There's something going on here April 15, 2010

I’ve written about this before, but let me compare and contrast here a bit…

My first exposure to Burlesque was when the Sissy Butch Brothers put on a fundraising show in Chicago towards creating their documentary about the Burlesque revival. We were attracted to it because we heard that Margaret Cho was going to be performing as well, but other than that? I knew nothing about Burlesque other than what I’d learned from osmosis… I had no idea what I was walking into at all.

(Protip: If you see Lenora Claire walking towards you with a microphone and a camera crew trailing her, figure the fuck out what you’re going to say in advance, otherwise it’s gonna go badly… I don’t recall totally verbally biffing it, but it was a close thing)

Things eventually kicked off, and the few pre-conceived notions I had went out the window. This wasn’t just about sex, this was whimsy and fun and self-expression, all delivered with an astounding amount of creativity. Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” as the background music for sperm competing for inseminating an egg, Julie Atlas Muz doing an amazing act with a giant balloon…

… and an act later that had my wife answering the convenience store clerk’s question of “So, are you guys having a good night” with “Great! We just saw Margaret Cho’s penis!” – his reaction is better left to your imagination, I assure you. But we were completely jacked by the experience – it was so much fun, so much joy, and we were lit up by it. I came to understand what the rebirth of Burlesque was all about.

Relocating from Chicago to the SF Bay Area, we got dragged to the previously mentioned Hubba Hubba Revue, and found the same energy and whimsy and excitement. It became a regular thing – sometimes we’d make the small weekly Hubba events on Monday nights, but we almost always hit the big theme monthly events at the DNA. And we got to see friends and performers get up on stage and have infectious amount of fun… Want an example?

Here’s Sparkly Devil, doing a homage to Pleasantville during the Awards Show theme:

Check out RJ’s excellent full photo set from this amazing show.

This is just a small example – spend time going through the links above, and you’ll see so much talent and goofy fun.

So hey, my wife and I? Hooked on Burlesque. In November 2008, we went to Las Vegas for the first time, and wow, Las Vegas = Showgirls… man, there just has to be some good Burlesque here, right?

Not so much.

We scoped out various flyers, checked online, and looked around… the Crazy Horse Paris show seemed like a good bet, so after a ridiculously decadent and awesome dinner, we figured we’d finish off the night out with some sexy awesome. And what did we get?

Slick product. Overly-loud music, crazy light show, and uniformly identical dancers that were completely non-descript from each other. And there was just no soul to it, no fun at all. Just ultra-hard-toned bodies acrobatically prancing… and while technically amazing, and the dancers were incredibly proficient and really good at what they were doing, it did nothing for me.

It bored me – because there was absolutely no individuality.

Take the recent success of Star Wars Burlesque at the Devil’s Playground in southern California. They’re getting notice, and for good reason – it’s a really fun idea, and it celebrates the ascendancy of geek culture into the mainstream. But watching the video, I think more of that show in Las Vegas than I think of the raucous and very sexy fun of the Hubba Hubba shows we’ve been to. Go ahead and look at the photos from the Crazy Horse site, or cruise through the shitty camera phone recordings on youtube.

Okay, done? Now go watch these:

So this is why I bring Hubba Hubba Revue up repeatedly. And that is why, if you have the ways and means, get the fuck up and go – Tomorrow night, at the DNA Lounge. Do it and celebrate the things that make life awesome.

PS: BOOBIES