00:00This is why I moved to Florida.
00:02Our tag line or whatever is,
00:05Alliance of Miami, always scandalous, always exciting.
00:09So that right there, I gotta be there.
00:12That's what drew me to them.
00:15Hey everybody, it's Latrice Royale
00:17and welcome to Scroll Patrol.
00:20We're gonna be going down memory lane,
00:21walking through my old photos
00:23and seeing some things that might be a little sus.
00:30Today, we're gonna be talking about Color Guard, baby.
00:32Without Color Guard, I don't even know
00:34if I would be doing drag.
00:35Like I discovered drag through my Color Guard family
00:38and it gave me that performance thing that I needed.
00:42Before drag, there was Color Guard.
00:43So let's go back to see what got me here.
00:48So for those of you who don't know Color Guard,
00:50the easiest way to identify them usually is with marching band.
00:54They're the flag team.
00:55They're usually ones that are adding all the color
00:58and the props and the visual elements to the show.
01:01But in the winter time, when there's no marching band,
01:05we go into what we call Winter Guard.
01:07And it's flags and rifles and fabric and sequins and stones
01:11and everything that's gay, honey.
01:16I started Color Guard back in, oh, back in the 1900s.
01:231987, oh my God, why you make me say it out loud?
01:28You want a little real, real tea?
01:30When I was in high school, I was in marching band,
01:32but you have to keep your grade point average up.
01:34And my grade point average has slipped
01:36because I had failed Spanish.
01:38No habla espanol.
01:39So I was ineligible for a quarter.
01:42And so I had to go to all the practices and be there,
01:45but I couldn't participate.
01:47And so as I was sitting on the sideline,
01:49I'm literally watching and learning the routine.
01:53And so Mrs. Fujigami, I'll never forget her.
01:55She was a drill team coach.
01:56I showed her that I knew the routine one day
02:00and all the girls were like, oh my God, he knows the whole thing.
02:04He knows the whole thing.
02:05We should put him in the show.
02:06And it started off as like a joke.
02:08But I was like, no, I really want to do this
02:11because y'all got sequence on.
02:15I want a little sequence, this too, you know?
02:18And I left marching band and I've been in color guard ever since.
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02:28I'm just saying.
02:30This is the Sundowners regard.
02:32This is the unit that I left when I fled
02:35to California and went to Wisconsin to be a part of.
02:39You see me in the middle.
02:40I'm in the middle.
02:40You can't, bam, look at that.
02:42Ow.
02:43Yeah.
02:44You can't miss me, baby.
02:46That's the one thing about it.
02:47Like, no matter where I am, there I am.
02:55This was my safe haven, my first tribe,
02:58my first independent world-class color guard.
03:00It was my first time away from home.
03:02So I had a blast, I learned a lot, I grew a lot.
03:06I was a baby.
03:07I was 19, 20 years old.
03:10Real true quick story is that my first roommates
03:13are in this color guard, Rich and Benji.
03:15And they were the first gay couple that I've ever encountered,
03:19you know, at 19, 20 years old.
03:22I was like, oh, wow, this is different.
03:25But here they are still together, like, 35 years later.
03:28Like, come on, man.
03:29Like, it's frickin' amazing.
03:32We've reconnected, but, like, we are really reconnecting
03:35because they're coming out of retirement,
03:36and we are going to be twirling for the first time together
03:41since 1992 at my show in Knoxville, Tennessee.
03:45And it's gonna be so nostalgic to be sharing a stage with them,
03:49not just a gym floor.
03:51Now we're in the theater, darling.
03:53We've elevated.
03:55Okay, so this photo is literally Alliance of Miami
03:59setting up on the floor for a world-class finals.
04:01And I'm right up front on the 50-yard line in black.
04:05You can't see me because it's black-on-black crime right now.
04:07But when I move, we were, like, rock stars that year.
04:12Coming into the arena and having people just scream
04:15and want your autograph and want to take pictures,
04:18like, when you move people to such frenzy
04:22and they lose themselves,
04:23that's the kind of adrenaline and dopamine
04:27that has driven me to be the performer I am.
04:31You know, you're gonna go all over the place,
04:32but it's gonna make you feel something,
04:35and you're gonna leave going, like,
04:37I don't know what just happened, but I love that.
04:39Like, you know, that's what it is.
04:41And so it definitely, competing with Alliance in particular,
04:45has shaped and molded me and helped me become a better performer.
04:49All-Stars 4, you know, when we had our talent competition,
04:51I was like, well, I'm going to my roots.
04:55I'm gonna do what I know.
04:56And so I did Color Guard, and that also, like,
05:00brought it to the mainstream.
05:01Like, brought it to the forefront of, like, oh, my God,
05:04she's twirling, and there's a whole activity of people
05:06who are doing this.
05:07And now I'm getting young little draglings from Color Guard
05:12who are developing their little performance skills
05:14in grading Color Guard into their drag shows.
05:17And I feel like, okay, the doors I've opened,
05:19I think that is so wonderful.
05:21It's so wonderful.
05:23I went to WGI for the first time since I've been Latrice Royale,
05:29you know, from RuPaul's Drag Race last year
05:31with a group called Amp Winter Guard.
05:34And let me tell you, it was wild.
05:37These kids were freaking out.
05:40I didn't even realize what an impact I was having
05:44on my Color Guard community through my drag,
05:46because I still keep Color Guard mainstream.
05:50Like, I take it with me.
05:51They just feel so included.
05:55And someone's looking out for them, and I'm that person.
05:58So I've become a beacon and a legend
06:00in the Color Guard community as well as the drag community.
06:03Cheers to Color Guard!
06:05See you next week.
