INTERVIEW ~ LOU BRUTUS

Anyone who enjoys sitting around, drinking strong, black coffee and shootin’ the shit with their buddies about their favorite rock’n roll adventures is sure to love “Sonic Warrior,” the new book by “Darla’s hostage,” Disc Jockey Lou Brutus. The only caveat people should be aware of is – his stories are better, and they’re all true. I’m Music Magazine sat down recently as the country began its self-quarantine and chatted about what life has been like for this grumpy old punk. “Sonic Warrior” is not a chronology or the “life of Lou.” It’s unique individual stories shared amongst friends. Each chapter is a story of what life has been like on the inside, each with a Mad Magazine-esque illustration from the incredibly talented Allen MacBain. This is a book people will pick up often and repeat the stories.

From his favorite venues to how it’s been possible to see more than 3,000 rock shows, the interview is well worth the read. In it, he discusses the most surprising act he’s seen, gives incredible advice on where on YouTube some amazing content is and his needling of pop’n roll singer Justin Beiber. Sit back, pour a cup and dig in, not only for the below interview, but “Sonic Warrior.” You can thank us later.

Don Manuszewski/I’m Music Magazine: Let’s talk about your book; the first question for you is how was writing a book? You’ve got so many stories; how did you pick which ones would make the final cut? There are encyclopedias of stories inside your head.

Lou Brutus: Laziness, I wrote what was easiest. In some cases, I wrote stories that I probably had told to people most often because they’re the ones that were said in my head. You know when you read the book or at least I’ve been told when people read the book the most common thing I get back is, ‘oh, it’s written in the way that you speak and tell a story.’ Again, I’m not a word craftsman, like a written word craftsman but, you know, for a living I speak, and I tell stories. It’s basically kind of written like that, and it probably would have been a lot longer because, like you said, there are, well you know, I’m doing this shit for 40 years, I’ve got a lot of stories, I’ve seen a lot of things. A little over a year ago, Corey Taylor, who I’ve know for a long time, he kindly had agreed to write the forward for the book. He came to me and said, ‘Hey, what’s up with your book, where’s your book? I’ve got the forward, it’s written, it’s in my head, where’s the book?’ I said, awe man, it’s not yet, I got some more stories I want to add, and I’m not sure how long it’s gonna be. He looked at me like I was the biggest fuckin’ idiot in the world and said, ‘Asshole, just write another book after this one.’ So, it was soon after that as fate would have it I got the book deal and kind of wrapped things up and got it done. So, there are 21 chapters in it and each one is a stand-alone story. It kind of jumps around my life and my career and all this crazy music does.

Yeah, it does. It absolutely does. At least for me reading it, it reminded me of some of the stories I have. I’m kind of an older gentleman as well, and the sparks in my mind of some of the things, I kind of forgotten really.

Yeah, you know, that’s one of the advantages of you know, I’m older than a lot of people in this neck of the woods now. Which is strange to me because when I started, I was much, much, much younger than everybody. I started promoting shows in my high school when I was 13, 14 years old, so I’m around this stuff a very long time. One of the great advantages of that is I saw all the good bands. It’s cliché, but I’m old but I saw all the good bands, because I’ve never stopped going to see shows. Because I grew up where I did, which was Englishtown, New Jersey, right in between New York City and Philadelphia there were literally concerts to go to every night and some nights you just couldn’t choose. There’d be one or two great shows in New York and one or two great shows in Philadelphia, there might be a great show in Asbury Park, New Jersey or at the Capital Theater in Passaic, New Jersey. There was just stuff every night large, small, stadiums, arenas, it didn’t matter and me and my friends we were all music nerds. A lot of my friends ended up becoming professional musicians. We were willing to go see anybody, so on any given week I might see the Dead Kennedys in Trenton or the Ramones in Passaic, New Jersey or The Kinks at the Palladium in New York or Utopia or Frank Zappa at the Tower Theater in Philly. You know it could have been anybody, we’d go see everything.

Yeah, that’s awesome that you didn’t limit yourself because back in the day, it was like, ‘Oh, I like heavy metal and everyone who doesn’t is a pussy.”

Yeah, you know, it’s one of the things that bums me out about a lot of things in the world right now, this sort of tribalism that goes on. We certainly see it a lot of times in politics, but it happens a lot in music and it’s really a shame. You know, I get knocked sometimes because I exist and work with people from all these different worlds. I’m primarily in the hard rock and heavy metal world particularly for Hard Drive and Hard Drive XL, my syndicated shows which have been around for decades. We’ve broken so many bands, but you know I deal with people in the blues world, people in the jazz world, people in the classical world, I know a lot of people and I get knocked sometimes because, “Well, you went to see Rachel Barton, and she’s like a classical violinist, pussy.” I’m like she’s a fucking great musician – what the fuck do you care? I’m not any particular genre guy; I’m just a music guy. I’m, you know, what are you into – I just say, I’m into music. What kind of music – good music. I just like good music, any kind of good music. I love Lady Gaga, I love The Ink Spots, I love Kraftwerk, I love The Struts, I love Slipknot.It doesn’t matter to me; if it’s good, I’m down.

Yeah, good is good and I feel bad for people who limit themselves, really.

Yeah, I’d say it’s a silly way to go through life. If it makes them happy great, but it would not make me happy.

Exactly, you know, you have been an observer of the rock’n roll kind of lifestyle for a long, long time. I interviewed Jason Harless recently and he was talking about his stance on drugs, and I think it’s kind of similar to yours. Have you seen the waning of the “Sex, Drugs, Rock’n Roll” lifestyle that was so pervasive in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s?

Yeah, I mean, I think I started to see the tail end of that and there’s actually a chapter in the book, it’s the next to last chapter. Again, the book is not chronological, it’s like if we were standing around at the bar telling stories, you swap stories, you don’t tell them in chronological order. The next to last chapter is entitled, “The Time I Was Backstage and It Was Exactly Like What People Think Backstage is Like, But Usually Never Is.” Backstage is usually people doing business and people sitting around on their phones trying to get shit done. It’s very rare that it’s that sort legendary party backstage. The chapter that I particularly write about in this case was Pantera’s dressing room in Camden New Jersey following an OzzFest. You have to forgive me, I don’t remember the year offhand, but it’s in the book. I was walking past Pantera’s dressing room, Ozzy had just hit the stage and the dressing room, you could barely fit another person in. It was crammed with dozens of people, just a small backstage dressing room and I sort of squeezed myself in and you know. The first thing I notice was the bathroom door opens and there’s a woman bent over with her pants down and there were some guys doing lines off her ass. Then I slammed the door shut and I think ‘that’s stupid that’ll cause the air to blow the coke off her ass, that was dumb.’ You know, there are all sorts of rock stars with full bottles of alcohol, it was just this utter bacchanal, it was this mayhem and I remember I was pressed up against the wall in the dressing room with Wayne Static next to me. He could party, but he was just having a beer and I wasn’t having anything and the two of us were sort of incredulous we had never really seen a full-blown backstage like that, and actually Dimebag at one point walked over and offered me a Black Tooth shot and I had to turn him down because I had to drive. He looked at me and said, ‘You’re not really enjoying this too much.’ And I said, no, it’s not really my scene and he said, ‘That’s alright man, you’ll probably outlive us all. Have a good night Lou’ and he went back off into the party. I think it was one of their crew, you know I never found out who it was, had a tattoo needle set up in the corner and it was just a crazy scene.
So, that really doesn’t happen, that’s why it stood out so far in my mind.

Yeah, so many people have OD’d, so many more people have maybe not OD’d but because they spent so much time wasted or trying to recuperate from being wasted they never reached their full potential and that’s what I think happens most common. I’m not telling anybody how to live their lives, but for me, I think what works is strong black coffee and really loud fuckin’ music. That is what I like to work to, that is what I use to get things done and I find it really, really enjoyable. You know I do quite a bit of photography, really as a hobby and for fun and I have access to so many great things to shoot. So many bands, and concerts, and festivals, and MLB on-field photography for years and I travel all over and shoot lighthouses. I do actor-photography when I do get down time, which isn’t so often. I can think of nothing better than going out and taking pictures or when I go back to a festival I may have been at several weeks before where I took 2000 pictures that I didn’t have time to develop them and go through them yet and edit. I just love doing that with my dog Darla (The Wonder Dog) at my feet on a Saturday morning, just listening to good music and drinking coffee and working on photos. Again, that’s what works for me.

Speaking of lighthouses, have you been down to Yaquina Head here in Oregon?

You know, I have been to 46 of our 50 states and I’m humiliated to say I have not yet been to Oregon. I was supposed to come out there for Metallica a little over a year ago. They were going to be, in I want to say, I was going to Eugene for that show and I didn’t. So, I still have to make it to Oregon. However, I am very familiar with that lighthouse. It is a favorite of many great photographers. You have some beautiful lights on the coast there, a lot of which are very small and the reason for that is they are on heights, so they don’t need to be higher. Then other ones are lower because they’re in heavy fog areas and if they were much higher nobody would see them most of the time when they were most needed. I heartedly encourage people to not only go and visit lighthouses but they’re fun to take pictures of and they’re also really, really good for local tourism. There have been some places that have knocked down lighthouses around the country, which is the height of fucking stupidity. There are a bunch of stupid-assed lighthouse nerds like me and we travel, sometimes days to get to great lighthouse areas. I don’t know, I’ve never counted up all that I’ve seen and I’ve photographed but I’m sure it’s in the low hundreds. Whenever I have time I got to lighthouses, when ever I can.

A lot of times when I’m on the road with bands I will cut out during the day, or during the morning when everybody’s asleep and if we’re on the coast go shoot lighthouses. I make a short reference in the book. There’s a chapter in the book, and the chapter’s entitled, “The Time I was Peed on a Famous Rock’n Roll Dog.” I was just getting on the road with Starset and I was meeting up with the tour in Milwaukee and I was gonna go down to Rockford, Illinois and then up to Fargo, North Dakota with them. Winter tour by the way, if you’re going to go on a tour up to fucking Fargo you might not want to go in February. I wanted to get up to get to North Dakota, anyway, I dumped my suitcase on the bus, and everybody was still asleep and then I uber’d down to the waterfront along Milwaukee and there were some beautiful lighthouses there and I shot there. I got rock’n roll in on that trip and lighthouses which made me really happy.

Man, that’s perfect, what else do you need?

Yeah, yeah, and it’s funny too because I spend so much of my time either locked in studios bombarded with music and then I’ll hit the road with bands and I’m up on stage or I’m down in the pit, or backstage doing interviews and it’s very hectic and it’s very loud and the next thing I know, I’m on a goat path on a cliff someplace trying to get the proper angle to get some lighthouse. It’s a weird dichotomy, one I enjoy and one that I certainly think is good for the soul and it’s good for what’s left of my hearing because I have terrible tinnitus and severe hearing loss. When I get out to the quiet it’s a good thing.

Oh, that is nice; it’s almost sounds like what you read about Neil Peart doing. Just getting away and riding his bike.

Everything that man went through, God bless him. I’m very happy for him that when he was alive he was able to find solace of some kind after everything that life through at him.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Hey, getting back into the music, is there any show in specific that kind of surprised you. Whether it was how much you liked it, or kind of, uh, I don’t get it kind of a thing or anything in between?

Um, that’s a really good question. Give me a second here, let me think.

Yeah, that’s my ‘stumper’.

Yeah, you know, it’s harder to get surprised anymore because you know I know a lot of this stuff and I’ve seen a lot. I can tell you, if it’s ok, I can give you an instance where I saw somebody and I’d only heard of their name slightly before and it was still one of the best sets I’d ever seen in my life. It was, let me look up the exact date, it’s a cool story, hold on.
Actually, hold on, I can actually play, it’s the opening band from this show – here’s the headliner from this show (plays music).

Ok here’s the story. It was Friday, May 5, 1978 and I a sophomore at Manalapan High School in Englishtown, New Jersey and like I’ve told you, I would go see anybody. I had caught wind of this guy, I think he was just about to release his second album in the United States, Elvis Costello. And uh, Elvis and the Attractions were playing at the Capital Theater on Monroe St, in Passaic, New Jersey which was like a 3200-seat old piece of shit theater which was a shame because I’m sure it was a beautiful spot at one time. Now, it was like an old dumpy, rock’n roll theater. It was a porn palace for a while; they went through all sorts of things. Anyway, I get two tickets like 12th row for Elvis Costello and the day of the show comes and I can’t find anybody to go with. The person I was originally going with and was going to drive, cause there was no of getting’ there from where I lived backed out. So when the last bell rang for class that day, I stood outside the school with the two tickets over my head, going, ‘I got a pair of tickets for Elvis Costello, if you drive, you get the other ticket.’ And finally, a girl came out who was a senior who I knew from my drama class. I was really into, we had a great theater program in my high school and the girl was super cool. Her name was Diane Linguard and I wish I knew what happened to her cause she was really, really neat and I lost track of her after she graduated. Anyway, nobody had heard of Elvis Costello but Diane walked up and said, ‘I heard he was pretty cool, I’ll pick you up at your house in an hour and we’ll drive up.’ So, we do to the show and the seats were great and we waited for the opening bands to go on.

The first band walked out, and this is the band that totally got me unexpectedly, it was Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds and Rockpile. Nick Lowe had sort of the ah, he and Dave Edmunds would trade off with who got top billing. And since Nick’s new album was coming out, Pure Pop for Now People, as it was called in the US, over in England it was called, Jesus of Cool, it was listed as Nick Lowe and Rockpile. They played a 30-minute baby band set that still, is still 30 minutes of the greatest rock’n roll I have ever seen and I’ve attended over 3000 concerts in my life. Still one of the best fuckin’ performances I ever saw. I have been a die-hard Nick Lowe fan since then. Weird things, I’ve never seen Dave Edmunds again, since then and he’s a real tour hound, and I never got to see him again. He’s pretty much finished touring, so I don’t know that I’ll get another chance. And then, to wrap up the night, next out was a band called Mink Deville, who big legends around the New York City led by a guy named Willie Deville. And then Elvis and the Attractions came on and they did, and even Elvis Costello considers one of the best performances that he and the band ever did. And he wasn’t entirely happy that night, I think he was all wired on uppers or something. I think they cut the set a little bit short, they cut or one two songs they would normally do, but he was spitting fire, the set was fifty one minutes and 29 seconds, and I know that because I have the entire video of it. Capital Theater had an early video system back then, which in 1978 it was like, Holy Shit! You’ve got video. It was square screens, it was black and white but you can see everything even in the last row. And several years ago somebody had control of a lot of the files and just dumped them on YouTube. Every now and then I hop on YouTube and watch some of these old shows that I saw in the Capital Theater.

Yeah, every now and again, I hop on YouTube to see what’s there that I’ve been to.

Yeah, I mean, if you haven’t before look up Elvis Costello and the Attractions 5-5-78 Capital Theater. You are gonna see one of the greatest fuckin rock performances ever done. And it will lead you to other things from those Capital tapes. The Clash, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Garcia, Zappa, just so many greats played there.

That’s awesome! Hey, do you have a favorite kind of venue, either a specific venue or style of venue? Cause I know, I’m kind of getting away from the festival and these big stadium shows.

You know, there are some festivals that I really enjoy. I host Rock Fest every July up in Cadott Wisconsin and I’ve never missed a Rock on the Range or Sonic Temple and you know I’ve attended Live Earth and Live H and Live Aid and there’s actually a Live Aid chapter in the book, “The Time I Rained Vomit Down on the Biggest Concert in History.” It’s about the time I puked out of the helicopter onto the crowd in the stadium. You know the places I really like, are often small theaters where you can get some decent production in but the bands still have room to operate but you still feel that you’re close. The Tower Theater in Philadelphia still exists, that’s a great place, Radio City Music Hall in New York is and incredibly beautiful place as is the Wiltern in Los Angeles. I’ve only seen one show at the Wiltern but it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. It was Tom Waites on the Mule Variations Tour. I used to love the Living Room in Providence, Rhode Island. It was a tiny, dirty, smelly shithole but it was awesome. God, so many other places, The House of Blues in Chicago is really a fine venue; there are a million others I’m trying to think of that I’m leaving out. Yeah, I’ve been to some great places.

Out of the arena’s I really miss The Spectrum in Philadelphia where I saw hundreds of concerts through the years. That was a special place, and the concert crowd energy in Philadelphia is really, other than New York, there’s not a lot like it where it’s just totally bonkers from the moment somebody hits the stage. Yeah, a lot of places, but smaller theaters always, I feel comfortable in them. Clubs can be really great sometimes, but other times they can be super packed in and it’s a little less than unpleasant. Oh, and by the way, and another club that I should mention that’s a good one is the 9:30 Club in Washington DC. Awesome sound! Just one of the best sounding rooms on the entire planet. There are some really great places; another one in DC is The Black Cat, which is a fantastic spot. Listen, there are millions of great places and a good band can turn any place into a party. If you have great sound, I mean, I’ve seen Cheap Trick some of the greatest and some of the dumpiest places on the planet but it’s been great every time because -they’re Cheap Trick. They have the songs.

Yeah, there’s a reason they are who they are, you know, looking a the list in the back of the book, of everyone you’ve seen and all the people you’ve interviewed, I didn’t see anybody, but is there anybody you wish you had seen but didn’t get a chance to see?

Yeah, I’ll name two names – One is Rick Derringer, who had a big hit with “Rock’n Roll Hoochie Coo.” His Derringer Live album was one of my favorites as a kid, I owned it on 8-track. The closest I came to seeing him was standing outside of a bar he was playing in Asbury Park called Julio’s South. I was so young; they wouldn’t even let me stand near the door. The bouncers kept kicking me in the ass and shoving me away and I’ve never had the chance to see Rick, and but one that stings the most is that I saw Queen with Freddie Mercury. And the reason it stings extra is I had tickets for Queen twice. Once was on the News of The World Tour in the Spectrum in Philly and the other was the Hot Space Tour in the Brenden Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Billy Squire was the opening band for that tour. Both times I had the flu and both times I didn’t go because, I thought – ‘Well, it’s Queen,’ Queen were just road dogs, and growing up where I did in Central Jersey, the would play the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, or the Brendan Byrne in New Jersey the Garden in New York City, or they would play the Spectrum in Philadelphia or if we wanted to drive a few hours, there was the Cap Center in Landover Maryland outside of DC so Queen was around like every few months, so I thought, well, there’s plenty of chances to see Queen and I never did get another chance. The two closest Queen-things I had through the years.

One and I describe it in the Live Aid chapter in the book, I was running around backstage and I noticed people crowded around a bank of television sets and Queen was on stage. I was at the Philadelphia Live Aid show and Freddie and Queen were on stage in London and I just stopped and looked and everybody just kind of stopped what they did and watched the screens, even in the stadium people were just kind of mesmerized because, when a band would play in London nothing would happen in Philadelphia and they’d show London on the screens and people were mesmerized and when it was done people just went fuckin crazy. They went crazy in London and they went crazy in Philly. But it just killed me not to have ever seen him. I did go to London after Freddie passed away and I covered the Freddie Mercury Tribute Show at Wembley Stadium.

People ask me what’s the greatest concert I’ve ever seen and I don’t know how to answer that. I’ve seen so many great shows and the answer changes day-to-day but I always consistently try to mention that Freddie Mercury Tribute Show because when you look at the line-up and the bands that played, on their own first and then Queen came out and brought out everybody to sing. James Hetfield from Metallica did “Stone Cold Crazy,” they brought out Annie Lennox and they brought out David Bowie and they brought out Elton John to do a duet with Axl Rose and then at the end of the show everybody comes out to do “We Are the Champions” and who sings that? Liza fuckin’ Minelli, and I’d run into her earlier in the day in her hotel lobby and chatted her up a little bit. I had actually seen Liza Minelli open and then duet with Frank Sinatra at an invitation only event in the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City, so when I say, I’ve pretty much seen everybody, you know. But I really would have like to have seen Freddie and maybe one of these days because he still plays a little bit. I might be able to see Rick Derringer.

Yeah, side note really; my brother kind of fucked me on the News of the World Tour. I was 13 and my mom asked him if she should let me go and he was like No!

Oh, would that have been your first show?

No, my first show was Bad Company with Krokus.

Oh, you saw Focus?

No, Krokus not Focus

Oh, I saw Krokus; now if you’d had seen Focus, that would been something.

No, I can’t think of anyone not on your list that I’ve seen.

Yeah, I still stuff missing from the list. I add to it on my website and it’s more up-to-date than what’s in the book. Just before we went to press I looked and said, fuck – I didn’t put Dead and Company. I’d seen Dead and Company dozens of times, I work with members of the Grateful Dead, and how the fuck could I forget that one?

That’s funny; is there anybody you’re listening to right now that people should check out?

Lately I’ve been listening to the Bones UK record a lot, I love that album. Another album I love and I’ve had some of my harder edged friends snicker at me the new record from Soccer Mommy which is dower and depressing and I don’t know with everything going on if I’d want to go back and listen to it but I was listening to that non-stop for a couple of months. The latest album from The Struts which is now I think over a year old, but I think Young and Dangerous is a brilliant piece of work. I’ve heard they’re working with Butch Walker again; I hope that it true because that last Struts record is an amazing piece of work.

You know the latest 5FDP is the best thing that they have ever done, the new Ozzy has some great songs on it. It’s always phenomenal to see somebody late in their career that can still make really great music. You know that latest album from The Who had some brilliant fucking writing from Pete Townsend on it. Townsend can still write phenomenal songs and not a lot of bands can do that. The new Pearl Jam record has some fantastic songs on it to. Metallica, the Hard Wired album has been out for a while now but that was a fantastic record and at a time when a lot of people aren’t even trying to make new music for them to come out with one of the better albums of their career, pretty impressive I think.

Absolutely, I saw a quote recently from Eric Bloom said basically, we’re not putting out new albums because no body wants to hear new stuff from Blue Oyster Cult. That’s a matter of opinion really, if it’s good I want to hear it.

You know, I mean the Blue Oyster Cult sound people love it. Listen to Ghost. I remember the first time I heard “Square Hat;” I’m not knocking the song, I fuckin love Ghost. They were smart enough to go back and think, oh, what’s something interesting we can use texturally and they sort of got those duel guitar sound from Blue Oyster Cult and the use of the keys and the synths and stuff. They certainly made something original but texturally quite a bit of it vibes Blue Oyster Cult. If Eric reads this, fuck dude, do some fucking new music. Just go in and do a great fuckin’ song.

Hey, I’ve got about two more questions. I follow you on twitter and……

Oh, my apologies for everything I’ve ever tweeted. Sometimes I reach “dad joke” level (laughter).

My question is do you really hate Justin Bieber?

It’s a point of pride with me that I try and be open to all sorts of music. And I can’t get too deep into who or what, I know somebody I’ve known a long time who had a professional dealing with him and he was a total and complete fuckin asshole. He was a fucking asshole to his own fans and that’s why I don’t mind making a joke here and there at the expense of him. I usually try and take the advice of my late father who always told me, ‘son, pick up the trumpet instead of the hammer.’ And I was gosh dad, what do you mean by that and he said, ‘if you’re going to say something about anybody, say something good. Pick up the trumpet and trump the good things about them. Don’t pick up the hammer and hammer then. It won’t do you and good, it won’t to them any good. Just let the hammer be.’ And that’s why I never get into any beefs with anybody, I don’t dump on anybody. There’s already so much negativity in the world that with the exception, and again I don’t really hammer Justin Bieber all the time, I may make a joke about him now and then. Really other than that, I just prefer to tell people about the good things. Because, you know what, if I stopped to comment about everything I didn’t like on the Internet I wouldn’t have fuckin’ time for anything else. There just seems to be too many people to get caught up in what they don’t like. If you don’t like it, ignore it. Tell people about what you like and trust me the world will be a better place.

I know, I mean, honestly who cares if Billie Eilish knows who Eddie Van Halen is? It doesn’t matter.

Yeah, you know what, she said that and I thought, well, why the fuck should she know who Eddie Van Halen is. When that came out, I made a goofy thing about somebody who doesn’t know Van Halen song titles but there’s no shame in that, I don’t know a lot of Billie Eilish songs. I know her big hits; she’s got a beautiful voice. You know, she’s good at what she does, it’s not my particular cup of tea all the time but who gives a shit about that, not everything is my cup of tea.

You can respect it without loving it.

Exactly, what she and her brother do is phenomenal music and I’m glad she’s out doing it. She’s not out robbing people, she’s out recording music and performing and making people happy so good on her. Although, her fingernails are really like, Doctor Phibes-ish. Other than that, (laughing) the horror, Steven King factor of her nails, I’m totally cool with Billie. Not that she gives a shit, but that’s ok too.

Last question, which might be the most important. How’s Darla?

Darla the Wonder Dog is living her best life. I had book tour stops planned and eventually I will make them all as soon as the coast is clear, but there has been rumor going around that Darla, who for the uninitiated is my Yorkie-Poo, she runs my life. I tell people that I live in a puptatorship. Literally, she literally beats me I’m in an abusive relationship with my 10 pound Yorkie-Poo. She literally beats on me for me to do what she wants. If I don’t move fast enough she gets on her hind paws, she gets up on her hind legs and beats me with her front paws. And she bow wow wows and she yelps (makes yelping noise) all the time. And then, and I’m doing it more and more cause I’m self-isolating, I walk with Darla and talk to her. Which, I know a lot of dog owners do, but then I answer back in a second voice and that’s what worries the neighbors. Darla, get outta there, (in a higher pitched Scrappy-do voice) ‘No way pops, smells too good.’ So after that people started to figure, there goes crazy Lou on the radio, writing his crazy books.