March 23 – March 29 (2015) – Wally On The Web

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

Artist Selena Flores sent me this cartoon of how she pictures the voice cast of “Invader Zim.” I liked it so much I asked her permission to post it here. Fun stuff!

After playing “The Buddy Holly Story” at my movie night last Saturday night, I couldn’t get Buddy’s immortal songs out of my head. One particular one that I enjoyed was “Well…Alright.” Amazing to think of what would have become of Buddy Holly had he lived. The world, sadly, will never know.

Monday the 23rd – WINDY MONDAY! – When I got up at 1, I rushed Roxy over to Rusty’s Pets for a grooming before our trip to Palm Springs on Tuesday night. She really needed it! I came home to do bank work, reconcile checks in my bank account and just do random bookkeeping work before I left town. When I walked back to get Roxy the mascot of Rusty’s Pets, Rusty the Collie, was once again trying to “get with” Roxy. He’s a young male and apparently he likes the “older chicks.” When he acts like that I quipped to the staff that I was going to call him “Lusty” instead of Rusty. They thought it was hysterically funny, and it’s a name that just might stick. While I was there I saw my old pal Lindsey McKeon from “Saved By the Bell: The New Class.” She also was my neighbor for many years until she got married and moved away. It was good to see her again and it was fun catching up. I walked back home with Roxy and finished up my banking stuff, wrote Wally’s Week, and then headed for dinner with Sara. Boy was it windy! My allergies always hate days like this. I came back home and started the arduous task of packing for Palm Springs. I love going there, but the packing is a bummer. I take everything with me including the kitchen sink. I like the comforts of home while I’m in PS. I also had auditions to do. It was a full night! I started “Magnum, p.i.” Season 7 and unfortunately the season started with a horrible 2 hour movie.

Tuesday the 24th – HEY! WHO MOVED THE MOON?! – I had fully intended to bike to my Marvel session at Studiopolis in Burbank but I had WAY too much to do! I hopped in the Gran Torino and met my friend Brittney at a gas station to get her vehicle gassed up for the trip to Palm Springs. She would be driving over on Thursday to meet up with me for the Palm Springs street fair. I swung by my mail box to pick up a movie poster I bought on eBay. Though I already have a “Live and Let Die” movie poster signed by 3 of the castmembers (Yaphet Kotto, David Hedison & Gloria Hendry) I bought another one. Roger Moore is doing another private autograph signing, but sending my “Live and Let Die” poster to Switzerland where he’s doing the signing is impossible. It’s already been mounted on foam core and cannot be rolled or folded. So I bought another one that folds so I can easily send it to the signing. This weekend Yaphet Kotto will be appearing at Monsterpalooza and I’m going to have him sign the new poster. Then my pal David Elkouby, the producer of the Hollywood Collector Shows, says he can get it to David and Gloria and have them sign it. It would be great to have Jane Seymour sign it too, but she’s hard to get. “Live and Let Die” was the first James Bond movie I saw on the big screen and I was hooked. So it’s a very special movie to me. Having it signed by James Bond, a Bond girl and the Bond villain will be a major jewel in my collection! After the Marvel session I drove to McDonald’s to get some lunch. When I got home I switched back to my Mustang and parked that in the garage. I walked to Enterprise to pick up the SUV I was renting for the trip. With all the stuff I haul, plus with Roxy and all of her stuff, I need an SUV. It definitely won’t all fit in the Mustang! I had my choice of vehicles, but I chose the Dodge Journey, for obvious reasons. I got back home and did a TON of auditions, which took me a few hours (I’m glad I packed the night before!), finished up some packing, and got set to head down the road. As I loaded up the Dodge and gassed her up, I noticed the beautiful half moon hanging in the western sky. I noted to myself that I would be seeing that set behind the mountain outside my hotel room in a few hours. I hit the freeway and it was all going well, so I decided to pass some time by rehearsing my speech for the upcoming “South Dakota Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” festivities in a few weeks. I was surprised how much I had remembered. (I’m going to try and do the entire speech with no notes!) The speech ended and I was very pleased with myself. But I looked at the road ahead of me and noticed that the moon was straight ahead of me. Who moved the moon? After all, I was driving east, and I had just seen the moon in the western sky an hour earlier. WHAT?! Then I noticed a sign that said “LOS ANGELES 68 MILES.” OH NO! I had gotten on the 10 freeway heading in the wrong direction! I took the wrong junction off the 210 freeway because I was so engrossed in my speech! I got off at an off-ramp and turned around to head east again. I took note on my odometer of the mileage so I could see how many miles it was back to the 210 freeway junction. I just wanted to see how far I went out of my way unnecessarily. It ended up being 15 miles. That meant I went 30 miles out of my way total. It cost me about a half hour of travel time. Rats! One thing I noticed during this trip to Palm Springs were all the ch-ch-ch-changes. Firstly, the salad I always order at Denny’s on my way into Palm Springs, is no longer on the menu. They make a Cobb salad now, but it’s not the same. When I got there I noticed it wasn’t my usual salad, but they were happy to make the old style of salad for me. I got my food and Roxy and I headed to the hotel. Another change…the hotel sequesters all guests with dogs to the second floor only. It’s an allergy issue I guess for guests who take rooms after a dog owner has been there. But my usual room is on the 6th floor. It’s a better view of the starry sky, plus I don’t like people walking over the top of my head. Thankfully, since they didn’t tell me this when I made the reservation, they waived the $100 fee for the deep cleaning which will need to occur in my room after we leave. In the future, I’m just going to ask if I can pay the $100 to clean the room after I leave. I want to keep bringing Roxy, but I also want to keep staying in my favorite room on the sixth floor. I would hate to have to change hotels since I love the Hyatt so much. It was a cloudy night so I wasn’t able to do much stargazing. Around 5am I walked Roxy and we hit the hay. I’m looking forward to 3 more nights in Palm Springs. The weather is PERFECT!

Wednesday the 25th – PM? AM? WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? – Roxy had to go out around 11am, so I got up and took her outside. When I got back to my room it was about 11:15. I saw the little menu/door hanger thingie on the door knob, so I figured I’d order breakfast. The door hanger said “BREAKFAST SERVED 7:00am to 11:00pm.” GREAT! They serve breakfast all day! I called Room Service and ordered. But the girl on the other end said that they stopped serving at 11am. I told her their menu clearly said 11pm. She was surprised and agreed to make the breakfast anyway. Nice! All this time their menu was printed erroneously and nobody noticed but me???!! The lovely Tamara brought the breakfast to me and I thanked her profusely. I also gave her the door hanger thingie and she agreed to take it to her manager to show them the mistake. I went back to bed and slept until about 3:30. Then I lounged around for a bit and waited for it to cool off. Right around the time the sun set behind Mount Abe (the mountain that looks like the profile of Abraham Lincoln that’s right outside my hotel room) Roxy and I went to the Palm Springs dog park. What fun! Roxy ran herself ragged! We got back to the room and then walked to Ruby’s to have dinner on the patio. It was an absolutely perfect, clear night! I picked up a cigar at Fame, bought some candy and soda at Rocket Fizz and headed to Lappert’s Ice Cream to get my traditional Dole Whip. But when I got there at 9:32 they had already closed! WHAT? I thought they were open until 10? Who closes at 9:30? I can see 9, or even 10, but 9:30?! Ch-ch-ch-changes! Oh the cruelty! No Dole Whip for me! Roxy and I got back to the room and we both crashed for a few hours. Figuring I had until 1:30am to get a pizza at NYPD Pizza across the street I sauntered over around 1am. But they had stopped making pizzas and were only offering slices! OH NO! Missed it again! Ch-ch-ch-changes! So I headed back to the hotel lobby to weigh my options. It was then a guest came in and complained of chest pains and a tingling left arm. Esther behind the desk called 911 and got paramedics over immediately. He was a young guy too, but said he was sleeping and woke up with the common symptoms of a heart attack! A guy named Will and his girlfriend came into check into the hotel and he and I started chatting. He was a former Marine and he and his girlfriend were in town for some fashion show. What a great guy! He enjoyed petting Roxy for a long time. At that point I had no other option than to go upstairs and reheat my buffalo chicken strips in my microwave oven and get ready to stargaze. It was a clear night so the stars were bright and present. I even got to watch Jupiter set behind Mount Abe. Around dawn I went to bed.

Thursday the 26th – MORE CH-CH-CH-CHANGES! – Late in the afternoon Roxy and I drove to Burger King to get lunch. It was then I found out that my friend Darlene, who performs as Priscilla Presley at the Elvis Honeymoon Hideaway, is no longer working at the house. Ch-ch-ch-changes! If more changes happen in Palm Springs it won’t be fun going there any longer! We came back to the hotel and I put Roxy in the room because it was still a bit too hot outside. I walked down to Lappert’s and got a Dole Whip. The street outside the hotel was shutting down for the night so vendors could set up for the Thursday night street fair, one of my favorite things. Thank GOD they still have that! I went to the Pillow Lady to place an order for 5 pillows. She’s a very nice lady who makes pillows out of various fabrics she finds at the store, and then writes your name on a panel she sews into the pillow’s face. Great idea! All of the pillows I’ve purchased for friends have been very big hits! Since two of the pillows I needed were “Frozen” themed I wanted to get there early before she sold out. Good thing too! I got her working on my order and then came back to the hotel to find Brittney standing in the lobby. Perfect timing! We went outside and had BBQ beef tri tip sandwiches for dinner, and then started in on the street fair. A Native American musician was playing live music with a Native American flute. The music was haunting, spiritual, meditative and beautiful. I immediately bought 6 of his CDs. We found my favorite soap guys and I got another dozen bars of their amazing hand-made soaps. I picked up a t-shirt for Brittney, some beef jerkey for my assistant Sara, a belt for me, and after much searching we finally found my favorite lemonade guy. For a while there, I thought he might have been a victim of the many ch-ch-ch-changes going on in Palm Springs. But I got my giant lemonade just before he closed up for the night. Whew! I grabbed my finished pillows from the pillow lady and we headed to NYPD to place our pizza order. We took it upstairs and dined on delicious pizza while we watched the gorgeous half moon set behind Mount Abe. I also saw Jupiter move across the sky and set behind the mountain as well. I had seen it earlier when it was higher in the sky through a giant telescope that some amateur astronomers had at the street fair. We could see it so well, that we could even detect the shadow one of Jupiter’s moons was casting on the planet. FASCINATING! I’ve just GOT to get me one of those scopes! I spent the rest of the night gazing at stars on the balcony with Roxy by my side.

Friday the 27th – MAJOR BRAIN FART! – The room wasn’t as cool as I would have liked, so around 11am I woke up to contact the hotel’s engineering. He came up to the room and switched something over in the AC system and it started cooling off a little more. While I was up I figured I’d order breakfast again, and then head back to bed. I tried taking Roxy back to the dog park later in the afternoon, but it was still too hot. When we got to the dog park the first thing I noticed was the absence of the usual locals. If the LOCALS know it’s still too hot for doggy fun, then I’m going to take their cue and go back to the hotel. I stashed Roxy in the ever-cooling room and Brittney and I walked to Ruby’s to enjoy some salads. Around 6pm I hopped in the SUV to drive to Indio, about 25 miles from Palm Springs. I would be meeting with my pal Marcus who owns a beautiful 1976 “Starsky-ized” Gran Torino. Brittney wanted to stay back at the hotel with Roxy so I went by myself. It was a very enjoyable ride down the 111 highway. The 111 takes you through all the desert cities; Cathedral City, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, Rancho Mirage, LaQuinta and then Indio. I had the sunset at my back, and I was listening to one of the Native American flute CDs I purchased at the street fair. I was amazed at the quality of the recording. It was quite lush and full! Perfect music for cruising through the desert cities on a gorgeous spring evening! Marcus, his family and I enjoyed dinner at Jackalope Ranch, and then I got to drive his Torino. It was a beautiful piece of machinery, and he had done a lot of great work on it. He’s a perfectionist like me. What a thrill! I said my goodbyes, got in my Dodge Journey, rolled down all the windows, and headed back to the hotel. A stunning night with a warm desert breeze blowing through my car made me a bit high. But sadly it was short-lived. I pulled into the hotel’s valet and I realized with horror that I had forgotten my sack (the black leather satchel I take everywhere with me) in the backseat of Marcus’ Torino…30 miles back!! I tried to call him and didn’t get an answer. I tried texting him and didn’t get an answer. I was panicking because my entire life was in there! Credit cards, ID, everything! I tried calling him again and thankfully he answered. Doubly thankfully he agreed to meet me halfway in Palm Desert to return my sack. That way I wouldn’t have to drive all the way back to Indio. What an idiot I am! I was so elated to drive the Torino I totally lost my head! Figuring it was a nice night, I packed Roxy in the back, rolled down all the windows so she could enjoy the cool, evening breeze, and headed to meet him. When I got back to the hotel I was stressed a bit. When I do stupid stuff like that it really irks me, and sometimes I’m much too hard on myself. But I went to the upper pool deck, kicked back with my cigar and just watched the sky for a while. That really helped me to come down from my self-loathing funk. Brittney and I went to get another NYPD pizza and we watched the stars on the balcony again while we dined. I did some packing in preparation for my Saturday exit, and spent a few hours on the balcony with Roxy watching stars for one final night.

Saturday the 28th – AWWW; NO A&W! – At high noon I packed everything up and got set to head back home. By the time I finished it was around 2. I usually stop at A&W for a burger and a root beer on my way home, but when I took the usual exit to get there I noticed the signage was gone. Ch-ch-ch-changes! It was now a Taco Bell. I like Taco Bell fine, but there are a lot of them around. This was one of the few A&W restaurants I had seen and now it was gone. Sad. I’m about ch-ch-ch-changed out! Making sure not to miss my proper freeway junction again, I paid special attention to the road. Traffic was good until about 40 miles outside of L.A. It started to bottleneck and it was gridlock all the rest of the way home. I got home, put stuff away, went through my mail, and went out to get some groceries for movie night. We watched “The Buddy Holly Story” on Blu Ray. It amazes me how great Gary Busey was in that role, considering he’s so completely different today. I was pretty beat though and decided to hit the hay after it was over. Plus I needed to be up early on Sunday to pick up Sara for Monsterpalooza in Burbank. I certainly did sleep well in my own bed! It was good to be home!

Sunday the 29th – PALM (SPRINGS) SUNDAY! – The alarm went off at 10am and I got cleaned up and headed to Burbank for Monsterpalooza. The website said my old pal Lance Henricksen was going to be there. He and I worked on “Avengers; Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” a few years back. He’s a great guy. Back in 1986 when the movie “Aliens” came out, the radio station I was working at in Sioux Falls, SD hosted a premiere. They gave out movie posters to all of the audience. When the event was over they still had tons of movie posters left. They just carelessly threw them in the dumpster. Hundreds of them! Being a movie poster fan, I grabbed about 25 of them and kept them. I just couldn’t justify keeping any more than that. After all, what the heck was I going to do with 25, let alone a hundred? I’ve had them all these years in my collection; rolled up and stashed in a cardboard tube. Well, I thought they would be a great gift for Lance. He could sell them at his appearances, and sign them for people. But the Monstepalooza website had lied. Lance was only there on Saturday. Nothing was mentioned on the website about him not coming on Sunday. So I hauled the cardboard tube with all those posters in it all the way to the show for no reason. D’OH! I did find my pal Larry Strothe and gave him the pillows I had made up for him and his daughter Kathy by the Pillow Lady in Palm Springs. They come to movie night from time to time and it was about time they had their own, personalized pillows like everyone else. I had a great time chatting with Stephen Lack from “Scanners,” and come to find out he’s a very talented painter who specializes in painting portraits of automobiles. He gave me a book of his work and asked that I send it over to Jay Leno. Yaphet Kotto signed my “Live and Let Die” poster, but with horror I realized that I hadn’t had him sign my James Bond Blu Ray boxed set yet…and I didn’t bring it! I made a note to catch him at another show to have him sign it. It’s already got 30 signatures in it including Bond villains, Bond girls, and two James Bonds; Roger Moore and George Lazenby! Sara and I got to visit with Ron Chaney and the Chaney family for a while, and my old pal Rupert Macnee was there as well. Rupert’s dad is the famous Patrick Macnee from the old “Avengers” TV series. I had met his dad several years ago and asked Rupert to pass along my good wishes to him. Rupert said they live in the desert cities, so the next time I was visiting Palm Springs to come by and say hi. I definitely WILL! And I’ll take my “Avengers” DVDs with me to have signed! I also saw my old pal Dan Roebuck, and it’s always good to see him. We finished our business at the show and Sara and I took off to Wendy’s to get some lunch. I needed to go by the gun range and blow off some .357 rounds, some .38 special rounds, and some 9mm rounds. Why? Because I needed to keep the spent casings for a belt buckle I’m having made by one of the artists I met in Palm Springs at the street fair. I bought the belt from her, and she’s going to encase some spent shell casings in a custom buckle for me. Neat! In order to get the buckle finished by the time I leave for South Dakota in April I had to get the casings Fed Ex’d to her by Tuesday. It was a warm, windy day out. Very pleasant really! I got home and separated the casings into bags based on their caliber, and got them ready for shipping. Roxy and I walked over to church to enjoy Palm Sunday services, but I was getting worn out! A busy week and a busy weekend had started to take its toll on me. I came home and crashed on the couch for several hours. I got up to do auditions, and finish up some work that had become present while I was away on vacation.

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK

KUMQUAT on the mend! Last week I detailed the rescue efforts of our little squirrel friend Kumquat. I’m happy to report that she’s doing VERY well and is skittering around the Squirrel Rescue facility who is caring for her! I want to get up there and see her sometime!

At the Palm Springs dog park there are lots of great new faces to photograph!

During the street fair, Roxy and I met two gorgeous Shelties…a puppy and a 6 year old!

My buddy Marcus’ 1976 Gran Torino. Beautiful!

Roxy and I get set for another night on the balcony watching stars in Palm Springs!

Completely exhausted after a night at the street fair, Roxy plops down in the middle of the Hyatt lobby for a quick snooze on the cool tile.

MONSTERPALOOZA 2015!

An amazing bust of Bryan Cranston in “Breaking Bad.”

My favorite display of the day! A Yul Brynner “Westworld” Gunslinger that was animated. He would start to smoke, and his face would detach from his head to reveal the inner workings of the robot. Amazing!

Splinter from the Ninja Turtles

A totally lifelike and scary Christopher Lee Dracula figure!

My sister Bonnie LOVES this guy and will meet him in late April at an appearance in Las Vegas. Not the real one, but an amazing Normal Reedus from ” Walking Dead” figure!