June 28 – July 04 (2021) – Wally On The Web

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

Prolific director Richard Donner passed away this past week at the age of 91. In remembrance, here’s my signed Superman logo that hangs on my wall.

As Michelle and I worked in the kitchen tagging Christoween items, “Love and Rain” by Jeff Lynne’s ELO came up on my iPod. She had never heard it before but fell in love with the song! It IS very, very good!

Monday the 28th – TAG TIME! – There were plenty of things around the house that needed to be done, so those little items took most of my day. Later I did my nightly auditions, and then I stitched the ‘hang tags’ onto my Christoween t-shirts. But since I have a total of 35 shirts, in seven different styles, it wasn’t long before I ran out of tags. I have to get some more printed soon. I typed out Wally’s Week, and reheated the Sloppy Joe mix my friend Sara made on Sunday night and enjoyed some delicious Midwest-style sloppy joes before bed!

Tuesday the 29th – PALS, PRINTING, AND PASTING! – The hot summer temps haven’t quite settled in yet, for which I’m grateful. It was a gorgeous day for a walk, so my pal Brittney came over so we could walk over to Art’s Deli to meet our friend Edi for lunch. On the way back to my place we stopped at CVS so I could get more ‘hang tags’ printed for my Christoween t-shirts. In order to comply with trademark requirements, all merchandise sold under an applied-for trademark must come with a tag attached that contains all of the pertinent trademark information. So while tags are an afterthought for most, they’re very important for the owner of the I.P. (intellectual property) if they’re going to be compliant with the trademark office. We stopped at Von’s to get a few grocery items, and then I went back inside to relax and enjoy a cool drink. I cut out the tags, went down to the garage and glued them together with some Super 77 glue, and allowed them to cure. Tuesday night is when my girlfriend Michelle starts her weekend, so she dropped by after she got off work.

Wednesday the 30th – THE TORINO’S NEW HANG! – Michelle started her day with her on-line improv class, while I got ready to head out to do errands. Then she followed me over to my auxiliary garage to get my Gran Torino out. It was the last day I’d be at that parking space, since the guy who was renting it to me has moved to another house. But I found a great spot in Burbank where it will hang out with other classic cars, so we were heading over there to get the paperwork settled and pick up my keycard for in and out privileges. Our first stop was to see my pal Kyle at Plastic Depot so I could try and find a suitable plastic for the mouth plates for a Cookie Monster Muppet replica I’m working on. After studying many videos of Cookie, I realized that his mouth is very flexible; almost as flexible as Kermit’s! This allows him to look sad (by drawing down the corners of his mouth) or perplexed (by flexing the top mouth plate and drawing it back). I had a feeling that something called L200 (a very dense “foam rubber-type” of stuff) would work perfectly in the proper thickness, but I wanted to look at plastics first. I followed Michelle over to the parking structure where the Torino will live and there was lots of activity! The facility was being used for filming that day. The production staff was busy buzzing around getting things ready, but they all stopped and turned to look at the Torino drive up. I parked and went inside to locate the liaison for my new parking agreement. Once I met up with her, she gave me the keycard and met up on one of the high floors to show me my new space. This was going to work out better than I had ever imagined. Though the drive back and forth to swap out cars will be a bit of a considerable distance, I was elated that this new facility would have 24 hour security, and be at home with lots of other classic cars! I got the ol’ gal put to bed, locked everything up, and hopped in Michelle’s car to go to lunch at a place called BJ’s. She had been wanting to go to this place for a long time, and now was our chance! After lunch we drove by my mailbox to get my mail, and then headed home. It was a very busy, dusty, hot day. To make matters worse, as I was drawing up the car cover on the Torino I was talking to the lady at the parking structure about “Starsky & Hutch,” and I was telling her all about how the Gran Torino was all the rage when the show was on the air. As I laughed I drew in a breath, and I got a pretty lungful of dust from the top of the car cover! I could feel that there was a pretty good-sized dustball living in my throat as a result. I was looking forward to a hot shower and some relaxation. Later I did my nightly auditions, and went to the garage to grab the ‘hang tags’ I had cut and glued the night before. Then, I set about tagging the embroidered Christoween knit beanies I had made. They came with a little nylon attachment already, so putting the tag on that pre-existing attachment was pretty easy. But then I had to get out the needle and monofilament to attach the rest of the tags to the remaining stock of t-shirts I had. Once I got it down to a system, it went by pretty quickly. Michelle and I drove out to Denny’s to get some food, and then we came back to watch an episode of “The Mod Squad.” I’m into the fifth and final season, but so far, the episodes have been rather unspectacular.

Thursday the 1st – HEADING TO THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND! – My pal Joe produces a podcast that features audio reenactments of historical events, and he needed a few things recorded by a young female reporter. He asked if Michelle would be up for it, so she jumped at the chance. We spent about an hour recording her lines, and then I edited them and sent them over to him. The rest of the day was just spent relaxing and catching up on a few things I needed to get done before the holiday weekend. It was the end of Michelle’s weekend, so she headed back to her house to prep for a new workweek.

Friday the 2nd – LOTSA LAUGHS! – As a rule I don’t usually send autographed photos overseas for a variety of reasons. But somebody from Australia had contacted me via Twitter to inquire about getting a signed Renji photo from “Bleach.” I told him if he sent a self-addressed stamped envelope I would send him one. That way I could just sign it, put it in the envelope, and pop it in the mail. But when the envelope arrived it hadn’t been stamped. When I woke up I decided that I was going to walk over to the post office on the way to my recording session at Voice Trax West and see about getting this sent. I went into the post office, grabbed the required customs form for overseas shipping, and headed to the counter with my envelope. Come to find out, if the envelope is under ¼” thick, it’s not considered a package and not subject to any customs forms! Fantastic! And I sent it off to Australia for just over 7 bucks! I walked over to the grocery store to pick up some salad fixins and some shredded chicken for Roxy, and then continued walking over to Voice Trax West to lay down the vocal tracks for a new comedy song I’m doing! (More on that later!) We had a ton of fun laying down the tracks, and next will come a rough mix. I have a good friend who plays about 16 instruments, and he offered to put on some pedal steel, mandolin or banjo if I felt it needed it. (Yes, the comedy song has a ‘country’ flair!) On my walk home I realized that I had left my grocery items in the Voice Trax West fridge, so since the owner of the studio lives by me, he offered to bring it by on his way home! Now THAT’S service! I walked over to Rusty’s to pick up some food for Roxy, and then got home to catch up on e-mails. I spent the evening filling out all of the insurance claim forms for Roxy’s recent visits to the vet. I made a salad and watched “Mod Squad” before bed. It’s clear that they’ve pretty much run out of ideas for this season, and it’s pretty obvious why this was the show’s final season.

Saturday the 3rd – PLUSH RUSH! – My seamstress Shelley told me she was going out of town this coming week, and if I wanted to get the Christoween plush figures finished before she left I needed to get the fabric to her right away! I hopped in the car and headed right over. The material I had printed at Spoonflower features large front and back views of Donnie Druthers, the lead character in our Christoween stories, and the idea is to have her stitch the two sides together, stuff them to make plush figures. I had the printing done on two different types of fabrics – cotton sateen and polyester satin. I was looking to see which one looked best for the final result. I delivered the fabric, stopped at Taco Bell to get some lunch at the drive-thru, and then headed home to relax. Later I did a few auditions, and also a quick ‘self-directed’ session for a few radio commercials for one of my regular clients. I’ve worked for them several times now, and at this point they mostly let me direct myself for the sessions. I did the accounting for my Planet Wallywood Corporation, had a nice late-night walk through the neighborhood with Roxy, and then came inside to prep for “Laurel and Hardy Theater.” When I was 13 our local TV station ran Laurel and Hardy films after the 10:00 news, and called it “Laurel and Hardy Theater.” I loved getting my cassette recorder set up to record the audio of the films so I could learn their routines and study their voices. Back in those days, I had to hang a microphone around the dial on the TV so it was pointing at the speaker in the TV. Caveman, days. I know. Well, to try and bring back some of those ‘good old days’ today, I have my own “Laurel and Hardy Theater” on the first Saturday of each month. Just like they did on KABY-TV back in the day, I run three Laurel and Hardy short films while I devour foods similar to those I enjoyed back then. I make a Chef Boyardee pizza; a product that thankfully tastes exactly the same way it did back then. I put a bunch of ice in my giant Laurel or Hardy ceramic mug and fill it with Diet Pepsi. Though I drank regular Pepsi back then, it still tastes much the same as it did back in those days. When my mom was in ceramics class in the early 70’s, she would make all kinds of cool things. I have a few Elvis busts she made, a Pinocchio statue, and the two best things she made me were giant mugs of Laurel and Hardy. I still have them to this day and I cherish them. This month it was Ollie’s turn. Since they’re irreplaceable, I take great caution when using them. One of my favorite dessert snacks back then were banana flips. It was a round piece of sponge cake with banana cream filling in the middle, and then flipped over like a taco. Though they don’t make those any more, the closest thing to their unique taste are banana Twinkies. I order them in bulk on Amazon. Then I made some microwave popcorn to enjoy after my meal. Though it tastes much better than the dry popcorn in the cellophane bags that I’d get at the gas station back then, it’s still just as enjoyable. As I was making my pizza I used up the last of the sauerkraut in my jar. (I always put pepperoni, summer sausage and sauerkraut on my Chef Boyardee pizzas!) But as I got down to the last bit, I realized with horror that the 4th of July was on Sunday, and my tradition is to have chili cheesedogs with sauerkraut on them! If I used up the last of the sauerkraut on the pizza, I’d have to either A) go without any sauerkraut on my hot dogs this 4th of July (THE HORROR!) or, B) run to the store on July 4th to buy more. Neither sounded like a good proposition. So I stashed a small quantity of sauerkraut back in the jar for safe-keeping! For those who care, the three Laurel and Hardy shorts I watched were “Below Zero,” “The Laurel and Hardy Murder Case,” and “Another Fine Mess.” The latter film featured a character I loved as a kid called Lord Leopold Plumtree, who had a high, falsetto chuckle that I used to imitate at school for all the kids to make them laugh. I’ve seen these films many, many times – but they still make me laugh like crazy!

Sunday the 4th – FIREWORKS IN MY BEDROOM (OH! BEHAVE!) – Mid-afternoon I got up to work on the text for the Christoween on-line merchandise pages. It’s going to launch in mid-July to give us plenty of time to fill all the orders in time for October! I’m pretty much a one-man operation, so I need plenty of lead time to get this handled properly. Later I did some photography of some of the merchandise for the on-line catalog, as well as for the trademark office. I bundled up all the photos and sent it off to my attorney for her files. I also cut some pieces of Christoween fabric for bandanas. I’d give them to Michelle to sew on a hem, and then I’ll tag them appropriately. But before I do that, I need to photograph the bandanas being utilized for a variety of purposes. As I remember from previous Independence Days here in L.A., fireworks fans begin shooting them off around 9pm and continue well into the night. So in anticipation of that, I got a quick nap in before that. Sure enough, right around 9pm, I was awakened by the sounds of fireworks. From my bedroom on the fourth floor, I could look outside the window and see several major fireworks displays happening. From the comfort of my bed! I’m guessing that one was at Universal Studios Hollywood, and the other might have been at the Hollywood Bowl. But what I could see of them was fantastic! I spent the rest of the evening working on the Christoween photography.

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK