August 21 – August 27 (2023)

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

If you’re a regular reader of Wally’s Week you know how much I love going to Paty’s for their amazing food. But I also see some amazing doggies there. Like this big fella! It looks like he’s praying for some chickie!

Though it only got up to #38 on the Billboard charts in 1977, I’ve always loved the song “Everybody Be Dancin'” from Starbuck. It was their contribution to the burgeoning disco movement of the day. Check out Wally’s Week to see how, once again, God was my D.J. – and how this song figured into the nuttiness that is my life.

Monday the 21st – DOUBLE SESSION DAY! – The day after the “hurriquake” was absolutely lovely. Aside from some area flooding we “weathered the storm” fairly well. With all of the dire predictions we received it made you think we wouldn’t still be in existence “the morning after” but here we are. There were still a few puffy clouds in the sky, but it was mostly sunny and GREEN! Everything looked so lush and well-watered. I walked over to Studiopolis to do a “Bleach” session, and it was a fun one! It’s finally getting to the point where my character Renji has something cool to do. I hope the fans enjoy this episode. After the session I walked back home to check emails and phone messages. I had left a message with a nerve doctor on the westside of L.A. over the weekend, and I was hoping they’d have called back with an appointment time to come in later that afternoon. My session for 6pm was at a studio on the west side (literally two blocks from the doctor’s office) so I figured it would be worth the long drive over there if I could do both the doctor’s appointment, and the session. I have a pinched nerve that sometimes affects the feeling in my left hand and left foot, and since the doctor specializes in nerve stuff, I usually feel better after I receive his treatment. But once I got home I realized I hadn’t heard anything from his office yet. So I contacted my agent and let them know I’d be doing the 6pm session remotely from my house. I did some other work around the house, and got my home studio set-up assembled. Right around 3pm the doctor’s office called about setting up an appointment. Too late. Next time, I guess. I began the process of re-stringing my vintage Stan Laurel marionette. It was difficult, but worth it. In this vintage toy there are little metal washers embedded inside the feet and hands that act as string anchors. Those needed to be removed (which required me to open the seams on the hands and feet) and all of the old string (which had broken in several places) needed to be removed. Instead of black cotton string I decided to use monofilament. I had seen the puppets at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater strung with monofilament and I really liked it. So I figured I’d add that to my toy puppets. I got everything restrung, measured and mounted and it looked fantastic. Now his hands and feet will need to be resewn, but I can have my seamstress Maggie come by and do that this week. I signed my home studio onto the remote link for the 6pm session with Jonathan Klein at the studio on the west side. We did a fun session for supplemental material for the new “Street Fighter” game and it was a boatload of fun! After I signed off and the session ended, I figured I’d record my auditions for the day (since I already had the studio up and rockin’). I put on my walkin’ shoes and headed to the post office to mail some bills, and then I walked over to the store to pick up some supplies. When I got back home and looked at the work I had done on my Stan Laurel puppet, I realized he was STRUNG WRONG! The hands were strung to the foot levers, and vice versa. RATS! So I cut all the strings and started over again. The only thing that was strung correctly was the head, which is strung to a center knob on the controller. But once I got it restrung it ended up looking much nicer than before. I hung the puppet up on a banana hook and worked on him that way. It was MUCH easier! Later I finished up Wally’s Week. Wow! What a day!

Tuesday the 22nd – PUPPET UPDATES! – After only a few hours’ worth of sleep I headed over to Plastic Depot to pick up some specially-cut spacers I needed for the “Wizard of Oz” shelf in my Puppet Room. The shelf is supported on both ends by identical display cases. But because there is an electrical cord coming out of the top of the display cases, I needed to have little ½” spacers cut to add some room between the shelf and the tops of the cases so the cords wouldn’t get squished. I headed over to my box to get my packages, which included some lighting extension cords I’ve been waiting for so I can do lighting upgrades to the Puppet Room. I met my pal Sara for lunch at Paty’s, and afterwards I picked up some ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. I sped off to JoAnn’s fabric store to pick up some cording so we could make little loops to put on my Grover replica so we could hang him up in a flying position as Super Grover. But of course, since it’s JoAnn’s, I didn’t just leave with the few minor things I went there for. Ooooh no. I found some great new material for bowling shirts I want to have made for upcoming conventions. First, I found a great fabric with Wonka bars all over them! Then I found a great new Halloween print that features artwork that’s very similar to the old horror mags I used to see on the grocery store shelf when I was a kid. Very retro looking! And finally, I got the final two yards of a glow-in-the-dark fabric that features green skulls and skeletons against a black background. VERY cool material! In addition to the navy blue cording for Grover, I got some buttons for the new bowling shirts, picked out some great contrast fabric for the new bowling shirts, and I also found some great black hemp string for my vintage marionettes. While the monofilament would work fine, black string would give the vintage marionette toys a more “retro” look, as all the puppets of that day had black string. A friend of mine on Twitter suggested I switch to black string for the look of the puppets, and I agreed it would look better. When I got home I laid out all of the lighting cords I ordered to make sure everything was there that I would need for the lighting upgrades to the Puppet Room. Then (third time’s the charm) I cut all of the monofilament strings on the Stan Laurel marionette and restrung him with the black hemp string. My Twitter pal was right. It looked MUCH better, and way more retro! I did my nightly auditions, and later I decided to start restringing the Oliver Hardy toy marionette with the black string as well. They both looked great! I’ll schedule a time to have Maggie come over later in the week to seal up their hands and feet. While I was at JoAnn’s I also got some nice peach colored thread for their hands. I took a nice WOG (walk/jog) through the complex late at night, and spent some time on the anti-grav chair watching the sky and enjoying a cold iced tea. I got back inside and tried the navy blue cording on Grover’s loops, but it’s way too noticeable. The color and the texture of the cording is too different from the fur, so I dug out the remaining scraps of his fur from the garage. I’m going to have to construct loops out of the same fur so they’re not noticeable when the puppet is off-display and being operated. I thought about making little covers that would snap over the loops to hide them, but that might look too bulky. I’ll have to experiment. I made a delicious salad and watched “Have Gun – Will Travel.” The H&I channel was restarting the series from season 1, episode 1 that morning, and I enjoyed watching the first two episodes. I’m going to try and record every episode to watch it in order, and watch the entire series! I read somewhere that “HGWT” is the smartest western ever produced, and I tend to agree. With writers like Gene Roddenberry, it’s hard not to be evocative!

Wednesday the 23rd – BOWTIES FOR GROVER!? – As I continued pondering the loops for Grover, so he could be hung up in a flying position and displayed as such, I decided to abandon all the previous ideas and create little “bowties” from the remaining fur scraps. They’re little rectangular pieces (only about an inch and a half in length) that are glued together in the middle, but the ends still flare out. They ended up looking like little bowties. If Maggie could stitch each of the ends to the back of his hands, and four other places on his body, it would give me enough space to put a hook in, and still remain relatively unnoticeable. The “bowties” are small enough in size, and the pile of the fur will blend in nicely with the fur on his body. I plan on hanging him from six hooks, which are attached to monofilament, which are then attached to a Plexiglas piece. This would make him resemble a marionette, somewhat. Then the Plexiglas piece would be hung by small rope from the ceiling beams in my living room. I think this is the best way to go. I cut and glued ten “bowties” and I’ll have Maggie pick six from those to attach to Grover. They’ll be sewn to the backs of his hands, the back of his neck, his butt, and the bottoms of his feet. I did my auditions, and then worked around the house the rest of the day. Later I took a nice WOG, and spent some time in the anti-grav chair enjoying the nice night time weather. I had to do a bunch of prep, because Thursday was going to be a VERY big day!

Thursday the 24th – ANDY KAUFMAN DAY IN HOLLYWOOD! – Today was the day Andy Kaufman would be receiving his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Only one star is awarded posthumously every year, and this year was Andy Kaufman’s turn. He was originally supposed to get it back in 2020, but…well, you know. It’s something as a longtime Kaufman fan that I definitely wanted to witness. My old pal Christian Malmin drove over and we hopped in the Gray Ghost and headed to the location. We got great parking in the structure right across the street and headed down to check everything out. The ceremony would start at 11:30, but since we were there about 11 we had plenty of time to check everything out. If you’re not officially invited to a star event, you really can’t see the festivities very well. These are not conducive to the casual observer, as the cordoned off areas for fans are in another zip code! But right in front of the area for invited guests, they have an alternate walkway set up. So if you keep walking back and forth you can get a glimpse of everything going on. We noticed that Andy’s co-star from “Taxi” Marilu Henner was there, looking fabulous. I was also recognized by a few people, oddly enough. A guy named Tommy, who’s one of the Executive Producers of a new Andy Kaufman documentary, reached out to me and we chatted for a while. He had emailed me a while back and it was good to finally meet him in person. Apparently there are not one, but TWO Andy Kaufman documentaries presently being worked on. WOW! I was wearing a vintage Andy shirt I had bought back in 1999 that’s clearly not licensed. It’s got a picture of Andy’s head floating in space with the words “Andy…are you out there?” on it. As I walked along the alternate walkway a woman inside the barrier stopped me and commented on my shirt. I stopped to chat with her for a while, and I also pointed out my “Vandy Kaufmans,” my custom-made Vans I had made. The tops were printed using a scan from the fabric of Andy’s trademark jacket, which I have in my collection. I told her I had several of Andy’s costumes in my collection, and I told her a brief overview of my history with Andy. She said, “Oh! I’m Andy’s little sister, Carol.” I said, “OH! Baby Carol!” She was pretty young when Andy was out doing his act. It was nice to meet her, and especially coincidental. When I saw Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman get his star on the Walk of Fame back in 1988 I met Paul’s sister there too! I guess meeting the recipient’s sisters at Walk of Fame ceremonies is my thing. We also saw Michael Kaufman, Andy’s younger brother, chatting with the people in the guest area. While I was elated to be wearing my new Vandy Kaufmans (the first time I had worn them!) I had made a terrible mistake. I had worn new shoes without socks; a bad mistake. I should have known better. All the walking back and forth in new shoes with no socks was giving me a huge blister on my right heel! DUMB! But this was definitely a good place to debut them. While Chris and I listened to the speeches, we made a few notes about the content of those speeches. We started to think that there might be some friction between Andy’s “blood” family, and his “creative” family. In Michael’s speech he barely even mentioned Bob Zmuda, who was Andy’s writing partner for many years, and took over the Tony Clifton character from him. I found that odd, considering that Bob and Andy had done so much great work together. I also found it strange that they never mentioned Andy’s girlfriend Lynne Margulies, who had been with Andy the final years of his life, and was living with him up to the time of his death. I found that very strange. But I guess there’s a story there I’m not familiar with. As we drove off, Chris and I laughed at the fact that Hollywood was honoring a guy who poked fun at them. Andy’s “I’m From Hollywood” character was a parody of the typical Hollywood star – complete with jewelry, arrogance, and a poolside video shoot. I never considered Andy to be very “Hollywood” at all, and I always believed that he rather hated the whole glamour thing. But here they were, honoring him nonetheless. I guess all was forgiven. We hit Arby’s on the way back to my house for a delicious lunch, and then we got back to Planet Wallywood to download the photos we had taken. A short time later I went to see my chiropractor Dr. Carlette to get an adjustment, and to talk to him about some recurring back and shoulder pain I had been having. When I got back my seamstress Maggie was waiting for me so she could stitch up the feet and hands of the Stan & Ollie marionettes. She also attached all of the little “bowties” to Grover, so he’s ready to hang! I just need to get the suspension device designed and over to Kyle at Plastic Depot to be cut. The little canals that the “bowties” created will be perfect to hang him with. While Maggie worked I posted pics from the Andy star ceremony on my social media. Then I got cleaned up and ready for dinner with friends. At the Smoke House that night I’d be meeting my pals Edi and Elliot Lurie, and my good friend Angi for a fun dinner. It was the first time they got the chance to meet Angi. We all had an amazing time. All through dinner I kept thinking why the girl at the table next to us looked so familiar. Did I work with her at “The Tonight Show?” Was she somebody I knew from a studio? When she finished her meal and got up to leave I said, “How do I know you?” She asked, “Are you Wally?” I said I was. She said she used to work at the Silent Movie Theater back in the day when I was doing all of my private movie parties (back in the years 2000 through about 2006). Of course! Good times! We chatted a great deal about all of those wonderful parties and all the friends we made at that theater. She also said I hadn’t changed at all in the 20 years since the parties. I was so flattered I almost wanted to give her 20 bucks! It was great seeing her again and chatting about the old “movie party” days. Earlier in the evening, Elliot said there’s a rumor that if you sat in front of a trumpet player and ate a lemon, the trumpet player’s lips would pucker up and he wouldn’t be able to play! I’m dying to try that theory out. As the evening wore down, we heard music coming from the bar area of the Smoke House. We heard TRUMPET music! I said to Elliot, “Got a lemon?” Let’s go try this!” But we couldn’t find a lemon since the restaurant side was closing down. We checked out the band for a little bit and found out that their name was something like the Starbuck Rhythm Section. Elliot, being a 70’s rocker, said he knew of the 70’s band Starbuck, but had never heard of this band. We started talking about Starbuck’s 1976 hit “Moonlight Feels Right,” but I told him they had a second song they released called “Everybody Be Dancing.” It charted, but not very high; and it certainly wasn’t the hit “Moonlight” was. But yet it was a great song. And as I’m becoming used to saying, “God is my D.J.!” Sure enough, when the valet brought the Gray Ghost up, the song that was playing on my system was…”EVERYBODY BE DANCING!” Wild! I ran back to Eli and Elliot’s car to tell them about it. WILD! When I got back to the house the blister on my heel was really hurting. What a stupid thing to do. Obviously I wasn’t going to be able to do my WOG for the night, so I stayed up all night writing the text for new entries on my Muppet Replica Resource page on my website. Shelley, my seamstress who makes my bowling shirts, said she couldn’t find my pattern at her place. So I tore my garage apart looking for it on my end. No luck. Shelley doesn’t have a copy of it, and I can’t find my original. It’s gotta be somewhere. I’ll look more tomorrow. Right now, I’m beat!

Friday the 25th – YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER, BUT A LIGHT MUST BE LED! – Since I was up so late doing my writing project I ended up sleeping most of the day. I got up later to check emails and phone calls, and finished writing my Muppet Replica Resource material. I went back down to the garage to look for the bowling shirt pattern, but no luck. I was supposed to take the fabric over to Shelley to get her started on the shirts, but without a pattern it was pointless. The last time I had her make shirts was for Monsterpalooza back in 2022. So I either misplaced the pattern so badly I can’t find it, or I never got it back from Shelley over a year ago. It was fun chatting with my old pal Sam Frieberger for a while, and we’re going to get together soon for lunch. I got busy doing lighting upgrades to the Puppet Room now that I had the extension cables I needed for the LED lights. I had taken out all of the old halogen lighting and was replacing it with all LED lighting. I had to tear apart most of the displays on my west wall to install the new cables, but while I had everything torn apart I also took the opportunity to clean some of the displays. I installed a new puck light in the Kermit case, the Animal case, and in the drum head of the Animal toy I have. I cleaned all of my “Wizard of Oz” busts and replaced the shelf using the new spacers I had just picked up a few days ago. When I was done crawling around on the floor, snaking cords behind shelves and cases, it was time to turn my attention to the north wall, and the top of the armoire. I measured and mounted the freshly restored Laurel and Hardy toy marionettes on top of the cabinet. I installed hooks in the ceiling and mounted them with monofilament. It was a touchy job, but they ended up looking great! Once again, I took the opportunity and cleaned everything up there very well. When I finished I was exhausted and hungry. I drove to Denny’s to get my usual order and came home to eat, relax and watch an episode of “The Incredible Hulk” and “Have Gun – Will Travel.” Unfortunately my DVR didn’t record the other episodes of “HGWT” that I told it to, so I’m just going to buy the whole series on DVD and be done with it. I like owning shows on physical media anyway.

Saturday the 26th – BACK TO BOB’S! – After the rave review I had been espousing about the “Hooray L.A.” show at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater several friends wanted to go check it out. Edi, Elliot, Scott and Vickie, and my pal Sara all wanted to see it. I got us all tickets to see the 4:30 show. But first, we went to Galco’s Old World Grocery to get some sandwiches and sodas. We enjoyed hanging out in the parking lot eating our lunch on our tailgates. Gorgeous day! Then we got our seats for the show at the theater and had a lot of fun! It’s a very charming show! Then I dropped Sara back at her house and I drove to get some groceries. My friend Amanda came over later to get dinner at Little Toni’s. Later I enjoyed a nice cigar while relaxing in the anti-grav chair. It was gorgeous out, and I’m making the most of these wonderful summer nights while they’re here. I came inside and made my traditional Saturday Night Super Saint Salad and watched an episode of “The Saint” before bed.

Sunday the 27th – “THE SUNDAY SLEEPIES!” – Given how packed the week had been, I took the opportunity to be completely comatose all day. Later I took a WOG (walk/jog) and spent some time in the anti-grav chair. It was nice out, but very noisy. I could hear a lot of loud traffic from a nearby freeway, along with the occasional sirens and a very loud cricket. So I came back inside to “adult” for a while, and pay bills and reconcile my receipts for the week. I also fulfilled an order for a signed photo that I needed to ship out on Monday. Whew!

And how was YOUR week?!

PIX FROM THE WEEK