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RussHS200Russ Johnson's head has been swimming with stories, sounds and pictures since he was nine, when he received his first professional photographic assignment: industrial espionage. The innocent-looking lad was corrupted by his father's department store to spy on its competitors by shooting merchandising displays. In his early teens he hauled a tape recorder with him on a fishing trip to record the call of a loon on a Minnesota lake. By age 16 he had his own radio show and by 19 was working in TV performing, writing and shooting film. Johnson got into trouble a few times, like when he was fired from a TV show for satirizing the yet-to-be-indicted Vice President Spiro Agnew. But he survived the broadcasting biz in Minneapolis, Sacramento and San Francisco, where worked as a public radio news director, documentary producer, writer, newscaster and journalism professor before applying his skills to his love of travel.

Since the mid-1980s, Russ Johnson has poked his nose, cameras (video, still and film) and microphones (a vintage collection) into faces and places in some 58 countries and hundreds of localities around the world. He has collected images, personalities, music and sounds from hundreds of personal journeys and photo, video and consulting assignments for companies such as American Express, countries and destinations such as Nepal, the Mekong river region of Southeast Asia and the State of California and organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations and American Public Radio. He has served on the Board of Directors and Sustainable Tourism committee of the Pacific Asia Travel Association, the world's largest public-private sector tourism organization, and on the destination assessment panel of National Geographic.

Johnson was a pioneer in travel on the internet, having launched one of the first travel Web sites to offer streaming video and podcasts. His Connectedtraveler.com has been lauded by Time Magazine, The Daily Standard, the BBC, CBS and many others. Lonely Planet has called it, "Armchair travel at its best."

Johnson lives in a tree house on a mountain north of San Francisco with his brilliant, beautiful wife Pat and a curmudgeonly cat named Moritz.

Photos, narrations and other TV and radio features can be found at russelljohnson.com.

 

 

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Gone Astray
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SAMPLE: Harpin' the Ling in Boonville 4:43 - Boonville, California where people speak in tongues: winemaking gibberish and a quickly-disappearing folk language called Boontling.
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Contents:

ASIA
1. Report From the Borneo Underground 6:29 - Sloshing and sliding through the Niah Caves in Sarawak on the island of Borneo.
2. To the Top of the Tallest Building in the World 2:39 - Forget Bladerunner or Mad Max, shopping is the vision of the future at Taipei 101.
3. A Bai Wedding in China 4:48 - What happens when you follow a truckload of people banging drums and tooting horns in Yunnan Province, China.
4. Eight Tiny Rainyak 4:03 - A holiday helicopter ride to where the spirits are high and the air is thin.

CANADA
5. Banff in Rutting Season 4:04 - Amorous elk and other rituals at Banff and Lake Louise, Canada during the first snow of the season.

CENTRAL AMERICA
6. Above the Clouds in Costa Rica 5:25 - A game poacher turned park ranger explains how bad roads, bird guano and global warming affect nature in the Monteverde Cloud Forest.

EUROPE
7. Wine, Song and Women Who Look Like Zsa Zsa 6:02 - Old Europe lives in the streets of Budapest, Hungary.
8. Cold Turkey: Thanksgiving in Heidelberg 4:57 - What do you do when you are stranded in a place that doesn't celebrate one of your holidays?
9. The Mad Poet's Society 5:31 - Poetry lubricated with wine at Lake Garda in northern Italy.

SCANDINAVIA
10. Midnight in the Garden of Swedes and Norwegians 4:57 - The lake region of Sweden where people stay up real late and see with their eyes closed.

USA
11. American Cheese 2:22 - Savoring an Economy Class delicacy.
12. Harpin' the Ling in Boonville 4:43 - Boonville, California where people speak in tongues: winemaking gibberish and a quickly-disappearing folk language called Boontling.
13. Old Las Vegas With Freddie G 5:30 - Las Vegas lore from the restaurateur who taught Don Rickles how to water ski.
14. Lost in Tschotskeland 4:57 - Disposing of souvenirs at the Marin County, California dump, which is a tourist attraction in itself.
15. A Tip of the Hat to Mr. Peanut 2:18 - Signs and symbols on Times Square, New York.

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