For Cameron Crowe, Being 'Uncool' Is A Badge Of Honor
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. My guest Cameron Crowe is known for writing the screenplay for Fast Times at Ridgemont High and writing and directing Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky, and Almost Famous, for which he won an Oscar for Best Screenplay. It's the story of a 15-year-old who in 1973 manages to become a rock critic and somehow get backstage interviews with important musicians. By the age of 16, he's published in Rolling Stone and even writes a cover story. As improbable as that may sound, it's based on Crowe's own life as a teenage music writer. His new memoir, The Uncooled, © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Let's start with a clip from early on in Almost Famous. The Cameron Crowe character, William, is about 11, listening to an argument between his mother, played by Frances McDormand, and his older sister, played by Zooey Deschanel.
The mother speaks first. You've been kissing.
No, I haven't.
Yes, you have.
No, I haven't.
What inspired Cameron Crowe to write 'The Uncool'?
Yes, you have. I can tell. You can't tell. Not only can I tell, I know who it is. It's Daryl.
What you got under your coat? It's unfair that we can't listen to our music. It's because it is about drugs and promiscuous sex. Simon and Garfunkel is poetry. Yes, it's poetry. It is the poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex.
Honey, they're on pot.
First it was butter, then it was sugar and white flour, bacon, eggs, bologna, rock and roll, motorcycles. Then it was celebrating Christmas on a day in September when you knew it wouldn't be commercialized.
How did Cameron Crowe become a rock critic at such a young age?
What else are you going to ban?
Honey, you want to rebel against knowledge. I'm trying to give you the cliff notes on how to live life in this world.
We're like nobody else I know.
Cameron Crowe, welcome back to Fresh Air. It's a pleasure to talk with you again. Thanks, Terry. Was your mother at all like the Frances McDormand character and how unusual she was and how opposed to rock and roll? Even Simon and Garfunkel, who she probably hadn't even heard yet.
Well, first of all, hearing that clip, it's uncanny how much Frances McDormand is my mother. I mean, the dialogue was straight out of our family and our home.
I'm just going to interrupt by saying your mother died, I think it was last year.
She died in 2019.
2019, yeah.
On September 11th. Born on the 4th of July and passed away on September 11th, two days before Almost Famous, the musical, opened in San Diego. So it was a dramatic exit from the earth, from my mom.
Yeah, so I didn't mean to interrupt, except I just wanted to express my condolences.
Thank you so much. She's a huge character and completely inspiring. But listening to that clip, it just made me appreciate how sometimes real life is the best writer. And it was just lodged in my head forever as this classic thing that happened where my mom made us believe that she could tell if you've been kissing. And, of course, it was a stunt to get the truth out of us, or my sister in that case. But just hilarious how life kind of puts in front of you the best stuff to write about.
With a mother who was so controlling in terms of like food and vehicles and not even listening to rock and roll, which was kind of banned in your house, you had to sneak it in. How did you manage to get away at the age of 15 and start going on the road with bands so that you can write cover stories about them?
She was all about, as a teacher and a counselor who had many great counselees who loved her so much, she always respected intellectualism. If I could somehow pin it to intellectual success, I had a way in. So to go on the road with Led Zeppelin at 15, I had to really sell Led Zeppelin to her as like, Music that's based on Tolkien. This is like lofty material that's like good for the soul. Ultimately, I think she said, because we love the interviewer Dick Cavett in our family, go and take this journey. Put on your magic shoes.
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