Why Be ‘Julie Meadows’?

Someone posed a question to me, sort of… It was in an e-mail and it wasn’t a direct question, but it made me think of it that way and want to write about it. The question, basically, is “Why put yourself through being ‘Julie Meadows’?” I think it’s a good question.

Some people are born with a healthy conscience. Some people are oblivious to apparent things and others have their humanity beaten or programmed out of them somehow. I wasn’t always very aware and I probably still have a long way to go, but I do work on it. Becoming ‘Julie Meadows’ was a way of working on it.

I write these posts lately about “weird and gross” people on my blog because there are so many people wondering around without their “lights” on. It doesn’t matter how much information you retain in school, how well you can parrot the things that are told to you, if you can’t work it out in your head and think for yourself you’re not a whole person. It’s important to have emotional intelligence as well as retain rote forms of information. Being artistic is a form of suicide. The process is to tear yourself down again and again and strip it all away until you’re bare. As long as you survive you will accumulate layers again, so there is always the opportunity to tear everything away. Even if you don’t think porn is art, living is, and living isn’t limited to any set of experiences.

Funny, but when I responded to the letter, I wrote, “Be careful what you wish for, right? I wanted to be deep. And what’s interesting is that anyone else would see that as an oxymoron, but once you’ve been drug through the slime and know what it’s like on the other side, I think it’s a good exercise for the heart. It can shrink or grow. I think deep down I wanted a bigger heart, and I got it.” I’ve always wanted a bigger heart and I want an even bigger one still. We are defined by our ability to rise to the challenge. What better way to know your ability to survive than to choose the greatest challenges of all?

My then-husband wanted me to get into the adult industry, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t have anything against it, I just wanted to be a regular actress. I was sure it would be more challenging than having sex on camera knowing I’m not very good at that, anyway. Too geeky. (lol) Of course, I learned that you don’t have to be very good at it to make a living, but that was, of course, after I started performing. No, I wanted to act in regular movies because I wanted to work on my ability to read a script and understand it, ask the right questions and feel the motivation the writer meant behind the words. I wasn’t a very good actress, either, but it was challenging. For a shy kid who trembled at even the notion of being in front of a crowd or being involved in a confrontation, it pushed me to try. There’s nothing wrong with pushing yourself to be more than you and other people might think you are. There’s nothing wrong with reaching towards the divine.

It finally seemed there was no way I could really compete with the talented people trying to make it. Younger, single people without families to take care of, with better resolve in their health regimens and more unique appearances. I got really introspective one night and thought about it, and I thought, “Why can’t I do it? It can’t be that hard? I can be mean. If anyone tries to bully me I can be as levelheaded or as mean as anybody else. Why can’t I do it? I’m determined. I can make anything out of it that I want to make out of it. I can actually turn it into something more than entertainment. I can be an activist. If I’m not afraid of death right now, why can’t I do the “impossible” in life? Why not?” I still think that way. Why not?

My favorite scene in Young Guns is towards the end, and Billy The Kid and his friends are faced with riding straight into the enemy or heading to Mexico to escape. His band of Regulators are pleading with him to flee and he gets pretty upset because he wants to face the enemy. He wants to live. It doesn’t seem that way, but it’s all relative. One person can think that living means playing it safe and preserving the chance of survival by making sure there is another day to look forward to, and some people feel that living means taking chances by fighting for the soul through acts of bravery. Neither is wrong, it’s just a matter of what living means to you.

Billy’s friends plead and finally he “gets it”. He tells them that everyone will be expecting them to head for Mexico and that it’s the greatest challenge of all, not something they want to hear, naturally. It’s the greatest challenge of all. When we want to test ourselves we pick the hardest thing to accomplish. What? A model can’t say important things? Be important somehow? Why? If I have blood in my veins and a light in my eyes and a strong heart, why can’t I say important things and be effective in some good way? Why not?

It’s all a matter of perspective. The first story I ever read by Charles Bukowski was The Most Beautiful Woman In Town. The most beautiful woman in town cuts her face up, puts holes in her nose, distorts her appearance, rebelling against the way people treat her based upon her looks. It’s all a matter of perspective. Being a porn star is a form of mutilation. You might see a gorgeous female who poses just the right way to entice you, but she is no different from the female who cuts up her face and pierces and tattoos it. She’s very punk rock. She may not know consciously that she is tearing herself down to bare her soul, but more than likely she does, and it doesn’t make her any less an artist for the virtual suicide. It makes her quite beautiful really. More beautiful to me than the female who plays it safe.

Tyra Banks, with her pompousness about never showing her private parts and the way she sneers at women who do and the way she molests their feelings by using the ruse of her false virtue against them is one of the ugliest people I’ve ever seen on t.v. There is something monstrous about her flamboyant cruelty, something so hideous about her anti-humanity and the lack of feeling that is required to cater to those important selling points based in false ideas about what poses as “real” and the fear of living, that I can’t even look at her without having a physical reaction. She is one the most disgusting figures on public television, but even ugly people are a valuable reminder that we must be careful of what we think we see. The child molesting priests, lying politicians and God-fearing parents who kill their children disciplining them are reminders that we can’t be too shallow in how we look at anything and anyone. The media has to sell you on the things you “want” above other things by putting those things down. In the end, they still just want your mind so you’ll give them your money. It has nothing to do with you unless there is a monetary gain. That is the truth.

There is a Navaho expression I don’t know how to spell – /nan-nuh-túh-chay/. It means “It is a good day to die.” It is the best reason I can think of to put myself through anything. To be brave. To tear the self down. To strip away the debris. To find truth through mutilation. To be art. To die so I can live again.