December 09 – December 15 (2024)

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

I’ve always wondered how dogs see color, and this chart may give us an idea of just how exactly their eyes perceive the colors of the world.

Since I’ve never been much of a fan of Billie Eilish, I was surprised when I heard a song of hers on social media that I liked. I found it on Amazon and downloaded it and listened to it all the way through. It was a nice song, but yet it had a ring of familiarity to it. Since it’s the Christmas season, and I’m listening to a lot of Christmas music, it dawned on me. The chord structure she uses for “Birds of a Feather” is the exact same one George Michael used for “Last Christmas.” Derivative music like this isn’t uncommon. You can sing “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan to Mazzy Starr’s “Fade Into You.” There’s also a similar chord structure in Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” to Lynyrd Skynrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” Even though the melody lines are different, the backing chord structures are similar. I guess since there are only 8 notes in an octave, and only 88 keys on a piano, you’re bound to get some similarities here and there.

Monday the 9th – TELLER TRAUMA! – A short while ago the light bulb in my main bathroom started to flicker, which was an indication that it was about ready to give up the ghost. I removed it and to my horror, I discovered it was one of those god awful fluorescent bulbs with the two-prong screw-in base. Luckily the hardware store in my neighborhood had one left, and it had a pretty good amount of lumens. So this one would be a lot brighter than the one I had in there previously. Then I went to the bank to make my last deposits for the year. If you have a corporation, like I do, you have to freeze all activity after a certain date (normally around mid-December) so your accountant can get a realistic overview of how much your corporation made during the year (if any), how much of an employee bonus is due the employee (me), and how much taxes need to be paid in. My accountant told me that December 9th was the last day I could do any transactions with my account (both deposits and debits) and he would begin the tabulations. But when I walked into the bank the lady in the lobby said the teller window would be closing soon. WHAT?! It was only 12:30 in the afternoon. Apparently nobody else showed up for work that day, except one teller – and she needed to go to lunch! And this is a MAJOR bank franchise! How amateur! There were a fair amount of people still in line and they were NOT happy. I explained to lobby-lady that today was the last day I could do any transactions for my corporation and I needed to make these deposits. She escorted me over to the ATM and helped me make the deposits through that. I told her, “You know this robot is going to take your job someday and make you obsolete, right?” She nodded a quiet acknowledgement. But the deposits were made and I was out the door. My buddy Rob Klein stopped by to pick me up so we could have lunch at Bob’s Big Boy. Rob was the Resident Expert in my “Collector’s Call” episode, so we like to meet up once in a while to catch up. We were marveling at the prices that some of the collectible items in the recent Heritage auction fetched! $32 million for the Ruby Slippers was amazing! We agreed that had they not been known as “the stolen pair,” they may not have gotten quite that high of a price. Rob dropped me off back home and I did some work. Later in the afternoon my assistant Emily stopped by, as did my pal Officer Mark. We went out to dinner at Paty’s before we started a little video shoot at my house. But before we headed home, I took them by the Christmas House so they could see the new additions to the show. We got some fun pictures and video, and then were on our way back to Planet Wallywood to start filming. I can’t say much about it exactly, but it was a 1 minute piece for ME-TV’s “Collector’s Call” that they might use for the new season. Stay tuned! I had a rough layout of what I wanted to do, and it only took about 2 or 3 takes to get what we needed. But it included Robo-Elvis, a puppet, and lots of other fun stuff! Emily took off, so Mark and I watched the first episode of the second season of “Ersan Kuneri” on Netflix. This was the foreign comedy that I was busy dubbing at Igloo for six weeks in the summer. I’m the voice of the lead character Ersan, and we dubbed the first season back in 2022. They had most of the original cast return for season 2, and it was a lot of fun. The show is originally produced in Turkey by their top comedic actor Cem Yilmaz, who also stars and writes the show. My buddy Dan Roebuck also has a major role in the show and he’s utterly hilarious. Given the popularity of Cem over in Turkey, I’m sure this show will go on for several more seasons – which would be great! After Officer Mark left I relaxed a bit. Later I took my nightly WOG (walk/jog) and then sat down and composed Wally’s Week.

Tuesday the 10th – CHRISTMAS IS COMING! – Since the holiday break is right around the corner there’s not a heckuva lot going on in the industry. So I took the opportunity to relax all day. I did a few auditions, and later my gal Angi came over so we could hit Little Toni’s for dinner. I finished the day by doing some light work around the house.

Wednesday the 11th – CATCH UP & COMPUTER STUFF! – A few auditions came in during the afternoon so I recorded those and sent them to my agents. It was another relaxing winter day. My computer guy Brian called so he could help me accomplish a few things I wanted to do. Given the snafus I endured during the summer, I’m being more proactive about backing up all my stuff. I have quadruple redundancy on my data drives, and I wanted to do the same with my main drive that has all my programs. Many of the programs I use are older versions, and I used them because I’m comfortable with them, they do what I need, and I don’t see any reason to upgrade. However, some of these “vintage” programs no longer exist. So Brian showed me how to back up my main program drive in case anything happened to that. I did a full “mirror image clone” of the drive so if anything (God forbid!) happens to my main program drive (which will most likely be inevitable), I will have a full back-up that I can “plug and play.” This will save me hours of frustration trying to get the programs reloaded onto my system, finding key numbers, locating the vintage versions of some of the programs that I like, etc. I went out to get a few grocery items and then came back home to put everything away and relax. Later I did my nightly WOG and enjoyed a huge, golden, mostly-full moon setting behind the horizon! STUNNING! I reconciled my bank statement for my corporate account, did some more miscellaneous work, made a salad and watched last week’s “Collector’s Call.”

Thursday the 12th – THE 4 R’S! – The day consisted of lots of resting, relaxation, reflection and reset! It’s pretty much typical stuff for the end of the year, and it felt nice. There were things I needed to do around the house, but I made the executive decision that it could all wait. Later I did my daily auditions, and even did some voice tracks for a special event at the Bob Baker Marionette Theatre! I love that they come to me for voice stuff they need. I guess this means that I’m “the voice” of the Bob Baker Marionette Theatre! Fantastic! Despite the fact that it was darn cold I took my WOG. But the giant full moon was gorgeous! I came back inside to make some soup and some sliders. YUM!

Friday the 13th – SIZZLIN’ STOP-MOTION! – Most of the afternoon was spent working around the house and on the computer. Since it was Friday the 13th I thought it would be appropriate to release our Christoween stop-motion sizzle reel! Evan at Voice Trax West got the final mix done and sent it over to me. It was perfect! I got busy prepping it for posting on Christoween.com and on my social media accounts. Later in the evening I met my pal Joe Garner for dinner at the Smoke House and we discussed the next moves for our Christoween property. I’ve seen more evidence this year than ever before of people being interested in “dark Christmas” events, products and celebrations. I believe the time is right to introduce them to the Christoween franchise, but we need to figure out how to get through the right doors to find the proper partner who can make it happen. We have 13 stories all ready to go – merchandise, legal support, and a great creative team! We just need a champion who can put it into the right places! Joe and I chatted for the better part of our 3 hour dinner, and when I got home I was having a bit of laryngitis. I wasn’t sure if it was acid reflux based (which has happened to me before) or if I was coming down with something communicable. Sometimes my daily OTC antacid pills cease working because my body will get used to them. In that case the reflux begins and I need to find other medication that works. I already do a lot of the things that need to be done to mitigate it, but I guess as one gets older it gets harder and harder to keep it at bay. Other options include vastly changing my diet, but the foods that are recommended aren’t anything I’m remotely interested in. In fact, it all seems rather bland. But I’m doing some more research on it and hopefully will be able to crack the code on this problem. I took my nightly WOG under the bright light of a beautiful full moon!

Saturday the 14th – CHRISTMAS MUSIC – A BUST! – Even though my speaking voice was still relatively unaffected, the areas of my vocal cords that I used for singing are slightly toasted. It always sucks when this happens around Christmas because I love to sing along to Christmas music. I went over to see my stylist Andie to get a touch up on my color. She said she sometimes has voice problems due to acid reflux as well. So I guess it’s a common problem. I’ve always been curious as to why people’s voices seem to get rougher as they age, and this may be one of the reasons. When I was finished I went to the store next door to pick up a few foods to experiment with for a bland diet, to see if that would help. My pal and effects guy Jim Ojala had a 10 year anniversary celebration at his shop tonight. But since I wasn’t convinced that my laryngitis issue wasn’t communicable, I decided to play it safe and stay home. I stayed around the house all night and relaxed. I didn’t even do my usual Saturday night salad and TV viewing. I just relaxed and rested my pipes.

Sunday the 15th – MANI-PEDI FOR SPOOK! – After a day spent relaxing my pal Sara came over later to give my cat Spooky a mani-pedi, since he was starting to stick to things again. She was shocked by how skinny he had become, and became a little saddened by it. It’s true. Spook is 19, and will be 20 in July, so he’s starting to look like a little old man. He used to be so fat and fluffy, but now he’s skin and bones – even though he eats pretty well! It’s just part of the life cycle. I did some fun auditions which were due Monday morning, relaxed, drank lots of fluids and later took my WOG in the frosty evening.

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK

I hadn’t taken my blood pressure lately, so after a WOG I decided to strap on my device and check it. These numbers are still amazing to me. Considering that two years ago I was considered to have “elevated” blood pressure, through exercise, meditation and healthier eating, I was able to bring them back down into the zone.

Here’s a quick still from the video we shot for ME-TV this past week. I can’t wait to tell you more about it!

I had my parents open their Christmas gift early. Since the package I sent them contained framed photos with glass, I didn’t want to take the chance that they would open it on Christmas and find a few ripped photos and lots of glass shards. How disappointing would THAT be?! I’m glad everything was packed well and they received it in good condition. These are two of the family photos we took when I was back in South Dakota in September.

Snowing?! IN BURBANK!? I stopped by the Christmas House (one of my favorite holiday haunts) and they added a snow machine this year!

I love this house, and the new lighting effects are terrific!

I’m very happy with how our Christoween stop-motion sizzle reel turned out. Isaiah Ferguson did a fantastic job animating and directing it! Just remember, you can hear all 13 Christoween Capers in audible form for FREE on Christoween.com!