RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK
Talent artist Fatima Khan Tweeted me these mash-ups of two of my characters – Jon Arbuckle and the Riddler, and Jon Arbuckle and Ant-Man. Fabulous!
Jon Antbuckle
Jon Nygma
As I find myself at a professional crossroads at this point in my life, this song by U2 came to mind. Do I want to relax a bit and start enjoying a more leisurely existence, or do I still want to stay in the game, fight like hell, and chase “Every Breaking Wave?”
Monday the 16th – A/V DAY! – To start the day I did a little work around the house, and about mid-afternoon my A/V guy Brandon arrived to program the universal remote control in the Tranquility Zone to adapt to my new region-free Blu Ray player. While he was at the house, I had him look at an auxiliary amplifier that I’ve had for about 20 years that feeds audio from the main system downstairs all through the house. Each room in the house has speakers that are tied into this system. But over the years the left channel had developed quite a bad “crackle” in one of the control knobs. He cleaned and reconnected all of the speaker connections, and he even removed and cleaned the control knobs on the front of the unit. It was sounding pretty good, and much improved. But someday I’ll need to remove the unit and take it in for a good cleaning, where they remove the cover and do a deep clean. I want each room in the house to also have its own, independent music system, so I’ve been looking for suitable MP3 players on-line. But most of the good ones only have storage of about 8GB, which doesn’t even begin to cover my entire music collection. Brandon suggested I buy refurbished iPods just like the one I already own. That way my interface is sure to connect to it, and I don’t have to worry about storage space on the unit. So we found a store on-line that sold 5th generation iPods (just like the one I have had for years) for a reasonable price, and I bought not one, but TWO! I’ll use the smaller MP3 players for situations where the music list is more selective (the Tranquility Zone and the Gran Torino), but the rest of the house will be equipped with units with more storage. I grabbed a short nap, and then got up later to do my nightly auditions. I also prepped a script for a session I had coming up on Tuesday for a video game. I typed out Wally’s Week, heated up the leftover sloppy joe meat from Sunday night’s feast, and watched an episode of “Ghost Story.”
Tuesday the 17th – S#!T HAPPENS! – There are just those days where nothing seems to go right. Such was this day. But luckily, I wasn’t on the receiving end of the troubles. I received some flight info for an upcoming trip, and I noticed that the departure date was a full day earlier than what I had expected. I contacted the producers who distributed the flight info for clarification. Come to find out I was right, and the flight info was erroneous. But what was stunning was the fact that this information had made it through three sets of eyes and nobody caught it! S#!t happens. Like my dad always told me, “You’ve got to double check everybody, and double check them again.” Sound words to live by. Then when I got to my video game session, the Voice Director couldn’t find any voice reference for the character I was doing. I had done the character previously at two other sessions for the game, but they were fairly long ago so I couldn’t be certain what they sounded like. And the Voice Director didn’t have a sound recall either. So we just invented an entirely new voice for the character and we’ll pick up the lines we previously recorded in the other voice sometime later. S#!t happens. I got home and did some work, and then my pal Amanda came over. We went to Bob’s Big Boy for dinner, and then I came home to nap. I did my nightly auditions later, worked around the house, prepared some deposits for my bank accounts, and prepped for an important phone meeting on Wednesday morning.
Wednesday the 18th – RECORD-SETTING PHONE MEETING! – After just a few hours of sleep I answered my phone for an important meeting. I figured it would take a half hour or so, but it went for 80 minutes! Lots of great stuff was discussed and much information was exchanged. It was with a Voice Over agency in town, and we discussed working together in the future for representation. I was encouraged that the head agent took so much time out of their busy schedule to speak with me! I was going to walk and do some errands, but I was still a bit tired. I went back to bed for a few hours, and then sprang awake when I realized I had a whole list of OTHER errands to do. I drove to my office mailbox to pick up a package from a friend of mine in my hometown of Aberdeen, South Dakota. He was impressed with the job that Pro 8 had done with scanning my old Super 8 movies after he had seen them on-line. He sent me a huge reel of 16mm film to have them scan. I told him I would handle it personally. I drove to my bank to make the deposits, and then I drove to Pro 8 to drop off the film for scanning. I hit Chick Fil-A for some food to go, and then headed to the car wash for a much-needed cleaning of the Mustang. It was SO dirty! I got back home to feed the pets and catch on the day’s news. I did my nightly auditions and then grabbed a short nap. I got up later to do some work, a little bit of writing, and then I made some spaghetti and watched another episode of “Ghost Story.” This was a great one about a vampire that starred Hal Linden (pre “Barney Miller” days) and Mike Farrell (pre “M*A*S*H” days)!
Thursday the 19th – AN ALTERATION SITUATION! – Since it was a gorgeous day I walked over to Art’s Deli to meet my friend Edi for lunch. After lunch we walked to a pet supply store that also does doggie daycare and saw all the great dogs! I walked over to CVS to get a prescription, hit the shoe repair place to pick up a boot I had repaired, stopped by my cigar place to pick up a nice cigar, got some vitamins at GNC, and then off to the hardware store to pick up some clamps, and A/C filters. A man and a woman wearing facemasks walked in and were greeted warmly by the staff. I’ve been going to this hardware store for about 20 years so the guys who work there are good pals. One of the guys said, “That’s Mike Farrell from M*A*S*H,” and pointed to the guy wearing the mask. When Mr. Farrell turned the corner into the main aisle I said, “Are you Mike?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “I just saw you in an old episode of “Ghost Story” last night with Hal Linden!” Even through his face mask I could see his sense of amazement. He said, “WOW! A hundred years ago!” He was half right. It was 50 years ago, but it probably seemed like a hundred years based on all that he’s accomplished in the industry. Nice guy! What are the chances, though?! I walked back home, cleaned up, and drove to my mailbox to get my packages. Not only did my new 8GB MP3 Walkman arrive, but so did the two refurbished iPods I bought. I would have a busy night ahead of me transferring over music! I went over to the Alex in Wonderland studios to pick up a pair of pants that had been altered. I’m going to use them for an upcoming appearance at Monsterpalooza. I’ll tell you more later when I can. I also dropped off some fake fur and fabric for my upcoming Roosevelt Franklin replica Muppet. The fur is for his hair, and the fabric is for his shirt. Alex had made a mock-up of his turtleneck sweater out of other fabric, and the pattern looked good. Now she’ll assemble it out of the real fabric and he’ll be good to go! I’ll stop by their studio again tomorrow night and we’ll put the arm rods in. My friend Sergio will trim his hair (if needed) on Tuesday, and after that I just need to put his eyes on and he’s complete! Hard to believe I started him on Christmas Eve 2021! I got some lunch to go at KFC and then gassed up the Mustang. I stopped by the cleaners to pick up a hoodie that had the zipper repaired, and then I went home to walk and feed Roxy and relax. I was feeling the effects of the brisk walk I had taken earlier. I haven’t had a chance to take my walks lately because I’ve been so busy, so I’m a little out of practice. I did my auditions, worked around the house, and assembled the rest of the costume for my performance at Monsterpalooza in early June! I did some more writing on the bit and rehearsed a few times. I made a nice salad and watched another episode of “Ghost Story” – which featured an appearance by fellow Voice Actor Michael Bell, back when he was doing a lot of on-camera work.
Friday the 20th – MAY GRAY/JUNE GLOOM! – This time of year in L.A. we experience something called May Gray and June Gloom. The morning hours are usually quite overcast with a marine layer, but the sun usually breaks through later in the day. Not the case with today. The entire day was cloudy and gloomy. I made some phone calls, did some work and stayed inside and cozy. Later my friends Scott and Vickie Sebring stopped by and we went over to Alex In Wonderland’s studio so they could meet Alex and Mike. But Roosevelt Franklin still needed a little bit of work done, so I wasn’t able to pick him up today. I’ll go get him on Monday after a few details have been completed on him. We enjoyed a nice dinner at the Coral Café and then we went back to Planet Wallywood so Vickie could help me with a few puppet-related items. After they left I grabbed a nap, and then got up to complete my detailed list of all my scanned photos! It’s taken me a while to catalog the contents of each digital file, but this document will save me a ton of search work in the future. I drove to Denny’s to pick up my usual order to-go and watched an episode of “Ghost Story” with Angie Dickinson. Seriously, her acting was so bad it actually had me laughing in certain spots. It’s the same reason I stopped watching “Police Woman” after one season – her acting was embarrassingly bad. This episode was about an evil Doberman Pinscher who wanted to kill her. Based on her horrible line readings, I was actually rooting for the dog to complete his mission in ending that character’s miserable existence. Not one of the better episodes, but it did feature some pretty great footage of trained Hollywood dogs! I stumbled upon the AXS channel as they were playing a concert by Fleetwood Mac. I watched most of it, and it was amazing. I searched the network’s other content and decided to record a few other concert offerings they had scheduled.
Saturday the 21st – MORE AXS! – It was time to visit my stylist Andie again for a touch-up on my color, and when that was completed I picked up a few grocery items. I got home and did a little work around the house, did some accounting work with my bank accounts, and paid a few bills. I ordered a Domino’s pizza and watched a little bit of Svengoolie on ME-TV. When the pizza arrived I settled in and watched the Journey special on the AXS channel. It was great! I found a new reason to keep my DirecTV subscription, even though of late I had been considering canceling it because I just never watched anything on it. I relaxed a bit, and later I made my usual Saturday Night Super Saint Salad and watched an episode of “The Saint” before bed.
Sunday the 22nd – DAY OF REST! – Since it was Sunday, I took full advantage of the day of rest! I rested, and rested some more, thought about going out to get some food, but decided I’d rest a little more…and then rested some more! I did manage to clean several rooms of Planet Wallywood, including Roxy’s area. I’m thinking of ways to expand it a little bit to give her more room to move around. In her advanced age she can no longer have run of the house, due to her elderly bladder and occasional accidents. Her area is double protected with rubber padding and washable blankets. Later I started writing Wally’s Week in anticipation of a very busy week!
And how was YOUR week??!!
