Dr. Love: You're January's 'Featured Member' at Tormented VH Fans! How does it feel to be recognized for your contributions to the community?

Sensible Shoes: Cool. Also very surprising because I consider myself a "newbie" and I’m not exactly sure what I really contribute....

Dr. Love: Basic stats please - where you're from, what your childhood was like, what your measurements are, what you like to eat, your favorite VH song, you know...

Sensible Shoes: Do you think anybody cares about that stuff?

Dr. Love: Some of it, but it's usual stuff people go over

Sensible Shoes: Oh.

Well I was born and raised in the Buffalo area - some H.S in Attica NY. First piano at age 2. Garage band at age 12. Fender Mustang & Telecaster, Gibson ESG 335 Drama Club, Cheerleader, Student Council, voted “Most Outspoken” and “Most Talented”.

My measurements used to be 36 26 36 and now they're bigger but proportionate.

I have three food groups. Sugar, fat and alcohol.

Favorite VH song? “Beautiful Girls” because it’s the first one I ever heard. Sentimental favorite - I always get a rush when I hear it - remembering walking out on the beach in a string bikini and hearing Roth’s voice taunting me. Mulligans. Lake Erie. 1979. Summer. Oh yeah.

Also “Feel your Love” and “Ice Cream Man”. Some people think they’re schtick - I LOVE ‘em, don’t care what you say. In the VH heavy favorite pile - “Unchained” “Drop Dead Legs” “Take your Whiskey Home”. More every day.

Dr. Love: How long have you been a part of the Van Halen Online Community?

Sensible Shoes: About a year and a half now. I signed on DDLR.com in August 2003. It quickly became home. I really had not belonged to ANY internet community before - music, work related or otherwise - and it just sucked me in. Since I am a writer by trade, the chance to be uncensored was very enticing.

Dr. Love: So how did you discover the DDLR forums?

Sensible Shoes: (I'll try not to make this War & Peace.) I was having a very big life change, and was making a conscious effort to get back to things that made me happy when I was younger. Van Halen was a big part of that; something I felt I’d lost. So first I had to figure out if it was really Van Halen or just DAVE that made me feel happy- so I first listened to the music before and after the “singer controversy” and discovered I had no feeling for VH post 1986.

To me, that meant the appeal was Dave. So I bought "Crazy from the Heat" - and spent most of a vacation that summer reading it. I was just BOWLED OVER by the thought processes of someone I'd previously considered very hot, but something of a sexist dolt. As I read now, Dave was frighteningly articulate, savvy about the business world and had this absolutely perfect take on life. The inspiration, the philosophy, whatever it was I took away changed my life, and I don’t mean that like “I found Jesus” or some crap. I simply really admired what he had to say and took it to heart. And it was good to know that somebody I’d found ultra hot was not a boy bimbo. Made me feel better about lusting after him.

I wanted to absorb more, and I stumbled on the wall at the Army. The rest of the site was down.
I was hoping to find some like minded people - but it was just a cesspool of zings & shit flinging - and because I was HIGHLY inhibited at that point, somebody mentioned Vonnie's place and I wandered over there and stuck a toe in the water so to speak

Dr. Love: You must've made quite an impression on someone. As I recall, you made moderator there rather quickly.

Sensible Shoes: That was a variety of things - first is, there's just not a lot of women in the VH/DLR community. It's very male oriented. So the pool for selecting a female mod is limited to begin with. Switch was actually just as new when she was modded, and then someone quit, and there was a vacancy

Dr. Love: You mean Elitest.

Sensible Shoes: I do.

Dr. Love: There's been a lot of drama at DDLR and The Army in the last year. How much of it have you taken a part in?

Sensible Shoes: As much as my hormonal imbalance has allowed. (Laughs loudly) Well, some I instigated, I suppose. Some I fell into, and some I've steered clear of by a mile. Again, the internet experience is all still pretty new to me, and I do tend to take it too seriously. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and there have been times when I allow DDLR.com (God help me) to take the place of family and friends. That's when I get in trouble.

Dr. Love: Speaking of friends, you've met several of the people from the Van Halen Community in person, correct?

Sensible Shoes: Yes, and it's been really great!

Dr. Love: Who all have you met?

Sensible Shoes: Well, a YEAR ago now, I drove to Syracuse and hooked up with Jesterstar - who's mainly at the Dump at the Army, I believe. He is a very talented singer/songwriter and there was a project afoot to get him recorded. We had dinner at the famous "Dinosaur Barbeque" - a biker bar & Blues house - downed some Guinness, and then he played hours worth of material for me. Which I videoed. That project has fallen by the wayside, at least for now.

Then last spring, on the way to a dog show, I got to meet Les Funk and hear the Savage Brothers Band. That was a great evening, but it was cut short as my travel companions were very very sleepy! And one was underage! Les went WAY out of his way to see me and was generous and gentlemanly. I enjoyed meeting him very much.

Then there was the fabulous Toronto Roadtrip for the Casinorama show. I hit the jackpot on that one!: Picked up by AlexPGrimes & Twonabomber as I was in no condition to drive myself. We met up with Igo at the hotel and then ran into Tommy V and his brother Derm at the Sports bar. We all had a GREAT time, and, attention whore that I am, I loved being the only girl in the company of 5 big burly guys.

Dr. Love: Were there any awkward moments? Did you ever slip and call one of them by their online moniker?

Sensible Shoes: No, there was nothing awkward about it at all! And yes, everybody used online monikers all night! I don't think anybody called me anything BUT Shoes. LOL

Dr. Love: How was the show?

Sensible Shoes: It was great, but subdued for me. Musically, I couldn't have asked for more, and anybody who's listened to the boot knows that. Can't wait to hear it again at Universal, and actually PARTY this time.

Dr. Love: I'd like to take a little time to gauge your views about different people and topics in the Van Halen Community. Feel free to be honest, and don't be afraid to lay down a little smack talk.

Sensible Shoes: OH dear.

Dr. Love: I'm sure that Lou is dying to know: MP3 or no?

Sensible Shoes: Not qualified to make a judgement, but from what Lou himself has explained to me the theory behind FLAC does hold water, and I base that on my career in video.: It's all about the quality of the original recording. Now whether or not FLAC's technology is what it sets out to be i.e. whether or not it truly is a lossless format, is something I can't attest to.

Dr. Love: I'm sure Lou would be surprised to hear that you actually agree with him.

Sensible Shoes: LOL. I've actually agreed with Lou a number of times. It drives him crazy.
And a lot of what Lou perceives as disagreements are caused by things he assumes about me which I have never confirmed or denied.

Dr. Love: Do you think if you two ever met, it would evolve into a fist fight or erupt into mad and passionate sex? I bet he has a thing for older ladies.

Sensible Shoes: It would develop into neither. You assume Shoes is who you see on the small screen. Actually, a fistfight OR mad passionate sex with someone I've never met would be way outside the box for me.

Dr. Love: All right. Let's think hypothetically

Sensible Shoes: Can I do that?

Dr. Love: If you were a guy, would you rub one out to Catfish's wife's picture and get your manjuice all over it?

Sensible Shoes: Um, sure I guess, she IS pretty hot.. Although unlike a guy, I need a little more than a picture of a face......so I might have to reevaluate that. Does that question really mean do I find Catfish's wife hot?

Dr. Love: Not at all, but I'm sure most of the men would like to know if you do, and if you've ever had sexual relations with females, or if you are attracted to women 'in that way'.

Sensible Shoes: a. I do think she's hot. She's lovely, in fact.
b. I have never had sexual relations with a female
c. generally, no I am not attracted to women, but I would not say it was out of the question to try and be, if it would please a man I was involved with, and cared a lot about pleasing.

Dr. Love: Moving on ... you mentioned that you've been a Van Halen fan since your youth. What got you hooked on early Van Halen?

Sensible Shoes: The sound. More specifically, it was the BADDEST rock and roll I'd ever heard when it popped up on the radio, and the lead singer was completely politically incorrect. It was so NAUGHTY. I loved it, but not publicly

Dr. Love: So you were a good little girl?

Sensible Shoes: No. But I was an assertive female college student who was fighting for a man's position in the television industry. The first female news photographer in Buffalo, to be exact. How could I publicly embrace a band whose lyrics characterized women as sluts and whores? And whose behavior backstage EMBRACED them as sluts and whores? Even if I thought the music was stellar and Roth was the hottest man I'd ever seen? It became a guilty little pleasure inside my apartment, like eating pints of HaagenDaaz. Publicly, I was out hanging with sports & media figures at area discos - wearing polyester and dancing the night away on my Candies slings.

It would take years to discover that allowing yourself to act slutty or whorelike could actually be a liberating choice! YEARS - like until 2004.....GEE that’s NOW!

Dr. Love: You describe yourself as having been a militant female student. What sorts of things did you do? Bra burnings?

Sensible Shoes: Ha ha ha. You're thinking 60's. The sort of things I did in college were essentially drink and party until I fell down, then clean off the vomit and reap the benefits of the generation before who burned their bras and marched on the White House. They paved the roads for women. Mine was the first generation that could walk in and take advantage of the EEOP programs that now included women in what were traditionally male dominated jobs controlled by the government. Yes, television is ruled by those standards because it is regulated by the F.C.C. I was a minority hire in 1979. This is what makes me laugh when Lou gets on me for being a liberal. I was really just a high end slacker.

Dr. Love: Are you a liberal?

Sensible Shoes: Oh probably. At least on some issues. Some things I'm positively moderate on. Entitlement makes it easy to be a liberal - once you have a little perspective, you get some balance and start seeing the value in conservative views. But I resent the tossing around of the term “liberal” like it’s synonymous with the word “criminal”! A lot of the views I came away from my youth with were nothing more than the by product of the times I lived in. Watergate, Vietnam, the Warren Commission - all made it hard to view government as something comforting and trustworthy. And a lot of the negative views of big government were simply handed out like pablum. You inherited them or absorbed them from people around you and sometimes you never got a dose of reality that made you form your own true opinion. I think many conservatives are equally guilty of that - especially those who grew up as children in the stock boom years of the 80's i.e. Reaganomics.

(And may I add - does anybody else see the catch 22 of Conservative Van Halen Fans? Lessee - a band that sang about the devil, championed alcohol, drugs & promiscuous sex, insured themselves against paternity suits, and flaunted every convention society had to offer? This makes about as much sense to me as Elvis being made an honorary DEA agent..)

Dr. Love: You recently did a stint singing in a band, and got a lot of compliments on your voice. How did it feel to perform, and do you have any plans to do it again?

Sensible Shoes: It was the fucking scariest thing I EVER did in my life. Went in thinking I had talent and training to burn and found out I knew NOTHING. I may have been a born performer when I was a kid, but your nerve withers up and dies someplace after age 20 if you don't use it. So I was humbled on each and every one of those five gigs. And I had to stop of course, because life intervened with a whole bunch of stuff. Now I wonder if the circumstances at the time made things worse than they really were? Would it be different now? Could I think enough of myself to really get up there and BE Shoes? Walk the walk I do on the net? I have no idea. I will likely try again, assuming I haven't destroyed my chances with that short gig - but it won't be for a while. What I did get out of it was that I really can sing. And knowing that was worth the trial by fire.

Dr. Love: You also do dog shows from time to time. What is that like?

Sensible Shoes: Dog shows are designed for people who do not deal well with others. (Evil laugh) It's insane, essentially. It is wildly expensive, the only thing with animals that’s more expensive is showing horses. You really have to BELIEVE in what you're trying to accomplish. And, like the internet, it's addictive.

The good things about it are you have these amazing animals - they are like your children. You have this lifestyle where you take them with you wherever you go. They're highly trained, they are the world's BEST companions. You spend lots of time outdoors with them, so you can't be sedentary - you travel the country and do a lot of camping and RVing - and thus spend boatloads of money on those things.

Whether or not you find the whole thing meaningless depends on your tolerance for highly structured disciplines which are very arbitrary. If you love cultivating opinion in your favor and enjoy mental competition, you'd love it. It all has very little to do with the dogs, at least in conformation. The Obedience, Agility and Hunting areas are LOTS more fun and the dogs enjoy them more too

Dr. Love: How do your dogs do in the competition?

Sensible Shoes: Excellent in agility - we had two dogs ranked in the top 10 in the country last year in their classes. MacKenzie is actually number one in the sporting group, which is just astounding

Conformation - the stuff you see on Animal Planet where they run around in circles - we never did too well in that, but it's awfully political and we were very new in the "dog show" world (11 years). People build kennel names for their entire lives to become successful at it. We have a dog right now who could have started us being quite successful - but we're at a point where we need to stop for a number of reasons. Money on the top of that list - and the marriage splitting up kind of doesn't help either.

Dr. Love: Is there anything we haven't discussed that you'd like to cover?

Sensible Shoes: I dunno - is there anything I haven't spilled my guts about on the forum anyway?

Well, I will just tell one and all - 2005 is going to be a kickass year. And after 2004, life CANNOT get anything but better!