Cameron Crowe’s “The Uncool”: A Review

In his new memoir, writer/director/music aficionado Cameron Crowe doesn’t confess to which of his many achievements is his favorite. It may be writing the iconic Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Maybe it’s directing Say Anything, Vanilla Sky, Jerry Maguire, or Almost Famous. However, Crowe doesn’t dwell on making movies in his new book, The Uncool.  Rather, he spends most of his pages describing how music shaped his focus, values, family life, and gave him a sense of belonging.

Crowe takes us through his metamorphosis to becoming a professional writer at age 14 for a small southern California underground newspaper (The Door to Liberation). Reading about the many experiences that led to him becoming one of the premier directors of his time is headshaking. While touching upon many personal insights, Crowe was seemingly never struck by early self-doubt in his abilities or desires to be a writer. This helps his story stay fresh, fast, and fun with vivid recall.

Where Crowe invests most of his efforts is in his descriptions of music’s effects on his personal motivations and, eventually, the prime purpose of his young life. A “good kid” by nature, we experience his need to escape into the dreamy (sometimes dirty) world of Rock & Roll and to escape from a dominant but loving mother, from whom he inherited his advanced intellect (he graduated from high school at 15).

Although his home life had something resembling “normal”, his mother, entrepreneur father, and younger sister had to live with the shadow cast by his older sister (Cathy), who was described as “not normal.” Suffering from mental illness, Cathy would take her own young life while Crowe was in his mid-teens, leaving him to question if he was one of the many reasons for Cathy’s actions. (Even today, when he hears “Silence Is Golden” by the Tremeloes, his immediate sentiments lock in his older sister.)

He would find no solace in his father’s words describing Cathy’s actions (“She was in (mental) pain”).  But mother Alice would lay a heavy on him: “You’re my last chance to be a good mother.”

Her wishes haunted him, affecting the path he’d take when embedding in the seedy world of rock stars. Although he would steer away from law school (his mother’s career dream for him) and take up writing about music, he aimed to please her by perfecting polite ways to turn down drugs and other vices.

The book’s chapters offer short, entertaining snapshots of his memories after being discovered by Rolling Stone. At 16, he was pulling off some of the most sought-after interviews of the early ’70s era: Greg Allman, Glenn Frey, Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Humble Pie, Jerry Garcia, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Joe Walsh, Todd Rundgren, and Ronnie Van Zant, to name just a few.

The book doesn’t reprint any of these interviews in their entirety, but Crowe offers the most essential quotes while describing what was happening in the background. With that, he captures the spirit and beliefs of that era in powerful ways, making those high-minded views almost believable again.

Although Crowe attempts to relay his feelings at that time, the book’s insights are never sycophantic. He fairly points out some of the stars’ flaws, telling stories of the ones who played tricks on the teenager, while others bullied him. Most, like David Bowie, embraced him. Indeed, the Thin White Duke invited him to spend nearly 18 months together (while he was recording Station to Station). Bowie apparently saw him as different from other journalists: “……you’re young enough to be honest.”

Being underage for a California driver’s license, the memoir bounces along as he bums rides to interviews and meets a cadre of personalities that surrounds the mayhem of rock tours. Some of these players later showed up in his acclaimed 2000 film Almost Famous. We meet the real Penny Lane (played so memorably by Kate Hudson), along with the moment he was contacted by premier music critic Lester Bangs (played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman). His association with Bangs bloomed into one of Crowe’s first real professional friendships.

While he touches upon his later success as a movie maker, he reveals too few stories of how and when he spread his wings as an A-level Director. The best of the book’s anemic few Hollywood tales was when newcomer Sean Penn nailed his portrayal of Jeff Spicoli in 1982’s Fast Times. Everyone could see his star rising. He also revisits Almost Famous’s hilarious scene by telling the real story behind the bullying door guard, who wouldn’t let him into the concert venue for his first big interview assignment.

Unlike the movie’s storyline, the real-life scene was a lucky moment for Crowe as he was spotted by the concert’s promoter, who took pity on the teenager.  While handing him a backstage pass, the promoter advises him, “Act like you belong!”

“Belonging” is the accidental theme of the memoir. The Uncool is just what Crowe knew about himself – he was set up to be uncool, two to three years younger than his high school classmates, and with few friends. While there was still love within his immediate family, even his younger sister, Cindy, had to get away in the wake of his older sister’s tragic end. Crowe had nowhere to belong.

Yet, Cameron Crowe DID find his personal “belonging,” partly with his close relationship with his mother and partly within the pages of the rock magazines and the music.

And that’s pretty “cool.”

-Steven Valvano

Photo: Cameron Crowe, 2022 ( Philip Romano via Wikimedia Commons)xs