is functional at best.If he wrote about a different subject(something like stamp collecting) I wonder how you'd rate him.

He ain't a great writer.

[nodrover]

Hey, wasn't Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas first a movie, and then there was a book written based on the movie? Or am I mistaken? (gotta go to class, no time to google).

[EleusisII]

Nah, magazine article-book-movie...

But comparing Fear and Loathing with Basketball Diaries (Not that its a bad book) is blasphemy really...

[southernbelle]

Hey, wasn't Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas first a movie, and then there was a book written based on the movie? Or am I mistaken? (gotta go to class, no time to google).


Sorry sweetie, but you're mistaken. It was a book first. Interesting man, Hunter S. Thompson.

[wisegal]

i read that book in high school and LOVED it. I want to read it again to celebrate Jim's life. good thread, DC! welcome to opiophile!

[GOLD N DIEMONDS]

One of my favorite reads- ATLAS SHRUGGED
Movie of that one ?
ever and how??

[nick]

One of my favorite reads- ATLAS SHRUGGED
Movie of that one ?
ever and how??

NO because Ayn Rand is a nut and demanded final edit of the script.There is a tv mini series and apparently a movie is being considered.

Personally I hated the book,which is basidcally,libertarian porn.

[GOLD N DIEMONDS]

NO because Ayn Rand is a nut and demanded final edit of the script.There is a tv mini series and apparently a movie is being considered.

Personally I hated the book,which is basidcally,libertarian porn.

Objectivism = libertarian porn:D
THE FOUNTAINHEAD - do anything for you?
who would play Jon Galt in your movie version???

pretty hard to final edit from the grave? so never

[nick]

Objectivism = libertarian porn:D
THE FOUNTAINHEAD - do anything for you?
who would play Jon Galt in your movie version???

pretty hard to final edit from the grave? so never

Yeah,this was a long time ago-the '70's maybe.

and I'm all for Micky Mouse playing Jon Galt,but I suspect the producers would rather go for someone like Russel Crowe.

[StackBundles]

Hubert Selby Jr. = Junkie Literature. All the rest of that shit is mainly tripe.

[nick]

Hubert Selby Jr. = Junkie Literature. All the rest of that shit is mainly tripe.

I don't know.His best book(the room) has nothing to do with dope.To be honest.......I'm not a big fan.

[SHELLEY]

i only liked basketball diaries because leo dicaprio is gorgeous
but not as gorgeous as he is in blood diamond (swoon)

[StackBundles]

I don't know.His best book(the room) has nothing to do with dope.To be honest.......I'm not a big fan.

I dunno'... It equals junkieness to me because anyone of us could find ourselves in the very same predicament that the protagonist of "The Room" is in given our lifestyle and the choices that we may make sometimes to sustain it.

Anything that deals with a mutual or corrillary aspect of something I tend to relate.

Not all junkies are prostitutes, nor are all prostitutes junkies...

Just my line of thinking in classifying him as a "junkie author".

[Duckfeet]

Hubert Selby Jr. = Junkie Literature. All the rest of that shit is mainly tripe.

Yeah, he wrote back when books were still king...best, IMO, was Last Exit to Brooklyn. Also noteworthy, and a much better NYC real junky life, is "Cain't Book" by Alexander Trochi...Carroll struck me too much as a junky tourist...I know he wasn't *really*, I mean, he was a junky and all, but he was a junky kind of like Andy Warhol's/Patti Smith crew and NY hip people are junkies, not like some hard hopeless motherfucker with no way to turn...he had options...most street heroin addicts don't...interesting, cuz I'm a white dopefiend, and can identify I guess, but Basketball was that good as writing, to me.

Nah, magazine article-book-movie...

But comparing Fear and Loathing with Basketball Diaries (Not that its a bad book) is blasphemy really...

Haha *Exactly*: somebody who knows what they are talking about: it did start out in Rolling Stone Magazine, (and way to go RS for giving Thompson his big break)...also Tom Wolfe's great novel, Bonfire of the Vanities started out the same way, in Rolling Stone...that's where I first saw both of them...

[The Paregoric Man]

Yeah, he wrote back when books were still king...best, IMO, was Last Exit to Brooklyn. Also noteworthy, and a much better NYC real junky life, is "Cain't Book" by Alexander Trochi...Carroll struck me too much as a junky tourist...I know he wasn't *really*, I mean, he was a junky and all, but he was a junky kind of like Andy Warhol's/Patti Smith crew and NY hip people are junkies, not like some hard hopeless motherfucker with no way to turn...he had options...most street heroin addicts don't...interesting, cuz I'm a white dopefiend, and can identify I guess, but Basketball was that good as writing, to me.


Well the problem with that is when you get right down to it drug addiction is pretty fucking boring, at least for outside observers. It would be pretty hard to have a hardcore hopeless addict with no special talent or writing ability produce something readable. You need the metaphors and allusions and all that to make it interesting, would you want to read 800 pages of "today I got so fucking high you wouldn't believe".:p

So pretty much by definition any junky whose story we are reading IS exceptional, I'm not speaking to the racial aspect BTW just writing ability.

[Duckfeet]

Yeah: I loved *any* junky writing when I was younger, it was so rare: I read "junky" by Burroughs when I was around 19 and had yet to do heroin, but right after reading it, I jumped...but I had already read On The Road when I was around fifteen, and it too meant so much to me. I just like books, and I guess when I got around to reading "Basketball Diaries" I'd already been a heroin addict for years, was out of prison, and not as thrilled as I once was...but books, a lot, has to do with what we bring to the book, and I agree that no real street hardcase writes anyway...Burroughs was similar to Carroll in many ways, being connected already to NYC literary scene, and all that...I get it. I think I'm being a little snotty about Carroll's book, for some reason...I got a cold, makes me bitchy ;)

Well the problem with that is when you get right down to it drug addiction is pretty fucking boring, at least for outside observers. It would be pretty hard to have a hardcore hopeless addict with no special talent or writing ability produce something readable. You need the metaphors and allusions and all that to make it interesting, would you want to read 800 pages of "today I got so fucking high you wouldn't believe".:p

So pretty much by definition any junky whose story we are reading IS exceptional, I'm not speaking to the racial aspect BTW just writing ability.

[DanCollins]

Sorry, i have been absent. And, in case anyone thinks so (which i hope they don't) this isn't primarily what I read. My favorite authors, to name a few, are people like Etgar Keret, Dave Eggers (and the whole mcsweeney's crew sometimes), Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Richard Brautigan, Mark Danieleski, Bukowski, Kerouac, Ginsberg and a whole host of other people and styles. Maybe not a lot of your guys' style, maybe it is, but I don't primarily read junkie lit, and yes, it is sort of gratuitous sometimes, or uninteresting if you're not into the lifestyle, I just really like Carroll's style, despite agreeing with a lot of your points about it.

But yeah! That's all, just a small clarification I guess.

[duck]

Movies are never as good as the book, usually because they have to take 300-400 or more pages and jam them into a 120 page script so you don't have a 4 hour movie...I rememebr the Da Vinci Code being so much worse than the book, all you can hope for is the best and they stick to the book as close as possible but the rarely do...

I can't think of one movie that's better than the book.

[EleusisII]

Sorry, i have been absent. And, in case anyone thinks so (which i hope they don't) this isn't primarily what I read. My favorite authors, to name a few, are people like Etgar Keret, Dave Eggers (and the whole mcsweeney's crew sometimes), Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Richard Brautigan, Mark Danieleski, Bukowski, Kerouac, Ginsberg and a whole host of other people and styles. Maybe not a lot of your guys' style, maybe it is, but I don't primarily read junkie lit, and yes, it is sort of gratuitous sometimes, or uninteresting if you're not into the lifestyle, I just really like Carroll's style, despite agreeing with a lot of your points about it.

But yeah! That's all, just a small clarification I guess.


Heya... You know what they say. Considering that pretty much every story has already been told, authors are usually standing on the shoulders of giants. If you're serious about becoming an author, check out some of the classics> Deostoyevski, Zola, Hugo, Balzac.

And a creative writing degree doesn't make you qualified for anything but teaching High School English at best. If you want to be an author, you gotta write, write and write some more. I'm sure we'd love to give you some feedback if you post some of it here!

[DanCollins]

Yeah, the creative writing thing is 1. to get through college, 2. so I can be qualified for whatever kind of jobs that come my way in the field, not for getting published.
I'm already writing as much as possible and sending things everywhere, getting rejected as much as possible and hoping, hoping, hoping!
and yes, I have read many of the classics, I just listed my favorites I could think of, but I've read a lot, as much as possible really. I appreciate the advice much! Maybe I will post one day for fun and get something torn to shreads by you lovely opiofriends.

[The Paregoric Man]

Yeah: I loved *any* junky writing when I was younger, it was so rare: I read "junky" by Burroughs when I was around 19 and had yet to do heroin, but right after reading it, I jumped...but I had already read On The Road when I was around fifteen, and it too meant so much to me. I just like books, and I guess when I got around to reading "Basketball Diaries" I'd already been a heroin addict for years, was out of prison, and not as thrilled as I once was...but books, a lot, has to do with what we bring to the book, and I agree that no real street hardcase writes anyway...Burroughs was similar to Carroll in many ways, being connected already to NYC literary scene, and all that...I get it. I think I'm being a little snotty about Carroll's book, for some reason...I got a cold, makes me bitchy ;)

When I was younger I also loved any and all junky expose fiction and loved movies like Train Spotting and Drugstore Cowboy, but now I am kind of "meh" on this genre.
I mean they ALL follow the same basic plot, which is introduction to drug/scene>gratuitous drug use/crazy drug related antics>scary incident like prison/near OD that gives the protagonist pause>then rehab/or protagonist leaves drugs/drug lifestyle behind. At this point it feels as stale as the zombie genre.

I guess I was more interested in junky tell all stories before I was really exposed to the real lifestyle, now its sort of well boring :p

[EleusisII]

Yeah, the creative writing thing is 1. to get through college, 2. so I can be qualified for whatever kind of jobs that come my way in the field, not for getting published.
I'm already writing as much as possible and sending things everywhere, getting rejected as much as possible and hoping, hoping, hoping!
and yes, I have read many of the classics, I just listed my favorites I could think of, but I've read a lot, as much as possible really. I appreciate the advice much! Maybe I will post one day for fun and get something torn to shreads by you lovely opiofriends.

When I first read your post, that you like Jim Carroll and because of him want to be an author, I couldn't help but think: "Poor naive kid". Sure is good to hear that you're realistic and that I was wrong.
I don't know where you send your stuff, but I do know that it usually won't really get read if you send it directly to a publisher (after all they get hundreds of manuscripts a week). If you want to get around that, you got to find an agent. Some agents also give you feedback even if they reject your stuff, which is always useful. I'm sure you probably also know this, but there are lots of fiction/poetry magazines where you could send you stuff (and possibly get feedback). You might also look into vanity publishing. It's not as much of a scam as it used to be, and quite a few authors have sold plenty of books that way.

All the best!