RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK
I was going through some old photo albums and found this shot of me performing Kermit the Frog back in 1980 on the United Cerebral Palsey telethon on KELO-TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Pictured on the left is our Program Director Harley Worthit (who’s holding the microphone below the desk to pick up my voice), Harley’s morning show co-host Warren West, and the guy in the tuxedo is the late, great Dave Dedrick who was hosting the telethon. What great memories!
I love Meaghan Smith’s “Silver Bells,” especially the part where the background singers sing, “Silver bells, silver bells.” I hope you enjoy it too.
Monday the 7th – “INDIAN” SUMMER! – My first task of the day was to take the SUV back that I rented for my Palm Springs trip. It was a gorgeous, warm day so after I dropped it off, I walked back home. I did a few last-minute auditions in my home studio, and then I hopped on my bike and rode to Panera to meet my assistant Sara for lunch. I got a few supplies at the pharmacy, and then I stopped by Kit Kraft to pick up a few art supplies. The black dye I used on the boots on my Mr. Spock figure faded to white for some reason. And the silver Mylar under the Transporter Pad base started to wrinkle, so I bought a new piece to replace it with. I had them roll it up in a tube so I could take it home on my bike more easily. Though it wasn’t that easy to get home with, I managed without breaking anything. I got home and parked the bike, and then got in my Mustang and drove to the Post Office to mail some things. I also picked up some packages at my mailbox. I got back home and wrote Wally’s Week and worked on my Mr. Spock figure. I broke the figure down at the waist and took the legs outside to paint the boots. I rolled up the pant legs and masked them off with a large trash bag. I also masked off the soles of the boots so they would stay the color they are. I gave them a good coat of the glossy black paint I bought that’s specially made for vinyl. While they dried I went back inside to work on replacing the piece of Mylar under the base. It worked out very well and looked terrific. Then I went back outside to put another coat on the Spock boots. I gave them a little while to dry and then took them back inside. I removed all the masking and replaced the legs back on the base. They looked great. I’m not sure why the vinyl spray I initially used turned the boots white, but this paint seemed to do the trick nicely. I’ll keep the figure’s chest portion and leg portion separate for now, because I’m having touch-ups done on Spock’s hair within the next few days. I took some “Christmas Nappies” (a nap on the most comfortable couch in the universe, with the fireplace blazing and Christmas music gently playing on the satellite) on the couch, and then got up for my nightly auditions.
Tuesday the 8th – TERRIFIC TUESDAY! – For some reason I snapped awake at 10am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I noticed that my left arm was tingly and numb. Had I slept wrong on it again? Was it from sleeping on the couch? I called my Chiropractor Dr. C and luckily I was able to get in to see him early in the afternoon. I got showered and headed down the road to attack a very busy day. It was good to see Dr. C again. He adjusted me and we spent a little while catching up. I headed over to Hobby Lobby to get some new photo albums and photo album pages. I have a lot of old photo albums from the 70’s that contain a ton of photos from the years 1977 to 1986. But they’re not aging well. The sticky on the pages is wearing out and sometimes the photos just fall out of the books. Couple that with the fact that the plastic coverings on the pages are getting brittle, and I decided it was time to replace them all. I have about 20 photo albums that need to be replaced. I plan on reorganizing many aspects of my bedroom during the Christmas-to-New-Year’s break, and redoing the photo albums will be included in that process. I stopped by Toys ‘R Us, and then had a quick lunch at Lancers in Burbank. Lancers is a recent discovery of mine. I had always seen it there snuggled between Hobby Lobby and Toys ‘R Us, and thought it looked like one of the quaint, old restaurants I used to visit as a kid in South Dakota. My instincts weren’t wrong! The food is amazing! And the atmosphere is very small town South Dakota! I went over to the Firing Line to try out my new .357 pistol and as expected, it was terrific. I drove by Fast Signs to pick up my latest order, and oddly enough, they screwed it up again. I’m not really sure why they screw up my orders so often, but they’re going to have to redo it so it’s right. It’s strange. I wonder if they screw up other orders this badly. I’ve given them a LOT of business and I would think they would care more about satisfying the customer. I went back home to do some work, and then headed over to the Sons of the Desert meeting. The SOTD is the Laurel and Hardy fan club I joined recently. I grabbed my SOTD fez and headed to the meeting. My old pal Curtis Armstrong was there too! I hadn’t seen him in a while and I had no idea he was a member. Curtis is a great on-camera and voice-over actor who has been in “Revenge of the Nerds,” “Moonlighting,” and hundreds of other shows. I believe most recently he was on “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” After the first two films I decided to head home to get some work done. After doing a few things around the house I grabbed a nap, and then got up to do auditions. I made some spaghetti and watched “The Addams Family” on DVD.
Wednesday the 9th – A “BANG” UP JOB! – When my pal Sergio Lopez first did the hair on my Mr. Spock figure just before Thanksgiving, he told me that the hair would settle a bit and would need a bit of a clean-up on the bangs. Sure enough, as the bangs on the forehead settled they became a little uneven. Since Sergio lives fairly far away I didn’t want him to have to come all the way back to my house just to make a few cuts. So I called my stylist Andie to see if she could bring her shears over to make a few cuts. She works at Floyd’s Barbershop by my house, so I figured it would be easy to stop by my house on her way to work. However, she said she would be too nervous working on a wig. But her sister Lydia is a stylist for film and TV shows, and she was used to working with wigs. So Andie gave me Lydia’s contact info, and I agreed to hire her. It was a good idea too. Lydia brought her shears and clippers over and did a “bang” up job on the bangs. She resprayed them and all is good. My contractor Electric Bob came over while she was working and did some things in my upstairs bathroom to try and patch a leak in my shower. For some reason I’m having water intrusion issues in the back wall of my shower. But hopefully it’s fixed now. When Lydia left I put Spock back together and he looked terrific! I did a last-minute audition and sat down at the computer and wrote up the story of how the Mr. Spock figure was created. I like to post the step-by-step processes of the figures in Planet Wallywood in case others happen to see it on-line and who are inspired to make their own. I’ve gotten many great e-mails from people who have made their own Elvis robots, Phantom of the Opera figures and Tony Clifton costumes. My pal Alex Zsolt was back in town for a few meetings, so we went over to Jerry’s Deli with Sara to grab some dinner. I came home and napped on the couch for a bit, and then got up do to my nightly auditions. I worked on the computer for a bit and then headed off to bed.
Thursday the 10th – NO INTERNET! – Around noon I woke up and checked my e-mail. A few last-minute auditions had come into my inbox, so after I recorded them and sent them to my agents I wrote up my movie night invites. I hopped on my bike and rode over to Voice Trax West for a gig. We finished up around 5pm, so I hopped back on my bike and went to the Post Office to mail some checks. I got back home and was craving a tuna melt. So I texted Sara and had her meet me at DuPar’s for dinner. I started raining a little bit so I hopped in the Jacuzzi and enjoyed the sensation of feeling the cool drops on my head while I was surrounded by hot, bubbly water. Then I grabbed some “Christmas Nappies” on the couch. When I got up from my nap I got on my computer around midnight to start in on my nightly auditions. But I had no internet service! How the heck am I supposed to send my auditions in? I waited around for it to come back on, figuring it was a temporary outage. 1am rolled by…no internet. 1:30am rolled by…still no internet. 2am, 2:30am…still nothing. I tried calling Time Warner, but in the middle of the night they had no one on staff to help me. FINALLY, at 3am sharp, it came back on. I did my auditions and sent them in. I’m not sure why the internet was down for 3 hours, but it would have been nice to have been given some notice. I made a sloppy joe and watched “The Addams Family” on DVD.
Friday the 11th – I HEART MY HEART! – I had an appointment set up with my Doctor to have some allergy prescriptions renewed, but I took the opportunity to tell him about some issues I had been having with my chest and left arm. Since I went to Palm Springs, I’ve been feeling out of sorts. My left arm was numb and tingly, a condition I wrote off to a chiropractic issue, but I was also feeling some discomfort in my chest. It wasn’t pain, exactly. But it just felt like things weren’t flowing properly. I thought maybe my recurring acid reflux was acting up again. I spoke with him about it and he suggested having an EKG. They hooked me up to the machine and everything was completely normal. I figured it wasn’t a blocked artery since I feel so good when I bicycle. He said if it was a heart issue I would feel worse after exercising. He wrote me a prescription for a stress test, as that is the next step in diagnosing my issue. So when I finished with him, I went to the building next door and found the Cardiology unit. I gave them my prescription form and got a stress test scheduled for Monday the 21st. I last had a stress test back in 2007 when I was having heart palpitations. It wasn’t due to any heart-related issue, but was due to my habit of drinking 7 Diet Pepsi’s a day. At the time I was jogging 2 miles every few days, so I was in great shape. It took them a long time to get my heart rate up to where they needed it to be. But since I haven’t jogged in a long time, and I only get to bike ride infrequently, I’m sure it won’t be long until my heart rate gets up to 150 bpm for the test. I really want to find out what’s wrong. I’ve never smoked or drank, I don’t do drugs and I’m at a fairly normal weight for my height. But my eating habits aren’t always that great so that may be an issue. But a week from Monday I’ll know for sure! I went over to Hobby Lobby to buy more photo albums and pages. I grabbed lunch at Burger King (what was I saying about not eating healthy?) and then got my Mustang gassed up. I stopped by my mailbox to get some packages, and then had the craving for popcorn. My dry cleaner always has a constant supply of freshly made popcorn, so even though I didn’t have any dry cleaning to drop off, I just walked in to grab a bag of popcorn. I think that probably happens a lot, as they didn’t seem to mind. I got back home and did some work around the house and fed the pets. My pal Brittney Powell was in the area so she stopped in to say hi. I hadn’t seen her since before Thanksgiving, as she’s been out of town for a few weeks. I grabbed a nap and then got up to rearrange some artwork on my walls. I hung a really cool Ford Mustang key ring plaque down by my garage door. I moved an art piece that features original packs of Funny Face drink mix into my kitchen. I figured out a way to hang it above my Funny Face pitcher and mugs just above my sink. In the empty spot where the Funny Face piece used to live, I put some cool 3-D Iron Man and Captain America pictures up. I found them at Hobby Lobby and they’re really neat! After working all night in the house I was beat, so I hit the hay.
Saturday the 12th – ANT-MAN AND “THE AVENGERS!” – Mid-afternoon I met with a gal named Mara, who had interviewed me a few months ago for her podcast. She was in town on business so we met up for lunch and chit-chat. On the way home I got some groceries, and dropped off a prescription at CVS. I got home and put away the groceries and cleaned up Planet Wallywood for movie night. We watched “Ant-Man,” which just came out on Blu Ray. It’s a terrific super-hero movie and a lot of fun. I saw it in the theatre the day it came out, but that was the day my best friend Terry Crisp passed away, so I wasn’t really concentrating on it that much. It was good to see the movie again, as I picked up a lot I had missed the first time. After movie night I grabbed a quick nap on the couch. When I got up I fed the pets, walked Roxy and made my normal Saturday night salad. I enjoyed watching another episode from the final season of the old British show “The Avengers.” I ended up getting to bed around 10am Sunday morning.
Sunday the 13th – RAIN, BEAUTIFUL RAIN! – With rain on the way, I got up at 4 and prepared for evening church. Rain was expected to start between 5pm and 8pm, so I figured walking Roxy to church would be risky. But as I was getting ready to lock up the house and drive to church, and leave Roxy at home, the look she gave me was very sad and heart wrenching. I don’t know how she knows when it’s church night, but she just seems to know. And she knew exactly where I was heading. She loves going along and seeing everyone. Unable to resist her brown doggie eyes, I put her in the back of the Mustang and drove to church. After church I dropped Roxy at home and then drove to DuPar’s to meet Sara for some rainy-night food. My standard rainy night routine is to get a table at DuPar’s that overlooks the street. Then I order my standard rainy-night meal; grilled cheese and fries, chicken noodle soup, and a side of ham. After dinner I came back home and did some work around the house. I grabbed a nap and then got up to do my auditions. I did a little more work around the house, walked Roxy and napped off and on throughout the night.
And how was YOUR week??!!
