Valentine Vixen: Julie Michelle McCullough, Miss February 1986

I am so glad to be able to share two super-special gals with you today. First, brooding and sensitive Cheryl Kubert from earlier in the day (R.I.P. and I wish her many hopefully joyful and educational returns to this earth after her unhappy retirement; that’s what reincarnation is for), the solemn, petite brunette with tall skis and deep eyes, and now — for something completely different! — ebullient and absolutely adorable blonde ray of sunshine Julie Michelle McCullough: model, actress, stand-up comedienne, and maligned-but-triumphant victim of sitcom scandal. Take it away, buttercup!

Photographed by Arny Freytag.

“I’ve always felt that I have little eyes, a mouth full of teeth and ears that I call elf ears. They kind of poke out.” That’s her opinion. We certainly didn’t notice any flaws when Julie McCullough showed up for our salute to The Girls of Texas last February. In fact, we tucked her ears under a Stetson and put her on the cover. It was the first time she’d ever seen a copy of Playboy.

Although she was born in Hawaii, Julie was then, and is now, living in Texas. But as the daughter of a Marine Corps lifer, she has moved around a lot. “It bothered me when I was younger, but as I look back, I appreciate it, because it taught me how to get along with different types of people. If you make good friends, you never lose them.”

During most of her childhood years, Julie thought she wanted to be an artist. “I really love to draw,” she says, “but I could never see myself as a starving artist. So I realized art would have to be more of a hobby than a career. And then, in high school, I started entering pageants, and I got a couple of Miss Photogenic awards. And everybody would tell me, ‘You should try modeling; You should try modeling.’ And all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Hey!'”

Playboy’s cover picture, and the less covered picture inside the magazine, caused a furor in Julie’s home town of Allen, a rural community 26 miles north of Dallas. A local pastor, announcing that he planned to preach a sermon on the subject, was quoted as saying — we kid you not — “The easiest thing to do is jump on Julie.” He went on to say that he saw her appearance in Playboy as part of a larger problem, that of “general moral disintegration in the fiber of the nation.” (“Return of the Cover Girl,” Playboy, February 1986.)

While working as a model, she was also honing her skills as an actress and had landed a part on television’s sitcom Growing Pains, featuring Kirk Cameron. He unfortunately shared the opinion that the easiest thing to do was jump on Julie, it seems, because he used his pull with the network to have her summarily axed off the show when he learned she had posed for Playboy, accusing the network of tacitly endorsing pornography by continuing her employment.

Because Mr. Cameron was the breakout star of the show and a teen heartthrob who kept the network flush with sponsors (his charming smile conveniently moved hot amounts of Noxzema pads and Snickers bars to both cleanse and satisfy), they went along with his wishes and terminated the object of his objections.

McCullough appeared in eight episodes until she was fired in 1990, which stemmed from series star Kirk Cameron’s conversion to evangelical Christianity, a conversion that, according to “The E! True Hollywood Story” episode focusing on the show, served to alienate him from his fellow cast members, as he did not invite any of them to his wedding. He accused the show’s producers of promoting pornography. (the wiki)

Sez Ms. McCullough now:

[Kirk Cameron] thinks if I read science books that I’m going to hell. I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints … the sinners are much more fun.* And a lot more interesting than some book-burner who is still having growing pains! I am at peace with God. Kirk thinks people like me are going to Hell; if I do, then at least I’ll go well-informed and well-read!

(Ms. McCullough’s myspace.)

*That is a reference to the Billy Joel song “Only the Good Die Young,” about young Virginia, a Catholic girl who starts much too late. Rock on with it, Ms. McCullough! Good people quote the Beatles. Great people quote the Beatles, Queen, and Billy Joel.

Contemporaneous with her being fired from Growing Pains, Ms. McCullough was also stripped of her crown as Wilmington, NC’s “Azalea Queen” for posing for Playboy. Sheesh. I try to keep shit to myself, but I really feel the need to address Mr. Cameron’s and the people of Wilmington’s position on this issue. Leaving aside for now the fact that the lord decreed we enter this earth naked and that nudity is a major factor in procreation, which what good man can decry?, let us address the point where it seems people feel it ill befits a person of “good” moral fiber to celebrate the physical gift of their bodies. As a hippy-dippy meditative and soulful Christian who has thought my way deeply and thoroughly through these issues and can confidently and guiltlessly balance both Playboy and my beloved monthly The Way of St. Francis without throwing out the baby with the bathwater, loving-the-Word-but-thanking-God-for-earthly-forms-wise, I can only cite and gently suggest a review of Matthew, chapter seven.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the plank that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a plank is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the plank out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. At Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and the region across the Jordan, Jesus was talking to the multitudes gathered there after hearing of His message and of His healings to beseech them to not become like the pharisees and hypocrites who think they are above sin. (Matthew 7:1-7.)

Mmm-hmm. This is an earnestly serious ethical issue. I’m not playing about the no more judging stuff. It’s just like Blessed Mother Teresa said: “If you judge someone, you have no time to love them.” And which one do you think Jesus would rather you worked at doing? Get with the program!

Today, Ms. McCullough is a well-received and widely admired stand-up comedienne who continues to act.

Some of her film and small screen credits include The Golden Girls, Beverly Hills, 90210, Jake and the Fatman, the Drew Carey Show, The Blob, and Harry and the Hendersons.

She is also a published poetess, with a number of anthology and private publishing credits to her literary name, and she was on a basketball team with Casper van Dien of Starship Troopers fame (I ♥ Heinlein and Johnny Rico forever). According to the imdb, she began working full time in 2006 as a stand-up comedienne. She has performed, if the wiki can be trusted, at such well-known venues as the Palms in Las Vegas and the Laugh Factory in L.A. Right on!

In conclusion, it is a widely known but nonetheless hard and bitter truth that, frankly, haters gon’ hate. All love and good wishes to Ms. McCullough and her sunny resilience!

Gifts of the Spirit: Music for Relief

Wanted to take a second to link to Music for Relief’s Download to Donate page, where you can download individual tracks or an entire playlist of songs by a variety of great artists, with your money helping aid relief efforts in Haiti. You have probably already read that an aftershock struck today measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale, which will obviously complicate and prolong rescue efforts and rebuilding in the wake of last week’s quake. If you like music and have some spare change, this is a great, small way to help.

Logo by Casey Ryder.

There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are differences of administration, but the same Lord. (1 Cor 12:4)

The Man With the Plan.

In partnership with the United Nations Foundation, Habitat for Humanity and Dave Matthews Band’s BAMA Works Haitian relief effort, Music for Relief is working to provide immediate aid with food, water, and emergency medical supplies, and long-term sustainable housing solutions for the people affected by this catastrophic natural disaster.

Musicians on the mix, mastered by supafly bamf Brian Gardner, include Dave Matthews Band, Peter Gabriel, Alanis Morissette, All-American Rejects, and Lupe Fiasco.

There are various gifts, and various offices to perform, but all proceed from one God, one Lord, one Spirit; that is, from the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the origin of all spiritual blessings.

Beautiful inside and out.

No man has them merely for himself. The more he profits others, the more will they turn to his own account. (Matthew Henry Concise Commentary on the Bible).

Movie Moment: “The Story of Menstruation.”

I am Mary’s poorly drawn ovary.

“The Story of Menstruation” is a Kotex-sponsored ten minute animated short intended for educational uses (Walt Disney, 1946).

It is narrated by an extremely serious but I think a little bit cranky older woman, who kind of sounds like Lady from Lady and the Tramp, or the dark-haired fairy in Sleeping Beauty: you know, that two-pack-a-day husk to the voice and sort of lecturing, grousy delivery, like she is about to threaten not to tip the waiter at a Chinese restaurant because he has not come back to refill the water, just generally kind of crabby and lightly gravelly in that weird old-people-racist way. Does this make sense? I think you know what I mean.

For the record, I’m not presently on the rag, I’ve just been organizing my bookmarks in to folders and I stumbled over my youtube link to this gem. Did a googly-moogly for screencaps cause I didn’t much feel like capping the whole thing myself, and found a set that were pretty much what I would have done, although I have supplemented with a couple stills of my own.

Why is nature always called Mother Nature? Perhaps it’s because, like any mother, she quietly manages so much of our living without our ever realizing there’s a woman at work.

Try not to throw yourself off-schedule by getting overtired, emotionally upset, or catching cold. And if your timing goes seriously wrong, or you’re bothered by severe cramps or headaches, you will want to talk to your doctor.

Are you getting this? Stop crying and don’t even think about sneezing — you might delay your menstruation, which makes you a failure. Don’t you dare trouble your doctor with your uncleanly shenanigans. (Clapping hands for emphasis) Timing! Is! Everything! You bleed right or you go to h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

What they are looking at is, like, this weird black puppy thing that floats up from the carpet, I think it is supposed to be a metaphor for all-women-share-this-secret? or some such likely chicanery.

The booklet [Very Personally Yours, provided by Kotex and meant to be passed out concurrent with the film’s screening in health classes] explores, among other things, that old taboo against bathing during your period. Not only can you bathe, you should bathe!

I have never heard of a taboo against that, because that is stupid and also gross. Unless they are referring to that murky, veiled crap in fucking Leviticus? Yeah, there is also shit in there about piercing the heart of a dove if you eat non-Kosher pork, and making a bunch of animal sacrifices for, like, pretty much every imaginable offense (where you would even get the number of animals necessary to slake Leviticus’s bloodlust is beyond me).

But if she be cleansed of her issue, then she shall number to herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean. And on the eighth day she shall take unto her two turtles, or two young pigeons, and bring them unto the priest, to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And the priest shall offer the one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for her before the LORD for the issue of her uncleanness. (Leviticus 15:28-30)

Turtles? Really? So every Israelite woman, if she was a woman of faith and law-abidance, is being told by Moses and Aaron that God said she should be going through 24 turtles a year? And she had to do this, follow through, sacrifice effing turtles? And every woman did it? Where are you even going to have that many turtles in the desert?! Doubt it. I’m coming right out and saying it: doubt it. Long story short, thanks for the concern about the taboo, Kotex-sponsored narrator, but I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been ignoring Leviticus for quite some time, ma’am.

Some girls have a little less “pep,” a feeling of pressure in the lower part of the body, perhaps an occasional twinge or a touch of nerves. But don’t let it get you down: after all, no matter how you feel, you have to live with people.

I have to what?! But these wolves are like family! “People?” I just don’t know about that.

(Damn near killed ‘im.) According to the wiki, Disney hired gynecologist Mason Hohn to make sure all the science was accurate. I take it he blinked during this drawing. I am not a stickler for biology, but I’m pretty sure my rectum is not just a tube with no discernible placement or beginning and ending, and I am almost positive my bladder and uterus are not shaped like golf clubs. Also, question: where is the vagina in this drawing? Why is the rectum even important to show? A tacit endorsement of anal, I say.

Menstruation’s relationship to readiness for sexual reproduction is absolutely never even once mentioned; you may imagine that sex itself also does not come up. But the production is, most film historians agree, noteworthily forward in its script — it is likely the first movie to use the word “vagina.” Too bad a crabby Virginia Slim smoker was the utterer and not someone more exciting and significant, like Bogie or Orson Welles. Wow, I now have to search every audio source possible to see if Orson Welles has ever been recorded saying “vagina.” Project! Anyway, like I said, the subject of exactly how babies get made is not broached, but the goal of getting a boy and making some in order to be all-growns-up is still endorsed.

I hope you have enjoyed and learned from “The Story of Menstruation.”

Most caps courtesy _sargasso on the lj. Thanks!

Liberated Negative Space o’ the Day: by way of introducing E’s First Resolution of 2010

There is this old fairy tale I’ve always been kind of obsessed with. Two sisters are at a well when an old woman with her whole life strapped to her back approaches them and asks for a drink. One sister scorns the beggar and tells her to go away. The other apologizes for her sister’s behavior, draws up the bucket, and gives the old woman a drink from her dipper, despite her filthy condition. The beggar reveals herself to be a powerful fairy, who curses the sister who spoke cruelly to her so that, whenever she opens her mouth to speak, toads and adders will tumble out.

Woodcut illustration for the Perrault version

To the sister that was kind to her, the fairy blesses her, turning her dipper to gold, and puts a spell on her so that whenever she speaks, pearls and rubies and precious gems will fall from her lips — because of this, a prince hears about it and marries the nice girl. (A dubious gift and all-around problematic lesson, I have always thought, but I will save that for another day.)

Somewhere good.

The problems aside, this is my first firmly formed Resolution of 2010: Pearls and Rubies.

Less trash-talk and denigration slithering out of my mouth, more pearls and rubies dripping from my lips. That includes not just ceasing gossip, but in changing my entire mindset, so that if I were about to criticize someone, I might instead take that criticism and turn it around, maybe offer some insight into why I think that person who is being discussed (probably not present during that) is behaving the way they are, and a hope that things will improve for them.

Massachusetts, United States.

Leviticus 19:16
“Do not go about spreading slander among your people.”

Ephesians 4:29;31
“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers… Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.”

Paris, France.

Phillipians 4:8
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

(Miss D, I know you are laughing at my deliberate inclusion of quotes from St. Paul’s letters — but this year, I am determined that I am going to take a stab at resolving some of my Paul problems, too, so make me work on it!)

Matthew 12:36
“But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.”

I am going to try to continue the process of change I began almost a year ago, and strive to constantly improve myself and the world around me. I especially like this resolution because it forces me to stop complaining (i.e. criticizing) and actually take action to resolve my issues with how a thing is going or a person is acting. I think this is really going to make me a better person. Or get me punched in the face. I’ll keep you posted!