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Instrumental Invasion, 5/3/23 May 4, 2023

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Film, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, New Age, News, Personal, Radio, Travel.
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The May 3 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded entirely on March 8, the first one-day recording since February 1 for the third anniversary show (airing March 29). Pickups were recorded on the 8th (after principal recording) and 9th, with an additional pickup on April 17 after learning Ahmad Jamal had died.

The playlist was created on March 1, except for the last segment on the 4th. Annotations followed on the 6th and the talk break script was drafted on the 7th.

My “May the Third be with you” at the top of the show was a nod to Star Wars Day the next day (today). Playing off the franchise catchphrase “may the force be with you,” the greeting on May 4 is “May the Fourth be with you.” One May 5, I joked “Cinco de Mayo be with you” on social media.

I played two Casiopea songs, one from their second album and one from their latest. To that end, language and travel came up a lot.

The language part allowed me to recite words and names in their native dialect. Whole sentences were another matter, which is why I leaned on Google Translate for my Spanish description of “Del Corazón.” (I wrote this paragraph on March 9, a month before I started learning Japanese, as noted in last week’s post.)

The travel part was highlighted by “I Love New York” (from Casiopea’s Super Flight [transliterated Sūpāfuraito, per my talk break]), “Tappan Zee” (from Bob James‘s BJ4), and “Chattahoochee Field Day” (from Patrick O’Hearn‘s Eldorado).

Speaking of John Patitucci and his Brooklyn project evoked memories of visiting my great-grandparents in Midwood. Here is a photo from one such trip:

I forget if the allowance I’m proudly holding was from Grandma BeBe or Aunt Tessy.

Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:

8:35 AM UPDATE: Oh, I forgot I made a Don Sebesky reference. He died on Saturday.

Instrumental Invasion, 4/26/23 April 27, 2023

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Anime, Audio, City Pop, Education, History, Idol, Internet, Japanese, Jazz, Language, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Technology, Travel, TV, Video, VTuber.
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The April 26 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP went on the air at the end of the station dinner for students and alumni. The dinner was held at The View Grill, located off Long Island Sound in Glen Cove. I listened to much of the first hour during a ride home from my parents. Mom took a photo of Dad’s infotainment system while tuned to 88.1 FM:

3:47 PM UPDATE: Here’s a photo I took with my camera:

I caught the rest at home.

I have a lot to say, so I’ll get the scoped aircheck out of the way here:

The show’s playlist was created on February 24, annotated on the 27th and 28th, scripted on the 28th and March 1.

For the first time since December 7, I recorded out of sequence. Segments 6, 1, and 3 were recorded on March 2, followed by segments 2, 4, and 5 on March 3. I wanted to get the last segment out of the way because of the mammoth talk break that expounded on my city pop discovery, including excerpts of “4:00 A.M.” by Taeko Onuki and of the Caitlin Myers English version. My hunch was right, but I only managed to go 69 seconds over, plus another three seconds in the first segment where I first discussed city pop vis-à-vis Casiopea. I had little trouble compensating, completely making up for the overage over the last four segments without remixing.

After recording a quick pickup for the second segment on March 4, I redid the entire last talk break on the 5th. Taeko noted in a 2017 interview that Stuff drummer Chris Parker played on Sunshower, her precursor to Mignonne. Eric Gale was in Stuff. Maybe it was him. I bought a 2008 CD reissue of Mignonne on Amazon, planning on scanning the presumably Japanese liner notes once it arrived on March 6 and translating the text in the scan. Hedging my bets, the full talk break record said the soloist was Eric. Then, I did an alternate tack-on where I said it wasn’t. I played part of the solo in each.

Served me right for not noticing Discogs’ entry for Mignonne‘s 1989 CD reissue with its English credits. Nope, not Eric. It was Tsunehide Matsuki. I canceled the Amazon CD order, cited the Discogs ’89 CD credit, tacked that onto the earlier redos, and called it a night. I did one more pickup for this redo on March 7 because I was unsure of whether or not Caitlin Myers had more city pop adaptations in the pipeline. I did a separate pickup for the first segment on the 7th, with the precise Japanese transliteration of Casiopea, and a pickup for the top of hour 2.

For posterity, here was the original last talk break with all my nervous energy:

The redo where it was Eric Gale (and the Caitlin YouTube channel plug):

Not routinely, Mike.

The redo tack-on where it wasn’t Eric:

Read about my early city pop journey in this blog post.

I’ll still include the relevant city pop videos, starting with the original “4:00 A.M.” by Taeko Onuki (or Ohnuki):

Referred by this video

As Lou Monte would say (in “Lazy Mary”), the “British” version by Caitlin Myers (from the U.S.):

And T2norway‘s video about Casiopea:

Again, I’ll excuse the mispronunciations of Harvey Mason and Lee Ritenour.

[Removed on 5/3]

April 15 portion joined in progress:
Caitlin’s anime dubbing background inspired me to sign up with CrunchyRoll and watch select anime series. I started with the second season of Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, featuring Caitlin as the introverted Shioriko Mifune, who slowly comes out of her shell as the season progresses. At first, I wondered “why the hell am I watching this?,” but by the third episode, I was hooked. So, now I can add idol/virtual idol to my diverse musical interests. (What I play on Instrumental Invasion remains my primary interest.) Incidentally, the English dub does not account for songs, meaning episodic numbers and the opening and closing themes are sung by the original seiyuu (Japanese voice actors).

On March 28, YouTube recommended a Ruri Ohama video, which led to a recommendation of a compilation video by JapanesePod101.com. After watching several of those compilations, I took the plunge by subscribing to the site itself and taking various courses. JapanesePod101.com is a division of the Franklin Square-based Innovative Language Learning. I always feel a sense of pride when I come across a Long Island-based company, past or present. Concurrently, I subscribed to Mochi real Japanese (Mochi Sensei) to learn Japanese from her videos. The teaching styles differ, but that’s okay.

[Removed on 5/3]

Back to what I wrote on March 3:

Ever since I watched Cronkite Remembers on DVD in the 2000s, I’ve had the introductory narration to Walter Cronkite‘s You Are There in my head. “We Were There” by Jazz Funk Soul always jogs my memory, but I never thought to play it on Instrumental Invasion until this show. The way I did the talk-up is how I’ve said the title to myself.

“Knee Deep in Rio” by Maynard Ferguson and Big Bop Nouveau was the song I moved from last week after realizing I wrongly placed it in the 1985-97 segment.

Robben Ford‘s “Magic Sam” was originally played on October 19 before I knew of the eponymous blues musician. Back then, I assumed it was about a magician, and I said that he “disappeared” as Jay Mirabile’s liner played on the fade out.

Tomorrow, I travel to Milford, Connecticut, to attend and photograph Smooth Jazz for Scholars. Wish me luck.

6:11 PM UPDATE: [Removed on 5/3]

My city pop discovery (and reacquaintance with Garfield and Friends) March 5, 2023

Posted by Mike C. in Animation, City Pop, Comedy, Comics, Film, Game Shows, Health, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Phone, Pop, Radio, Technology, Travel, TV, Video, Video Games, Weather.
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NOTE 1: This is also a Garfield and Friends story with several montages among the city pop material. Those montages led me to city pop.

NOTE 2: I consulted my computer audio recordings of the Garfield and Friends DVDs to ensure the video embed caption quotes are verbatim.

NOTE 3: I even spend a paragraph on The Weather Channel tribute site TWC Classics, a simulator that re-creates the old local forecasts, and recently departed announcer Dan Chandler who lent his narration to the sim.

Nearly 50 years ago, Japan’s economy was booming and a new leisure class developed. That leisure class begat a new Japanese pop music genre, borrowing elements of various Western music genres. They called it city pop. What began in the 1970s, peaked in popularity in the ’80s, then fell out of the Japanese mainstream.

City pop found a new Western audience in the 2010s thanks to blog posts like mine (but earlier), Japanese reissues of the genre’s albums, and YouTube uploads of the albums’ tracks. From a 2023 perspective, I give YouTube most of the credit. Today, it is the best city pop recruitment tool.

The rest of this post is about how I discovered city pop and recounts my first nine days as a fan. If you want to read more about the genre and its resurgence, I recommend Cat Zhang’s 2021 Pitchfork article and Wikipedia’s city pop entry.

On February 19, YouTube recommended a video with random clips from my favorite cartoon series, Garfield and Friends:

Jim Davis created the Garfield comic strip and CBS TV specials, but Mark Evanier (with Sharman DiVono for three seasons) spun comedy gold on CBS Saturday mornings from 1988 to 1994 (the last rerun aired in ’95). I can quote parts of episodes or even whole episodes. So, when watching the above clips, I knew what happened next.

The next Garfield and Friends clip in my recommendations came on February 20:

The evening of February 21 was my city pop entry point, but we’re not there yet. The prelude to the entry was this:

“Today [Monday], Garfield, we’re going to eat nothing but raisins!”

Full disclosure: I met Jim Davis at a signing in March 1995, but I was too shy and just had him sign a sketch. And I interviewed Jon Arbuckle voice actor Thom Huge (HUE-ghee) three times for The Mike Chimeri Show. (In retrospect, I would have held off on the first interview until his voice was back to normal.)

The Jon Arbuckle montage led YouTube to recommend this:

According to Know Your Meme, the video originated in the 1991 CBS TV special, Garfield Gets a Life, where it was set to “Shake Your Paw,” performed by The Temptations. The score and three songs (including “Shake Your Paw”) were written by David Benoit (music) and Desirée Goyette (lyrics).

Whoa! What is that song that sounds vaguely like “Burnin’ Up the Carnival” by Joe Sample (from Voices in the Rain)? I scrolled down and saw the song was “4:00 A.M.” by Taeko Onuki (or Ohnuki). I searched Google on my iPhone and the Taeko’s Wikipedia entry (linked in the previous sentence) and found the song. That prompted the YouTube app where I heard the whole thing:

Whoa again, it appeared on an album with the last name of a few of my friends, but with an extra N. Lyrics are here.

1:30 PM UPDATE: A member of the My Life in Gaming Discord server told me the album title was part of Taeko’s fascination with French media, which I confirmed after a Google Search yielded this 2017 interview. Still, Mignonne is one letter off from my friends of Italian descent.

3:10 PM UPDATE: I just finished reading the interview linked in the prior update. It was an interesting read, but I was disappointed to learn Taeko did not like Mignonne because of what transpired during production. The resulting disenchantment, and poor sales, made her take a two-year hiatus from the music industry. Anyway, back to the good stuff.

Taeko’s Wikipedia entry led me to the one on city pop. That’s what I heard and I wanted more.

I could not stop listening to “4:00 A.M.” Ironically, it kept me up past midnight, but not as late as 4AM. I was up at 4AM on March 4 when I drafted this blog post thanks to a period of strong easterly winds that buffeted my bedroom window. The song’s refrain may sound vaguely like the later “Burnin’ Up the Carnival,” but the song otherwise had more in common with the works of Bob James and Grover Washington Jr. The line “ima o” was phrased like “that’s the time” in “Feel Like Makin’ Love” by Roberta Flack, which Bob played on and then covered. The guitar solo on the ending breakdown sounded like it came from Eric Gale‘s hands. (It was from Tsunehide Matsuki‘s hands.) I have repeatedly imagined Grover Washington himself covering “4:00 A.M.” on alto saxophone, soloing (improvising) from the last refrain, through the breakdown, all the way to the end.

I should probably acknowledge that I am on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum, formerly known as Asperger Syndrome. That probably explains my intense focus on one thing or another, and attention to detail.

I was busy with radio show production on February 22, but “4:00 A.M.” was in the back of my mind and I was intent on extracting the audio and assigning the WAV file to a vintage Weather Channel local forecast flavor in my WeatherStar 4000 simulator. Now, I could hear all but the last 36 seconds with the current conditions and forecast, peppered with Dan Chandler’s re-created narrations. (I was in touch with Dan for a few weeks midway through my tenure at WGBB, and he even called in while I was playing a song. I didn’t put him on, but relayed what we talked about, including “reading the sports pages” as he listened to the live stream. After writing that sentence, I’m sorry to learn that he passed away on February 7 [obituary].) The simulator was already populated by music cues from The Price is Right and adjacent Goodson–Todman game shows. See the February 15 Instrumental Invasion recap for more on that obsession.

While my “4:00 A.M.” obsession continued, YouTube had more city pop recommendations, including a modern music video for Mariya Takeuchi‘s “Plastic Love“:

Mariya only appears audibly through the original 1984 song. In ’82, she married the king of city pop, Tatsuro Yamashita. I was impressed that her English vocals were English, not transliterations.

Oh, and another Jon Arbuckle montage:

As the “Plastic Love” video wound down, I pretended to be Dan Ingram back-selling the song, quipping that it was better than polyurethane love.

My vocal city pop discoveries halted for the next few days when I found a city pop creation befitting my love of instrumental music: jazz fusion supergroup Casiopea!

First, I found “Midnight Rendezvous“:

Then, “Eyes of the Mind” before the “the” was added:

Groups like Casiopea and T-Square (formerly The Square) have influenced generations of video game music composers.

I woke up on February 23 after a full night’s sleep and was greeted with two more Jon Arbuckle videos:

“He can’t cook! He can’t get a date! He’s Jon Arbuckle, and we’re giving him away absolutely free! In fact, we’ll pay you to take him!”
“Let’s not ask questions. Let’s just get out of here.”

As I listened to my radio show aircheck from the night before, I began extracting audio from whatever Casiopea albums were on YouTube (mostly via their “topics” channel), provided the cover art available online was clear and at least 1500×1500 pixels. If AI upscaling in Adobe Photoshop yielded poor results, I’d buy the CD myself and scan the artwork. That’s what I did for Flowers (1996), but I bought Euphony (1988) because it wasn’t on YouTube. I will eventually buy the actual CDs, but given the inflated import prices, collection take a while. Here’s what I do have:

I’m still working my way through the albums chronologically in my spare time. Flowers is gradually on its way from a Japan Discogs markeplace seller, so I jumped from Freshness to Light and Shadows. That’s where I am as of publication on March 5. (I got in eight hours of sleep the night before.)

The last item in this post’s Casiopea segment is T2norway‘s video profile of them, preceded by his city pop story:

Thanks to my college friend Phil Federico for bringing this to my attention. I can overlook T2’s mispronunciations of Harvey Mason and Lee Ritenour, who also appeared on Casiopea albums. In fact, they, Bob James, and Nathan East – future members of Fourplay – all appeared on Casiopea studio recordings.

The night of February 23, YouTube recommended two more Garfield and Friends videos. One was yet another montage:

And the other was a series review by Nostalgia Critic, played by Doug Walker (who was born the same day as me!):

I was let down by his critiques of certain characters and the animation style, not to mention his disdain for U.S. Acres. Nonetheless, I respect his dissent.

My city pop discoveries resumed on the night of February 25, related to “Plastic Love.” Leading off, a Super Famicom/Nintendo rendition:

That was followed by the infamous long version of the Mariya Takeuchi original (lyrics):

(As of March 13, the video was taken down. In the long version, one verse repeated and the ending chorus was extended, exemplified below.)

Since I was watching in a web browser, I saw recommendations on the right side of the tab. The one that caught me eye was an English version of “Plastic Love”:

The singer-songwriter was Caitlin Myers, also a voice actress with a focus in anime and video games. She has two YouTube channels: one in her name and one called Interlunium. I was unaware of the scope of her work as I watched this first video. (3/31 UPDATE 1: Interlunium is a virtual idol group where Caitlin portrays Junko.) (3/31 UPDATE 2: Caitlin’s version of “Plastic Love” was reworked with original instrumentation and new vocals for her 2021 compilation, City Poppin’.)

More city pop discoveries came way on February 26. Figuratively waiting at the door to this new day was “Mayonaka no Door* (Stay with Me)” by the late Miki Matsubara, recorded when she was just 19 (lyrics):

*”Door” is lyrically transliterated “doa.” The full term means “midnight’s door (literally, door of midnight).” In another ironic twist, there were nights after discovering this song when I’d be awake around midnight as the refrain bounced around in my head. Sometimes, I imagined a fast tempo, “Spain“-esque Chick Corea version with a Minimoog solo. Others, I thought of McCoy Tyner.

Sure enough, Caitlin Myers wrote an English version of this, too:

The anime artwork is based on a 1980 photo of Miki.

Incidentally, I added both versions of “Plastic Love” and “Mayonaka no Door (Stay with Me)” to the WS4000 simulator, again using the five-minute local forecast flavor.

Knocking on afternoon’s door was the biggest discovery yet: Caitlin covered “4:00 A.M.”!

Caitlin and her two backing vocalists came closer to the gospel choir sound for the line “Lord, give me one more chance!”

My city pop journey had seemingly come full circle. Now, I had English versions of the first three vocal city pop songs I discovered to complement the originals.

The Garfield and Friends video journey definitely came to end on the morning of February 28 with this video showing one second of each episode from show (or rather from each cartoon in each episode):

However, there was more city pop to be had that afternoon. Other Caitlin Myers English adaptations were in my YouTube feed, and I felt I had to hear the originals before listening to hers.

“Do You Remember Love?” was adapted from its directly-translated Japanese title, “Ai Oboete Imasu ka.” Sung by Mari Iijima, it underscored the intense climax to the 1984 film, Macross: Do You Remember Love? I foolishly watched that sequence on YouTube instead of a straight recording of the song, unable to unsee or unhear any of it. (And I thought Disney villain deaths were rough.)

Lucky for you, the reader, I found a straight recording (lyrics):

And the Caitlin Myers version:

3/13/23 UPDATE: “Do You Remember Love?” was J-pop rather than city pop, illustrating how songs from the subgenre led me to ones from the main genre.

“Dance in the Memories” was next, written and performed by Meiko Nakahara (lyrics):

It was the third closing theme (tema) to Kimagura Orange Road, which I assume was a lighter anime series.

Caitlin’s turn:

She even matched the quirky “mem-morries” pronunciation.

Closing out my first week in city pop, “Telephone Number” by Junko Ohashi (lyrics):

Magical was a 1984 compilation. “Telephone Number” originated on Tea for Tears in ’81, co-written by her husband Ken Sato.

I had to make a 3-minute, 30-second local forecast flavor to accommodate the song’s 3:58 run time (3:59 for Caitlin).

As a suburban New Yorker, I like Magical‘s cover art of Lower Manhattan featuring the original World Trade Center. I passed by One World Trade Center in 2014 while running the Tunnel to Towers 5K.

The hook – “ah-uu, 5-6-7-oh-9” – brought two things to mind:

Musically, Caitlin did a masterful job replicating the sound of each song she adapted into English. On behalf of city pop fans everywhere, thank you, Caitlin, for your efforts.

Thank you to the many city pop artists whose works inspired by our (the West’s) music have boomeranged back to us.

And thank you, the reader, for making it to the end of this post. Wish me luck on the rest of my city pop journey. Be sure to catch Instrumental Invasion April 26 at 9PM Eastern (April 27 at 11AM in Japan) on WCWP. It’ll be the first show with music by Casiopea, and about ten minutes into the last segment, I allude to some of what I laid out in this post because I play Scott Wilkie‘s cover of “Burnin’ Up the Carnival.” (5/2 UPDATE: Here is that show’s recap, along with my journey since writing this post.)

I’ll leave you with Caitlin Myers’ Japanese versions (lyrics by Datenkou) of “Never Gonna Give You Up“…

…and “September“:

Instrumental Invasion, 1/11/23 January 12, 2023

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Books, DVD, Internet, Jazz, Laserdisc, Media, Music, New Age, Personal, Photography, Radio, Travel, TV, Video, Video Games, Weather.
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The January 11 edition of Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded one hour per day between November 24* and 25. This show brought me back to a comfortable seven-week buffer.

*Thanksgiving, my parents’ 45th wedding anniversary, the 30th anniversary of Sonic 2sDay (release day for Sonic the Hedgehog 2)

The playlist was created on November 21, annotated on the 22nd, and the talk break script was drafted on the 23rd when not working on last week’s show.

Speaking of Sonic 2, I referred to video games and video game consoles again this week: the Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, and Virtual Boy. Jeremy Parish’s Virtual Boy Works video series can be viewed here and you can buy his book here. (Yes, my story about trying out the Shapp cousins’ Virtual Boy was true.)

I played another cut from the compilation True North, starting the show with “One More River Passing” by James Reynolds. Hear it in a Weather Channel local forecast at this link. Click here for a local forecast featuring “Down Hill Racer” by Patrick O’Hearn.

With only two new albums left that hadn’t met my requisite six tracks to play, I added a second 1996-2006 segment and moved the remaining 2017-present segment to the middle of hour 2. That allowed me to make up for not ending hour 1 with the live 2002 version of “Kukuc” (“koo-kooch”) by John Favicchia, the second week in a row with a version of “Kukuc,” both from Tangible. The second segment of hour 1 and first of hour 2 only had two talk breaks thanks to “Spain” by Return to Forever and “Kukuc.”

This week’s version of “Kukuc” was performed at Backstreet Blues in Rockville Centre, the venue where I was introduced to Fav and his Dharma All-Stars on July 13, 2005. Here are the photos I took that night:

  • Brad Mason (trumpet), Mark Gatz (tenor sax) (RIP), Mike Nunno (bass), Chieli Minucci (guitar)
  • Frederic Las Fargeas (keyboards), Brad Mason (trumpet), Mark Gatz (tenor sax)
  • The mostly-clear view from table: Frederic Las Fargeas, Brad Mason, Mark Gatz, John Favicchia, Mike Nunno, Chieli Minucci
  • A close-up of Chieli
  • This time, with the flash during “Kukuc” (the closer)
  • A wide shot with the flash: Frederic Las Fargeas, Brad Mason, Mark Gatz, John Favicchia (out of view), Mike Nunno, Chieli Minucci
  • Chieli and I after the set; it was his idea for me to attend; I’m forever grateful to him for that

Backstreet Blues is now known as The New Vibe Lounge.

Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:

Festival of Games 2022 recap December 16, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Animation, Aviation, Christmas, Game Shows, History, Internet, Media, Military, Personal, Photography, Travel, TV, Video, Video Games, Weather.
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Last Saturday, the second annual Festival of Games was held at the Cradle of Aviation Museum along Museum Row in East Garden City. The so-far one-day spinoff of Long Island Retro Gaming Expo (read about the 2022 LI Retro here) was my latest chance to walk and snap photos in as many sections as possible. Then, back to the vendor halls to add video games to my multi-console, multi-generation collection.

Thanks to my past recaps, I have made friends with the organizers, volunteers, and a week before this Festival of Games, the museum’s director of marketing and community relations, Jerelyn Zontini. I’m honored to know them and to promote special events like this.

I did not think to check the Festival of Games website for this year’s schedule, so I missed out on the panels in the main stage (planetarium) and classes in the classroom, but I saw everything else on offer, and was surprised to meet legendary collector, YouTuber, and streamer Pete Dorr at his vending table. More on that later.

To photograph the event, I brought my Canon EOS R7 with RF-S 18-150mm lens and Speedlite 430EX III-RT. When writing about my initial experience with the mirrorless camera, I did not lower the resolution on test photos. Considering the camera’s higher native max resolution (6984×4660) with the same 3:2 aspect ratio as my previous camera, it made sense while editing Saturday’s photos to increase my default blog post/social media resolution. Thus, going forward, photos will be no lower than 2000 pixels vertically, stepping up from my max horizontal resolution of 2600 pixels.

Again planning on a two-hour stay, my mother dropped me off at 12:43 PM:

Once inside (and having my bag searched), I presented my e-ticket printout to a box office attendant who stamped my left hand.

A promotional banner for Cradle-Con:

Each section I walked through at Festival of Games has a dedicated photo gallery. We start with the vendor hall gallery:

Sure enough, it’s Pete Dorr! I would definitely return to his table.

The board game section:

One of the photos taken here was posted to the museum’s Facebook page.

In all the years I’ve been inside the Cradle of Aviation Museum, I never observed its exhibits. I rectified that after passing the board games section.

I assume the title says “we have” instead “we’ve had” because the misattribution is more popular.
Coincidentally, the next day (Sunday) marked the 50th anniversary of the final Apollo mission‘s lunar landing. Their final EVA on the moon occurred 50 years ago Tuesday. Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean 50 years ago next Monday (December 19).
Then, I turned my attention to commercial aircraft and airports.
“Long Islanders see more commercial air traffic than any other people on Earth. How many of these planes can you name?”

MY ANSWER: Most of them, thanks to my proximity to John F. Kennedy International Airport. The planes are either on final approach or just took off. I also see general aviation aircraft coming to or from Republic Airport in Farmingdale, which is even closer to my house.

Back to video games in the free play area:

Tournaments:

On to the second floor:

PC games…
The holiday games section, starting with a dancing R.O.B. quartet…
The middle TV shows the 1996 TV special Sonic’s Christmas Blast.
You may recognize the name Howard Phillips in the credits for Home Alone 2 on the Super Nintendo. It was a LucasArts game released shortly after Howard left Nintendo for LucasArts.
Arcade games…
A pinball machine

Of course, most of the arcade games were housed on the Air & Space hall sky walk:

I chose not to play any of the arcade games or free play console games. I just wanted to buy games, and where better to start than at Pete Dorr’s table? I didn’t introduce myself to him right away, but he approached me after a few minutes of rummaging. That’s when I complimented him on his work. I ended up buying five Sega Genesis games from Pete’s table, which he gave me a great discount on. Then, we posed for a photo:

An hour of vendor-hopping yielded 42 games in all, including seven imports! Four games were for the Family Computer (Famicom) and three were for the Super Famicom. Final Fantasy V was a timely get as GTV Japan posted a retrospective the day before (last Friday).

Satisfied, I proceeded to the parking lot for my mom to pick me up.

As I stood in the lot, I photographed all my bagged pickups. (I put Pete’s games and ones from the second vendor in my backpack.)

Back at home, I spent nearly two hours photographing my pickups, removing price stickers, and cataloging the games.

Pete Dorr’s games are on the left, the ones from the second vendor are on the right.

Now, photos of all pickups by console, starting with Family Computer (Famicom):

Super Famicom:

Nintendo Entertainment System:

Yes, I passed on Deadly Towers again.

Super Nintendo:

I didn’t notice a crack on the upper left of Tecmo Super NBA Basketball until cataloging later. I bought a better condition cart on eBay Tuesday night and put in an offer for another Looney Tunes game, Speedy Gonzales: Los Gatos Bandidos. I bought that on Wednesday when my offer was accepted.

Sega Master System:

Now, I have the original Zillion to go along with the sequel I bought last year.

Sega Genesis (Mega Drive outside North America):

And one Nintendo Wii game: The Price is Right: 2010 Edition:

That last pickup was the culmination of all the time that I spent this year watching various winning pricing games and showcases from the Bob Barker era of The Price is Right, and with my resulting renewed obsession with Barker era music cues, many of which can be found on this YouTube channel.

It was another successful and enjoyable Festival of Games. Thank you to Pete Dorr and all the vendors I bought from, to the LI Retro staff including George Portugal (who I saw on Saturday), and to Jerelyn Zontini. It was great to meet her in person after she connected with me on LinkedIn a few weeks ago.

Instrumental Invasion, 12/7/22 December 8, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Christmas, Comedy, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Travel, TV, Video.
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The December 7 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded out of sequence on November 5 and 6. I did segments 1, 3, 5, and 4 on the 5th, and 6 and 1 on the 6th. Pickups were recorded on the 6th and 7th.

The playlist was created on October 28 alongside the one for last week. Annotations began on October 29 and didn’t resume until November 3. I went back to a script this week, which I drafted on the 4th and 5th. I’d have done it all on the 4th, but I had errands to run, including shipping the last of my eBay items referenced in my new camera post.

Like last week, I chose to record out of sequence so I could get the presumably short segments out of the way and bank time for the ones I expected to run long. Also like last week, I was still short after principal production, having to make up 15 seconds by reinstating my “fun fact” about Lynne Scott being friends with Laraine Newman.

The Futurama reference after “Robo Bop” by Fourplay dates back to an episode of Mike Chimeri’s Music Collection, my short-lived YouTube series. The excerpt I played was from this video (the title sequence for episode 4ACV17, “Spanish Fry”):

The November 7 pickups were for the second segment after missing an opportunity to link Amy Poehler and Laraine Newman as Saturday Night Live alumnae (that show has come up a lot lately) and memoir authors (Yes, Please and May You Live in Interesting Times). I met Laraine at New York Comic Con in 2019:

There were more callbacks to Homecoming Weekend this week. I returned the favor to Jett Lightning after he played the original “Blue Train” on his Sunday show, and I played two songs that were on my live Friday show. The songs are the respective artists’ current singles and previously heard on the regular Wednesday show (original air dates are in parentheses):

I was told not to play music from Lisa Hilton‘s new Paradise Cove album until after its release date last Friday. Since the title track shares its name with a favorite Russ Freeman composition, I bookended the show with each “Paradise Cove,” marking Lisa’s album’s debut on the show.

I referenced the Dutchess County trip yet again, doing so after “El Swing” by Hudson.

My “beat Army” line after acknowledging Dan LaMaestra‘s tenure with the U.S. Navy Band was coincidental. I forgot the annual Army-Navy [football] Game is this Saturday.

The Dan Ingram joke about Jack Jones stemmed from Dan’s backsell of “The Impossible Dream (The Quest)” on June 25, 1966 (heard in Rewound Radio’s The Life and Times of Dan Ingram: In His Own Words):

I slowed the clip down three percentage points to the correct speed.

I excluded the 1984 and earlier segment to allow for an extra segment of music from 2022 releases. The Hudson song filled a gap.

Excluded for only the fourth time in 140 shows was David Benoit. He will be back next week.

Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:

Instrumental Invasion, 11/30/22 December 1, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Comedy, Dogs, Football, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Pets, Radio, Travel.
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The November 30 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded out of sequence between October 31 (Halloween) and November 2. Three segments were recorded on October 31 (first, fifth, third), one on November 1 (second), and two on November 2 (fourth, sixth) followed by pickups.

The playlist was created alongside next week’s show on October 28. Annotations began on the 29th and were completed before recording on the 31st. To keep up my four-week buffer, I did not write a talk break script, going by annotations instead. Ironically, that made raw recordings longer as I searched for the right words to say.

“Tickle Time” by Herb Alpert makes me think of a video posted to Briar the Lab’s Instagram page: “Chomp the [imaginary] pickle. … Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle!”

This week and next, I include(d) songs that were played on my live Homecoming Weekend show (also unscripted). This week, it was “Pioneer Town” by David Benoit and “Eddie’s Groove” by Gerald Albright. Those songs were previously played on Wednesday nights – April 20 and July 27, respectively. I was unaware “November’s Child” by Special EFX was their latest single when I made the live show playlist on the afternoon of October 7. I found out via Watercolors during the car ride to Dutchess County that evening. I almost forgot to include it this week, but as you heard, it was the last song of November.

As you also heard, Bernie Bernard played “Time Out of Mind” by Steely Dan during her show after the Homecoming football game, hence its inclusion this week. I did not expect to find my description of the song’s antagonist so funny while backselling Grover Washington, Jr.’s cover, but the reaction speaks for itself. It’s funnier to call him a “pretentious, pseudo-religious” meshuggener (crazy person) than to end on the word “crank,” as Stewart Mason did in his review (per the “music and lyrics” section of the Gaucho Wikipedia entry). Next week, a nod to Jett Lightning’s inclusion of “Blue Train” in his show. (Read about the entire weekend here.)

Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:

Bonus: the post-“Pioneer Town” (get it, Post Pioneers?) excerpt of a Jeff Kroll touchdown call from the 2017 Homecoming football game:

Instrumental Invasion, 11/23/22 November 24, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Animation, Audio, Blu-ray, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Travel, TV.
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The November 23, Thanksgiving Eve Instrumental Invasion on WCWP took a while to develop, as Kenny Mayne would say. The playlist was created on September 27, annotations began on October 4 and weren’t completed until the 10th while in Staatsburg, the talk break script was drafted on the 12th followed by recording of the first hour, and the second hour and pickups were recorded a week later on October 19. I was going to record on the 13th, but my time mismanagement skills reared their ugly head, and I had a breakdown while rushing to complete errands. Thank goodness WCWP station manager Pete Bellotti talked me down. Per his advice, I suspended production on this show until after Homecoming Weekend, and production was completed on videos of two Saturday shows (Bernie Bernard; Mike Riccio and Bobby G.).

I usually have a wealth of inside information about this reference or that reference, but I’ve wasted enough time. So, click here to download the scoped aircheck or listen below:

Since writing the above text on October 19, I’ve published posts about Homecoming Weekend and what I now call the Dutchess County trip. Listening to “Far Away” by Robben Ford took me back to how far away I felt at times in the AirBNB on Connelly Drive. Watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on 4K Blu-ray on Tuesday (November 22), I realized I forgot to acknowledge Chuck Bennett’s trombone was also the “voice” of the adult whom Charlie Brown spoke to on the phone.

Happy Thanksgiving. Here’s hoping you get the long end of the wishbone like Woodstock (the bird, not the town half an hour northwest of Rhinebeck/Staatsburg).

Instrumental Invasion, 11/16/22 November 17, 2022

Posted by Mike C. in Airchecks, Audio, Baseball, Internet, Jazz, Media, Music, Personal, Radio, Travel.
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The November 16 Instrumental Invasion on WCWP was recorded from October 4 to 6: one segment on the 4th, two on the 5th, and the last three on the 6th. Pickups were recorded on the 6th, 7th, and 10th.

The playlist was created on September 27, and annotated from the 28th to the 30th. Work on next week’s show and the backup Homecoming Weekend prerecord kept me from drafting the talk break script. By October 4, I was desperate to start recording. An opportunity to record opened up at my secondary location – the home of that heavily noise reduced audio due to the central air conditioning indoor unit running next to my desk (that probably won’t be an issue again until May). So, I attempted to record the first segment unscripted based on the annotations, but before I could record the second talk break, the opportunity disappeared. I scripted the first segment on the way home and recorded once I was home. The rest of the script was drafted on October 5 before recording the next two segments. Of course, the live HCW show (also with “Billy’s Bop” and “Forecast“) was unscripted, and I ultimately went that route for the show two weeks from now.

I needed a song to fill the gap in the fourth segment and I chose “Silver Street” by Chris “Big Dog” Davis. I didn’t know I had already played it last February 10 until cataloging on October 7 before the weekend excursion to Dutchess County. I drafted much of this blog post on my laptop at the AirBNB.

Click here to download this week’s scoped aircheck or listen below:

An automation error kept underwriting and a legal ID from running at the top of each hour. Thankfully, I only missed the first two seconds of the show open.

Postscript: Today, November 17, is my 41st birthday. My age is the same as the uniform number worn by my idol, New York Mets pitcher Tom Seaver (1944-2020), who was also born on the 17th. The photos below were in a Tumblr post.

FLUSHING,NY – CIRCA 1960’s: Pitcher Tom Seaver #41 of the New York Mets pitches during circa late 1960’s Major League Baseball game at Shea Stadium in Flushing, New York. Seaver played for the Mets from 1967-77,83. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images) [not my caption]

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.
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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.

A plane taking off from nearby Hudson Valley Regional Airport
A pumpkin still on the vine
A mama pig and her piglets
Emus
Donkeys
Sheep
Peacocks (I was the only making NBC jokes around them)
A rooster, and it actually crowed!
A rooster and hen
Peacock vs. hen
Goats
And lastly, a horse

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.

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.

This is how far I got from the backyard.

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:

I-84:

I-684 (briefly in Connecticut):

  • No longer content with my phone’s 3x zoom, I switched to my DSLR.

I-287:

The Hutchinson River Parkway/I-678 (supplementing my photos from May 1):

The Cross Island Parkway:

And finally, the Grand Central Parkway/Northern State Parkway:

  • The last photo of the trip

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.