last week\u2019s Wally\u2019s Week<\/a> 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\u2019s 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\u2019s husband Mike to tell him about it, and he said he\u2019d 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\u2019s just not quite as accurate to The Count as I\u2019d like it to be. I got an email from the folks at ME-TV\u2019s \u201cCollector\u2019s Call\u201d show finalizing some details for the upcoming shoot at my house in early December. It\u2019s getting closer, and I\u2019m 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\u2019s Week. Whew! The week is off and running!<\/p>\nTuesday the 28th \u2013 SPIDER NURSERY! \u2013<\/span> My pal Sara came over and trimmed my cat Spooky\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019d 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\u2019ve had them on display they\u2019ve been on a display base that wasn\u2019t 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\u2019s Camera to get a new batch of photos that had recently been printed from a batch of vintage negatives. I\u2019m 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\u2019s to get some navy blue faux suede for my entryway curtain. I\u2019ll 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\u2019s 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\u2019t looking and bumped one of the helmet\u2019s 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\u2019d attack the deeds the rest of the night with more concentration. I glued Ant Man\u2019s 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\u2019ll look fantastic. However, I need to go back to Joanne\u2019s and buy the rest of the fabric they had on the bolt to make the curtain look extra \u201cfull.\u201d 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 \u201cgnats\u201d started moving! They weren\u2019t 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\u2019m afraid their food source has become fairly limited. So I\u2019m 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\u2019s 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. \u2013 but it was worth it!<\/p>\nWednesday the 29th \u2013 PRE-PRODUCTION MEET-UP! \u2013<\/span> Before it got sold, I drove back to Joanne\u2019s 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 \u201cCollector\u2019s Call\u201d 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\u2019s Big Boy to discuss the upcoming shoot for \u201cCollector\u2019s Call.\u201d Rob is also a collector and has been on several episodes of the show as the \u201cexpert\u201d who assesses the value of the collector\u2019s collection. Since he will be the resident expert on the episode I\u2019m doing, we chatted briefly about some of the things we\u2019d 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\u2019s is one of his favorite restaurants. During the writer\u2019s strike, he agreed to pay for the meals of every writer who came in to Bob\u2019s to eat. What a cool guy! I wanted to tell him what a great job he did at the recent Vet\u2019s 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\u2019d 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.<\/p>\nThursday the 30th \u2013 RAM THIS! \u2013<\/span> 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\u2019s 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 \u2018n\u2019 Out for dinner, and then to Best Buy to get a few more sticks of RAM. But the type I needed wasn\u2019t anything they carried anymore. Apparently it was for \u201colder\u201d machines. Ugh. So, I\u2019ll 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\u2019s one of my favorite things to do every year around this time. There\u2019s a house in Burbank that\u2019s 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 \u201cBoris Karloff\u2019s Thriller.\u201d<\/p>\nFriday the 1st \u2013 IT\u2019S CURTAINS FOR YOU! \u2013<\/span> 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\u2019s. The village where Paty\u2019s 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 \u201cCreative Christmas.\u201d After attending my church\u2019s candlelight service at midnight, I come home and turn on my favorite Christmas radio show \u201cChristmas Across the Lands.\u201d For the past few years I\u2019ve 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\u2019ve spent my \u201cCreative Christmas\u201d building a puppet. One year I painted a night sky full of glow stars on my kitchen ceiling. But this year I\u2019m going to start building my L.A. photo albums \u2013 a photographic journal of my first years after I moved to Los Angeles in 1987. It\u2019s why I\u2019ve 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\u2019ll order some more supplies after the ME-TV shoot is in the record books, so I\u2019m fully prepared for this year\u2019s \u201cCreative Christmas.\u201d I went through another batch of my negatives to catalog them and prepare them for printing. It\u2019s my goal to get everything from the 80\u2019s logged, printed and completed by Christmas. That should keep me quite busy. The 90\u2019s will be considerable, since I have hundreds of sets of negatives I took throughout that decade. But the early 00\u2019s won\u2019t be as plentiful, as I was starting to shoot a lot of photos on digital.<\/p>\nSaturday the 2nd \u2013 LAFFS & MORE LAFFS! \u2013<\/span> Since it was a gorgeous day I walked over to Harry\u2019s 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 \u201cCollector\u2019s Call.\u201d Chris is a big fan of the show and he\u2019ll be assisting me on shoot day. In the early evening Angi arrived and we headed into Hollywood to dine at Rafallo\u2019s Pizza. But when we got there we discovered they were closed for renovations! Rats! So we hit the Arby\u2019s in Hollywood for a quick dinner before we went to the Henson studios to see another performance of \u201cPuppet Up!\u201d This is about my seventh time seeing the show, and it was Angi\u2019s third. \u201cPuppet Up!\u201d is an improv comedy show done with puppets, and it\u2019s 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\u2019t messing around! She said if she\u2019s cold she wouldn\u2019t have a good time, and we weren\u2019t exactly sure how cold it would be in the \u201cPuppet Up!\u201d location. We got to the Henson studios and checked in and took our VIP tour. Even though I\u2019ve 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\u2019t stop there. Since it was the first Saturday of the month, that meant I was going to treat myself to another \u201cLaurel & Hardy Theater\u201d 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 \u201cLaurel & Hardy Theater\u201d on channel 9 in Aberdeen, South Dakota when I was a kid. I\u2019m still making my way through the newly released Blu-ray of \u201cLaurel & Hardy: Year One \u2013 the Restored Silents.\u201d I watched \u201cDo Detectives Think\u201d (which featured Stan & Ollie working together as a team, similar to what we\u2019d be seeing throughout their illustrious career), and \u201cFlying Elephants\u201d (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.<\/p>\nSunday the 3rd \u2013 HEAVY METAL \u2013 AND LOTSA RUST! \u2013<\/span> 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\u2019d 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\u2019t 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\u2019t 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\u2019s head cane in my collection that once belonged to Jonathan \u201cBarnabas Collins\u201d 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!<\/p>\nAnd how was YOUR week??!!<\/p>\n
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PIX FROM THE WEEK<\/p>\n
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