Instrumental Invasion, 8/31/22 September 1, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Education, Football, Internet, Jazz, Media, Personal, Radio, Sports, Travel.2 comments
The August 31 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over three days: two segments on July 2, three on the 3rd, and one on the 4th before intermittent daytime fireworks began. Pickups were recorded on the 4th and 5th.
The playlist was created on the morning of June 27 before the marathon recording session of the August 17 show and last week’s first segment. Annotations began on June 28, but were delayed until July 1. First, on the 28th, an opportunity arose to record the second hour of last week’s show. I was preoccupied with ripping and editing tracks from two Maynard Ferguson CD album bundles on the 29th. (The bundles contained releases between 1974 and ’79.) On the 30th, new Bluetooth reference monitors arrived and initially worked, but interference led to incessant stuttering. Plus, without a wired connection, I couldn’t record computer audio from “stereo mix.” Installing a virtual cable worked temporarily, but didn’t last. I exchanged the Bluetooth monitors for their cheaper wired equivalent, even though the ones I replaced also had wired connections. Then, I got a 6-foot male-to-male Y-splitter to run from the computer to the input jacks on the left monitor. The computer end is 1/8-inch TRS and the monitor end is dual 1/4-inch TS.
The talk break script was drafted on July 1 and 2.
I recorded the segments wildly out of sequence because I knew that the last talk break would be really long, though not three minutes long! Even by removing ancillary sentences and speed compression, the segment still ended up 57 seconds over! With that in mind, the remaining segments were recorded in order of what I presumed to be shortest. Most anecdotes and callbacks were scrapped from the script, but among those left in were the Penn State allusions: about returning from my sister’s graduation in 2005 and about the legendary 1994 season of Nittany Lions football. Their 2022 football season starts tonight (Thursday night) at Purdue!
As the playlist shows, the other segment recorded July 2 was the fifth segment, making up 13 seconds. On July 3, I worked on the third segment (adding back six seconds), fourth segment (making up 15 seconds), and second segment (making up 21). I was left with a net overage of 14 seconds, but I removed one further anecdote from the last talk break, and that allowed me to break even. All that remained was a tight 18 minutes on the 4th, which I accomplished. Hallelujah. Incidental to that first segment, Fred Wesley, the trombonist on “Theme from Good King Bad” by George Benson, was born on the Fourth of July!
For the third week in a row, I swapped out the second 2017-present segment, this time opting for a second 1985-95.
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
2022 Long Island Retro Gaming Expo recap August 21, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Audio, Aviation, Books, Education, History, Internet, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Podcast, Travel, TV, Video, Video Games, Weather.Tags: Brett Weiss, CU podcast, ian ferguson, John Riggs, leonard herman, LI Retro, Long Island Retro Gaming Expo, pat contri, ralph baer, Video Games
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Part 1: Introduction
The Long Island Retro Gaming Expo‘s long-awaited return came on Friday, August 12, after a three-year COVID-caused absence. Yes, the expo was expanded to three days starting this year, running from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. The venue was the same as always: the Cradle of Aviation Museum, situated along Museum Row in East Garden City on the former site of Mitchel Air Force Base.
The purported 2020 edition of LI Retro was announced in February of that year. I immediately bought a weekend pass (still just two days). Little did anyone know that the faraway disease then referred to as the Coronavirus would reach the United States a few weeks later. As COVID-19 spread and a pandemic grew, venues shut down and events were either canceled or postponed. LI Retro’s postponement came that May. 2020 tickets would be honored in ’21. UPLINK, a virtual expo, was scheduled in its place on August 8 and 9. Of course, I attended and wrote a recap.
Even as vaccines were rolled out going into 2021, the organizers felt it was too soon to resume. Thus, they postponed again to ’22; and again, tickets for the postponed years would be honored. Another edition of UPLINK was held virtually in February. I attended, but was overwhelmed by the amount of transcribing and note-taking I’d have to do for the panels I planned on watching. So, I abandoned the recap in favor of continued radio show production.
Last December, LI Retro held its first annual one-day Festival of Games. I was in and out within two hours after a photographic walking tour (similar to the one you’ll see later in this post), arcade game sampling, and buying games from vendors. There was a recap for that.
As August drew closer, a third day of LI Retro was introduced. I considered attending, but opted to stick to the weekend.
With a week to go, I feared I’d compulsively take too many photos, a habit that’s gotten out of hand (i.e. Memorial Day boat ride, June 18 Mets game). I only took 353 photos at another Mets game on August 10, but sure enough, I went overboard at LI Retro. To that end, this is the first post with photo galleries.
The bulk of my photos were shot with my DSLR, but I took supplemental photos with my iPhone.
I arrived at the Cradle of Aviation Museum at 10:06 AM on Saturday:
Within 15 minutes, I was inside. I walked to the box office and handed my ticket to the attendant in exchange for a badge. “Finally,” I told her, “after 2 1/2 years, I get to use this [ticket].” She handed me my badge and my adventure began.
Part 2: Panels
My first panel – after meeting and greeting, and photographing the vendor rooms, was by Brett Weiss. “I Survived the Video Game Crash of 1983” began at 11AM in Panel Room 2. I joined it in progress, grabbing a front row seat, but oddly holding back on photos.
Brett talked about his experiences with arcade games and home video game consoles from the second generation into the third, and how the rise of home computers played a role in the 1983 crash.
During the Q&A session at the end, I relayed (but didn’t ask, so I apologized) my video game experience growing up. I was a home (and school) computer guy, fluent with Apple II, and my sister and I received an NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) in February 1990, as the third home video game console generation gave way to the fourth.
The book in the last photo is the one I bought from Brett afterward.
After snacking on a protein bar, I entered the Main Theatre for Pat Contri and Ian Ferguson’s 12:30 PM panel. I spoke to Pat and Ian during my meet and greet session two hours earlier, reminding them that I met them in 2019 and immersed myself in content from Pat’s YouTube channel after buying (at their merchandise table) the four DVD sets of Pat the NES Punk and the book Ultimate Nintendo: Guide to the NES Library. I subsequently bought the SNES guide. I wrote reviews of each – NES, SNES. (And you can buy the DVDs and books here.) This year, I bought two stickers and a CU Podcast (Completely Unnecessary Podcast) t-shirt. It was the last large size they had. I said I’d probably get along swimmingly with Frank, Pat’s older friend from New Jersey who settled in San Diego before Pat and Ian made their respective moves there.
Pat and Ian’s panel was a live portion of their next episode of the CU Podcast. Before it started, and while I settled into my front row seat, the volunteer assigned to the theater asked them to “say something into the microphone” as a mic check. Ian jokingly parroted the request: “say something into the microphone.” I amusingly replied, “I knew you were gonna say that.”
Continuing from prior episodes, Pat and Ian criticzed Tommy Tallarico and his vaporware console that would have been (or could still be?) the Intellivision Amico. On display above them was the console’s leaked “fact book.” There will be audio and video, but first, the photos:
You can hear the panel-turned-podcast-episode here. My portion of the Q&A starts at 1:57:08, but I’ve clipped it here:
And this is a video excerpt from the panel – shot with the iPhone on the table – that was posted to Pat’s YouTube channel:
I was the voice at 16:44 saying that Sean Astin narrated a video game documentary. I was thinking of Video Games: The Movie, but a comment to the video said the fact sheet was referencing the later docuseries called Playing with Power: The Nintendo Story.
I liked Ian’s quaint pronunciation of wanton, “wonton” instead of “wantin’.”
Video of the Q&A portion:
My questions start at 18:26, “Tommy” starts at 25:13.
Theater guests had to exit on the third floor, so I bode my time by taking photos of the few console freeplay tables there. Then, I snapped pics for most of the second floor exhibits prior to the Axinn Air and Space Museum Hall entrance. I saved that for after the 2PM panel back in the theater.
In that 2PM panel, John Blue Riggs performed a live ROM hack of Super Mario Bros. for the NES, the first game I played in February 1990 via the Duck Hunt combo cart. With the right software, John imported tiles from whatever NES game ROMs the audience requested, and he altered the SMB code to altered the colors and text. Let the editing begin!
I spoke to John during the meet and greet, letting him know that like his son, I am on the autism spectrum, specifically with what used to be called Asperger Syndrome. While at his table, I bought a Sega Genesis ROM hack that put Scott Pilgrim from his titular video game in Streets of Rage 2. We posed for a photo, but when I got home, I was dismayed to find that my DSLR’s lens didn’t focus on us when his tablemate Dave took our photo. They graciously allowed a do-over with my iPhone Sunday morning.
Here is John’s aforementioned vlog of his LI Retro experience:
I’m in the vlog at 13:30, going through my DSLR camera roll before John’s panel. At 19:56, he and Dave ate at Friendly’s in nearby East Meadow. I ate there with my girlfriend Kelly during her visit in April.
After the panel, I photographed what I believed to be nearly every other nook and cranny of the freeplay and tournament areas. John saw much more than I did.
The last item on my Saturday agenda was to buy games from vendors. (See the end of part 4.)
The combination of excitement from earlier in the day and a loud block party somewhere south of my house kept me from relaxing and easing into sleep. I probably slept two to four hours, at best.
I arrived at day three of the Long Island Retro Gaming Expo at around 10:30 AM. I met Justin, Marshall, and Kieran from Cinemassacre/Screenwave Media (and bought Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie), got the second chance photo with Riggs, and hung out at Leonard Herman‘s table. I’ve known Lenny (to his friends and family) since meeting him at the 2018 LI Retro and then reviewing his video game history book, Phoenix IV. In 2019, I met his associate Jeff, and this year, I was honored to meet Patrick Wong and Mark W. Baer, the middle child of Dena and Ralph H. Baer, the inventor of videogames (one word). They’re all nice and friendly, and it was my pleasure buying Ralph’s book Videogames in the Beginning, and Kate Hannigan‘s biographical children’s book, Blips on a Screen. I will definitely read that to Leo F. Giblyn School students next March, another annual tradition of mine.
Lenny and Mark’s panel was at 11:30 AM in Panel Room 2. Again, I sat in the front row. Lenny grew to be like a surrogate son to Ralph, and the brotherly love between he and Mark was on display throughout the panel, especially in the first two pics.
I linked to it in the gallery, but here again is Ralph and Bill Harrison’s 1969 Brown Box demo:
Part 3: Meet and greet photos
Lenny Herman and Mark Baer:
Patrick Wong:
Jeff, in his Pac-Man suit:
Brett Weiss:
Pat Contri and Ian Ferguson:
John Riggs:
The Cinemassacre/Screenwave Media crew, Justin and Marshall:
…and I met Kieran while browsing a vendor’s games:
You’ll see merchandise and games in the pickups portion of this recap.
Part 4: Touring the expo
Musical performance: 88bit (a.k.a. Rob Kovacs):
88bit was featured in John Riggs’s vlog.
The other performers were ConSoul, Retro & Chill, and Super Thrash Bros. (also in John’s vlog).
The line ahead of the cosplay contest, held Saturday at 3:30 PM in the Main Theatre:
High score challenges:
Just Dance 4 (to “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley):
Tournaments:
Game Boy Selfie Station with the Game Boy Camera and Printer:
Console freeplay:
Indie and homebrew games:
Arcade freeplay:
PC freeplay:
Before I left for home on Sunday, I tried out some console and arcade freeplay games, but not PC games. Maybe next year. The console games I played were Joust (Atari 7800), Sonic CD (Sega CD), Donkey Kong Country (Super Nintendo), and Virtua Tennis (Sega Dreamcast). The arcade games I attempted were Space Invaders, Arkanoid, NARC, VS. Hogan’s Alley, Ms. Pac-Man, and Mortal Kombat.
I even gave LJN Video Art a try. It was just as finicky as The Angry Video Game Nerd (James Rolfe) made it out to be.
I was pleasantly surprised to see a TV running the WeatherStar 4000 simulator, a tribute to The Weather Channel local forecasts/Local on the 8s in the 1990s (check TWC Classics for examples):
Vendor Room:
Vendor Room annex (“More Vendors”), also home to meet and greets (and the food court):
When I was finished taking photos on Saturday, I began making the rounds in the vendor room to pickup video games. I vowed not to spend more than $25 on a game, and with one exception, I honored my vow. I successfully haggled when necessary, paying $15 for $17 worth of games, $20 for $23 worth, and $30 for $33 worth. Otherwise, one vendor discounted $7 from my $132 total and another had a two for $10 deal if you bought two $6 games. The only game I bought priced above $25 was the Xbox port of The Simpsons: Hit & Run, which was $35. It was my last purchase before leaving on Saturday. My last two purchases on Sunday were Legacy of the Wizard and Rolling Thunder, both for NES.
I was satisfied with my pickups, which brings us to…
Part 5: Pickups
Saturday pickups:
Merchandise:
- Blips on a Screen by Kate Hannigan (writer) and Zachariah Ohora (illustrator)
- Videogames in the Beginning by Ralph H. Baer
- Streets of Rage 2: Scott Pilgrim (John Riggs Sega Genesis ROM hack)
- CU Podcast t-shirt (large)
- Pixel Pat sticker
- Ask Frank sticker
- The 100 Greatest Console Video Games: 1977-1987 by Brett Weiss
NES (Nintendo Entertainment System):
Super NES (Super Nintendo Entertainment System):
- Animaniacs
- Frank Thomas’ Big Hurt Baseball
- NCAA Basketball
- Super Caesars Palace
- Super R-Type
- Super Scope 6 (pack-in game for Super Scope light gun; someday, I’ll get that)
- MVP Baseball 2004
- NFL Blitz 20-03 (“twenty-oh-three”)
I’d wanted The Simpsons: Hit & Run ever since it was lauded in the Game Sack video on Simpsons games. (Click here to start at the relevant portion.) Epic Mickey was on my mind after seeing it on Friday in a 2017 Cygnus Destroyer video on his Top 10 Disney Games (link removed with channel in 2023). I didn’t think to check the condition of the discs before buying, and was disappointed to see their scuffed appearance on Saturday night. You’ll see below that Epic Mickey 2 was one of my Sunday pickups from a vendor that also had the original game. All discs at his booth were in pristine condition. I lamented my mistake from the day before, chalking it up to a lesson learned. This Nintendo link taught me a positive lesson on Sunday night: how to clean discs. Monday night, I took dampened part of a washcloth and wiped Epic Mickey from left to right, line by line, then did the same with a dry part of the washcloth. The game played flawlessly in my Wii U. Tuesday morning, I did the same to Hit & Run and had the same positive result in my Xbox 360. Hit & Run was more fun and intuitive to play than Epic Mickey.
Sunday pickups:
Merchandise:
I watched the AVGN movie in 2019 on Amazon Prime Video, but it was later delisted. Now, I own a Blu-ray copy. They can’t take that away from me.
NES:
Xbox:
Wii:
It may be a while before I get a Super Scope, but the Saturday after LI Retro, I bought a Wii Balance Board, Wii Fit U, and a Wii Fit U Fit Meter. Now, I can play all the Wii Fit games and track my steps.
Just as AVGN made Ikari Warriors infamous (outtakes), Wii Music’s bad reputation stems from the crazy demo at E3 2008. I almost bought still another infamous NES game, Deadly Towers, on the Saturday of the expo, but relented.
Part 6: Conclusion
All good things must come to an end, and my time at the 2022 Long Island Retro Gaming Expo ended at 2:05 PM on Sunday, August 14. I took two parting shots with my iPhone before riding home:
Thank you for making it to the end of my recap. I know there was a lot to process, and it was a labor of love to draft the post. Patience was required often as WordPress struggled to display the text I typed, presumably because of all the photos and captions.
Thank you to all the guests I met and reacquainted with, to the vendors I bought from, and my fellow attendees, like budding game designer Brandon.
Special thanks to the LI Retro organizers and volunteers, especially Ryan Shapiro. You were all friendly and highly accommodating. I greatly appreciate that.
Until next year, so long.
2020-21 WCWP Hall of Fame Ceremony June 17, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Education, Internet, Interviews, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Radio, Rock, Technology, Travel, Video.2 comments
Other Hall of Fame ceremony recaps: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023
Video of the ceremony can be found at the end of this post.
It’s been three years since the last ceremony, but last Saturday, the WCWP Hall of Fame finally added five new inductees to its ranks. Due to delays by the COVID-19 pandemic, there were two sets of inductees:
- 2020: Alan Seltzer and Christina Kay (announced at Homecoming in 2019)
- 2021: Joe Manfredi, Jay Mirabile and Mike Chimeri
Yes, it’s true! I’d been dreaming of getting into the Hall of Fame for years and I got the dream fulfilling call last April.
Earlier this year, outgoing director of broadcasting Dan Cox reached out to the five of us for a ceremony date that worked for us. That date was Saturday, June 11. The venue ended up being the former LIU Post campus bookstore, now known as the Alumni and Employer Engagement Building…or it was, and now it’s Alumni Hall.
I reached out to friends and family, hoping they could attend. No matter how many turned out, I’d be happy.
I wore a suit and shirt combo that I picked out on Thursday with a tie that my mother Lisa bought with colors similar to those of LIU.
I may have been one of the inductees, but I still took photos and video when it wasn’t my turn. So, after dressing up, I packed up my DSLR camera, battery pack with a spare battery attached, camcorder, GoPro, and tripods to connect to them and my iPhone, which I would have brought anyway.
Once my sister Lauren arrived at noon, she, our mom, and dad Bill all left for campus. I was worried we’d be late after traffic was diverted away from the Seaford-Oyster Bay Expressway entrance on Alken Avenue in North Wantagh, but once we entered via Hicksville Road, we made great time, parking next to the Alumni Hall (I’ve settled on that name) at 12:40 (hey, like WGBB!).
Not wanting to unpack my camera yet, I took establishing exterior shots with my phone:
The ceremony began at 1:22:
The first 2020 inductee was Alan Seltzer, currently host of The Grooveyard on WCWP. He was inducted by Scott Perschke:
After each acceptance speech, guests were invited to share any stories. 2013 inductee Bernie Bernard had one about Alan, which he elaborated on: the story of the 1978 Dome Auditorium collapse. 
2019 inductee Lew Scharfberg talked about the collapse at his induction, and he shared his perspective again this year.
The second 2020 inductee was Christina Kay, now of WALK 97.5. She was inducted by Dan Cox:
Dan admitted in his induction speech that he considers her a second daughter. 
Christina’s table 
Yes, the plaque has a typo. It will be replaced. 
The storytellers following Christina’s speech were Charlie Moerler… 
Chris Maffei… 
Bernie Bernard… 
David North, Christina’s colleague at WALK 97.5 when he was a news anchor and reporter there… 
…and Will Bruner. 
Before moving on to the 2021 inductees, Dan Cox awarded the inaugural Art Beltrone Founders Award to Dan Casazza:
New director of broadcasting (or station manager, if you will) and 2019 inductee Pete Bellotti inducted two of the three 2021 inductees. First, Joe Manfredi, the station manager of Old Westbury Web Radio (OWWR) (listen here), serving nearby SUNY Old Westbury:
Joe acknowledged me in his speech, asking me to name some of the musicians I interviewed (over the phone) on The Mike Chimeri Show. The interviews can be found here, warts and all (meaning I’m hesitant to listen). 
There was also an anecdote about Karen Fiorelli’s news report blunder. 
Stories were shared by Dan Cox… 
Alana Leider, currently host of The Rockin’ Sunday Show on WCWP… 
Sandra Cerrone, a.k.a. DJ Sandra Dee, one of Joe’s Old Westbury Web Radio alumni… 
I love this camcorder vidcap. It’s like a Dean Martin Celebrity Roast cutaway. 6/18 UPDATE: While editing the video that I will add once complete, I noticed that this was really in reaction to a remark by… 
Joelle Desrosiers, another OWWR alumna… 
Joe Conte with an anecdote on unwittingly playing unedited songs… 
…and Mike Kinane, Joe’s OWWR colleague, and vice president of communications at SUNY Old Westbury. 
Dan reintroduced Pete to induct Jay Mirabile, longtime host of The Disco and Funk King Show (DFK for short):
Jay and his father Len 
Jay went beyond acknowledging me, inviting me to the podium to recall funny moments in early episodes of The Mike Chimeri Show. In those early days, Jay was my lead-in, and sometimes, I would acknowledge the last song of the show at the start of mine. The anecdote he relayed was how I quipped “wouldn’t you know it, they stopped” because his last song was “Ain’t No Stoppin’ Us Now” by McFadden & Whitehead. 
I thought he was going to mention the one where – channeling Jay Sherman’s boss Duke Phillips on The Critic – I began my show with “Jay, son, you’re a tough act to follow.” 
Upon leaving the podium, as I waved in thanks, Jay noted what great friends we are. 
This was my genuine reaction to the compliment. 
Story time. First, Christina Kay… 
Then, Charlie Moerler… 
Alana Leider… 
…and Joe Conte. 
Finally, it was my turn. I originally planned on my cousin Chris – C.W. Post Class of 2008 – inducting me, but he came down with COVID earlier in the week. His induction speech was partially complete and he offered to finish it and have Dan Cox read it on his behalf, but I declined and had Dan give his own speech:
LONG STORY: This is the first of the iPhone vidcaps. I foolishly recorded the entire ceremony from my table’s perspective when I’d have been better off recording my portion. Attempts to truncate the video and transfer to my computer via iCloud failed, even after upgrading to 50 GB of storage for 99 cents a month. The original mammoth video was still in the system and would need to be transferred with the edited version. This contributed to my insomnia Saturday night. Finally, late Sunday morning, I thought to download to my computer by connecting the phone to it with Dell Mobile Connect. It worked, but there was another hurdle. The raw MOV file wasn’t accepted by Adobe Premiere Elements 2020. Luckily, Wondershare Filmora accepted it and allowed me to convert it to an MP4, BUT I’d have to buy a subscription. $54 a year later, the video was converted, I loaded it into Premiere Elements, and extracted vidcaps. The absolute last hurdle involved correcting the wide-angle distortion in Photoshop Elements, and here we are. Anyway… 
In the center is Joan Yonke, LIU Post’s director of development, previously campus director of employer and alumni engagement. It was so great to see her there. I just wish I had thought to add her to my thank list. (More on that shortly.) 
Early in Dan’s induction, I asked my dad Bill to take photos with my camera. 
It’s time, as my table cheers me on! Besides Joan Yonke, going from left to right, there’s cousin Lisa Cassidy, my aunt Donna Dantes Chimeri (Chris’s mother), my mom Lisa’s friend Mandy Muldowney, Mom, Dad, Lori Downing, and Wendy Connelly. Mandy was the principal of Leo F. Giblyn School where Mom is a teaching assistant, and Wendy and Lori are (Lori retired in 2020) reading teachers at Giblyn. Interestingly, Aunt Donna (Post Class of 1998) knew Joe Manfredi’s father, also named Joe, but the elder Joe pronounced the last name “man-freedy” rather than “man-freddy.” 
Here I go! 
Mandy and Mom are taking photos and/or video. 
I made a two-page table in Microsoft Word of people to thank. I read from that with ad-libs here and there. 
My sister Lauren also shot video on her phone and shared vidcaps with me… 
Back to Dad’s photos with my camera… 
Joe Manfredi (the younger) kindly handled my camcorder during my speech. 
“… WCWP, the one place [my aunt Robin Rose Brinegar, then-academic counselor at C.W. Post] didn’t know anyone, has had the biggest, the biggest impact on my life.” 
“… I will never forget WCWP. Thank you so much.” 
I put the thank list back in my shirt’s breast pocket and left the podium. 
Another wave… 
…and a handshake with Dad. The expression on my face is a nasty anxious habit. Seeing myself do that in my on-camera moments has me eager to overcome the habit. 
I asked, “Anyone got stories?” Jay Mirabile had one, or at least compliments. 
…as did 2015 inductee Bobby Guthenberg. 
One final round of applause from my table (and the elder Joe Manfredi)
Dan, with his time as director of broadcasting at an end, closed the ceremony with poignant, and pointed, remarks:
Speaking of WCWP’s uncertain future: “… Let’s not let college radio go away, because if it does, there’ll be one less safe space for our kids to be when they go to college. Thank you. Have a great day.” 
A standing ovation
With the ceremony complete, all that remained were the photo ops:
Mandy Muldowney, Donna Dantes (aunt), Lori Downing, Lisa Chimeri (mom), me, Lauren Chimeri (sister), Bill Chimeri (dad), Wendy Connelly, Lisa Cassidy 
Lauren had two photos taken with her phone… 
Joe Manfredi and his OWWR alumnae: Nikki Kallipozis, Arielle Mancebo, Sandra Cerrone, Joelle Desrosiers (Names added on 6/22 via this SUNY Old Westbury article) 
Me, Lori Downing, Bernie Bernard
During Bernie’s WBAB days, she spoke at Lori’s high school, vividly remembering that when Lori told her about it.
Scott Perschke and Alan Seltzer 
Me and Jay Mirabile 
Me, Alan, Jay 
Oop, rabbit ears! 
A candid shot 
Christina Kay and me 
Joe Conte, Karen Fiorelli, me, Joe Manfredi 
Joe, Christina, Jay, me 
Pete Bellotti and me 
This was supposed to be another one of me and Dan Cox, but I wanted to leave in Bernie, her sister Melissa, and Christina. 
The last photo before I left the building: Joe, Pete, Jay, me
As I left, Dan had everyone yell “goodbye” to me. I happily waved and walked out…except that I left my camera battery charger in an outlet. I realized my error halfway to Domenico’s of Levittown. I didn’t feel like going back to campus, so Pete returned it to me today. Still, I went ahead and bought new third-party batteries with a charger. The batteries I had were 6 1/2 years old, anyway.
Joining my family at Domenico’s were Wendy, Lori, and Aunt Donna. The lone photo I took there was of a toast:
Thank you to those that gave me congratulations cards and gifts:
Thus ends the recap. I am overwhelmed by all the support I received during and after the ceremony. Congratulations to Alan Seltzer, Christina Kay, Joe Manfredi, Jay Mirabile, and yours truly Mike Chimeri, the 2020 and ’21 classes of the WCWP Hall of Fame.
6/21 UPDATE: The video is now up. Chapters are included if you want to skip ahead or know what to expect. There is occasional coarse language and suggestive dialogue.
Guest reading at my old elementary school: Year 6 March 4, 2022
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Books, Education, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Radio, TV, Video.1 comment so far
Other guest reading posts: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020
I returned to Leo F. Giblyn School in Freeport on Wednesday for Guest Reader Day, what they call National Read Across America Day. It was my sixth appearance as a guest reader (and photographer) and my first time inside Giblyn in exactly two years, a week and a half before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down anything and everything, taking education virtual. I had an opportunity to read virtually last year, a hybrid learning year (half a classroom’s students in person, half online), but I couldn’t get the pass code to log in.
It was so great to be back, and the faculty and students were glad I was back. This was the first year with Amy Lederer as principal, moving up from assistant principal following Amanda Muldowney’s retirement.
After photographing one guest reader, Ms. Lederer had me photograph the Freeport High School students who read to classrooms before I arrived at 11AM. I then mingled with my mother Lisa, a teaching assistant at Giblyn since I was in 4th grade there, and other faculty. Before photographing three more readers, Stephanie Huggard informed me which classrooms I would be reading to and when: 1:00, 1:55, and 3:00. I ended up reading to one more class after the third. The books I read were (teachers in parentheses):
- I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff (Suehanne Sueffront, Wendy Connelly)
- Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss (Meghan Carney)
- No Lie, I Acted Like a Beast! by Nancy Loewen (Emmy Nicholas)
- What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Schwartz (Francie Jonza)
Mrs. Connelly prompted me to tell Mrs. Souffront’s class about my WCWP radio show, which led me to promote that night’s 100th Instrumental Invasion, to share that I will be inducted into the WCWP Hall of Fame on June 11 in the Great Hall at LIU Post, and to view my website and YouTube channel. We listened to part of the aircheck from last Wednesday’s show and watched some of the video of my live Homecoming Weekend show in 2019. It was a lot of fun, especially using the large touchscreen monitor to scroll up or push buttons. I felt like a weatherman.
Reading Horton to Mrs. Carney’s class was quite a workout, as I did the voices from the 1970 TV special while reading. My radio show and accomplishments came up again, and we talked about animation and voice-overs. The kids in all classes loved my performances and had many questions that I was happily answered. It was challenging to read the non-Dr. Seuss books cold (site unseen), but still fun. Before I read to Mrs. Nicholas’s class, I stopped in Mrs. Jonza’s room, and we agreed I’d read to her kindergartners when I was finished upstairs. The only class where we didn’t visit my website and listen to last Wednesday’s aircheck was in Mrs. Carney’s. Mrs. Jonza’s students loved the sound of “Feel It Comin’” by Grover Washington, Jr. when I played part of last Wednesday’s full aircheck. (Unedited airchecks for every week of Instrumental Invasion are available for download here.)
As I was talking to Mrs. Carney’s students about myself, Lori Downing came in to read Clovis Keeps His Cool by Katelyn Aronson. Mrs. Downing was a reading teacher at Giblyn until her retirement in 2020. I was pleasantly surprised to learn earlier in the day that she would be a guest reader, but this was the only room I was able to watch her read in.
Thank you, again, to everyone I interacted with on Wednesday. Special thanks to Anita Stevenson. Mrs. Stevenson has been highly supportive me through the years and yesterday was no exception. My photo with her is included in this year’s collage of select photos from the classes I read to:
I don’t want to limit our photo to the collage. Here it is in full:
Thanks again.
Instrumental Invasion, 12/16/20 December 17, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Education, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Video.add a comment
The December 16, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded over three days. I did the first two segments on my 39th birthday, November 17, the third segment on the 18th, and the last three on the 19th.
The playlist was created and annotated on November 15. It was the first with 18:45 segments in mind, but also the first that I edited down to 18:40 after another instance last week where the end of a show got cut off.
During the original recording session, I cut an anecdote about my 2006 interview with Bob James from the second talk break of the show, but clipped it as an outtake:
The last talk break was the hardest to record due to Gordon Goodwin’s shout at the beginning of “T.O.P. Adjacent” by his Big Phat Band.
The inclusion of “Friday” by Dan Siegel was another make-up for the unaired segments on April 8.
I chuckled while back-selling “Castles” from David Benoit‘s Shadows album because I originally quipped “castles have shadows.” That was a victim of the 18:40 edit.
The way I said Dave Yaden‘s name was an homage to Jerry Lewis.
In case you’re wondering, here’s how my backwards talk sounded backwards:
The compact cassette iteration of the 2-XL toy robot had tapes with a right side and a wrong side. The wrong side is where I would routinely listen to backwards speech. Even the buttons worked backwards. If you had to press 1 forward, you could press 4 backward and hear the same thing. Once I had a Talkboy recorder, I experimented in the same way I did on this show. Of course, it’s much easier to experiment these days with audio editing software’s reverse option.
The WDR Big Band posted a video for “Downtown” from their Jackets XL recording session with Yellowjackets:
There’s also a CD release video:
And a five-minute sit-down interview with the Jackets:
Click here to download this show’s aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Instrumental Invasion, 8/12/20 August 13, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Education, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio.add a comment
The August 12, 2020, Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded on July 17.
The playlist was created on July 15 with annotations later that day and the day after.
I liked sharing the origin of an infamous hip-hop breakbeat sample by playing Bob James‘s cover of “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” by Paul Simon. Coming out of that song, a new liner debuted from Joe Bertie, co-host of WCWP’s The Smooth Jazz Show:
Joe got in touch with me hours before air so he’d know when it would run. He recorded the moment and posted it to Facebook with the caption:
Voiceover liner for “Instrumental Invasion” with Mike Chimeri. Terrific show.
I dedicated Jeff Golub and Brian Auger’s rendition of “The Cat” to Bobby Guthenberg, a.k.a. Bobby G., one of the hosts of The Rock Show, which airs weeknights at 7PM and Sundays at 10PM.
The extra time before “Old School” by Nelson Rangell allowed me to reference LIU Post‘s founding in 1954, and the years in which I was a student.
Extra time was limited in most segments, which meant starting songs underneath liners or fading them under early so I could back-sell.
The disparity between audio channels on “Cantiga Nova Swing” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet was so wide, I had to combine them into mono.
Click here to download the aircheck MP3 or listen below:
Guest reading at my old elementary school: Year 5 March 5, 2020
Posted by Mike C. in Books, Education, Personal, Photography.add a comment
Other guest reading posts: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2022
Monday simultaneously marked my fifth National Read Across America Day at Leo F. Giblyn School in Freeport (where it’s known as Guest Reader Day), and the fifth anniversary of my debut.
I was unable to attend last year as I was in South Florida for my cousin’s wedding, but Meghan Carney allowed me to read to her class a month and a half later.
Unfortunately, Lori Downing, the teacher who first invited me to be a guest reader five years ago, couldn’t make it this year due to a death in the family. She graciously lent me her classroom as my home base for the day. I hung out there between reading sessions.
This year also had a theme: Be Kind, based on Pat Zietlow Miller’s book of the same name. The day began with an assembly for students in the cafetorium (cafeteria/auditorium), hosted by Gina Newcombe. There were separate assemblies for kindergarten through second grade, and for third and fourth graders. I attended the first assembly.
An introductory video featured messages from faculty – including principal Amanda Muldowney and assistant principal Amy Lederer – and slides, the latter of which can be seen here:
Next, Lisa Eisenberg presented a few scenarios based on book excerpts. They were acted out by Larraine Brown, Stephanie Huggard, George DiGiovanni, and Wendy Connelly. Each scenario had an unkind and kind version, prefaced by Mrs. Eisenberg.
After the first assembly, I returned to Mrs. Downing’s room. I hadn’t received the schedule yet, so I didn’t know who I’d be reading to or when. Mrs. Huggard provided the schedule once the second assembly was over.
In the next five hours, I read ten books to six classes (denoted in parentheses), mostly by Dr. Seuss:
- Green Eggs and Ham (Gilbert Hernandez)
- The Cat in the Hat (Jaclyn Dinelli)
- Would You Rather Be a Bullfrog? (Sue Caravousanos)
- Maybe You Should Fly a Jet! Maybe You Should Be a Vet! (Caravousanos)
- Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? (Meghan Carney)
- There’s a Wocket in My Pocket! (Carney)
- Fox in Socks (Carney)
Fox in Socks, my last book of the day, was quite a workout. It was an epic, riddled with tongue twisters.
The three non-Dr. Seuss books were:
- Be Kind by Pat Zietlow Miller (Emmy Nicholas)
- A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams (Nicholas)
- The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman by Darcy Pattison (Kelly Nicholson)
There was mutual admiration. The students and faculty love me and I love them back. I’m grateful for the opportunity every year to act out the books I read, putting smiles on everyone’s faces. Thank you all.
Until next year, I’ll leave you with a collage of candid photos all the teachers took as I read:
Pat Contri, Ultimate Nintendo: Guide to the SNES Library December 2, 2019
Posted by Mike C. in Baseball, Basketball, Books, Education, Football, Internet, Media, Radio, Sports, Technology, TV, Video, Video Games.Tags: guide to the nes library, guide to the snes library, pat contri, pat the nes punk, ultimate nintendo
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I photographed my copy of Guide to the SNES Library shortly after completing it Sunday
Two months and one day after completing Pat Contri‘s Ultimate Nintendo: Guide to the NES Library – which I reviewed here – my pre-order copy of the special edition of his Guide to the SNES Library arrived on my front porch.
Once again, the guide is as big as an educational textbook. Now that I think of it, this book is educational. There’s much to learn about the Super Nintendo Entertainment System within its 445 pages (plus a few pages listing Kickstarter contributors).
When I tweeted on Sunday that I finished reading, Pat wondered what my muscle gains were, considering the book’s heft. I replied thusly:
I was late in boarding the NES bandwagon, not getting a console until February 1990, over four years after its initial release in the New York Metropolitan Area. The Super NES, released on August 23, 1991, is a different story. Besides commercials, my first exposure to the console came at my friend Jessie’s house. I regularly played Super Mario World and F-Zero on her projection TV as 1991 gave way to ’92. After saving up part of the cost, my parents got a console for me and my sister Lauren in late January. In the months that followed, I spent many hours playing games, especially the aforementioned Super Mario World, Super Mario Kart (an 11th birthday present), and Mario Paint. I discovered all of Super Mario World’s exits and repeatedly watched the end credits. I would get emotional at the scene with the Yoshi eggs hatching. I successfully beat all cups in Super Mario Kart in all cc modes, and I loved the Rainbow Road theme. And as a weather buff, I had fun making radar loops with Mario Paint’s animation feature.
In nearly 28 years, I’ve amassed a collection of 46 Super Nintendo games. Reading this guide inspired me to add to that collection, at least somewhat.
Guide to the SNES Library chronicles all games released in North America and PAL territories in alphanumerical order, from 3 Ninjas Kick Back and The 7th Saga to Zool and Zoop. (Yes, those are their names.)
Pat Contri was not alone in reviewing the games. Returning from Guide to the NES Library are Asheton “Ashi” Phinney (I loved his alliteration, puns, and rhymes), Jim Evans, and Karen Niemla. The new recruits are Daniel Anderson, Daniel Greenberg, Dagan Moriarty, Kyh Yang, Alli Flanagan (who, like Pat, appeared in The Video Game Years), Pete Skerritt, and Mike Vito. (12/14 UPDATE: Dagan, Kyh, and Pete also wrote reviews for the third edition of the NES guide.) Visual effects artist Yoshi Vu provided cart and hardware images, and additional cover art. The foreword was written by Jirard Khalil, a.k.a. The Completionist.
As with Guide to the NES Library, most pages in Guide to the SNES Library are devoted to two games. An image from one of the games is blurred in the background with two images from each game appearing above and below the review. The top of the page shows the games’ cartridge designs and lists their genre, release date, developer, publisher, number of players, special features, availability during the SNES’s life (from “very common” to “extremely rare”), and star rating. There are 10 ratings that range from half a star (one small star, “poor”) to 2 1/2 stars (two big stars and one small star, “average”) to 5 stars (five big stars, “classic”). Reviews can take up anywhere from a fifth of the page to a third of it, followed by the reviewers’ “reflections.” Reviewers are identified by their initials (i.e. PC, PS, AP, DG).
Eleven landmark titles with five-star ratings got full page reviews, including EarthBound, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario World and its sequel, and Super Metroid. Those reviews take up more space on the page than regular half-page reviews. I only own four of the games out of those eleven, and only two that I listed here. Some five-star games only got half a page, such as Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest, Super Street Fighter II, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time. I have two of those, along with one that I didn’t mention. You’ll have to buy the book to find out which other five-star games were only on half a page and which got the full page treatment.
The tone of game reviews ranged from clinical to critical, but not in your face or obnoxious. I’m just glad the SNES versions of Tetris 2 and Yoshi’s Cookie weren’t treated as harshly. As I mentioned earlier, I currently have 46 SNES games, and I plan on buying some of the easier-to-obtain games in the book with ratings of 4, 4 1/2, or 5 stars to add to the collection. If they cost over $100, forget it. No Pocky & Rocky for me.
There were plenty of sports games released for the Super Nintendo that I read about. At the moment, I only have four: NBA Hangtime (which I also have on the Genesis and Nintendo 64), NBA Jam: Tournament Edition, True Golf Classics: Pebble Beach Golf Links and Super Bases Loaded. While reading about Midway games like NBA Jam, I learned who that the voice of most of those games was Tim Kitzrow. Besides NBA Jam, Tim also voiced the NFL Blitz series, which I enjoyed on the N64. He included video of an appearance on FOX Sports West on his website:
NBA Hangtime, Midway’s successor to NBA Jam, was voiced by longtime Bulls TV play-by-play announcer Neil Funk, who is retiring at the end of this season. Other TV announcers and analysts to lend their voices to sports games on the Super Nintendo are Al Michaels, Jack Buck, Pat Summerall, and of course, John Madden, to name a few.
After 400 pages of North American and PAL releases, there are chapters on special and promo cartridges, test cartridges, select games from the Japanese Super Famicom library, a look at some unreleased games (by Evan Gowan of SNES Central), and the SNES console and its accessories.
Guide to the SNES Library concludes with supplemental articles. Three of the articles were based on the authors’ YouTube videos. James Rolfe‘s “The Console Wars: SNES vs. Sega Genesis” was taken from a two-part video in 2012, which was combined into one part on the Cinemassacre Plays subchannel:
James and Pat Contri’s friendship dates back to their early days on YouTube. They’ve occasionally collaborated on videos. In fact, their latest went up on Saturday night:
Kelsey Lewin‘s supplemental article was on the Life Fitness LifeCycle Exertainment Bike, based on her video from last year:
In addition to her YouTube channel, Kelsey is the co-owner with her husband Cody of Pink Gorilla Games and co-director with Frank Cifaldi of The Video Game History Foundation. For you sports fans, Kelsey’s father is play-by-play announcer Josh Lewin. You may know him from his stints with the Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers on TV, and the New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, San Diego Chargers, and UCLA Bruins football and men’s basketball on radio. Those and other credits can be found here.
And speaking of sports, the third article based on a video was Norman Caruso‘s Gaming Historian 2016 episode on Nintendo‘s ownership of the Seattle Mariners, which he posted as Nintendo was selling most of their shares. The episode had periodic quote readings by YouTubers, and Pat read a quote – in a sinister tone – from Fay Vincent, commissioner of Major League Baseball at the time of Nintendo’s purchase. Unfortunately, MLB forced the removal of the video, so I can’t embed it here.
As for the rest of the supplemental articles, Chris Kohler’s entry on the SNES CD-ROM originally appeared on Kotaku last September. Roger Barr, Andre Meadows, and Karen Niemla supplied original articles. It’s worth reading each article, especially the ones based on videos so you can see differences in text.
It took 19 days to read 445 pages of Ultimate Nintendo: Guide to the SNES Library. Once again, I kept a journal of how many pages I read per day. Dividing 445 by 19, I averaged about 24 pages a day. I mostly imagined my own voice in my head as I read the reviews, but I occasionally thought of certain public figures narrating them. I had Pat’s voice in mind when I read his reviews.
Guide to the SNES Library was another great read! Thanks to Pat Contri and his fellow reviewers Ashi Phinney, Daniel Anderson, Daniel Greenberg, Kyh Yang, Karen Niemla, Alli Flanagan, Jim Evans, Dagan Moriarty, Pete Skerritt, and Mike Vito.
For those that grew up with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, are collecting for it, or just want to learn about it, this book is a must. There are eight versions available for purchase ranging from $59.99 to $99.99, or $29.99 for just the digital download. I have the $79.99 special edition, but I recommend the physical/digital combo at $99.99. I should have bought that in the first place, but I didn’t mind paying an extra $10 yesterday for the digital download and paying the same price to download the NES guide. Having the books physically and digitally is the ultimate experience.
There will eventually be an Ultimate SNES Game Guide Collecting app for iOS and Android. I will update this post when it’s available.
12/12/20 UPDATE: A year has passed and there’s no app. Forget what I said.
9/16/24 UPDATE: The Ultimate NES app was rebranded the Ultimate Guide app and now includes options for NES and SNES (“Super NES”). It costs $6.99 to unlock the full SNES library.
Ryan and Mike at LIU Post, Teddy and Abe on exhibit October 30, 2019
Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Art, Education, History, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Photography, Radio, Sports, Technology, Travel, TV, Video.add a comment
I concluded my Monday post this way:
With a pair of loose ends successfully tied up, it’s on to the next post, whenever that may come.
It turns out you only had to wait two days for the next post. The focus this time is another trip to LIU Post, including a stroll down memory lane as I recall my undergrad years.
I walked the campus with my friend, Ryan Grabow, who graduated with me in 2004:
I also had a chance encounter with another friend of mine, LIU Post artist-in-residence Dan Christoffel, leading to a tour of his latest art exhibit. More on that later.
For many years after graduating, Ryan Grabow had been living in Fort Myers, Florida, where he directed newscasts for two TV stations owned by Waterman Broadcasting. This year, he decided to look for the same position upstate in Orlando. He now directs the morning newscast at WOFL-TV, FOX 35 Orlando.
My trip back to LIU Post with Ryan, one week removed from Homecoming Weekend, was arranged in a text message conversation we struck up during Instrumental Invasion on Friday, October 18, after I played a song by the Rippingtons. As I wrote in my comprehensive recap:
… [M]y friend Ryan Grabow texted me after I played “Silver Arrows” by the Rippingtons. When he would appear on The Mike Chimeri Show 15 years ago, he’d always say “a ripping good time” whenever I played a Ripps song. Coincidentally, the next song I played was “Dear Friend” by Patrick Bradley, a fitting title.
You can watch the aircheck here:
Ryan told me he was driving up to New York for a week-long vacation and chose Monday the 28th as our day to hang out. He would pick me up at 10AM.
This was our first time at Post together in two years. I brought along my Nikon D5500 camera and the two CDs I made to alternate between for my show. As we listened to the music on the ride to Brookville, we told one another what we’d been up to lately and I provided commentary on what was happening in my show as each song played on the CDs.
Once we arrived on campus, Ryan acknowledged the change in color on the signs, which I had first seen ten days earlier and photographed a day later. Case in point:
He quipped that the speed bumps hadn’t changed. The reference was a running gag that originated with a TV production project: “Speed control: good idea or just plain nuts?”:
Naturally, our first stop after parking was WCWP, where we spoke to receptionist Janine Celauro, my mother Lisa’s bowling teammate, and Dan Cox, Director of Broadcasting.
Ryan’s next task was going to the bursar to update his alumni contact information. So, we walked north to Kumble Hall, passing signs with alumni names on them. One of them was Fred Gaudelli:
Fred is the executive producer of NBC’s Sunday Night Football and was inducted into the WCWP Hall of Fame earlier this year.
Another was Brian Kilmeade:
Brian, a Massapequa native, co-hosts Fox & Friends on Fox News Channel, hosts The Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox News Radio, and has authored a handful of books about American history. His latest is called Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers: The Texas Victory That Changed American History.
Passing Brian’s name reminded Ryan that he helps set up remote guests for Fox & Friends and other national Fox broadcasts for the aforementioned Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, and Fox Sports 1.
I photographed Kumble’s exterior before we walked inside:
Kumble was a place I visited when meeting with my academic advisor each semester. My aunt Robin Rose was an advisor in the 1990s and early 2000s, which is how I ended up at what was then C.W. Post. Her presence was invaluable. It helped that she knew so many faculty, which made things easier for me in my first two years. It turned out the place I had the most success, WCWP, didn’t require her connections.
The bursar’s office directed us to the Alumni & Employer Engagement building, which housed the campus bookstore while Ryan and I were students.
On the way, we stopped in the Crafts Center, home to ceramics:
Professor Frank Olt was among the faculty that was connected with Aunt Robin and she recommended one of his courses to me in my second semester when I switched out of photography. I couldn’t handle film development or manually setting aperture and F-stop. It was overwhelming. I thrived in ceramics, sculpting many works that semester. I would sculpt more works in the spring of 2002, after switching out of an intimidating journalism course, and fall of 2003, the only time the course was my first choice. Via grainy digital camera photos from 2003, here are a few of my works:
I don’t know what happened to those, but here is what I was able to find in my house this morning, starting with the first thing I ever made in 2000:
I called it “Hertz Fieldhouse” because I was inspired by Conseco Fieldhouse, the recently-opened arena in Indianapolis. Since I made an outdoor stadium, I should have just called “Hertz Field.”
Lastly, a piece I photographed on film in April 2000:
I hadn’t visited Frank Olt in years – he wasn’t there when Ryan and I walked the campus in 2017 – so we were both happy to see each other. I told him about the jazz shows I had been to recently: the aforementioned Rippingtons in March, David Benoit in June, and the Bob James Trio last November. I forgot to tell him about seeing John Scofield two weeks after Bob.
Frank and I posed for a picture as he sat at a pottery wheel:
I’m so glad to know Frank, and to have known his colleague Linda Marbach while she was a professor.
This was Linda in April 2000 with graduate student Ji-Hyun:
Frank directed me and Ryan to the back room where Dan Christoffel was situated. I hadn’t seen him since he attended his friend and fellow artist Charlie Fillizola’s exhibit at Wantagh Public Library in 2013; six years and two days before Monday, in fact. Dan told us that he was about to present his latest exhibit in the Steinberg Museum of Art on the lower level of the B. Davis Schwartz Memorial Library. Ryan would have to wait before updating his alumni contact info. Luckily, he didn’t mind.
Dan spoke to an audience of LIU Post art majors (at least, I think that’s what they were):
Shortly after Ryan and I came in, Dan had us introduce ourselves.
Here are some of Dan’s works, starting with Now He Belongs to the Ages on the Abraham Lincoln wing of the exhibit:
Unfortunately, I can’t make out the title on the left, but the painting on the right is Thinking Beyond:
Justice, a trompe-l’œil (deceive the eye) painting:
Two paintings of Walt Whitman: Oh captain, my Captain, inspired by Whitman’s poem after Lincoln’s assassination:
Walt Whitman in His Prime:
On to the Theodore Roosevelt wing:
In his deepest hour:
Colonel Roosevelt:
Sagamore Hill:
Nobel Prize:
Rough Rider:
At the Elk Horn Ranch, Dakota Territory:
1901 – A Very Young President:
A Young Assemblyman:
Fighting the Good Fight:
A portrait of Booker T. Washington to mark a milestone occasion: First Black Man to Have Dinner at the White House:
His Love of Reading:
Little Texas:
T.R. – His Wife and Mother Died on the Same Day; He Went out West to Deal with His Deep Grief:
The exhibit concluded with Taking the Bull by the Horns:
A Newsday article on Dan’s artistry:
A picture with Dan before departing:
Thank you, Dan, for inviting us to your exhibit. It was wonderful. I highly recommend the exhibit if you, the reader, will be at LIU Post in the near future.
Ryan and I made our way east to the Alumni & Employer Engagement building:
Leftover from Homecoming:
Ryan was given a notepad to write down his new contact information and that was that.
We took the scenic route back to Hillwood Commons:
Ryan stopped in the Arboretum Walk so I could photograph him with his iPhone for a Facebook post. I also took a photo with my camera:
Ryan has been inside The Doll House, but I never have:
Post Hall:
As an undergrad, the southwest corner of the building was home to the Academic Resource Center. It was my home away from home. I made many friends in the form of fellow students, directors, learning assistants, and annual social work interns. I remain in touch with some of them.
The northeast corner of Hillwood:
Before going up the stairs to the current campus bookstore, which was once home to the museum, we passed a sign that explained the presence of Dan Christoffel’s exhibit:
Once in the bookstore, I planned on buying a sky blue polo shirt that said “Long Island University,” convinced to buy one after seeing Jeff Kroll (right) and Neil Marks (left) sporting them during the Homecoming game:
I was hoping for a shirt that said “LIU,” but when I initially visited the bookstore ahead of my radio show, it seemed only shirts emblazoned with the full name were available. But seeing Jeff and Neil in the shirts convinced me to buy upon my return with Ryan. On this day, I searched the rack where the shirts hung to look for my size: medium. Once I saw the letter M, I blindly reached for the shirt, and was surprised to find the holy grail: an “LIU” shirt!
Meanwhile, Ryan bought a windbreaker that said “Long Island University,” something to wear on cool winter mornings in Orlando. I’m proudly wearing my “LIU” shirt as I write this post, and it will be part of my warm/hot weather rotation.
We made one more stop at WCWP to say goodbye to Dan Cox and Janine Celauro. I had Janine take our picture:
Coincidentally, our friend Bernie Bernard was on the display behind us.
Ryan planned on stopping at Wendy’s on Glen Cove Road in Greenvale, but it was closed for renovations. So, we proceeded to our next stop – Micro Center in Westbury – looking for a place to eat on the way. We settled on Applebee’s in Roosevelt Raceway Center. Inside, besides eating our entrees, we talked about Ryan’s job at FOX 35 Orlando, about former WCWP Director of Operations Joe Manfredi (now at SUNY Old Westbury where he serves as station manager for OWWR), and other things. We walked around Micro Center for 45 minutes, browsing but not buying. Ryan didn’t leave empty-handed, though, buying a few mouse pads.
Ryan was nice enough to take me grocery shopping at the Levittown Stop & Shop, then we hung out at my house for an hour. After talking about a few YouTube channels in the car, he recommended the channel Technology Connections. I chose a couple of videos to watch on the CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc). (A third video on the subject was released yesterday with a fourth still to come.)
After that, we said our goodbyes until his next visit. It was enjoyable 7 1/2 hours.
It’s always great to see you, Ryan. As I said on the air, you’re a dear friend. I hope you don’t mind that I dipped into the archives with the speed bump video.
Loose ends from earlier in 2019 October 28, 2019
Posted by Mike C. in Books, Education, History, Personal, Photography, Travel.add a comment
There were a couple of events in my life this year that I posted about on social media at the time, but neglected to share on this site until now.
The first came back on April 17, on the eve of spring break, at the Leo F. Giblyn School in Freeport. I had been a guest reader at Giblyn on National Read Across America Day for the previous four years, but couldn’t make it this year. I was in South Florida for my cousin David’s wedding. Before I left, teacher Meghan Carney provided an opportunity to make up for my absence. I chose the Wednesday before Easter, April 17, as my day to read to her class. The books I read were Fly Guy Presents Garbage & Recycling by Tedd Arnold, Love the World by Todd Parr, and a pair of Dr. Seuss books: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and The Lorax. Like last year, I based my delivery for The Lorax on the 1972 CBS special featuring Bob Holt’s voice characterizations.
Mrs. Carney photographed me as I read. For this post, I made a collage of some of her shots:
As I said in April, thank you, Meghan, for the opportunity. I hope to be back at Giblyn on Read Across America Day next March to read to your class and many others.
12 weeks later, on July 10, Lori Downing, another friend from Giblyn, invited me to spend part of the afternoon walking through Old Westbury Gardens. It was our fourth excursion together, having previously gone to Fire Island Lighthouse, to the Louis Armstrong House and Museum, and to Tilles Center for saxophonist Dave Koz’s 20th Anniversary Christmas Tour.
Despite the heat and humidity, I enjoyed seeing the plants, wildlife, art, and architecture. Here are photographs from that afternoon in Old Westbury:
With a pair of loose ends successfully tied up, it’s on to the next post, whenever that may come.
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