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I, California
The Occasional History of a Childhood Actress/Tap Dancer/Record Store Clerk/Thai Waitress/Playboy Reject/Nightclub Booker/Daily Show Correspondent/Sex Columnist/Recurring Character/Etc.
Hilarious. Smart. Bitter. Sweet. Self-deprecating. Stacey Grenrock Woods. Experience with her the stirring joys of receiving a Peter Frampton poster for Hanukkah, sitting for a head-shot photo session as a child actress, waitressing Pan-Asian fusion cuisine, having musicians for boyfriends, humiliating people on The Daily Show, and waiting for prescription drugs. Oh, the waiting.
Hilarious. Smart. Bitter. Sweet. Self-deprecating. Stacey Grenrock Woods. Experience with her the stirring joys of receiving a Peter Frampton poster for Hanukkah, sitting for a head-shot photo session as a child actress, waitressing Pan-Asian fusion cuisine, having musicians for boyfriends, humiliating people on The Daily Show, and waiting for prescription drugs. Oh, the waiting.
From the idyllic sprout-and-yogurt San Fernando seventies; to the idyllic painter's-cap-and-bandanna eighties; to the idyllic, heroin-clouded Viper Room nineties; to the idyllic Botox-infused present, Stacey Grenrock Woods has experienced a prototypically Southern California life on the margins of fame, which is roughly the equivalent of a prototypical American life, isn't it?
- GenresMemoir
256 pages, Hardcover
First published July 17, 2007
7 people are currently reading
70 people want to read
About the author
Stacey Grenrock Woods
1 bookI write a monthly column for Esquire.
I welcome comments about my hair.
I have a myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/icalifornia
I welcome comments about my hair.
I have a myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/icalifornia
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 11, 2009
Used to be, there were basically two reasons to write a memoir. One was that you had led a remarkable and noteworthy life (e.g., Ulysses S Grant and Charles Darwin). The other reason was that you had borne witness to great events and towering personalities (think Sam Pepys or Mary Chesnut). Now, with Stacey Grenrock Wood's recent memoir, there's a third reason: the chance to recount utterly unmemorable personal incidents while viciously ridiculing pretty much everyone who got the bad idea of sharing the planet with you.
Grenrock Woods achieved some small measure of fame--and, apparently, achieving any degree of fame holds the same place in her lifetime To-Do List as keeping ready access to oxygen holds for most people--as a correspondent for The Daily Show. Grenrock Woods eschewed political reportage in favor of skewering small-time weirdos: fringe-party candidates, cult members, harmless flakes and clueless innocents, and the sort of paranormal practitioners whom even Raelians shun. She was often quite funny, but it was real fish-in-a-barrel stuff, 3-5 minute segments that oscillated between bored snark and poke-it-with-a-stick cruelty. Turned out, Grenrock Woods was just getting warmed up.
Suppose you wanted to write a memoir. Wouldn't it be funny--wouldn't it be a hoot--wouldn't it be a stitch--if, instead of writing about the rich and famous and powerful people you've known, or the interesting places you've been, or the unusual things that you've experienced, like being a drug addict or being evicted from your apartment, you chose to write a completely self-absorbed book about taking dance classes and being a waitress? Because who's ever taken dance classes? Whoo-hoo, it's like a party rollercoaster that just keeps going up, up, up!
But that wouldn't be the real joy of the memoir. No sir, the serious fun would come from mocking friends, family, coworkers, housemates, even people you just saw from a distance, for having the temerity to snuggle into the corner of the astral plane that clearly is reserved for a trendy, navel-gazing, fame-hag smartass. Why, from the heights of your Scribner's contract and C-list celebrity, you could have a sarcasm-laden revenge fest on all those little people for their dowdy clothes, unfashionable haircuts, musty apartments, strange food, and stubborn refusal to be cool and famous! (Meanwhile, you'd be decorously circumspect about your celebrity friends.) Then, toward the end of the book, between lists of makeup products and clothing outfits, you could make a little gesture toward recognizing that you've been just the teensy-weensiest bit mean, before jumping back on the Nasty Train. And you could finish the book up with a pseudo-literary burst of unearned wistfulness that channels a scrum of James Joyce, Dave Eggers, and, I dunno, mid-period Rod McKuen. (Why you would be wistful is not clear, since obviously your life has been an upper-middle-class Inferno-like Hell of humiliation and disaster, from unflattering headshots to coworkers who show up almost a half-hour late. I imagine your inbox fills up with consoling emails from Rwanda.)
Gosh, why didn't anyone think of this before?
It would be funny enough; you're a funny person, grabbing your Mean Stick and going after immigrants and their haphazard English. You've got a wicked sense of humor, a great eye for detail, and a smooth, knowing style. (That style tends to be repetitive and self-referential, though. If you refer once to blueberry Pop-Tarts or Whitesnake, it's guaranteed that both will show up a few more times before you're done with them.) See, here's the thing. You might seem shallow and self-centered and vicious, but of course it's all for comic effect; in reality, you struggle with self-respect and a fear of aging and your cuticles, and, if you're a wee bit vicious to people who never saw it coming, well, you make fun of no one as much as yourself. So that makes it okay. You know. The way it's okay to poke someone in the eye if you do it to yourself first.
Asshat.
Grenrock Woods achieved some small measure of fame--and, apparently, achieving any degree of fame holds the same place in her lifetime To-Do List as keeping ready access to oxygen holds for most people--as a correspondent for The Daily Show. Grenrock Woods eschewed political reportage in favor of skewering small-time weirdos: fringe-party candidates, cult members, harmless flakes and clueless innocents, and the sort of paranormal practitioners whom even Raelians shun. She was often quite funny, but it was real fish-in-a-barrel stuff, 3-5 minute segments that oscillated between bored snark and poke-it-with-a-stick cruelty. Turned out, Grenrock Woods was just getting warmed up.
Suppose you wanted to write a memoir. Wouldn't it be funny--wouldn't it be a hoot--wouldn't it be a stitch--if, instead of writing about the rich and famous and powerful people you've known, or the interesting places you've been, or the unusual things that you've experienced, like being a drug addict or being evicted from your apartment, you chose to write a completely self-absorbed book about taking dance classes and being a waitress? Because who's ever taken dance classes? Whoo-hoo, it's like a party rollercoaster that just keeps going up, up, up!
But that wouldn't be the real joy of the memoir. No sir, the serious fun would come from mocking friends, family, coworkers, housemates, even people you just saw from a distance, for having the temerity to snuggle into the corner of the astral plane that clearly is reserved for a trendy, navel-gazing, fame-hag smartass. Why, from the heights of your Scribner's contract and C-list celebrity, you could have a sarcasm-laden revenge fest on all those little people for their dowdy clothes, unfashionable haircuts, musty apartments, strange food, and stubborn refusal to be cool and famous! (Meanwhile, you'd be decorously circumspect about your celebrity friends.) Then, toward the end of the book, between lists of makeup products and clothing outfits, you could make a little gesture toward recognizing that you've been just the teensy-weensiest bit mean, before jumping back on the Nasty Train. And you could finish the book up with a pseudo-literary burst of unearned wistfulness that channels a scrum of James Joyce, Dave Eggers, and, I dunno, mid-period Rod McKuen. (Why you would be wistful is not clear, since obviously your life has been an upper-middle-class Inferno-like Hell of humiliation and disaster, from unflattering headshots to coworkers who show up almost a half-hour late. I imagine your inbox fills up with consoling emails from Rwanda.)
Gosh, why didn't anyone think of this before?
It would be funny enough; you're a funny person, grabbing your Mean Stick and going after immigrants and their haphazard English. You've got a wicked sense of humor, a great eye for detail, and a smooth, knowing style. (That style tends to be repetitive and self-referential, though. If you refer once to blueberry Pop-Tarts or Whitesnake, it's guaranteed that both will show up a few more times before you're done with them.) See, here's the thing. You might seem shallow and self-centered and vicious, but of course it's all for comic effect; in reality, you struggle with self-respect and a fear of aging and your cuticles, and, if you're a wee bit vicious to people who never saw it coming, well, you make fun of no one as much as yourself. So that makes it okay. You know. The way it's okay to poke someone in the eye if you do it to yourself first.
Asshat.
October 31, 2007
I was so disappointed by this book. The author has led a fairly interesting life, but the delivery was boring and dry. Wouldn't you would think that with her experience being on the Daily Show and Arrested Development that maybe she would be a little funny? I would settled for even a smirk.
March 22, 2008
If David Sedaris had a baby with my friend Chris -- well, the universe would explode, but stay with me -- and they gave the baby to Sandra Tsing Loh to raise, the baby would grow up and write this book. It made me laugh really, really hard.
May 1, 2008
meh...funny at times...but not enough to sustain me
These were the best two "lines" and they both happened in the first chapter.
This is in reference to aging and the passage of time...
pg 11 "The eighties are here, fuckers."
- I can truly hear the cackle that probably came out of the author's lips as she typed this sentence. And I must say it has temporarily become my new favorite saying (although, it doesn't make much sense since its not really the 80's)
This is a sad, but true self-loathing moment...
pgs 9 - 10
"I was not a prudish kid by any means. I'd seen Cabaret, I'd seen Tommy twice. I knew that the lyric in David Bowie's "Hang Onto Yourself" that went "we move like tigers on Vaseline" was a metaphor for the sex act. I liked to think I was as progressive as, or perhaps more progressive than, most first graders. It was just that, you let a few chest hairs slip by, and then, before you know it, you have to admit that everyone, including yourself, is real. You've grown up and you're not special anymore. No one carries you if you don't feel like walking, you'll be expected to have all your forms in order, you get the appropriate amount of presents, and you can be seated in an exit row on a plane. When you go out to eat, your menu doesn't turn into a hat, your menu stays a menu, with the same three pastas, four salads, four entrees, creme brulee or flourless chocolate cake as everyone else's.
And after a while, your dreams die.
And after your dreams have been dead for a while, you join a wharehouse club store and start buying in bulk. One day, you'll come home with a big box of Costco croissants, and the ones you don't eat, you freeze.
And then you'll defrost them, and eat them, one by one, and if you drop one, you'll pick it up. You won't worry about how you look when you bend down. "No one's looking at me," you'll tell yourself. And then, no one is. You brush off that defrosted warehouse club croissant with your fingers.
And eat it.
You grow old, you grow old, you grow old, you shall wear the bottoms of your relaxed-fit jeans rolled, and some Rockport walking shoes, and a visor.
A visor."
These were the best two "lines" and they both happened in the first chapter.
This is in reference to aging and the passage of time...
pg 11 "The eighties are here, fuckers."
- I can truly hear the cackle that probably came out of the author's lips as she typed this sentence. And I must say it has temporarily become my new favorite saying (although, it doesn't make much sense since its not really the 80's)
This is a sad, but true self-loathing moment...
pgs 9 - 10
"I was not a prudish kid by any means. I'd seen Cabaret, I'd seen Tommy twice. I knew that the lyric in David Bowie's "Hang Onto Yourself" that went "we move like tigers on Vaseline" was a metaphor for the sex act. I liked to think I was as progressive as, or perhaps more progressive than, most first graders. It was just that, you let a few chest hairs slip by, and then, before you know it, you have to admit that everyone, including yourself, is real. You've grown up and you're not special anymore. No one carries you if you don't feel like walking, you'll be expected to have all your forms in order, you get the appropriate amount of presents, and you can be seated in an exit row on a plane. When you go out to eat, your menu doesn't turn into a hat, your menu stays a menu, with the same three pastas, four salads, four entrees, creme brulee or flourless chocolate cake as everyone else's.
And after a while, your dreams die.
And after your dreams have been dead for a while, you join a wharehouse club store and start buying in bulk. One day, you'll come home with a big box of Costco croissants, and the ones you don't eat, you freeze.
And then you'll defrost them, and eat them, one by one, and if you drop one, you'll pick it up. You won't worry about how you look when you bend down. "No one's looking at me," you'll tell yourself. And then, no one is. You brush off that defrosted warehouse club croissant with your fingers.
And eat it.
You grow old, you grow old, you grow old, you shall wear the bottoms of your relaxed-fit jeans rolled, and some Rockport walking shoes, and a visor.
A visor."
June 10, 2009
Uneven is what I'd have to say, overall.
“Did you have sex on the prairie last night? Did Pa finger-fuck you in your little prairie house?”
No. I don’t think so. Nothing like that. Please stop laughing, all of you.
It didn’t matter what was actually happening, Tina could find an occasion for humiliation. If there was a shark on a page of a bilology text, she’d say, “Is that what our daddy looks like?” which left me more confused than anything – was she comparing the actor Michael Landon to the shark, or my biological father, Vic Grenrock? Was I not Laura Ingalls at that point? Pg. 61.
Lynn suggested we bring wardrobe that was born from “things I like to do.” She left it up to us. What did I like to do? I liked to daydream. Make an origami version of a plate of Cheese Nips and place it on my desk so it would always be there. I liked to design penthouses for people who didn’t exist. I liked to sit in my room alone, singing “Delta Dawn.” I liked to steal my father’s jar of rubber cement and use it to fuse the backs of my ears to my head. Would those be good things to photograph? Pg. 77
Also, pop culture observational musings like,…
This was probably a holdover from her chorus days back in the Past, most notably as one of the ladies in The Wizard of Oz who assists with Dorothy Gale’s Emerald City makeover in the “Snip snip here, snip snip there, and a couple of tra la las” scene. I’m not certain, but she might be the one who replies “Mmmm hmmm!” when Dorothy asks, “Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown?” which, coincidentally, messed with my mind almost as much as the acid queen scene with the iron maiden of syringes in Tommy did when I saw it as a child. The thought of having one’s eyes dyed by a group of strangers while lying on a metal plank is petrifying. How would they dyde her eyes to match her gown? Jolly old town, my ass. Pgs. 55-56
“Did you have sex on the prairie last night? Did Pa finger-fuck you in your little prairie house?”
No. I don’t think so. Nothing like that. Please stop laughing, all of you.
It didn’t matter what was actually happening, Tina could find an occasion for humiliation. If there was a shark on a page of a bilology text, she’d say, “Is that what our daddy looks like?” which left me more confused than anything – was she comparing the actor Michael Landon to the shark, or my biological father, Vic Grenrock? Was I not Laura Ingalls at that point? Pg. 61.
Lynn suggested we bring wardrobe that was born from “things I like to do.” She left it up to us. What did I like to do? I liked to daydream. Make an origami version of a plate of Cheese Nips and place it on my desk so it would always be there. I liked to design penthouses for people who didn’t exist. I liked to sit in my room alone, singing “Delta Dawn.” I liked to steal my father’s jar of rubber cement and use it to fuse the backs of my ears to my head. Would those be good things to photograph? Pg. 77
Also, pop culture observational musings like,…
This was probably a holdover from her chorus days back in the Past, most notably as one of the ladies in The Wizard of Oz who assists with Dorothy Gale’s Emerald City makeover in the “Snip snip here, snip snip there, and a couple of tra la las” scene. I’m not certain, but she might be the one who replies “Mmmm hmmm!” when Dorothy asks, “Can you even dye my eyes to match my gown?” which, coincidentally, messed with my mind almost as much as the acid queen scene with the iron maiden of syringes in Tommy did when I saw it as a child. The thought of having one’s eyes dyed by a group of strangers while lying on a metal plank is petrifying. How would they dyde her eyes to match her gown? Jolly old town, my ass. Pgs. 55-56
Read
September 15, 2008Only *slightly* interesting. From what she's done with her life, this bio should have been much more fascinating because she herself seems like she'd be fun and cool - instead it was like talking a walk down memory lane with your girlfriend who grew up in the early 1980s with you in Southern California - not too compelling - even if you were there like I was. Also, she goes on and on about working as a waitress like it's the most unique job experience once could have - snore - who hasn't worked in restaurant at some point? PLUS she makes up a fictional name of the very famous "Toi" out here in LA - she even gets as detailed as talking about their unique pumpkin and eggplant dish so it's so obvious it's Toi - so it's irritating that she calls it something else. Skip this and read the Joan Crawford bio instead even though I gave that one a marginal review as well.
January 17, 2008
I'll admit it: I picked up this book at the library based solely on the cover, and checked it out because it was endorsed by Stephen Colbert.
The first half was hilarious. Nothing less than what you'd expect from a former Daily Show correspondent. Then she gets to the point where she became a Daily Show correspondent. At that point, it gets too reflective and strangely abstract. Don't get me wrong -- I can deal with the abstract... but not when it's masked as a funny SoCal memoir about sex, drugs and the '80s. In this case, I wanted to funny SoCal memoir about sex, drugs and the '80s.
And! She was on Arrested Development! And didn't even mention it!
The first half was hilarious. Nothing less than what you'd expect from a former Daily Show correspondent. Then she gets to the point where she became a Daily Show correspondent. At that point, it gets too reflective and strangely abstract. Don't get me wrong -- I can deal with the abstract... but not when it's masked as a funny SoCal memoir about sex, drugs and the '80s. In this case, I wanted to funny SoCal memoir about sex, drugs and the '80s.
And! She was on Arrested Development! And didn't even mention it!
January 3, 2009
i enjoyed the stories from when she was younger, growing up in 1970s california, taking acting classes at a fairly unsuccessful acting/dancing studio (the fake framed photo of the owner with joan crawford is the best) but found the sex/drugs/rocknroll 1990s stories to be a little weary and tedious. the author worked for THE DAILY SHOW in its early years and her story about going out to interview weirdos was funny (and sad).
February 3, 2010
This book was funny but it doesn't stand out to me as being an exceptional memoir. It's interesting in that she sometimes interacts with famous people, but her writing wasn't anything special.
Readalikes: I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, But Enough About Me by Jancee Dunn, titles by Paul Fieg, Chore Whore by Heather H. Howard, Moose: A Memoir by Stephanie Klein, Queen of the Oddballs by Hillary Carlip
Readalikes: I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley, But Enough About Me by Jancee Dunn, titles by Paul Fieg, Chore Whore by Heather H. Howard, Moose: A Memoir by Stephanie Klein, Queen of the Oddballs by Hillary Carlip
August 12, 2007
Don't be fooled by the cute cover, title, and the author's association with the Daily Show- this book is kinda bad.
Pointless and unoriginal- I had high hopes of relating to the valley girl tales of the author,what with being a native valley girl, myself, and have been let down.
I plan on returning this book to Barnes&Noble unfinished.
boo...hoo
Pointless and unoriginal- I had high hopes of relating to the valley girl tales of the author,what with being a native valley girl, myself, and have been let down.
I plan on returning this book to Barnes&Noble unfinished.
boo...hoo
December 3, 2007
I liked this book, but I really wanted to like it more. When I first sat down with it, I couldn't put it down. I got about halfway through. When I picked it up the next day and started the second half, I didn't like it nearly as much. Still, it was funny, entertaining, witty, sarcastic...
Plus I always like reading memoirs based in Southern California.
Plus I always like reading memoirs based in Southern California.
January 28, 2009
I LOVED this -- it's John Stuart-funny! Actually, the author was a correspondent on the Daily Show, and she's got that wicked, self-deprecating humor thing down pat. A genius memoir about growing up in the valley in the 70's, including a child-acting career, stint at the Viper Room, and various other "margins of fame" endeavors.
December 29, 2012
Started slow…the young girl Valley period. Got much better with going over the Canyon, working at the Jazz Thai place & TDS. I really liked this passage…"Being from Los Angeles, I had no concept of what my parents call "weather", and being a child of post-punk agony, I am dressed inappropriately for most every situation." (Pg. 173). I can relate…
May 31, 2014
I picked this book up, not because I was familiar with the author, but because of the rantings underneath the title. Her words spoke to me something familiar, something comical. I was compelled to give this bio a chance, and it was very refreshing to read such a smart, intelligent and funny bio of a woman who could easily be your best friend.
November 27, 2007
Stacey Grenrock Woods has finally gotten her shit together. Not that i knew that she didn't before I read this book about how she did it. This memoir is honest and funny. the true story of what it's like to grow up middle class and jewish in the valley.
Read
July 18, 2007not worth the half price i paid for it at the strand. yawn.
January 14, 2008
Really fantastic and interesting!
January 27, 2008
Still reading
Currently reading
April 7, 2008I've read the first 50 pages. So far, not bad.
October 29, 2010
i don't understand why she needed to write a memoir or why i chose to read it.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews