December 16 – December 29 (2019)

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

It’s nice to see that Batman ’66 original memorabilia still gets so much love!

I made this video just before Christmas of some of my favorite vintage Santa Claus art, and a song by Les Baxter that sounds like something I would have worn the grooves out of as a kid on my record player. It’s a happy tune called “Santa Claus’ Party.” Even though Christmas is over for another year, I hope you enjoy.

Since I was so busy last week with all of the craziness going on, I wasn’t able to find time to write Wally’s Week for the previous week. So here now are TWO WEEKS’ worth of Wally’s Weeks! Enjoy!

Monday the 16th – WALLY’S WHIRLWIND DAY! – It’s days like this that make me happy a long holiday break is just around the corner! At noon I had a quick VO session to do in my home studio, and then I headed off to pick up my friend Rob Klein in my Gran Torino. We headed to the Coral Café for lunch. Rob had been desiring a ride in my Torino for a long time, and our schedules finally gelled. After we ate we went to Plastic Depot to pick up some plastic hemispheres that I’ll be using as eyes for my Oscar the Grouch puppet, and then I stopped by my box to get my mail. I dropped past my seamstress Shelley’s to pick up some wardrobe pieces she had been working on, and then I took Rob back home. His wife and son wanted a quick ride around the block in the Torino so I was happy to oblige. When I got home I threw open my wardrobe closets and started picking options for the film shoot I’d be doing on Tuesday for an indy film called “The Rideshare Killer.” I pulled 3 or 4 options for them to choose from and then got on my e-mail to print the directions to the location and the shooting schedule. Even though my scene wouldn’t be shooting until 4 that afternoon, my call-time was 8am. That’s one thing I’ll never understand about on-camera work…why all the waiting around? Haven’t they figured out how to plan this a little more concisely? Oh well, it’ll be a fun day. I pulled some jewelry pieces I figured my character would wear and loaded everything into the car. It was going to be a 12 hour day, and I’m just not used to working hours like that. But as I endeavor to do more on-camera work in this next phase of my life, I’d better get used to it. I had several auditions to do and by the time I was finished with the prep for the film, my auditions, and other stuff I needed to do around the house, I still had to write Wally’s Week. I ended up getting very little sleep before I needed to be up the next day.

Tuesday the 17th – THE RIDESHARE KILLER! – That darned cat! I didn’t get to bed until 2am and my alarm was set for 6am so I could be up and ready for the film shoot. But my cat Spooky started walking on me at 5am to wake me up. So after only 3 hours of sleep, I got cleaned up and hit the freeway at 7 to be at the shooting location in Agoura Hills by 8:15am. Traffic was pretty good and I made it there in good time. In fact, I was one of the first to arrive! The first couple of hours I sat around on the couch, relaxing and cuddling a pillow. By 10:30 we did a little blocking of a scene. But all I did was stand in one spot. It really didn’t make much sense to me what I was doing there in that spot, but I just did what they said. Then I went back in and sat around while everyone else got their make-up on. It was almost like they realized that I didn’t really need me to be there that early and they felt bad, so they just made things up for me to do so I wouldn’t get bored. By about 10:30 the costumer looked at my wardrobe choices and picked an outfit; a black turtleneck sweater with a cool rocker-looking purple shawl-collar tux jacket. The character I’m playing is a slacker brother to the lead character (played by my pal Tuesday Knight) who looks like he’d rather be smoking dope and playing guitar than working on business deals. I put on the costume and sat down for make-up and hair. The make-up gal asked if I did this sort of thing often and I told her that I was primarily a Voice Actor. Then the conversation turned to the world of Voice Over and we had a lively conversation. One of the things I don’t like about on-camera work is all the stuff they have to slather on your face, and all the pulling and tugging they do with my hair. They put on the make-up, then pulled my hair back into a ponytail and sprayed it down. Walking into a Voice Over session in a tank top, cargo shorts and a baseball cap is SO much easier. But, it’s time to get out of my comfort zone and learn new things at this point in my life. Then they called me out to the backyard for a scene. Really all they needed me to do was to walk past in the background of a party scene, so it was pretty easy. But the lady who was playing my mother was having difficulty navigating the steep steps we needed to traverse to get into the scene. So I held her arm as we walked up the steps, to make sure she didn’t slip and fall. But the Assistant Director said on-camera, it looked like I was lumbering. She asked if I could do it “more gracefully.” I told her I could, but the reason I was lumbering was that I was concerned about the actress I was with falling on the treacherous stairs. So I suggested that the actress just steady herself on the handrail instead of holding my arm. But then the actress was concerned with getting splinters, since the handrail was made of very rough wood. Upon analytic review of my reason for being there, I couldn’t ascertain any logical reason why my character had to be in the scene at all. We didn’t really do anything of import. But again, I think they just wanted to do something so I wouldn’t get bored with all of the waiting around. My main dialogue shot wasn’t until 4 that afternoon, so I’m thinking a 2pm call-time would have sufficed. But, oh well. That’s showbiz. I sat around and chatted with the cast and the crew, and the food at the craft service table was delightful! Lunch was served at 2, so we all broke for about a half hour. But the next 2 hours was more waiting around, and I was having trouble staying out of everyone’s way while they shot. The crew got the shots they needed and released the majority of the cast and background players. Then around 4:30 it was time for my dialogue scene with Tuesday and the actress portraying our mother. Once we got into position and started the process it was great…lots of fun! We finished the shots we needed from all the required angles and I was wrapped for the day. When I got my check I chuckled because I actually LOST money for the day. It was $10 less than what I had to pay my dog walker for the day of monitoring Roxy and Spook. In my on-camera endeavors I was already losing money…not a good sign. The actor who played the waiter who brought me my drinks in the scene asked if I could give him a ride to the Universal subway station. I told him I’d be glad to. Since I was a bit tired, and the trip back to my area was a long one, it would be good to have somebody along to talk to and keep me alert. Still laughing about losing 10 bucks (10 bucks is 10 bucks, after all) it got worse once I checked my e-mail. Earlier in the day a regular client wanted me to record some last minute tags for a commercial for $500. But since I was gone and didn’t respond, they found somebody else to do it. So now my on-camera endeavor has left me $510 in the hole. Funny. I’m afraid this on-camera thing isn’t starting out very well. But I’ll stick to it for a while. I showered off the make-up and the sticky hairspray and took Roxy out for a bit. Then I enjoyed some Christmas Nappies; a nap with the pets on the couch, with the fireplace on and Christmas songs gently playing in the background. (The name dates back to when I had my dog Sassie) I knocked out for 5 solid hours and it was great! Later I put away all my wardrobe and prepped for the next day. Although a few things could have been done differently in my opinion, it was a pretty fun day. I made my traditional Saturday Night Super Salad (a few nights late) and started watching “The Mod Squad” season 2! Then I hit the hay.

Wednesday the 18th – AUCTION ACTION! – While I was busy filming the indy movie, Profiles in History was busy at work auctioning off a lot of great, original items from the Batman TV series. Though most of the stuff was out of my price range (remember, I just lost $510!) I was curious as to what some of the stuff went for. The set of Batman and Robin original costumes went for just under three-quarters of a million dollars, including premiums. WOW! The famous Shakespeare bust which granted Bruce and Dick access to the Batcave went for $160k! So I spent some time on the phone and on e-mails discussing this, as this was all huge news in our “Bat” community. I also had a last-minute audition I had to record. Unfortunately that made me about a half hour late to a lunch meeting I was having with my fellow VO actor Secunda Wood. I apologized profusely and had a great lunch. Then I headed to Plastic Depot to pick up a few more items for my Oscar the Grouch puppet, I hit my box to pick up my packages, and while on the way home I got a message that my neighbor’s mom passed away at the age of 101. I had been to her 100th birthday party and she was quite a gal…sharp as a tack! Though she had a good run at 101 years, it doesn’t make the loss any less sad. I got home and did some work, and then met with my old friend Jenalyn regarding my children’s book and toy project. Her son is the type of kid that’s in the bullseye of my target demographic, so over dinner I quizzed her about his reactions to the property. Very enlightening! I came home to nap for a bit, and then got up to make some Buffalo Mac and watch another episode of “The Mod Squad.” I sure have missed this show! It’s brilliant!

Thursday the 19th – NON-STOP BOP! – My seamstress Shelley’s house was my first stop, as I dropped off some fabric to have some samples made for the upcoming Toy Fair in New York in February. My attorney wanted to have a few examples made that she could show around and possibly pass out to interested parties. My gas tank indicator was on E, so I had to get filled up right away! But the local gas station was all roped off for repairs. DARN! Running on fumes, I sped over to SPG studios in Burbank to do a four hour videogame session under the tutelage of my pal Kirk Thornton. Not only did he play my brother in “Tiger and Bunny,” he’s Orbot to my Cubot in “Sonic Boom.” Always a gas seeing and working with Kirk! The four hours FLEW by! After the session, I was lucky enough to find another gas station further down the road so I could fuel up. I drove home and fed the kids, and then slipped out to Jerry’s Famous Deli to have dinner with my friend Kayla. I came home to nap for a bit, and then got up later to do some work. Since next week is Christmas, there weren’t any auditions in my inbox. Nobody would be doing sessions next week anyway. I did some more work prepping for my Oscar the Grouch puppet build. I made a Tombstone pizza and watched another “Mod Squad.”

Friday the 20th – MY CHRISTMAS DREAM! – My usual Christmas Eve tradition is as follows – take Roxy to my church at 5pm for the “Living Nativity,” which always has a menagerie of wonderful animals that the kids can feed and pet. Roxy loves meeting the animals, and being around them arouses her ‘guardian’ instincts and she becomes very protective. It’s sweet. Then we go back home and listen to a few hours of the best Christmas radio show out there called “Christmas Across the Lands.” I get a few hours of sleep, and then get up around 10:30 to be at our church’s candlelight service at 11pm. By 12:30am I head home and stay up all night listening to more “Christmas Across the Lands” and work on something creative until dawn breaks on Christmas morning. Two years ago I put together some amazing photo albums of my days in South Dakota. The original photo albums they were in had started to decay, so I placed them all in brand new, leather-bound, acid-free pages. Last year I stayed up all night working on my Rowlf the Dog puppet. When the sun comes up on Christmas morning, I make myself a Chef Boyardee pizza-in-a-box and watch something before bed. Since Christmas was fast approaching, and I hadn’t gotten all my elements yet to work on my Oscar the Grouch puppet, I had to get hustling! I went back to Plastic Depot to pick up some more eye pieces from my pal Kyle. The last ones I had gotten were too thin, and they needed to be made out of thicker plastic. The reason being, there is a wire that runs through the eye pieces that serves as the moving eyebrow mechanism. And the eye pieces need to be very beefy to support the constant movement of the eyebrows. After I picked up the eyes I went to KFC to get some food, got some groceries at the store, picked up my mail at my box, and headed over to Fast Signs to get a new sign for a display in Planet Wallywood. I’m not exactly sure why they’re called “Fast Signs,” as they’re not really very fast. In fact, they’re quite slow. Maybe they should cut the ‘fast’ out of the name and just call themselves “Signs.” Or at the very least, annotate the name and call it “Fast-ish Signs.” Anyway, I was glad to have the signage. I went home to feed the pets, and then I headed over to a local studio to meet up with my old pal (and former personal physician) Dr. Stephen Patt. I have always said he’s hands down the greatest Dr. I’ve ever known. He’s got the magic touch! The only reason he’s my ‘former’ physician, is that his office is very far away from where I’m currently living. And when you’re sick with the flu, the last thing you want to do is drive in two hours of traffic to go see the doc, and then drive two hours to get back home! But as great of a doctor as he is, he’s also a TERRIFIC musician. His guitar playing ability is stellar, and he’s one of the few people I’ve ever known who plays the pedal steel guitar. Back in July of this year I was honored to be a part in a really cool album project produced by my pal Pat Evans. The album isn’t even finished yet, but it already has label interest! There’s one song in which Pat envisioned having pedal steel, (ala Santo & Johnny) and I told him there was only one guy I could think of who could knock it out of the park! The ‘rock and roll doc’ came in, nailed it and off he went to make a house call! Amazing! I came home to nap for a bit, and then got up later to work around the house and do some more Oscar puppet work.

Saturday the 21st – A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE OF THE HARDWARE KIND! – It was a great day outside, so I decided to put on my walking shoes and get some exercise. I walked to the hardware store to get some supplies for my upcoming puppet build. I want to build Oscar’s eyebrow/blinking mechanism on a toggle bolt, but I was having trouble finding one big enough. Kyle had ordered large ones but they wouldn’t be in until Monday. That was cutting it close! As I was puttering around the hardware store finding bolts, nuts, washers, wire, etc. – there it was! In a box of random stuff, clearly out of its normal environment, was a toggle bolt just the size I needed! I was meant to find it! Amazing! I walked over to Kit Kraft to get some piano wire, paint and a few other things. I hit CVS to get a sympathy card for my neighbor who just lost his mom, and then I stopped by Fed Ex to ship a package, and the post office to drop off a package. I went back to the hardware store on the way home and picked up a few more packages of nuts, bolts and washers just to be sure. Once I got into building Oscar’s mouth plate, I wasn’t quite sure what size I would need, so I got a few different sizes just to be safe. I got back home and decided to finally dig out my Christmas decorations to put a few up for movie night that evening. It was our annual viewing of “Love Actually,” and it’s always an enjoyable Christmas romp. After everyone left I took a nap, goofed around all night working around the house, had some cereal, and hit the hay. No traditional Saturday Night Super Salad and “Space 1999” once again. I’m slippin’!

Sunday the 22nd – HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN! – Mid-afternoon I met my new friend Croix for lunch. She was one of the lead actresses on the film I worked on, and while I picked her brain about on-camera acting, she picked my brain about Voice Over. I was happy that we were able to share valuable career information. I got home for a bit, and then headed to evening church. After the service my ‘adopted grandma’ Shirley, my dog Roxy and I went to Paty’s to have some dinner on the patio. We headed back to Shirley’s place to drop her off and on my way home it started to rain. Perfect timing! I got inside just in time before the heavy stuff hit. And boy did it rain! I did some more puppet design work, and I think I finally locked into the spring mechanism for the eyebrows. Unfortunately, I realized that the heavier toggle bolt I found at the hardware store wasn’t going to work for this purpose. It’s “pull” was much more than I would need for a puppet. So now the challenge is to make the smaller toggle bolt work for our purposes. I devised a “trigger plate” that would go on top of the bolt, and the wires could be run from that, instead of from the bolt itself. Eureka! I rewarded myself with a nice nap on the couch while listening to it rain.

Monday the 23rd – TRIGGERS, TOGGLES & TINKERING! – Kyle at Plastic Depot was going to close early and take off a few weeks for the Christmas break. So I wanted to get over to his shop before he left so he could drill a couple of holes in the toggle bolt, and fabricate the trigger plate. He has the tools to bend and cut metals, which I do not. I appreciated his help, as I was now ready to do my Oscar project over Christmas Eve! On the way home I got some groceries, and got packages at my mailbox. When I got home I realized that my old friend Genta was dining down the street at a restaurant. So I headed down there to eat and catch up with her. I hadn’t seen her in years. Then I went over to grab some hot chocolate with my pal Valerie Perez so we could exchange Christmas gifts. She got me a cool Batman electric guitar ornament that plays the Batman theme, and I gave her a vintage Ghostbusters 2 crew jacket. A friend had sent me the jacket (which was in perfect shape) with the caveat that it might be a little small for me. Given that information, I pretty much knew at that time who was going to get the jacket. Valerie has a terrific Ghostbusters cosplay outfit, and I knew it would have a great home with her, and get lots of use. I came back home and tried the guitar ornament on my 8” Batman figure, and it fit perfectly. I put together a fun little video with it. I started sanding my Oscar eye pieces to make them all consistent height. I picked the two most perfect pieces from the group I had gotten from Kyle and prepped them. I got all my other Oscar pieces in order so I could start my work on Christmas Eve. I napped for a bit and then got up later to do some organizing. If you recall, several weeks ago I was involved in a personal project that required me to transfer and edit audio files from one of my ‘personal log’ digital recorders. The recorder had become corrupt so the internal memory wouldn’t transfer to the computer like it was designed. I had to extract the files by hand; an arduous, tedious process which consumed about 100 hours of my time. I opened up the folder of the edited files with the intent of transferring them into my ‘Personal Log’ folder. I opened up the folder, clicked on the subfolder marked 2017, and got the shock my life. Apparently, I had already transferred the files in question digitally back in October of 2018! As soon as I had filled up the internal memory, I transferred them to the computer. But I had forgotten I did that! This was obviously before the recorder became corrupted! I DIDN’T NEED TO TRANSFER THEM BY HAND AT ALL!! I felt stupid beyond belief. What a waste of time and energy. Good gravy, sometimes I feel so stupid. I just sat there and hung my head in utter disbelief. I checked the files against each other, and yup! It was them. I kept hearing Napoleon Dynamite in my head saying, “Idiot!” I was going to try and type out Wally’s Week, but the day had gotten the best of me. I was running short of time and I still had lots to do before bed. So I decided to wait a week and publish two weeks’ worth next week.

Tueday the 24th – THERE’S A CHICKEN ON YOUR HEAD! – Given the fact that I’ve previously outlined my favored Christmas Eve tradition, you know that Roxy and I head over to my church’s ‘Living Nativity’ at 5. There are always fun animals and lots of kids and families enjoying the festivities. The family service runs from 5:30 to 6:30, but I always stay outside and talk to the animal lady during the service. And the evening was very pleasant and not at all cold, so it was extremely enjoyable. When the sun started setting around 5:20, the exotic chicken (gorgeous black feathers and a big head plumage) flew up from the ground and landed on my friend Scott’s head. He was wearing a Santa Claus hat. We all laughed because it was a very funny sight. But Scott explained that he had chickens of his own, and when the sun starts to set it’s their instinct to find higher ground. When they’re on the ground they’re vulnerable to predators at night, so their instinct tells them to find the highest point possible. The highest point in that scenario was Scott’s head. He walked around with a chicken on his head for quite a while, but then he took off for the service. Roxy enjoyed meeting the animals, and everyone was smitten with the baby goats, all of one week old! I had Roxy’s leash in one hand and my camera in the other as I approached the pen to take some pictures. All of a sudden all I saw was a flutter of black feathers and I heard some noise. I brought my camera down from my face to see the chicken trying to roost on MY head! Now I was the highest ground in the area. One of the gals with the animals said the chicken walks around on her shoulder all the time. I said I’d be glad to have the chick on my head if she wanted to be there. Oddly enough I was ALSO wearing a Santa hat. (Maybe the chicken loved Santa!) So she placed the chicken on my head and I walked around for a while. I’ve heard of ‘picking up chicks’ but this was ridiculous! Merry Chickmas to all! As I walked around I felt like one of those modeling students who are required to walk around balancing a book on their heads to learn poise. Eventually the chicken found a better place to roost; one of the wood planks on the Nativity scene. In addition to the height-seeking chicken and baby goats, there was a pig, two rabbits and a small donkey. What fun! Roxy and I headed back home to listen to a few hours of “Christmas Across the Lands.” But I had to do some investigative work to see why the signal from my system wasn’t playing in the other rooms. Apparently since I was feeding the show through a digital source, the amplifier feeding audio to the other rooms couldn’t find it. It could only deal with analog sources. So I had to reconfigure it a bit. Then I was dealing with a crackly channel on my amplifier. I plugged the cords into one of the other channels and it fed the house fine. But I had to get a few hours of sleep before the candlelight service. I have loved my church’s Christmas Eve candlelight service for years, and this one was also amazing. It was made even better by a dry, gorgeous night. On the walk home I strolled slowly, observing how nice and quiet Christmas Eve was around the neighborhood. Absolutely gorgeous! Magical, in fact! I went inside and got settled for my Christmas Eve activity. I cut Oscar’s mouth out of the plastic I had and sanded it. Then I took the trigger mechanism Kyle helped me build, measured its ideal location on the mouth plate, and bolted it in. Then I had to move it back about a quarter of an inch, so I drilled another hole in the mouth plate to accommodate it. I tried making leather finger loops for my index, ring and pinkie fingers, but it wasn’t working well with the trigger mechanism. The trigger is manipulated with my middle finger, but as I’m pressing down the trigger, the resistance required of my other fingers wasn’t working properly. So I ended up removing the finger loops altogether. I’d figure something else out for that. It wasn’t going as fast as I had hoped, but I did what I set out to do…spent Christmas Eve working on something creative. As the sun rose, I made my Chef Boyardee pizza-in-box and watched “The Mod Squad.”

Wednesday the 25th – HAPPY CHRISTMAS! – As is my tradition, I slept most of the day. I got up at 5 to feed the pets and get ready for Christmas dinner with friends. I did a little work on the computer and got cleaned up. My friends Scott and Vickie Sebring came over at 7 and I showed them my progress on Oscar’s mouth. Vickie has built puppets in the past and loves to watch all of the ‘how-to’ puppet videos on YouTube. I explained the problem I was having with the finger loops in relation to the eyebrow trigger, and she suggested just having a block of rigid foam on the mouth plate that my fingers could simply grab on to. Then I remembered that my Mahna Mahna puppet had that same thing. Brilliant! We drove over to pick up Shirley and we headed to the Smokehouse to enjoy a wonderful Christmas dinner with my friend Secunda, and her husband and son. By the time we finished up, it was pouring rain outside. And I do mean POURING! We took Shirley back to her home, and then I dropped Scott and Vickie off at their car. I took a nice nap on the couch, and got up later to feed the pets. I started in on Oscar again by attaching the piece of foam to the front of his upper mouth plate which will serve as the front of his face. I put a slight ‘bezel’ on the bottom of the foam, so when it’s angled back to make his face it bows out a little bit to give him character. Once the foam adhered securely, I started cutting wedges out of it to get the recessed angle I was looking for. It looked terrific. Though I had MUCH more work to do on it, I was happy with the progress thus far. I laid back down on the couch and relaxed, and didn’t wake up until noon on Boxing Day. I took Roxy our for a quick walk, and then came inside and went to bed.

Thursday the 26th – PUPPET PARADISE! – Later in the afternoon I woke up, fed the pets, and started in on Oscar again. Had I gotten up earlier I could have made a trip to Foam Mart to find the “grippy” type of foam block I needed for Oscar’s upper mouth plate. But I decided to be lazy. It also occurred to me that I wanted to paint and wire the eye pieces before adhering them to the puppet. Working on them AFTER they were adhered into the puppet face would be a huge hassle. But the downside to doing it that way, is that the glue I use (Barge glue) and some paints have a bad reaction to one another. Putting Barge glue on certain painted items makes the paint melt and it turns into a mess. There’s some sort of solvent in Barge glue that interacts with paint negatively. I would to consult with the geniuses at Kit Kraft, or my effects guy Jim Ojala to see what they suggest. The more I look at photos of the real Oscar’s eyes the more I can see a fine mist of gray and tan paint that‘s oversprayed on to them. This takes down the ‘brightness’ of his eyes and makes him look more…well…grouchy. I’m thinking that something like that would best left up to a professional airbrush artist like my friend Jim Ojala. Not only would Jim have the tools to shave down pieces of the metal trigger plate to make it run more smoothly, he’d also know which paints to use to avoid the interaction problem. I’ll wait for him to come back into the shop to consult with him. Since Oscar’s upper and lower mouth plates are separate pieces, and not joined like Kermit’s or Rowlf’s, it allows him to have more expression. He can jut his lower jaw forward and pout, or move his jaw from side to side to look like he’s perturbed. When I put the two pieces together I realized that the thumb loop I had previously placed on the lower jaw piece needed to be moved. So I gently removed it with an Exact-O knife and marked out the angle where it should rest. After about 3 aggravating tries, I finally got it! But I decided to put Oscar away for a while until I can get the other guidance, wisdom and pieces I needed to move to the next step. I’m really only about an eighth of the way finished. There’s LOTS left to do. Maybe I’ll still be working on him NEXT Christmas Eve! (I hope not!) I was aching to get out of the house and get away from the glue smell. I texted my friend Briana and she drove over to Jerry’s Famous Deli to meet me for a late dinner. When I got home I had to clean my impromptu puppet workshop off my kitchen table. The maids were coming on Friday and I didn’t want them to have to clean around all the puppet-y stuff. I put away all my tools, wire, plastic, leather, etc. in plastic bags and stuffed them in the Chaney Room closet. Then I made some spaghetti and watched another episode of “The Mod Squad.”

Friday the 27th – MAIDS & MICELI’S EN MASSE! – The maids arrived around 1:30 and did their usual stellar job. I grabbed a few more hours of sleep on the couch, and then got up later to feed the pets. I got a text from my pal Joe asking if he and his kids could come by for a tour of Planet Wallywood at 7:30. They were in town for the holidays, so I told them to come on by whenever they could make it. After the tour we went out for pizza at Miceli’s and had a great time. With my tummy full of yummy pizza I came home and napped on the couch for a bit. I got up to do a bunch of writing on another one of my kid’s books. I took Roxy out for a late night stroll through the neighborhood, but it was really cold out! The temp said it was 39 degrees! I moved here in 1987, and I NEVER remember the nights in L.A. being that cold. I don’t ever remember it getting much below 50 degrees back then, but I could be wrong. YIKES! It was a good night to make a sandwich and some tomato soup and watch “Mod Squad” before bed.

Saturday the 28th – HAIR AND HOLLYWOOD! – Late in the afternoon I walked over to my stylist’s studio to get a touch up on my color. When I got home I sat down and recorded the narration of the new kid’s story I had just written. Then I sent it off to my pal Scott Sebring to have some music put behind it. At 8 my friend Edi came over and we drove to the Universal subway station to go into Hollywood for my friend Brian’s birthday dinner. We could have driven through snarled traffic, paid exorbitant amounts of money to park and then fight our way through Saturday night traffic in Hollywood to get back home, but the train was a much easier option. We met at Dave and Buster’s and had some dinner. Brian and a few friends had just enjoyed an ‘escape room’ attraction in downtown Hollywood and were pleased that they had managed to figure it out. Right around 10pm the restaurant kicked into loud hip hop music with a D.J. It was very loud and annoying. It was much too loud given ANY type of music, but the fact that it was hip hop was especially excruciating. I was wondering if we were still in an ‘escape room,’ because I was trying to figure out the fastest way possible to escape from there! We hastily paid our check and literally ran out of Dave and Buster’s. I guess we’re not the type of clientele they’re hoping to attract. A few of us walked down to the train platform and took the subway back to Universal station where my car was parked. I drove home and started working on my “Best of 2019” overview. As I started writing down the bullet points I wanted to expound upon, I realized that it was really a pretty great year! Maybe one of the best ever! I napped on the couch for a bit, and then got up to feed the pets. I did some more writing on the 2019 overview (which I’ll publish on my website after January 1st), made my traditional Saturday Night Super Salad and watched “Space 1999.” Back into the routine again!

Sunday the 29th – BRING ON WEEK 2 OF THE HOLIDAY BREAK! – Shirley phoned me to let me know she didn’t have a ride to church, so Roxy and I hopped in the Mustang and headed over to pick her up. After the service we went to Paty’s again to have dinner on the patio, I took Shirley back to her home and I came back to Planet Wallywood to nap on “The Most Comfortable Couch in the Universe” for a bit. I got up later and dealt with some end-of-the-year bills and accounting things, and then made some designs for a few new items in my kid’s book and toy project. I need to get them to my seamstress soon so she can get working on them. I also put my Oscar the Grouch stuff in a bag to take to Jim Ojala’s soon for assistance. I had some cereal and hit the hay, ready to tackle the second week of the 2019 holiday break.

And how was YOUR Christmas???

PIX FROM THE WEEK