All The News That's Fit To Strip

Viva Las Vegas winner Dizzy Von Damn talks about VLV, how she chose her stage name and burlesque around the country.

"I don't know about a coastal difference, but individual cities certainly have different approaches over all. In my experience, New York has a much edgier, performance art sort of feel. That's not to say there aren't classic performers there, but as a whole, there's just an air of the avant-garde. LA has its rebels (whom I love) but as a whole it seems to be more on the pretty side. Perhaps that is the east/west split."

In other news ...

Dita Von Teese shuns the sun.

The Pussycat Dolls get an extra dash of Spice. Victoria Beckham plans to take the stage with the burlesque troupe at Caesar's Palace Hotel & Casino in June.

Tickets to 2008 Miss Exotic World Pageant are on sale now.

All The News That's Fit to Strip

The City University of New York revealed the art of burlesque in a symposium called "What is Burlesque? Art or Erotica or Ars Erotica?" Several performers including Jo Boobs, Tigger, Velocity Chyaldd and Rosewood put on demos and discussed burlesque. Lynn Sally told audiences:

"Burlesque is an utterly amateur form that anybody can do. But this makes burlesque a democratic art, where audiences can watch a show and say 'Wow! Look! You don't have to be super skinny to be on stage.' Burlesque feels accessible to the audience."

In other news ...

The Pussycat Dolls is back in prime time.

The Greater Boston Burlesque Exposition had "spectacular" turnout.

Don Rickles used to do impressions and jokes in striptease houses. He told the Las Vegas Sun: "I was the comedian while all the girls were undressing. By today’s standards they’re fully dressed. But I used to be the time-killer in between acts. I did bad jokes and lousy impressions and so I started talking to the audience and making fun of the place I was in, and that started out for what I do best. That was mainly because that was my personality — I was always being sarcastic."

All The News That's Fit To Strip

Technical difficulties kept The Candy Pitch from serving up the usual striptease confections, but we're back. We're not the only ones. Bachelor Pad Magazine's latest issue dishes up some lovely burly-q treats. London's Sophie Jones writes about her burlesque brunch, which lets you "sip your coffee while burlesque beauties take their time to tease and tantalize you." Penny Starr offers tips on entertaining. And Ava Garter, left, shows off in a saucy pictorial.

In other news ...

Meghan McCain, daughter of the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, told GQ she's got a crush on Dita. The 23-year-old said: "I know she’s not someone you would expect the daughter of a Republican candidate to like, but I love her. I love the way she dresses. If I could look like that all day, I would…in her day clothes, I mean."

The Pussycat Dolls bare their lingerie line in L.A.

The Boston Burlesque Exposition, a three-day, two-night extravaganza, shimmies into the Hyatt Regency this weekend.

Yeah, baaaaby. Agent Lynch teases Sixties style.

Dita Von Teese sues an erotica company.

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.

All The News That's Fit To Strip

Burlesque performer and designer muse Dita Von Teese chats with the San Jose Mercury Sun. Some highlights:

"I don't really care about Hollywood," she says of the industry's current taste for thin, blond, cookie-cutter starlets. "I always want to go against that tide."

Women often ask her how to be sexy, and she says her advice is to "play up what makes you unique" - a mantra that's taken her this far.

In other news ...

In her off-Broadway burlesque show, Sensuous Woman, Margaret Cho bares her LA Ink.

In more Cho-licious news, she tells the Philadelphia Gay News, "There’s a tremendous disrespect towards women and a disconnect when we’re talking about the female form. This show is really a tribute to how beautiful all women are and how different we are."

The Fleur de Tease Burlesque Revue is "not about the nudity; it's about the sexuality."

Robert Knox drummed up business at The Old Howard.

Chruch scholar by day teaches college girls how to twirl around a pole at night.

Burlesque is nerdy?

Shakespeare gets a burly makeover.

Slate's sex issue examines the history of butts including Pussycat Dolls Kim Kardashian, Bettie Page. The piece gets spanked by Feministing.

All The News That's Fit To Strip

Dita Von Teese takes it off for PETA. The burlesque star unveils a sexy new ad today that promotes the spaying and neutering of pets and adoption of shelter animals. We'll post the ad, which features Dita as a sexy school teacher, this afternoon when it's released.

Shameless self-promotion alert: The New York Post gossiped about Gilded Lili this weekend.

With New York's Forty Deuce in jeopardy, Concierge dishes on where else you can still see the tassels swinging in the Big Apple.

Hillary Duff strips for Vaseline. Get a sneak peak here.

The Pussycat Dolls are going Posh with Victoria Beckham joining the troupe for a guest stint.

Maxim wonders if this is the worst striptease ever.

Maxim-um Hotness

In a careful study of Maxim's Hot 100 list I realize several of the sirens have a sizzling striptease connection. Sure, sometimes it's just a subtle tie to the strip -- Hottie No. 56, Michele Merkin's name says it all. But several have turned up the heat with a shimmy of their pasties or a twirl around a pole. Here's how the list stacks up in the world of burlesque.

Kim Kardashian Hottie No. 97 purrs as the latest Pussycat Doll.

Hometown Hottie No. 84 Kerry strips online.

She's recreated Lili St. Cyr's bubble bath routine, danced in a champagne glass and ridden a life-size lipstick, but more importantly Hottie No. 82 Dita Von Teese teased burlesque out into the mainstream again.

Carmen Electra, Hottie No. 28, performed with the Pussycat Dolls and has taught plenty of women the art of the lap dance through her cardio striptease workouts.

You can't get Don't Cha out of your head and that's gotta make Hottie No. 22 Nicole Scherzinger smile. And while Nicole's Pussycat Doll days seem to be over, I'm betting she'll still be bumpin' and grindin' through her videos.

Hottie No. 19 Cameron Diaz and No. 9 Eva Longoria each took a spin as a guest with the Pussycat Dolls. And Diaz recreated Dita Von Teese's burlesque routine in Charlie's Angels.

As Maxim put it Hottie No. 6 Ali Larter is "spectacular as Niki Sanders, the Webcam tease with a superhuman alter ego on Heroes."

Perched atop the Hot List is Lindsay Lohan, who stars as a stripper in her latest movie I Know Who Killed Me, went through vigorous training for the role. The fiery red-head told The Daily Mail, “I've been in pole dancing lessons, every day for four hours. I have bruises all over.