{"id":12218,"date":"2021-11-08T09:05:50","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T17:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/?p=12218"},"modified":"2021-11-16T09:25:12","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T17:25:12","slug":"november-08-november-14-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/november-08-november-14-2021\/","title":{"rendered":"November 08 – November 14 (2021)"},"content":{"rendered":"

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK<\/h3>\n

My parents took a screenshot of this familiar-looking young man who made an appearance on “Gunsmoke” in 1975. This is the same year the pilot for “Starsky & Hutch” was made. It’s funny seeing the “Sioux Falls” caption below, since David Soul lived in Sioux Falls at one point in his life!<\/p>\n

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Every time I’m with my friend actress Tuesday Knight and her mom Dorothy I think of this song that Elvis recorded back in 1970. “The Wonder Of You”<\/span> was written by Tuesday’s dad Baker Knight about her mom Dorothy. I love this song!<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/The-Wonder-of-You.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

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Monday the 8th \u2013 CAT CURTAIN! \u2013<\/span> It was nice to see my old pal Sara Raftery again. We met for lunch at Lancer\u2019s in Burbank, and it\u2019s always a great time with food at Lancer\u2019s. Come to find out, Sara knew one of the new owners! He came up to say hi. They had both worked at the Hard Rock many years ago. I told him I liked what he\u2019s done with the place\u2026all new flooring and new booths. After lunch I went across the street to Foam Mart to buy a yard of Duvetyne. It\u2019s also known as \u201cblackout fabric,\u201d which is used by production companies all the time to black out light on sets. I needed to buy some to create a \u201ccat curtain\u201d for my front door. I was sick of wrangling the big, flat piece of wood that I had been using to block the door. I like to have my screen door shut, but the wood door open to let the fresh air into the house. But if one of the neighborhood cats walks by, and my cat Spooky sees it, Spook goes nuts. He gets fuzzy-tailed, wild-eyed and wants to fight Roxy and he wants to fight me. It\u2019s when I have to bring out the spray bottle and douse him with cold water until he cools down. The last time he did this I had to douse him so much it looked like he had taken a shower! But with a few small nails, and a yard of Duvetyne I can just hang a little curtain over the lower half of the doorway, and Spook can\u2019t see out. I went to my box and picked up a t-shirt I had ordered. The parents for the little boy named Carlos, whose battle with cancer I had been following on Instagram for a year, created C Is For Carlos t-shirts. The design is very Cookie Monster-centric, because Carlos always loved Cookie Monster, and in particular, he loved the song \u201cC Is For Cookie.\u201d A while back, I teamed up with my pal Vickie Sebring to make a \u201cC Is For Carlos\u201d video. I changed the lyrics to the song to make it about Carlos, and Vickie used her Cookie Monster puppet and performed to the track. It\u2019s before I had my own Cookie Monster puppet. I tried to get mine completed so I could Zoom call with little Carlos, but he passed away before I got Cookie completed. But I got a really nice note from his mother that said, \u201cI\u2019m sure he\u2019s watching him from above now and he must be ecstatic about it!! Thank you for making him smile so many times!! We watched all the video msgs so many times and they still brought a smile to his face every time.\u201d That warmed my heart. I got the Gran Torino gassed up (there goes a hundred bucks!), but so many people love seeing the Torino that it\u2019s totally worth it. I went to the hardware store to buy some items for my Cat Curtain, and then went home to do a little work and make the curtain. I had intended for it to be a lot more detailed (with wood slats, Velcro, etc.) but since I live by a version of Occam\u2019s Razor (where the simplest way of doing something is usually the best) I just decided to put a few small holes in the Duvetyne, pound a few small nails in the doorframe, and hang the curtain that way. MUCH simpler! I typed out Wally\u2019s Week, and later did my nightly auditions.<\/p>\n

Tuesday the 9th \u2013 THE FIRST OFFICIAL CHRISTOWEEN SONG! \u2013<\/span> At the beginning of the day I got a text from my pal Troy at the \u201cEllen\u201d show asking for me to record some voice tracks for another bit. After I laid down everything Troy needed, I did a quick session for one of my regular clients. I brought down some of the Christoween merch items from the Christoween closet and photographed them to honor a request from my trademark attorney. She needed some specific photos of some of the merch to file with the trademark office. Then I headed to my pal Carmen Grillo\u2019s studio to finish up the very first, official Christoween song. The story that I\u2019ll be releasing on Saturday is about Dracula\u2019s daughter Draculatifa, who\u2019s a young girl who\u2019s also a singer\/songwriter. It\u2019s called \u201cChristoween Dream\u201d and is hopefully the first of many Christoween-related songs yet to come. If you read last week\u2019s Wally\u2019s Week<\/a>, you saw that Carmen\u2019s talented granddaughter Bella did the vocals. And she did a terrific job. During the past few days Carmen has been busy adding the instrumentation, and we just needed to add a few small screams to a certain part of the song. It turned out beautifully, and the final result was MUCH better than I was even hoping it would be. Carmen and Bella did a terrific job, and you can hear the final result HERE<\/a>. I went home to feed the pets, and then headed over to my friend Emily\u2019s so I could get a massage. I came home to relax some more and do my nightly auditions.<\/p>\n

Wednesday the 10th \u2013 COOKIE CURED AND CAR COLLISION! –<\/span> Considering all the trouble I\u2019ve been having putting the eyeballs in my Cookie Monster Muppet replica, I decided to call in a pro. My pal Mike McGee is the husband of Alex in Wonderland. She\u2019s been doing all of the sewing for my Muppet replicas. But in their business, Mike handles all of the prop-type work; requiring resins, epoxies, plastics, fiberglass, etc. It\u2019s a great partnership! He drilled out holes in the eyeballs big enough for a 7\/16\u201d wood dowel. Then he put some epoxy on two small lengths of the wood dowels and inserted them into the eyeballs. Where the wood dowels met the plastic at the hole, he put some epoxy there too. We let them cure for a bit while he went to pick up his daughter at school, and I ran a few errands. I hit Wendy\u2019s for lunch (hadn\u2019t had Wendy\u2019s in a LONG time!), Krispy Kreme for a few donuts, and then I went to Walmart to see if they had the new \u201cThe Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra\u201d in on colored vinyl. It was a Walmart exclusive so I wanted to get right over there to grab it. Unfortunately, they didn\u2019t have any in yet. But I gave my card to one of the guys there named David and asked that he text me if any came in. Since I had my new Kyocera phone I needed to find a suitable hands-free set to use. I had bought one set on eBay and I found it to be utterly unusable. Very low volume and the pick-up of the mic was lousy. David showed me one from Skull Candy that was marked down to a dollar. A DOLLAR! It looked great, so I bought four of them (one for the Torino, and two to have on hand in case I lost one of the other ones). If they turned out to be bad, hey, I only spent four bucks on them! As I was talking to him about the new ELO vinyl album set he asked how a vinyl record player works. Like, do you need to plug it into your system or do they play the records on their own. This was amazing, because I felt like my years as a vinyl-phile were finally paying off in allowing me to pass my wisdom on to the younger generation. We talked all about vinyl records for a bit. When I got to my Torino a young guy drove by and asked if he could take pictures of it. He got out and we started chatting, and come to find out he\u2019s a comedian named Dean Austin. Nice guy, and he said he owns a 1973 Chevy. I drove to my auxiliary garage and swapped out the Gran Torino for my Mustang. I drove to a store called Blast From The Past and dropped off some more promotional Christoween cards that they\u2019re kind enough to put in customer\u2019s bags when they purchase something. I walked across the street to the Mystic Museum and introduced myself to the staff there, and they let me put a few cards there as well. As we were talking, a dad and his young son came into the store\u2026and they were the PERFECT demographic for Christoween! The dad had all sorts of monster tats on his arms, and the boy seemed keenly interested in all of that stuff. I gave him a Christoween promotional card, and it warmed my heart to watch them walking down the street together with the little kid clutching the Christoween card as they walked. I went back to see my buddy Mike and pop the Cookie Monster eyes in the puppet. It all worked perfectly! I put the eyes in place in the puppet, put the wood dowels in the proper holes in the eye support plate, on the inside of the head, Mike epoxy\u2019d them, and I held them in place while the epoxy cured. They looked fantastic! But when I was heading home, I was second in line in a left turn lane. The light for the oncoming traffic was just about to turn yellow and then red, and there was a break in the oncoming traffic. The car ahead of me went to turn left and I followed. But then the car in front of me stopped abruptly. A car in the oncoming traffic lane decided to run the red light. Luckily I wasn\u2019t that close to the car in front of me, but I skidded and there was a bumper thumper. Since I had just begun to accelerate through the light, and then braked, I didn\u2019t hit her with much impact. I pulled around the car and took a left to clear the intersection. The car I hit pulled in behind me so we could inspect the damage. First, I went back to see if she was alright, and I noticed she had a small white dog in her car in the front seat. Perhaps that might have been the reason she hesitated and didn\u2019t go through the light when she had the chance. Distracted driving with a dog on her lap maybe? She was a little shook but was OK. We looked at her bumper and it looked virtually untouched. The low velocity and flexible bumper weathered the impact nicely. We went to the front of my car and inspected my bumper and it was pretty much the same story. We both agreed that we got very lucky and left. Lucky yes, but still a lousy end to a great day, just because some jerk wanted to run a red light. I glued the Cookie Monster eye support place to the top of the finger loops and let it cure for a while. I rested for a bit, and then checked on Cookie. The eyes were perfect! Later I did my nightly auditions, and prepped for a Zoom interview I\u2019d be having the next day with my friend Karina. Her podcast is called \u201cCoffee with Karina,\u201d and I\u2019ve known her for years. She was one of the lead actresses in my short film \u201cLivin\u2019 On a Prayer.\u201d This will be fun!<\/p>\n

Thursday the 11th \u2013 VETERAN’S DAY! \u2013<\/span> Every Thanksgiving I get a big group of friends together and hit an area restaurant to enjoy the traditional meal together. (Except last year) For years we went to the Sportsmen\u2019s Lodge, but they closed that facility. Then we had been hitting The Smokehouse. I had meant to call The Smokehouse on Wednesday to make the reservation, but they were closed for filming. And by the time I got ahold of them on Thursday they were all booked up! Oh well\u2026not meant to be. So then I thought of Lancer\u2019s in Burbank! I called them and made our reservation. It\u2019ll be less costly, and a little more fun, casual and informal than Smokehouse anyway. I did an hour Zoom interview with my friend Karina and it was great chatting. I\u2019ll let you know when her podcast posts. I talked to my agent Brittney about an ongoing issue with a studio I\u2019ve been recording at, and hopefully we worked out a good solution. I sped over to my box to pick up my packages, and then came home to order a Domino\u2019s pizza. I hadn\u2019t had one in a while and it was a real treat! I did some work around the house, recorded some pick-up lines for the \u201cEllen\u201d bit I recorded a few days ago, and enjoyed the warm evening weather. Summer has returned for a few days again, thankfully! Later I recorded my nightly auditions, did some other work, compiled the submissions I received for my Christoween Aspiring Voice Actor video, and prepped a few other Christoween things. I put together a lyric video for the song \u201cChristoween Dream\u201d which I\u2019ll release this Saturday along with story 7 in the 13 story series. I\u2019m very proud of how that song turned out! I took Roxy on our late-night stroll through the neighborhood with a balmy 70 degrees outside! It was GORGEOUS!<\/p>\n

Friday the 12th \u2013 IF A CLUTTERED DESK IS THE SIGN OF A CLUTTERED MIND, WHAT\u2019S AN EMPTY DESK A SIGN OF? \u2013<\/span> Most of the day was spent working on Christoween social media stuff. I did a translation video for the Moon Monster story (story 6) as I wanted to wait to see if our listeners were able to decode Moonie\u2019s backwards talking in the story. The translation video will feature on-screen translations of Moonie\u2019s language. Later in the day my maids came to clean up Planet Wallywood, and then my pal Brittney Powell came over so we could grab dinner at Paty\u2019s. I got back home and did some various work around the house, paid a few bills, reconciled my receipts in my bank accounts, and realized that I was sick of all the clutter on my desk! It all had to go! So I spent several hours completely cleaning out the side compartments on my desk, clearing off all the clutter and either throwing stuff away, or putting stuff away in appropriate drawers. Now my desk looks GREAT! How in the heck did I accumulate so much junk?! I plotted out my social media posts for the upcoming week, including the releases for story 7 on Saturday. I\u2019m excited for people to hear the bonus song!<\/p>\n

Saturday the 13th \u2013 VIRGIN VINYL! \u2013<\/span> When I awoke around noon I realized I had a lot to do! I had received a text from David at Walmart telling me that they got the ELO albums in, but they only had one left that he was saving for me. BINGO! I sped off to Walmart and picked it up. I tried to tip him but he said he couldn\u2019t accept it. What a great guy! I got lunch at Wendy\u2019s again (twice in one week!), picked up a half dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and got home to get ready for my appointment with my stylist Andie. I kept three of the donuts for myself, and took the other 3 to her shop. As luck would have it, it was Andie and two other workers on duty that day! One donut for each! Perfect! When she finished touching up my color I walked home to do a little work and relax. In much the same way I cleaned up my physical desktop the night before, now I need to spend some time cleaning up my computer desktop. I worked all evening on that project and was happy with the results. Later I made my traditional Saturday Night Super Saint Salad and watched another episode of \u201cThe Saint.\u201d I started with the first episode of the season 3 DVD set.<\/p>\n

Sunday the 14th \u2013 VINYL MANIA! \u2013<\/span> Since I was locked in so hard on getting that new ELO vinyl album, I started thinking about all of the other vinyl records I have in my collection. I have a bunch of albums, but I also have a ton of 45 singles! I started thinking about some of the singles I received when I was working at the various radio stations I\u2019ve been employed at. The very first commercial station I worked at was KABR-AM, a long-defunct station in Aberdeen, South Dakota. There were several 45s of songs that we played for a while, and that I really liked, but were taken off the station\u2019s playlist. Before they were thrown away I liberated them to add to my own collection. These 45s are special, because the label has all the markings made by our Music Director at the time \u201cMaestro\u201d Mike Nelson. He would mark a U if the record was up-tempo. Write EASY if the song was mellow. And he would write on the run time of the song, the intro time, and whether it faded at the end or ended cold. Seeing his handwriting on the record labels always gave me a nice nostalgic feeling, as I relived memories about working at the station. Every record we played had his writing on it, and he always wrote the notes on the record labels with a magic marker. I decided to pull out some of these 45s and mount them together in a collage art piece dedicated to memories of working at KABR. I had a scan of one of the pieces of KABR letterhead that had been given to me years ago. I decided to incorporate that into the collage, along with a photo of me at the control board doing my show back in 1978. I think this will be pretty nice. I drove over to the Daily Grill in Burbank to help celebrate the birthday of my friend Tuesday Knight\u2019s mom Dorothy. Tuesday is a wonderful actress in her own right, is pretty well-known, and in late 2019 recruited me to play her brother in one of her films. Her father was Baker Knight, who wrote hits for Ricky Nelson and Elvis. In fact, \u201cThe Wonder Of You\u201d was written by Baker for his wife Dorothy! Hard to believe when I was singing \u201cThe Wonder Of You\u201d in our Elvis tribute back in 1980, that I would someday be friends with the person who inspired that song! Life is rich! We had a great time and a great dinner. I drove back home to record my nightly auditions, organize for the new week, and lay out my KABR art piece. I had to do a little artistic touch-up work on the letterhead, but it printed very nicely and is ready to mount with the records when I take it to the framer\u2019s. I went through my personal bank statement and then hit the hay.<\/p>\n

And how was YOUR week??!!<\/p>\n

PIX FROM THE WEEK<\/p>\n

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Even though my Cookie Monster Muppet replica wasn’t ready in time to Zoom with little Carlos, I took this picture of Cookie wearing his “C Is For Carlos” t-shirt and sent it to Carlos’ mom. She loved it.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Clean desk, clean mind! (Well, sorta!)<\/p><\/div>\n

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I’m very happy with the way Cookie Monster turned out!<\/p><\/div>\n

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GOT IT!<\/p><\/div>\n

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This is a rough layout for my KABR collage piece I’m working on.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Here’s a shot of Tuesday and her mom Dorothy when she was working on one of the “Nightmare On Elm Street” movies back in the 80’s.<\/p><\/div>\n

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https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Cookie-in-Kitchen.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

I have a monster in my kitchen!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RANDOM PIC OF THE WEEK My parents took a screenshot of this familiar-looking young man who made an appearance on “Gunsmoke” in 1975. This is the same year the pilot for “Starsky & Hutch” was made. It’s funny seeing the “Sioux Falls” caption below, since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wallysweek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wallyontheweb.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}