SMUT STAND REPORT: Oct. 28, 2015 (New Orleans)
Does this look like someone who GIVES A SHIT THAT YOU KNOW THAT I’M FAT?
WHEN: 4.5 hours (8:45pm-1:15am), Oct 28, 2015. WHERE: Frenchmen Street (in front of Bicycle Michael’s), New Orleans. OUTPUT: one microsmut and five full-length pieces, including a really lovely steam-punk fem-domme electro-stim scene (there are too many hyphens in that description); a rural encounter involving bondage over a canoe, with damp rope; and a clothes-on cowgirl grind on a young man who is still learning self-control.
Lately the first dead hour or two have been wearing on me. The night before, for example, I had set up at 7:30 and didn’t get my first commission until QUARTER TO ELEVEN. That is too damn long, and it affects my mood. Anyway, on this particular night, I ended up having a serious heart-to-heart text chat with my lover, for about 45 minutes longer than I had planned, so I didn’t rush out of the cafe, I just strolled and said, fuck it, I’m setting up late today. And it was totally fine.
Got a nice mix of customers overall, from a kind-hearted cougar lady wanting a piece to share with her 23-year-old lover (“something a little instructional would be all right,” she laughed) to a blonde, rosy-cheeked tourist who had listened in on the previous customer’s reading and was practically pissing herself with excitement when it was her turn. “Where are you from?” said the previous customer. “Sweden,” said the girl. “Oh, well,” said the other customer to me, “You know what they say about Swedish people.” That they’re big happy sex fiends? “That’s it!” We both looked at the girl, and she just nodded and laughed.
The energy of passersby had not started out nice, I’ll be honest. Within the first hour, the one poet lady (the other one had decided to set up way down near Mona’s) had an interaction with a trio of dude-bros. (We are getting more and more of them on Frenchmen.) While one of them was requesting a poem about twat-waffles, another one sleazed up to the Smut Stand, where I was already working on a commission. I gave the guy my pitch, he said, “okay, put me on the wait list, not sure I can come back, but put me down”, and then the three swaggered off. I texted him when the consultation slot opened up, no response, and I figured no loss on that one. But then, when I was off in the bathroom, they came back and left something with the lady poet to give to me: a grubby wad of “fan-fic”, a hate letter scribbled in pencil, filling four small notebook pages with misogynistic, fat-phobic drivel. I read it, and then the lady poet and I burned it there on the sidewalk.
I care, obviously. I hate that people are hateful and hurtful, and I hate that they probably go around giving off bad vibes to other people—fat people and women and whoever isn’t like them—some of whom may not have the inner resources to let it slide, who internalize it. Those dudes are mean, but you know what the awesome thing is? I JUST KEEP DOING MY SHIT. Whatever it is they think they did to me, IT ISN’T WORKING HAHAHAHAHA RAD FATTIE MAGIC IS SOME OF THE STRONGEST MAGIC OUT THERE.
Things picked up after that. (I think burning the hate-fic really did help.) One of the pieces I did next was for a dark-vampire lady in a corset and top hat and vampire fangs that looked really real! Her voice was bubbly, strangely at odds with her appearance, and while I think she had been drinking with her friends at dba for a while, her eyes were incredibly lucid. (After a while on Frenchmen Street, it is always a relief to meet sober people. I don’t know what they’re doing down here, but I’m glad they’re here.) She was fully present, and gave me some outstandingly specific fem-dom material, and when I pulled it out of the typewriter and read it through, I knew: this one was going in Bang It Out, vol. 5. Most of the pieces I include in the yearly anthology, I have to compare and contrast. But sometimes I know right away, and that’s a good feeling.
The night veered into weird again a little later, when a comedy talk-show host on XML came up with a sound guy and a handler, personal assistant, and wanted to get a piece done, recording the process for his show. There he was, with a fucking one-man sound crew, and he was berating curious passersby for standing and trying to eavesdrop. Hell, tourists will eavesdrop on a drunk person puking out there! You’re in public with a fucking professional-looking mic on, don’t be an asshole. I should have charged him more, possibly even declined, but I kept the smart-ass one-liners flowing, and at least I got his assistant’s card. (Will post here if any links to sound files become available.)
I was ready to go home at that point, around 1am, but there were a couple more names on the waitlist still. I always feel bad if I just walk off without even trying. Fortunately for last night, neither of them showed—both texted their apologies—so I only had to wait another 15 minutes before I could start packing up. Perfect timing, too, because Phoebe, one of my local friends and a Sidewalk Smut super-fan, came by right then. She had been by earlier to bring me a drink. Now she just wanted to make sure everything was okay.
“So I do this thing, I hope you don’t think it’s weird, but when I’m out here and I know you’re out here, I swing by a few times, I circle around the edges near the smut stand to keep an eye on things, make sure you’re doing all right.” She sipped deeply at her go cup, and then kinda rolled her eyes at me and laughed. “I hope you don’t think that’s stalking, I just worry about you out here. I know it can get crazy, and I want to keep an eye out.”
I was deeply moved, not weirded out, and I told her so. I’m not local, I said. Every other typist has friends that come by and say hi, because they live here year-round. I don’t. I like seeing friendly faces out here.
A tipsy guardian angel is better than none.
*****
With the touring and the writing and smutting it up in the face of pervasive sex-hostility, I need an army of guardian angels! Enlist now, by becoming a patron of mine over on Patreon!