RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK
I ran across a video the other day of what quite possibly could be the cutest puppy video I’ve ever seen. I took a screenshot from it; which is posted here. But the full video can be found at https://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/sleepy-puppy-sees-human-baby-sleeping-and-does-the-sweetest-thing/ WARNING! The “awwwwww” factor of this video is off the charts!
I was doing some work with my pal Brittney last Saturday and this song came on my iPod. She thought it was remarkable. When I told her it was William Orbit she recognized him through his work with Madonna. This is a song called “Optical Illusion,” and I especially like the passages where the electronic instrument he’s playing climbs the scale, and then descends. Amazing!
Monday the 13th – INITIATE PROJECT X! – No sooner did I get back from the San Diego Comic Con 2015 late Sunday night, than I had to be up early Monday morning at 8 for a new on-going project. I can’t say anything about this new project, but it’s another project similar to the US Airways job that required thousands of hours of recording time. So this will be going on for a few years, and I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to talk about it. My agents are working on that now. But I’ll refer to it as “Project X.” I worked three hours at Bang Zoom studios in Burbank on this project, and then headed home to walk Roxy. When I finished up I headed to Van Nuys to Pure Imagination studios to record some voice tracks for an interactive ride at a theme park in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. I’m the voice of a mouse and his father. It was fun! I drove home and picked up the SUV I rented to take to Comic Con and took it back to the rental agency. I walked back home and worked on-line for a bit, and then grabbed a nap. I got up for some auditions. It was good to be back home!
Tuesday the 14th – ANOTHER LONG DAY! – First thing in the morning I handled some e-mails, and then headed off to Lime Studios in Santa Monica for a noon session for Toyota. It was great fun! I played the voice of a news chopper pilot. There were lots of opportunities for ad-libs and other fun stuff. I stopped at Campo’s Tacos (my favorite Mexican restaurant in West L.A.) and grabbed some lunch. I ate it in my car while listening to the radio and talking to my folks on the phone. I got home by 2, grabbed my video camera, and headed to my church to meet up with my pal Jeremy. He agreed to film a short segment for my upcoming web series “Wacky Wally’s Vintage Toys.” After about 3 takes we got it and I headed back home to grab my bicycle. I biked over to Voice Trax West to do 3 hours for US Airways. It was a long, tough session. I had a nice ride back home. I wrote Wally’s Week and then I took a dip in the Jacuzzi. I grabbed a nap, and then got up to do a TON of auditions. Then I made some dinner and watched an episode of “Hawaii Five-O” from the 12th and final season. It was an awful episode (half of the episodes I’ve seen in the 12th season have been horrible) called “Use a Gun Go To Hell.” It followed the lineage of a handgun used in a murder, which ended up in the hand of a burglar, which then ended up in the hands of a kid, and then ended up in the hands of the original owner…who was the original murderer. It reminded me a lot of an episode they did early on in the series. It was virtually the same idea just rehashed. I think Jack Lord may be been a bit of an anti-gun type of guy. The episode was overbearing, preachy and worst of all…loose with the facts. It was clear that none of the actors on the show had actually been schooled on the usage of a hand gun, because they were all using them incorrectly. The show in the 12th season seems very tired, and Jack Lord doesn’t do much anymore. He mostly sits in the office and takes calls from his agents in the field. Maybe Jack was getting too old at this point for all the physical stuff he used to do. The episode made me mad for a lot of reasons, but it DID end up moving me. How, you ask? It made me go on the hunt for a vintage HK 9mm handgun like the one used in the episode. It WAS really cool looking and I think I’m going to put out the feelers to see if I can locate one for my collection. Other than that, the episode was a total waste of time. As the day ended I was noticing that a certain segment of my voice was giving me trouble. All these days in a row of sessions, Comic Con, and then more sessions was starting to fatigue my vocal cords.
Wednesday the 15th – VOICE OF UNREASON! – When I got up at noon my voice was still scratchy. Considering that I had been going strong since last Thursday with no significant vocal rest, I was starting to worry. I don’t have a break scheduled until Saturday! My upper register was still scratchy, but my lower register was OK. I did some tracks for Go 96.3 in Minneapolis, and then I headed for Fast Signs to pick up the last of the signage I needed for Planet Wallywood. I went Dino’s Pizza to grab a sandwich for lunch, and then went back to Bang Zoom to do 3 more hours on Project X. Luckily for this project, I use my lower register so the voice was holding up well. But I could tell it just was pooped and needed rest. When the session ended I picked up my dry cleaning. My Tony Clifton shirt and my Superman shirt that I wore at Comic Con both have delicate embroidered appliques on them, so I wanted to have them professionally cleaned. I grabbed the mail at my mailbox. My pal Rachel (who came to Comic Con dressed as the Arkham Riddler) sent me a gift. When we took a photo together at my Saturday panel at Comic Con, I noticed the lanyard which held her badge. It was black with green question marks all over it. I thought it was really cool, but I never found one on the convention floor. Well, she sent me one in the mail. How cool is that?! Thanks Rachel!! I got home and looked through my auditions and walked Roxy. I was fairly limited in what I could do because of my weakened voice, but I muddled through. I grabbed a nap and then got up to finish off my auditions. I have an early call time Thursday morning for “Project X” but I’m looking VERY forward to relaxing all weekend!
Thursday the 16th – STRANGE DAY! – The alarm went off at 9 and right away I could tell my voice wasn’t happy. I went to Bang Zoom to start a three hour session for “Project X,” but 45 minutes into the session it was clear that I wasn’t sounding myself. The vocal troubles were unrelenting; no matter how much tea or water I drank. So Kevin the director called off the session. He fully understands how things work, and how delicate the human voice can be, so he told me to get well and he’d see me next week. I told him I’d go see my doctor, but all he’d do is scope my throat and tell me to get vocal rest. So I figured I’d save the money and just go get my car washed and not say a word for a few days. But I was bound to end up at the doctor’s office one way or the other. While my car was being washed I walked across the street to Dino’s Pizza to get a few slices of pizza. I enjoyed my lunch and headed back to the car wash to get my car. As I sat there watching the car wash guy finish up, I started to feel weird. The area underneath my left ear, all the way down to the center of my neck started feeling swollen. It was like there was something wrong with my Eustachian tube. To make matters worse, my left tonsil started swelling up too. I bought an ice cream bar and sat there with it on my neck to try and take the swelling down. I vowed to drive straight home and sleep. But by the time I got home it had gotten worse. Since it was lunch time, neither my Ear Nose & Throat doctor nor my regular doctor were answering their phones. But I left a message asking for an appointment that afternoon. With the swelling going on in my left tonsil my voice started sounding weird too and I could barely make it through the call. I napped on the couch with an ice pack on my neck, and my Ear Nose and Throat doctor called back. They could see me at 3:15 that afternoon! Great! I got in my car and headed over. But I was really tired because I took a Benadryl pill, thinking that perhaps this whole situation was an allergic reaction to something I had in the pizza. But that was ridiculous. I had eaten Dino’s Pizza before and nothing happened. I grabbed two banana popsicles and ate them on the way over thinking that the cold would do my throat some good. I got to my ENT’s office and realized that I hadn’t seen him in about a year; when I went in for pneumonia last August. He looked at me and knew what it was right away. It wasn’t an allergic reaction. Nor did my vocal stress cause this. It was nothing more than a blocked salivary gland! He said it’s very common in the summer time, as people don’t hydrate like they should. He said the pizza I had at lunch stimulated my salivary glands but on the left side there was some sort of blockage. He didn’t prescribe me anything, but told me to suck on lemon candy (to stimulate the glands), put heat on it to get things flowing again, and drink lots of fluids. He said the popsicle was a stroke of genius as the cold would take the swelling down initially. But it needed heat now to keep things flowing in the salivary system. He said because of all the travel and the hectic schedule I probably wasn’t hydrating enough, which is strange because I drink tons of liquids all the time. Especially at Voice Over sessions. It sure was weird. I had never had one of those before. I went to the post office to mail off some stuff, and then I went to the market to get some lemons and lemon candy. When I got back home all I wanted to do was sleep because of that stupid Benadryl. My arm was also hurting from where they gave me the steroid shot. I napped on and off, and I felt my neck and throat begin to improve somewhat. But it still felt odd. When I got up later to do auditions I felt pretty good. I was drinking water like crazy. On the good side of the day, one of my animation agents e-mailed me and told me that a Voice Over job I had been lobbying hard for had been sent my way. They cast me! I’ll give you more info on it later when I can talk about, but it really made my day. Heck, it made my week!!
Friday the 17th – DAY 1 OF 3! – Three days of vocal rest and relaxation sounded really good. After all, being on the go solidly since last Thursday had fatigued my pipes significantly. It was a hot day out, and my maids arrived at 1. While they worked I paid bills. When they left I hopped on my bike and drove to the post office to mail them. On the way home I stopped at Subway and got a sandwich to go. Once I got home I reconciled bank statements and worked around the house some more. I napped on the couch for a bit until my friend Andrea came over to do some work. I fed and walked Roxy and then made a Chef Boy Ar Dee pizza in a box. I watched another episode of “Hawaii Five-O” and got to sleep around 8am Saturday morning. But as I settled down to sleep, I heard a loud banging sound outside. I opened the curtains to see what the noise was and it was thundering! It NEVER thunders here! I opened up the curtains and went to sleep listening to some lovely thunder!
Saturday the 18th – THUNDER WONDER! – It felt wonderful to sleep late in the day. When I got up mid-afternoon it was raining and still thundering out. I love it! I hung out around the house and my pal Brittney Powell came by to do some work. After she left I hit the Jacuzzi to enjoy the hot, bubbly water while the cool drops fell on my head. I got back inside and my pal Secunda Wood was there ready to set up for movie night. It was a fun movie night, and when it was over, and everyone took off, I did some work around the house. I recorded about 12 auditions and sent them to my agents. I normally do them on Sunday night for Monday morning delivery, but I was bored and figured I’d just get them out of the way. Later I made a huge salad and watched another episode of “The Persuaders” on DVD; a show I’m really enjoying! It’s too bad there are only 24 episodes in the set.
Sunday the 19th – TROPICAL TEMPS! – My neighbors were gone to Disneyland to celebrate their daughter’s birthday, so I agreed to walk their dog Abby at 4:30. Abby’s a gorgeous greyhound and we get along very well. When I got her walked and fed I went back home to get ready for evening church. It started to sprinkle about the time Roxy and I started our walk to church, and for a second I considered taking her back in the house. But she enjoys going so much I just couldn’t do it. Once we started walking the sprinkling stopped so we were in good shape! On the walk back home from evening church it was magical. The weather was very tropical; warm, moist and humid. I remembered the weather being like that when I visited Guatemala in the late 90’s. I imagine that it’s kind of like what the weather in Hawaii would be. (I’ve GOT to get there someday!) But it was so pleasant and magical I almost considered walking around some more. I got home and did some work, and then drove to DuPar’s to meet my assistant Sara for dinner. I had my usual rainy day meal…grilled cheese sandwich, fries, chicken noodle soup and a side of ham. YUM! I got home and napped on the couch, and when I got up I didn’t really have much to do. I had already recorded my Voice Over auditions on Saturday night, so I just relaxed and watched another “Hawaii Five-O” episode, and buckled down for another intense week.
And how was YOUR week??!!
