Photo by Erik Kabik/RETNA.com/erikkabik.com

Seriously, I was going to write a semi-review of last night’s opening night performance of Dita Von Teese’s limited run with the Crazy Horse Paris at MGM Grand, and I got about four paragraphs into it, and then I realized IT SUCKED BALLS, like everything else I’ve done today, so … I scrapped it.

Instead, I think you’d be much better off reading the article I wrote about Von Teese in this week’s Vegas Seven. It does not suck balls. I did the interview with the lovely burlesque icon via phone last Friday, but that’s not how it was supposed to be. My original plan was to do an in-person interview with her at the Crazy Horse this week, and to actually observe and report on the interaction between Von Teese and the insanely beautiful Crazy Horse dancers. It was all lined up for Monday, but as things go in the world of entertainment journalism, dates and times were shifted and crossed, and in order to meet the deadline for the paper, I had to switch to a phoner and realign the focus of the story.

The conversation with Von Teese was relatively brief but chock full of goodies. Unfortunately, a lot of the topics we discussed didn’t make it into the article, lest it run way over word count and lose all focus. But it’s a shame to see it go to waste, so I’m going to share with you an excerpt from the “outtakes” here. I asked Von Teese what differences she perceived between European and American approaches to sexuality. Here’s part of what she had to say:

I have to say in America in the 1940s, everyone knew who Gypsy Rose Lee was. She was a huge household name, and she did exactly what I do now. It’s hard to imagine why things have shifted so much. Josephine Baker received honors in France for what she did, and she was butt naked, there are streets named after these people. [In France] everyone knows what I do, children know what I do. People aren’t embarrassed of it or afraid of it. Showgirls are a part of Parisian culture. I don’t know why it’s so taboo in America. My life’s work is to change people’s mind about what a stripper is, and how strip tease can be artful, and how it can be an important part of America’s entertainment history.

There was more, but I’ll probably save that for the collection of unabridged interviews I’m assembling for future publication. A few people have indicated they’d be interested in reading such a thing. Would you? A book featuring full interviews with celebrities, politicians and other interesting people? Let a brother know.