Photos from Dutchess County trip, drive back home October 28, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Aviation, Baseball, Biking, Comedy, Film, Fire, Health, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Politics, Radio, Running, Sci-Fi, Sports, Technology, Travel, Video, Video Games, Weather.add a comment
In two of my Homecoming Weekend posts (live show, main post), I referenced a family trip to Dutchess County the prior weekend. This post is about that trip.
Back in the spring, my mom sprung the trip on me: a few of my relatives were going to run a race – The Fall Foliage Half Marathon and 5K – in Rhinebeck on the Sunday of Columbus Day Weekend and we would all be put up in a nearby AirBNB. I initially panicked, worried that it would conflict with Homecoming Weekend (henceforth, HCW), but one of my alumni friends assured me the LIU Sharks‘ Homecoming football game would likely be the following weekend. And in recent years, it has been held on the third Saturday of October. My conscience was clear and I was prepared for the trip.
I assumed the AirBNB would be in Rhinebeck and my parents, sister, and I would leave for there on the morning of Friday, October 7. Instead, we were to leave in the mid-afternoon and the house was in Staatsburg. I had an extra day to prepare since I decided not to go to New York Comic Con this year, or ever again, due to my disenchantment with the event and a need to save money for paying off my PC build. (And then, a week later, I went and bought a new camera and related equipment, which I’m still trying to get the hang of.)
I have a mixed record when it comes to time management. More often than not, I mismanage my time, and that’s what I did prior to departure on Friday afternoon. In the days leading up to the weekend, I tried to get as many radio shows recorded as possible to allow for a sizable buffer of weeks ahead. I only managed to produce and record the HCW prerecord and one regular show (November 16). I finished creating the playlist for the live HCW show with only an hour to spare before leaving the house.
Annotations for the live show and next regular show (November 23) were done from my laptop during downtime at the AirBNB. It was not an easy task with constant action at breakfast time or with babies occasionally crying indefinitely, all amplified by the hardwood floors on the main floor. Most of the regular show annotations were done on Sunday evening when I had the house to myself and then in my bedroom with white noise blaring in my earbuds.
Don’t chalk this up to disdain for the experience that weekend. Overall, I had a great time seeing the sights and catching up with relatives.
My parents and I left at 3:15 Friday afternoon and drove five minutes east to pick up my sister at her apartment. Four hours of traffic and spotty cell service later, we arrived at the AirBNB on Connelly Drive in Staatsburg.
For privacy’s sake, I won’t include photos of the house’s interior or of my family, but here are two exterior shots I took Saturday afternoon:
The rest of the post is dedicated to scenery photos taken from Saturday, October 8, to the ride home on Monday, October 10.
First, two more negatives:
- The Mets completed their unraveling by losing their National League Wild Card Series to the Padres. I found out about their game 1 loss Saturday morning, game 2 win Sunday morning, and game 3 loss seconds after it happened Sunday night. It was extremely demoralizing. I spent five months of my life believing this was the year the Mets would win their third World Series, allowing me not to care if they’d win a fourth in my lifetime. Five months of my life were wasted for nothing, including hours spent editing photos from the two games I attended. Obviously, I won’t make a slideshow of photos from that second game, which turned out to be the apex of the Mets’ season; all downhill from there. I hadn’t thrown away so many months expecting an outcome that didn’t happen since the 2012 presidential election. And I was away from home that night, too, at a family friend’s house in Rockville Centre, waiting for power to be restored back at my Wantagh home. (It was the next afternoon.) (11/1 UPDATE: Whoops, forgot to note power was lost during Sandy. I wrote about my experience here.) Incidentally, that family friend now lives an hour north of where we were and she met up with us Sunday in downtown(village) Rhinebeck.
- In another case of time mismanagement, I hurriedly and anxiously shaved my face and neck on Saturday and Sunday, making everyone wait before we could drive to wherever we were going. I cut myself in multiple places, and contemplated going back to an electric razor after nearly 20 years of a manual razor with five-blade cartridges. My dad generously bought one for me as an early birthday present on Monday morning. As of publication, I’m still mastering it. Most of my face is easy to shave, but I can’t get all the hairs off my neck, above my chin, or below my sideburns.
Now for the photos. Saturday morning, October 8, included a trip to the Kesicke Farm Fall Festival (more alliteration) in Rhinebeck. One day after warm and slightly humid conditions, conditions were sunny and breezy with temperatures in the 50s. I brought a winter hat and light gloves on the trip, but only needed the gloves.














































Returning to the AirBNB:




Sunday, October 9, brought us back to Rhinebeck. I packed my camcorder and tripod on Friday because I thought we’d be watching the end of the races Sunday. I thought wrong. I did use the camcorder Saturday afternoon to record soccer practice with my sister and our cousin. We did, however, walk up and down Market Street in Rhinebeck. That made me think of a song bearing that name by Yellowjackets from the Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home soundtrack. Of course, the film was based in San Francisco, not Rhinebeck, but Rhinebeck was the location of Spyro Gyra‘s last album of original music to date, The Rhinebeck Sessions.
A recent episode of Sound Sack included misheard lyrics Joe Redifer imagined for music in Tengai Makyō: Fuun Kabuki Den for PC Engine (making me laugh real hard) and Sega Rally 2 for Dreamcast. Misheard lyrics for a cue from Sega Rally 2 included “because your fear of Daryl’s pager.” It may have an extra R, but this clothing store on Market Street made me think of Joe’s lyric. For my dad, a Freeport firefighter, I photographed this firehouse. Notice the lens flare? I walked through the Rhinebeck Farmers’ Market with my mom, aunt, and their high school friend (the aforementioned family friend). The folk stylings of Eric Erickson A selfie (with the blemishes and shaving cuts edited out)
Another pair of road signs on the way back to Staatsburg:


While I was walking through Rhinebeck, my dad biked to and from the Ashokan Reservoir via the Ashokan Rail Trail. Those are the first two photos below. He took the third Sunday evening while everyone but me traveled to the Walkway Over the Hudson. (I stayed in Staatsburg.)



Monday morning, October 10, I spotted three wild turkeys walking through the AirBNB’s backyard. I went outside to take photos with my phone, and ended up following them several yards into the woods.





Trembling from excitement and anxiety (I wanted to go home), I shot this shaky video:
We left for Wantagh at around 10:30 AM. These photos were taken on the way to the Taconic State Parkway:






On the parkway:
“Lucky” by Ken Navarro was playing on SiriusXM’s Watercolors. A rest stop
I-84:
I-684 (briefly in Connecticut):
The Hutchinson River Parkway/I-678 (supplementing my photos from May 1):
Viewing Manhattan from the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge
The Cross Island Parkway:
And finally, the Grand Central Parkway/Northern State Parkway:
It took less than 2 1/2 hours to drive from Staatsburg to Wantagh. After a short treadmill run to compensate for Friday’s shortened run, I tried my best to unwind. I edited Saturday’s and Sunday’s photos at the AirBNB, but took care of Monday’s photos at my remote location on Tuesday and Wednesday (October 11 and 12). After uploading the scenery photos (and selfie) to WordPress and making a rough draft of this post with only the photos, I shifted my focus to HCW (Homecoming Weekend, if you forgot) and finally wrote a recap on the 24th, publishing today, the 28th. Thank you for reading it all and I hope you liked the photos.
Instrumental Invasion, 10/26/22 October 27, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Baseball, Comedy, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, News, Personal, Radio, Sports, TV, Video.add a comment

The October 26 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded in sequence on September 17 (four segments) and 18 (two segments).
The playlist was created on September 9, following a production hiatus while assembling and setting up my new computer and drafting the subsequent blog post.
As noted in the October 5 post, going forward, annotations are made in a separate Microsoft Word document, from which the talk break script is drafted in its usual document. I never share the script, but since annotations are an extension of the playlist, I will share those. This week’s annotations were made on September 13 and 14 with the script drafted on the 15th.
This is also the first week with 18:05 segments in mind, and a desired total duration of 1:48:30. Segment 1 of hour 2 was exactly 18:05, the first exact duration since segment 2 of hour 2 on October 5.
I used the phrase “leadoff hitter” to describe the first song – “There’s No One Else” by Robben Ford – in honor of the World Series, which starts tomorrow night. I wish the Mets were the National League representative, but I’m proud of all their other accomplishments this season. (I wrote that presumptuously on September 20. On October 26, I’m writing that I’m glad the Phillies eliminated the Braves in the NLDS and Padres in the NLCS. The Mets blew the NL East lead to the Braves and lost their NL Wild Card Series to the Padres.)
The inclusion of “Spring High” by Ramsey Lewis preceded his death on September 12, but that was acknowledged in the annotations and script. With “After Chicago” by Ronnie Foster coincidentally included, I called back to Ramsey’s Cabrini-Green upbringing.
In all the years I’ve heard “Schmooze” by Eric Marienthal, I’m reminded of longtime WFAN host Steve Somers, a.k.a. The Schmoozer, a.k.a. Captain Midnight (a la the radio serial). I dialed down my impression of Steve, limiting it to his name and removing his phraseology at the start of the talk-up (i.e. “Eric Marienthal on a Wednesday night on WCWP Brookville”). This was the WCWP-FAN jingle hybrid I made:
Then, there’s Fourplay‘s “Little Foxes,” evoking Festrunk Brothers lingo (the “foxes” part). It helped that most of the backing vocalists were women, hence my “adult foxes” tangent. Here is one such Festrunk Brothers Saturday Night Live sketch:
Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:
2022 LIU Post & Homecoming Weekend, WCWP Hall of Fame Announcement October 22, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Football, Internet, Interviews, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Pop, Radio, Rock, Travel, Video.add a comment
Other recaps: 2008, 2009, WCWP 50th Anniversary (2011), 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021
Four months after going into the WCWP Hall of Fame, I returned to the campus of LIU Post for part of WCWP‘s Homecoming Weekend programming block, the first under new station manager Pete Bellotti. (The list of 2022 HOF inductees comes later in this recap.)
Friday, October 14
This year, Homecoming Weekend started an hour earlier, at 11AM, making for 61 hours of alumni-run shows. In August, Bernie Bernard earned a Master of Arts degree from Florida Atlantic University. Her aural thesis on pirate radio led off the weekend:
The second show, at noon, was also prerecorded: a compilation of select episodes of Bill Mozer’s WCWP Alumni Career Path Podcast:
I have a dedicated blog post for my live edition of Instrumental Invasion at 2PM, but here is a snippet:
… I did not draft a talk break script; a live show calls for spontaneity, albeit with annotations to work from. I ended up referencing [my family trip to Dutchess County, subject of a blog post next week] during the show.
I feel like I wasn’t my best without a script, but all that matters is what listeners thought, and they liked it. Naturally, [the show] started with a technical glitch. Automation didn’t switch off [after Bill’s show ended], allowing me to go live from studio 2. I relayed the problem to station manager Pete Bellotti and he had me start the show even though the first minute or so (54 seconds) would go unaired. …
What a coincidence that David Benoit’s latest single of A Midnight Rendezvous is “Pioneer Town.” That allowed me to allude to the days before the One LIU merger when the Brooklyn and Post campuses had separate athletic programs.
For my official archive of the show, I included the unaired part, re-created from the liners I played (mostly as heard on my restart) and amplified/noise reduced camcorder audio. Here is the scope video:
I faded the last song out just in time for automation to kick back in for John Commins at 4PM. To keep listeners from tuning out, I did not acknowledge that he was prerecorded. Within 20 minutes, I had packed up my equipment and headed for home. My video equipment was a Panasonic HC-X1500 with VW-HU1 detachable hand unit, both bought in late March, and my tripod of nearly seven years: a Magnus VT-300. Mozer recommended a Magnus tripod in a discussion at the 2015 Homecoming, but not the one I chose. I don’t remember which one. The HC-X1500/VW-HU1 combo was in lieu of an HC-X2000 built with the hand unit. I didn’t want to pay more for 3G-SDI output. But enough about video gear.
WCWP was entirely live from studio 2 from 6PM to midnight. John Zoni had the 6PM show:

Alan’s final show was Seltzer with a Twist, starting at 8PM:
There was about 30 seconds of dead air after Alan’s last song finished, so Jay began The DFK (Disco and Funk King) Show seconds before 10PM:
The Young Prince K.J. Mills stayed up late to host The Storm 2.0 at 2AM (I’m counting this as part of Friday’s lineup):
Saturday, October 15
I returned to LIU Post at 1:30 Saturday afternoon. This time, I brought along my GoPro Hero 7 for shooting B-roll. Unlike last year, I did use it, thanks to a flexible tripod I bought in November, inspired by the video of Joe Honerkamp’s show.
In a bold move, I opted not to walk down to the football field to catch part of the LIU Sharks‘ Homecoming game. Considering they were creamed by the Saint Francis Red Flash, 57-7 (box score, recap), I made the right decision. As the game carried on, I sat at my laptop and spoke to any alumni that walked into studio 3, where my laptop was set up for web browsing on my downtime, but otherwise to aircheck the shows following the football game. My aircheck equipment, used Friday and Saturday, was a Behringer U-Phono UFO202 pre-amp connected to a Sangean HDR-16 radio. WCWP also uses the UFO202 for airchecking off FM tuners, doing so to clip key plays in Sharks games. Home airchecks were recorded in Audacity, either on my computer or the guest room computer, then edited in Adobe Audition.
One such alum to drop by during the football game was M.J. Lonardo, known as DJ M.J. during her time at WCWP. The photo I took of her and station manager Pete Bellotti is the first in a series of two-person photos taken throughout the day:
On to photos from Bernie Bernard’s Barbecue Bash (by golly), starting at 4:08 PM:
Grandfather Rock Chris MacIntosh, longtime host of Rock ‘N Soul Gospel, and Hugh Hammill, Bernie’s friend from her WBAB days Jett Lightning joined Chris in studio 2 with Bernie At 5:11, Bernie announced the 2022 WCWP Hall of Fame inductees, who will be inducted in ’23. In the order listed on Bernie’s sheet below, they are: Travis Demers, Dan Reagan (reegan), Cosmo Leone, Roger Luce, Kim Dillon, Jon Cole, Suzanne Langwell, and John Mullen. Cosmo, Jon, and John all called in during the show. You’ll see and hear them in the video and audio below this stacked gallery. Technical assistance was required to fix the telephone hybrid audio. The quirky sound that afflicted Cosmo Leone’s interview was mitigated while speaking to Jon Cole. I had to cut away to some of these photos during that part of the video because my view of Bernie was blocked. The tradition of Mike Riccio (sitting) and Bobby Guthenberg (standing) following Bernie with their countdown show continued this year. Bernie spoke with them beforehand.
Here is the aforementioned video:
Anyway, here is the audio version with longer lead-outs and the start of the first talk break in the video:
Mike Riccio and Bobby G.’s countdown began at 7:03 PM. Mike couldn’t find a legal ID to run in WaveCart, so I approached the board and picked one. Then, the show began with “Wooden Heart” by Elvis Presley. Editing video of this show has left the end of “Wooden Heart” ingrained in my head. First, the photos:
A group photo with Alan Seltzer and Jett Lightning before air Jett and Alan guessed which songs were next based on Mike’s clues. A close-up of Mike Riccio Bobby G. Alan Seltzer Jett Lightning (I wanted a candid shot, but he spotted me) I took this parting photo before packing up for home. My parents picked me up after dinner in Syosset.
The video:
And the audio version, including parts of the last two hours and with extended lead-outs:
The above photos are the last taken at an event with my Nikon D5500. As Homecoming Weekend was wrapping up, I consulted with a Facebook group for fans and users of the Canon EOS R7 mirrorless camera. I said in my PC build post that I had a Nikon Z7II in mind, but it’s too expensive and I’d have to buy a 24-200mm (not 300) Z lens (I like to use one superzoom lens) to take full advantage of the megapixel increase. My existing F mount 18-300 superzoom would be heavily cropped because it’s not made for full frame cameras like the Z7II. The EOS R7 and all the accessories I bought for it, including a Tamron 18-400 superzoom and control ring mount adapter, cost less combined than a Z7II body alone.
I hope to write about my early experience with the EOS R7 and equipment in a later post, but for now, back to Homecoming Weekend.
Sunday, October 16
I woke up a few minutes into my prerecorded Instrumental Invasion, another show with a dedicated blog post. Otherwise, the scoped aircheck:
When that was over at 8AM, Jay LaPrise (la-PREE) had the first live show of the day:
My attempt at airchecking Jamie Mazzo and Sara Dorchak’s Ladies of Prison Break Radio show at 10AM was a bust. With my weekly Zoom meeting at 11:30, I had to aircheck on my laptop. I should have recorded the audio loopback, like on my desktop, but I didn’t. The same unnatural audio boost problem that kept me up in the hours after my September 14 show afflicted the laptop aircheck.
The Rockin’ Sunday Show with Alana followed at noon, its usual time on a regular Sunday:
Just after 2PM, it was Joe Honerkamp’s turn:
The last show I airchecked on Sunday was Jett Lightning at 4PM:
Saturday, Jett persuaded me to add John Coltrane‘s Blue Train album to my collection. I’m certain he played the title track on his Sunday show for me.
Homecoming Weekend pulled up its stakes at 12:02 AM Monday morning, and on that note, we’ve reached the end of the 2022 recap. Thank you for reading, watching, and listening. Until next year.
Instrumental Invasion, 10/19/22 October 20, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Comedy, Internet, Interviews, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Weather.add a comment

The October 19 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded (and mixed) non-sequentially on August 31 (segments 1, 5, 6) and September 1 (segments 2 through 4). Pickups were recorded on September 2.
The playlist was created right after finishing last week‘s playlist on August 25, annotated on the 27th, and the talk break script was drafted on the 30th. I was able to break even this week with a total duration of exactly one hour and 48 minutes. Starting next week, I will go to 18:10 segments, a total of 30 more seconds. This should limit the amount of dead air before automation’s fill song kicks in.
I did not expect the story of “St. Thomas” to be so involved. The Sonny Rollins interview (from April 5, 2007) where he shared the origin story is accessible via this link, but the media player disappears from sight after you start it. So, I downloaded it to share here:
He definitely wrote “Airegin,” though.
Regarding my talk-up after “Hello Tomorrow” by Larry Carlton, Lloyd Lindsay Young‘s “hello…!” bit had been circling in my head ever since a recent George Carlin documentary showed his introduction at the start of George’s 1988 special, What Am I Doing In New Jersey? I’ve said it before, but only on Instrumental Invasion can you get references like that. That goes for the MythBusters reference I made at the end of my “St. Thomas” origin story. On that series, if a myth in a given episode couldn’t be replicated, it was given a “busted” rating.
Speaking of Larry Carlton, I acknowledged that he was Fourplay‘s second guitarist, Lee Ritenour was their first, and Chuck Loeb was the third. Kirk Whalum played tenor sax on “Hello Tomorrow,” and I neglected to mention that he was the fourth member of Fourplay whenever there wasn’t a guitarist.
Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 10/16/22, 6AM (Homecoming Weekend) October 16, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio.add a comment

The second Instrumental Invasion of this year’s Homecoming Weekend block on WCWP was recorded one hour per day on October 2 (at home) and 3 (at my second location). I considered it a backup that might air, but found out last Saturday that it would air at 6AM Sunday. (Click here for a recap of Friday’s live 2PM show.)
Rather than make another theme show, I recycled the 60-year musical journey playlist from last Wednesday’s show, but with new talk breaks, rearranged liners, additional liners, and two extra songs to accommodate the weekend’s non-segmented format. The extra songs were:
- “Kid Gloves” by Larry Carlton (1992)
- “Mr. Martino” by Chuck Loeb (2007)
Since I deleted the original Word document for Wednesday’s show, the playlist was created from scratch on September 29. Annotations were transcribed and newly made on September 30 with a revised talk break script drafted on October 1.
Time constraints in the second hour meant a few talk break lines had to be cut, including “I’ll drink to that…with a soft drink” for Jeff Golub‘s cover of “Cold Duck Time.” The first hour had the opposite problem, which meant padding it out with an extra liner and not starting some songs as music beds.
Like last year, I screencapped the complete Adobe Audition session:

Click here to download the scoped aircheck or listen below:
The unscoped aircheck is available for download on Google Drive.
Instrumental Invasion, 10/14/22, 2PM (Homecoming Weekend) (Live!) October 16, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Radio, Travel, Video.add a comment

Friday’s live WCWP Homecoming Weekend show was my first live radio show in three years and the first live show of the 61-hour block (starting at 11AM, not noon)!
The playlist was created only one week before air, on October 7, shortly before a weekend excursion to Staatsburg in Dutchess County with relatives. They were in the area for a half marathon and 5K in Rhinebeck. One of my cousins ran the half marathon while my uncle and another cousin ran the 5K. I drafted this and two other blog posts, along with annotations, on my laptop at the AirBNB we stayed at. I did not draft a talk break script; a live show calls for spontaneity, albeit with annotations to work from. I ended up referencing the trip during the show.
I feel like I wasn’t my best without a script, but all that matters is what listeners thought, and they liked it. Naturally, it started with a technical glitch. Automation didn’t switch off, allowing me to go live from studio 2. I relayed the problem to station manager Pete Bellotti and he had me start the show even though the first minute or so (54 seconds) would go unaired.
I took photos in studio 2 during the latter portion of the show:
Then, I had Pete take photos of me at the controls:
He also took photos for the WCWP Alumni Association Facebook group’s communal photo album:


And I took a self-timed selfie:

Continuing my another of my Homecoming show traditions, dating back to 2007, I simultaneously shot video to sync with the aircheck scope (and unaired portion). Watch below (in 4K!):
The regular scoped aircheck MP3 (also with the unaired portion) can be downloaded here or listened to below:
The unscoped aircheck (unaired portion, too) is available for download on Google Drive.
Click here to read about the pre-recorded show that aired Sunday morning. The rest of the weekend will have its own blog post on Friday Saturday. 10/27 UPDATE: Here is that post.
Instrumental Invasion, 10/12/22: Pre-Homecoming Weekend Edition October 13, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Comedy, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, TV, Video.add a comment

The October 12 pre-Homecoming Weekend edition Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was made in two parts. The talk breaks were recorded all at once on August 29 and the segments were mixed on the 30th. Most pickups were recorded during mixing on August 30, except for one each on September 2 and 15.
Not expecting a secondary slot this weekend, I applied its 50/40-year musical journey format to this week’s Wednesday night show. As you heard, I opted for a 60-week musical journey so I could play songs by The Jazz Crusaders in 1962 and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in ’67.
After production wrapped, I was asked if I’d be interested in a secondary slot, after all; of course, I accepted. It is slated to air at 6AM Sunday, but may air at other times since there aren’t any time-specific references. Out of laziness, I opted not to redo talk breaks to acknowledge the extra show this weekend. Surprise!
Sunday’s show will have the same music, but with new talk breaks, additional liners, and two extra songs. (10/20 UPDATE: Here’s the recap of that show and of the live Friday show.)
The playlist was created – after a week and a half production hiatus (due in part to the LI Retro recap) – on August 24 and 25 immediately followed by next week’s playlist. Annotations were written on the 26th and the talk break script was drafted on the 28th. Doing the math, you’ll notice that I went four seconds over. So be it. I’m willing to go a minute or two over my desired total duration of one hour and 48 minutes.
Many shows were on my playlist wish list for weeks and I finally got around to them here. The only retread was “Q’s Motif” by David Benoit, previously heard on June 24, 2020. “Q’s Motif” was preceded by Darren Rahn‘s “Wave of the Future,” which made me think of this Saturday Night Live sketch from October 18, 1986:
Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:
On to Homecoming Weekend!
Instrumental Invasion, 10/5/22: My 21st Radio Anniversary October 6, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio.add a comment

The October 5 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP aired on the 21st anniversary of my radio debut with The Mike Chimeri Show. (Click here for scoped airchecks of some shows from the second week and beyond.) This anniversary show was recorded one hour per day on August 11 and 12 with a pickup on the 15th.
The playlist was created on August 1, along with last week’s show, and was annotated on the 3rd. The combination of those annotations and misguided one-arm shoulder presses wrecked my right wrist. I couldn’t lift weights for over a week, nor could I write for too long. First draft: Thus, this was the last show with handwritten annotations, which means no more printouts, scans or retouching. Starting next week, playlists are made in Microsoft Word, saved as PDFs, and annotated in Adobe Photoshop. Annotations will include when a segment is recorded and whether a segment’s duration is over, under, or exactly 18 minutes. Second draft: No, it’s too cumbersome. Handwritten annotations are the only way to go, especially if I never attempt one-arm shoulder presses again, which I haven’t. Third draft: There will be a new way, after all, starting on October 26. Annotations will be made in a separate Word document and archived as a separate PDF. The main playlist will still be printed, recording dates acknowledged, segment elements checked or crossed off (number of seconds over or under), and scanned afterward.
Here is a scan of my first show’s playlist 21 years ago. It proves what I said this week: that I played multiple songs by certain artists due to my limited collection. Nine songs I played from that first show were played previously on Instrumental Invasion. In order of appearance:
- “Mountain Dance” by Dave Grusin: December 2, 2020
- “Phase Dance” by Pat Metheny Group: April 1, 2020 (first Wednesday night show)
- “Rise” by Herb Alpert: July 29, 2020
- “Linus and Lucy” (1989) by David Benoit: November 25, 2020
- “Promenade” by Peter White: August 5, 2020 – This time, I pronounced it properly and shared Peter’s backstory from this year’s Smooth Jazz for Scholars
- “Deeper Than You Think” by George Benson: June 30, 2021
- “Better Days Ahead” by Norman Brown: November 17, 2021
- “Cast Your Fate to the Wind” by David Benoit: March 10, 2021
- “Tourist in Paradise” by The Rippingtons: October 20, 2021
The fifth segment (second of hour 2) was the first to run exactly 18 minutes since the first segment of the August 31 show, the last one recorded for that show. Along those lines, only this week’s second and third segments were recorded out of sequence. I anticipated the third would run short and the second would run long. While the third was 39 seconds short, the second only went over two seconds. And my last talk break was much shorter than anticipated, which meant (like last week) padding out the segment and elongating an earlier segment. That earlier segment was the fourth (first of hour 2), going from 10 seconds under to 26 over.
Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below: