[jerryhawthorne]

Katie, almost any wire will work to hook up your speaker. Look at the size of the wire and go to radio shack. You may have to buy a small roll of speaker hookup wire. If you have wire coming out of the speaker and also some going to the receiver, just strip the ends and add a piece inbetween, twisting the bare wires together tightly and wrap with some electrical tape. Not the most elegant solution but should work fine.
As for the smell and tubes, yes, tubes do get hot, some quite hot. It could be as simple as pulling the tubes one at a time and using a damp cloth to clean the dust off of them. Of course with the player off and cooled down.
Any tube radio system could use a good going through electrically. This requires some knowledge and a little bit for parts.
Jerry