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I am not Ahab. No huge aquatic creature has chomped off my leg. I am not Hemingway. I have never battled a marlin. But, I have always dreamed of whoppers. The post Fish Schtick – Gone Astray Podcast first appeared on Connected Traveler.

So, why am I in New York City looking for a chicken, a chicken that plays tic tac toe? I begin my search on Mott and Canal, on the edge of Chinatown. The post Game Hen: Manhattan’s Tic Tac Toe Playing Chicken first appeared on Connected Traveler.

I’m wrestling with an eggsistential question right now. Should I or shouldn’t I cross the road, even though I have done it many times. You see, I’m a chicken. Since Socrates, Gilgamesh or whomever, people have been asking me just why did I cross the road. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn […]

A conversation with my two elderly aunts, who live on Elm Street under two oak trees. Language from another era. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Stitcher | TuneIn | iHeart Radio | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Deezer| Pandora I have two elderly aunts, Aunt Betsy and Miss Mergatroyd. They live in a double […] The post Heavens to Betsy, or is it Mergatroyd? first appeared on Connected Traveler.

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 […] The post Nine Tiny Reinyak – Gone Astray Russell Johnson Podcast first appeared on Connected Traveler.

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 […] The post Chicken Bones and UFOs - Gone Astray Podcast first appeared on Connected Traveler.

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 […] The post A Beerless Oktoberfest Amongst Trained Fleas - Podcast and Video first appeared on Connected Traveler.

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 | […] The post A Serenade to Karl the Fog first appeared on Connected Traveler.

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: […] The post Deep Thinking: I Want to be an Octopus Gone Astray Podcast first appeared on Connected Traveler.

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 […] The post Mt Shasta: Jerusalem for the Weird - Gone Astray Podcast 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.