The re-emergence of Burlesque as a credible dance form and entertainment choice in today’s variety show presentations has a historical significance. Burlesque was a very important part of early circus sideshows and Vaudeville theaters before falling out of popularity as it turned more to stripping and the dark side of town than teasing in a classy supper club. This week on Ripley Radio, we talk with Josephine Nesline Alvarez, and hear the tale of a diminutive teenager who left Catholic school and within a few years was a celebrated burlesque queen married to a Washington D.C. mob boss and running the fast lanes with the likes of Frank Sinatra. We also talk with Lili VonSchtupp, a modern day burlesque queen who runs Monday Night tease, Los Angeles’s longest running weekly burlesque show. She also runs Lili’s School for Wayward Girls, a burlesque school.

Additional random amazements discussed this week:
• A woman was found dead in her home 8 years after her death. Her pension checks continued to be deposited and her utilities continued to be paid although no one had heard from her for 8 years!
• We don’t condone drunkenness, but drunks do some pretty outrageous and unbelievable things. We take a look at some of those stupid drunk tricks this week.

• We learn of a culture in which a girl can only be engaged once in her lifetime, even if her beau dies before they get married!

• ArtPrize 2011 is one of the largest alternative and outrageous art shows around and it turns out to be a great supplier of the weird and bizarre for Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Archivist Edward Meyer talks about his upcoming trip to Grand Rapids, Mich. for the event in full anticipation of finding unique exhibits for the worldwide family of Ripley attractions.

• Petey the Parakeet flew into the front grille of a car and lived. A dozen people claimed the bird was theirs. Petey however, had a different idea.

• We hear of a guy who gave his estranged girlfriend a big rock for her birthday – he deposited a 20 ton boulder in her driveway and wouldn’t move it. Police couldn’t arrest him as there seems to be no law against dropping a 20-ton boulder in someone else’s driveway.

• From our Australian friends we are told of a jealous wife who crashed her car – with her cheating husband sitting next to her – into the apartment of his mistress at full speed. This act of revenge turned into a costly mistake for the wife. She crashed into the wrong apartment!

• AND we learn how we can spin an egg to find out whether it has been hard boiled.