October 25 – October 31 (2021)

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK

A pumpkin cream pie? Are we sure that would be good? Hmmm…

Though it wasn’t a hit, Lobo’s “A Big Red Kite” has always been a favorite of mine. A song about a guy who REALLY knows how to relax and chill. Enjoy.

Monday the 25th – RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS — ! – Once in a while L.A. gets a really beautiful rainy day! Today was one of those days and it was glorious. I was going to run errands, but I decided to stay indoors and handle some things at home instead. My pal Troy at the “Ellen” show sent me some copy to record for a possible bit, so I recorded that and e-mailed it back to him. My pal Alex Zsolt and I did a Zoom call to talk about building an instrumental track for a very special Christoween treat that’s coming soon. I tried to order a pizza from Domino’s, but they weren’t answering their phone. I called several times but to no avail. Odd. After talking to Alex earlier, I decided to work out a “scratch vocal” for the song we discussed. A “scratch” vocal is a hastily sung version of the song that will give the attending musician a sense of the song’s energy and melody. Later I did my nightly auditions, worked around the house a little bit, and did some organizing on the computer.

Tuesday the 26th – MOUTH OPERATION: SUCCESS! – After heading over to my mailbox to pick up my packages, I hit KFC for some lunch, and then went to Alex In Wonderland to pick up 10% Rowlf and my new Cookie Monster replica Muppet. Alex had become swamped with work on commercials, so I decided to have the finishing work done on the two puppets done by my seamstress Shelley, who herself had become swamped with all sorts of projects of late! While I was at the studio I visited with my old pal Pat Jankiewicz and some of his pals. I hadn’t seen Pat in quite a while and it was terrific getting to visit again. I drove to Shelley’s to drop off 10% Rowlf to have his ears lowered. Due to a measurement error on my part, Alex put his ears on a bit too high, making his ears look a bit short. And Alex was much too busy to move them to the proper position. But Shelley will re-attach them at the proper level. After all, it was Shelley who made my original Rowlf, so it’ll be like old hat to her. I got home and started working on the new pattern for the Cookie Monster mouth; one that was a bit more rounded than the first one I cut. The mouth plates I made were cut from a substance called L200, it’s a versatile, rubbery-like substance – almost similar to foam rubber but more “closed cell.” I had glued the L200 mouth plates onto a black fabric called Duvetyne – which is basically a black-out fabric that reflects no light. The mission was to slice off very small segments of the L200 to conform to the revised pattern for his mouth. But since it was already glued down to the fabric I wasn’t sure it was going to go very well. Luckily, with enough surgical precision and an Exacto knife, I was able to extricate the slivers without much problem. I cleaned the remnants of L200 off the fabric and reglued the fabric to the edges of the mouth plates. Wonderful! I was concerned that I would have to cut two new mouth plates and have Shelley construct another mouth cover out of Duvetyne. But this one will do fine! I’m looking forward to getting Cookie Monster finished soon so I can do a Zoom call with little Carlos; the kid who is fighting cancer that I mentioned last week. He’s the one I sent the Cookie Monster cap to. I unpinned all of the Cookie Monster finger tufts from his fingers, and I laid them all out and colored the backs of them with a slate gray Sharpie pen. This looked a lot better than coloring them with a black Sharpie. The finger tufts on Cookie’s fingertips are only one layer of fur, so the backside of the fur has to be colored correctly so it’s not noticeable. The gray gives it the appearance that it might be a shadow. After the ink dried on the finger tufts I re-pinned them onto his fingers. I’ll take Cookie to Shelley’s tomorrow for the final hand-stitching, and then his mouth will go in, and then I’ll put in his eyes. I hope all goes well! The rest of the night was spent doing Christowee-related stuff. I laid out a schedule for all of the social media posts for the week, and sent out some e-mails looking for the right singer for the new Christoween song I’m working on with Alex Zsolt. (I know a LOT of Alex’s.)

Wednesday the 27th – DOGGIE DOWNERS – When I woke up I checked my e-mail and found out that my on-camera agent had an on-camera commercial audition for me that needed to be shot, edited and delivered by 3pm! So I hastily set up the background, camera equipment, and dashed upstairs to get cleaned up. Luckily, for guys like me, we’re never usually given a lot of lines to memorize. We’re mostly “sight gags.” So I followed all of the instructions, shot what was needed, edited the takes I wanted to send, and submitted them. All in plenty of time to beat the deadline! Whew! I strapped on my walking shoes and strolled over to Verizon to look at a new phone. The one I’m using now is only 3G and it’s being phased out. I’m also a flip phone fan so I’m very particular about the model I upgrade to. I’m not looking for a move up, per se – but rather a suitable “lateral” move into something uncomplicated. My life is complicated enough. I found one that looked pretty good (the only flip phone they had, in fact) and got the model name and number and told the clerk I’d do some research on the phone and come back. I walked to Michael’s Crafts to get some supplies, and saw my ex-pastor Louise and her son Neal in the elevator! I hadn’t seen her in years, and she in fact has since retired from the church’s ministry. It was good to be able to give her a hug again! My neighbor Bob met me at Michael’s so we could look at some frames he needed for a project, and then we walked over to get some lunch. Roxy’s groomer was due at 4:30 and I was running late. Plus, I was on foot! As I was high-tailing it home, I noticed a storefront that had the logo of the exact mobile groomer I use for Roxy! Of all the weird coincidences! I told them to please call the groomer and tell him I’m on foot and running a bit late. They said it wouldn’t be any problem. I got home, met the groomer (who had arrived and was waiting) and went inside to get Roxy. I took her outside to meet the groomer and she did one potty trip before her bath. But as she was going potty, the groomer and I both noticed what looked like blood in her urine! OH NO! I told him I was sorry, but I needed to get her to the vet immediately. I told him I’d reschedule for sure, but this was urgent! I got to the vet and dropped her off to be looked at. The vet called in a few hours and said that she definitely had a bladder infection and prescribed some antibiotics. Poor girl. Because of her advanced age and a few “accident issues” of late, I’ve been putting her in diapers overnight. But I’m thinking that may have caused or at least exacerbated any infection issue. I’m going to stop with the diapers for the time being. But I’ll keep her segregated to the area of my house where I have a huge sheet of L200 (remember that stuff?) on the floor, which makes accidents an easy clean-up. I went to Shelley’s to pick up 10% Rowlf with the lowered ears, and drop off Cookie Monster to have his finger tufts attached. The ink on the backsides of the tufts had dried nicely so I knew Shelley’s fingers wouldn’t get ink-stained. But when I got home and set Rowlf up, I noticed that the left ear was perfect, but the right ear was uneven; about a half-inch too high still. So I’ll go back on Friday and have Shelley correct them again. Third time’s the charm. I went inside and relaxed with Roxy, who luckily was eating and drinking normally and was in good spirits despite her infection. Later in the evening I went through some of the Aspiring Voice Actor submissions for this week’s Christoween story snippet. I’m having a lot of fun hearing people perform their takes on these stories!

Thursday the 28th – SUMMER’S BACK! – The next few days in L.A. will be near summer-like conditions and I couldn’t be happier! It was near 90 today! What a wonderful day! Because of her infection, Roxy has been dealing with bladder incontinence and there is expected puddling in her area. Luckily it’s an easy clean-up, but I called the vet again for clarification on a message she left earlier. There weren’t any detectable bacteria in her urine sample, and she said she had just seen a dog a day earlier that had the same thing and it was suspected that diapers were the culprit. So no more diapers for Roxy! She said to let the antibiotics run their course, then five days after completion I needed to bring her back in for another test. If she gets the all-clear, she can be put on meds for bladder incontinence. My pal Dan Roebuck stopped over so we could visit Heritage Auctions in Beverly Hills to see some Munster items that are going up for auction soon. I dropped the top to enjoy the day and we drove over the hill, with a quick stop off at Franklin Canyon. It’s as if somebody dropped a lake from the Midwest directly in the middle of Los Angeles! It’s gorgeous; surrounded by evergreen trees and lots of wildlife. You would recognize it as the location where they shot the opening of “The Andy Griffith Show.” How do I know? Dan told me that Andy Griffith told him that was the location when they worked on “Matlock” together. We took a drive around the lake and I was amazed. I had never been there before! We got to Heritage in Beverly Hills and found our friend Brian. Kevin Burns was a TV producer and a collector of all things “Munsters” and “Lost in Space.” He passed away a few years ago so his collection is being auctioned off in early November. It was amazing the stuff he had! Dan knew him quite well, but I had only had a few encounters with him. He sure loved to collect! I had my eye on a few things that were really nice, so Brian gave me a catalog to take home and drool over. On the way home Dan and I discussed where to go to dinner. We tossed around a lot of places, but Bob’s Big Boy kept coming up. But we hadn’t decided specifically. I got home to feed and walk Roxy, and Dan said, “Let’s do Big Boy.” So off we went to see about getting a table. We agreed that if the wait was over 10 minutes we would go somewhere else. I dashed in and checked, and it was 10 to 15 minutes! BINGO! As we were walking in I heard “Wally Wingert!” It was my pal Rick Stern from “The Tonight Show!” He was post-production supervisor. I hadn’t seen him in 10 years! It was amazing! Then we went to our table, which luckily was outside since it was a gorgeous night, and we placed our order. Since the news has been released that Dan will be playing Grandpa in the new Rob Zombie “Munsters” film, it’s been a lot of fun chatting about it with Dan. He spotted a guy inside the restaurant wearing a “Munsters” t-shirt, and I was tempted to go in and tell them “Do you know who’s outside?!” But come to find out, they spotted Dan and came out. And also, come to find out, they were old pals of Dan’s from way back! They pulled up a chair and said they were in town from St. Louis and were on vacation, but were leaving the next morning. They also knew me from my work with ’66 Batman. It was a great evening! Then, to top it all off, my old pal Larry Strothe walked into the restaurant and sat at a booth with his daughter and a friend! It was amazing seeing them as well! We agreed to have Larry, his daughter Kathy and her friend come by Planet Wallywood on Saturday for a tour! Dan and I marveled at the concept of “what are the chances?” – that we would be right where we were supposed to be at that moment in time to meet up with all those great, random people. We both agreed that God puts us in the places we need to be at the right time. Dan’s life has come full circle getting to portray Grandpa in the new “Munsters” film – a lifelong dream of his. And I’ve had so many “full circle” events in my life I can’t even count them all! But yes, God is good! And He puts us where we need to be, when we need to be there. I got home and checked on Roxy and she was doing well. I did a rough edit of all of the Aspiring Voice Actor submissions for the Christoween Wolfie story, and relaxed. Once I had all the submitters assembled, I did a drawing for another Christoween prize and edited that video for posting on Tuesday afternoon. What a FANTASTIC day!

Friday the 29th – I’M SO %@#(%*& HIGH RIGHT NOW! – My maids arrived at 1 to clean Planet Wallywood, and I was surprised when I awoke that there weren’t any Roxy piddles! The antibiotics were working, and working well! It would be another glorious 90 degree day again, so I was intent on enjoying it. It’ll be the last warm day for a while, so I wanted to do something special. But what? When the maids left I drove over to AT&T to see if they had any flip phones in stock that were better than the one I saw at Verizon. As I researched the model the Verizon guy had showed me, I realized it didn’t have very favorable reviews on-line. But AT&T only had a flimsy little flip phone that didn’t exactly light my fire either. I had found a nice model by Kyocera that I wanted to find, but I didn’t know where to get it, other than order it on-line. I drove over to McDonald’s to order lunch (I hadn’t had McDonald’s in ages!) and then decided to drive back to Verizon to see if they could order the Kyocera. One of the things I liked about it was that it was made in Japan, not China. When I walked into the Verizon store the guy remembered me and said, “So. Gonna go with the flip?” I told him the on-line reviews weren’t great, but I had my eye on another one. He looked up their usual list of brands they carried but Kyocera wasn’t on it. One of the first things I learned when I moved to L.A. was “you don’t ask – you don’t get.” So I asked if there was any way they could order it for me, as opposed to going through Amazon. Within minutes the guy found it on their website hiding somewhere! So I placed the order and it’ll be in next Tuesday! Happy and extremely satisfied that I would soon own a phone that wouldn’t be burned by constant call drops, I left the store. But as I walked out I could smell the faint scent of a cigar. Then it disappeared. As I walked closer to my car I could smell it again. Something about summer weather and the smell of cigars really pleases me. I saw a guy sitting in his truck enjoying a cigar and I went to talk to him. I decided when I got home I would strap on my walking shoes, listen to some awesome tunes, and go get a few nice cigars at the neighborhood shop. I got home, put on my shoes, got my iPod and some headphones, and started walking. I saw a lot of my neighbors out walking their dogs and stopped to talk to them for a while and have a few laughs. It was late in the afternoon and was cooling off a little. The sun would be setting within the hour. The warm day felt great! The music was fantastic! I was, as the song says, “feeling groovy.” I saw a lot of really nice things on my walk to the cigar store. Lots of people were starting to gather at the area restaurants for their evening meal, and because the weather was so nice, they chose to sit outside. Lots of happy people were everywhere. I saw a couple holding hands and praying before their meal. I saw a nutty little puppy that was half Chihuahua and half black lab that licked my hand. The weather was great, it was Halloween weekend, and there was magic in the air! It was very nice to see. I went to GNC to get some vitamins, and then over to the cigar store to see my buddy and pick up a few Monte Cristo cigars. Endorphins are powerful things! As I left the store and started my music again, I was literally “high!” The weather, the walk, the music, the happy people – it was a tremendous day! I lit one cigar and enjoyed it on the walk home. Over my shoulder was a fantastic sunset as the day came to a close. And what a day it was! As I got closer to home I saw a few neighbors of mine walking their dogs. They hadn’t seen me in a while and asked how I was. I blurted out, “I’m SO @%$*& high right now!” Knowing that I don’t drink or do drugs they looked at me oddly. I told them the weather, Halloween weekend, nice people, great dogs, great music – all had hit me with an awesome sense of well-being. I finished my cigar as I stared out at the western sky and watched the sun set. Amazing! I decided to relax the rest of the night, and plan out my Christoween Tweet schedule for the upcoming week. Good gravy! I miss summer already!!!

Saturday the 30th – BIG DOG BLOW-OFF! – My seamstress Shelley said that she could adjust Rowlf’s uneven ear if I brought him over, waited an hour, and then when I came back I could get both Rowlf and Cookie Monster. So I dropped him off around 4, drove to Big Lots to run an errand for Shelley, got some groceries at the store, stopped by the cleaners to pick up my dry cleaning, and headed back to Shelley’s. But when I pulled Cookie Monster out of the bag to look him over I noticed that the finger tufts were on BACKWARDS! But Shelley reminded me that I was looking at his backside, not his front side. Whew! Without eyes and a mouth, Cookie is just one big fur bag! We were both a bit taken back by that at first, but I guess being Halloween weekend, everyone is entitled to a good scare. I got home and unloaded everything, and in an hour Larry and company arrived at Planet Wallywood for a tour. Once again, we were considering where to go for dinner. As we were talking I got a text from Laura, the manager at Barones Italian restaurant. BARONE’S! That’s where we’re going to go! So we loaded up in the Mustang and headed for a nice dinner! When I got home I put a clean doggie puddle pad and put it around Rowlf’s neck. I wanted to do some additional trimming on the inside of his ears to even out some of the fur. The tiny trimmings fell nicely on to the puddle-pad-turned-apron, so clean-up was easy. Then I took him outside and shook him out thoroughly, so all of the little teeny tiny hairs would blow off. Then I brought him inside and placed him back inside his permanent home – his Plexiglas case in The Tranquility Zone. He looked fantastic! The whole 10% Rowlf project took a while, but I’m glad I did it. And now 10% Rowlf…is 100% done! I pinned the mouth plates into the Cookie Monster puppet and got ready to do some gluing. First I would need to draw a line around the contours of his new mouth plate on the back of the fur, so I could make the cuts. He’s getting very close to completion now! I put my laundry away, put the dishes in the dishwasher, put all of the groceries away, and did some more random puppet work. I was exhausted!

Sunday the 31st – HALLOWEEN 2021! – My sleep patterns were all messed up (even wackier than usual!) because I would do some work, then lie down for a short nap, and then get back up again. So by the time I got up it was late in the afternoon. I didn’t have any Halloween plans that involved going out anywhere, so I decided to stay in and do what every mad scientist/puppet maker would do on Halloween – – – make a monster! Yup! I was going to finish Cookie Monster! I put on some music and started by gluing in the corners of the mouth plate to the corners of the fur bag’s mouth opening. Then I pinned them and let it cure. Then I glued the front of the mouth to the mouth plate, both top and bottom. It was going so well I decided to glue the entire mouth! I did, and then pinned it in. It was going VERY well! My goal with my Cookie Monster Muppet replica is to approximate the early ‘70’s Cookie Monster puppet as closely as possible. He had a squarer mouth shape, and bigger pupils. But as any mad scientist/puppet maker will tell you, you’ll hit an occasional snag in the process. As I was putting the right eyeball into the socket of the eyeball support plate, I heard a “CRACK!” Oh no. Hoping it was the support plate, I was disappointed to find out it wasn’t. The eyeball had cracked at the base. There wasn’t enough liquid plastic fortification in the eyeball at the base, so the pressure of planting it into the support plate was too much for it. Rats! But luckily, the crack was at the bottom of the eyeball so once it was installed, the fur of Cookie’s head would cover it up. So I moved ahead. But I had made a mistake a while ago that I’ll never repeat again. I put the pupils on the eyes before seeing how they looked on the puppet. And once I got the eyeball planted in the support plate, I noticed that the pupil was too low. So I removed it and drilled a hole 1/16” higher and screwed that in. It helped, but wasn’t ideal. From now on, as with every puppet I’ve ever made, the pupil will ALWAYS be the last thing I put on a puppet – regardless of who it is! Unlike the Cookie I built back in 1979, which fit my hand very tightly, I realized that this bigger puppet would need a little padding in the head to sit right. But as I was trying a lot of different ways to get the eyeball attached permanently to the eye support plate (Loctite glue didn’t work, Magic Sculpt epoxy didn’t work) the base stem of the right eyeball snapped completely off. Again, because there wasn’t enough liquid plastic fortification at the base and in the stem of that particular eyeball. I’d have to go back to the drawing board, and back to my effects guy Jim Ojala to have a new set made, with special attention paid to the base of the eyeballs. I tried drilling small holes in through the plate and into the eyeball, but to no avail. Rats. As I worked through the night I decided to put it all away and attack it with a fresh mind in the coming week. To make matters worse, as I checked my Instagram account before turning in I learned that little Carlos had passed away from cancer at the age of 3. I’m glad he didn’t pass away on Halloween, but rather on All Saints Day (God’s plan?). His passing on Halloween would have ruined all future commemorations of the holiday for his sister and brother. And All Saints Day seemed perfect for the inauguration of a new angel into God’s kingdom. This poor, precious little boy had gone through so much. But I take solace that I got to send him a nice Kermit, Oscar and Cookie Monster video for him to enjoy, as well as a custom-made Cookie Monster cap. Unfortunately, my Cookie Monster puppet wasn’t completed in time to do a Zoom call with him. I wrote out some checks, paid some bills, and reconciled all the receipts in my checkbooks. Then I hit the hay. It sure was a week of extreme highs and extreme lows. But I guess lower lows make for higher highs.

And how was YOUR week??!!

PIX FROM THE WEEK