RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK
NO DJs!
Though the group Nickleback sometimes gets a hard time (which I feel is undeserved) I enjoy a lot of their music. I particularly like the satiristic song “Rockstar,” which sends up the stereotypical contrivances of a rockstar life. This song is brilliant at poking fun at those who long for the life of the typical “rockstar,” and I find the lyrics very funny.
Monday the 27th – THE CARTOONS HAVE LANDED! – The day started with some work on making the final armature hands for my live-hands Muppet replicas (see last week’s Wally’s Week for more on this). This one will go in The Count’s right hand, and it turned out great. I worked on his head a little bit, and glued in an extra finger loop in the mouth plate for my pinkie. I worked on his nose and put in the wires for his eyebrows. Then I drove to Alex In Wonderland’s studio to pick up the Popeye and Mr. Magoo four foot standees that they’ve been working on for a while (again, see last week’s Wally’s Week for more). Alex also gave me some extra Antron fleece for my second Count head. She had very little left, but what she had she dyed the proper color and gave to me. I got lunch at Paty’s on my way home, and then loaded the giant cartoon standees into my living room. But as I was moving them, the hinge on the back of Mr. Magoo broke out of its backing. So I called Alex’s husband Mike to tell him about it, and he said he’d come by later that night to fix it up. I sped off to the grocery store to get some food items, and to CVS to get some supplies. When I got home I organized a pick-up for my puppet sewer Maggie, who would be coming by to get The Count head and the fleece so she could work on the head covering at home. The nose for The Count was finished so I covered it with fleece. It was looking good! I think this 2.0 head will be an improvement over the first one I did, even though the first one is a beautiful puppet. It’s just not quite as accurate to The Count as I’d like it to be. I got an email from the folks at ME-TV’s “Collector’s Call” show finalizing some details for the upcoming shoot at my house in early December. It’s getting closer, and I’m getting VERY excited! I did my nightly auditions, and then Mike McGee came by to fix the hinge on the Mr. Magoo standee. Later I took my nightly WOG (walk/jog) and typed out Wally’s Week. Whew! The week is off and running!
Tuesday the 28th – SPIDER NURSERY! – My pal Sara came over and trimmed my cat Spooky’s nails. She has the patience and a great set of clippers, so when his nails get too long I have her come by and give him a mani/pedi. We had lunch at Ernie’s Taco House, and then I went to my box to pick up my packages. I stopped by Anawalt Lumber to get some needed pieces for a new puppet stand I’d be working on. I got some Formica for the base, and a wood dowel for the supports. I also picked up a new case of drill bits and a new saw. I have two 1966 vintage puppets that were made by the Ideal Toy Company, and they were the first commercially available Muppet toys ever. One was Rowlf the Dog, and the other was Kermit. Since I’ve had them on display they’ve been on a display base that wasn’t exactly pretty. My goal was to permanently affix them to a really nice display base that would show them off properly. I stopped by the Home Store to see about getting a curtain for the entryway in my living room. But they had nothing that would work. I went over to see my buddy at Harry’s Camera to get a new batch of photos that had recently been printed from a batch of vintage negatives. I’m looking through all of the negatives from my first years of living in L.A. and having everything reprinted anew. The new digital prints are a big improvement over the prints I got back in 1987 and 1988. While I was there the amazing Ed Begley Jr. came into the store and we chatted for a while. I went to Joanne’s to get some navy blue faux suede for my entryway curtain. I’ll have my seamstress Shelley put a hem on the edges and a pocket at the top for the tension rod that extends across the length of my doorway. While I was at Joanne’s I saw my pal David Woodruff who was there to pick up some fabric for a project he was working on too. I came home and fed Spook and rested for a bit. I got on the ladder and repositioned my Ant Man helmet on one of the upper shelves. But at one point I wasn’t looking and bumped one of the helmet’s antennae on the ceiling and SNAP! Off it came! Rats! As I was repositioning the Mr. Magoo standee it fell off to the side and some of the paint got scraped! DOUBLE RATS! I sat down and took a breath and promised myself I’d attack the deeds the rest of the night with more concentration. I glued Ant Man’s antennae back on and carefully set it back up on the shelf and secured it tightly. Then I got out my paints and delicately repainted the scuffed area on Mr. Magoo. I got out my duvetyn (blackout fabric) and covered the wood supports on the Popeye and Mr. Magoo standees so they would just disappear into the background. I put the navy blue faux suede fabric up on the curtain rod on my entryway and it’ll look fantastic. However, I need to go back to Joanne’s and buy the rest of the fabric they had on the bolt to make the curtain look extra “full.” I went to the garage and pulled out some fabric for the Ideal puppet stand. I grabbed the lavender fleece that I had left over from my first Count head. As I was up on the ladder moving some stuff around in my fabric boxes, I decided to clean up some of the old, damaged webs left by several Daddy Longlegs spiders over the summer. There was only one of them left, and I promised myself I would clean up the webs, but leave her alone. I saw her on a web that was filled with little tiny spots that looked like gnats that had flown into her web, got caught and killed. But when I moved the web all the “gnats” started moving! They weren’t gnats, but BABY DADDY LONGLEGS! There were about 30 of them! She was guarding her babies. So I immediately got off the ladder and left them alone. I have a spider nursery in my garage! They are great spiders that catch and kill a lot of the annoying flying insects that buzz around my garage. But now that the weather has turned colder, I’m afraid their food source has become fairly limited. So I’m not sure if the babies are going to be able to make it to adulthood or not. I came inside and did some writing and some auditions. Later I took my nightly WOG and spent some time in my anti-grav chair cooling down outside, looking at the sky. I noticed that Mommy Daddy Longlegs (huh?) was already busy spinning a new web to replace the old webs I had cleaned out. I came inside and put some Duvetyn on the inside of The Count’s mouth, and I spent the rest of the night making the stands for the Rowlf and Kermit Ideal puppets. They look amazing! It was a lot of work, cutting, drilling, bending, gluing, etc. – but it was worth it!
Wednesday the 29th – PRE-PRODUCTION MEET-UP! – Before it got sold, I drove back to Joanne’s to buy the remaining bolt of navy blue faux suede they had left. I needed it for the entryway curtain I was having made for the upcoming ME-TV “Collector’s Call” shoot. I also got some black faux suede to make a drape that would cover my fireplace. I got back home and did some auditions and other miscellaneous work, and I got a text from my buddy Rob Klein to see if I wanted to grab dinner. We met at Bob’s Big Boy to discuss the upcoming shoot for “Collector’s Call.” Rob is also a collector and has been on several episodes of the show as the “expert” who assesses the value of the collector’s collection. Since he will be the resident expert on the episode I’m doing, we chatted briefly about some of the things we’d be doing and talking about on the show. When I walked into the restaurant I noticed that the legendary Drew Carey was at a table, as I know Bob’s is one of his favorite restaurants. During the writer’s strike, he agreed to pay for the meals of every writer who came in to Bob’s to eat. What a cool guy! I wanted to tell him what a great job he did at the recent Vet’s Aid Concert in San Diego, but I decided to leave him alone. I did an episode of his sitcom back in the 90s and we got along great, but I doubt he’d remember me. After dinner I came back home to finish up some of my auditions, do my WOG and spent some time in the anti-grav chair outside relaxing, thinking and meditating. I came back inside to do some finishing work on the puppet stand for the Ideal toy Muppet puppets.
Thursday the 30th – RAM THIS! – My puppet stitcher Maggie dropped by to pick up the head and fleece for the Count so she could work on it over the weekend at home. My friends Joe and Zandra Pendleton came down from a few hours up north to bring by some black wooden puppet risers he had made for the upcoming ME-TV shoot. In addition to being a good carpenter, he’s also a whiz with computers. So he helped me disassemble my computer to ascertain what type of RAM my computer took. Once we got the type, we headed to In ‘n’ Out for dinner, and then to Best Buy to get a few more sticks of RAM. But the type I needed wasn’t anything they carried anymore. Apparently it was for “older” machines. Ugh. So, I’ll order some on Amazon. One more nail in the coffin for brick & mortar stores, methinks. I got a wild hair to take Joe and Zandra to the Christmas House in Burbank. It’s one of my favorite things to do every year around this time. There’s a house in Burbank that’s owned by a professional lighting director, and the lights on his house are programmed to Christmas songs that he broadcasts on a low-power FM station. FUN! They really loved it! We got back to my house and we got on-line so I could order the correct type of RAM for my unit. When it arrives Joe said he would come back down and help me install it into my system. I think my computer will run more smoothly with the additional memory, since every website and news site I visit has a ton of videos and media clogging the system. We cleaned the computer and put it back together. I did my auditions, and later I took my WOG. But it was too windy outside to enjoy any time in the anti-grav chair. I checked on the spider nursery again and they were doing well. I hope the little buggers make it! I scanned checks for a few deposits, did some work around the house, and then made a salad and watched an episode of “Boris Karloff’s Thriller.”
Friday the 1st – IT’S CURTAINS FOR YOU! – After hitting the bank to make some deposits, I stopped by the hardware store to get some tiny tack nails for my fireplace drape. I hit my box to get some packages and then enjoyed a late lunch on the patio at Paty’s. The village where Paty’s is located was having their annual Christmas festivities, so it was fun eating and watching people walk by to check out what the merchants in the area had to offer. When I got home I cut the black faux suede to the necessary size to cover up my fireplace for the ME-TV shoot. I tacked it into place, and it looked MUCH better! Since the cartoon standees are sitting in front of it, the duvetyn on their stands blends into the black faux suede background nicely! I recorded a few auditions, took my WOG, spent some time in the anti-grav chair, and started prepping my Christmas photo album project. Each year on Christmas I have something I call a “Creative Christmas.” After attending my church’s candlelight service at midnight, I come home and turn on my favorite Christmas radio show “Christmas Across the Lands.” For the past few years I’ve even been on the show playing an elf character named Wally the Elf! While I listen to the show I like to engage in some sort of creative project to do throughout the night on Christmas Eve. Many years I’ve spent my “Creative Christmas” building a puppet. One year I painted a night sky full of glow stars on my kitchen ceiling. But this year I’m going to start building my L.A. photo albums – a photographic journal of my first years after I moved to Los Angeles in 1987. It’s why I’ve been digging through all my old negatives from back in the day and having them scanned and reprinted anew. I checked my inventory of photo albums, album pages, album protectors, and removable double-sided tape. I’ll order some more supplies after the ME-TV shoot is in the record books, so I’m fully prepared for this year’s “Creative Christmas.” I went through another batch of my negatives to catalog them and prepare them for printing. It’s my goal to get everything from the 80’s logged, printed and completed by Christmas. That should keep me quite busy. The 90’s will be considerable, since I have hundreds of sets of negatives I took throughout that decade. But the early 00’s won’t be as plentiful, as I was starting to shoot a lot of photos on digital.
Saturday the 2nd – LAFFS & MORE LAFFS! – Since it was a gorgeous day I walked over to Harry’s Camera to drop off my newly cataloged negative sets. I got a small sandwich at Subway and took it home to enjoy lunch. My buddy Chris Malmin came over so we could do a walk-through for the upcoming ME-TV shoot for “Collector’s Call.” Chris is a big fan of the show and he’ll be assisting me on shoot day. In the early evening Angi arrived and we headed into Hollywood to dine at Rafallo’s Pizza. But when we got there we discovered they were closed for renovations! Rats! So we hit the Arby’s in Hollywood for a quick dinner before we went to the Henson studios to see another performance of “Puppet Up!” This is about my seventh time seeing the show, and it was Angi’s third. “Puppet Up!” is an improv comedy show done with puppets, and it’s hysterical. Since winter was setting in, and Angi runs cold sometimes, she asked if we could stop at the local Ross Dress For Less so she could get some gloves. But when she came back to the car she had bought TWO pairs of gloves, a wool beanie, and a blanket! She wasn’t messing around! She said if she’s cold she wouldn’t have a good time, and we weren’t exactly sure how cold it would be in the “Puppet Up!” location. We got to the Henson studios and checked in and took our VIP tour. Even though I’ve been on the tour several times, it never gets old. To me, the studio is hallowed ground. Started by Charlie Chaplin in 1917, it became A&M Records (one of the greatest rock and roll record labels ever) later, and then Henson bought it in the early 90s for their L.A. location. I was wearing the cap I made that looked like Animal and it was a big hit. And Angi was wise to purchase the items she did. It was getting very cold outside! It was another fun show with tons of laughs. But the laughs didn’t stop there. Since it was the first Saturday of the month, that meant I was going to treat myself to another “Laurel & Hardy Theater” later. I would make my traditional Chef Boyardee pizza, some popcorn, enjoy a banana Twinkie, and have my Stan Laurel mug filled with Diet Pepsi on ice. This is similar to the meal I used to enjoy while watching “Laurel & Hardy Theater” on channel 9 in Aberdeen, South Dakota when I was a kid. I’m still making my way through the newly released Blu-ray of “Laurel & Hardy: Year One – the Restored Silents.” I watched “Do Detectives Think” (which featured Stan & Ollie working together as a team, similar to what we’d be seeing throughout their illustrious career), and “Flying Elephants” (which took place in the Stone Age and saw Stan & Ollie as adversaries. While it was funny, I prefer films where Laurel & Hardy work as a team. After I watched each short, I re-watched them, but this time with the brilliant commentary by Laurel & Hardy historian (and fellow Son of the Desert) Randy Skretvedt. I watched a little TV and then turned in.
Sunday the 3rd – HEAVY METAL – AND LOTSA RUST! – While I rested for most of the day, I realized I had a big week coming up. So I got busy doing some preparation to try and work ahead. I pinned the two long lengths of navy blue faux suede together for my seamstress Shelley, as I’d be dropping the material off with her on Monday to get the entryway curtain made. I worked around the house some more, and then took my nightly WOG. While sitting outside enjoying some time in the anti-grav chair, I realized I had more work to do. So I came back inside to move some things around that needed to be placed in certain areas for the upcoming ME-TV shoot. I brought a metal table up from the garage and realized with horror that the metal base had rusted quite badly. During the plandemic I had it outside on my patio so I could enjoy meals outside in the nice weather. But since the table had been outside so long, the metal base had a considerable amount of rust on it. I didn’t want to bring it inside until that was all cleaned away. So I took some steel wool and cleaned it all off with a lot of elbow grease. It wasn’t easy, but it looks great now. And I most likely will never keep it outside again. I also polished the metal buckles on my Batman and Robin figures, as well as the silver wolf’s head cane in my collection that once belonged to Jonathan “Barnabas Collins” Frid. It was an exhausting evening, but everything was looking good. However, I still have a LOT more work to do before the upcoming shoot. Will I have time to finish everything? Stay tuned for more!
And how was YOUR week??!!
PIX FROM THE WEEK
Though eventually these standees will end up hanging on my wall somewhere in Planet Wallywood, they look right at home in front of the fireplace! A wonderful job by Alex In Wonderland studios!
I’m not exactly sure why my cat Spooky thought my money clip would be a suitable pillow, but the Snoop Dog line “with my mind on my money and my money on my mind” came into my brain seeing this. Crazy cat.
