A New Old Burlesque

Headlining the Burlesque-a-pades the World Famous Pontani Sisters

 The Ottobar, the best small venue in Baltimore, hosted The Burlesque-A-Pades on February 12th. As an admitted adult entertainment elitist with a desire to reform my snobby ways I bought tickets for the event, sight unseen, and committed to going with an open mind and a prayer they wouldn't remind me of my dull and uninspired Suicide Girl experience of years previous.

  The only pre-screening I did was check the names of the performers before buying the tickets. The World Famous Pontani Sisters, Ms Tickle and "Special Guests" were as specific as the flyer got, but armed with my historical knowledge of good burlesque names and faith that there really could be an original form of burlesque still out there my husband and I took the chance.

  The Ottobar is a two level club with a punk rock bar up a deathly flight of stairs and a full stage and great sound system on the first level. It's not a place you want to linger on the furniture or lick the drop of tequila off the tip of your finger without a hand washing first. It's a great neighborhood bar that does their own musical and entertainment thing. Some nights you may hit a mirror image crowd cooly bobbing to New Wave or, like February 12th, a mid-size crowd of average thirty-something professional types looking for an evening of naughty distractions. To my surprise there was even a large gaggle of cackling middle age office women drunk off their asses and loudly crowing through the whole thing. I must say that they had the rudest show form I've seen since my Phish days and I only hope that my nights out with the girls never turn into drunken egg laying sessions when I'm forced to face the reality of getting older.

   Mostly the crowd was a very quiet paired off mix of large and small hetero couples who may not be brave or interested enough to go to a strip club, but appreciated the art and style of a sensual strip tease. It was a far leap from the Suicide Girl's "burlesque" that took place in the same club a few years ago. The crowd was sold out pushed chest to back, heavy drinking, girls in black dresses with red cherry patterns and peroxide hair. Each person at that event showed up to preform their own sensual show in a place where it was inevitable their look would blend right in and be appreciated by all the other "alternative beauty" girls and the slobbering boys that tagged along with the understanding that someone's drunk chubby friend with heaving cleavage and a cherry bow would eventually feel left out and let them in on some action to ease her self image. By the third or fourth heroin addict skinny, tattooed and pierced dancer that came out with electrical taped nipples (it seemed like breasts were optional at this event) and stuck her crotch out into the face of a squealing audience member we left.

Just two of the legions of Suicide Girls out there. They are showing off what I consider their "stripper-lesque" stylings. Frowning pout is a must, but rhythm and individuality are optional.

 I left that show so disappointed that I vowed to continue my work on burlesque research and I wasn't going to stop looking for the "real" modern thing even if I had to make it happen myself. The origins of burlesque didn't even involve the revealing removal of clothing. It was a protest to the prissy Victorian era, but despite the lack of nudity and addition of Progressive morality it evolved from Britain to America as a sensual and artful act of blue balling whole audiences of horny sailors and businessmen. If it took a burlesque dancer five minutes to take off one glove...the audience just showed that much more appreciation when it was tossed to the stage only for the dancer to begin again with the other. The acts differed in sexual intensity from town to town and girl to girl. The Block housed a diverse collection of clubs that encouraged all things from full (illegal) nudity to The 2 O'Clock Club of the 1920's and 30's that boasted tango acts alongside solo showgirl teases. Each girl was forced to define her own image, unique act and set out each time with a magnetic smile and razor wit.

   It's not for me to define what burlesque must be in order to meet "traditional" criteria because there was never just one method of taking off clothes and tantalizing lonely men. Some women don't even need to be in the same room to get a man randy while others prefer to have him wear her like a mink stole and ply her with expensive champagne as a flirtation. It's no different than today.

   Blaze Starr often spoke of how much she loved being a stripper. She talked about how much she loved making men crazy with desire with her unique and creative stage performances and then being able to leave them steaming as she went behind the curtain. Starr understood and appreciated her looks and sexuality from a young age and rather than find her choice of careers shameful she lived it to the extremes, bought her own strip club and happily laughed at the opposition. It wasn't a way to feed her kids, or get her fix or find a man. Her dancing was an art form, a career, and that's how she always preformed and became "The Queen of Burlesque" and "The Pride of Baltimore." If a show doesn't meet the standards Blaze Starr set for herself then I don't consider it real burlesque. Suicide Girls knew they had a desired look, used their body to tease, but missed the subtle nuances of making sex tantalizing without ever having to try. It was their vehicle for attention, not for art or career. Don't get me wrong...as strippers I would have been glued to the stage, but as performers they needed to learn their sex history.

* FULL DISCLOSURE: Yes, I am a cranky bitch that writes exactly what I think. BUT...contrary to common belief I am NOT judging anyone in my posts. Even middle age chicken women deserve to party.  It's just that all of us humans are so damn funny to watch it would be a shame not to write it all down. If you want history and observation that's neat and clean watch The History Channel. Don't waste your time letting my babble piss you off.

   I have a litany of personal failures and weaknesses I would be more than happy to disclose to any curious reader as an attempt to prove my humility. Just a few examples: I love New Kids on The Block, I religiously watch Dancing with the Stars...and vote, I spend more time with my cats than with other humans, it took me ten years to get my Bachelor's degree....ok? ok? Can you see me for the weak and feeble human being I really am? My insults don't hurt so much anymore do they?

                                              History and Sin are all in good fun.

An original Femme Fatale and star of burlesque. Ms. Tickle is a must see for any true historian of sex culture.

Always a Contradiction.

Bernard Livingston recalls, "The Block of the 1930's was a strange contradiction. Top show business talent appeared in traveling road shows...But alongside the theatres which attracted top talent were also the honky tonks which attracted the devotees of bump and grind, the soldiers and sailors seeking diversion...It was a very puritanical era. The Block was the only little island where a man could go and get a glimpse of a nude female body and hear a sexy, smutty joke."

    Earl Arnett. "Burlesque House Box Office Once Served as Home," Baltimore Sun. 16 April 1971.     Pratt VF

Livingston wrote the most comprehensive book on The Block that exists today. He was there in the '30's and his family owned a theatre. The book covers an incredible 18 or so years of his experiences with the dancers, the cops, his family and the kids at school. Papa's Burlesque is out of print and hard to find but Amazon always manages to have at least one used copy for cheap. My copy just happens to be autographed to a 16 year old boy for his birthday from Livingston. I sleep with it under my pillow.

Starr Power.

As reported in Esquire July, 1964....

"Blaze tripped to the microphone. Looking down at her exposed breast, she said, "What are you doing out there, you gorgeous thing?" Then she covered herself. "You got to tell them they're pretty," she said; "it makes them grow" . . . Then she flung herself on the couch and quickly stripped down to a transparent bra and black garter pants. She produced a power puff and asked rhetorically, "Who's going to powder my butt?"

Thanks, John Kenrick

It's Bawlmore Hon'

I am spending a good Saturday afternoon listening to 105.7 FM "The Fan" the last inning of the Orioles - Blue Jays game waiting for the O's to get the tie breaking run before extra innings. But, as a true member of the Generation Y I must have at least one other form of entertainment going at the same time. It is no other than the sensual and excessively wiggly striptease of the Baltimore Beauty Blaze Starr. I forgot that I had ordered this exploitation film "Blaze Star Goes Nudist" shot in 1960 "revealed in Beautiful Eastman Color."

While I am waiting for the end of the game to truly indulge in such a film my mind was already turning with the visions of the premier in some scratch house on The Block. I see Starr proudly introducing it and the packed house smelling of cigarettes and bum sweat erupting in applause and cat calls begging her to take off her clothes. I have certainly taken this research to a nostalgic peak with my fantasy because there is no evidence it appeared anywhere on Baltimore Street. However, you can bet that my next adventure is to find out where one could have seen the stunning red head in all her curvaceous glory nude and wriggling through a forest on the big screen.

This DVD is such a great relief to me after watching the movie "Blaze," released in 1989 and based on Starr's memoir. The movie left me reeling with so many questions as to how much of the putrid romance and cheesy dialogue was truly exchanged between Starr and Earl Long. I just couldn't believe that Starr was giving him political advice and running his broken career from behind the scenes to help him create a successful bid for Congressman. While, I don't want to downplay Starr's intellect because of her Burlesque career I'm sure that she was a very savvy business woman. Yet, after researching the whole two official biographies of Earl Long I found that she did not show up as anything more than an affair that damaged Long's career and represented his very possible manic spree through the cat houses of Bourbon Street. I have yet to fully go through Starr's memoir to see how she represented the affair, but she had a cameo in the movie and it was based on her memories so I am hypothesizing that she viewed the love as something very different than Long biographers. The only facts that stick is the statement that "Long was completely in love." His biographers and Starr seem to concur. The mysteries surrounding Blaze Starr and her life both on and off The Block are very important to my study of The Block because they are just further proof to me that those who have taken time to record and recognize the importance of The Block and its influence in history have built misty and love lit mythologies. Blaze Starr is considered the most important Burlesque figure on The Block and essential to the history of Burlesque. So, if that story is misrepresented to those who search for the truth in The Block then I can only assume that misinformation is rampant in our memories.

Blaze Starr as a nudist is such a wonderful break from the mystery. She is on film portraying her true profession. If one were to be given one piece of information regarding her role on The Block I would hand them this DVD. The special features are some of her famous strip teases complete with legendary smoking couch routine. Her beautiful body is put on display for money and her feisty and sexy routine is the entire point of the experience. Maybe I will never get to the bottom of her gubernatorial affair in Louisiana, but as far as her role in Baltimore is concerned one may need go no farther than her stripteases. She was a good ol' fashioned entertainer who in her words, "used the strengths that God gave her." Ahhhh...real simplicity.

Orioles baseball, and I'm even used to the fact that they lost in the bottom of the 9th to the Jays, and Burlesk, as the Bawlmorians spell it, is the perfect combination on a beautiful Saturday.