October 22 – October 28 (2018)

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

This past week they announced the upcoming 2019 dates for Jeff Lynne’s ELO. At this point I’m planning on catching the show in Minneapolis next July with my old pals Scott and Bob. Should be a fantastic time, and my THIRD ELO concert!

I recently happened across some old cassette tapes during my garage clean-out, and I decided to dust off the old cassette player and listen to some of them. I discovered some forgotten gems, like this one from Michael Franks. When I used to work at 94.7 The Wave as a DJ I made mix tapes of some of my favorite songs from the Wave’s immense playlist. This is called “Woman In the Waves,” and it has a very captivating sound and a wonderful hook!

Monday the 22nd – STEMS AND STRANGE SENTENCES! – Right at noon I was up and ready to meet my plumber. He had been here the week before to unclog the main sink in my bathroom vanity area. He had tried to fix the leaky faucet, but he didn’t have the parts for the fixtures I have. He found them over the weekend and brought them over. The “stems” inside the fixture handles had gotten old and needed replacing. He started to do some other work, but it ended up being a little more time-consuming than he thought. I was running short of time because I had to be at Bang Zoom for a session at 4, and I had a few errands to run before that. So he took off and we agreed to do the work another day. I had to mail a package at the post office, but as usual, the line was out the door. I have started saying, “Anyone who doesn’t believe dinosaurs still exist hasn’t been to the post office.” I tried to use their much heralded self-service machine, but it was too time consuming as well. In addition, the machine was telling me that the address I was sending the box to didn’t exist. Funny. Considering that I had already sent numerous packages to that address before and they were delivered just fine. Good grief. The machine isn’t very user-friendly. You have to weigh the package, then measure it with a little measuring device, punch a bunch of answers in on a little screen, and I simply didn’t have time. So I went next door to the UPS store and paid a little extra to have them send it for me via UPS. Time is money, after all. So more lost business for the antiquated U.S. Postal Service. The 3 hour session I did was a tough one. It’s for the digital assistant I’ve been working on for the past three years, and we’re going into year four. The sentences they had me read were oddly constructed and tough to say. When we wrapped at 7 I headed home to feed the pets, did some work, answered e-mails, and then grabbed a short nap. I got up later to type out Wally’s Week and work around the house.

Tuesday the 23rd – MYSTERY MUSTANG! – My dog Roxy was a very dirty dog, so I took her over to the groomer’s to get her bathed. I hit the bank to make a few deposits, and then stopped over to see my pals at the Burbank Auto Doctor. My Mustang had an issue with the driver’s side inner door trim. The molded plastic piece holds the switches for the power windows and locks firmly in place. But the electronics are held in place by 8 little plastic pins. But over time they get brittle and snap off, causing the switches to sink into the plastic piece. Normally I’m getting my Gran Torino serviced over there, so when I pulled up in the Mustang they mechanics went crazy. Particularly Greg, who has 2 Mustangs. I showed him the problem and he said I wouldn’t even need to order a new part, as he could just epoxy the frame around the switches to the underside of the plastic piece and it would be good as new. He said that happens all the time with those little pins. But he was obsessing over my Mustang. Though it looks like a standard 2003 Mustang convertible, he said it has a GT V-8 engine and GT lateral suspension. I had no idea! He was perplexed, as he had never seen a model like mine before! When I researched it later I found out that Ford made only 1300 copies of my car for Ford’s 100th anniversary back in 2003. They were all painted black, the same original color used when Ford first started producing vehicles. Though the body style was a standard Mustang, they included all sorts of perks; like a GT engine and suspension package! WOW! They also made limited edition models of some of their other cars; the Explorer, Focus, Super Duty and Taurus. They’re called Centennial Editions. All these years I had no idea that my car was quite so unique! I knew I always loved the car, but now I love it even more! I stopped by a used clothing store to buy a black t-shirt to make a Michael Myers bust for my pal Scott Maguire in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Then I decided to go get my Mustang a much-needed bath as well. I picked Roxy up from the groomer’s, and met with a neighbor girl named Emily, who is going to start doing some assistant work for me. I did some work around the house, napped, got up later to do my nightly auditions, and then worked around the house. I spent a few hours working on my buddy Scott’s Michael Myers bust, which will display one of his many collectible Michael Myers masks for Halloween.

Wednesday the 24th – ALL GOOD IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD! – The day started with a fun lunch at Jerry’s Famous Deli with my pal Joe Garner and Bridget Marquardt. We discussed several exciting new projects, and I hope to be working more with these two very soon! I stopped by the Post Office (what am I, a glutton for punishment?!) to mail off Scott’s Michael Myers bust, as well as some stuff I sold on eBay. Every time I get to leave the house with boxes of stuff I’ve sold on eBay I’m smiling ear from ear. It means that, slowly but surely, I’m creating more space in my house by moving out some of the stuff I have absolutely no use for! Late afternoon I stopped by my stylist Andie’s to get a touch up on my color, and then my pal Brittney Powell came over to do some work. Early evening I went to a Neighborhood Watch meeting at our complex and heard a local police officer speak on things we could do as a community to strengthen our security. I came back home, grabbed a short nap, and got up later to do my auditions. I made some lasagna and watched a few more episodes of “Taxi” from the third season DVD set. By the time I was getting ready for bed around 8am, I got an e-mail from an old radio pal named Trent who asked me to do a quick vocal on a track he was producing for a client. It was a parody of AC/DC’s “TNT.” I put on my best Bon Scott voice and sent him some options. Then I hit the hay.

Thursday the 25th – EBAY BONANZA! – When I woke up in the afternoon I had fully intended to get some exercise by walking to my neighborhood CVS and getting a few supplies. But when I got on my e-mail I found out I had sold a few more things on eBay. So I needed to get them packaged up, print the labels, and load up the car to take them to the Post Office to drop them off. I stopped by my mailbox to pick up some packages, and then drove over to my pal Jim Ojala’s studio to pick up a mask I had there for him to paint. I rushed home to feed the pets and meet with my friend Emily to get her the keys to my house. While I was at the L.A. Comic Con this Saturday, I’d need her to come in and feed the pets. I took a short nap, and then got up later to do my nightly auditions. I drove to the local grocery store to get some supplies before they closed at 1am, stopped by Denny’s to get some food to go, and then came home to do some work, watch “Taxi” and enjoy my dinner.

Friday the 26th – COMPUTER CRAZINESS! – The entire day I relaxed and prepped for the L.A. Comic Con on Saturday. Later that evening my computer guy Brian called in from Denver to check in on the new components he added to my computer system the previous weekend. All was working well, and via remote, he started copying over all of my data from the old drive to the new, beefier drives. I organized a few things for the convention the next day and hit the hay.

Saturday the 27th – L.A. COMIC CON! – Right at noon my pals Chris Malmin and Joe Garner met at my house so we could Uber over to the Los Angeles Convention Center for the L.A. Comic Con! I’d be doing a panel I did at the San Diego Comic Con this past summer called “I Was Cosplay Before Cosplay Was Cool.” With tons of photos I tell tales about the “cave” days of cosplay, before the art form enjoyed common acceptance, and before the majority of comic cons even existed. It’s always fun doing this panel and telling stories. Some of the younger cosplayers had no idea that researching and dressing up in costumes of your favorite characters used to be so tough! They’re used to finding a wealth of resource materials at their fingertips on the internet. But back in the 70’s and 80’s it wasn’t that easy! When we were all wrapped up we Ubered back to my house, and I had about an hour to clean up before movie night. For Halloween we watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” “The Paul Lynde Halloween Special” (always a guilty pleasure!) and the original “Village of the Damned!” None of my guests had seen it before! After everyone left I napped on the couch for a few hours. I got up to feed and walk Roxy around 3, and then plopped right back down on the couch and slept until about 10 Sunday morning! That con really wore me out!

Sunday the 28th – 25 YEARS! – Being up at 10am on a Sunday was WAY outside my normal routine, but since I was up I decided to do some work around the house. After all, I had just slept for about 9 hours! I also recalled that my church was having a party for one of our pastors who was celebrating her 25th anniversary of working at the church. The party was starting at 11:30, so I decided to get cleaned up and head over with Roxy. Everyone was surprised to see me there, knowing that I’m not much of a morning person. It was a great celebration! I came home and got on the computer to do some work, but had a very hard time finding the things I needed. I didn’t recognize the main folder I use to store stuff. Apparently, when the computer copied everything over last Friday night, it copied over a combination of new material and old material from two years ago. We’re not sure why it did that exactly, but we’re going to have to sort it all out, because now I’m not able to find several things I need. Luckily, Brian said that nothing has been deleted, but I’ll just have to use the search engine to find specific things until he can download an app that will go through and only keep the most recently updated versions of stuff. Nothing’s ever easy, it seems. I grabbed a short nap on the couch, and then got up for evening church. After the service my “adopted grandma” Shirley and I went to Jerry’s Famous Deli for dinner, and then I took her home. I came back home and did some work, edited some home movies, did an audition, made my traditional Saturday Night Super Salad (one night late, because I was enjoying sleeping on my couch too much the night before) and watched the final episode of “SNL” from the second season DVD set.

And how was YOUR week??!

PIX FROM THE WEEK

It’s always great to see two of my favorite cosplayers at conventions. I was first introduced to them several years ago when they did a terrific Tiger & Bunny cosplay!

Uh oh…this doesn’t look good. Who needs knives when you have the ability to snap your fingers and rid yourself of all those pesky Haddonfield teenagers in one fell swoop!