Hi, and welcome KCIW
listeners at one hundred point seven FM or
online at kciw.org,
Brookings, Oregon.
Hi to our syndicated listeners at KZZH
ninety six point seven FM, Access Humble, Eureka,
California,
and our listeners at KSKQ
eighty nine point five FM, Ashland and ninety
four point one FM, Medford, Oregon. This is
Joyously Free Radio with me, Joni Lindenmaier, the
best selling author of None Better, an amazing
love story and coauthor of Joyously Free and
Healing Religious Hurts.
I am so glad that you are tuning
in today. We're gonna have a great time
on this show. I'm a resident of Harbor,
Oregon, a retired high school teacher, a recent
author who has published three books in two
years, created an audiobook, and with friend and
film producer, Michael Gorse, created a short film
called Wowzer.
Life is just one big bowl of cherries
right now. But most of all, right now,
this very moment, I love life and love
being the producer and host of this high
energy, joyously free
radio, GADIO show so named by my friends
Will and Viv. This show talks about LGBTQ
plus stories and tips along with religion,
church, faith, spirituality,
and joy. Most importantly, it is about abundant
joy and freedom, hence the title Joyously Free,
which is also the name of my second
book that I coauthored with Elizabeth Ann Atkins
of two sisters writing.
In this radio broadcast today,
just as in every day of my life,
no hate speech,
no hate behaviors, and no bullying.
Blasting it forward with three c's, courage, confidence,
and collaboration.
Together
today, you, listeners, myself, my guest, let's sparkle
and seek understanding, to think out of a
box or no boxes at all, but to
be open minded as an open parachute.
So let's begin with a daily salutation that
Carol and I did for forty years every
morning. I'm going to say it's a brand
new day, and your response is it's never
been lived before. Here we go. It's a
brand new day.
It's never been lived before.
Oh, I love it. I love it. Okay.
You're gonna meet Deidre here pretty soon, and
she's on board. She's on board. It is
a brand new day, and that's how we
start our day. So speaking of being a
brand new day, let's open our hearts as
we ask the divine to shine light on
our community
and our world.
I excitedly
believe in hope,
in the power of the spiritual,
and that Jesus, God, spirit,
whatever
name you put on a higher being,
is always with me and always with you.
So we do not need to be afraid
or troubled,
saddened or depressed,
but that joy and peace and love are
an internal expression
of that harmony that is already within us.
We only have to reach deep and within
and let it out.
So let's center ourselves
calmly,
quietly.
Take a deep breath in,
in with the good
and out with doubt.
Again, breathe in through your nose with hope
and out from your mouth with fears.
Last one. Slowly
take a big deep breath in
with joy
and out with worry or despair.
In the name of mother earth,
a creator god,
a Jesus, a redeemer,
the blowing winds of the Holy Spirit.
Hi love. Hi light. Hi Jesus.
Hi spiritual.
Thank you for being with us on this
beautiful day.
Today's quote, I actually picked from the bible,
and it's Psalm one twenty one.
And it says, just real simple,
the lord will guard your going and coming,
both now and forever.
Psalm one twenty one. The Lord will guard
your going
and coming
both now and forever.
And when I read that this morning in
my prayer corner,
I thought to myself,
yes. I have so often felt guarded,
protected
from from bad weather to maybe a bad
relationship or to maybe negativity that has hit
me. But you know what? I always felt
guarded and protected.
All I needed to do was just trust
and believe
trust and believe
now and forever
that all will be well.
I know those are simple reflections, simple comments,
but maybe you can think about that today
yourself.
The Lord will guard you, your going and
coming, both now and forever.
So I'll end our prayer by lifting up
our friends and family.
May divine guidance and healing
bless us today.
May we hear a bigger message than just
our own self centeredness
and that we do and be for others
as much. Amen.
Oh, okay. I know. I get a little
spiritually involved here, everybody, and it's like that
that's my prayer life. That's my life. Because
if I don't center it on something bigger
than me, things don't work out. So with
that, it's a happy day together. K c
I w, k z z h, and k
s k q, an even happier day because
we get to hang out with a really,
really cool person.
And Deidra
Schlatter is is my friend, and I've known
her for a few years. She also goes
by the name of Crown Vic, and she
is right here with us. And and and
and the title the title of who she
is, she's a dancer.
She's a performer. She's breaking stereotypes.
She's a drag king luminaire.
And that's our topic today. What or who
is a drag king?
Deidre, thank you for being here with me.
How are you?
I'm doing wonderful. Thank you for inviting me.
Oh, my absolutely.
Absolutely. So have you been on radio before,
Deidre?
I have not. Not. I know you're a
performer, and you've performed in many places. So
this is gonna be your your Luminaire debut
of radio.
That it is. Correct. Correct. Correct. So tell
everybody, where are you right now?
Right now, I am in Long Beach, California.
It's a beautiful sunny day here.
It
yes. One wonderful
wonderful weather here,
and, I'm sitting in my home.
Fantastic.
And and are you dancing around this morning?
I have been. Yes. And and late last
night as well.
It's, yeah, I'm I'm presently rehearsing for three
different dance ensembles.
Oh. So so it's a lot of work
right now. It's wonderful. Oh, and tell me
more about these.
Well, all three of them are,
from different choreographers.
I'm gonna mention their names because they're wonderful.
Makita is one choreographer,
Jermaine McGee, and Joshua Schnell.
And all three of these dance numbers are,
they're spiritual to me in one way or
the other. Mhmm.
Yeah. And what do you mean by that?
Well, one, I would say literally is a
spiritual. The music that they chose,
the moves that they're having is the movements
that they're having us do
is
directly speaking
Mhmm. To spirituality.
Mhmm.
And then, one is an African
dance, and that also,
is speaking to culture and history
through storytelling, through dance.
And, third one,
by Joshua is more of a,
adorable,
fun, abstract concept. Uh-huh.
But to me, all movement and dancing brings
out a is spiritual.
Very cool. Very cool. How long have you
been dancing, Deidra?
Oh, since I was a child dancing in
my room. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. And
and with music playing or no music playing?
Or tell me more. With music usually with
music playing. Mhmm. Usually with music playing.
And, especially if there was a piece of
furniture that I could get up on to
dance.
I love it. I love it.
If I could get up on a table
or bounce on a couch Uh-huh. Or jump
off of the couch,
and roll onto the floor, I I would
be doing that. Oh my god. I love
it. I love it. I can just see
you as a two, three, or four year
old just bouncing around and grooving and moving.
Oh, how fun. How fun. Oh, man. And
and tell me about the the family life
that you grew up in then.
The family life, two working parents,
that are both doing well today. They're living
in the Bay Area.
They're in their my dad's 91. My mom's
87.
Wow. They're doing they're doing very well, and
they're dancing. They are.
They do line dancing, and I I I
don't know all the different names of the
dances, but,
yeah, they're they're dancing as well. Wow. So
you literally come from a dancing family?
I do. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I do. That is
awesome. Now do you have siblings too that
are dancers or no siblings? Or I have
a brother and sister.
I'm the only one that's really danced on
stage, I guess.
Right. And, but my brother is a music
composer,
Eben Schletter. Yes. Okay.
He's done he's done music for SpongeBob,
many other things.
Wow.
Yeah. And,
my and my sister has raised two sons.
Okay. Fabulous. Oh, what a great family. What
a great family. You know, and I know
I met you a couple years at a
pride in San Diego, and you were just
so joyous, so happy. And also, you were
an incredible,
compassionate
person at Pride as as we walked around
and saw everybody else celebrating and or some
people just trying to get into the groove
of it, I guess. You know? But your
your attitude was always perfect, and I can
tell in your voice today that that is
still going on in you.
Thank you so much. Yep. For sure. So
much. For sure. For sure. Okay. You mentioned,
dancing on stage.
So when was your first time dancing on
stage? And tell us a little bit about
some of this.
Well, I'll I'll start with the drag king
history a bit in terms of performing. You
know? Okay. We did not even call ourselves
drag kings back in the day. Mhmm.
We were just male
impersonators.
Oh. I don't remember exactly when we started
using the term drag king. Okay. I'm not
I I really can't remember.
But it really
wasn't a,
a a thing like the drag queens,
you know, which were already present
and we had knowledge of even when I
was a kid Mhmm. In the Bay Area.
And so there were no places for us
to perform. There were no stages for us
to perform. We couldn't get into the clubs,
even in the Castro District District in San
Francisco. Mhmm. It just wasn't something
somebody wanted to see.
And so we would go to coffee shops,
late night coffee shops, move the tables around,
and we would perform in places like that.
Oh.
Yes. So
that was the start.
Wow. That was the start.
Yeah.
And and give me an, a time period.
Are we talking February, or what what what
are we talking about? Late eighties. Late eighties.
Okay. So I was in college and so,
like, around '88, '89? Mhmm.
Uh-huh.
And then, you know, there were bars and
clubs that
were popping up, like, lesbian
clubs and bars. And and once in a
while, you could get a performance in those.
Mhmm. Yeah. Mhmm. Mhmm. So were you a
troupe, or were you an individual?
We we were individuals
in San Francisco
who altogether we didn't call ourselves a troupe,
but we we were a troupe. But we
didn't, like, call ourselves that. Uh-huh.
And
and then when I moved to LA, I
was I was just a lone wolf. I
still am. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. And and
so so let me go back to San
Francisco
when your your first area of of dancing.
Were they paid gigs?
Did you
how did it come about? How how did
how did how did you do that?
Okay. So,
when we decided we were gonna do
performance perform as drag kings, right, as male
impersonators, we took it very literally, my little
group. Okay? We took it very literally. So,
like, we
did not even want to dance and collect
money because in our minds, in societal terms,
women danced for money.
Oh.
So we were like, well, we won't even
take money because we weren't thinking of making
it a living at that time. Uh-huh. You
know? It was it was art. It was
us trying to find ourselves and to move
in ways that we wanted to move,
physically and
dress how we wanted to dress
physically,
to make that point and to Mhmm. And
to just put that out into the universe
as well.
The drag queens are so big and loud,
and we just wanted to say, well, we
have our commentary also. Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay? So
for us,
it was about not wearing makeup
and sort of looking more on the drab
side because that's what society had men doing.
Right? They're in their suits, like the man
in the gray flannel suit. Mhmm. That was
right in or in the gray. You know?
There was a movie called that. Right. Right.
So
we were about
getting rid of the femininity
and
and objectifying
and showing the restrictions even
on maleness.
Got it. Got it. That's not as exciting
to look at as drag queens, you know?
So they they sort of had a point.
Right. Right.
Now today,
makeup is okay.
For drag kings.
For drag kings. For drag kings today,
makeup is okay. Color is okay. Outfits,
fantasy elements,
sci fi elements,
a lot of cosplay,
costume play things
have been incorporated.
And,
so it's completely different now. Right. Right. And
I I'm not I'm thinking of the websites
and and the, the shows that I have
seen you perform online that I have watched.
You know? And you are an incredible dancer
with your move, first off. You know? But
your your makeup with the sideburn or your
mustache or your eye makeup
is just phenomenal as you're becoming this this
male male dancer is what you are, and
I love it.
Oh, thank you so much. You're you're breaking
all of society's
stereotypes, Deidre. You know? You are truly a
luminaire.
Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. It's
been a big part of my life. I've
been doing it a long time, and I'm
I'm incredibly thankful to my friends,
that they're not with me anymore. They're not,
they've moved on to a different world now.
Mhmm.
But
I'm so thankful that we all had each
other to step into this and to start
performing together. Mhmm. Yeah. Mhmm. And and where
can where can listeners
see you in action, Deidre?
Because I think that speaks louder than even
a radio interview, to see you to see
you perform.
Well, if you wanna see me, live,
I'm
I move about California mostly. So the Bay
Area,
Southern California. And and the Bay Area meaning
San Francisco?
San Francisco.
Yep. Okay. And the surrounding cities.
The
it really moves all over the place. Last
year, I went to a Boston Festival.
I was in,
Seattle, Washington.
There's a Emerald City Kings Ball that,
Seattle, Washington has. Oh.
I believe they're in their fourth year. Yeah.
So So so how does somebody find this?
Do you do you have a website, or
do they just Google drag king
performances, or do they do I I love
your name, Crown Vic. How did you come
up with Crown Vic?
Well,
that's not what I started with when I
was younger. I had different names when I
was younger, and this is the one that
I've had the longest.
I wanted to come up with a name
that was,
retro Americana,
that suggested
an elder also because there's history behind the
name crown of it. Mhmm.
And
and I felt like I could move in
a lot of different directions with that name.
Okay. Okay.
I can performances.
I could con you know, different, yeah, different
subjects. Okay. And I and I interrupted you.
So back to the live performances. So
Seattle, the Boston, the Los Angeles, to the
Bay Area. And and, again, how does somebody
find out where you are?
So for me personally, the best thing to
do is to follow me on Instagram.
Okay.
That's my one social media.
It's under crown vic
underscore
the king,
and,
that's where I post
upcoming shows. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. And
then I I I'm I'm hoping I'm hoping
that as a professional entertainer, a professional dancer,
that that this is
lucrative for you financially
as well as fun. True?
True. There's,
there's highs and lows.
I actually
do very well with private parties where I'm
invited to perform,
at individual parties. Yeah. Mhmm.
The clubs
vary greatly.
They vary greatly. So
lucrative,
not not intensely lucrative
Okay. For a lot of the clubs.
Yeah. So it really it really depends.
Right. Well, and and that's often that's often
true with with drag queens as well, you
know, for the amount of work and energy
and and the costumes and for what they
put into it. The the money doesn't always
flow, so to speak. But it is entertainment,
You know? And and I think people
I love paying for good entertainment, and you
are definitely an entertainer.
Yeah. It really depends on which clubs you
go to.
I I have certain places that I I
love performing mostly because I like the people
so much. Mhmm.
And and some of those are not the
ones that pay very well. But I go
if they invite me because
I love the audience. Mhmm.
They're very loyal, and I like the performers,
especially if they're older performers Mhmm. Who have
been doing it a long time.
Count me in because I wanna always support
that. Right on. We came from a very
we came from a very different world Mhmm.
Those of us who started a long time
ago. Mhmm.
Yeah. Yeah. So I try to stick with
them. Right on. Right on. You know, Diedre,
you know, it reminds me of oftentimes, people
say to me, Joni, well, you're queer. You're
lesbian. So so what are these drag kings
and drag queens? Are they trans people? What
what are what's their sexual identity?
Diedra, can you talk to us about that?
Because that's a stereotype
that people just don't get.
A lot you know what? A lot of
us within the world don't get it either
in the sense that in the sense that
it's so blown open right now. There's so
much growth right now.
Trans
peep you know, people are growing up with
that as a with a choice. Mhmm.
That really wasn't a choice as much
for my generation. Yep. I hear you. People
weren't talking about that. And now I just
met somebody yesterday who,
is in one of my dance
classes,
who I believe they're in their twenties, and
they're transitioning.
Okay. And we got into this conversation. You
know? Like,
I honestly am not the person to speak
to it other than just from my own
path. Yep. Do do it from your own
path. Right. From my own path. And so
because that is an option now,
through social media,
it's it's just become more of a choice
for a lot of people. Mhmm. Mhmm.
And that has definitely,
that's definitely something that you see within the
drag world. Mhmm. Mhmm. Which is kind of
at first, there was just a lot of
growing pains for me because I'm like, wait
a minute. What's the point? If we're being
the opposite gender
and then you've gone through,
you know, physical changes,
how does that put you back into drag?
But it does. Mhmm. That is what's happening
right now. There's an,
huge increase, especially for drag kings Mhmm.
Of trans performers. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Trans men. Yeah. There's a lot of them.
And I I've been called oh, they've they've
called me out, not in a mean way,
but, like, oh, it's so nice to see
someone who's still what was the term they
use?
Bi. Like, that I still represent gender. Okay.
So some of them don't even represent
gender, I guess, is what they're trying to
do. Mhmm. Mhmm. But
I'm not the best person to speak on
that. Mhmm. Mhmm.
You know,
it it's really grown. I feel like right
now for Drag Kings, we're going through a
renaissance.
There's
more festivals than ever before.
There's more places to perform
than ever before. Awesome.
More people know what drag kings are.
And that's it's still it's still mostly an
unknown, but it's growing.
Mhmm. And I love being in the place
where something is expanding like that. Mhmm. There's
so many options, and you don't know where
it's gonna go yet. Mhmm.
Mhmm. So would you still identify a drag
king as a male
personator?
I do. Okay. But
like I just said, if there's if you're
a trans man,
what are you impersonating?
Right. Right. So, that's how I can't answer
these these questions. Right. Right. And then I
tried to put it simple for the listeners
as well. Yep. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
It is complicated and
And for many people, gender is complicated in
itself.
Right. Yes.
Right. And then you throw society's,
twists and turns in there and people trying
to understand,
you know, it just
it's difficult. It's difficult.
So when I'm trying to explain it,
you know, what what is drag and why
are people doing it? I'll be honest. People
are doing it for very different reasons. But
the one thing that we all have in
common is that we're trying to express something,
and we wanna be seen as something There
you go. In that in that expression.
And so, like, the difference for me as
a performer in dance
versus me in drag
is that
in drag, I really was commenting
on what I was and what I wasn't
Mhmm. In society. Mhmm.
Wow. That's powerful.
That's powerful.
Diedre, this is like just we're just opening
the the the box of ever of everything,
and this is I can't believe how fast
this has gone by. We're down to, like,
thirty seconds.
Can you just sort of nail down a
a comment, a final comment
about who you are in the drag king
world.
Wow.
I'm an old school classic drag king
that is
incredibly excited about the renaissance that it's going
through right now.
And you love life, and you love people,
and you don't judge anybody. You treat everybody
with this ballistic
joy, and that's what I love about you,
Deidre. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Yep.
Yep. For sure. For sure. I I I
wanna thank you, Deidre, for putting out your
heart, putting out your words, your articulation,
expressing your life in dance and in entertainment,
and I hope that I get to see
you live sometime.
And meanwhile, listeners out there, you know, again,
you can go to Instagram and find
crown Vic the king, Deidra,
and and see see what she looks like.
And and do you say she when you're
performing? Do you use the the pronoun she?
Most mostly
he. Mostly he. Okay. He when I'm dressed
up, but it will not offend me
if you use another pronoun. There you go.
Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Thank
you for saying that.
Absolutely. Yep. For sure. For sure. So I
I can't I've gotta wind down here, Diedra,
but I'm I wanna thank the listeners on
the gorgeous coast of Southern Oregon and Northern
California and the majestic Rogue Valley for being
with us today on joyously free. And this
is what we're hoping that Deidra did with
you today is put some joy, some tips,
some hope, some loves about her world as
a dancer, as a drag king into our
life. We wanna thank the team that helped
make this happen. Mike Gorse on Sound,
Tom, Candice, and Rose at the studio here.
We wanna thank all the people that sponsor
the show, Steve Van Cleave, Sally, and Todd
for making this happen. And mostly, we wanna
thank you, the listeners, for tuning in. Be
open minded to learn something really, really cool.
I'm gonna end with smile big and wear
bright colors, and Deidre's final words are
Support drag kings.
Yay. I love it. I love it. Oh,
you are the best. You are the best.
And, we will be in touch. And thank
you, everybody. Have a great day.