chris carroll

chris carroll

Though primarily noted for his long career in the visual arts, Chris Carroll has danced with the written word for years. And now he’s finally gotten around to publishing the best of them in one place, for your edification. So, edify, baby! Dig?

Otis Fuentes was my first dog. A hulking Rottweiler/Labrador mix, he was kind of wild, a bit scary at times. Over the years he bit everyone in his life. And when Otis bit you you stayed bit. I always kind of secretly enjoyed that wildness, feeling like Otis brought a little of the untamed wilderness with him whenever he entered a room. All well and good, until our family grew to include a helpless little girl. And said little girl, by dint of species, was instantly above ol’ Otis in the pecking order. But he apparently didn’t receive the memo, so in the year 2000, after ten years of loyal companionship, I had to step in and kill him. He’d bitten my baby (a toddler by then) on the face, barely missing her eye. He had to go. This is the story of that departure.

My second job after college (after a brief stint as a motorcycle messenger) was Photo Editor of SPIN Magazine. Greatest job ever. I came onboard with the second issue. In addition to the camaraderie of being on a team of broke rock kids loose in New York, the young nature of the magazine itself meant that roles had not been established yet. There was a lot of “Yikes, we messed up and have an extra half page we didn’t plan for. Here, go listen to this record and write a review, have it in forty five minutes!” Even a Photo Editor could be called upon to do whatever it took to get out that next issue; and sometimes that meant actually writing pieces.

I love my wife. The moment I met her was like getting hit in the face by a board. She apparently felt similarly, but couldn’t act on it, as she was in a relationship at the time. We had a little dalliance, ended by Liz’ feelings of guilt and obligations to finish things up with her current beau. Though broken hearted, I nonetheless felt like something important had happened, so I wrote it down. Then of course, as you might have guessed, we eventually did get together.

On the “hit by a board” scale, nothing compares to the birth of my two awesome children: Sophia and Lucy.

Beavers always seemed cute to me. Then a pair of them moved in to the stream alongside my cabin in the Catskills. And the cuteness soon changed to horror at their destructive and irksome ways. The apple trees, which had fed deer for years? Gone in one night. Their beautiful and fascinating den/damn structure? Flooded the yard and threatened the foundations of the house. When they started in on the line of eighty foot ash trees, enough was enough.

Lovely wife Liz is a talented writer and editor, in addition to her manifest charms. The two of us collaborated on Legends of Country , a paean to America’s great native art form, Country Music. Here are a couple of my favorite pieces from that book.

I tried to do that NaNoWriMo thing in 2003. This is how far I got.

We had moved up the Hudson from Tribeca to Nyack a week before that beautiful clear Tuesday which would forever be known as 9/11. While watching the events transpire on TV, and staying in sporadic contact with dear friend Patricia (who lived on Chambers Street, literally in the shadow of the Towers) I felt rage and impotence. My new neighbor’s off-the-wall suggestion to join the local Fire Department was unexpectedly greeted with enthusiasm. Next time I’d be able to actually do something, instead of just watching events unfold on television. Ten years later, I’ve been Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, and Captain, and am now serving as Vice President and Recording Secretary of Chelsea Hook and Ladder Company #2, of the Nyack Joint Fire District. I give service to my community nearly every day, and get to drive the Big Red Truck.