Mary Travers died while I was underwater. I don’t really have a connection to Peter Paul and Mary…no personal story to share about Puff the Magic Dragon or anything but you know, Peter Paul and Mary. So noted.
Patrick Swayzee died too. Did you see him at the end? It looked like he was dissolving before our very eyes. For a guy known for physicality he just wasted away. I figure a picture from “The Outsiders” era is probably the way I’ll choose to remember him. Again, no great connection for me but never let it be said that I put Baby in a corner.
And then there’s Jim Carroll. I was so crazy-busy that I missed the news of his death. It wasn’t until I saw a piece about what Patti Smith said at his wake that I realized he was gone. It kind of snuck up on my and took my breath away. Basketball Diaries was cool and so was Catholic Boy but my relationship to Carroll was all about Praying Mantis, one of the best spoken word records out there. Praying Mantis struck me in a very personal way. I got to see Carroll perform in Chicago back in 1995 or 1996 and it was one of my favorite shows ever even though not a note of music was played. I remember when Spalding Gray disappeared and then turned up dead a couple of weeks later. I feel kind of the same way about Jim Carroll. They were two artists whose work really affected me and I’m sad to see them go.
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