RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK
Monsters love Christmas too!!!
Nothing makes me want to ‘step into the Christmas’ season more than hearing Elton John’s amazing “Step Into Christmas”!
Monday the 25th – RAW GOO! – Jerry’s Famous Deli was the first stop of the day as I was meeting with my old pal Joe Garner; amazing producer and author. We were talking about all sorts of exciting projects coming up. Then I hit the post office to drop off some packages, and then I went home to continue my laborious work on “The Cursed Recorder 12” (see previous Wally’s Weeks for details). I’ve got about 40 files remaining, so I’m not seeing light at the end of the tunnel quite yet. When I got to the point of starvation in the evening I was craving spaghetti. I had seen a plate earlier in the day at Jerry’s and thought it looked pretty good. I dug out my spaghetti and threw it in the boiling water. But when I got my Ragu spaghetti sauce from the refrigerator and opened it up…OH NO! MOLDY! My pasta was already boiling, so I wasn’t sure what to do! Luckily I had some cans of Chef Boyardee spaghetti sauce in the pantry. SAVED! It was darned good, too! My pal Bryan from church came over to record a few Christmas pieces for the church’s website, and after he left I grabbed a short nap. Later I got up to work on recorder 12 again, type out Wally’s Week, and do my nightly auditions. Then I hit the hay.
Tuesday the 26th – CORRUPTION SUCKS! – A pal of mine and I had a lunch meeting scheduled for 2, but he got busy with work and had to cancel. So I made myself busy with recorder 12 again. I called my bank to order some more checks for the new year, and then I called the Smokehouse to increase our Thanksgiving reservation to 23. I heard from a few more people whose previous plans had changed and now wanted to join us. It’s going to be quite a wonderful crew! I called Olympus and discussed the problem with recorder 12, and as expected, the memory of my digital voice recorder is corrupt. That would explain its odd “possessed-by-the-devil” behavior. I had a follow-up appointment with my Ear, Nose and Throat doctor regarding the fungal infection in my left ear, but since everything was working well and I was busy with stuff at the house, I called to postpone the appointment. I kept on working on the files from recorder 12, but it was increasingly aggravating. But since I’m a completionist, I need to have all of these pulled off the recorder and archived in the computer and hard drives. The weather report said a big rain storm was on the way, so I’m anticipating that with great excitement. I love those rainy nights! I did some more work with recorder 12, edited and mastered some more of the Christmas meditation files for our church’s website, and then started winding everything down for the remainder of Thanksgiving week. I started a ‘sleepathon’ by napping in bed for a bit, and then moving to the couch for a short nap so I could open the door and listen to it rain outside. It sure was nice, and I slept like a baby!
Wednesday the 27th – BAD NEWS FOR NEWSPAPERS!? – Shortly after noon I sped off to my box to pick up some packages, and then I went to the post office to mail some things. I came back home to work on recorder 12 (I’m trying to get these all transferred before the holiday season gets into full swing so I can have them out of the way) and ended up working all evening on them. It’s truly tedious, laborious and arduous work. When my eyes started blurring I decided to grab a short nap. When I got up later my pal Ed had texted me a photo of an article that appeared in last week’s LA Times. It was about a big Nickelodeon and Netflix deal that had been struck for content creation. The photo they used in the article was a picture that was taken at last year’s San Diego Comic Con. Four of the Voice Actors from “Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus” (myself included) did a photo shoot before our publicity excursion during a day at last year’s con. Not sure why the Times decided to use a picture of a photographer taking a picture of me at the photo shoot for their article, but I was happy they did. But in the ‘old days,’ when you had your picture in the paper, all kinds of friends would call to let you know you were in the paper. The date on the article was November 14, 2019…a full 13 days ago! I guess nobody’s reading newspapers any more…except my friend Ed. If the newspaper’s readership was what it used to be, somebody would have no doubt called me that very day. But I was happy to be notified about it, and even more ecstatic to have a color picture in the L.A. Times! I worked on recorder 12 some more, and made some good headway. It rained off and on all through the night, so I drove over to Denny’s to get some food to go. I came home and watched another episode of “Police Woman” and ate my food. As it approached early Thanksgiving morning, it rained really hard!
Thursday the 28th – HAPPY THANKSGIVING! – This Thanksgiving was really one for the books! I got up around 2, worked on recorder 12 a little bit, and everything was transferring smoothly! The ol’ memory on recorder 12 was having a good day. I was kind of thinking that the cooler conditions may be better for the player? Not sure if temperature affects those kinds of things or not. I dug out a bunch of little index cards and pens for our annual Thanksgiving tradition. Each year after dinner, I pass out cards and pens to everyone at our table and ask them to write down (anonymously) one random thing they’re thankful for. It doesn’t have to be an important thing, or a vital thing, just one random thing. Then I collect up the cards and read them out loud to the table. Some are funny, some are heartfelt, some are poignant. But it’s always fun, and we’ve been doing it for about 10 years now. My pals Scott and Vickie Sebring dropped over, and then we went to pick up our friend Sara, and we headed to the Smokehouse. By the time we got there most of our gang had already arrived and were seated! There were so many of us they had us at two really long tables! It was magical! The Smokehouse had us in their front room off to the side, in order to accommodate our large group. So we had a clear view of all the other customers who were coming and going through the front door. Wouldn’t you know it, SANTA CLAUS was there too. He came in to say hi just before he left, carrying his Smokehouse leftovers in a plastic bag! Of course Santa loves good food! How do you think he got so girthy?! He stopped in to say hi to everyone and we gave him a huge round of applause! My pal Edi thought I had hired him to appear, but I swear I didn’t! He was just there eating like everyone else! Honestly, it made me feel just like a kid again. As it did everyone else in the room. Magical! We were an international group too! Three of our group was from France, and one guy was from Serbia! Amazing! Then the time came to write down the one random thing we’re thankful for. I passed out cards and pens to our group and everyone started writing. I gathered up the cards and read each one out loud. Now, in addition to the two tables for our group, there was one other large table in the same room with eight other people that we didn’t know. After I read each one aloud our group applauded loudly. And the people at the OTHER table applauded as well! I said, “Do you guys want to play too? I have some extra cards!” They said they would love to, so we took a short time out so I could distribute cards and pens to them. I gave them a little time and then collected their cards too. One of the cards I read said, “I’m thankful that a group of total strangers let us play their game with them.” We all laughed heartily at that! What a magical Thanksgiving! As our three hour Thanksgiving celebration drew to a close, it was raining pretty hard outside. I wanted nothing more than to go home, turn on the fire, turn on some Christmas music on the satellite, and begin my month of “Christmas Nappies” by listening to it pour outside. I started calling it “Christmas Nappies” many years ago when I had my dog Sassie. At that time my couch wasn’t on a riser, and Sassie could get up on the couch with me and nap. I started calling it “Christmas Nappies” when I would entice Sassie to come up with me and relax. She knew the words “Christmas Nappies” and responded to it every time. Even after she passed away, I kept the name. Even though my couch is on a riser now, and Roxy can’t get up that high, it’s still fun to keep the name. I turned on DirecTV and tuned into channel 815; the Sounds of the Season channel. In the past, I’ve had issues with some of the music on these channels. Annoying novelty songs and loud, screamy Christmas songs would wake me out of my dreamy Christmas vibe. But I heard McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime,” (my third favorite Christmas song) and “Step Into Christmas” by Elton John (my second favorite Christmas song). No screamy songs, and no annoying novelty songs. NICE! I got up to feed the kids, walked Roxy, and then I went to bed around 7am on Friday. This was one of the best Thanksgivings ever!
Friday the 29th – SLEEPATHON PART 2! – The maids arrived shortly after 1 to clean up Planet Wallywood, and then my pal Brittney came over to do some work so we could get everything finished up for the rapidly approaching end of the year. I took Spook over to the groomer’s to get a manicure (he was Velcro Cat; sticking to everything he touched!), and I picked up some items for Roxy. I dropped Spook off at home and then headed out to get some groceries. I got home and put them away, my pal Sara came by to do some work that I needed her to do, and then I rejoined my Sleepathon…already in progress…with more Christmas Nappies!
Saturday the 30th – LAUGHED MYSELF SORE! – Since I had slept on the couch all night, I didn’t wake up until 10am. I walked Roxy, gave the kids some snacks, did some work on-line, and then went to bed. I slept all day but got up later for movie night. It was a fun one too! I played a piece I had edited back in 2002 called “Christmas Eclectica.” Back then I was renting a small movie theater about three times a year and doing movie parties for all my friends. Occasionally I would compile an hour and a half’s worth of clips from all my favorite films and TV shows and call it “Electric Eclectica.” But one year I did an all-Christmas piece for my movie party. Show I showed that to my current group of friends, most of whom I didn’t know when I was doing movie parties back then. But before that, I ran a videotape of The Colgate Comedy Hour from 1952 with Abbott and Costello. It was their Christmas show, and when I say it was side-splittingly funny I’m not exaggerating. In fact, I laughed so hard my ribs were literally hurting the next day. It was easily one of the funniest things I had ever seen! But it occurred to me while watching it, how ripe America was for rock and roll. It was 3 years before Elvis hit the scene, and it really looked like entertainment needed something to kick it in the ass. It was nice and everything, but it was so safe and “milquetoast,” for lack of a better term. Nothing really had an edge to it. But there was an acrobat team called Tom and Jerry that was phenomenal, and the Nicholas Brothers never fail to astound me. And Abbott and Costello were national treasures! After everyone left I took some more Christmas Nappies. I got up later and fed the kids, and laid back down on “The Most Comfortable Couch in the Universe” and slept until 8am Sunday morning. I got up and did some work, made my traditional Saturday night Super Salad and watched another episode of “Space 1999.”
Sunday the 1st – CHRISTMAS. IS. ON! – The Sleepathon continued, and I got up around 4pm to get ready for evening church. After the service my ‘adopted grandma’ Shirley and I went over to the Coral Café to have dinner. Then we drove a few blocks away to see if “The Christmas House” was up and running. There’s a house in Burbank that goes all out with lighting effects set to music that you listen to on your car radio. That too has become tradition for our little group. And the Christmas House was indeed up and running, but the audio feed was too loud and it was distorted in places. But since the display just went up last Thursday, I’m sure the designer is still working out some 2019 bugs form the system. I dropped Shirley off at her residence and then went home to enjoy some Christmas Nappies. I got up later to feed the kids, and I spent the rest of the night working on tedious banking and accounting stuff. I went through my bank statements to reconcile my accounts. I did some more bookkeeping, and then organized some bank deposits for the end of the year. I did my auditions and then finally got to bed around 8am on Monday. The Christmas season is off to a very good start!
And how was YOUR Thanksgiving week??!!
PIX FROM THE WEEK
Our 2019 Thanksgiving group!
And sure enough, there are certain subjects you shouldn’t talk about at Thanksgiving, otherwise arguments break out. The one that always get us riled is the old “Tastes great, less filling” debate!
But when Santa arrived, all was right with the world!
As an early Christmas gift, I sent my pal Dr. Doom’s young daughter Little Miss Doom a vintage 1980’s Rowlf puppet. She loves Rowlf, and now she’ll get to learn how to operate him!
