I am pleased to launch the first episode of Dragons vs. Pirates: The Truth Behind the Music. In this podcast, I will share an audio journal of my life-changing experience when I was shanghaied by air pirates two years ago. Episode #1, “Shanghaied by Air Pirates” tells the story of how it all happened.

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I am making this record for my daughter Kenzie and my wife Gwen to preserve a memory of why I disappeared. After all, I was suddenly gone for several months. I am finally able to put those days into words. Especially since I stumbled across the journal I had written at the time. I only had a stub of pencil to write it in, so it took me awhile to decipher my own writing. But I am ready to share it with you now. Here's what happened during those missing weeks of my life.

Day One: I was downstairs, working in my office, when I smelled the stench of hot coals. Now that's not something I normally smell in Birmingham, Alabama. So I went upstairs to see if I could determine where it came from. I was on my upstairs porch, looking across the stream in my backyard. Suddenly, a rope ladder descended from the clouds. A man jumped off the end of it, brandishing a cutlass!

I didn't recognize him, but in my heart I knew he must work for Captain Black Jack Murphy, a pirate I met several years before.

As you might recall, Murphy was once a sailor on the high seas. He turned pirate and quickly murdered his way up the ranks to become one of those names people fear in stories at night. Those days were fierce and deadly. Until the inevitable happened. The Royal Navy caught up with Murphy's ship the IRISH STOUT–there was a deadly firefight, but Murphy managed to slip the noose and get away with his ship barely intact. He spent the next few years on the run.

That's when I met him. I thought he had mended his ways while we were recording an album of sea shanties together. He seemed to have put aside his pirating, but I was wrong. We finished the recording–and he stole the master tracks and disappeared once again. I didn't really begrudge the loss. He was pirate after all. What did I expect?!

A couple of years later, he popped up on the college speaking circuit touting the virtues of piracy. I remember shaking my head and laughing when I heard that. It was just like Murphy. When the RIAA started witch-hunting music lovers, Murphy was there to give 'em two fingers. I heard from a friend that they tried to arrest him at the University of Nebraska for digital music piracy. That's when he vanished completely from the grid.

No one had a clue where he had gone for quite some time. But now, here he was, kidnapping me. It turned out he had turned to air piracy and the lure of dragon gold. His First Mate, Gus, told me Murphy wanted me to chronicle his adventures once more. Little did they know that I love Dragons.

I will do my best to make sure that the dragon will come out on top of any confrontation between Murphy and one of those glorious beasts. I can't tell where the ship is off to–or how he managed to make it fly–but I have no choice in the matter. I am well and truly shanghaied by air pirates. I'll be back with more details as soon as possible. For now, this is Marc Gunn, somewhere overhead. Slainte

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