Andrea Wilson Woods' Blog

This blog is dedicated to Annah.

I recently read an excerpt from the book Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self.

One of the funniest bits of advice was musician Alice Cooper telling his younger self, “Trashy girls are exciting for about five minutes … keep your eyes out for a really good lookin’ church girl.”

When actor James Woods wrote, “And most importantly, call your brother on July 26, 2006, and tell him he must go to a different hospital,” my eyes instantly filled with tears.

I couldn’t help but ask myself: what would I tell my sixteen-year old self? To me sixteen is an age when we think we know everything, yet we know almost nothing. At that age, I had little freedom, energy, time, or money, but I had drive, desire, and ambition. Without too much analysis, here is my letter to my sixteen-year-old self.

Dear Andrea,

You have recently realized that your dream of being a professional ballerina will never come true. The despair that you feel right now will not last forever so don’t do anything stupid and don’t accept any more pills from mother. You are suffering the first of many bouts of depression in your life; however, you will survive. Your strength, stubbornness, and sense of humor will lift you out of your sadness.

Stop wishing you were less sensitive. Your deep sensitivity toward people and the world around you stimulates your creativity. Work with your nature—not against it.

Stop comparing your physical appearance to other girls. You may not be “model beautiful” but you will become an incredibly attractive, sexy, young woman who never longs for male company. Be yourself, and people—both men and women—will be drawn to you.

You are so afraid of being poor that you will do foolish things for money. The most rewarding experiences in life have nothing to do with your net worth or your credit score.

You already suspect that you may raise your two-year-old sister Adrienne one day. You are correct. As soon as you obtain custody of her, take her to a doctor and make him test her for hepatitis B and C. Have her liver enzymes monitored as well. These actions may very well save her life.

Remember your favorite question in The Book of Questions? You chose the answer: “a wild, turbulent life filled with joy, sorrow, passion, and adventure—intoxicating successes and stunning setbacks.” You will live such a life, and it will never be boring.

• Many of your dreams will come true in unexpected ways.
• Your parents are not who you think they are.
• Keep a journal every day.
  

Sincerely,
Your 39-year-old self

AWW — XoXo

P.S. No matter what your ballet teacher says, you are not fat!

**What would you tell your sixteen-year-old self?

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Dear Mr. Zuckerberg:

Congratulations on being TIME’s Person of the Year. As one of America’s youngest billionaires and newest philanthropists, you have changed the world and I applaud your success. Now that you have connected 550 million people, I wonder what your goal is for the most successful social networking site on earth. I uncovered your plot, but first let me tell you about my Facebook (FB) experience.

In the spring of 2007, I was working as a writer at USC’s Cinematic School of Arts. I saw a work-study student reading something online. When I asked what she was doing, she replied, “I’m checking my Facebook account.” Laughing at my puzzled expression, she said, “It’s like Myspace—only for college kids.” Even though I was a graduate student, I knew she meant “kids” her age. As a member of Generation X, I was too old for FB.

My next encounter with FB was when a couple created a FB Cause page and used the charity I founded, Blue Faery, as a cover to raise money for their wedding. I can’t remember how we [the board] discovered it, but I was furious. A few emails and a phone conversation resolved the matter, but what I want to know is:

• How could FB allow people to take advantage of nonprofits?
• Doesn’t FB have regulations in place to prevent fraud?
• Doesn’t FB require an employer ID number?
• Doesn’t FB confirm the charity’s current status with the IRS? Back then, apparently not.

Needless to say, I didn’t feel warm and fuzzy toward FB. In fact when I opened an account in 2008, it was only to monitor any future threats to Blue Faery. I didn’t bother adding personal information, uploading photos, or searching for friends. I didn’t see the point. I remained a ghost within the FB network. I wasn’t telling people where I was and/or what I was doing, airing my personal opinions, or inciting political arguments.

In early 2009, however, a friend convinced me to officially join FB in order to promote my writing. Now that seemed like a legitimate reason to become part of this social networking experience. Within days, I convinced my husband to open an account. Within months, I had connected with old high school and college friends. I started publishing links to my blog, and the amount of traffic on my website quadrupled. Of course, I was addicted to FB and checked it three times a day.

One of the biggest complaints that I had heard about FB is that you could not personalize the page the way you can on Myspace. I beg to differ. While the backdrop remained the same, two years ago people’s pages looked different. As a new user, I liked scanning my friends’ pages to see how they set up their public faces. Some people had a variety of tabs that included photos, videos, applications, etc. People decorated their wall tabs (or sidewalls as I like to call them) differently, too. Some of my friends added flair. Others added their favorite movies. No two walls looked alike.

The first indication that things were changing was when the “Boxes” tab would no longer store information from outside applications, which was disappointing because I had a Relative Tree set up there as well as silly quiz results. Then FB limited what users could display on their sidewalls. No more flair. No more causes. No more Dogbook. You could only show FB’s main ingredients such as links, notes, photos, etc. I wasn’t happy as my page became more depersonalized, but I accepted it.

Next, FB automatically displayed “Likes” on the sidewall and started suggesting random friends based on similar likes. FB became even more invasive when many of my friends discovered that their “private” messages had become publicly displayed on their friends’ walls. This abuse of trust didn’t happen to me, but I began deleting all of my previous messages. I no longer believed they were private. Perhaps I was naive to think that they ever were.

I know many people who have disliked FB’s changes in the past year such as where groups appeared, how notifications changed, etc. But like them, I adjusted, relearned the “new” FB, and moved on until a few days ago. Now I am disgusted.

• FONT—The font is so small that I have to use Ctrl and + to enlarge it, and my vision is nearly perfect.
• INTRO—I don’t need FB to introduce me to the world (e.g., “studied professional writing,” “married to”), as if I am meeting a cousin at a family reunion picnic.
• PHOTOS—Who wants FB randomly selecting photos and displaying them like a banner at the top of their page? If people want to look at my pictures, they can click on that tab. Oh wait …
• TABS—What the hell happened to the tabs? What little individuality that was left remained in allowing people control over their tabs.
• LINKS—Where are my links? Why are they no longer publicly available? I cannot find them, and I followed the so-called directions (i.e., Go to Home, click Links, click My Links). My initial purpose for getting on FB was to promote my writing, but all of my former links are gone.

I decided to check on my friends’ pages to see if they had met with the same fate. Indeed, they had. In fact, every person’s page looks exactly the same. On the sidewall, you see Info, Photos, Friends, and maybe Notes followed by a random selection of FB Friends. You might also see Spouses and/or Family members. With a few minor exceptions, all pages are identical. Overnight, FB created a homogenized society and ruined my social networking experience.

From my perspective Mr. Zuckerberg, your programmers have absolutely nothing to do so they change FB for fun; you kowtowed to advertisers and gave them more space by sacrificing FB users; and you want to create a collective world in cyberspace where all FB members lack distinction, originality, and identity. If I wanted to experience a generic, uniform society, I would have joined a sorority in college.

After an event I planned on FB ends, I am deactivating my FB account. I realize that my website might suffer, but I will find other ways to promote it. (At least the FB business and group pages remain the same.) However, I do need to thank you, Mr. Zuckerberg. Thank you for creating FB because

• it made planning my 20-year high school reunion much easier;
• it reconnected me with people that I haven’t spoken to in years*; and
• it showed me just how little privacy is left in the world.

Most of all, thank you for giving me almost four days per year of my life back since I will no longer be on Facebook.**

AWW

* Reconnecting with former friends is not always a good thing.
** Based on 15 minutes per day

P.S. For my FB friends, you can contact me the old-fashioned way—email me!

NOTE: Read my official complaint to Facebook, like the “We hate the new profile page” and complain to Facebook about your new profile.

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I apologize for taking too long to complete the Learning to Love LA (again) series that I started on April 21. I have so many blog ideas that I often get distracted, but I’m determined to finish the last two posts because I love art and because I need to love LA again. For a reminder of where I last left off, I recommend reading Part Three—Visiting the MOCA.

I didn’t know it when I planned my excursion, but apparently when you buy a ticket to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), you receive free admission to The Geffen Contemporary. A DASH ride away, the Geffen includes pieces from MOCA’s permanent collection as well as touring exhibitions. Of course, I was there to see the Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years. I have selected some of my favorite pieces as well as my least favorite for your reading and viewing pleasure.

I was immediately drawn to Richard Hawkins‘ Disembodied Zombie Skeet Pink. The inkjet print transforms actor Skeet Ulrich into multiple dimensions, as the piece has a 3-D feel to it. What I like most about Skeet Pink is that it seems like an odd representation of me and my sister Adrienne. At first glance, it appears dark, edgy, mysterious, but if you look closer, you will discover the playfulness, the sensitivity, the woe. When I turned my back, I could feel Skeet’s empty eyes following me.

Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (It’s a small world but not if you have to clean it) is pop art at its best. At 143 x 103 inches, this photographic silkscreen on vinyl covers an entire wall; it’s impossible to miss. With the magnifying glass held against her eye, the woman seems to stare directly at you and the message seems specifically for you. With “small” and “world” in a much larger font and the half-opened smile, you sense Kruger’s intended irony. Even the title—Untitled—with the real title in parentheses mocks you, but I love it when art and the artist make me laugh.

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Six Crimee, a 72 x 144-inch acrylic and oil stick on masonite piece, scares me. When I first saw the green imagery with black scrawls that resemble people, I thought—Basquiat looked into my brain and captured my nightmares. The numbers and lines and halos made me shudder. You know how there are certain words that always have a negative connotation? Well, I think the same idea holds true in art. Six Crimee is cold, empty, grim, and frightening. I don’t like it, but I kept going back to see the dark side of my dreams.

Initially, John Baldessari’s Two Highrises (with Disruptions)/ Two Witnesses (Red and Green) appears to be an odd tribute to the terrorist attacks on 9/11—except that he created this 98 x 68-inch piece in 1990. Composed of color photographs and vinyl paint, Two Highrises/Two Witnesses forces you to think about the situation. Where are the people standing? Are they watching the event happen in front of them? Why are their faces blocked out? If red means stop and green means go, what does that say about the two highrises that explode into flames? I don’t have any of the answers, but I enjoy art that makes me question the world around me.

My nomination for the worst piece of “art” in MOCA’s collection (far worse than Cy Twombly) goes to Thomas Hirschhorn’s Non-Lieux (meaning non-site or non-places). Hirschhorn says, “I don’t make political art; I make art politically.” Well, I say he makes crap. Unlike the Baldessari piece, this mountain of candle wax (didn’t my friend make this “art” in college?) complete with a photographic collage and flags bearing the word democracy is a tribute to 9/11, and I’m sure it took a long time to finish. However, as I used to tell my students, you are not graded on effort, you earn your score based on your work. Despite Hirschhorn’s attempt to visually capture the various facets of the aftermath of 9/11, he gets an “F” in my book.

To see more artists and their works, I recommend viewing my MOCA Picasa Web album.

AWW — XoXo

P.S. Learning to Love LA (again): Part Five—Ending the Day is coming soon! (No seriously, it is.)

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I have a confession to make: I like modern art. Not all of it, but more so than most people I know. Even my sister Adrienne thought that the sculptures scattered around downtown Los Angeles were pretentious, ridiculous and a waste of public funds. I’m not fond of many of those sculptures either, but I prefer paintings anyway. To me, art is subjective. Perhaps Shakespeare said it best, “Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye, not utter’d by base sale of chapmen’s tongues.”

One of my favorite pieces of art Blue Clamp by Jim Dine is on display at the San Francisco Modern Museum of Art. I have a print hanging in my office, but it doesn’t move me as much as seeing the three-dimensional work in person. The blue clamp projects outward from the painting, and to me it suggests how delicate our hearts are, how the clamp holds this particular heart in place, how in one quick motion someone could pull out the clamp and the heart would break. A large blue clamp does not hold my heart together, but I often feel that it is bound by a thick rope tied in numerous knots, which keep me safe and to some degree—sane.

With so many artists and works to choose from, I find it difficult to only select a few for my blog; therefore, I recommend viewing my MOCA Picasa Web album to see more art from this impressive collection or visiting the exhibition Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years online at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).

Cuban artist Ana Mendieta has several works on display in MOCA’s permanent collection. Although I am not fond of some of her performance art, I stared at her series Silueta Works in Mexico, an examination of death and how the body becomes one with the earth.

I thoroughly enjoyed James Rosenquist’s Vestigial Appendage. The painting covers one entire wall at the museum, and I wish I could explain why I am so attracted to it. Rosenquist’s ability to capture sex, beauty, capitalism, and American pop culture using brilliant colors and unusual positioning is just breathtaking.

I am also a fan of Wallace Berman’s photography—especially his Black Piece and Silence series. Here is a close-up view of one small part of Black Piece #2 or #3 (I cannot remember).

Stepping into Doug Wheeler’s RM 669 is like walking into a peaceful fog. He states, “I make things that you experience and then it’s in your mind,” and indeed he accomplishes that goal with this sensory illusion of stepping into another dimension. I have heard critics say that modern art should be “an experience.” If that is true, than Wheeler is one of the best modern artists of his time; however, you cannot hang his work in your home.

Of all of the modern art that I saw/experienced, my least favorite artist is Cy Twombly.
Honestly, I do not get the point of his “art.” Anything that looks like something a kindergartener could scribble on a chalkboard is a waste of space. In addition to this Untitled piece, I recently saw another Twombly work at LACMA, and it looked exactly the same.

You may not agree with my comments, but isn’t that the point of art? To discuss, argue, learn, like, love, and remind all of us that there is some beauty in this ugly world even if we define “beauty” differently.

AWW — XoXo

P.S. Learning to Love LA (again): Part Four—Seeing the Geffen is coming soon!

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On Wednesday, March 31, my husband took me to see Paul McCartney’s Up and Coming Tour at the Hollywood Bowl. At 67 years old, Paul has survived the breakup of the Beatles, the death of his beloved Linda, and a bitter divorce from his second wife Heather Mills. Though he is not the most dynamic performer, Paul can certainly keep up with his younger band members. The power of Paul (and the Beatles) is that his music is timeless. One look at the audience, who ranged in ages from 5 – 75, shows how each generation finds its own connection to the songs. Although I am not a devout Beatles fan, I will admit many of their songs possess a magical quality due to their melodic nature. However, despite his divine talent, I never need to see Paul McCartney in concert again. His overbearing ego, which needed to be stroked every few songs, distracted me from the music.

Instead of milling around, most people were in their seats by 7:30pm; I’m presuming because, like us, they didn’t want to miss anything. Well, we had plenty of time, as the sold-out show began 15 minutes late. In lieu of an opening act, the concert started with a 30-minute overture that consisted of pictures, photographs, and video clips scrolling on two giant screens as Paul McCartney/Beatles’ songs played in the background. The effect was interesting, but my husband regretted not getting in line to buy us drinks. By the time Paul opened the show by singing Venus and Mars/Rock Show/Jet, the guy next to me had elbowed me in the side one time, and I was sick to my stomach from his super sweet pot. Thanks for the contact high, asshole.

After singing a few songs, Paul talked about when he and the Beatles appeared at the Hollywood Bowl “about a million years ago.” (They played their last show there in 1965.) Then Paul stopped the show and took center stage to, he said, “Take a moment to drink this in.” He stared at the audience. Subtext: I will continue the show once I receive enough applause from you peons out there. Once everyone understood his message, we all started clapping. My husband and I, who have seen many pop/rock legends in concert (e.g., Queen, Madonna), looked at each other. I whispered, “What the hell?” My husband replied, “What an egomaniac!”
Although I was disgusted by his arrogance, I also admired Paul because he proved to us just how powerful he was. Though I couldn’t help thinking, if he were secure in himself, he wouldn’t need to demand applause on cue. He even told stories about girls screaming so loudly during concerts that he and the guys couldn’t hear each other sing. Taking the hint, two blonde Playboy types in the front row shrieked until their dark roots showed. Paul smiled.

To be fair, when Paul shut up and sang, the effect was wonderful. I was bouncing up and down in my seat to Drive My Car, and the graphics behind the band were fantastic. Let Me Roll It, a blue-jazzy number, had me rolling my neck, swinging my arms, and swaying my hips. The Long and Winding Road featured pictures of beautiful landscapes. Paul dedicated My Love, a song he originally wrote for Linda, to “all the lovers in the house.” However the strong emphasis on the last two words at the end of the song, “to me” made me wonder about their love affair. Was it all about him all the time?

Paul may be at his best when he picks up an acoustic guitar and sings a cappella. Here Today, a song he wrote for John after he died, brought tears to my eyes. Paul’s voice sounded smooth yet emotional; few artists today have that kind of raw talent. Even though Paul’s show had the bells and whistles of a modern-day concert, he didn’t need them and that is refreshing. Paul masters whatever instrument he is playing whether it is the piano or the guitar. Paul even played George’s ukulele to perform Something—a dedication to George who wrote the song.

During Sing the Changes, shooting stars turned into an image of President Obama behind the band to which my husband said, “That’s too bad because it’s a good song.” Paul picked up the pace with Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, which had people jumping and singing even if they only knew the “Life goes on” part. He kept up the energy with Back in the USSR; unfortunately, the sound tech cranked up the lead guitar, and it overpowered Paul’s voice. Paul shared a story about meeting the head of Russian defense years ago. The man said to him, “We learn English from your music. Hello. Goodbye.”

My husband wasn’t a fan of Paperback Writer, but I thought the graphics were cool—novel covers about naughty nurses. The concert exploded during Live and Let Die, as fireworks and pyrotechnics lit up the sky. The show “ended” too predictably with Hey Jude, but of course, there were two planned encores, which I think are ridiculous. Paul thanked the sound guy Pablo and the video crew, but he failed to introduce his band, which both my husband and I found odd. Perhaps it was an oversight, or maybe Paul stopped acknowledging other musicians after the Beatles broke up. I mean, why bother when it’s all about you.

I thought it was funny (and perhaps sad) that a man who used to get women’s underwear thrown at him on stage got a teddy bear tossed to him during this show. Seeing that brown, fuzzy, stuffed animal and thinking about the soft, silky panties of the past has to make even Sir Paul, the unofficial king of England, feel old. Despite his over-the-top ego, Paul performed for an impressive two hours and forty minutes without taking one break. He closed the concert with a crowd favorite Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

We’re Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
We hope you have enjoyed the show
Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
We’re sorry but it’s time to go.

Thanks, Paul, I did enjoy the show, but every now and then when you feel so insecure—ask for help, not applause.

AWW — XoXo

P.S. To see all of the pictures that I took during the concert, visit my Picasa Photo Gallery. To view the set lists for the two Hollywood Bowl shows, visit Paul’s website.

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