June 8 – June 14 (2015) – Wally On The Web

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

Are you sick of Yahoo! too? I’ve had enough. So I got a gmail address recently but I’m not entirely in love with gmail either. It’s reliable, but hasn’t yet caught up to Yahoo in regards to little minute operational things. But after getting this error message constantly on Yahoo!, I had enough and made the switch. They’ve been horrible for a couple of years (oddly enough the trouble started after they made their big slate of “improvements”) but I finally gave up. Bye bye Yahoo!

There are two versions of this song by William Orbit and Madonna. This is the vocal version performed by Madonna called “Time Stood Still.” But the instrumental version by William Orbit, sans Madonna, is just as entrancing. I’ve been humming it all week! I think I’ve featured the instrumental version before, so here’s the vocal version.

Monday the 7th – MONDAY MEETING MADNESS! – The day started at 11am with an audition at Voicecasters for a Honda commercial. I had to sing a line of opera, which was a lot of fun. I saw my old pal Alex Dessert there. I hadn’t really seen him since the old days of recording “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” He played (and brilliantly, I might add) Nick Fury. Then I came home to do some work. My contractor Electric Bob’s protégé Ernie came over to fix a few things around the house while I worked on the computer. Then I headed over to Voice Trax West to record a new parody song I’ve written. It’s a parody of the old Herman’s Hermits song “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” and it’s about the current water crisis in California. I’ll post the link on Youtube when the video gets completed. I finished up the lead vocal and all the harmony background vocals in about an hour. Then I headed home to do more work. It turned into a 101 degree day. VERY hot! My pal Brittney Powell came over to do some work while I took a dip in the swimming pool. In the front corner of the pool I noticed a lot of bees gathering just inches above the water line. They found something interesting there. As time passed more and more bees gathered. Some of them were misjudging the flight path and flew right into the pool! Of course I scooped them out (carefully!) and put them on dry land. Silly bees. I went back inside and showered up to have a dinner meeting with a young costumer named Andrea. I’m looking to hire someone to inventory, catalog and rate all of the costumes in my collection. And since she’s taking acting and costuming in college I figured she might be a good candidate. When we finished our meeting at Jerry’s Famous Deli I drove out to Tarzana to meet up with another contender named Gabriele from Chicago. She’s also into photography and music. By the time we wrapped up our meeting it was pretty late. When I got home I had a TON of auditions to do. I finished those up and headed to bed after a 19 hour day.

Tuesday the 8th – RAINY TUESDAY! – As I headed to bed around 5am, closing out my 19+ hour day, it started to sprinkle. It was nice! I slept until noon and got up to walk Roxy briefly. I came back inside and continued sleeping until 4! It sure was nice to nap away the day with it raining outside! We were supposed to get thunderstorms but I never saw or heard any evidence of that. It ended up being a nice, wet, humid and gloomy day. Similar to those days I used to experience living in South Dakota. And hardly anything like the normal days of living in the desert clilmate of Southern California. I got up to write Wally’s Week and try to catch up with the day’s news and activities. After a relaxing dip in the Jacuzzi I grabbed a nap on the couch. I’m old enough to know that when my body wants rest, I give it rest. I got up later to do my auditions, and smack dab in the middle of a take the power went out! BOOM! I grabbed my flashlight and headed outside to make sure everything was OK around the complex. No downed power lines or anything. And the CBS studios in our neighborhood were totally black too. My assistant Sara called and said the power was out in her neighborhood too. I called the power company and was on hold for about a half hour. I took that to mean that they were aware of the problem. I kept my phone headset in while continuing to walk the neighborhood. I broke out some glow sticks to try and illuminate certain common areas where people might trip and fall. I saw a few of my neighbors coming home and they couldn’t get into their garage. So I took my flashlight and guided them to their front door so they could get in. The power company finally came on the line, and the said that power was out all over the area. But they didn’t have a cause for it yet. It was a warm, humid night and I was dreading going to bed without the AC on. I called Sara to see if she wanted to drive over and pick me up and we’d go eat until the power came back on (there had to be SOME restaurant in the area that still had power!) but by the time I hit the shower to get ready to go, the power came back on. It was 1:40. Not a bad power outage all in all. I finished up my auditions, worked around the house, made a Chef Boy Ardee pizza-in-a-box and watched a few episodes of “Batman.”

Wednesday the 9th – PUTT PUTT! TO THE PIZZA HUT! – Around 1:30 I got up and got ready to start the day. By 2:30 I was on the road to a session for a Pizza Hut commercial in West L.A. at a studio called 740 Sound. I made sure to leave early so I could grab lunch at Campo’s, my favorite Mexican restaurant, and then go to the session. I did the voice of a New Jersey guy in a Pizza Hut radio commercial, and even got to hang out with a cool little dog named Charlie, who was there at the studio. We spent about an hour and a half on the commercial, but the afternoon traffic back home was too bad. So I headed over to my old stomping grounds in Culver City to do some shopping. I got some neat items at a Toys ‘R’ Us there, and I picked up a few shirts at Ross Dress For Less for a video shoot I’d be doing the next day. Traffic was still bad, so to let it blow over a little, I decided to go enjoy a steak at Petrelli’s Famous Steaks in Culver City. I hadn’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Petrelli in years so it would be good to see them again. The waiter Omar remembers me from when I used to live in Culver City. He even remembers my order! WOW! But sadly I found out that Mr. P died a year ago last Memorial Day. But it was good to see Mrs. P and give her a hug. The food was yummy and I headed back home around 8. The traffic had cleared up considerably. I got home, walked Roxy, and put stuff away. Sara came over to get a steak that I had gotten her to go. I had a ton of auditions to do, and when I finished I hit the Jacuzzi. My friend Andrea the costuming gal came over to take a look at the collection. She’s into all the stuff I’m into, but she’s never been to a comic con! Hard to believe! After she left I prepped my clothes for the shoot I’d be doing the next day. I figured it was going to be a very short night. I had an early call and it was already 2am.

Thursday the 10th – THE SIX DEGREES OF EVERYTHING! – After only 3 hours of sleep, I got up at 6:45 and showered. Then it was off to Glendale to the production offices of a new TV show debuting in the fall called “The Six Degrees Of Everything.” It’s a fun, pop culture trivia type of show. The Casting Director is my old pal from “The Tonight Show” Dave Hettrick. He asked if I would come shoot a bit on-camera on Hollywood Blvd. I don’t want to ruin the premise (more details later as we get closer to an airdate) but it involved me standing on Hollywood Boulevard doing voice-over stuff into a microphone. I got to the production offices in Glendale at 8:15, waited around for about 45 minutes, and then was taken into make-up. One good thing about Voice-Over is you don’t have early calls, and there’s no make-up or costuming. I put on a few of the shirts I brought and the wardrobe mistress took photos and e-mailed them to the production office to get approval. The shirt they approved was a maroon Hawaiian shirt I bought for my 50th birthday party…The Ha-Wally Five-O Extravaganza back in 2011. None of the shirts I bought at Ross Dress For Less made the cut. But I took the tags off so I can’t take them back. Oh well, I’m sure somebody at Goodwill will be more than happy to take them in. The shirts couldn’t have any logos or likenesses on them. I don’t have a lot of short sleeved shirts anyway (not my style generally) but the ones I do have are either black, or have logos on them. And since black, white and logos aren’t good on-camera, those were disqualified. After make-up and costuming we got in the shuttle and drove to the location… Hollywood Boulevard at Hollywood and Highland! It was busy with tourists and your average “interesting” types of people who make the boulevard their home. On the way to the set I got a panicked call from my pal Terry, who has been storing the first Gran Torino I bought. The one I call..the problem child. The one I drive around is my second one and that one’s terrific. But the first one always seemed to be bad luck. If you remember last week’s Wally’s Week entry, I mentioned that I was sending the car to my brother-in-law Roger in South Dakota so he could love it, care for it, work on it, and get it running. He’s very excited about it and is a genius when it comes to that. I hired an enclosed carrier transportation company to haul it from Long Beach to South Dakota. But Terry said the driver was pushing the car up the ramp and the front right fender CRUNCHED into the side of the carrier. I was befuddled because the guy who owned the trucking company said they have a way to load non-operational cars like my “problem child” without damage. I doubt this is what he was talking about. But instead of hauling it up with a winch, Terry and a few other guys from the neighborhood pushed it up. And not very well. So, somebody’s insurance is going to have to pay for it. I told Terry I couldn’t deal with it right now as I was in a shuttle on the way to set. But I called Roger and had him contact the carrier and find out what happened. Yikes! We got to the location and started shooting around 10am. We didn’t stop until 2pm. I was on my feet for four straight hours with no break. Luckily the day was overcast and cool. I don’t know how these on-camera people do it. During a four hour VO session we take breaks, etc. By 2pm I was losing energy big time. My part was reading 1 minute “movie trailer” type announcements for people on the street. There were eight of them to read for each person. We interviewed about 20 people so I ended up doing about 160 of them. WOW! The crew asked me, “How are you doing?” I didn’t want to lie so I said, “I’m burnin’!” We took a lunch break and initially I thought that after lunch we’d be heading back. But the producer decided to get a few more takes. Luckily the lunch break helped my energy considerably and when we hit the street again we worked for another hour and a half. And all this on 3 hours of sleep! By 4:30 we were wrapped and on our way back to the production facility. I filled out paperwork, changed back to my shorts and tank top and drove home to feed the kids. I got back around 6pm. Luckily Sara was able to come let Roxy out for a bathroom break around noon and give her a treat. I had plans to go places, but I called my friends and canceled. I showered and hit the hay! WHEW! What a day! I slept for about 3 hours and then got up to do some work around the house and do my auditions. I called Denny’s to see if I could get some food to go, but they were CLOSED! I drove to the bank at 4am to drop off a deposit, and then got a few items at the grocery store. I drove by Jack In the Box to get some food (since Denny’s was closed) but at the Drive-Thru they said they weren’t able to take any orders for 20 minutes! Was this my bad-luck day or something???!!! I went home to relax, had a bowl of cereal and hit the hay.

Friday the 11th – FINALLY FRIDAY! – Roxy wasn’t smelling too good (the last bath she had was about a month ago just before we went to Palm Springs) so I walked her over to Rusty’s to get her a bath. I came home to let the maids in to clean Planet Wallywood. I did some work on the compute while they worked. Paul at Voice Trax West sent me the final mix of the parody song I recorded on Monday and it turned out great. I just need to do some more prep and get a video created, and I’ll put it on-line for wide release. I sent it to a few friends for their comments and then I headed off to pick up my pal Brittney Powell for dinner at Outback. She was dogsitting her son’s dog Massa, who’s only a few months old. Adorable and darling, this dog will literally lick you to death! It was Massa’s first time sitting on a patio at a restaurant, so we had a great time watching her interact with everyone. We finished up and I got back home to do some more work and rewrite a few of the lyrics from the parody song that I thought might work better based on some of the comments I got. I took a quick nap on the couch, and then got up to do more work around the house. I watched another “Batman” episode before bed. The one with Cliff Robertson as Shame was terrific!

Saturday the 12th – DRIPPY DOUBLE FEATURE! – It felt really good to sleep until 3. I got up and tweaked a few of the scripts for my upcoming web series (more on that later!) and my friends Scott and Vickie Sebring called to say they were in the area. I told them to come on by for a visit. Later more movie night guests arrived and we ordered dinner from Pizza Hut. (I figured since they hired me for their commercial the least I could do is order dinner from them!) Then we watched a cheesy, sci-fi double feature.. “X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes,” and “The Incredible Melting Man!” Both were cheesy and craptastic. The melting man flick was especially bad, but all the funny comments from my movie crew kept us all in stitches. Afterwards we watched the bonus documentary with Rick Baker talking about all the effects he created for the film. When my guests left I did some more writing on my web series scripts. Then I started a new Saturday night TV series. Just before bed I made my traditional Saturday Night Salad and started in on the 26 episode series “The Persuaders” with Roger Moore and Tony Curtis.

Sunday the 13th – THE ROAD NOT TRAVELED! – I had to be up by 4 to walk and feed my neighbor’s greyhound Abby. She’s a sweet dog who retired from racing several years ago. It’s always fun to spend some time with Abby. Then I got ready for evening church. It was a nice, warm day so Roxy and I enjoyed the walk over. Pastor Louise was talking about ‘the road less traveled.’ And she read Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken.” I was brought to tears by it. It’s such a metaphor for life. And how it related to my life in particular really struck me. I immediately came home and downloaded it. It talks about how you have to decide which of the two roads to take. There’s one that’s been heavily traveled, but the second one has hardly been taken at all. Do you want to do what everyone else has done, or do you want to take a different path? In the poem he laments that he can’t take both paths, being only one traveler. He says that he would like to take the other path someday, but probably will never get around to it. Then he ends by saying that taking the road less traveled made all the difference in his life. Heavy stuff. Here’s the entire Robert Frost poem. Beautiful!

The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I did a little more work on my web series scripts, and then went to get dinner with my friend Emily. I came home and grabbed a quick nap, did my auditions, and planned for a new week. I had to cancel my upcoming Palm Springs trip over Father’s Day weekend because the weather was expected to be around 112 every day. Too hot for me! And much too hot for Roxy! I thought I could squeak one more Palm Springs trip in before the summer swelter set in, but no such luck. I’ll go back when it cools down in October. When I booked the trip several weeks ago the extended forecast said it would still be around 99. Not the case as it got closer to my departure. I don’t so much mind when the days are hot, because I sleep all day anyway in air conditioned comfort. But even the nights were forecast to be hot. I prefer 65-70 degrees. However the low temps forecast at night were still around 80 degrees. TOO HOT! I got some food to go at Denny’s, stopped by the grocery store to pick up some vintage looking glass bottles of Dr. Pepper (my movie night friends LOVED them!) and headed home to enjoy another “Batman” episode!

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK