SMUT STAND REPORT: April 9, 2017 (Berlin)
WHEN: 4 hours (1-5pm), April 9, 2017. WHERE: Mauerpark, Berlin. OUTPUT: two full-length pieces, including a deliciously wet sit-and-spin session (with a focus on the ass) and a summer afternoon of semi-public pussy eating with the smells of sausage on the barbecue in the background.
I wanted Berlin to go better than this, on my first time out with the Smut Stand here. Better = more stories, more interactions, more money (more people buying me drinks 😀 ). I have long held the idea that Berliners, in general, are massive perverts, and every person I’ve met here who has lived here for a while has disabused me of that notion.
However, this city is no different from any other: the spot has to be right. Multiple people suggest Mauerpark, a big park next to a weekend “fleamarket.†I thought sure, if that’s the only time the weather is going to be good while I’m here, but I better try it.
Well. On a sunny Sunday afternoon the foot traffic is certainly there, but as a friend of mine tentatively pointed out, a lot of people go there because they know they can get in an afternoon of cheap entertainment, e.g. people watching, drinking, and haggling over mass-produced picture frames. “You might want to operate on a sliding scale,†my friend suggested. I don’t think so, I replied to the text message, and spent my subway ride to the park fuming about cheap-ass trust-fund-baby hitchhikers.
(I stopped offering sliding scale to the general public several years ago. The spaces where the Smut Stand operates are not conducive to honesty in self-pricing, and I value my labour too much. I don’t do this to be cute, I do it to earn money, and I know what my work is worth.)
The further problem with daytime Smutting is that I must be in the shade. At night this is not a problem—instead I’m looking for good lighting during those times—but even a partly cloudy afternoon, even with decent sunblock, can leave me a little crispy fried. In this park, there simply was no place where I could take advantage of the stream of sausage grillers and sun-worshippers, be in the shade, AND STILL have my back against a wall.
So I set up on the grass underneath a partially leafed tree, everything at the Smut Stand borrowed, right down to the typewriter and the tape I used to attach the usual signage to the table. (Big thanks to Marc from Sticky Biscuits for lugging the Smut Stand gear out, and to Liliana for letting me use her typewriter.)
And then I waited. Typed a piece or two, to continue getting used to the typewriter. To be honest, that was the most frustrating part of typing yesterday, as the typewriter had several keys that stuck. Also, the z and the y were switched on this German/Czech? Keyboard. All of that slowed my typing speed down considerably.
I persevered, though, and eventually got two customers, neither of whom boggled at the (I thought reasonable) price, and both being strangely vanilla for Berlin. The older Irish expat in particular was just entranced by the whole process, and sat right down on the grass in his pinstriped suit and smoked a cigarette while answering the interview questions.
It could have been really lonely out there for me, but one of Sticky Biscuit’s friend circle, whom I had met at my show of Phone Whore here last Saturday, she came out to visit for a couple of hours, and even brought a cup of coffee like I begged someone to do on the event page.
(Yes, I put up an event page for the Sidewalk Smut, after Marc suggested that I do so he could share it around with his friends. Seems weird, and it’s yet another page on FB that I need to manage, but I’ll give it a shot.)
In short, 6 out of 10, would do again, in the evening on a different street.
*****
Yes, it’ll soon be proper Smut Stand weather again, but it all fits into my wheelhouse, as they say, AS DOES your becoming a patron of mine over on Patreon! Do join us, and help me help the world become more sex-aware.