I’m lying on my couch watching This Gun for Hire, a film noir classic from 1942 starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. I made myself linguine in white clam sauce earlier for dinner and chased it down with two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. Now, as my stomach noisily digests the mash of pasta, clams, and white wine, my eyelids start feeling heavy. My joint custody dog Buster whimpers softly as he sleeps near my feet. Probably chasing a squirrel though canine dreamland. I look at my watch. It’s almost eleven o’clock on a Friday night. What an exciting life I lead.
As the black and white images on the television screen tell the story of a killer’s brutality and eventual salvation, I think about other movies I’ve seen with similar themes. Whether its James Cagney’s tough guy in Angels with Dirty Faces or Luc Besson’s illiterate hitman, Leon, in The Professional, I’ve always enjoyed stories about people who redeem their lives at the last moment through acts of truly selfless heroism. Maybe that storyline appeals to my hardwired Catholic sensibilities. Anyone can be saved, everything will be all right in the end. That’d be nice.
Suddenly my roommate shouts from inside his bedroom, “FREE PORN!”
“What?” I say, rousing myself from my sleepy theological reverie. “What did you say?”
“Come in here!” my roommate shouts. “Before it goes away!”
Much to Buster’s annoyance, I toss aside my blanket, get off the couch, and walk into my roommate’s bedroom. When I look at the LCD television on top of his dresser, my eyeballs are immediately greeted by the sight of two shapely, naked, and big breasted women doing intimate things to each other. Well, they’re almost naked. But somehow I don’t think thigh high leather boots counts as clothing
“Wow,” I say, involuntarily. Impressive breasts always make me say “wow.” I think that’s hardwired into my system too. The nuns of my youth would whip me with their rosary beads if they could see me now.
“I told you someone was watching porn over at the cable company,” my roommate says. “Now do you believe me?”
“How do you know that a person’s watching it?” I reply. “Maybe it’s just a glitch in the system.”
“Keep watching,” my roommate says. “You’ll see.”
My roommate and I continue watching the “actresses” as they grind against one another with practiced enthusiasm. The moaning and groaning coming out of the television speakers, however, sounds like someone in the throes of demonic possession instead of orgasmic rapture. Then, without warning, the film fast forwards to a part in the scene where the actress are, ah, a little more exposed.
“”Holy shit!” I exclaim. “Somebody’s watching porn at the cable company.”
“They’re probably jerking off right now,” my roommate says.
”Probably.”
“We should call the cable company and complain.”
“Nah,” I reply. “I’m not going to get some guy in trouble just because he wants to rub one out at work.”
“How do you know it’s a guy?” my roommate asks. “Its two lesbians having sex. It could be a woman watching.”
“Only a guy would be stupid enough to watch porn and jerk off at work.”
“True,” my roommate mutters. “True.”
Buster decides to make an appearance. He walks into my roommate’s bedroom, looks at the television for a full 30 seconds, and then walks out – unimpressed.
“Buster doesn’t like porn?” my roommate asks.
“Why watch porn when he can see the real thing?” I reply.
My roommate laughs. “I’ve seen what happens when you try kicking him out of your room. He goes nuts.”
“Oh my God,” I say, shaking my head. “The whining and scratching at the door got so distracting that I finally had to start letting him in the room.”
“Doesn’t he bother you?”
“He usually hides under the bed or falls asleep on the easy chair in my bedroom. Occasionally, however, he tries joining in.”
“A threesome?” my roommate asks, grinning.
“Nothing like being in the throes of passion and having a hairy dog trying to lick your ass,” I reply.
“Oh no!”
“What can I say? Sometimes dogs just wanna have fun.”
“What do you do when Buster does that?”
“I toss him back under the bed saying ‘The woman is mine!’ He usually gets the hint.”
“That’s so weird.”
“Trust me,” I say. “Most couples that have dogs encounter this problem.”
“How about cats?”
“They just sit on the headboard and watch. Very creepy.”
“I’m never getting pets,” my roommate says. “Never.’
Suddenly the video fast forwards again. Now a man and woman are on the screen. Dissatisfied, the viewer at the cable company fast forwards past the obligatory “dialogue” until he gets to the part where the “action” starts.
“So why do you get free porn on your TV and I don’t?” I ask.
“Because the digital signal going to the plasma in the living room gets filtered by the cable box,” my tech savvy roomie replies. “My digital television’s hooked up directly to a coaxial cable so there no way to block the signal.”
“The TV in my room’s hooked up directly to cable,” I say. “Why don’t I get dirty movies?”
“Because the TV in your bedroom’s not digital. It’s analog. You won’t get the signal.”
“So the only way anyone can see free porn is if their hi-def television get its signal directly from a coaxial able and not the cable box?”
“Exactly.”
“How many people hook up their expensive hi-def televisions to coaxial cables and bypass the cable box?” I ask.
“Almost no one,” my roommate replies. “By using the coaxial you don’t get all the channels you’re paying for and the hi-def signal’s not as good.”
“Looks like our porn loving friend at the cable company found a loophole in the system,” I say.
“That makes sense,” my roommate says. “He can watch his porn in the control room and almost no one will notice.”
“Except us.”
“These cable people are idiots anyway,” my roommate says. “A couple of months ago a mother ordered a Disney pay per view movie for her kids and got porn instead.”
“Sound like someone mixed up Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for Snow White and the Seven Whores,” I reply dryly.
“Huh?”
My roommate’s from a far away country, I explain to him that many porn movies take their titles from established Hollywood films.
‘Little Oral Annie?” my roommate exclaims. “That’s disgusting,”
‘You should see what they did with Forrest Gump,” I reply.
“I don’t want to know.”
As I watch the man and woman frenetically humping each other on my roommate’s television screen, I chuckle to myself. Come to think of it, there are probably porn equivalents of The Professional and Angels with Dirty Faces too. I wonder what the San Fernando Valley would do to This Gun for Hire? Hmmmm.
“Oh well” I say, “That’s enough fun for me. I’m going to finish watching my movie.”
“You’d rather watch that old stuff than this?”
“My movies have better dialogue,” I reply. “Besides, life’s too short for bad porn.”
“You’re right,” my roommate says. “Goodnight.”
I flop back down on the couch and finish watching a young Alan Ladd trade shots with an impossibly young Robert Preston. When the movie ends I floss and brush my teeth, check the locks on the doors, and go to bed. My dog burrows under the covers and takes up station near my feet – but otherwise my bed is empty. No “real thing” for Buster to watch tonight. As I drift off to sleep, images of Veronica Lake and the two lesbians in thigh high boots compete for space on the back of my eyelids.
What an exciting life I lead.
LMAO, I wish we got free porn sometimes, but just like the “FRIENDS” episode, it would get old!
I still remember the time soft porn was available on TV. I recall sitting in front of the TV at night, hoping my parents wouldn’t catch me, while watching for flesh tones through the zigzaggy images on the scrambled screen.
Wonder if that cable worker has been fired yet. Your roommate can’t have been the only one to hook into the free porn.
Great Post! Should be “anyone can be saved…”
Dennis
Ha! I grew up in the SF Valley, and all I can say is that nothing is sacred to them.
There was a good article on slate a while ago explaining how this happens:
http://www.slate.com/id/2167389/pagenum/all/
Basically, you’re not watching a cable company guy’s viewing habits but your neighbors. Enjoy it while you can!
Whoa seriously too much information.
Oh deal with it Anonymous. Dogs like to insinuate themselves into EVERYTHING. Funny post Waiter!
heh heh.
back in the day, late at night on television (in pre-cable days), there was always some “late, late show” that had soft porn featured. Talk about bad film making! Just thinking about it makes ma all nostalgic….
Our dog is bad about intruding. She is 90lbs and thinks nothing of leaping on the bed. She’s a lab mix and when she causes the mood to go I call her that “black bitch” and tell her he’s my man. This does not impress her.
Love the blog, avid reader for years..
Just had to comment on pets that like to watch..
My cat will come from wherever she is in the house and sit on our bed if my boyfriend and I are in our bedroom alone, even if we aren’t doing anything. If that’s the case, she’ll usually stick around for a bit and glare at us as if saying ‘I’m bored and need some entertainment, get to it you two’.
She can be quite creepy and we tend to shut our door before any ‘activities’ commence these days. ;P
Labrador retrievers are not easily impressed. Chihuahuas are even worse. A pet mink would try to burrow into your exposed orifices.
Anyway, is there really such a thing as bad porn? Or even good porn for that matter? Porn is porn. It is displayed to appeal to the viewer’s prurient interests. If you want scintillating dialogue you won’t see it attached to titillation.
Stick with the classics. Porn gives you acne and arthritis. Porn will be the downfall of Western civilization. Porn is fattening and has zero redeeming social value. Read a book instead.
Ha. Hilariously, my ex’s cat used to freak out when we kicked him out of the room so we had to let him in. Instead of just watching though (which is weird enough), he liked to literally wriggle his way between us. It was like a cat sandwich with person bread. Eventually we just started ignoring the frantic scratching at the door.
to Dr. Electro porn isn’t fattening quite to the opposite, it promotes regular exer ise, albeit to a general area(the wrist and hand) and while watching it your not gonna be eating anything unless ur into that kinda wierd stuff but other thn that i think porn is healthy and god knows its great for relieving stress which is a leading cause in wieght gain.
lol anyone can put up an argument against anything
My husband and I have a 2-story loft with the whole upstairs as the master suite. The problem is: no door. So our cat always gets a front-row view. And contrary to this post, cats DO like to try and join in (although I usually don’t notice until my husband flings him to the floor)
If it’s one thing I love, it’s free pornography. My buddy Scott gave me an 8-hour VHS tape back in 88 – nothing but money shots. After that, I could never go back to cable porn. Sadly, the tape broke in 91, and I’ve been looking for something equivalent since then. They don’t make it like they used to. Hats off to Christy Canyon and Seka.
Linguine and wine? Wait, I thought you were on a diet, Waiter!
I’m not always good – or smart.
As someone above has already stated, this wasn’t some guy at the cable company watching pr0n. This was someone near you streaming pr0n using their cable box. The reason a digital TV can get it is because it is streamed in unencrypted QAM. The channel used changes every time, so to see “free” stuff you have to scan right then and then flip through channels.
You could see people watching pr0n, soaps, movies, anything that is available “on demand”.
The “HD” you get via directly connected cable vs. STB is going to be exactly the same. The only difference is that with a TV (assuming it doesn’t have a cable card), you can only get the unencrypted channels. With the STB, you can get all of them, but of course it isn’t going to let you peak on those on-demand streams.
Typo alert Waiter:
two classes of Sauvignon Blanc.
….Glasses
Unless of course you were sampling a good SB and a not-so-good one 😉
linguine and wine, Buster and a Veronica Lake & Alan Ladd movie – sounds like a wonderful Friday evening to me, even without the free porn.
the Buster and the “real thing” part is hilarious and very very familiar (we have a cuddly, curious and rather overwight mongrel).
Have a great weekend
The part about the dog is definitely Too Much Information, thank you.
hey busters back i was wondering where he was
eat what you want you looked yummy on t.v.
who loves ya baby
oxoxxx
Hey, if you got free porn, would you complain?
I wouldn’t
I’m surprised the cable guy doesn’t just have a tv hooked up somehow so it doesn’t actually broadcast to customers…
It makes me strangely happy to know that Mr. Cable got it on with Mr. Five Fingers that night. A kind of coming of age tale, no?
About three or four years ago my sister and her boyfriend where flipping channels once when they found someone else’s porn on cable. thing is, we HAVE a cable box… so I’m not sure how it happened. but if you want to see something funny have a 15 year old girl find porn on the living room TV on a Saturday afternoon. Her ranting was HILLARIOUS, it was like she thought it was going to be the end of the world. My dad even left it on a minute just to watch her freak. oooh, priceless.
My dog used to watch porn, the scrambled kind that was so popular with junior high age boys in the early 90’s.
She was absolutely hypnotized by it.
Hi
it isn’t the cable TV employee but any neighbor with Video On Demand. you should see more channels like that.
think – such an accident would require very complex and expensive setup for the employee to transmit to cable what he is watching 🙂
good grief
hmm blog not soo good lately.
You post two stories a month, all the rest is about your book or current events or links some where.
Remember how you got where you are…
Our dog, as soon as we do anything even remotely intimate (even cuddling/kissing), gets this terrified look on his face and bolts out of the bedroom. It’s really pretty hilarious.
I have no idea if it’s due to the fact that we usually kick him out once things get to a certain point, or if he actually hates being in the room when things go down.
Why do most guys assume only men watch porn? Anyways, tell Buster there’s a really attractive lab mix here in California who wouldn’t mind making his acquaintance.
Vid on demand. When I plugged in my new digital screen last year and did a channel search I saw the same thing
Great story, as usual.
So You Want To Be a Banquet Manager
the fact that you got up, after eating, and half asleep based on your housemate’s find of FREE PORN is such a guy thing to do…who am I kiddin’ I think I’d get up to
I miss when you used to write about the restaurant biz and waiting on assholes. So entertaining.
I s’pose those days are over, eh?
I loved the part about your dog. We have two cats, and one gets really PO’d when the activities begin, because he doesn’t like the movement and has to leave the bed.
We used to have cats that just stared, but we were much younger. Now they can’t wait until we’re done!
To the typo police person – lighten up! Life is short.
Love your stories, Waiter!
This comment is about your previous post, as we were not allowed to comment on it. I’m sorry in advance for disregarding and posting anyway.
I mainly just wanted to say thank you for not letting people post. I think it has been such an annoyance more than anything else. People who swear, malign, or are just uncouth do not encourage a certain party, rather they tend to show off how ignorant and faulty they are. I really wanted to say thank you for not allowing another venue to have people expose their own stupidness.
Also – a thought – from what I have observed, porn cheapens sex. It makes it too common. If you want good sex, abstain for a while, then couple that with emotional connection – see how satisfying and fulfilling sex is then. I mean, really, who wants to feel empty after one of the most intimate acts a person can engage in?
I’ll be right back, I just have to run over to Radio Shack for – something, never mind what.
Diet?Waiter doesnt need to diet.Chubby boys need love too…..
anyways great post a little bad porn right before bed always makes me sleep like a baby
My dog did that TONIGHT–less than an hour ago.
I hope I didn’t hurt his feelings by screaming and calling him a pervert…
LOL, if it were a woman watching, it would have been gay porn. Trust me.
my roomate totally watches free porn that way too!!! not that i’ve had a conversation like yours ever with my roomate.. i wonder if we live in the same building. haha
My friend’s cat tried to join in… he thought the dangly things were a toy for him.. and he took a swat it. He is not allowed in the room during the night time activities.
try having SIX dogs and two cats…and we thought kids were tough!
Great story. Brought back some memories of me and my buddies trying to turn our heads and squint trying to make out picture on the scrambled adult channels on cable when i was a kid.
When I hooked up my step-dad’s new HDTV and did a channel scan, I got 1 adult movie and two dozen channels of “Happy Feet.”
Мне кажется это не совсем точно. На эту тему имеется несколько мнений. И у каждого человека со своим мировоззрением свое мнение.
What – naked women aren’t erotic enough for some men? They have to wear heeled boots too?
That just makes me mad.
О, это что-то, недавно где-то уже о таком слышала. Ваше мнение имеет основание быть. Вы понимаете то, о чем пишите. Немного почитав, хотелось бы узнать больше.
pets and sex LMAO. That’s just awesome. poor buster!
My cat when he was a kitten tried jumping on the husband’s back claws extended once during. needless to say he got flung. he never did it again. if we kick him out he gives us the “Screw you guys” look and goes on his way haha