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I'm kind of a shy and soft-spoken person when I'm out of drag. I hate meeting new people when I'm out of drag because I feel like they're not seeing the complete picture. It's defintely an extension of my personality. There's a side of you that can just erupt. Even for Halloween when I've done guys' makeup and they go out in drag, or even drag kings that I've done, this whole new side of them comes out that you knew was there, but the picture becomes clearer. It's just amazing, the side of somebody's personality you can see when you just throw some makeup on them, put them in a wig and a pair of heels. I think the difference between me and a lot of drag queens is that I have a level enough head on my shoulders to know that I'm just a man dressing like a woman. I don't take myself that seriously. A lot of drag queens will parade around in the lon gowns and the tiaras and they'll just have these awful, awful bitchy attitudes. It's a complete delusion.
Especially when you're a drag queen, you can't expect people to respect you if you don't show a mutual respect. You can't walk around like you're a prom queen. I hated girls like that in high school. I always identified with the underdog.

I was reading last night, in regard to pageants, that the competition is just vicious. Someone actually put crushed glass in someone's facial powder.
I hate pageantry. The crushed glass may be very shocking, but that is not rare at all. The one thing I like about Eau Claire's drag scene is that everybody has their own different genre. There are occasionally cat fights and little spats, but everybody gets along really well and it's like a big family. When you get to bigger cities, especiall in Wisconsin, everything relies on pageantry; what titles you hold. I've never, ever had the urge to enter a pageant, because it is...it is so vicious. I would much rather sit at a bar with a drag queen I've neevr met before and do a shot challenge, rather than try to pull stupid, nasty tricks. Seriously, the movie Drop Dead Gorgeous...that should have not been women, it should have been drag queens. Everybody wants to wear the glass hat. I've had a title before but I never wore the tiara. You know, it's nice to say that you won it, but it's kind of like the cliche at an awards show: everybody works very, very hard and I think it's ridiculous to make us compete. All the drag queens are different.
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in Wisconsin who steps out to say 'I don't want to be a beauty queen.' So many people ask me, 'Why don't you enter pageants, why don't you do this, why don't you do that?' for as much work as I put into my normal shows. It doesn't make sense to put one person up on a pedastal.

Do you think a pageant stifles your creativity?
Well, the pageants I've seen in Green Bay, which is the capitol of pageants here in Wisconsin, I walked out of there feeling very ashamed because everybody is so bitchy. But at the same time, I felt very, very inspired because the queens go all out. They really want that tiara. It's amazing to see some of the things that they've done. It's sad to say, but unless you do to New York City or Las Vegas, you do need to do pageants and titles if you want to make it anywhere and be a top, nationally known drag queen. Unless you do something really, really insane.
They are actually considering holding a pageant here within the next few months. There is interest. I can't say it's the same for everybody. I will completely support anybody that wants to do it, but it's just not the kind of drag I do. I very rarely wear long evening gowns. I look more like a dominatrix or a club kid.

You've been performing in the bars for five years now. How do you compare what it was like five years ago to what it's like now?
Well, Gildra's been performing since the 1980's. She was in the very first show where the Acoustic Cafe is now. It was called Maggie's and the show was Dragnet. Drag back then was nothing like it is now. That would have been the time when the guys just got up onstage and fooled around with wigs and makeup. The huge turning point for drag as a profession and as an art form was RuPaul. That was the renaissance of drag, in the mid-1990's.

How did you get your name?
I got my drag name from a neo-disco group called Deee-Lite in the 1990's. The had a huge song called "Groove Is In the Heart." They were singing about a DJ, and one of the lines was "He's not vicious or malicious, just de-lovely and delicious." I always went by "Dee" as a gender-neutral version of my first name because it's my first initial, and a friend of mine said, 'You always do that song, why don't you perform as Dee-Lovely?' But it wasn't just that. The very first time I heard the term 'drag queen' was in an article describing the lead singer (of Deee-Lite) as looking like a woman trying to impersonate a drag queen. I said to my mother 'Mom, what's a drag queen?' She said, 'Well, that's a man that dresses like a woman.' Little did I know it would become my destiny, and little did my mother know she'd regret it for the rest of her life.
That's how I heard the term 'drag queen.' It's what I prefer. I don't prefer 'female impersonator.' The politically correct term for a drag queen in 'gender illusionist.' That just sounds way too scientific. I'm a drag queen. I don't try to fool anybody that i'm a woman. I'm seven feet tall when I'm in drag, so it's kind of hard to. I like to look at myself as a comic book cartoon.
Ever since I was little I wanted to be famous, and I've reached a certain level, not fame, but notoriety. It's not that I'm ashamed of m name, but it's gotten to the point where I've worked so hard on my other persona that even out of drag if people refer to me by my real name, it's insulting. My real name kind of reminds me of my teenage years and it's something I would rather leave behind. It's a courtesy to me, but it's a demanded courtesy. I won't tell anybody my real name is they don't know it. It's not a secret, but it goes back to the respect issue.

A lot of people get confused with female impersonators, drag queens, transvestites, transsexuals...
Yes, yes...Those are words that make a person's skin crawl.