RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK
I came across this photo during the week as I was searching for Andy Kaufman images. It’s the top half of Andy’s second Elvis suit, along with a few letters and his Intergender Wrestling belt. Boy would I love to see these in person!
While on one of my walks this past week, on one of those amazing “spring in winter” days, “Amanda” by Boston came on my iPod. Boy do I love this song!
Monday the 1st – ANOTHER ONE GONE! – When I woke up I had a text from my mom informing me that my old pal Dustin Diamond had passed away. When it was announced a few weeks ago that he had stage 4 lung cancer I feared the worst. You can read my tribute to him here Dustin Diamond – In Memory – Wally On The Web. Emails and texts were pouring in all day from people who knew that Dustin and I had been pals in the 90s and early 2000s. I spent the afternoon pulling photos out of my archives for my tribute. Luckily, because I had done so much organizing of my photo files recently, these photos were easy to get my hands on quickly. I got ready for a quick pick-up session for a toy producer. I had done the main session several months ago, but as they got further along with the development of this particular toy, the producers realized that they needed a few extra voice clips. When the session was finished my pal Edi picked me up and we went over to Foam Mart to get some foam rubber. She needed some for her dog Bunny’s bed. Bunny is elderly and needed some extra padding underneath her little resting place. I needed some extra foam rubber to pad my recording area for noise reduction. We enjoyed another lunch at Lancer’s, and after some really good food, she dropped me off back home. I got busy and glued a sheet of 1 inch thick foam rubber to the back of a 4 foot by 6 foot piece of foam core. That acts as a portable wall that I can put up next to me when I’m recording, and it helps block out extraneous sound, as well as dampening the voice recording I’m doing. I also constructed a piece that can connect between the foam core and another foam piece I have that sits to my right. This third piece sits overhead, so it cuts down on the “roominess” of the sound in my recording area. I did some other work around the house, and then recorded my auditions. The three foam pieces worked wonderfully! I typed out Wally’s Week, and spent about 3 hours writing my tribute to Dustin. During its creation I caught myself laughing hysterically more than once. Good times indeed.
Tuesday the 2nd – SPRING IN WINTER! – Since it was an absolutely gorgeous day I decided to walk to my session at Voice Trax West. It was another session for my super-secret client that I’ve been working for over the past 5 or so years. They like to record in chunks of 3 sessions, and this was the third and final session for this period. They’ll probably have more sessions for me to do next month. We finished the scripts they had for us early, so I headed over to the hardware store to get another key made. After losing my house keys the past week, I was having a difficult time getting all of the keys organized and replaced efficiently. For some reason, the guy gave me two copies of one key, and NO copies of another key. My goal was to get a copy of the key they missed a few days ago so I could have the full replacement set. I got home to relax after a nice, brisk walk, did some work around the house, and recorded my auditions.
Wednesday the 3rd – HUNDREDS OF VOICES! – After a stop at McDonald’s for some lunch to go, I stopped by my mailbox place to get a replacement key for my box. Then I went to Rocket Studios to spend the next four hours recording close to a hundred voices for a new video game that will boast some 4700 characters! This is going to be a MONSTER! It was quite a challenge to come up with voices that sounded different from one another, but it was a lot like working in the ‘old days’ when I first got into the business. It’s great being in a session and thinking ‘on the fly’ about what the next character would sound like. Phil, the director, told me a little bit about each character, gave me about 15 seconds to come up with something, and then BAM! – we started recording. What a fun, exciting challenge it was! Some characters had several lines, but some characters only had one line, or some kind of effort sound. But I got to play an old wizard, a demon, a fat storekeeper, and many other fun characters! What a blast! I got home and fed the kids, did some work around the house, recorded my nightly auditions, and relaxed. Later I did some photo editing and organizing, and I ordered up 6 yards of an Andy Kaufman-themed fabric on Spoonflower.com. Several years ago I bought the rights to a set of negatives from a photographer who shot Andy’s 1979 Huntington Hartford concert in Los Angeles. This was the warm-up show before he did his big Carnegie Hall concert in New York! There are a ton of great shots in this, and it would be great to do a coffee table book someday. But I got the idea to make an Andy bowling shirt, so my pal Scott Sebring took several key shots from the set and created a brilliant fabric pattern. I figure I’ll be able to get about 2 bowling shirts out of this fabric, but if it turns out nice, I can always have lots more made for pillows, pajamas, tote bags…’ANDYTHING’ I can think of!
Thursday the 4th – SUMMER IN WINTER: PART DEUX! – Wow! What another fantastic day it was. It actually smelled like spring outside! I decided to make the most of it and I walked Roxy over to the groomer to get a bath. Roxy did NOT smell like spring. In fact, she smelled pretty bad. Time for a bath! I strolled over to Kit Kraft to get some paint for a project I would be doing soon. My pal Officer Mark gave me a cool Christmas gift; a replica of Iron Man’s gauntlet that was a lamp! The idea is very cool, but the paint job on it looked like it was done by a six year old. It was my goal to make it more closely match the Iron Man replica bust I have on display (signed by Robert Downey Jr.!) in Planet Wallywood. I bought some great deep metallic red spray paint and some gold brush-on paint for the highlights. I walked to the bank to make some deposits, and then walked over to Panera to get some lunch. It was wonderful eating on their patio and enjoying the warm, bright sunshine! I walked over to the groomer’s to pick up Roxy, and then I masked off the lenses on the palm and fingertips of the Iron Man gauntlet with painter’s tape. Then I sprayed the entire thing with primer and let it sit for a while. I did my auditions, ordered up a Domino’s pizza, and checked the gauntlet. It was dry and ready for the first coat of red metallic paint. I tried to order some custom buttons on-line, as is my tradition whenever I create a new bowling shirt, but the company I had been using apparently doesn’t do that anymore! Rats! I guess for my Andy shirt I’ll just use normal buttons. I also recently bought some great fabric on eBay for another bowling shirt I’m working on, that’s basically an old kid’s sheet. This one features cartoon images of Laurel and Hardy. I’ve bought a few kid’s sheets in the past, as it makes for great fabric for shirts. Later I did some more photo editing, made some lasagna and watched another episode of “The Invaders.”
Friday the 5th – MELTING IRON! – The maids arrived around 1 to clean Planet Wallywood, and the rest of the afternoon I did some work around the house. My pal Officer Mark and his girlfriend Miss Connie came to pick me up later so we could go to Bob’s Big Boy to get some dinner, now that outdoor dining has reopened again in California. We returned to my house and Mark recorded a Cameo greeting I needed to do. What fun! They tested out their Roku system on my TV, and while it worked well we’ll have to figure out a way to get the audio into my surround sound system. My A/V guy is coming on Friday to do a “clean up” of my system, so perhaps I’ll ask him about how to accomplish that. Later that night I did some more photo editing and organizing, and posted a video of the second Christoween Stalking in our set on social media. Every Saturday for the next 12 weeks I’ll be posting a new video which highlights another one of our cool Christoween Stalkings. Of course, you can see all 14 of them NOW at Christoween.net if you’re curious! I started painting the gold highlights and accents on the Iron Man gauntlet, but the gold paint started melting the red paint that I had already applied! Apparently my brush-on paint is inconsistent with the spray paint. So I quickly removed the paint from the small area where I started, and I’ll go back to Kit Kraft to get a different kind of paint for the accents. I made some hot dogs on the grill and watched a two-part episode of “The Invaders!”
Saturday the 6th – MY REWARD FOR TEDIOUS JUNK! – The time had come again for me to buckle down and do a boatload of accounting work for both my personal and business accounts. This is something I always dread. I went through all my bank statements, paid my bills and did other arduous accounting bookwork. I also did my auditions that needed to be in by Monday morning. I knew I’d be going to bed early on Sunday night to be up in time for an early session, so I figured I’d get them out of the way now so I wouldn’t have to worry about them on Sunday night. In a self-reward for a job well done on all my tedious bookkeeping junk, I decided to treat myself to a Chef Boy-Ardee pizza and Laurel and Hardy Theater. The recently released Blu Ray transfers of some of Laurel and Hardy’s select films are fantastic! I watched “Their First Mistake,” (the one where they adopt the baby), “Midnight Patrol” (the one where they are bumbling cops) and “Busy Bodies” (the one where they work in the sawmill). All hilarious classics! Laurel and Hardy movies on Saturday night, along with Pepsi, Chef Boy-Ardee pizza and popcorn – it’s just like being a kid again back in 1973!
Sunday the 7th – THE TOUCH OF THE NOSES – ALMOST! – When I walked Roxy I saw one of the neighborhood squirrels who’s familiar with Roxy and I. Whenever the squirrel sees us it runs over to us as fast as it can. Unlike other dogs in the neighborhood, Roxy never barks and makes a stink when she sees a squirrel. She’s just curious and wants a closer look. All the neighborhood squirrels are used to her behavior, so none of them are the least bit threatened by her. In fact, this squirrel ran over to the gate to greet Roxy. Roxy walked over and stretched her head up as far as she could to get a sniff of the squirrel. The squirrel bent down as far as it could to sniff Roxy. They almost were touching noses! It was cute as heck, but I didn’t have a camera with me, so it will be an image that will be relegated only to my memory. But it was terrific! I read that the little boy named Carlos that I follow on Instagram (he’s fighting a terrible cancer) has returned home and his spirits have improved after a very tough week in the hospital. In one photo I saw that he was wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt. So I got an idea. Bill Farmer, who does the voice of Goofy, is a pal of mine. I’ve met Bret Iwan before with Bill, and Bret is the new voice of Mickey Mouse. I contacted Bill and Bret’s manager to see about getting some sort of greeting done for little Carlos, and we’re working on creating something amazing! Stay tuned! While heading to Paty’s for dinner, I happened to notice that Ernie’s Taco House had a very nice outdoor eating set-up in their parking lot. So I made a hasty detour and decided to dine at Ernie’s instead. I can’t wait until we can eat indoors again. While these restaurateurs are trying their best to make the outdoor dining experience pleasant, it’s still not as enjoyable as indoor dining. Soon, I hope. I got back home and set up my recording area with all of the foam padding I need for my early session on Monday morning. I did some other organizational work to get ready for a new week, and then hit the hay.
And how was YOUR week??!!
PIX FROM THE WEEK
Here’s the fantastic design my pal Scott Sebring did for my new Andy Kaufman bowling shirt fabric! Stay tuned for the progress!
Now THIS is a face shield I’d actually wear! Are not men?
Please follow Carlos’ continuing fight against cancer on Instagram! CarlosVsCancer is their Instagram handle.
Spook just melts under the warm lights. He looks like some weird painting by Dali!
Roxy loves to watch us make Cameo videos!
After decades of searching, I finally found a copy of an old LP I had as a kid. I wore the grooves out of the one I had, and even though it wasn’t cheap, and I had to have it sent in from Italy, this record has a special place in my heart. I can’t wait to hear it again!
This is the cool lenticular Star Trek piece I got recently at Hobby Lobby!
In case you missed them on Christoween.net, here are the first two videos highlighting two of our fun Christoween Stalkings. 12 more to go! Stay tuned!
