May 30 – June 04 (2023) – Wally On The Web

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

I saw this photo on Instagram and I lifted it. I’m not sure who the artist is, but they’re brilliant. Any person who can look down at a cracked sidewalk and see the face of Ben Grimm aka “The Thing” from The Fantastic Four comic book series, is somebody I’d truly like to meet.

When I stay in a hotel I like to bring along a Bluetooth speaker and play songs from my phone. While I was in my room this past weekend, I was instantly transported back to the 80’s with Loverboy’s “Turn Me Loose” came on. What a great song!

Tuesday the 30th – PUPPET TWEAKS! – My friend Alex McGee at Alex in Wonderland, who’s making the cape and helmet for my Super Grover Muppet replica, said to stop by around 4 to see how the helmet was looking. But before that time, I texted my friends Edi, Emily and Sara to see if they wanted to meet at Paty’s for a late lunch. We sat on the patio and had fun, but it was chilly. What is going on with this weather? It’s almost June and it should be a bit warmer than what we’ve been having. Our May Gray has been lasting all day and into the night. In past years, the “marine layer” that covers the L.A. basin in the morning usually burned off by 1 or 2pm. But this year it’s lasting all day and even into the night. Not being able to get some sunshine is bumming me out, frankly. I went over to Alex’s shop to view the helmet and it looked pretty good. But I was thinking that it looked a tad small. Maybe it’s too short? I think I’ll take this one to use at Monsterpalooza this weekend, but I’ll have her make a taller one later for my permanent display. I left Grover at her shop overnight to have his nose lifted a bit (just a fraction of an inch) and I wanted to have the yarn on his cape tightened up a bit, or replaced. As we were working with it, the chunky yarn we used became a bit unfurled and needed to be compacted in order to achieve the look we were going for. I got home and did a little work around the house, checked my email to see what auditions were coming in, and then headed to Bob’s Big Boy late in the evening to have dinner with my pal Bob (no relation to the Big Boy guy). I dropped off a few items with him that I no longer needed so he could sell them on eBay. I got home and did my nightly auditions, and then hit the hay.

Wednesday the 31st – HALFWAY GONE?! – It’s very hard to believe that the year is almost half over! The first five months just FLEW by! I walked over to GNC to stock up on the vitamins I like, and then got some cat fud at the vet’s office. I had planned on going to Alex in Wonderland’s shop later in the day, but she called and postponed our visit until tomorrow. She was reviewing the photos of the original Super Grover helmet and agreed that it was a bit too “low profile,” and needed some more height added. She’s going to work on it the rest of the night and extend it a bit. I’ll pick everything up on Thursday, which is one day before Monsterpalooza starts! I did some work on the computer, and then my pal Sara came over later to do some work as well. I recorded a ton of auditions, and then grabbed a short nap. I got up later to work around the house, and then I took my late-night WOG around the complex (walk/jog) to get some exercise. I made a salad and watched a few episodes of “The Lone Ranger” followed by a few episodes of “Have Gun – Will Travel” on the H&I network before bed.

Thursday the 1st – THE FINAL TOUCHES! – To get some supplies for the weekend, I walked over to the grocery store to stock up. I like to have things like bananas, oranges, pop tarts and blueberry muffins in my hotel room to enjoy as, what I call, “Con Breakfast.” It’s usually better and faster than waiting for the hotel’s room service. I did some work around the house, and then went to Alex’s to pick up Grover. She won’t have his helmet completed until Friday morning (just under the wire) as it takes the latex and paint quite a while to dry and cure properly. But I needed to have the Grover puppet itself in my possession today so I could complete the lower “horseshoe” lip and the eye pieces. I got back home and did my nightly auditions, and then grabbed a nap. Then I got up to spend the rest of the night working on completing Grover. I’ve been thinking about how to make his lower red “horseshoe” lip for quite a while, and months ago I created a pattern and a test piece that I really liked. But at the last minute, earlier in the day, I decided to change the pattern just slightly. As I’ve always said, in puppet building, 1/32” of an inch can make all the difference sometimes. It’s like getting the exact proportions and sizing of the helmet correctly. While the foam rubber lip piece I had made as a test looked pretty good, I decided to fatten up certain areas of it just a bit. I took the freshly redrawn pattern and cut a new piece out of some ¼” foam rubber that I had dyed red. I glued it up and it looked much better than the original test piece. I marked the center lines on the puppet’s head so I could have registration marks to make sure everything was even. I also marked a center line on the underside of the lip piece, and lined it up with the puppet, and glued it into place in 2 inch sections. I had to glue it down all the way around the outer edge of the lower mouth plate, so I wanted to take my time and do it in sections to ensure accuracy. It took a while, but it worked out VERY well and looked spectacular. The finishing touch was placing the eye pieces in the puppet’s head. As my old pal Terry the contractor used to say (may he rest in peace) “Measure twice, cut once.” I knew I wanted one inch of space between the eyes, but I had to determine the exact height of the eye pieces in relation to the nose. I marked the spots, trimmed the fur where the eye pieces would be glued down, and poked the hole through the fur and the foam rubber head to insert the prong that’s on the back of the plastic eyepieces. But as I took the small scissors to make the hole, I accidentally poked them through too fast and snipped the first pad on the index finger of my left hand which was inside the puppet head. OUCH! I bled for quite a while. I wrapped my finger and continued on. But on one of the eye pieces I saw a tiny red speck that I couldn’t get off. So I switched to another back-up eyepiece. Until I realized that the red speck was some of my own blood, which I then removed from the eyepiece with a wet Q-tip. Ugh. When I say my blood and sweat goes into making these puppets, I’m not kidding. The eye pieces got seated and glued into place and I acquired the perfect slant for them. Now it was time to make the pupils. I cut two pupils out of a sticky-backed black velvet that I use for pupils; one was 5/8” and the other was 3/4”. I have a neat hole punch kit that I can just hammer the pieces out of the fabric without having to try to cut perfect circles by hand. I placed each of the eye pieces up on the puppet’s eye pieces to see which one was the better size. Grover’s eyes have changed over the years, and his pupils have gotten a little smaller and beadier over time. But since I’m going for the look of the 1970’s Grover (the one I used to enjoy watching as a kid) I decided to go with the bigger 3/4” pupils. Like I said before, sometimes a fraction of an inch can make all the difference in this craft. I placed guide tapes on the eye pieces to make sure the pupils would get placed in the exact spot on both pieces, and glued them down. BEAUTIFUL! I packed up a bag of snacks to take to the convention, and then I hit the hay. I’ve got to be up really early to hit Alex’s shop in the morning to pick up the helmet, do some extra packing, and then head to Pasadena for a Monsterpalooza weekend!

Friday the 2nd – MONSTERPALOOZA: DAY 1! – When I got up early to head to Alex’s, after only a few hours of sleep, I saw a text from Alex asking me to come later, as the latex and paint on the redone helmet were still drying. But since I was already up I drove to Paty’s to enjoy an early lunch, and then went to Alex’s to pick up the updated helmet. It looked terrific. I drove home to pack some final things, and around 2pm I drove to Pasadena. By 3 I was at the hotel and ready to check into my room! This was truly the way to go. It would provide a “base of operations” for me all weekend, and would relieve me from having to drive back and forth to the convention each day, and best of all, I wouldn’t have to struggle to find parking every day! I even bought a second parking pass for my weekend guests who would be coming to the show as well! Sweet! Well worth the money! I took my luggage to my room and dropped everything off, and then went downstairs to meet my friend Angi who had also just arrived. Since it was now 4pm, and the show wasn’t going to open until 6, we had plenty of time to hang out, eat dinner in the hotel bar, and chat. At the appointed time we got in the long Will Call line (which wrapped around the block, but moved fast) and eventually got our wristbands. The convention, as always, is a bunch of fun! I saw lots of old friends and enjoyed great artists, vendors and exhibits. Angi was a bit overwhelmed, as she didn’t know what to expect at first, but she had a great time. She is, however, deathly afraid of evil clowns. For the most part she avoided any of the evil clown cosplayers on the convention floor, but at the very end one came very close to her. I told her to just ignore him and be cool and he wouldn’t come around. But as he got closer to us (he was coming in through a door through which we were exiting) she instinctively put her hands up to her eyes so she wouldn’t see him as we passed. That was all this cosplayer needed to see. He knew he had a victim! Then he started stalking around her and it was pretty funny. I told him, “I don’t think you want to do that.” I had told her earlier that Monsterpalooza wasn’t a “jump scare” kind of place, so she didn’t have anything to worry about. But the fact that she avoided an evil clown all evening, until the very end, was kind of amusing. I met a guy named Jeremy who had a replica Elmo puppet, and he could do the voice very well. I told him I’d have Grover on Saturday in case he wanted to come back to the show again tomorrow. He also did the best Mickey Mouse impression I think I’ve ever heard! The guy has a bright future if he can get the right representation. Robert England, Freddy from the “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies, was supposed to be the star attraction for the weekend. But unfortunately, just minutes before the show started, his Covid test came back positive. So he’s out for the weekend, much to the disappointment of thousands of fans who came to meet him. The show closed at 11 and I stayed until the very end. These are my peeps! Everyone is so nice and wonderful, and monster fans are some of the most kind and creative people I know. I was talking to Angi about why people who are into horror movies are so nice, which seems strange. We determined that these people were probably the “nerds” in school when they were young (myself included) and probably took a lot of chastisement and ridicule for their love of the genre. So now they know better than to pass it on, and enjoy being with other fans of like mind. I told her that the real jerks are sports fans, who will stab you if you wear the wrong team jersey. Most likely, the jocko sports fans were always idiots, and when you add alcohol to the mix their stupidity gets amplified exponentially. Nope. Give me monster fans EVERY time! I went back to my room to unpack and dress Super Grover for some Saturday fun.

Saturday the 3rd – MONSTERPALOOZA: DAY 2! – My convention guest for the day was my pal Drew Massey, a top-notch Voice Over guy and master puppeteer. I wanted him to enjoy Monsterpalooza since he had never gone before. I told him I was taking my Super Grover, so he offered to bring an original puppet from the “Angel” TV show to play along. When he arrived we just walked around the show for a bit so he could experience the vibe, and he ended up knowing quite a few people there. It’s funny how the horror/monster crowd and the puppet crowd have so many commonalities. Then I said, “Let’s go get the boys.” We went back to home base and picked up the puppets. He did a few last-minute alterations to the Angel puppet with some well-placed safety pins and we were off and running. The fans loved them! Two completely different puppets, but both monsters, in their own right. It was fun watching a real puppeteer at work, and we had a great time posing for photos and making little videos on the convention floor for fans. But even though I placed Super Grover’s helmet on his head perfectly when I set out, throughout the day it moved back on his head. I was having a difficult time keeping it centered on his noggin. I gotta figure something out to prevent that from happening. The movement of the puppet when he talked was the cause of the helmet displacement, even though it was securely tied tightly under his chin. After we had spent a few hours on the floor, we decided to head back to the hotel, stash the puppets in my room, and head to the hotel bar to get some lunch. Just as we finished lunch, and just as Drew was about ready to split, he got a text from a few good friends who said they had been at the convention and were in the neighborhood eating at the Yard House restaurant. We headed to the restaurant so we could say hi. What fun. Drew took off and I headed back to the room to shower up. All the activity during the day made me quite sweaty! Just before the After-Life Party started, my friend Amanda came over to hang out. We watched a little bit of the band play, and then we headed across the street to get some dinner at the Mexican restaurant. I was pretty beat, as I had enjoyed a very full day of activity. After dinner we headed back to the party to watch the finale, and then chatted with some friends out in the courtyard. I got a good chance to speak with Eliot Brodsky, the owner of Monsterpalooza. He’s a great guy and he’s really created quite a “monster” of an event. He’s the one who asked me to perform as Tony Clifton at last year’s convention. When I got back to the room I tried a few things with a safety pin and duct tape to get Super Grover’s helmet to stay on his head and not move back. But nothing was working so far.

Sunday the 4th – MONSTERPALOOZA: DAY 3! – When I woke up I had figured out how to secure his helmet! My subconscious worked on the problem while I slept! I found a spot in the back of his head where the helmet joined. I put a safety pin in the head pointing downward. Then I put a strip of duct tape on the safety pin with the sticky side facing outward. I placed the helmet on his head where it should be, worked my fingers up under the inside of the back of the helmet, and pressed the duct tape to the inside of the helmet. The downward facing safety pin would prevent the helmet from moving back any further, and the helmet was secured! Voila! I got packed up and checked out of my room at noon, put my luggage in my car, and met Edi who had just arrived. I put Super Grover in a carry bag and we headed to the convention. Edi had fun shopping and bought some really nice art prints. I bought a few amazing black light posters and two books on the show “Night Gallery.” Edi and I wanted to grab lunch, but we decided it would be better to leave the area and head to Bob’s Big Boy instead. Oddly enough, when we got there, we ended up running into several other Monsterpaloozians who had the same idea! I got back home around 5 and decompressed. My cat Spooky was VERY glad to see me! Even though I had my friend Emily looking in on him periodically over the weekend, he really loved having somebody at home to stay. I unpacked a little bit, showered, and napped until later in the evening. What a fantastic weekend! Ordinarily, the first weekend of the month would be my “Laurel and Hardy Theatre” weekend. But since I was elsewhere, I opted to do it next weekend. So I made a huge salad and watched an episode of “The Saint” before bed.

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK

I cut Grover’s lower lip out of red foam rubber, and then doubled it over on itself and glued it down.

After I glued one side down I put it on the puppet to make sure all the contours and proportions would be correct.

I glued the other side of the lip down upon itself, and then placed it on the puppet’s mouth to see how it would look.

To make sure everything would be properly calibrated, I put pins down the centerline of the puppet’s head, and put the lip in place.

Two inches at a time, I glued the lip into place on the puppet’s lower mouth plate. I took it in small sections to ensure accuracy as I went.

The lip is glued down totally and successfully! Now it’s time to attach the eyes.

The eye pieces are placed exactly where I want them and glued down.

Then the pupils are cut and glued onto the eye pieces.

I’m extremely happy with how this puppet turned out. The darker shade of fur, the flatter bottom “horseshoe” lip, and the bigger pupils really captured the look of the vintage 1970’s Grover!