RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

This Alex Ross painting is amazing! I love mixing genres like this!

As I wrapped up season 5 (the final season) of “The Muppet Show,” an absolutely hilarious sketch called “The Cat Came Back” grabbed my attention. So much so that I’ve been singing it all week. You gotta love Rowlf the Dog!

 

Monday the 24th – RENEWAL! – After a fantastic weekend at Anime Las Vegas I slept late, and then got up to get some things taken care of. I went to get the Gray Ghost gassed up and washed. It really needed to be washed, and hadn’t had a good cleansing in a while. As the guys at the car wash worked away, I put my chair directly in the sunlight and got some good rays. It sure felt good. Then I hit my mailbox to get my packages, and then headed to Paty’s for a salad on the patio. I checked my clock and was shocked to see that the day had FLOWN by! I got back home and did some work, recorded a few auditions, and grabbed a short nap. I really needed the sleep! I was still a bit exhausted from the weekend in Vegas at the convention. Later I recorded some more auditions, and then sat down for the lengthy task of writing out Wally’s Week. There was LOTS to cover!

Tuesday the 25th – DOGGIE DINING! – My pal Edi joined me for lunch on the patio at Paty’s and we were commiserating about missing our dogs. As you know, I had to say goodbye to Roxy in late February, and Edi had to say goodbye to her dog Bunny a few weeks ago. Bunny was a teacup Maltese, and a great dog. Edi mentioned that she hardly ever sees a Maltese around L.A. anymore, but I told her I see them quite often. As if by magic, a lady with a gorgeous Maltese came walking by the patio. We asked if we could see her dog and she was more than happy to let us. It’s one of those “life is rich” kinda things, that seem like they’ve come right out of a movie! It was an amazing happenstance, and as you know, I don’t believe in coincidences. I drove home and put my exercise clothes on and walked over to the grocery store to get some supplies. It felt good to be back out and about again. Then I headed back home and did some work, and recorded some auditions. My pal Sara came over to help out with a few things I needed done. Since the writer’s strike is looming, a lot of the shows she normally works on have shut down for a while, so she has lots of time to do work for me now. After she finished up I grabbed a short nap, and then started tackling the lighting issue in a cabinet in my Puppet Room. A set of old halogen puck lights in one of my display cases had burned out. Since both fixtures were out I knew it wasn’t just a burned out bulb, but the entire fixture array had died. That’s totally fine, as I can now replace them with new, brighter LED light fixtures. The old halogen set was about 20 years old, and I’m surprised they lasted this long, frankly. I had a new LED puck system in my storage, so I dug it out and started affixing them to the shelves in the display case. But once I pulled out a big display case to unplug the old system and plug the new system in, I realized that I needed a power strip with a 90 degree plug, so I could move the display case back against the wall snugly. I’ll hit the hardware store tomorrow and pick one up. I went back downstairs to finish putting away some of the stuff I had packed for my trip to Vegas. I paid some bills, reconciled my bank statements, and headed to bed completely exhausted. Whew!

Wednesday the 26th – CONTORTIONIST! – On my walk today I headed to the post office to mail off some bills, and stopped at the hardware store to get a new power strip with a 90 degree plug to fit behind my display case in the Puppet Room. Then I headed back home to work all night on redoing the lighting on the shelves in the Puppet Room. I had some plastic conduit to hide the cords that worked out quite nicely! It was looking slick! Unlike the last lighting set-up, this new set-up has four puck lights in total; one for each shelf. Now you can see in great detail what’s displayed on each shelf. But the cord for the puck fixtures wasn’t quite long enough to make it to the power strip. So I dug out a small extension cord to make up the difference. The clearing under the display case is very small, so in order to plug the lighting into the extension cord I had to lie on my back, contort my body in a certain way, and plug the lights into the cord blindly; solely by feel. I cleaned up the rest of the Puppet Room and put everything away. Since there’s a Plexiglas display case that sits on TOP of the glass display case, I’ve decided to add another puck light to the ceiling overhead to illuminate that display too. Now that I have a great power strip, I can add more fixtures (providing the cord will reach!). I have several extra puck fixtures, but I don’t have the proper electrical connectors for them. So I got on Amazon, found the proper cords for that type of lighting, and ordered a few extensions and another power cord. When they arrive I can replace the standard extension cord, and use an extension that’s made specifically for that type of lighting. But the lights sure are bright and nice in there! I recorded my nightly auditions, grabbed a short nap, and then got up later to do more work around the house.

Thursday the 27th – THE DYE GUY! – Before I can start work on my new Muppet replica of Super Grover, I need to see about getting the fur I bought dyed slightly darker. Though the Grover of today is bright blue, I prefer the slightly darker Grover of the early 70’s. My pal Drew Massey invited me by the Krofft workshop to meet his pal Jurgen, who’s a dye specialist. The faux fur I have is a synthetic fur, so the water has to be boiling in order for it to take the special dye. But since I need a full yard of fabric dyed, most places don’t have a utility with that kind of capacity. While I was at the shop, I watched Drew create a possum puppet out of thin air. He was showing a few people how to make puppets, and it was fun watching him just improvise a new puppet. Jurgen boiled some water and added some dye to the pot, and put in a few clippings of the faux fur to see if the fabric would take to the dye. It ended up overdyeing very nicely, but Jurgen is going to have a friend of his do it this weekend at the Henson Creature Shop, since they have a large capacity for dyeing fabric. He said his buddy Scott, who will be doing the work, is also from South Dakota. What are the chances?! He said it should be done and ready by the first part of next week. It would be great to get a start on Grover before I head to Palm Springs next week! My friend Angi texted me to tell me she was out of class and was on her way over to go to dinner. I headed back home and met up with her, and then we drove over to Little Toni’s to get a bite. She had the staff sing “Happy Birthday” to me. Even though it was still a week and a half early, I appreciate the sentiment. I got back home and did some work, recorded my auditions, and then grabbed a nap. But my ever-annoying cat Spook woke me up. So I got up, gave him some food and attention, did some work around the house, made a salad and watched an episode of “The Saint” before bed.

Friday the 28th – STEAKS AND LAFFS! – Though spring weather hasn’t settled in completely yet, it was an amazing day. The maids arrived to clean up Planet Wallywood, and when they left I put on my walking shoes and headed out to the store to get some groceries. But I over-bought, and carrying home the heavy bags on foot was quite a workout! I cleaned up and headed to the Smoke House to meet up with my pals Joe and Dr. Patt. We like to meet there about once a month and catch up on stuff. While we were there I saw my pal, make-up legend Kenny Myers and his wife Karen! It was good seeing them again, and we agreed to meet for dinner soon. Kenny and Karen made me up as Tony Clifton for last year’s Monsterpalooza in Pasadena. It was an amazing time that I’ll never forget. After dinner I drove to a local grocery store to pick up some items that wouldn’t have been possible to carry on foot earlier in the day. I got home and put things away, and napped in the Puppet Room for a bit. But that darn Spook started bothering me again. So I got up and tended to his needs, did an audition, worked around the house, and eventually headed back to bed.

Saturday the 29th – PREMATURE AWAKENING! – For some reason my alarm went off at 1pm. I couldn’t figure out why. Then it struck me. I had the alarm set on Friday at 1pm so I would be up in time to meet my maids. I shut the alarm off, got up and started my day. But I think my maids may have turned the alarm back on accidentally while they were cleaning my alarm clock during their work. I shut it off and continued sleeping for another hour. I drove over to get my packages at my mailbox, had a salad on the patio at Paty’s, and then headed to Alex In Wonderland in Burbank to get some help from Alex’s husband Mike with my photo case. The file case that I use to keep my photos in when I travel to conventions is terrific, but the airlines haven’t been treating it very nicely while in transit, recently. A few of the corner pieces on the lid have gotten damaged and have come detached. Mike was able to drill through the metal corner pieces and reattach them to the lid using a bolt, washer and nut. As he worked we chatted and got caught up on all the happenings. Since it was now later in the afternoon I was getting hungry again. I stopped at Del Taco and got some food, and then headed home. My pal Sara came over again to help me with more lighting issues in the Puppet Room. The proper extension cords I ordered for that type of lighting system had arrived in my mail, and I set about installing them all into the system. Once everything got set up it looked GREAT! Nice and bright! The overhead puck light that I installed on the ceiling will be used to illuminate the 3D miniature I’m having made by the Dopl company (see last week’s Wally’s Week). It will eventually live in the Plexiglas case that sits atop my glass display case. Now that I’ve seen how the new LED puck lights look, I want to replace the other old halogen puck lighting in some of the other display cases! That will be a considerable amount of work, but worth it! I took a nap in the Puppet Room, and as is now predictable, my cat Spook bothered me awake. I got up and fed him some food, and put a length of plastic conduit over the exposed cord that feeds the overhead puck light. It looked terrific! Then I went downstairs to work in the garage for a while. Since Mike fixed my photo case so wonderfully, I put all the photos back in and stored it away until the next convention appearance. I even made some new file folders to accommodate some of the new photos I’ve had printed up. I worked around the house the rest of the night until it was time to start prepping for this month’s “Laurel and Hardy Theatre.” I normally do it on the first Saturday of each month, but since the month of April had 5 Saturdays, and I’ll be out of town next weekend in Palm Springs for my birthday, I decided to do it a week early. The movie was “The Big Noise,” and I was shocked to learn that the mischievous little kid in the film was Robert Blake! He would someday grow up to be Baretta in the 70’s TV show. I made my usual Chef Boyardee pizza, had a banana Twinkie, made some popcorn and filled up my Stan Laurel ceramic mug with Diet Pepsi. The movie was pretty good, but not one of their better ones. But still, it’s always a thrill to see Stan and Ollie.

Sunday the 30th – SLEEPY SUNDAY! – In the evening I called my friend Emily and Sara to see if they wanted to go get dinner. Emily was just a few doors down from my place wrapping up a house sitting job, and Sara had just finished up some work. Emily dropped over, and we headed over to Sara’s to pick her up. Since we hadn’t been to Lancers in Burbank in a while, we drove over there to eat. I kept it light with a tuna melt, and it was delicious. But I was still pretty tired, so I headed back home, did a little work and then turned in. I’m SO looking forward to getting away to Palm Springs for my birthday weekend. But the weather doesn’t look like it’s going to be quite warm enough for my liking, and it’ll be weird being there without Roxy, and not being able to have dinner with Shirley. This trip will be quite different from the trips I’ve enjoyed in the past, sadly. But I’m sure it’ll be a good time nonetheless.

And how was YOUR week?!?!