Bestiality, BDSM, Bondage, Fetish, Naked Teens

This article was published in the original Podium magazine on Aug 24, 1999, with the tag line, "The famed Canadian comedy duo takes a long, hard look at pornography."

The Devils Advocates take a long hard look at pornography...

by The Devils Advocates

Welcome to our oddly-titled article! You were maybe looking for naked women, schoolgirls, sheep? We thought so... And we fooled ya! This is an article about pornography. By placing pornography buzzwords in the title this article comes (no pun intended) up a lot more often on search engines all over the world! And now that we've got you, why not stay awhile? Don't worry, the naked ladies aren't going anywhere. They'll be waiting for you when you're done.

Let's start with a definition of pornography, from the Mirriam-Webster Online Dictionary:

por-nog-ra-phy
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek pornographos (adjective) writing about prostitutes,
from porn (prostitute) + graphein (to write)
Date: circa 1864
1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (films, pictures, videos, writing)
intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (films, pictures, videos, writing) containing depictions of erotic behavior intending to cause sexual excitement
3 : the reason for adolescent boys to spend prolonged periods of time in the bathroom alone, and for adolescent girls to spend prolonged periods of time riding horses

Nothing inspires humankind like pornography. Paintings, literature, technology... Pornography, or "porno" is at the forefront of all of them. Why the Gutenburg Press? So we could all subscribe to Playboy, of course. Why the industrial revolution? So the new middle class could have more time to wank. Why the race for space? So we could have orbiting satellites delivering 61 channels of Swedish Erotica!

Just as our civilization has been shaped by porno, so too have our individual lives. Every young man remembers the excitement of discovering his dad's stroke book stash, entering a new, forbidden world where cheerleaders don't wear underwear, artists paint in the nude, and dental hygienists hanglide topless. As for young women... Well, we don't know. We're guessing, maybe, Judy Bloom books?

For young people, the only danger in "the left-handed read" is getting caught, a fear that can shape the performance of a man in bed for years to come -- "There's no time for foreplay, my mom might catch us!".

The Law of Averages dictates you do get caught eventually; hey, it happens to everybody. Girls can rest with assurance that their fathers won't call them on it; after all, people who live in glass houses... Even at the very worst, they can justify their stroke books as erotica. But boys don't have it so good. When their mothers ask "Do you like looking at pictures of naked ladies?", don't bother saying anything. There is no correct answer.

Eventually as we grow up we evolve from faded, dog-eared magazine pages to the wonderful world of video! Thanks to the arrival of the VCR, not only can you turn your living room into a home movie theatre, but into your own private peep show booth too, and without the annoying need for pocketfuls of loose change. Just walk through the swinging doors or maze-like entrance into the "Adults Only" section of your local video store, and gaze at the Cornucopia of Creativity on display -- The movie titles, not the plots.

Diddler on the Roof, Field of Reams, Dun Her, On Golden Blonde, Position Impossible, Poke-A-Hot-Ass, The Littlest Furmaid, Cockman and Throbbin, For Your Thighs Only, Bang The Bum Slowly, Forrest Hump, Vaginatown, WETness, and Free Willy. Clever puns on famous movie titles mask the endless repetition of the same plot: Guy meets girl, girl bends over, girl not wearing underwear, guy goes with it. To give the auteurs of this fine work credit, there are only so many variations on this theme.

Though the theme stays the same, at least the faces - well, not faces per se, but you know what we mean - give these erotic opi (i.e. sex films) some variety. So many young starlets head to Hollywood to seek fame and fortune, then wind up in some guy's back room trying to act on six-inch heels. And if they can't, no matter: There's usually a sticky couch well within falling distance.

If you tire of mechanical sameness or take exception to extreme close-ups of human anatomy, perhaps the hardcore porn of San Fernando valley isn't for you. Instead you can fire up your local foreign language channel and catch the best of European Erotica. Twenty minutes of gibberish, two minutes of moaning, and maybe a breast, probably a man's...

And if that's too much for your weak heart, there's always those "How to Make Love Gooder" tapes. You don't need to stuff these babies into your trenchcoat; you can carry them with dignity out the door of your local video rental joint: "I'm no dirty old man... I'm saving my marriage! And if that means looking at greased-up Playmates simulating intercourse then so be it!". Even the fundamental folk at Blockbuster Video, the type of people who would censor Bambi, carry this flavourless pornographic tapioca. You'll find out "How Candles Create The Mood", but you'll likely wish for better lighting so you could actually see something.

If you're too embarrassed to have the high-school dropout at the video store think poorly of you (we're guessing he's viewed the same titles as you, many times over) don't fear: Technology will come to your rescue! You don't have to pass your ID over the counter with a shaky hand, you can surf the 'net, as if you didn't already know... Instantaneous worldwide communication? A free public forum for the sharing of ideas? A new electronic medium of expression? How about free porn and plenty of it!

Every possible fetish can be satisfied in cyberspace. Want nudie pics of Drew Barrymore? Visit alt.pictures.erotica.drew-barrymore. Want nudie pics of Drew Barrymore with a lemur? Go to alt.pictures.drew-barrymore.lemur. Want to talk about what you saw? Check out alt.pictures.drew-barrymore.lemur.discussion. Want to see Teri Hatcher with a lemur? You figure it out!

But be forewarned: There is no such thing as free porn. How do you think America Online stays in business? It can hurt you in other ways too; you can lose precious brownie points when the girl of your dreams finds the Big Buttz website bookmarked on your browser.

The biggest cost of all is time. Sitting around waiting to log on, sitting around waiting for confirmation that yes, you are indeed twenty-one, then sitting around waiting for the objects of your desire to download to your screen, then to your computer. Suddenly, dinner and a movie doesn't seem like such an ordeal. Porn is a waste of time. You waste time getting it, you waste time using it, you've wasted time reading this and we've wasted time writing it.

The Devils Advocates' Improv Heaven & Hell airs on The Comedy Network every weekend. Check your local listings!

Toy Time - Required Reading for the Gadget-Obsessed

This article was published in the original Podium magazine on Aug 6, 1999, with the tag line, "What a minor Canadian cable celebrity does with a little money and a lot of free time."

by Andrew Currie

DISCLAIMER:

Any endorsements of, or complaints with, products mentioned in this article are based solely upon the author's personal experience...

---

MY WEEKEND WITH A SMART PHONE

or

GADGET-BUYING STRATEGIES FOR THE 21st CENTURY

I recently traveled to Montreal to experience my first JUST FOR LAUGHS festival. Feeling a little humbled that I was there to observe rather than to perform, I decided to take along a gadget sure to impress every Hollywood bigshot I'd meet -- a state of the art PCS phone, nay, a smart phone, with the ability to receive email forwarded from my ISP. A toy like that would surely go further toward getting me a big development deal than any public display of talent ever could.

What happened instead was that I spent much of the weekend wasting time, money and alienating my friends, because my smart phone didn't work. Inconceivable as it may seem, the impossible was true: technology had let me down! In my own little world I had experienced firsthand a meltdown of Y2K proportions. I'm not necessarily pointing any fingers toward the wireless carrier that sold me this phone, though I will say that their name rhymes with "hell" and that their website is here.

But I am asking myself "Did I really need to have email forwarded to my PCS phone?".

Here's another clue that will steer you in the direction of my obvious premise...

Like thousands of others, a buddy and I scammed a couple of free tickets to the recent COMDEX show in Toronto. I walked into our downtown convention centre eager to see the crème da la crème of smart phones, the Qualcomm pdQ, a phone so damn... smart that a PalmPilot hides within it.

I headed straight for the booth of the only Canadian carrier to support this amazing new device (care to guess who that might be?), only to find out that the folks there couldn't give me a demo because of a fire that had screwed up their wireless network.

As I held the lifeless pdQ in my hands, I asked someone how much a working model would cost. Time suddenly stood still when I was answered with the words "... About a thousand bucks".

Did I really need a phone with a PalmPilot hiding within it?

I decided that I didn't, and opted instead to fork over $200 for an older Palm and $150 for a non-emailable PCS phone. I'm using the other $650 for rent. My PalmPilot Pro was state of the art two years ago, and works great with my two-year old Macintosh. My Clearnet Nokia phone is a brand-new model, but is cheap enough to replace in the event that I lose it, or if someone reading this article decides to rob me. And if I'm pining for forwarded email I can always substitute good ol' fashioned text messaging, itself a technology two years old.

If you're going to buy new gadgets, you might as well do it on the cheap, because there will always be something fancier coming down the hype pipe. This can be done in one of two ways. You can go for hardware of the disposable kind, usually identified by funky colours or a small "i" in front of its name. Or you can take to the "previously cared for" market, and join the fuddy-duddy set, sitting on your porch in your rocking chair rambling on about how much better gadgets were in the old days. Chances are, you can still get those "old days" gadgets brand-new!

- AC

Andrew Currie is a Toronto-based actor, writer and comedian. His television show, Improv Heaven & Hell, can be seen in Canada on the Comedy Network.