Gone Astray - Russell Johnson

A conversation with my two elderly aunts, who live on Elm Street under two oak trees. Language from another era. One of listeners’ faves from 2020. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Deezer| Pandora I have two elderly aunts, Aunt Betsy and Miss […]

Hi. My name is Johnny Swindell and listen up. You can’t afford to be without this. Do you realize that we spend at least 50% or our lives feeling deeply insecure, wondering why everybody is staring us, worried about voter fraud, about the next episode of our lives? Yes, these are especially tough time, when […]

On the night before the night before Christmas I boarded a Russian helicopter to fly to where the spirits are high and the air is thin, Mt. Everest. where, gasping for air, I recorded my holiday greeting. Listen to an excerpt from my book Tales of the Radio Traveler and check out the photo […]

Last night we had chicken for dinner. After dinner I stuffed the remaining bones and gristle into a plastic bag and proceeded to the trash can outside of our kitchen. As I stepped outside, I casually glanced at the sky. No moon, almost pitch dark. But I spotted something very strange, a pair of dim […]

As I left the Oktoberfest midway a sign grabbed my attention. I had to read it twice as it was in German. I never believed there was such a thing. I had heard about it and read about it, but I had never seen one and had never known anyone who had. I bought a […]

A few moments of Zen for our stressful times. Foghorns serenading “Karl the Fog,” as San Franciscans call him/it, recorded near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco’s Presidio. Russell Johnson’s Gone Astray podcast. Best listened to with stereo earbuds. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | iHeart Radio | Spotify | […]

Home, isolated, sheltered in place, moving about the house following pools of sunlight, I have been thinking about what, if I had my wish, I would like to be. And, I have come to a conclusion. I would wish to become…. an octopus. Daft, you say, but listen up. We are not all that different: […]

My speech, introducing me a tunafish sandwich, to take on Donald Trump as a candidate for President of the United States. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Deezer| Pandora Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’m here to announce my candidacy for President […]

Every year in August, pilgrims arrive from all over the world to celebrate the I AM Come pageant a spectacular passion play with a twist, in fact many twists, on the slope of Mt. Shasta, California. I AM was founded in the 1930s by one Guy Ballard, who claimed to have met Saint Germain, a […]

I’ll have to admit. I was never much of a businessman. In fact, I could probably have been considered by some “a loser.” My dreams of a golden tower with my name on it had pretty much faded. But then I came up with an idea that I thought, humbly, was brilliant. I thank my […]

I was really perplexed. Was I suffering from SOHDD? I think many my age do. I know, its tough times: politics, COVID-19, sitting in a hard chair contemplating the lint in my naval, watching dust bunnies swirl about the floor, but SOHDD, Sense of Humor Deficit Disorder, previously known as Irony Deficiency Anemia? Subscribe: Apple […]

This is the end of life story of the legendary KABL 960 Radio in San Francisco, which took on a new life online long after it went off the airwaves, plus a recording of the San Francisco Cable Car Bell Ringing Contest it sponsored, including a virtuoso performance of of San Francisco by all time […] The post Legendary San Francisco Radio Stations Fade Into The Fog but the Music of the Cable Cars Rings On first appeared on Connected Traveler.

A wild adventure in Nepal’s Chitwan jungle on a quest to film The Mother of All Chickens. Listen to the rumble of elephants, screeching birds and a snake charmer. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Deezer| Pandora | An excerpt from the Audio […] The post Fowl Play in the Jungle - Chasing Chickens in Nepal first appeared on Connected Traveler.

OK, death. A difficult subject. I’ve never had a bucket list. I got over the notion of places I MUST visit before I become compost long ago. But, the afterwhatever is a different story. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Deezer| Pandora I […] The post The Ultimate Vacation: Places To Go AFTER YOU DIE first appeared on Connected Traveler.

Memories of my old neighborhood, 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered and how that address could become the symbol of a new era. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Deezer| Pandora On the corner of 38th and Chicago in […] The post My Old Neighborhood: The Place Where it Happened first appeared on Connected Traveler.

Scientists say scent is the most evocative of our senses. I sit in a sidewalk cafe in Madrid, but this whiff of cigarette smoke takes me back to other cafes in other places where small talk, failed seductions, and heated discussions rose, sometimes in tight rings but, more often, in formless puffs. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts […] The post Smoke Rings, A Smoking Memoir - Gone Astray Podcast first appeared on Connected Traveler.

My morning walk begins along a street in my neighborhood where I am often accosted by two panhandling cats. One is a young Maine coon, who perches her dainty self at easy scratching height on a fence. If I choose to ignore her, don’t leave a treat, her squeaks and needy eyes make me feel […] The post Tails From The Trail - Gone Astray Podcast first appeared on Connected Traveler.

I stand outside of Costco and survey a full parking lot. Just where is my car? Unfortunately I didn’t make a mental note about where I’d left it. Was it to the right or the left of the shopping carts. Did I park it way out next to the In and Out Burger? Or did […]

Dodging trolls and other beings that stumble in the bright of night during Midsummer in Sweden’s Lakes District. Visand, in Sweden’s Lakes District – Photo: Russ Johnson It is not easy to be chirpy at 3 o’clock in the morning unless you’re a mockingbird or a Swede during Midsummer when the sun hardly sets at […]

View from Kasbah Omar, Anrar, Morocco- Photo: Russ Johnson Sometimes you suffer from too much of a good thing, even the finest food. Tell your friends you’re going Morocco for two weeks and they’ll likely lick their lips and wish they could be with you to enjoy the tasty pastilla, keftas, couscous and tajines. So why, halfway […]