Stories I Only Tell My Friends

By Rob Lowe

There's a little bit of background to my adoration of Rob Lowe (2000s-present). He was Sam Seaborne in The West Wing. You may ask why that's such a big deal--it is!! First of all, his character is nothing short of adorable and genuine and optimistic in the show. Second, it's The West Wing, an amazing show. Third, this is the show that hooked me up for good with Ben. (Another story for another day if you're really at all interested.)

I'm not all that in love with Lowe in his pre-TWW days, e.g. the likes of Tommy Boy when he was associated with the Brat Pack. The rationale for this is basically because that type of movie is really never anything that I watch or enjoy. Crude comedies? Not my thing.

At any rate, I adore Sam Seaborn. I'm not much of a book buyer, so I had to wait in line at the library to finally get a copy of it to read, which is to say that I had to wait for a while because I was something like 18th in line for a copy. And then I got my chance to read it at the beginning of September when I was halfheartedly reading 2 other books and when the school year starts ramping up (and, oh my, this year has been epic so far--distractingly so). All of this means that I had to turn my copy back in to the library with no hopes of renewing it. I had to get back in line, but I'm only 5th in line now, so maybe I won't remember that I'm on page 127 and that he's in the middle of talking about starting to shoot his breakout film, The Outsiders (I hated this book! Truly one of the few books that I've had to read for school that I haven't enjoyed in some way. But whatev...way to go Rob "Sodapop" Lowe!)

Regardless of me not finishing it, I'm going to offer my thoughts on it so far, which I also believe will hold true for the rest of the book whenever I get it again.

1. His writing is pretty lame.
2. His stories are pretty incredible.
3. Didn't anyone who was editing/proofing his text realize that his verb tenses are problematic and subtly (or forthrightly) suggest that he fix them? I mean, past tense or present...pick one.
4. It's unreal that random connections he had by the time he was 15, 16 years old. The name dropping in this autobiography is jaw dropping. "The guy who beat me in that footrace ran like Superman; later, he would be Superman. It was Dean Cain." Or, "I got fired from my first real job partly because I was caught making out with Holly Robinson [Pete] behind the Coke machine." Or what about, "I was hanging around the [Martin] Sheen's house with my good buddies Emilio and Charlie and this guy Tom Cruise was staying there for a few days while he was auditioning." Another favorite--"I was walking across a supermarket parking lot, and I saw these guys, Chris and Sean Penn, making a movie." Ridiculous.

It's an amusing, quick read; why not pick it up if you also enjoy his adorableness? And his son is a big Colts fan. :-)