All The News That's Fit To Strip

The Nashville troupe Panty Raid celebrated their five year anniversary this week. "Around the time that we formed Panty Raid, there was only one other burlesque troupe from the South, Dames A' Flame," said Rachel Kallas, a founding member of Panty Raid. Since then, the group has performed around the country, competing in the New York Burlesque Festival and The Miss Exotic World Pageant.

In other news ...

It's the birthday of Arthur Laurents, who wrote Gypsy.

The Assettes "use the term caburlesque because they focus on the music, singing and comedy, just as much as dance and songs."

Minneapolis swings around a pole, but in Tennessee "a local exercise studio planning to offer striptease exercise and stripper poles won't open, because code enforcement says it’s an adult business."

The Asbury Park Press talks to Pinchbottom Burlesque's Jonny Porkpie, who says: "Once the act starts [burlesque performers have] three to seven minutes on stage . . . to do an entire show that is fully their responsibility, fully their creative baby, fully theirs and the deal with that is you get to put something that's closer to your soul on stage."

In Appleseed "stripping is so not the point" of Gypsy.

UK actress Jemima Rooper has found a new hobby in burlesque.

Are you blissfully ignorant of the erotic possibilities of a ten-speed bicycle? Well, then head to BenchPress Burlesque July 25 in St. Louis.

That Tempest Storm story we told you about last week continues to heat things up in papers around the world.

The Tempest In A G-String

Canada's Observer shimmies up to Tempest Storm. More than 50 years ago Storm was dubbed the "Girl with the Fabulous Front" and told by famous men she had the "Best Two Props in Hollywood." Since then, she's seen burlesque teeter on the brink of extinction. Her contemporaries -- Blaze Starr, Bettie Page, Lili St. Cyr -- have died or hung up the pasties. But not Storm. "No, no. I'm not ready to hang up my G-string, yet," she told the Observer. "I've got too many fans that would be disappointed."

All The News That's Fit To Strip

Sneak a peek at a Dita Von Teese you haven't seen before -- the blonde, 18-year-old Heather Sweet in her high school yearbook photo. That fresh-scrubbed look wasn't to last and Dita said in an interview: "As soon as I was of legal age I wanted to take my clothes off and be photographed recreating old pin-ups."

In other news ....

St. Louis gets saucy with Foxy Le Feelion, Greta Garter and others. But burlesque isn't new to this town. "In the '50s and '60s the Grand Theater hosted stars like Tempest Storm and Lili St. Cyr while the Stardust Club was home to the Evelyn West and her "$50,000 treasure chest."

Tempest Storm celebrates her 80th birthday and proves, “Gravity hasn’t gotten me yet. I have had a (heck) of a run and I’m not finished."

Porn baron Paul Raymond has died at 82. Raymond, once dubbed the King of Soho, opened the only premises in Britain to stage live striptease shows in 1958.

A Pussycat Doll hangs up her whiskers.

Video of the Week

This montage of performers -- Betty Boop to Bettie Page, Tempest Storm to Dita Von Teese -- is set to a steamy, sultry song that's perfect for the first day of August. The song, if you're wondering, is Dizzy with Wonder by Anja Garbarek.

Video of the Week

Everyone -- even Larry Flynt -- is chattering about Senator Vitter's connection to the DC Madam and wondering who else will show up on Deborah Jeane Palfrey's phone list. A New Orleans madam told the AP, "It wasn't all about dirty, raunchy, crazy sex." Since when?

As the story gets as hot and steamy as the weather, we honor a few of yesterday's scandalicious couples with the video of the week, which features two of the burlesque babes matched up with politicos.

Want more? Tempest Storm was last week's video star.