On Martha Stewart Living Radio Today

For those among you who have some available eartime this afternoon, I'll be appearing on the Martha Stewart Living Today radio show at 1 pm EST. The show is broadcast on Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 112.

Host Mario Bosquez is a bird enthusiast and he's always ready with a series of seasonally appropriate questions for me. We always take listener calls, usually with bird questions (866-675-6675). Today's topic will be "the birds of summer." I am relatively certain the topic of bald cardinals will come up during the interview.

If you want to listen, you can use Sirius' FREE 3-day subscription at http://www.sirius.com/freetrial/register

I've been on Mario's show a half-dozen times or so over the past few years, and have even done two of the interviews in the actual Sirius/MSL studio, which was very cool.

Drop me a note here if you hear the show today. I'd like to know if there's "anybody out there."

Morning Walk Redirected

One morning last week I raced the sun
to take a walk whilst day was young

the old orchard path would be my route
the dew-kissed grass would soak my boots

Far reaches reached I turned toward the sun
striding back where I'd begun

Towhee, field sparrow, mourning dove
sweet summer songs filled the air with love

When something glistening caught my eye
A shaking spider web strung head-high

The web weaver shook with all her might
that I might understand her plight

Vibrations from my heavy feet
Had tipped her off that we might meet

Her movement had intent to warn
to keep her precious web from harm

And I, unknowingly, like a deer
could give Miss Spider much to fear

In shaking hard her sun-dappled web
She'd found a place inside my head

Which warned me now to stop my feet
lest face and spider web should meet

Smiling at her clever warning sign
I ducked beneath her lowest line

Thank you, dear, for telling me
of this important thing so I could see

My thoughts, then on the World Wide Web
should have clearly been on yours, here, instead

Your crafty trap, unharmed, may still
snag a juicy fly—one not named Bill

When my two legs trod this path again
I'll look for you, my eight-legged friend.

Irene the Headless Backpacker

One of the casualties of the recent trip to Trinidad and Tobago was my travel guitar. The headstock cracked off my Martin Backpacker guitar (again). About five years ago I slammed it in a van door, snapping off this rather important part, rendering it unplayable. A local luthier glued it back together and it played as good as new. That is, until I got the bright idea to take it along to the tropics on a trip where there would be some musically oriented fellow travelers. This could have been an installment of that Saturday Night Live skit for "Bad Idea Jeans."

This guitar, the Martin Backpacker, was made to travel. Before it lost its head, this guitar looked a bit like a kayak paddle and sounded only a little better. Unless I could plug it into and amp and use some effects to juice up its sound, the Backpacker was mostly just good enough for some casual, quiet picking and playing. Its sound was thin and tinny. But when there was no other guitar available, I was certainly glad to have this one along. I'd played her outside, inside, and in at least eight different U.S. states, plus one foreign country.

And speaking of that foreign country...

The glue in the guitar's head mend hated the hot, hot heat and the heavy humidity of Trinidad and Tobago. Somewhere between Port of Spain, Trinidad, and Speyside, Tobago, she gave up the ghost. I was sad but accepting. She'd been under such strain lately, what with the medium strings I'd put on her, and the sing-along pop songs we'd played in the van on the road from Matura Beach. Ah, she'd lived a good life, but that life was, sadly, now over.

The thought flitted across my mind like a tortoise-shell pick across a newly tuned high E: maybe I should leave her where she died.

No.

She was American-made and her remaining pieces should, by all rights, be returned to her place of birth. So I carted her lifeless, headless, tuneless body back home on a series of jets, her head still attached to her body by the now-silent and flopping A, D, G, and B strings.


Someday I may strip off her useful parts: thinline pick-up, tuners, strap knobs, and commit her body to the flames. But for now, she's resting in a corner of the basement. She shares that cool, dark space with all of her friends—my numerous other guitars. Now that she's gone, I'm sure they'll miss her, too.

The last song I played on my little Backpacker was "Goodnight Irene." So I guess that was her actual name: Irene. Goodnight, old gal. I'll see you in my dreams...