Let me take you down....
Paul McCartney Back In The US 2002
When we heard Paul was bringing his Back In the US Tour to the Compaq Center in Houston, we knew we had to go. To have shared the experience with Mary (only 7 rows away in front of Paul) is beyond words to describe and, when we first glimpsed him coming out on the stage singing Hello Goodbye, tears filled our eyes. What can one say about such an incredibly magical experience? One great Beatles song after another from the greatest song writer in history!
Thank you Paul for sharing your messages of love with all of us.
Hello Goodbye from The Back In The US Tour 2002
I couldn't believe my eyes as Paul came out on stage and there we were, right up close and personal, for a Beatle lover's dream come true! Few moments in a person's life stand out so magnificently as the first time you see the legend, the Knight, and, of course, the Beatle that is Sir Paul McCartney.
The crown jewel of our collection: During Paul McCartney's Back In the US Tour, Mary got Sir Paul's autograph for my birthday. Happy Birthday indeed! So, I designed this layout to display it proudly and the result is what you see here:
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away....
My interests include sharing with my beloved Mary our Beatles & rock memorabilia, all the wonderful music, my beautiful Martin D-28 Acoustic Guitar, my awesome iMac, and traveling to new and exotic places.
I've always been in awe at the wonder of what new experiences lie beyond the horizon.
I have been all over the world and lived in many places but home is in the great state of Texas! The San Antonio River Walk is a pleasure and life in the not-so-sleepy-or-small anymore town of San Marcos is very relaxing while affording easy access to Austin, Randolf AFB, San Antonio, and the BBQ Capital of Texas - Lockhart. Sharing all this with Mary is wonderful, people are friendly and more and more new stores and restaurants are opening all the time.
I LOVE New York City! Thanks to my dear friend, Joe Mondello in the Bronx, my so longed for pilgrimage to Strawberry Fields was an awesome experience. Our Caribbean Cruise was an amazing and wonderful adventure! We look forward to new adventures, planning someday to take the full Beatles Tours of London and Liverpool. Amsterdam? Scotland? That would be soooo cool!
In April 2007 we took a Royal Caribbean Cruise from Galveston to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel that was absolutely fantastic.
In November we're off to Barcelona for another Royal Caribbean cruise that will take us through the Mediterranean to Nice, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Palermo. Life is good and I am so grateful for the many blessings we enjoy.
I'd like to meet:
Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, and Ringo Starr.
I have met and/or worked with more than my share of interesting people over the years including in no particular order: Mick Jagger, David Crosby, Laurence Juber, Tom Selleck, Tony Curtis, John Wayne (Really! In Tokyo), Mickey Rooney, Carolyn Jones, Richard Pryor, Kathy Ireland, Pat Morita, Chris Penn, Herb Alpert, Ed McMahon, Roy Rogers, BJ Thomas, Bob Uecker, Kristie Yamaguchi, Andy Pettite, Jim Brown, Clayton Moore, Cindy Sheehan, Frank Zappa, Louis Bellson, Lt. General Thomas McInerney, Prime Minister of Japan Takeo Fukuda, US Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield, Jerry Rice, Warren Moon, Junior Seau, Merton Hanks, Chris Berman, Bill Cower, Steve Young, Earl Campbell, Larry Manetti, Jerome Bettis, Charles Haley, Terrell Davis, Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas, Archie Manning, Jim Kelly, Merton Hanks, George Seifert, and many more NFL people from my years as NFL Pro Bowl Coordinator for the most popular night club in Hawaii, Scruples.
While stationed in Japan as an advisor to the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force and as a student of Japanese history, I had a rare and wonderful opportunity to meet Minoru Genda who had been Admiral Yamamoto's Chief of Staff and the man who actually planned the attack on Pearl Harbor. He was old and frail but kind enough to spend about an hour with me talking about his role in World War Two. Needless to say, the report I wrote about that for college got an A+ and I was enthralled to have listened to this kind and gentle old man who had played such a key role in history as an adversary of America during the war in the Pacific.
Eric Clapton sings Tears In Heaven
From the Eric Clapton Unplugged performance. How can anyone not love this sweet and tender tribute to his beloved lost son?
Tears in Heaven
HIGH FLIGHT
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
— John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
..
Remembering the crew of Yukla-27
Paul McCartney sings Jenny Wren
I love this song as it sounds very much like something that would have been at home on The White Album. After all these years, Paul can still produce music that touches the heart.
Dear John,
How could you have been taken from your loving family and friends and from all of us who so deeply admired you?
What wonderful music and messages have we all been denied that you might have shared? It is a void and an emptyness that cannot be filled.
Thank you so sincerely for all that you represented to those of us among your greatest admirers who saw in your life a hope for real peace.
You may say that I'm a dreamer....
The Traveling Wilburys & Handle With Care
George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynn, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty
Something from the Concert for George
Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, and all of George's closest friends do a spectacular job on this incredible song. Playing the middle guitar solo is Mark Mann who captured it perfectly.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps by Laurence Juber
I had the pleasure of meeting Laurence at the Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas where he performed for an acoustic guitar clinic. Following his role as lead guitarist for Paul McCartney's Wings, he went on to great acoustic guitar fame and his album, LJ Plays The Beatles, is a treasure!
Yellow Submarine
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
Music:
Beatles, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Eagles, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Jimmy Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Laurence Juber, Chicago, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, Simon & Garfunkle, New Age Harmonics, Moody Blues, BB King, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennet, Leonard Bernstein, Shostokovich, Movie Scores & Broadway Shows: West Side Story, The Producers, Sound of Music, Lawrence of Arabia, Star Wars.
Eric Clapton is simply the greatest guitarist in the world.
The Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas was awesome!
Movies:
Patton, Saving Private Ryan, Letters From Iwo jima, Titanic, Butch Cassidy, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Forrest Gump, Goodfellas, Stripes, The Producers, King Kong, Superman Returns, X-Men
Television:
Seinfeld, Married With Children, Sopranos, Comedy Central, The Soup, South Park, MSNBC, CNN, Discovery, History, Wings & Military Channels, National Geographic, Court TV, E!
Books:
Our Royal Caribbean Cruise was a truly wonderful experience filled with great adventure!
.. ..
..
It was my great honor and privilege to fly with some of the finest human beings in the world. Through war and peace, near home and distant lands, I could not have asked for a better group of outstanding comrades in the air. I had an amazing twenty year career, the absolute greatest adventure of my life, and it was my finest hour.
..
This is my jet: the E-3 Sentry AWACS (Airborne Early Warning and Control System).
On May 18, 2007, Brigadier General (Select) Lori Robinson took command of the 552 AWACS becoming the first female in history to do so. She is a distinguished and gallant officer who has earned the respect of all who know her and even those of us who are now retired feel honored to know she now commands our beloved organization.
The 552 AWACS Division hosted the AWACS 30th Anniversary Reunion at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma June 28-30, 2007. My fellow AWACS crew members and I had a wonderful time and the war stories at the club were filled with glorious lies and exaggeration keeping us laughing throughout. You can check this and find links to other information about AWACS at www.awacs30th.com
..
Thank you Eric Clapton for the greatest concert in history!
We love and miss you George.
Still my guitar gently weeps....
My Sweet Lord from The Concert for George
An absolutely stunning performance by George's closest friends.
Heroes:
....
"Hero" to me means someone of truly great accomplishment and service to mankind or one who sacrifices above and beyond for another. Albert Einstein, Socrates, Martin Luther King, General Patton, Winston Churchill, all come to mind.
I might add that, while I disagree strongly with the war in Iraq, I have the highest esteem for our young men and women in uniform and our beloved British, Australian, and other allies who are serving so bravely and facing danger every hour of every day. I salute them all and pray they may return home soon so we might restore our forces to a level capable of confronting real enemies in other parts of the world.
You don't have to look far to see modern heros. I see them in the faces of our youth taking on impossible challenges, under supported by the very government that sent them there, and poorly led by self-serving politicians whose only agenda seems to be giving themselves pay raises.
We live in perilous times where liberty and "freedom" are under attack by our own government more than foreign terrorists. For many of us who served in Vietnam and through the end of the Cold War, we see a grave injustice for all that we dreamed of America becoming.
On a more personal level, the heros in my life include my high school band director, Benny Theiler, and my college professor, Dr. William R. Vizzard. Each were instrumental in inspiring me to accomplish my goals and I am forever in their debt. Dear friends who have seen me through all the ups and downs of life, you know who you are and you will always be heros to me. Most all the pilots I flew with are all great guys and from my earliest days in the Air Force, I always thought they were heros.
And now late in life, my greatest admiration and respect is for the wonderful lady in my life. My beautiful sweetheart, you are my hero.
For My Beautiful Sweetheart
Something in the way she moves, Attracts me like no other lover. Something in the way she woos me. I don't want to leave her now, You know I believe, and how.Somewhere in her smile she knows, That I don't need no other lover. Something in her style that shows me. I don't want to leave her now, You know I believe and how.You're asking me will my love grow, I don't know, I don't know. You stick around now, it may show, I don't know, I don't know.Something in the way she knows, And all I have to do is think of her. Something in the things she shows me. I don't want to leave her now. You know I believe and how.
The Beatles sing All You Need Is Love
I was in Japan when this great song was released in 1969 and saw this performance on Japanese TV. Look closely and you will see Mick Jagger among the crowd joining in the song. Its impact was and remains forever a major force in pop culture and philosophical thought.
This is such a cute Beatles video clip!
Memories of Hawaii
This was home for fifteen years.
While a Captain and AWACS staff/flying officer at Pacific Air Force Headquarters, Hickam AFB, Hawaii, I also enjoyed involvement in the local Honolulu community and much of what the islands had to offer:
Air Force Association, Japan-America Society, China Forum, Asia- Pacific Council, Hawaii Film & Video Association.
Appointed by then Governor John Waihee as a delegate to The Conference on Hawaii's Economic Future in the Pacific.
The warm hospitality and "Aloha Spirit" of Governor John Waihee and many elegant dinners at the Governor's Mansion known as Washington Place.
Initiated the continuing AWACS Commander's World-Wide Conference at Headquarters Pacific Air Forces, Hickam AFB.
Recorded political support messages in Japanese for friends running for local office.
Memorial Day Holiday weekends camping with friends at Hana, Maui.
Honolulu Marathon in 1983 and 1984.
It was my privilege and honor to represent my good friend, Fred Piluso, at his beautiful nightclub, Scruples in Waikiki, as the NFL Pro Bowl Coordinator from 1992 to 1999. In that position I had the pleasure of meeting and making good friends with many of the greatest players in the league.
Fred is always a gentleman and great host and, as a former Army Special Forces soldier in Vietnam, is especially gracious to military people. We had many great nights enjoying the company of Fred's close friends from Hollywood and so many other celebrities and interesting people that the list is too long to even begin. It was a glorious time and I am forever indebted to Fred for his friendship.
When you visit Hawaii, be sure to drop into the club and say "Aloha" for me.
In addition to Paul McCartney & Eric Clapton, other concerts, shows, and events I've attended include:
Bob Hope USO Show 1968
Frank Sinatra, Liza Minelli, & Sammy Davis Jr.
Lionel Ritchie
Whitney Houston
Celine Dion
Kenny G
Rod Stewart
Robert Plant
Carol King
The Carpenters
The Beach Boys
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
Bruce Hornsby & The Range
Jay Leno
Margaret Smith
George Wallace
Steve Martin
Willie Nelson
Jerry Seinfeld
John Denver
Howie Mandel
Dennis Miller
Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton
Multiple Dallas Cowboys, Houston Oilers, and Oakland Raiders football games and seventeen straight NFL Pro Bowls!
Thank you for visiting my site. May you enjoy peace and love, happiness and joy beyond your dreams.
