SMUT STAND REPORT: Atlanta, Nov. 14, 2014 (outdoor season is over)
This bad boy needs a tune-up like whoa
Temperatures in Atlanta have dropped below freezing at night. I have already set aside my denim tour jacket for the faux fur-lined faux-suede coat; I don’t think I brought my really BIG faux-fur coat along on this trip. I may have been a little optimistic.
Sidewalk Smut outdoor season is over.
Oh, I still do custom typewritten erotica for people. Ye Olde Smutte Shoppe (how many extra Es does one need to convey antique charm?) is open year-round, in theory, and I’m bracing my self for the double-bump of winter holidays and Valentine’s Day. I can do excellent work from email interviews, and even allow my online customers a little more leeway for special requests than when I’m out there on the sidewalk, where I definitely don’t have time for that shit.
But Sidewalk Smut, in its truest form, is a warm-weather sport, and the warm weather is officially gone until next spring. And this makes me sad.
There is the sudden loss of the Sidewalk Smut discipline, that constant flow of interview-then-write, don’t think too much, just WRITE, because those fuckers are coming back in 20 minutes and I have their money in my hand, and I just have to produce, I HAVE TO. In theory, I could do stream-of-consciousness writing on my laptop, and I have tried, but the reality is, when I have the option and the time to edit, I will. I did it with this very paragraph. Sigh. I try to keep myself from doing it, but it’s well-nigh impossible.
But never mind the discipline. Sidewalk Smut keeps me from being a hermit, even during the touring season, when I run the risk of being a little too one-track, becoming a “theatre hermit”. There are always shows to do, or tech rehearsals to attend, or promotional opportunities to pursue, especially out on the festival circuit. But getting the Smut Stand out there, for three hours a day, wherever “there” is, keeps me out in circulation. It keeps me fresh. It keeps me socialized and able to talk to people. To their faces. In addition to the money I get for the smut, Sidewalk Smut does me immeasurable good on the “not skulking around at home on the Internet” front.
Sidewalk Smut keeps me conversing with people, and listening to really what my customers want and desire and actually do in sex. During the touring time my phone hours drop low or stop altogether; Sidewalk Smut kinda keeps my non-judgy mind in shape.
Dammit. As grinding as the Smut Stand can be, especially in places like New Orleans, I do miss it when the season is through, especially because it coincides almost perfectly with end of touring, when I go to wherever I am wintering, stay signed in for phone work for 14-18 hours a day, and tug and wrench my mind around whatever the next play or writing project is that I’m working on, and all the fundraising and logistics and administrivia that goes along with that. I’m not just not outdoors, I’m Extreme Indoors, and already feeling isolated, and pretty much confined to Facebook for connection with my world.
From consensual dirty talk with strangers on the sidewalk to … online chat. Sigh. I get to relive a little of the fun this winter when I edit the next volume of Bang It Out, but yeah, end of outdoor Smut for the year always makes me a little sad.