August 3 – August 9 (2015) – Wally On The Web

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

SQUIRREL! And BABY squirrel!!!

After getting a private acoustic concert from Elliot Lurie of Looking Glass last Sunday, I’ve had his song “Sweet Somethin” in my mind for days! Check it out! And enjoy that Wurlitzer organ solo toward the end of the song!

Monday the 3rd – MONDAY, MUSTANG & MIKE’S! – When I got up at 2 I had a bad sinus headache. My allergies have been off the charts this summer it seems. I mustered the energy to type up Wally’s Week, and then bike over to my vitamin store to get some supplements I needed. This should be a fairly slow week so I’m enjoying the down time. It’ll get plenty busy again for the remainder of August. I took a brief nap on the couch, and then I hopped in the Mustang with Roxy, put the top down and drove over to Jersey Mike’s to get a sandwich. What a gorgeous night! I got home to eat and do some work, and then set about doing my nightly auditions and e-mailing them to my agents. Just before I went to bed to finish off my sandwich, I watched the final episode of “Hawaii Five-O” from the season 12 boxed set. I’ve officially seen every episode from all 12 seasons. As I’ve mentioned before, the final season of “5-O” was very tired and unfocused. And the final episode was no exception. It had McGarrett (Jack Lord) dressed up in a silver Halloween wig and a silver goatee posing as a physicist who got kidnapped by his arch-nemesis Wo Fat. He spoke in a raspy voice, but still moved and acted like Jack Lord. It was really REALLY weird! Now it’s time to move on to the final season of “Magnum, p.i.”, but there’s only about 13 episodes in the season so it’ll go by fast!

Tuesday the 4th – WE ARE THE SONS OF THE DESERT! – The first order of the day was to get over to Enterprise car rental to reserve a vehicle for my short trip to Palm Springs this weekend. The weather for that area was taking a bit of a temperature dip (compared to the normal August temps) so I figured I’d wing on over for a quick trip. Plus it was about a year ago when I went to Palm Springs on a “Journey of Spiritual Necessity.” Things weren’t going so well for me last year about this time, so I went to Palm Springs to get a few days of solitude and clarity. Well, a year later things are going swimmingly! So I figured I’d go commemorate the first annual Journey of Spiritual Necessity with a trip of thanksgiving to Palm Springs. A lot can change in a year. I wanted to rent a car for the trip because I didn’t want my Mustang getting damaged in any of those spontaneous sandstorms that kick up around the desert cities. Plus my Mustang is pretty small considering all the stuff I like to take with me. I headed over to Michael’s Crafts and checked in with their framing department. I had left my Filmation Lassie animation cel (which I bought at this year’s San Diego Comic Con) for framing, but he didn’t frame it exactly right. So I’m going to have him redo certain aspects of it and pick it up in a week. I sped off to my mailbox to get my mail, and then I got home to meet with Jim Ojala regarding a new project we’re doing. Back in the 90’s I bought a copy of an original William Shatner mask; the same one that was used as the basis of the famous “Shape” mask in the original “Halloween.” But something had gone wrong in the duplication of these masks, and they got very small. Almost child-size. Either the mold shrunk, or the latex shrunk…something went wrong. Well, during a massive cleaning of The Chaney Room recently, I happened across this “mini Michael Myers mask” stuffed away in the back of a shelf. I got a great idea. Digital scanning, imaging and 3-D printing has come a long way since then, so I figured I’d have this mask scanned, enlarged the proper percentage to accommodate a human head, and then make a mold from it so I could create a new Michael Myers mask based on the old William Shatner mask. This would be about as close to having an original as you can get. So Jim took my “mini Michael” with him to take to a digital scanning place he knew of. Stay tuned! When the meeting ended I headed over to the Mayflower Club in North Hollywood to embark on a dream come true! I attended an actual meeting of The Sons of the Desert; the Laurel and Hardy fan club! I used to read about those meetings all the time when I was 13, hoping to someday make a meeting. Bill Frieberger, one of the producers of “Sonic Boom” asked if I wanted to go along. I jumped at the chance! This was called the Way Out West tent, and they started the meeting with the singing of the “Sons of the Desert” song from the movie! They even locked arms the same way they did in the film! We sang…

We are the Sons of the Desert,

Having the time of our lives.

Marching along, two thousand strong,

Far from our sweethearts and wives, God bless them.

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the boys are marching,

And dancing to this melody.

Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm,

Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm,

Sons of the Desert are we!

What fun! I’m definitely going to join this tent as a member! Heck, I already have the fez! I came home and grabbed a short nap, and then got up to do my auditions. I made some spaghetti and started in on “Magnum, p.i.” season eight, the final season.

Wednesday the 5th – A HOT AUGUST…AFTERNOON?! – By the time I got up and around at 1 the temp had already climbed into the lower 90’s. That’s August in L.A for ya! I did some work on the computer, sent some e-mails and did some desk work. Then I scampered off to run some errands and have lunch with my assistant Sara. We stopped by Toys ‘R’ Us to check on the new toys, but we didn’t find much. I stopped by Hobby Lobby and we picked up a bunch of cool stuff. I stopped by the grocery store to get some supplies and then went home to grab a nap. My pal Brittney Powell came over to tell me all about the new apartment she just acquired. She grabbed some things she had been storing at my house and then headed out. I did my nightly auditions and then caught another episode of “Magnum, p.i.” before bed.

Thursday the 6th – COVERALLS TO DYE FOR! – Most of Spook’s cat fud had run out, so I made a stop at my vet’s office to pick up some more. (I’ve always spelled cat food, “cat fud” in honor of Gary Larson’s hilarious “Far Side” cartoon) Then I visited the hardware store, and headed off to Weinerschnitzel to grab lunch. I went to the Disney studios in Burbank at 3 for a dubbing session. I’m going to provide some voices in an upcoming Disney release, but I can’t mention which one yet. It was a great session and we always have fun doing those. I ended up voicing about 7 characters all total. How many of them will make it into the final cut of the film we don’t yet know. When we finished I went to Voicecasters to do an audition. I stopped by my local market to pick some ripe, red tomatoes for a salad, and then it was off to Michael’s Crafts to get some gray dye. The aforementioned mini Michael Myers mask will be painted and have hair attached when it’s done getting scanned. The mask fits perfectly on a little boy mannequin, so I’m going to add a “Michael Jr.” next to my lifesize Michael figure in The Chaney Room. I even found a pair of little boy coveralls to put on him, but unfortunately the navy blue pair is too dark, and the royal blue pair is too bright. So I overdyed the royal blue pair with some gray dye. Boy was it a mess. I still have the stains in my kitchen sink to show for it! But they ended up looking pretty good after 2 whole bottles of gray dye. I watched the debate on Fox and then did my nightly auditions. I started my packing for Palm Springs and then hit the hay. I was SO ready for a respite in Palm Springs for the weekend!

Friday the 7th – WALLY THE WASP WARRIOR! – Since I was due at Mattel in El Segundo at 1:30 for a session, that meant I had to be up and on the road by 12:30 to make it on time. I did a few promos in the Mattel studio and then headed back out to the freeway. I made it home by 3:30 and met up with my friend Andrea. She’s a huge “Sailor Moon” fans so I wanted her to come along to a dubbing session to see how it was all done. But first I had her take me to Enterprise so I could get my car. I was originally supposed to pick up my car at 5:30, but I called and asked if I could come a few hours earlier. By the time I got out of the “Sailor Moon” session Enterprise would be closed. They said to come on by and they would find me something. Good timing too! As I walked in, a gorgeous black Dodge Charger was being turned back in! PEREFCT! I snagged it and, after a quick car wash and vacuuming, I was on the road! I promised not to break Dodge Law while driving it (for that reference, watch the Dodge spots on my Latest News page). We got back to my house after the session and I hopped in the Torino. I hadn’t had it running in a few weeks and I wanted to get it going so the battery wouldn’t run down. We took the Torino to Paty’s to grab dinner. After dinner I headed home, stashed the Torino, got the Charger all loaded up and ready to hit the road, and took off! What a great car! I got to Palm Springs around 11:30, and it was warm and starry. In fact, the stars looked particularly twinkly that night. But when I checked into my usual room at the Palm Springs Hyatt I noticed with horror something amiss on my private balcony! Up in the left hand corner of the balcony’s ceiling was a wasp nest about the size of a golf ball. And SEVEN wasps were clung to it sleeping soundly! Well, I was going to be on the balcony all night watching stars, and I was a little nervous about sharing it was so many wasps. In addition to our flying friends, there were about 5 spiders around the top of the ceiling with webs spun, waiting for prey. I called down and had Tucker the night security guy come take a look. I told him we just needed something to trap the wasp nest in, like a large cup, and top it with a piece of cardboard. Then we could pour the contents of the cup over the edge of the balcony and wasp nest and wasps would be officially relocated. So he brought up a large, metal ice bucket. He as he started to attempt to trap the wasp next in the bucket, one wasp flew at him and landed on his shoulder! Tucker waved it off and it then flew right into my room! Great! He said he was going to call the pest control company that the hotel usually utilizes for such situations, but I told him I didn’t want them sprayed (because I didn’t want to smell the spray all night as I relaxed on the balcony) and I really didn’t want them killed. Just…relocated humanely. He went downstairs to call the company and then called my room. Good news! They would be here in a half hour! So I continued to unpack and waited. Then he called back a few minutes later to tell me that wouldn’t be making it out until 8am! I told him not to worry because I’d be dead to the world at 8am; sound asleep! I told him I would just remove the next myself. So I took the ice bucket and a paper plate. I cut the curved edges off the plate so it would fit flat over the mouth of the bucket. I would trap the wasp nest in the metal bucket, scoot the bucket along the ceiling to detach the nest, and then slide the cardboard cover in over the mouth. Then I would bring the bucket down and pour the contents over the side. It seemed good in theory. I trapped the next, dragged it across the ceiling, and attempted to put the cardboard in over the mouth of the bucket before removing it for disposal. Unfortunately the cardboard piece wasn’t quite big enough to cover the entire opening of the bucket, and wasps started flying out all over the place! I panicked and lost control of the bucket. It went over the side of the balcony. It clanked on the lip at the bottom of my balcony and then all was silent. I counted to myself…one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four, one thousand five, one thousand six…and then CLANK CLANK CLANK! The metal bucked had fallen six stories to the street below! The good news was; I got rid of the wasps and the nest. The bad news was; I just dropped a metal ice bucket filled with pissed off wasps on somebody’s head down below! It sounded like something that would happen in a Daffy Duck cartoon! I bent over the railing as far as I could, injuring the lower part of my right ribs in the process, but I didn’t see anyone down below. Luckily it was already 2:30 in the morning so the streets were bare. But now my ribs hurt something fierce! A few wasps had managed to fly back up to the balcony wondering what the hell happened to their house. Unwilling to mess with them any longer I took my show and started hitting the wall of the balcony trying to squash them. Eventually my Darth Vader size 11 Van did the trick and the wasps were gone. Now there was the matter of the spiders. I guess the cleaning staff at the Hyatt doesn’t really pay much attention to the balconies when they’re cleaning the rooms, because these webs and the wasp nest didn’t just appear over night! I called Tucker and asked him to bring up a broom to get rid of the cobwebs, spiders and spiderwebs. Which he did. By 3am I was ready to relax on the balcony in a spider and wasp-free zone! I got a good 2 hours in of peaceful star watching time, but it occurred to me. The stars in the sky over Palm Springs aren’t as clear and vivid as they usually are. I think the city of Palm Springs is growing and the light pollution is starting to creep in. Rats!

Saturday the 8th – KAUFMANESQUE SCHEME! – From 5am to 5pm, I had a good looooong sleep! It sure felt good to not have to worry about taking a dog out, or making a meeting or audition. It was great! I was supposed to meet my friend Edi and her fiancé Elliot for dinner at 7 at Las Casuelas; the Mexican restaurant that Elvis used to frequent when he lived in Palm Springs in the late 60’s. Elliot Lurie was the lead singer of the band Looking Glass in the 70’s, and through my friendship with him he met my friend Edi (a huge fan of the song “Brandy”) and the rest is history! They’re going to be married in early December and they just recently purchased a house in Palm Desert. As I waited outside for them to arrive I spent some time listening to a singer who was performing at the outdoor HooDoo Lounge in front of the Hyatt. He was a good singer, and had a modest set up. There wasn’t a band behind him, but he had a complete catalog of background tapes that he would sing to karaoke style. And the audience seemed to be digging him. Then I got a fun idea. In fact, as I stood there on the street corner listening to him sing I started laughing to myself. People passing by must’ve thought I was some sort of demented crazy man; standing there laughing to myself. But I had a very Kaufman-esque kind of idea. After dinner I wanted to talk to the singer privately and tell him who Elliot really was. Then I would slip him a 20 to put on the backing tracks to “Brandy” and have Elliot come up and sing it. However, only he and I would know the truth. The rest of the audience would have no idea. Elliot would simply be introduced as a guest from the Hyatt who wanted to sing a song. Then I would sit back and watch the audience’s faces as their jaws would drop one by one, marveling at how this humble “hotel guest” sounded exactly like the real guy. There’s an inside joke amongst Elliot’s friends that most everyone thought the lead singer of Looking Glass (who sang “Brandy”) was a black guy. Back in the early 70’s there was no internet, so you couldn’t easily access information about the group. Little did anyone know that the singer with the big voice is a slender white guy from New York! So after Elliot was done wowing the audience I was going to have the singer say, “Wow! Thanks! That sounded just like the real guy. But you can’t be him because everyone knows he was black!” When Elliot and Edi arrived for dinner, Elliot agreed to the scheme with a devilish smile! As luck would have it, we got seated at the official “Elvis” table at Las Casuelas! I sat in the spot where Elvis sat when he enjoyed his combo plate back in the late 60’s. We had a fun time chatting over dinner, and I got to meet Elliot’s son Jon who was visiting from New York. It was about 10 by the time we finished dinner, and I ran over to the singer and told him my scheme. I even slipped him a 20. Elliot and Edi wanted to go in the Hyatt’s lobby to visit the bathroom, and unfortunately by the time they came back out the singer had finished his show. He said that they received a noise complaint and had to shut down. His show was supposed to end at 9:30, but the audience was having so much fun he kept going. I guess if the service at Las Casuelas had been a little faster, we would have made it. But we were out of luck. However, I’m keeping the scheme in the back of my head for the future! But the singer shook Elliot’s hand, told him he loved his work, and they promised to make it happen at some future date. I bid Elliot, Edi and Jon goodbye and I headed inside to chat with the Hyatt staff and tell tales of fighting wasps during all hours of the night! I checked my e-mails and then headed upstairs to start star gazing. It was an amazing night for it! I’ve never seen so many shooting stars in all my times of staying there! In fact, I saw DOUBLE shooting stars. One fell from the left to the right, and a split second later one fell from the right to the left. If the second one had been a split second earlier, they would have criss-crossed in the sky! As it was it looked pretty amazing! I stopped counting after seeing the 12th shooting star. Gorgeous! I got to bed around 5:30am as the sun was coming up.

Sunday the 9th – PRIVATE CONCERT! – I phoned Elliot at 6pm when I got up and got directions to their house. He was cooking dinner that night and invited me over. They have a gorgeous rental in Palm Desert where they’re staying until the house they bought is ready. After a meal of pasta and grilled sausage Elliot showed me the guitar he composed “Brandy” on. Fabulous! I told him much like B.B. King had Lucille, he should name that guitar Brandy! He also showed me a vintage guitar he had just picked up recently. He played several songs on it for us. He’s been doing solo shows so he said he needed the rehearsal. He’ll be in Atlanta later this month, and then he’s also doing a gig in Chicago. If you can catch him…DO IT! He played “Sweet Somethin,” “Jimmy Loves Mary-Anne,” and of course “Brandy.” While he sang Brandy Edi was dancing around with her little Maltese named Bunny. When the time came in the song for Elliot to sing “Brandy does her best to understand,” he looked at Bunny and sang, “Bunny does her best to understand!” Hilarious! Palm Desert doesn’t seem to be as developed as Palm Springs. As Elliot puts it, “it’s sleepier.” Which means the skies overhead have WAY more stars than Palm Springs. In fact, I had to pull over on the way back to the hotel because the sky was so amazing. I pulled off the 111 on a street called Cherokee Way. I pulled into a dark driveway of a furniture store, got out of the car, turned it off, and just stared into the sky. It…was…stunning! There were literally thousands of stars. Uncountable! I got back to the hotel, got settled and then went across the street to get an NYPD pizza. But I could tell the weather was warming up. I’d be leaving the next day and just in time, because apparently the short cooling spell was ending. The night I spent on the balcony was almost “too” warm. It bordered on uncomfortable. It seems like I would be leaving just in time! Strangely enough, the song on my iPad the finished up my star watching time was “Interstellar Man” by William Orbit. And in keeping with my amazing luck for the weekend (getting the Charger, getting the Elvis table, etc.) the song seemed to underscore what I was seeing in the sky. There’s a soft passage in the song, and then it comes on full force. Just as it kicked into the up-tempo part, a gorgeous shooting star shot across the sky as if the music and special effects in the sky were synchronized! I couldn’t make this stuff up, folks! Wow! A perfect end to another great trip (except for those pesky wasps!)

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK

GREAT NEWS! As you can see my brother-in-law Roger in South Dakota got the Gran Torino running! (This was the first Torino I bought which was always problematic. The Torino I have now is the second one I bought and it’s awesome!) Great job Roger!