Introducing Neil O'Fortune

Did I mention I am also making my hosting debut with my producing debut? Yeah.

I've been onstage before and I'm comfortable with it; and frankly I love to listen to myself talk and I love the spotlight-plus I work cheap! So, I'm nervous and excited about this aspect of the whole thing too.

And yes, I have a stage name. This is what happens when you hang out with the burlesque crowd. One night at an Exotic World planning meeting, we were going over the list of submissions to this year's Pageant, which got us onto a conversation about people's stage names, and the ones that people had come up with that they regretted never getting to use...Jo Weldon-also known as Jo Boobs-was sitting next to me on the couch when I said that I was jealous of the stage name. It really is fascinating, it truly becomes a part of a person, and a persona develops...and I have terrific relationships with people who frankly I would never consider calling by their given name! Some of them, I don't actually know it...let's be real, would anyone ever call the World Famous *BOB* anything but *BOB*? She feels the same way; she just recently had it legally changed-but as far as I'm concerned it's on her birth certificate.

So anyway, I was sitting next to Jo and talking about stage names, and I mentioned how I get called "Mr. Casino," which I get a huge kick out of, and other people have suggested things to me-and she just looked right at me, and said "Neil O'Fortune!" How great is that? Out of the blue. Everybody loved it. And I vowed that if I ever needed a stage name, that was it-when Jo Boobs, one of the greatest burlesque performers, a brilliant person in every sense and a fucking rockstar, gives you a stage name, you use it with pride! And now I can.