Here is a poster I received from my pal Robert "One Man" Johnson that he is going to be putting up on his upcoming tour to Japan. and here is what he had to say:


I am subbing today and will for the next two weeks. It is an easy way to make money for golf. I am going tonight to meet and play some music for a guy who owns a couple of music clubs in Bangkok. I would love to get a legal license to play. You need a sponsor and have to be certified by the government. I had a license in Shanghai, but here you need it even more. I will get one temporarily for the Phuket Blues Festival, but I'd like one that would allow me to play anywhere in the country. Their are some places in the south in really nice touristic areas where I could play at night when we are vacationing.

We have decided to go to Paris in April. We have some Turkish friends who we have known since 1983 and we always talked and dreamed about going to Paris. So, we are going to do it. The extra year next year of teaching for Margery and not having to pay out for health insurance will pay for it. We can only work two years in Thailand without passing a formal test in Thai language and also paying 25% income taxes so, you can be sure that next year will be the last.

I have attached a poster of my Nagoya tour starting the 5th of February. I thought you might get a kick out of it as it is bilingual. I should just about make enough money in cover charges and sales of CDs to pay for the plane ticket. It too may be my last trip to Japan. I am looking forward to it.



Best wishes to a fine musician and songwriter and even better friend!

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LARRY WHEELS AND DEALS ON EBAY - OH, YAH!

I was a bit startled to find tahat I haven't blooged snce January 11th, but "time flies when you're having fun!"

Kim left for her Caribbean cruise with "The Getaway Girls on January 11th. I think today she is back at sea cruising after spending time in Panama yesterday. But don't quote me on that - I don't have her schedule in front of me. I have been busy in the meantime trying to solve my FIND THE CORRECT FACE MASK FOR THE JIM CARTER HELMET crusade. This is a story in itself. So let's begin at the beginning.

About six months ago I bumped into Jim Carter, former Green Bay Packer linebacker, now automobile dealership king, coming out of Menard's. I told him of my collecting Packer helmets and how I had gotten Bart Starr's autograph and would be getting Paul Hornung's in the Fall. I then asked him if I could get his autograph and he said: "Sure, although I don't know why you would want it." It seems that through all the years he played for Green Bay, the fans never forgave him for not being Ray Nitschke. (I think I covered this in an earlier blog.) Anyway, I told him that when I landed another yellow helmet I would let him know.

In the meantime, I stumbled upon an autographed 8X10 black and white of Carter in his away uniform and what caught my eye was the unusual face mask he was wearing. I began an intensive search on eBay trying to find that exact face mask so that his autograpahed helmet would be "really authentic". I went online to the "retro-sports" dealers and found two dealers who carried that face mask but at a whopping $199.99!! I also found that mask (see below on the Packer helmet) for sale on eBay several months ago and with only hours left on the bidding it was at $26.40. The seller said it would only fit a medium size helmet. I had found a large LSU yellow helmet. I quickly e mailed the guy to see if it would fit a large. He wrote back and said no - he had tried that, it only would fit a medium!!!
Then, shortly after Kim left for the cruise, I stumbled upon a site that was selling six helmets ALL WITH THAT MASK! I quickly e mailed him to ask about size - did he have a large? He wrote back that he had some with no dots, some with one dot, and a couple with two dots.

I wrote back and asked what the dots meant as that meant nothing to me. After two days he wrote to say he had done some research and talked to "a guy" who explained that no dot meant small, one dot meant medium, and two dots meant large or extra large.

I found out he had a Raiders helmet with a large mask so in order to buy the mask I had to buy the helmet also at a cost of $110 plus $15 shipping. My plan? I would switch the mask I had on the Carter helmet over to the Raiders helmet and put the "correct" mask on the Carter autographed helmet.

As you can see, the Riddell J-GNOP (official nomenclature) fit like a dream! I was a happy boy! Now if I could only sell the Raider helmet. I quickly transferred the mask you see onto the Raider helmet and listed it on eBay. Within four hours, it sold for $99.99 plus $18.00 shipping! So I got the $199,99 mask for $7.01. What a wheeler-dealer am I!

I have spent all of last week getting various and sundry items listed on eBay for sale so zi can pay down some of my massive credit card debt. Tomorrow I have some 23 NFL jerseys going on sale as well as other football related stuff and a 1960's Harmony 12 String guitar that Gordy Bischoff did a fresh neck set for me on for a mere pittance "Buy It Now" price of $250.00.

Wish me luck!

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A joke with animals as the characters. (I love animal jokes!)

A koala was sitting in a gum tree smoking a joint

when a little lizard walked past, looked up and said, 'Hey Koala!
What are you doing?'

The koala said, 'Smoking a joint, come up and have some.'


So the little lizard climbed up and sat next to the koala where they enjoyed a joint. After a while the little lizard said that his mouth was 'dry' and that he was going to get a drink from the river.

The little lizard was so stoned that he leaned over too far and fell into the river.
A crocodile saw this and swam over to the little lizard and helped him to the side. Then he asked the little lizard, 'What's the matter with you?'
The little lizard explained to the crocodile that he had been sitting with the koala in the tree, smoking a joint, but got too stoned and fell into the river while taking a drink..

The crocodile said that he had to check this out and walked into the rain forest, found the tree where the koala was sitting finishing a joint. The crocodile looked up and said,


'Hey you!'

So the koala looked down at him and said,

Whoa dude...
How much water did you drink!?'




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A GREAT REASON TO LET YOUR WIFE DRIVE

HERE IS THE REAL TEST TO SEE IF YOU ARE OVER FIFTY FIVE YEARS OF AGE. LET'S SAY YOU ARE SITTING IN THE CAR ON THE PASSENGER SIDE WHILE THE LITTLE WOMAN IS DRIVING. YOU LOOK OUT YOUR WINDOW AT THE CAR YOUR WIFE IS PASSING AND YOU SEE THIS ---- AND ALL YOU CAN THINK IS . . .










CONGRATULATIONS! you are now officially an old fart!

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PUTTIN' DA MOOSE TA USE DON'T-YA-KNOW

This photo of a "moose put to use" was sent to me by my pal Steve (Roy) Rogers. Here's what accompanied the photo:

" MINNESOTA CLYDESDALE"




Only in Nordern Minnesnowta! .......

This guy raised an abandoned moose calf with his horses, and believe it or not, he has trained it for lumber removal and other hauling tasks. Given the 2,000 pounds of robust muscle, and the splayed, grippy hooves, he claims it is the best work animal he has. He says the secret to keeping the moose around is a sweet salt lick, although, during the rut he disappears for a couple of weeks, but always comes home.... Impressive !!

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PACKERS ELIMINATED - BUT PLAYED WITH A LOT OF HEART AND PRIDE

I woke up this morning with that empty feeling in the pit of my stomach that manifests itself when something traumatic happened the night before, like the time I smasked in the fender on my truck while going through the car wash and waking up the next morning to the realization that yes, it did happen and the smashed fender is still out in the garage awaiting scrutiny by the body shop guy.

But this morning's roiling in the stomach was caused by something much worse than a fender-bender. When I awoke this morning, the Packers were still defeated by the Arizona Cardinals yesterday and there will be no more Packer football until next August.

However (and I don't think this is rationalizing) it is pretty difficult to be totally bummed out in defeat! In Aaron Rodgers we have truly found a replacement for that guy who moved on to the Minnesota team. Look - Aaron set a National Football League record by accumulating over 4000 yards in his first two complete seasons at the helm of the spinach and mustard. That is nothing to sneeze at.

And yes, he didn't play his best game yesterday (he missed a wide open Greg Jennings on the first play of overtime that would have gone for a touchdown and game over), but look at what the boy did accomplish yesterday. Down almost instantly by 14 points in the opening minutes of the first quarter, he very cooly and inexorably brought his team back to eventually tie the game late in the fourth quarter.

Donald Driver inexplicably dropped a couple of passes yesterday - that's very, very rare. And for the first time in a long time, Charles Woodson did not pick off a pass. He did, however, strip the ball, turning it over to GB. Here's my post season prayer:
"Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray that Clay Matthews is a player to keep
If I should die before I wake
Please God, Ted Thompson you should take!"


I keep thinking of all the oddities that can happen with a ball that has points on both ends - it sure can bounce funny! And the game lends itself to the fates, again and again.

Examples: Rackers misses a farily short field goal to send the game into over time. Charles Woodson calls tails -- AND WINS THE TOSS! Green Bay attempts an onside kick and succeeds!

So we'll see how the Cards deport themselves against Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints.

Aaron Rodgers is one cool customer. The Packer nation has much to look forward to in the coming years.

Yesterday's game was the first of the playoff games that was truly nail-biting entertainment. The rest of the games were real yawners!

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LOOK OUT SARAH'S ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

I REALLY SHOULD STOP PICKING ON OLD BRETT BUT HEY, IT'S JUST FOR FUN. Looking forward to seeing how he handles the Dallas Cowpies this next week. Wonder if old Dubbya will be sitting with Jerry Jones and Emmitt Smith.

A JACKET FIT FOR WISCONSIN WINTER AND A PRIZE POSSESSION

This is my Avirex B-3 flyer's jacket that I purchased a whole lot of years ago and I am happy to say that because I have diligently rubbed it down every Fall with a high quality mink oil, it is still very serviceable during the long cold winters of Wisconsin. Originally designed for the crews of both B-17 and B-24 four engine bombers that flew at altitudes of 25,000 feet and temperatures of 40 below zero, it certainly comes in handy facing unloading sound equipment in the face of biting winds in January.

For some reason, recently complete strangers will stop to compliment me on the look of the jacket. I find that one of the unexpected bonuses of owning such a jcket is that it entices old men in their late 80's to tell me how they wore the exact same jacket while serving in WWII, flying missions out of England.
I wanted to sew an authentic battle group patch on the jacket. After doing much research on the computer, I stumbled upon the patch shown, which I had sewn on the jacket.

Here's the weird and wonderful part. It is the patch of the 398th BG which now has a fully restored B-17 Flying Fortress at the Eagle Hangar in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

The patch leads me to another great story. I was wearing this jacket on a trip out to New York City to visit with my sons Jon and David. I stopped at one of the many bodegas in the city to pick up some brandy. When I went up to the counter to pay for it, the young black girl behind the counter stared at the patch on my jacket and asked: "What gang is that?" I just smiled and replied: "It's a gang of old white guys that bombed the hell out of the Nazis in World War II."
She looked at me like I was from another planet.

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This morning I received an e mail from my good friend Robert "One Man" Johnson who is overseas accompanying his wife Margie while she teaches. Recently they took a short vacation in Viet Nam. Hee's bob's report:

"I haven't had a barber cut my hair since 1983 in Turkey. That was a pretty bad experience. It was our second week in the country and I didn't have any language but thought I could handle it with a small Turkish/English dictionary. Well, I got the word order wrong and instead of taking a little off, he only left a little. It was military style.

So, I'm walking down the street in the beautiful little town of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Margery is off shopping somewhere and I have some time to kill. I pass by this tiny little streetside place and the guy says, "Haircut! Two Dollah!" So, for some reason, I go in. I did need a haircut and Margery has been too busy lately. I have been hacking away at it in the mirror for the past few weeks and it looks pretty scrufty. So, I sit down in the single chair and begin to give directions in English to the guy. Turns out the only thing he does know in English is "Haircut! Two Dollah!"

He takes out a pair of thinning shears, which is anachronistic as my hair is already thin, but, Hey! Who wants fat hair? He snips away wildly for a minute or so with the thinning shears and then shifts to the real scissors. I am a bit nervous, but I can see in the mirror that he is doing a pretty good job, so I begin to relax. In less than three minutes, the hair cut is finished.

He sweeps off the grey hair on to the floor to mix with the dyed black hair of everyone else in the city and then grabs what looks like a medical scalpel. He slides a new blade in it and then dry shaves the back of my neck and around my ears. Still OK.

Then, he pulls my shirt back and starts to shave down my back. Hell, I don't have any hair on my back! Then he lays the chair back and starts to shave my face. No lather! He does deep inside my ears and then shaves my forehead! Inside my nose, my cheekbones, outside my nose, in between my eyebrows, my eyelids! What kind of hair could be growing on your eyelids? He dribbles some aftershave on my face and commences to lightly slapping the hell out of it. Biff! Baff! Biff! It doesn't hurt, but somehow seems undignified. Next, he puts a cold damp cloth on my whole face and begins to vigorously rub everything, including my eye sockets.

He takes the cold wash cloth off and swiftly pulls out a long thin tool with a little scoop on the end. He puts on a light, like a miner's light, on his head and, before I can say anything, he is deep inside my ear canals scraping away. I feel like I am going to throw up, but I don't dare move for fear he will do some damage! Then he takes a small brush and spins it around in my ears, I guess to clean out the debris.

That finished, he puts some drops in my eyes and again, before I can say anything, he cleans out my tearducts with a needle. I sure hope I don't get an infection...

Sweeping the cloth off my body like a toreador, he turns to the street and yells out, "Hair cut! Two dollah!"