ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 2, 1997 TAG: 9704020013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ELLEN GRAY KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Brice, 19, from Prescott, Ariz., thinks he has a problem.
He's been sleeping with his girlfriend for seven months, and while the sex started out great, well - lately, he's been a little bored.
``I'm looking for a way to spice it up,'' he tells the hosts of MTV's ``Loveline.''
Turns out Brice has a particularly pungent fantasy - one he's willing to share with a national audience, but one, frankly, that can't be shared here - and he's looking for advice on ``how to break the ice'' with his girlfriend.
Comedian Adam Carolla wants to know more about the ``fantasy,'' whose nature seems to push the limits for even late-night cable television, but fortunately for those with weak stomachs, a cooler head prevails. That head belongs to Carolla's co-host, Dr. Drew Pinsky, a specialist in both internal medicine and addictions, who quickly suggests that Brice's problem isn't really about sex at all, but about intimacy.
``If you have a connected relationship, you don't have to be reaching for gerbils and stuff,'' Pinsky, whose show-biz handle is ``Dr. Drew,'' tells the caller, moments before he and Carolla decide to dump him rather than learn any more particulars.
That's the way things often seem to go on ``Loveline,'' a Los Angeles-based radio show that since December also has been an MTV series airing five nights a week at 11:30.
Part advice show, part ``Politically Incorrect'' for the sexually inquisitive, ``Loveline'' features guest stars (on the night Brice called, it was Tamala Jones from ``Booty Call''), a great deal of inane (and occasionally not so inane) chatter from Carolla, the odd movie clip and a fair amount of down-to-earth advice from Pinsky.
At 38, the doctor's been in the on-air advice business since his fourth year of medical school at the University of Southern California, when he was recruited to help radio DJs at a nearby radio station answer callers' questions.
Nearly 15 years later, he somehow manages to remain centered, night after night.
It can't be easy.
``About once every two weeks ... I get a feeling in my stomach that I somehow connect to all that pain,'' Pinsky confessed in a car-phone interview as he shuttled between his two medical day jobs, one as an internist, the other as chief of medicine at a psychiatric hospital whose addiction service he runs.
``There's this tremendous emptiness out there,'' he said of many of his callers, including 19-year-olds bored with sex. ``We have a culture where surviving impaired parenting is the main problem.''
It's not surprising, then, that this father of 41/2-year-old triplets sees his role as being the ``cool parent'' on ``Loveline.''
Knowing that few teens and twentysomethings would come to someone as ``conservative'' as him for advice without some lure, Pinsky makes no apologies for the glitz surrounding him.
``It's fun for us,'' he said, particularly seeing someone ``drop the celebrity veil for the first time.''
Nicollette Sheridan, he said, ``walked out like a diva walking onto `The Tonight Show,''' but ``two calls into it, she dropped it'' and got involved in the discussion. ``The contrast was striking,'' he said.
The limits of television's new rating system are shown in sharp relief by ``Loveline,'' which carries an MTV-assigned TV-14 (although a network spokeswoman, noting the show's 11:30 p.m. time slot, says the target audience is 18- to 24-year-olds). The show's been renewed for a second season.
Does Pinsky think that ``Loveline'' is suitable for 14-year-olds?
``I think 15, 16 is really who needs it,'' he said, admitting that he has his own misgivings about the rating system. ``I stand up in front of my TV'' several times a week, he said, to prevent his own children from seeing something a show's rating hadn't led him to expect.
A 16-year-old, he said, probably isn't going to be talking frankly to parents about sex and drugs, even if he or she still needs advice.
When his own children - two boys and a girl - are 16, he said, ``I hope I'm still doing something like this. Because I know if I start talking with them, I'll get nowhere.''
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB