RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK
Somebody sent me this meme in my e-mail and I thought it was hilarious! But sad. But true!
When I was in Junior High the school would be abuzz with chatter when CBS was going to air the Elvis movie “Girl Happy” on their CBS Friday Night Late Movie. I would try my best to stay up late to watch the entire thing, but would often nod off before the end. But I sure do love this movie! It’s full of terrific, catchy songs…but the one that’s been on my mind since we watched it at movie night last Saturday night is “Wolf Call.” Hey Rusty! Howzabout Wolf Call?!
Monday the 4th – OFF TO A BLAZING START! – I started the new year with an early morning audition at Elaine Craig in Hollywood. It was a beautiful day, and although it had rained for the past few days, it was now gorgeous and sunny. At the audition I saw my old pal Richard Horvitz. We had a fun time catching up and chatting. I stopped into Staples to pick up a few items, and then went to Arby’s to get some lunch to go. I stopped at the grocery store for some supplies, and then headed home to make some calls and check e-mails. I hopped on my bike and drove to the post office to mails some bills, and then I went over to CVS to pick up a few items. The temperature on the bank said 71 degrees! Amazing! It was supposed to rain all week, so this was one of my last chances to get some biking in. When I got home I did a phone interview with a gal named Tammy for her internet show. It was a fun half hour conversation and I’ll let you know when the interview gets posted. I grabbed a five hour nap, and then got up to write Wally’s Week and do a TON of auditions. Now that the business was back up after the holidays, it was a flood of material! Everything was starting out well! But as it got close to dawn on Tuesday morning, I got a notification that there was yet ANOTHER banking snafu in my corporate account. What the heck?! I e-mailed my accounting and asked him to try and locate the trouble. The good thing was, it had started to rain.
Tuesday the 5th – IT’S RAINING, IT’S POURING! – It sure was nice waking up to rain and seeing everything outside wet and green. I had a bunch of errands to run; putting money in the bank, and other miscellaneous stuff. I came back home and did some busy work around the house, got some stuff together for my eBay seller to unload, and other reorganization. I didn’t get everything done over the holidays that I had wanted to do, so I was still playing catch-up. My pal Emily came over to help out, as did my assistant Sara. I did a bunch of auditions and then hit the hay to be up early for a session on Wednesday morning.
Wednesday the 6th – A SAINTLY AFTERNOON! – Early in the morning I grabbed my Darth Vader lightsaber umbrella and walked to the “Sonic Boom” session at Studiopolis. What a beautiful morning! We had a fun session, but I couldn’t wait to get back outside into the rainy morning. When the session was over I walked back home, made some calls, and then drove over to Jersey Mike’s to get a sandwich. I had nothing to do the rest of the day, so I decided to make an afternoon of it! I put on my pajamas, opened up my bedroom windows, at my sandwich and watched an old episode of “The Saint” starring Roger Moore while listening to it rain outside. It was an amazing, COZY, afternoon! What a day!! I ended up napping until 9pm! Then I got up to do my auditions and handle some e-mails. I made some dinner and watched another episode of “Thunderbirds” on Blu Ray. It’s an old British show from the 60’s that uses marionettes and miniature sets and props. It’s VERY clever and I keep marveling at how they constructed all of that stuff. But it’s flawless!
Thursday the 7th – I LOVE RUSSI! – When I got up at noon I did some work around the house, worked on-line and made some phone calls. I hopped in the car and headed to Hobby Lobby to pick up a few items for the house. I was going to grab a quick lunch before my session for a Disney videogame, but my agent called and said they were running a bit behind. So instead of fast food, I headed over to Lancer’s and enjoyed a nice hot beef sandwich. I even had time to hit Toys ‘R Us before the session. I drove over to Igloo Studios and got ready for my session. Out of the studio walks the great Russi Taylor, voice of Minnie Mouse! The first thing she said was how much I reminded her of her late husband Wayne Allwine, the former voice of Mickey Mouse. I thanked her and told her I took that as a highly esteemed compliment. It was fun chatting with her and having some laughs. Then I got to work with the amazing Ben Hoppe from Disney Character Voices. It was a fun session, but all too brief. I drove home and my pal Brittney Powell stopped over to say hi and catch up about all the stuff that happened over the holidays. After she left I grabbed a nap and then got up for my nightly auditions. I made some Buffalo Mac and watched “Thunderbirds” again.
Friday the 8th – WHEW! A TOUGH ONE! – The day started with two last-minute auditions from two different agents. But the copy was EXACTLY the same, and it was for the same client! However, one agent submitted me for the American accent, and the other agent submitted me for the British accent. The client wanted to hear it both ways, but it was very weird. If I book the job, the agent who booked the winning accent will get the commission. I drove over to Voicetrax West for a 3 hour American Airlines session. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been doing this job for about 5 years, and it started as US Airways! It’s a wonderful job and I’m blessed to have it! But the 3 hour session had a lot of airline industry words and terms I wasn’t familiar with and it was a tough session. I really earned my pay that day! I kept thinking about how nice it was going to be later that evening when I would sit in front of my TV watching “Thunderbirds” and eating some food from Denny’s. It was a promise to myself I was bound to keep! When we finished the session I drove over to my “grandma’s” house to pick her up to go to the bank. My friend Shirley from my church is kind of like my adopted grandma. When we finished at the bank, I took her to dinner at DuPar’s. My assistant Sara joined us. I came home and grabbed a nap. When I got up I spent all night working on my bedroom reorganizing and refiling all of the books in my bookshelf. And there is a TON of them! It was a lot of work. It took six hours to categorize and file them, but it was worth it! Now I need to do the same with my paperbacks, comics and magazines. That project is next. As I promised myself, I went to Denny’s to get some food to go. I came home and finished up some work on my gun cabinet, and then got ready for bed and ate my dinner and watched “Thunderbirds.” What a day! What a week!
Saturday the 9th – CROW AND SERVO TOUCH DOWN! – The day was filled with running about doing errands. I got the mail and packages at my mailbox, and then picked up a few grocery items. I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond but they didn’t have the plastic bin drawer I needed. I came back home and unpacked some boxes that arrived at my mailbox earlier in the day. They were lifesize replica puppets of Crow and Tom Servo from the TV show “Mystery Science Theater 3000!” And they were amazing! I bought them on eBay and they’ll be a great addition to the Planet Wallywood collection. I even had a space cleared out for them atop my video cabinet. I hadn’t created the stands for them yet for the display, so I just put them on a table in the Chaney Room to show my friends who came over for movie night. When they saw them, they literally gasped. They are just THAT amazing looking! The artist who made them uses all the original parts the “MST3K” guys used to make the original robots. Since January 8th would have been Elvis’ 81st birthday, we had Elvis night for our Saturday night movie night. We started with an old “Underdog” cartoon, and then watched the first episode of the Roger Moore and Tony Curtis TV series from the U.K. called “The Persuaders. Then we watched my all-time favorite Elvis movie called “Girl Happy.” Surprisingly enough, it’s also my friend Bob’s favorite Elvis movie. We had a fun time and “Girl Happy” is quite wacky and fun. What a night! When everyone left I started working on creating the display bases for Crow and Servo. But I didn’t have all the needed materials in my garage to finish the job. So I’ll have to hit the hardware store and do some shopping soon. I walked and fed Roxy and then went inside to make my usual Saturday night mega-salad and watch the old British show “The Avengers.” I didn’t get to bed until around 11am Sunday morning.
Sunday the 10th – MASTER BEDROOM; NEXT PHASE! – Since I didn’t get up until 4pm, I didn’t have time to get to the hardware store to get the needed materials for my puppet stands. Oh well…I’ll go Monday. I had plenty of work to do around the house! I checked e-mails, fed the pets, and got ready for evening church. It was a great service, and afterwards I walked my friend Shirley home. I got back home, feeling very mellow, and did some work around the house. I took a quick nap, and then got up around midnight to work on filing, categorizing and organizing my paperback books, comics and magazines. When that’s finished, I need to take all of the photos out of my old photo albums from the 70’s, and remount them in newer, bigger albums. That will be a HUGE job! I had expected to get all this Master Bedroom reorganization done over the holiday break, but it’s taking a lot longer than I thought to do it right. (Doesn’t it always?) Then I turned my attention to my gun cabinet. Each drawer has a layer of foam lining the bottom, and then it has another layer of foam on top of it that has little cutouts for the shape of each handgun in my collection. But since I had them cut I had bought 3 new guns. One of my drawers has a piece of solid foam in it (for new guns) so I got a super sharp knife and started cutting out all of the shapes and contours for my latest purchases. I also used my label maker to label each aperture so I can tell which gun goes where. It kind of looks like those old tests with the wooden blocks, where they time you to see how long it takes you to get the different shaped blocks into their corresponding holes. I finished up with the gun cabinet just after dawn, I got to see yet another amazing sunrise, and I made some food and watched “Thunderbirds.” I didn’t get to bed until 10am Monday morning. I’m definitely a night bird, but I’m not sure if it’s always a good thing or not.
And how was YOUR week??!!
PIX FROM THE WEEK
Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot look right at home in Planet Wallywood!
