A Journey Through 40+ Years of Broadcasting: Chuck Custer Reflects

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Radio Split Ranch!
Hello and welcome once again to Radio Split Ranch, a monthly visit with the
Capital Region's great broadcasters of the past and sometimes present.
I'm Warren Garling when I'm not on the radio.
Over the last three years of monthly visits to the Radio Split Ranch,

(00:21):
I've done my best to choose my guests from as a wide variety of broadcast outlets
in the Great Northeast as I can.
I mean, I've always tried to spread the wealth and not interview folks who worked
at the same station represented by the previous interviewee.
But I'm breaking that rule this month.
It's not easy when one station has attracted some of the best talent over the

(00:42):
years and when some of the top talent have worked at the top signals.
So, even though we spoke at length with last month's guest, Diane Donato,
about 102-year-old powerhouse WGY, we're going back to 810 on your radio dial
with this month's victim. him.
But I dare say you won't hear any other podcast anywhere this month with two

(01:03):
radio personalities caught choking up tearfully on the air.
So sit back and enjoy my conversation with veteran radio newsman,
the now retired Chuck Custer.
Well, I've never had the opportunity to actually work for this person,
but I've worked with him.
And I kind of wish I worked for you, Chuck Custer, because everything I hear

(01:23):
about you is you're a great boss.
Loss. Well, that's really nice to hear. You know, I always, I always,
my philosophy always was hire good people, let them, let them run with their
talent and, you know, try to make it a little bit fun if possible.
Exactly. Well, we, we came close a couple of times and it's always been my,
my pleasure to say, I know Chuck Custer and, and again, you're one of those
guys, you just never hear anything bad about.

(01:45):
So, so tell us something bad about you. Well, you haven't talked to my wife apparently.
That's it. Perfect. Perfect. Yep. Yep. That, that's the great leveler.
Something bad about, I'll tell you, one frustration I've had my entire career,
which was long, I always was trying to slow down. I always talked too fast.
Yes. And I could never get my arms around that. I would hear air checks and

(02:05):
saying, how could they put me on the air?
You know, I'll probably spin out of control during this interview.
I cannot slow down. Yeah, well, I'm the same way.
One of the first real big voiceover projects I got about 15 years ago.
I do the audition and I play it back for the guy. And he says,
oh, man, you're really good. Exactly what we're looking for.

(02:26):
You know, do two things for me. Just smile a little bit more.
And I was taking it too seriously. And I taught that for years,
that you put a smile in your voice. And he said, and slow down.
And I realized if I slow down, I'm probably not going to make as many reading mistakes as I could.
That's so true. And you don't get the ums and everything else.
Exactly. I was very conscious of it.

(02:48):
And I tried to work on it, but I could never get my arms around it.
Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll both try not to outdo each other here in speed,
okay? Let's just relax. We're both retired, right?
That's right. Yeah. So we should be able to lay back. It's delightful, by the way.
I'm really surprised that I miss the people, but I don't miss the work as much
as I thought I would. Yes.

(03:08):
When I was let go of the final time, which has happened a few times in my career
from our folks at iHeart, I thought immediately, man, what am I going to do?
And, you know, within a few weeks, I thought, same thing you did.
I miss the folks, but, you know, I can live without this. Yeah.
Of course, then I started the podcast, and I am still doing voice work.
Yeah, so you still got that bit, you got that little bit of urge.

(03:32):
Exactly, exactly. Well, the last thing I forgot to do, and you can hear it in
the background, before we started this interview, was to take the phone out of the room.
So that's going to just stay in. I mean, come on.
You know, we're all friends here, right? Who's producing this show,
Joe Gallagher? Yeah, perfect.
Well, I can't wait to get to talking about him because you two are just the

(03:55):
perfect non-pair, if you will. Well, anyway, but let's start back sort of at
the beginning here and tell us what led you to this. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, you know, Berkshire County, Western Mass.
And I don't know what it was always, even from a very early age,
it's really all I wanted to do.
We had some great radio back in town at the time. Our friend Bob Cudmore,

(04:18):
you listened to him growing up.
They had some great news guys there. They're Bob Collins and Fred Lance over
at Whoopi Radio and Bill Gralty over at WBEC.
But I've always, I don't know what it is, almost immediately,
I've just always wanted to do broadcasting. I was always doing.
You know, pretend interviews with my friends after our little league games and stuff.

(04:38):
And it was just something I was always drawn to, you know? Yeah.
Yeah. No, a little radio station in the basement or in the garage.
No, but I did. I, my, my, my Santa actually, one year got me a small reel to
reel, which I had a lot of fun doing commercials and interviews on.
So that was it. So I wasn't as sophisticated as having a full blown station,
but had a ton of fun with the tape recorder. There you go.

(05:01):
And that really is how I started to hearing my voice played back and being able
to make people smile and laugh with some of the stuff I was doing.
And, you know, I saw a radio station when I was about 11 and said,
hey, this looks like it could be fun.
Yeah, I remember my father knew that I was really into it.
There was a, I think it was WBRK, one of the other Pittsfield stations.

(05:22):
They were just doing a remote somewhere.
And he just said, get in the car. We're going to drive over.
And I drove over and watched.
I don't remember who it was exactly, but I remember just watching the remote
and thinking, how cool is this, you know? Yep, exactly.
I have had more than one of my victims here on the podcast say the same thing.
Their parents packed them in the car, and they went to Bumpstead Chevrolet in Troy for a remote.

(05:45):
And there's the guy they'd been listening to on the radio, and I forget who
it was that told that particular story, but yeah.
And, of course, one of the greatest truisms of life, the voice never matches
the face. Exactly, exactly. Yes, yes.
Many, many tales we could tell along those lines, but we'll go past that stuff.
So let's talk about what you did during high school. Did you do anything to pursue this, or...?

(06:09):
Yeah, it was really cool. I had this interest already, and then I went to Taconic
High School in Pittsfield, Mass., and they had, it might have been like five
watts, they had an in-house radio station, an actual radio station.
And all the record companies, they sent us albums, and we were somewhat legit.
They used to simulcast us on the public television channel in Pittsfield.

(06:33):
It was run kind of like a real radio station.
Nice. And it was cool that we were, you know, we were played over at this time.
This is probably back. I don't know. God, it must've been in the early seventies.
They used to, the, the, the community TV station in Pittsfield didn't really
have local programming.
But they just had like, they had weather dials with, you know,
humidity and temperature that would just circle around and we'd be played under

(06:56):
that. So. Well, that's pretty neat. Yeah.
Yeah. So you got some early exposure that way. That's pretty cool.
Learn how to run a board and, uh, you know, queue up records and all that.
Bob Cooper, I've got to give a shout-out to.
He was a math teacher at Taconic. He was really the inspiration to make that
station WTHS, now WTBR, happen.
So I really got my hands on it. It was a blast.

(07:16):
That's great that that was available to you. All I had was the PA system at the high school.
So I did the morning announcements with another guy. I was that guy, exactly.
Were you a big man on campus? Well, that actually happened after my first year in radio.
I went on the radio between my junior and senior year. So when I got back to
school for my senior year, all these people had been listening to me on the

(07:39):
local WSNY in Schenectady at the time and said, yeah, how cool is that?
So senior year was a lot better than junior year was.
So this obviously led to you deciding what kind of education you needed.
What would you do after high school?
Yeah, you know, I knew I wanted to pursue this. I applied to BU,

(08:00):
Syracuse, I think Colby College, and UMass was my fallback college.
So I got humble brag, got into them all, including Newhouse.
But I ended up going to Boston University because I...
Boston's more fun than Syracuse. Sorry about that. Hey, I went to a school in Kenmore Square.
It's not there any longer, but I was right down the street from you.

(08:21):
Yeah. Yeah, my first dorm was right on Commonwealth Avenue. There you go. Mine was too.
Absolutely. It was a great, great, it was maybe too much fun,
let's say, but it was a blast.
Now, this is again, what, early to mid-70s? Yeah, it was mid-70s.
I graduated high school in 75.
Okay, there you go. Okay, you're my brother's age. Yes, yes,
yes. But not as old as me, so you're okay.

(08:44):
So what was the experience like in Boston? Like you said, I mean,
you picked that over Syracuse because of the city.
Oh, it was, I mean, you know, there was, the social scene was,
I probably spent more time on the social scene than the academic scene, to be honest with you.
You know, I lived at Fenway Park, and it was just a great place to go.
I always thought it was interesting, BU, there were very few fraternities or

(09:07):
sororities because there was no need for them, you know?
The social interaction was right there in the city. Nice. But they were affiliated
with two stations, WBUR, which is a big-time public station,
still is, and the college station, and WTBU, which I was able to get on that.
You know, you wouldn't get on the air at BUR, but TBU, they put anybody on.

(09:27):
I remember doing like an overnight jazz show, and I dabbled in jockeying,
but I was really drawn to news more than DJ stuff.
Well, you're following in the footsteps of Bob Cudmore.
Yeah, he's at BU. Yeah, yeah. He was there maybe 10 years before you,
I think, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, that's about right.
10, 12 years before you. Yeah, certainly. And he mentioned both those call letters. Yeah.

(09:50):
So that's, so that's cool. But so you, you dabbled in the DJ stuff,
but thought that the news would be more what you wanted to do.
Exactly right. Yeah. I just, I don't know. I was always drawn to that.
And, uh, you know, I was a big Cronkite fan and that kind of thing.
I always paid attention to news. Wow. Well, I mean, we're right on the same wavelength.
I started as a jock, you know, again, that senior, between junior and senior

(10:11):
year, but I was introduced to doing news because the newsman wasn't always there.
He'd say, you're doing the next newscast. Okay.
You know, and so you'd rip and read and do that.
He also went on vacation for a couple of weeks and said, you know,
I want you in the newsroom during that time. And I had no problem with that.
So I got some exposure. So I figured if I already knew the jockeying,
when I go off to college, it was Graham Junior College in Kenmore Square,

(10:35):
which is no longer there.
Kenmore Square is there, but the college isn't. In any event,
I decided since I know the jock stuff, I'm going to broadcast journalist major
here and see where that takes me.
And once again, Walter Cronkite was my inspiration. I said, if I could do something
like he does, as important a job I thought as that was, I'd be in like Flynn, you know.

(10:56):
So then I realized that you had to really know how to pronunciate on the run,
you know, and I was terrible with foreign names.
I took Spanish in high school, but I was just terrible with foreign names.
And eventually I got out of the news stuff and went back to the jockeying.
That's why you got to study the Associated Press pronunciation.
Exactly. Everything phonetically. Exactly. So, so the college station was,

(11:20):
was a good for you. Nice training ground. It was fun.
Yeah. I mean, it was very loose. You know, I could, I would say,
I don't think I was a very good jock to be honest with you, but it was fun.
You know, we basically got to play with the commitment with the equipment and
get your voice on the air.
But as far as the learning curve, you know, I was pretty much an extension of high school really.
Cause that, you know, that station was just pretty loosely run.

(11:41):
It wasn't, but it was cool, but not really professional operation,
I'd say. Gotcha, gotcha.
Now, were you majoring in broadcast journalism? Yeah, broadcast journalism was
a major, yeah. Okay, very good.
And managed to stay in school the whole time, like some of us didn't?
No, to my parents' dismay, I quit with a semester left. Oh, seriously?

(12:02):
To take a job in Utica. That was, you know, the arrogance of youth.
I really, that's one thing I regret, because, you know, my parents weren't wealthy,
they weren't poor, but they worked hard to get me through college.
The arrogance to just shut it down with a semester left is something I regret.
It is what it is. It was not okay. As I've told before on this podcast,
I went to one year of junior college, so I have half an associate's degree or

(12:25):
a half-ass degree, as I like to call it.
But the story here, or I guess the end result is, when my class graduated a year after I left,
they're coming back to this area, quite a few of them from this area,
went to Graham, and they're looking for a job, which I already had,

(12:45):
because I came back and got the job before they did.
And so in retrospect, you know, but again, my parents felt the same thing.
What are you doing? Plus, I lost my student to vermin.
So I'm wide open for the draft at the time.
Yeah, that was a little before my time. Exactly. I didn't have to deal with that fright. Exactly.
And I did luck out, did not get drafted. But in any event, yeah,

(13:06):
the stories of people, well, look at some of the richest people in the world
never finished college, you know.
They just jumped in with both feet because they knew they could do the job.
So, so you took it personally, but I, again, like I said, for my parents who
have both since departed, I think they were disappointed.
And it's like, you know, in, in retrospect, you know, I wish I'd finished it
off, but, but it is what it is, you know, all's well that ends well, as they say. Yep.

(13:29):
And so you wound up, you already mentioned heading for Utica before, uh, before graduation.
Graduation yeah i ended up at wtlb in utica i
was remember i was thrilled i started there right before
christmas in 1980 and it was i remember
my mother was very distraught because it was it was like christmas week
and i was heading out there i had applied to a few places without luck but and
actually i interviewed for this job at tlb with a guy who later became wgy news

(13:53):
director brian whittemore i'll be done he's like i kind of want to hire you
but i think this woman might be better for us i have no reason to think she
won't work out but i gotta pass this this time, but keep in touch.
And then about three weeks, three or four weeks later, I guess the woman didn't work out and hired me.
But I remember my mother being very distraught because I was spending like Christmas
Eve in a flea bag, Utica area motel, eating dinty more beef stew out of the vending machine.

(14:19):
But I, she was, you know, kind of bummed that I wasn't, that I was missing Christmas,
but I couldn't have been more thrilled.
I couldn't believe I got a full-time job. People were going to pay me. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, when I went looking for work originally in the Boston Boston area had no luck whatsoever.
And how am I? I mean, I'm 19 years old, hair down to my shoulders.
You know, again, this is 1971, early 72.

(14:41):
Yeah. And, and nobody's going to hire me.
And my father told me that, you know, I said, okay, dad, so,
so get me a car so I can drive out of Boston and look, you know,
in the outskirts, still, still no luck.
I come home, have two interviews the first day I'm home and one of them I take.
So yeah, it really was played right place, right time. And yeah, just how it worked out.

(15:01):
Yeah. Yeah. And Albany was, and is a decent sized market to start,
you know, I think when I started, when I started, it was 49, I think.
And it's, it's now due to population loss. I don't know what it is now in the
seventies. It's in the seventies somewhere.
Yeah. And our same thing, it was 45 when I first started and,
and you know, now it's in the seventies somewhere. Yeah.

(15:22):
What was your, now what were you doing in Utica?
In Utica, I did just a regular news shift, anchoring and reporting.
And man, I got to tell you, I was green. I made a ton of mistakes,
but normally not the same one twice.
And Brian Whittemore took me under his wing and helped me to write and gather.

(15:43):
And so it was trial by fire, really.
I mean, I wouldn't want to hear my air checks from them. I remember probably
because speaking too fast, like we talked about before, I don't remember in
those early years being able to get through a single newscast without making at least one flub.
And, you know, I'm right there with you, Chuck.
It's exactly what happened to me too many times.

(16:04):
And unfortunately, I do have some of those air checks, which I haven't played
extensively, but they'll probably wind up on this podcast eventually.
So, I mean, I did everything there news-wise. It was great, you know,
field reporting and covering elections and stuff like that.
It was a great learning experience. And I feel sorry for the kids today,
not to go on the old guy rant, but I had people who were good and experienced teach me.

(16:30):
Today, a lot of the kids are working in a bubble where they just work by themselves.
They have to be self-taught. It was just such an advantage for me at TLB and
Utica and certainly at GUI is you have good people around you.
You know, you just follow their, if you just pay attention, you'll learn.
Exactly. Yeah. And I've interviewed many of the folks that did that for me as
well. Well, folks like Walt Fritz and Doc Perryman.

(16:52):
They're both great. Yeah, exactly. And folks that were just enough older than
me and more experienced than me.
And they taught me, let me make mistakes. My first boss, Don DeRosa,
just, you know, he was great in the respect that he never in the middle of your
show would come in and say, you know, stop screwing around or you mess this up or whatever.
He knew, he was smart enough to know you waited until the show was over.

(17:14):
And he even stayed late to do that many times. And then he ripped me a new one.
I've got to tell you, not to get too far down the line, but when I became program
director, it was kind of weird.
I was also working with Don Weeks on the air.
I was still his news guy, quasi-sidekick.
But I remember the mistake of one day calling him during the show with something.

(17:35):
And that was a mistake I would not make twice. There you go.
There you go. Yeah, yeah.
You do have to let the people learn. And the stations that had the red phone
in there and when the phone rang or the red light went on and you knew it was the boss.
No, I could never work like that. I just, I never did. And I,
that's because I learned from the folks that did it right, you know. Exactly right. Yeah.

(17:57):
So how long were you in Utica? Let's see, I was in Utica. I'm trying to remember.
I was there from December of 80 to 82.
Then what happened? I've been very lucky in my career. I never really been formally
like laid off. But in Utica, we had three news people.
It was me, Brian Woodmore, and a guy named Tim Igoe, a really good guy. And...
They had three news people there in Utica, and they were going to lay off one.

(18:19):
And I was the most inexperienced. I was the weakest one of the three, obviously.
So they said, we're going to get rid of your position. But they gave me all
the time in the world to find another job, which was cool.
And I just applied everywhere. I ended up in Charleston, West Virginia,
because I always wanted to cover a state capital.
And I got a job there in 82.

(18:39):
And it was, again, a learning experience, but a whole lot of fun.
I loved West Virginia. you it has a bad reputation but the
people there were so nice it was it was funny warren the
uh when i first got down there i remember going to like a convenience store
or something to buy a soda or whatever and i remember
the woman behind the cashier behind the register
was so nice to me i was like and coming

(19:02):
from new york you know we can be a little bit you know how
we can be yeah and and i my first thought was all right
what do you want you know and i just realized they're just
you're just being nice you know it was refreshing yeah
exactly down there were very friendly and unassuming i really
liked it yeah we're actually having a glass of wine
this afternoon with a couple that are from west virginia and they

(19:22):
moved into the neighborhood three four years ago and immediately you
know just fell right in with us and found out that all
new yorkers aren't like all other new yorkers and uh
yeah we we get along fine but yeah
the the you know the easiest going people and easy to talk to
and and fun it was culture shock in a way it
was you know the people were really nice it was very odd

(19:42):
though i mean it was economically depressed even then a lot of the lot of the
economy was based on coal mining which is very dangerous yeah and also they
had all the chemical companies were allowed to settle their dow and union carbide
in a lot of the suburbs the air reeked yeah and i i can't imagine it was very
healthy down there but they needed they They needed business,
so they approved a whole bunch of chemical companies moving down there in the Kanawha Valley.

(20:07):
And it was interesting. I wonder about the lasting health effects for some folks, but it was fun.
Again, that was another one where covering a legislature for the first time,
you really got an inside look at government.
That kind of understanding helped me basically cover all different forms of
government going forward.
Well, again, we build our careers that way. You know, we learn what we like

(20:30):
and what we don't like and where we want to go and don't want to go.
I covered Albany for a while as news director at WGNA in the early days.
And I realized, you know, this isn't all it was cracked up to be.
I'm going to go back to the disc jockey stuff. And I did. I left town,
came back completely as a jock and never looked back on the news. Yeah.
You kind of figure out as you're going along. Yeah.

(20:52):
That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. And you never know. I didn't have a wife or
a family then. So I could make the decisions for myself.
Exactly. Exactly. Well, most of us that are on our second or third marriages,
I'm only on number two or I tell, I call her my last wife.
I'm not going to do this again, especially after 46 years with this one.
But yeah, that makes a big difference. Okay.

(21:13):
I think my first marriage may have worked out better if I'd not been so new
in the business And so dedicated to the business and not paying attention to
much else, you know, so. Yeah, I hear that. Yeah.
Where's this all lead? So I worked at Charleston, West Virginia,
I don't know, maybe for 82 to 83.
And then I ended up, I don't know why I decided to leave. It was just time.

(21:35):
I think I always thought I wanted to work in Boston.
And so I, I, I had a connection, a friend, a guy, Bob Collins,
who I, who took me under Widerswing and Pittsfield helped me get my first audition
tape together and let me hang out in the newsroom.
And so he had a friend who was the news director in Providence,
Rhode Island, John Carpilio. And he helped put us to put two of us together.

(21:58):
And I ended up at WHJJ in Providence, which was at the time doing an all four
hour news block in the morning and then talk after that.
So that was, so I ended up in Providence and I had a really fun time there.
It was grueling. I was I was single and I had to get up at like 2 a.m.
Be at work at 3.30.
And we would just, it was a four-hour news block. So you would come in at 3.30

(22:21):
and just write about an hour and a half. Yeah.
At breakneck pace. So that was like, that was trial by fire.
Sure. But I really, it helped me write faster and better.
And, you know, so, and then we just go on the air and we just,
we'd anchored this thing from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. continuously.
The news, news block. and then I'd go out maybe for two or three hours and report

(22:43):
from the field after that covering news conferences and the like.
And I had really fun there. I only stayed there nine months even though I was
very happy there. And I figured...
Providence is the perfect place to jump to Boston from, from which to jump to
Boston, if you like grammar.
And it just didn't happen because I got my former news director in Utica,

(23:04):
Brian Whittemore, had since become the news director at WGY.
There you go. And called me and said, you know, I'm looking for an anchor reporter. What do you think?
It was for me, even though I was very happy in Providence, WGY was,
you know, I grew up in Western Mass.
So I was well aware of GY then when I was a kid, and certainly in current terms
in the mid-'80s, they were the Cadillac or the Lexus when it came to news.

(23:27):
Oh, yeah, yeah. Huge staff and great reputation, big signal.
They're always perpetually number one, and they paid better than everybody else.
So I ended up leaving Providence for GY.
That's a hell of a path. You only had three stations before you're working for a powerhouse like WGY.
That's pretty good. It was, and I, and I wasn't that good.

(23:50):
So I remember my first day. So I was young and probably not as smart as it could
have been in some, or as a world, you know, uh, not world wary, but, uh, not as sharp.
I had, I had a lease in Providence on an apartment and I'd only been there for
nine months and they wouldn't let me out of the lease.
And I decided not to fight it cause I was young and dumb. But I remember my

(24:11):
first three months at GY, I was commuting from Pittsfield to Niskayuna, where the studios were.
And it was actually on the way into work, it was not bad at all because it wasn't
winter and it was a time, a quiet time to get your thoughts together.
What was a real drag was when you're tired at the end of the day,

(24:31):
driving all the way back. But I remember my first day, I was driving up on 90.
I used to go 20 to 90. And I remember seeing the Albany skyline and hearing Don Weeks on the radio.
I'm like, oh, my God, I don't belong here. This guy is so great.
You know, I mean, I'm not ready for this, but you just kind of forge ahead sometimes.
So what year is this and who's on the air at this time? It was, I got to GY in May of 84.

(24:56):
Typical radio story. First day on the air, a holiday, Memorial Day.
You know, you know how it works. and work every holiday and all sorts of weird hours.
And so Don wasn't working that day, of course, but Don was there.
And then I'm trying to remember, I think Walt was doing the class reunion hour, Walt Fritz. Yep.
Great Harry Downey and then Ellie Pankin.

(25:17):
Sure sure and then joe joe gallagher was doing afternoon drive
right and bob bob cudmore at night i think that was the lineup when
i got there excellent yeah and the news department was yeah it was you know
kind of makes me sad now because when there are no people there but i got there
it was dick beach legendary reporter absolutely yep and kind of a don sidekick
he was on there and uh brian he and brian were working morning drive and peter reef was there and the

(25:43):
late Jeff, Eileen martyr who covered the Capitol, great reporter, Julia Hernandez.
And I just remember they had, and we had a full-time sports guy,
John Thomas, who did a great job.
And so it was a staff like eight and these people were all good.
And they were like, I was like very insecure. I didn't have a great voice and wasn't a great anchor.

(26:03):
And I just try to keep my head down, you know, Well, it seemed to work out.
Yeah. We're not going to skip too far ahead too fast here because,
you know, you're talking over 30 years that you wound up staying there. Closer to 40, right?
36 years. 36. That's what I thought. Yeah, yeah.
So in those early days, you're also connected. Were you doing anything at all with Channel 6?

(26:27):
Because those days they were still connected to you guys, right?
No, they were somewhat connected. I remember Peter Reif used to do the sign-off
newscast. You'd record it and it'd run, you know, stations weren't broadcasting 24 seven.
And I remember like two in the morning, they'd play the national anthem and
Peter Reef would do that, record headlines for them.
I think I was there, it was six or nine months, GE Broadcasting.

(26:49):
Broadcasting owned channel six and wgy right
i was there maybe six months before they spun it off
on the radio all right but so i was
you know down the hall was a newsroom we'd go down there and
share tips and well sure and information but i didn't really do anything uh
for them personally although i knew everybody there pretty well you know don
decker was great legendary news director there and larry schwartz was the assignment

(27:12):
editor and so you know it was really cool to be even loosely affiliated with
them but i didn't actually work directly for section. Gotcha.
Had you ever given any thought to the TV side of things?
Yeah, especially when I was worried about the future of radio. I did.
I never really came that close. I remember the closest I probably came was Kathy
Gazda was news director over at Fox 23.

(27:34):
And she had asked me if she wanted to ask me if I wanted to do some stuff over
there, particularly on the weekends.
But it would be every weekend. I was recently divorced and I had a young kid
and I didn't want to, you You know, my weekends were a lot of the special time I had with my son. Sure.
I passed on that. But that was really the only dalliance that was close in TV.

(27:54):
I always thought TV was fascinating, but I always thought radio was more interesting
because you could basically do whatever you wanted to do.
They cover whatever stories you wanted to cover. The way you wanted to. You were unencumbered.
Exactly. And I didn't have an assignment editor telling me, you know,
what to cover, who to interview, and how to tailor the story.
And there weren't there weren't a crew following you around either.

(28:17):
You know, you didn't have, you know, a cameraman, a sound person and all that stuff.
And like you say, an assignment editor, certainly you had a news director that
would say, yeah, we should do this today and that sort of thing.
But you didn't have to worry. Like you say, you were on your own and,
you know, went for the stories that you felt were important.
Yeah, the word I use is autonomous.
You really could. And in the same way, you had a freedom on the air, too.

(28:40):
This was back in the 80s. This was in the age. GY was always ahead of the curve
when it came to stuff like that.
But when I first got there, it was in the age of the presentational news anchor with the big voice.
I was a conversational guy who did not have a great voice. And that's also when
the news people were very stiff and there was no interplay.

(29:02):
Part of my success, I think, was adapting to this or being able to adapt to
this new style or a little more conversational.
You didn't have to have the big, booming baritone voice.
And also, at the time, news people were not allowed to have a personality because
you were a news guy. But I was able – they let me –.
You know, goof around on the air with like Don or Bob Cudmore at night.

(29:23):
And my, my personality worked out pretty well. I could be kind of funny and goofy.
And so I think that's what really kind of propelled me. Yeah.
Yeah. You just let me be myself. I'll be a little looser.
Yeah. You've brought back some interesting memories because I was still in radio
full time while we were making that transition.
So I went from, you know, being news director, went away for 11 months,

(29:44):
came back and eventually became program director of WGNA.
And so when I'm doing that and putting new jocks on the air,
we're starting to loosen up.
And before and after, and mostly before newscasts on our station,
but I've worked at other stations where you have a little conversation after
the news with the news person.
We started loosening up, and I've got old air checks that show that it was really

(30:07):
making the news person a little bit more human.
Yeah, you want to be real. Exactly. You want that connection. Exactly.
And I enjoyed that a lot. It also, and I didn't have the smarts to figure this
out while I was running the place, but it also opened up the door for this whole
morning show crew that you now, you know, hear on the radio all the time.

(30:27):
But back in the early 80s, it was when you were talking with the news people.
When I listen back to some of those air checks, I say, why didn't I think that
we should have been doing this maybe a little bit more?
And if somebody would giggle at my stupid line now and again,
maybe the audience would have had a little bit more fun at the same time.
But it did eventually get there without me.

(30:51):
Sorry to interrupt, but along those same lines, I was mentioning the lineup when I got there.
The overnight guy was Dave Green who was, and I remember I remember I was,
the GY signal was so strong, I would listen to Pittsfield but every night after
Peter's last live newscast at like 11 they would, they would,
goof around for about 15 20 minutes and it was magic and i just remember i just

(31:13):
want to do this these guys are great you know it was just fun but and i think
that's like you say that's what people you know it's it's radio it's a very
intimate medium even though you can't see the person and i think you know that
kind of thing where people are just being themselves,
you make a connection with the audience they feel like you're maybe not your
friend but you're an acquaintance of theirs you know and uh and i think that's

(31:34):
really the allure of radio the other thing I learned to be able to translate
it over to TV that worked in my particular instance was in radio,
I never spoke to a crowd. I never said folks.
It was one-on-one.
And when I went to work for public TV, volunteered for many years before actually
working for them, I brought that philosophy along.

(31:56):
So rather than look in the camera and figure there's five or six people in the
living room watching me, I talked to that one person and it seemed to work for me.
I got asked to do it more and more, and eventually, you know,
worked in the business for a while in TV.
Yeah, that was also my approach. Also, it's much less intimidating.
Yes. Thinking you're speaking to one person than a hundred thousand.
That's true too. Yes, yes. Try not to think about how many people it could be. Yeah, yeah. Exactly.

(32:19):
So the early days of GY, you know, big newsroom and big presence.
I remember, I mean, you were always the powerhouse and GNA having a great signal as well.
We were trying to compete with that from the very early days as a newsman there.
I was saying the only way we're going to be able to compete with these guys,
and this is before you got there, was to make sure we're there 24-7 for our audience.

(32:44):
Now, we didn't do overnight news at the time, but we were on from 6 a.m.
Until midnight with a newscast every hour, a half-hour news block at lunchtime,
and stuff like that. And it was because of the competition.
It was because we had to, you know, show that we could compete with a station like WGY.
Yeah, competition's good. It brings out the best in everybody.
Absolutely. It's not a cliche.

(33:05):
Yeah, that's true. But, yeah. And that was, you know, you got to remember that was...
That was before the internet. And so in many cases for, you know,
after the morning paper comes out or sometimes there used to be an afternoon
paper, the Knickerbocker news, but after the paper is out, you were in a news
dead zone except for radio and TV.
And at the time TV wasn't going live that often breaking into programming too

(33:27):
often. So radio was really the source, you know? Yeah.
I had to take that seriously. I had a teacher in college that said to me,
well, you know, you're, You're in the right business for news because the newspaper is yesterday's news.
The TV newscast at 6 o'clock is today's news.
And the radio is this last hour's news. And I thought, oh, that's an interesting way to look at it.

(33:50):
You know, that, yeah, we were living it while the others were collecting it
to, you know, do it in a different manner.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to whine about the state of it today.
But in some ways I understand it because you can get it from so many sources.
It's true. Especially on the Internet.
That we don't have the rights to it as we once did.
Well, also, you know, look back in the 80s, even though there were more and

(34:13):
more stations coming on on the radio.
I mean, when I started in radio in this market in 1969, there were like six
AM stations and maybe four or five FM stations.
And then by the end of the 80s, all of a sudden you've doubled that number easily.
And then at the end of the 80s, you're also now getting cable TV,
TV and people are, uh, they have so many more choices on the television now as well.

(34:37):
Yeah. I remember, you know, just when I got in Albany, there were like probably
six to eight stations that had at least two or three full-time news people, you know, and it was.
I'm, I'm losing you here, Chuck. I'm sorry. I just lost that last sentence that
you said. Most of the news stations in the eighties.
Oh, you're good now. Yeah. Go ahead.
I'd say most of the decent stations in the 80s had at least two or three,

(34:58):
you know, full-time, respectful news people. True.
And it was trying to hire, you know, news people in my later career was tough
because there just weren't that many people doing it because there were so few jobs out there.
Sure. Well, you think about what the podiums looked like at news conferences back in those days.
Don't worry about it. We're all fighting to get that logo on TV,

(35:19):
you know, and in the newspaper shot, you know, when it happened,
you cut it out of the newspaper and put it up on the wall.
On a bulletin board. I know some stations even paid like a bounty,
like you get five bucks every time your mic flags in the paper. Interesting.
Yeah, yeah. But no, that's exactly what would happen.
We would have, you know, dozens of news people at these news conferences between

(35:41):
radio and TV and newspaper. Yeah.
And now I can't imagine it's anywhere near that, except for obviously huge stores.
No, you see two or three usually. Yeah.
You can get depressed about stuff, but I tend to look at it more like it's evolution,
you know, more than... It is.
It is. I think back at the turn of the 20th century where all of a sudden these

(36:01):
poor guys, the blacksmith, you know, that used to have a business all the time,
all of a sudden there's no business anymore. more.
You know, there's the old analogy, which is really true.
Like you could have the best buggy whip company in the world,
you know? Yeah. But it's just things change.
Exactly. Yeah. So we have to look at it that way. But aren't you kind of glad

(36:22):
that we were in it when we were? Oh, there's no doubt about it.
Timing is, I always said in my career, I was, you know, I made some of my own
breaks, but I was lucky because my timing was very good.
I got in, I got in at the right time and I got out at the right time.
Yeah. Yeah, probably. Yeah.
So let's go through some of those 36 years that you were there at WGY.
When did you actually wind up? I mean, you did a lot with Don in the later years.

(36:46):
When did that all, when did that partnership?
Let's see, I'm trying to remember this. The, I...
I'm trying to remember the exact sequence. I got there, like I said, in 84.
I worked three to midnight, which was a great shift for a single guy,
you know, because you could go out and play and still sleep in in the morning, get to work on time.
But I did that for, I don't know, maybe a couple of years.

(37:07):
Then I got brought down to mornings.
I was the news guy and kind of a sidekick to Lee Warner on the river,
or not the river, WGFM. The WGFM, I remember. Yep.
Lee Warner was such a sweet guy. I really miss him. Yep. And I think as a product
of that, they heard some of our – I just did short headlines,
you know, FM style, a lot of lifestyle stuff.
And I think our crosstalk with Lee went well.

(37:30):
So I think they were looking for something on GY that might be – I was a little
bit younger, maybe to refresh the morning show a little bit. So I used to fill in.
And I think when Brian Whittemore actually left and I kind of – it was Dick
Beach and I in the morning. And I had a very good natural rapport with Don.
And, of course, Don liked me, which would be the key.
And so they decided to keep me on, I think, largely. I did an okay newscast,

(37:54):
but I think it was largely because of the crosstalk.
Don and I had a very good rhythm with each other, and we appreciated each other,
and we were funny with each other.
So I always like to say, you know, I owe Don a lot. They got me morning driving.
So I worked with Don for years. We had a blast. It's so much fun.
You know, it's interesting because we really didn't meet until later on in your

(38:16):
career when you were a news director at WGY for so many years.
But before that, I was in the building with you for a while.
I joined GFM when it was oldies, 99, and it became the river.
So I was there when the sale was made to the dames and it became the river.
And I stayed there for another eight years doing Saturday mornings.

(38:36):
So we were actually in the, in the same building and probably just never seemed
to cross paths back then.
Yeah. I mean, it was back in the day, a lot of people, a lot of, a lot of stuff going on.
So you could be in the building and not meet somebody or, or,
or, uh, know too much about them. But you mentioned Dame media.
I, I loved working for those guys. Yes.
They took GY, GY, I think declared bankruptcy and then Dame bought them.

(38:58):
And that was a company where.
They cared about programming first and sales second, you know,
or so it seemed. It seemed that way. I agree.
Yeah. Yeah. I know they care. Revenue is the ultimate factor.
Sure. But they, like they, they made, they, they reinstituted 24 hour news and
they wanted to be part of the community.
Yeah. They were community broadcasters. So it was a delight to work with them.

(39:19):
They, they lasted for quite a while that they sold to Clear Channel.
We were all hoping that they would be sold to J-Core, which at the time was
a much more program forward company.
Sure. We all saw Clear Channel was more of just a sales and revenue focus in
which I think turned out to be kind of true. Well, absolutely true. Certainly.
The dames were the first and probably the only time I worked with a company

(39:41):
where as a part-timer, I only worked four hours a week, Saturday morning, 6 to 10.
I felt like I was a full-time employee of the station.
I was included in every memo. I was included in every invite to every meeting.
And obviously, the big parties at the end of the year and all that stuff.
And they just made you feel wanted.
They made you feel like part of a team and it made you want to do that and do

(40:04):
the best you could for them.
I don't know. I always said this about John Dame, who was a son of J Albert
Dame, Al Dame, who was the patriarch who actually started their small cluster
of stations in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
But John was the interim GM there for a while at GY.
And I just remember something about the guy. I would always just,
I would want to, I would run through a wall for that guy. Yeah.

(40:25):
And, and not so strangely enough, I guess now he's running like,
you know, kind of a business consulting thing where he's kind of a motivational speaker.
There you go. And I can definitely see that because I loved working for them
and for him specifically.
A lot of our meetings followed that kind of path.
We had a program director for a while that was almost evangelical in the way

(40:46):
he'd hold meetings, you know.
And I've forgotten the guy's name. Which one was that? Oh, I've forgotten his
name. It was just before Randy McCartan came.
Underdame? Was that Tom Benson? It may have been.
That doesn't ring a bell. You know, this age thing is really getting to me. Yeah, I hear that.
So some of the names, if I didn't work for somebody for more than six months,

(41:07):
I've long forgotten their names.
You know, that makes me actually feel good because I feel I'm experiencing the
same thing. So it's not just me.
Well, Don, as you know, Don Weeks started in TV.
You know, he was a weatherman on Channel 13 back when I was a young kid.
And so I was thrilled to be able to work with him a little bit in TV.

(41:28):
I don't know if you remember this or not, but for three years,
he and I co-hosted the, we called it your hometown parade on Channel 17, public TV, WMHT.
It was the 4th of July parade over in Pittsfield. And he was in the booth with
a different co-host up in the booth every year.
And I was down on the parade route, you know, interviewing Mr.

(41:49):
Whipple as he went by, you know, people like that. I do remember that.
Do you remember that stuff? And that's where most of my Don Weeks memories come from.
We just had such a ball doing that. He was so great. He was beloved and rightly so.
And he's just so talented. You know, I remember one parade.
I'm not telling stories, tales out of school, but I remember one year,
Shuri Lewis was the co-host.

(42:10):
Yes. And Don, who liked everybody, couldn't stand her. Yes.
He said she was being just like, being quite the diva, telling him to talk to the sock.
Yeah, exactly. He offended that he had to talk to Lamb Shop and not her.
Exactly. Well, here's the story that he told me afterwards.
He's up there in the booth about five minutes before air, and we're going live
on PBS, okay, not only around the country, if you wanted to pick it up,

(42:34):
because it's the biggest July 4th parade in the country, at least it was for
many years over in Pittsfield.
But we're also going to be on Armed Forces TV. And I'm thinking,
you know, this is cool. I've got a friend over, you know, seas that's going
to be able to watch me, the whole thing. That's huge.
Yeah, that's huge for me. So Don's up in the booth with Sherry Lewis,
and they're getting ready to go
on the air. And he's got a question about something on one of his cards.

(42:55):
And he turns to her to start to ask her a question.
And she stares at him. She says, can't you see we're getting ready to go on
the air? And she's saying, we, as she's pulling lamb chop onto her hand.
So, so that, that speak to the sock thing is exactly. And, and he,
he got me one day when I was in the, in the GY studios, he saw me coming down

(43:17):
the hall and I walk in the door and he has taken his shoe off and he's got a sock on his hand.
He says, can't you see, we're getting ready to go on the air in here.
And I just was on the floor.
Absolutely on the floor. He was so, he was so annoyed by that.
And it was, it was, I'll tell you the one other, well, we're talking about Don getting angry stories.
I remember the angriest I ever saw Don get with an interview was Howie Mandel.

(43:39):
Oh my gosh. Mandel was, I think he was up in Toronto or something,
but his, his, you know, they, they would arrange interviews to,
to, to pimp the next show, you know, and I guess Howie Mandel was coming to the capital region.
And so they set up an interview with, with Don for a live shot to kind of just
goof around and promote a show.
And so Don asked one question and Mandel couldn't have been more insolent and unhelpful.

(44:04):
And I remember Don just ended the interview after like 30 seconds.
For decades, he was like he hated Mandela with a deep burning passion because
the guy was such a jerk. Wow. Yeah.
You don't want to do the interview. That's great. Just don't ask,
don't ask to do the interview if you don't want to do it. Exactly. Exactly.

(44:24):
I saw that Howie Mandel show. He was at the Starlight Theater,
the old Colony Coliseum. And he was hilarious.
You know, you would never know that, you know, off camera, but see that happens with a lot of folks.
The greatest thing I remember about the years I did country music was that you
never, hardly ever, maybe once or twice would run into somebody that had that

(44:45):
problem, that ego problem.
Okay. OK, everybody in country music is just down home, friendly and nice.
And they would stand there and sign autographs until sunup if they had to. Yeah, very genuine.
We had our FM was a country station when I worked in Charleston, West Virginia.
And they I had the same experience with. I would just tag along with a couple

(45:06):
of the FM guys were my friends.
So we get free tickets to shows and get backstage a lot.
And and they were all one was more gracious than the next. Exactly.
It was really nice to see.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, but the Hollywood thing, yeah, that does pose a problem
now and again. So he was not a Hollywood fan.
Sorry to interrupt. I will remember
one awkward moment where we were backstage at a Conway Twitty show.

(45:28):
Okay. And Conway Twitty came there. And I remember, and I was young and stupid.
I remember telling him, I said, oh, you know, I never really liked country music
until I saw your show. And he just looked at me like, what are you talking about, man?
I was such a newbie, you know? Yeah, yep, yep. And that's the crazy thing.
Once again, it's been talked about here. A lot of the folks that I've interviewed
that have been country music disc jockeys had never had any exposure to it before

(45:52):
and, like me, didn't listen to it after.
But for 12 years, I played it and enjoyed it and loved the people.
But it's just not my thing.
Anyway, so you and Don really became quite the pair.
Lead us through the changes over the years, okay? So when you first,
you know, you had the dames running the place for a while, and then Clear Channel comes in.

(46:13):
Did you find that there was less interference, more interference?
Did you get along with the upper, you know, the high echelon folks, or how did it work?
That's a good question. You know, with Clear Channel, it was always a bottom line company.
So you always were in a state of fear of what was going to happen.
I had, uh, I had a few layoffs, but basically they kind of kept it intact,

(46:35):
but things kind of doubt after the Dame years, things doubt,
you know, took a, we, we had to do more with less.
And then I remember there was a big push, the big dirty word for one year was
synergy, which basically mean you're going to do twice as much with half as many people.
And really, and that's, so that started during the clear channel regime.
And, and I think, you know, radio is, I understand why they did it,

(46:57):
but radio was worse off for it. You know, there's less local programming and
fewer, you'd have, you know, technology made it possible. You still have it now.
People out of market are doing not only, you know, music shows,
but newscasts, which is, you know, still offends me on a lot of levels.
And so I'm trying to remember after Clear Channel, who did they sell to after Clear Channel?

(47:19):
Well, Clear Channel actually became iHeart. Became iHeart, yeah.
And so the rest, as they say, is history.
IHeart was basically the same, I think. The one thing I'll say about iHeart
was we had an advantage over stations that were locally owned or had small ownership
groups is that they were working in a vacuum.
And I know like as news director and program director, the thing about iHeart,

(47:41):
they were usually ahead of the curve with research and they would share it with you.
So, you know, you would get an education as well. Well, you have tools at your
disposal, you know, about what works and what doesn't work a lot more than if
you were at a standalone station where you kind of just guess on your own what
might work with an audience or not. That was helpful.
Interesting. Well, Joe Gallagher and I have an interesting history in that we

(48:04):
worked for opposing country music stations when I first got into the business
and had I had to compete with them along the way and then wound up working with
them for many, many years and loved it.
Tell me about your first meeting, Joe. Now, were you doing some of his newscasts
on, on GY when he was doing full-time in the afternoon?
Yeah. I remember, I don't, like I said, I first started like four to midnight
or, but I, Joe's, and I don't say this in an insulting way.

(48:28):
He's kind of like back then. He is like he is now, you know,
he's the same kind of self-deprecating humor.
And the thing I loved about working with Joe, he's first of all,
he's just a sweet guy and he's way smarter than he comes off on the air.
And Joe was very generous in the fact that he didn't care if you got the laugh
or you were the dominant one on the break.
He just wanted to, you know, his philosophy, I think, was if you succeed, we all succeed.

(48:53):
And as you know, there are a lot of people in this business who they don't want
to share the limelight at all.
And Joe was always more than willing to do that. I thought that was a great strength.
I love the guy personally, and I still listen for his grueling one-hour show on the weekends now.
Yes, I know. I was with him a couple of weeks ago, and he said something about
you texted him, I guess, while he was on the air or emailed him or something.

(49:17):
And you said something like, well, the rehearsal seems to be going well.
When does the show start?
Yeah, he was having a bunch of trouble. I'm always there with a wide answer. Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, no, definitely one of the good guys in radio.
And as you say, smarter than anybody gives him the credit for.
He just, well, again, it goes back to, he knows his audience.

(49:39):
He knows what they expect of him and he's doing the one-on-one thing.
He's, you know, he, he would bring me in on Saturday mornings.
We did this for like 15 years.
I would do Saturday mornings for just 10 or 15 minutes with him.
And every week it was great. Every week. Nice job with him. Yeah, absolutely.
It's so easy to work with Joe. And that's exactly what it was.
And, and he knew that he could rely on me for a line now and again,

(50:02):
and that I would set him up for what he needed to do.
And, and it helped that I was a Red Sox fan and he was a Yankees fan that helped
a lot, but he made it, whoever worked with him, kind of a star.
I remember, I can't remember all the news people, but there's,
you know, George Morris and Aaron Brill back and all these people,
you know, some producers, Deb Macron, I know I'm going to forget a lot of people,
but he made them all, you know, strong fans.

(50:24):
Sidekicks. And I think that was largely to Joe's credit. Not that they didn't
have talent themselves, but Joe allowed it to blossom.
Not as easy as it sounds. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, he must be doing something
right because he got fired from iHeart the same day I did in 2020.
And within a few months, he was back doing weekends on the radio.
So obviously, somebody either smartened up, wised up, or they got enough phone

(50:49):
calls, enough comment that said we may have made a mistake there, and he was back.
Yeah, I know. Jeff Wolf, the former program and news director there,
who I have a lot of respect for, he said that he constantly got people asking for Joe.
You know, Joe's people were very passionate about him and felt very strongly
about it. So I'm glad they brought him back, even on a limited date.
Exactly. And you know what? He's still spending just as much time,

(51:11):
although he won't admit it, on show prep for those two hours a weekend that
he did for the eight hours a weekend he used to do. Yeah, yeah.
Is he claiming that he does show breakfast?
No, he'll never admit it.
I'll give you the same amount, but I'm not sure what that entails.
No, he definitely was a fun guy to work with and still a great guy to know.

(51:33):
He's a grandpa twice now, so he's moving right along there.
So you're at GY for all these years.
You see so many people come and go. Tell us about some of the folks that you
were able to hire and work with that you just were impressed with or maybe remain
impressed with. Oh, my God.
I know you're going to shortchange some people. Don't worry about it. They don't listen.

(51:56):
Don't worry about it. But I remember, you know, one of the guys I work with
coming in was, I mentioned earlier, Peter Reeves. Yes, yeah.
Just a great, gregarious, smart guy, tremendous voice.
And Peter always understood that news—.
Was entertainment on some level and i heard learned from him
you know how to how to use audio and

(52:18):
make it entertaining and and uh and exciting but
not not since not overly sensational yeah it doesn't
that news doesn't have to be boring to be good you know and so and
peter was just such a such a great guy still remains i
haven't seen him in forever but good friend of mine and
uh he was he was just so so it's
a weird dynamic because i came in as a newbie

(52:39):
when peter was already here well established as a big
man on campus and i became news director and also
i became his boss you know uh technically and but
we we navigated that pretty well i'm glad in the past hour you played that harry
downey uh birthday list thing anniversary and birthday list thing it's hysterical
that was by far your best comedic work and it wasn't supposed to be because

(53:05):
i mean I mean, you were doing it very surreptitiously,
and it kind of, you know,
Harry would fall into the trap every time.
And you come up with these crazy names, you know, like Ginger Vitus, and all these names.
But you were like picking the wings off of a fly with this. And poor Harry,

(53:25):
he didn't do his homework.
He just came in red stuff cold with all the conviction in the world and fell
into the trap, Chuck's trap, every time. We had so many laughs and did some
pretty good work in the newsroom, I think, back in the day, don't you think? Oh, yeah.
I have to thank Chuck for, I think it was, I came back to work at WGY for a year.
And in 1999, we won all these awards because Chuck really pushed the WGY news

(53:50):
department to submit for your AP awards and whatnot.
And we came down with a king's ransom. I never thought much of awards until
I got one, things like that.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's weird, you know, you and I have been friends for a long
time, but it's weird. You know, you were my boss and then I was your boss.
And we seem to pull that off somehow.

(54:11):
Yeah. Well, you know what? And that's, that is a real testament to your character
and my character that we could get along so well.
Peter didn't need much management, so I try to be kind of laissez-faire with him.
But that was an interesting dynamic. dynamic and also you
know don was the same thing where technically uh when
i became i went from i got the program director's

(54:34):
job along with the news director's job those were long days but fun but i technically
became don's boss you know and and so i had to handle him with kid gloves and
i say that not in a bad sense just i know i'm not gonna strong arm this guy
first of all he's great and secondly he you know he knows more than i do so
i just try to keep it on the rails you you know,
not mess with them too much. But those were, that was interesting.

(54:56):
It was interesting way for me to, to grow is to learn how to navigate,
you know, being, going from newbie to somebody's boss, the same person, but it was challenging.
The thing at GY over the years, you were there, I was there 36 years,
but I was always fresh because, because.
My job, my responsibilities kept changing. I started from anchor reporter,
then to morning drive anchor and sidekick.

(55:19):
And then, you know, the news director, program director. And then,
of course, I was also responsible for all the digital platforms,
which was always, you know, with the age of the internet.
And so it kept me fresh. You know, some people say, did you do the same thing for 36 years? Hell no.
Oh, yeah. It was evolving. And it was always, there was always a challenge.
Yeah, well, that's one of the reasons I loved radio so much as opposed to even

(55:41):
TV, to be honest with you, because even though you're going to the same place
every day, it was always a new challenge.
The music was always changing. Obviously, in your case, the news was always
news, you know, and that's changing and things are happening that you could
never expect what happened.
Along those lines, let's talk about 9-11.
What kind of a day, you know, week, month was that for you? That was, it was almost surreal.

(56:06):
Like we all felt, we couldn't believe it, what was happening.
But I remember vividly that day, the plane hit the first tower and a bunch of
people came in the newsroom.
We were on one Washington square, not too far from crossgates at the time.
And we had a very small newsroom, but the first plane hit the tower.
And all of a sudden everybody on the staff, salespeople and administrative people
came in the newsroom to watch it.

(56:27):
And they were like, should we go down to New York? I'm like, let's just
see what's going on and then the second the second the
second plane hit i'm like we got to get down there yeah and so we
i remember i always had kits ready to go
you know batteries and tape recorders microphones that you could grab at a moment's
notice but i remember we had to scramble for some petty cash to get aaron brilbeck
down the city sure so he got them there soon enough before everything was cordoned

(56:51):
off so he actually reported from ground zero wow not only for us but for the
networks for several days he did a great job but brilbeck was uh.
I always say he was my most fearless reporter. He would go into the most dangerous
spots and do a great job. And he was really aggressive.
And so I remember that day, I remember just, you know, we were there 12 hours, 14 hours.

(57:11):
You know, even the Cartoon Network was running news coverage.
It was just like bizarro world.
I remember, and I kept it together all day. I remember going out that night,
probably came in around 5 a.m.
But I remember leaving about 8 at night in the parking lot and just kind of
like, kind of broke down in my car.
It was like a residual reaction. and didn't have time to be upset,
I guess, at the time. Exactly.

(57:32):
It was just, I still can't believe it happened. The world was upside down. Yeah, yeah.
I was in the building, you know, working for you guys at that time,
again, just Saturday mornings, and we didn't do a Saturday morning show.
I didn't do a Saturday morning show for about a month. Yeah.
I mean, they obviously went to special programming, you know,

(57:53):
wall-to-wall for a while news,
and then they very quietly, you know, started reintroducing the music and not
all the music, you know, I mean, they were very picky, but exactly,
you know, and so it really was three or four weeks before I returned to the
air. And even that for me was emotional.
I, I, I, you know, I mean, it was so fresh and we were raising money for,

(58:15):
uh, you know, relief for, you know, the folks that were, you know,
obviously that were down there and all this stuff.
So at least it gave us something to shoot for and to be able to talk about and,
and share your feelings a little bit at the same time where you're still trying
to entertain people and try to make them smile.
You're just, it was just one of those where you had to be there for people.
I remember WGY was, we simulcast for several days on all seven of our stations,

(58:39):
which was daunting, but you know, it was the right call and we're proud of that.
Yeah. Yeah. But it was, I'm just, I'm glad that's over now. You know,
not that we, we still suffered, we still face threats, but I'm glad that that
was over. Yeah, no, absolutely.
So now that's a huge, obviously worldwide, big story.
Talk to me about memories you might have of some local stories that stand out in your mind.

(59:03):
Again, I'm, I'm trying to condense 36 years of your time at GY,
you know, down to an hour plus interview here. But what comes to mind?
What's top of mind when you think about some of the stories you've covered over
the years? Well, I'm trying to think.
I mean, I guess I wish I had given it more thought ahead of time.
But I remember the Christopher Porco case was huge. Yes.
The kid who bludgeoned his mother and father to death and then took off for

(59:28):
his college in Rochester and finally came back. That was huge.
You know, it's funny. I remember – do you remember Y2K?
Oh, yes, yes. I remember coming in to an empty building at midnight to see what,
but I don't, I felt like I had to be there because I didn't know what was going to happen. Sure, sure.
Yeah, exactly. What I didn't think of, what would I do if the computers and

(59:50):
the electricity and everything went out?
What was I going to do? What were you going to do anyway? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Nothing.
We had one guy that couldn't come to our New Year's Eve party because he worked
for the New York State Power Pool.
And so, you know, he couldn't be there. He said, we're all on duty that night.
And, you know, the governor's got us at this here, there, and everywhere.
And then the thing that happened is another person that did come to the party

(01:00:10):
was a volunteer fireman. And what happens at midnight?
All the fire alarms went off. And so he and he knows darn well it's a mistake.
There's no fire, but he has to go to the firehouse. He's a volunteer.
Exactly. So he hops in his car and leaves. And that's what I remember about,
you know, the actual evening of Y2K.
One of the other ones that's still very vivid for personal reasons as well as

(01:00:32):
professional. We had a blizzard in 1987.
I mean, everything was, you know, it was an early season storm,
so the vegetation was still on trees.
And thus, limbs came down and took out power lines.
And that was the same week my son was born.
Oh, boy. So I was a first-time father, and he was an infant.

(01:00:54):
I remember coming home, we had no power. Yeah. You know, we had no heat.
And plus trying to, you know, run a news department 24-7 with this.
People were, I remember my ex-wife took our baby and my son to Frankfurt in
central New York because they had power.
Yeah. But it was, I was freaking out at the time. You know, I wasn't ready to
be a father, let alone a father with a kid with no heat, you know.

(01:01:16):
Crazy. But I remember we, I don't remember over the 36 years,
I don't remember missing a show or I wasn't hosting, of course,
but like missing a shift.
I remember once, once back in the mid eighties, I got stuck on the crosstown
during a big blizzard and I was late for my shift. I was doing newscasts back
then, but I don't remember missing a shift at all this time.
I'm like, the day before I retire, I'm going to miss the show. I know.

(01:01:39):
So I was late one time. I've worked in news for 25 years, so we don't get snow days.
We don't get snow delays, nothing. So we had to be here regardless.
And the only time I was late is a few years ago when I slid off the road on Vly.
And I walked the rest of the way to work in a storm in black and had people
honking at me on the way. And I'm like, yeah, okay, great.
So I left the car on the side of the road and came in, walked here.

(01:02:01):
I'm like, where's your car? She's like, it's in a ditch.
Yeah, just grabbed my laptop and walked in. That was one of the times I really
felt we, as a news department, really did a great job for the community.
I know it's our job and you don't have to thank us, but I felt that we were
doing things like, I remember we were coordinating on air.
Somebody would call and say, my father's on an oxygen tank and he's running out.

(01:02:21):
How can we get another tank? We were kind of being the intermediary to kind
of make that happen. And I was very proud of that.
And people were exhausted, but we did a great job is what we were there to do.
So I remember that very, very vividly. And a lot of the other storms,
the Mechanical Tornado and some others were.
Incredible but it was it was i always
i was talking to reed shepherd about this it's like it's exhausting and

(01:02:44):
tough when you're in the middle of it but it's great having done it yes if
you've done it well yeah well exactly you know
that uh the the few times that and i only did it maybe two
or three times i was involved in election night coverage
uh as a newsman and i that's the
way i would feel after it was all said and done and all the races
are decided you know pretty much in most cases

(01:03:05):
and you know you've already worked you know your regular shift and
then you came in and worked from you know seven in the evening until you
know well past midnight but i would leave the studio feeling
wow you know we we did we did good you know and we uh we we were very professional
at the same time you know uh accurate you know and that sort of thing yeah yeah
i used to love election night but the one thing i still remember with some dread

(01:03:28):
is you know you'd be on on the air till maybe 12, you know, midnight or one.
But then I had to come back the next morning to do the morning drive news.
Sure. Yeah. I remember just being
really, but going in that next day was really tiring. Yeah, I'm sure.
You've had the adrenaline rush of a live broadcast, you know,
four or five hours. And, and, and those days I was coordinating the coverage
and all the reporters and stuff.
And then you'd, you'd, you'd wrap up the election night coverage.

(01:03:51):
You feel good about it. Generally, most years went well.
And, but then dragging yourself in that next morning was always tough.
But the good thing was I almost didn't need a script because I knew the stuff so well.
I could almost ad lib the newscast, which is always a dangerous thing,
especially when you're tired. Exactly, exactly.
So as we head toward wrapping this up, because your career obviously does come

(01:04:13):
to a retirement eventually,
let's go through the stages that you went through here as Don is nearing the
end of his time, not only on the station, but on this mortal coil.
Oil and, and, and that transition you had to make from, you know,
being, you know, his newsman to becoming, you know, the morning news guy,
you know, the morning host yourself.

(01:04:33):
So talk about, I mean, I know you were close to Don and everything.
What did he keep to himself about some of his health problems there toward the end or how did it work?
Not so much. I knew that he had Wegner's disease, which is an audio autoimmune
deficiency kind of a problem.
And, and it was obvious he toward
the end of his time there he was missing a
lot of days and just tired you know he wasn't he still

(01:04:55):
put on a good show but i could tell he was exhausted yeah
and and then i kind of knew that it was going to be the end for his time as
a host hey it's it's hard to say goodbye and i just you know i've been asked
this over the last couple of days you know and done a lot of interviews and
people say how do you want to be remembered if you remember me with a smile I am.

(01:05:19):
I did my job. Thank you. Thank all of you. God bless.
We're going to do traffic. What's that? I'm going to blow my mind.
I knew what I was going to go.
We're going to do traffic, I guess, with Jessica Lamp. Thank you all so much.
It was interesting because I was news director and program director when Don left.

(01:05:42):
And here, you know, and I got to find Don's replacement. And I always thought
a philosophy was you never want to be the guy who replaces the legend.
You want to be the guy who replaces the guy who replaces the legend. Exactly.
But we – and I know some people scoffed at the time. We, as program director,
I had to be – I played a big role into who was going to replace Don.

(01:06:02):
And I remember at the time, we – even in the media, we said we were launching
a national search for a replacement, and we did.
Here i am sitting there make being a big
part of making the decision and an alleged national
search and who do i come up with me yeah yeah exactly must
have looked weird to some people but i think it
was very logical the deck wasn't stacked i just felt like the applicants we

(01:06:26):
got either were not the right fit or or they we couldn't afford them sure sure
and so and i I remember Kelly was on the beach then, Kelly Lynch from Channel 13. She got laid off.
And I wanted to do a locally oriented show that had a lot to do with current

(01:06:47):
events and news, but not a news show.
I wanted it to be light and funny with some lifestyle stuff,
which we were able to accomplish.
I remember interviewing Kelly at the time. I was like, I respected her TV work,
but I didn't want, I didn't want a quote.
I wanted somebody who had news chops, but not a quote unquote serious news person.
Okay. And she never took herself that seriously personally.

(01:07:10):
You know, she took her career very seriously, but the thing I loved about her,
and I said this to her many times, she had no filter, which was great.
She would say anything with the chips flow where they may, if you don't like it too bad.
5 46 on Chuck and Kelly, 810 and 103, one WGY. I know normally in this time
when there's a lot going on in the political world, you know who joined us at

(01:07:32):
545 in the morning. Peter Gittarelli. Is he here now?
Pete, how are you? Good morning, Chuck. Good morning, Kelly.
Yeah, I just realized I'm the one who has to join you at 545 in the morning
because nobody else will do this.
You finally figured it out after 10 years. I was telling Kelly one day,
if you want to get time on the radio, especially on our show,

(01:07:52):
you have to be willing to show up at any time, especially the earlier the better,
and you will become a regular. and you've become a regular.
And so it's been really good. You've provided a lot of great analysis and we appreciate it.
Well, thanks, but I'm just realizing I've been fully taken advantage of.
This is absolutely incredible. And then I'm thinking about it, Chuck.
All these, so, you know, Kelly knows, but Chuck and I text a lot during the mornings.

(01:08:16):
But you've tapped me for traffic. I've given you traffic reports, weather reports.
As of yesterday, he says a reliable source called in from Galway.
I get credit for nothing. That's right.
Fully uncredited. And we're just, we are okay with that. I hope you are too.
Yeah i think i am but i still remember you know when don was retiring and the

(01:08:36):
replacement was going to come up and i'm and then they said it was going to
be chuck custer was going to be on there i'm thinking the news guy he's never
going to make it on this show hey that's not alone there.
We had a good chemistry right from the start it was really i i said this in
in other other places but i think you know kristen delaney and john cooper kristen
delaney was a market manager john John Cooper was kind of the programming overseer corporate-wise.

(01:09:01):
They took a big chance on us because I never hosted. I was just a news guy.
I had equity with the audience, but it's a different animal, as you well know. Sure.
Hosting or just being a news guy and following somebody else's lead.
And Kelly had never done radio.
Wow. And so they had the guts to give us a shot.
Yeah. And I think like we were – I wouldn't say we were lost.

(01:09:22):
We didn't know what we wanted the show to be the first year.
Okay. And there was a corporate programming guy, Daryl Parks,
really brilliant guy who was based, I think he still is, in Cincinnati,
WLW, one of the great stations in the country.
News talk, sports, and he really helped us focus what we wanted to do.
We were flailing around a little bit at first, and he helped us focus on what

(01:09:45):
we wanted to do, talking about the big story, topic, we'd call it,
and kind of branching off from there. So he gave us, he gave us some structure.
And I think like the first year, the first.
Our first ratings book in our first year, we were like number one.
And we never talked much about ratings because I feel like it's tacky and it's,
there's really no listener benefit,
you know, but we were always almost for the 10 years of Kelly and I were on,

(01:10:09):
we were, we were number one, 12 plus, which is like the overall audience.
We were always usually number one or right there and 25 to 54,
which they call the, uh, the money demo, the one that advertisers really covet.
We were, we were sometimes as high as three
and usually between three and five which the conventional
was a news a news talk station

(01:10:30):
on a legacy and it's not going to
be able to pull in that audience yeah we were able to do it so
i was really proud of that you know you should be i mean in
major markets i'd say yeah you expect that but
i think you're going to medium to smaller market like we are i
you yeah that you guys were phenomenal absolutely yeah
yep so we had a lot of fun it was we were there for 10 years i

(01:10:51):
was with don for 25 wow kelly for 10
yeah the time flies brother i don't have time i had
to thank all of our sponsors but i would just say this it is you know the fact
that people would you know trust us to help build their businesses their babies
i take as a sacred you know a show of faith and also with the listeners i know
you have you have so many choices these days in radio and tv and in the internet

(01:11:13):
the fact that you would would give up your valuable time to spend with us is,
you know, it means so much to me. So I will not say goodbye.
Goodbyes are too tough. I'll just say thank you. We'll see you.
So close. I was so close. Thanks a lot, everybody. Appreciate it.

(01:11:34):
We're going to miss you. Thank you.
Music.
The, the wrap up you did, you did quite the wrap up you guys on your final show.
You've, you've provided me all the audio from that. I don't know how I'm going
to actually take some of that stuff and edit it in here, but I'll figure it out over the weekend.
Yeah. I gotta say that, that is a, that is all. And I want to give him due credit

(01:11:58):
because he worked his butt off on a Jeff Wolfe or a former program director did all of that.
Nice. Went through the archives. Cause I remember that final show.
We, we had a very, even though it sounded loose, we had a very tight script
on what we wanted to do when. And I remember that final show, there was nothing.
Jeff said, you'll find out. So I remember opening the mic at 5.35 a.m.

(01:12:18):
Like, what are we doing today? It's my last day. But it worked out great.
He had everything lined up. And a lot of people did live interviews and a lot of archive audio.
So that was fun. In fact, he asked me maybe a few months after I retired,
would I be interested in filling in on vacations and stuff?
And I was like, they gave me such a great, warm send-off. I don't want to taint

(01:12:39):
that with another show, you know? You kind of leave it there.
Yeah, just kind of leave it. I have a great feeling. I think the audience had
a good feeling about it. Just leave it as is, you know? I don't want to come
back and stink up the place.
Good for you. Good for you. And I know this has got to be a tough question.
Any regrets along the way? Anything that you would have done differently?
Regrets. I told you that the biggest one on air was I just could not slow down my speech. Yeah, yeah.

(01:13:03):
I don't have a particularly crisp diction to begin with. And the fact that I
race doesn't make it any better.
So that's a regret as far as that goes. Not really. I can tell you,
we had at various times during all the years there, we had to lay off some really good news people.
I wouldn't call it a regret because I had nothing to do with it.
But it was very, very upsetting to see people.

(01:13:24):
See, I would have no regrets in letting somebody go if I gave them advance warning
as to where they were coming up short and they still didn't respond.
But when I saw people who were really good, worked really hard,
and were very earnest, and then I had to lay them off for no reason other than
budgetary, that one really hurt. And there were so many people.
It was, you know, I almost felt

(01:13:45):
like it was like earning your bones in a mafia. You had to go through it.
And it was, you know, the more you did it, but it never got easier. No, no. Absolutely.
I remember my first one, I think it was under Dame Media.
I had to get rid of a woman, Diane Ward, who was just really,
really good and works hard every single day.
And she was a part-timer. I'm not sure why, but I just was told this was under

(01:14:07):
Dame to basically that that position had to go.
And that was just really painful to see her. you know i
couldn't give her really a reason for it you know and then we had
one we had one mass layoff i can't remember jimmy gagley
i would probably know but jim and a bunch of other people
laurie riley and there was a bunch of people one after the
other and i had to meet in the uh the gm's office with our our business manager

(01:14:30):
and like one after another they came in like it was like a you know it's like
a firing squad that's awful and that's just awful and so i had to let jimmy
go but i did rehire him so i get some redemption points there so well those Those were,
I don't know if you call them regrets, those were really hard days. Oh, sure, sure, sure.
I only had to fire one jock once, I'm happy to say, and that's only because

(01:14:51):
I got out of the full-time business after a while.
And he cried, you know, and that was tough. I mean, he was young,
he was new to the business. I gave him a shot. It wasn't working.
I gave him many, many different chances, actually, to improve what I thought
he needed to improve, and it wasn't happening.
And doesn't he get tears in his eyes and I'm going, oh man, I knew this was

(01:15:13):
going to be a problem, but it's the only time it actually happened,
so that's not too bad for a Yeah, that one your conscience can be clear,
you feel bad but you're conscious.
Exactly, exactly Some of these other ones I didn't feel were Yeah.
They were undeserved. Well, it is what it is. You know, it's a business.
And that's it. That's where the business has become.
I mean, it used to be so different when it was a mom and pop thing and it was,

(01:15:36):
you know, a locally owned entity and it became a family is what it did.
And that family stuff's gone, you know. The one thing we used to do,
and I guess maybe it is an argument to management that we're overstaffed,
but we used to just, you know, in between newscasts and shows,
we used to goof around and play pranks on each other.
Oh, sure. And I remember one of my favorites was with Harry Downey,

(01:16:01):
who was a legendary midday guy with us.
I used to mess with his birth. He used to read birthdays and anniversaries every
day. And I used to put fictitious names on the list.
Because Harry got hired not for what he did, but for who he was, basically.
I remember he used to do his show. He used to do nine to noon.
And he used to have the racing form in his lap.

(01:16:22):
He had ESPN these attractive women
were doing aerobics on ESPN at that time you know in their
tight little spandex outfits yes so Harry used to have the
racing form in his lap the little girls dancing around on
the tv screen and he would barely pay attention to what was going on the show
yeah and he would and barely listen to it and and then he just opened the mic
and say whatever came out of his mouth yeah so I said so I knew he'd grab the

(01:16:45):
birthday anniversary list and read whatever you put in front of him and we did
that a bunch of times he used to get so mad But it was really,
it was just fun. We had great camaraderie there.
Yeah. My only Harry Downey story is one that was actually beneficial to the rest of us.
I heard one day that he had played a song, and at this time the music is on carts.
So he puts a song in the cart machine, and he's got a jingle after that one, and then he has another.

(01:17:12):
You know, machine that he's got the next song in, somehow he wound up playing
the same song like within two or three songs, okay?
He just didn't realize it had played, and so he played it again.
Well, it turns out that a lot of people heard this story and,
you know, were of course laughing at Harry, which is a terrible thing to do,
but, you know, we understood, you know, what was going on.

(01:17:33):
They actually changed in our studio to a system where if the cart that was in
the machine was left there long enough, a light would start flashing to let
you know that it had played, that you had to take it out in order to go to your next item.
And I think we have Harry to thank for that over at WGNA. So that's my Harry Downey story.

(01:17:54):
Never had the chance to meet the gentleman myself. I have another one that I remember.
He used to also do the What's Cooking contest. Yes, yes, with the different ingredients. Yeah.
Yeah. And I remember I modified it one day to put in, instead of a quarter cup
butter, 44 cups butter so he's reading it oh you know one cup sugar and 44 cups
of butter that's rather rich.

(01:18:15):
And he just read it out in there like it was you know
like you're actually gonna put 44 cups of butter exactly exactly oh boy those
were the days that you know and i don't know how we got away with half this
stuff i mean some of the stuff i was wondering if you were gonna get fired man
you know and for some reason whenever somebody would play a joke on me and i'd
wind up cracking up or whatever the boss wasn't listening,

(01:18:36):
I guess, because yeah, I never got reprimanded for any of it.
So, but those were the great days of live radio. And I'll tell you one of the
other fun things, this wasn't a prank, but I remember one morning,
Don, it was early in the show. He must've been tired.
He was doing some ticket giveaway, maybe for a show at SPAC or something.
And telling people to call in to win the tickets, he gave out his home number at like 5 45 AM.

(01:19:00):
Remember his wife called saying the phone was ringing off the hook at 5 45.
She was so mad. It was great. Oh, had to be, had to be fun.
Well, so obviously retirement is sitting well with you. You actually left the
area. Where do you live now?
I live in central North Carolina, which is great. We move next to my son and our granddaughter.

(01:19:22):
We have another baby on the way any day now. Oh, terrific.
Yeah, so I really enjoy North Carolina. The weather's great. Good.
Sleeping, getting up later than 2.45 a.m. is delightful.
Absolutely. And what do you do to occupy your time? I mean, do you have any fun stuff you're doing?
I hate to admit this. I've yet to find my next true inspiration aside from fantasy baseball.

(01:19:48):
I got into guys like Dan Miller and the guys who worked in the newsroom back
in the mid-90s know that I was obsessed by it.
And I quit it when I got the show with Kelly. I stopped doing it because it
was just too much of a time suck.
And I had too much stuff to read and prepare for for that show to be wasting
my time with fantasy baseball.
But I got back into it about a year ago. though, and I've just,

(01:20:09):
I spend an inordinate, and I'm not proud of this, an inordinate amount of hours
looking at baseball players' statistics, and it's just, I got to find my next
more productive calling, but it hasn't really hit me yet, you know?
Okay, well. I was going to do all these things, you know, volunteer for this,
learn to play the guitar, all this stuff, and I'm sitting in front of a laptop
most of the time now to my wife's chagrin, but we've traveled a little bit.

(01:20:33):
We went to London and Scotland last year. Oh, terrific.
Scotland. That's my ancestry. My grandfather was born in Aberdeen. Yeah.
Yeah. We went to Edinburgh, as they call it. Yes.
Stayed on the Royal Mile, which is a main drag there, and, you know,
saw some of the castles and stuff. It was really cool.
Good for you. Good for you. Which you really only can do in retirement,
you know, the way we worked. Yeah, exactly.

(01:20:54):
Life is good. I have no complaint. Well, that's terrific. My wife is great.
Well, thanks. There's really nothing to it. No complaints. No complaints.
None. Yeah, yeah. I'm the same way. You know, life is good. I'm really enjoying this.
And you may have heard, I'm not sure if you had, but my PSI is going to archive our podcast here.
I actually saw that on, sorry to interrupt, I saw that on Facebook.

(01:21:17):
That's really, you should feel flattered. That's really cool.
Well, I'm more than grateful, needless to say, that all the work I've done to
put these together over the last three years, and I hope it continues for another
three, is going to be recognized.
You know, it'll be there. It'll be there for research. and part of a great organization,
which is going to get stronger.
There's money now to improve the MySci experience.

(01:21:40):
And so I'm thrilled that we're involved with that.
That's excellent. Congratulations. That's quite a feather in your cap.
Thank you. I appreciate it. And actually, the feather in my cap this month is you.
I've always wanted to sit and talk with you like this and hear your stories.
And you've always been a delight. I enjoy it. I would look so much forward to,
and you probably didn't know this, but I would try to find the table you were

(01:22:02):
sitting at at the annual holiday party, because I knew I was going to laugh
and it would make digestion so much better for the food they gave us.
You know, so that's very flattering, especially coming from you.
You're a real pro. I don't know if you have any interest.
I feel like, you know, you can't wrap up 36 years too quickly.
I just feel like there's a lot of people I skipped over, but you know who they
are and they know who they are. And they know who they are. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

(01:22:25):
Well, again, thanks Chuck for taking time out of your terribly busy schedule to, to sit with us.
There you go. And enjoy the retirement. Continue to enjoy it.
Good health and to you and your family, okay?
Hey, thanks so much. I'll continue listening to the podcast.
It's a big recommend for anybody who hasn't yet. Thank you very much,
sir. Well done. Thank you.

(01:22:47):
Radio Split Ranch. I don't know about you, but I think Chuck would have made
a highly entertaining disc jockey as well had he chosen that path.
I think he's a consummate broadcast journalist with a quick wit.
Very rare in the business these days.
As we discussed, Chuck worked at just three commercial stations before WGY,
plus his college station.

(01:23:08):
So if we take his five sets of call letters and add them to the 348 of all our
previous guests, our 36 interviewees have represented some 353 broadcast entities.
And there goes another month where I haven't had to use algebra since high school.
So we've come to the portion of our podcast where my close friends and relatives

(01:23:29):
find something better to do than listen to one of my old Chris Warren air checks.
But if you want, you can stick around for this historic clip from one of my
Saturday sit-downs with the great Joe Gallagher on WGY.
Joe and I shared a few minutes together almost every weekend for about 20 years
as we worked next door to each other in the same studios, and I managed to record

(01:23:52):
a few that that are really true time capsules.
I think you'll enjoy this particular conversation, which took place on July 20th, 2019.
Now, if you remember the historic significance of July 20th in world history,
you have a hint about what we're going to be discussing here.
We also mentioned a guy named Kevin in this clip.
We're referring to Kevin Rush, longtime morning personality on 99.5 FM,

(01:24:17):
the river in Schenectady, New York, who had just the day before left the region to move to Florida.
Hope you get a kick out of this air check and won't be afraid to join us again
next month for some more oral history of Capital Region Broadcasting.
In the meantime, don't cry because it's over.
Smile because it happened. And 50 years ago today, Neil Armstrong walked down

(01:24:39):
the moon for the very first time.
Contact light. Okay, engine stop. We copy you down, Eagle.
Houston, Tranquility Base here. The angle has landed.
And also another historical thing. I think it was probably around the same time.

(01:25:02):
And this would be that. Wait a minute. Wait.
Another historical thing happened on that time as well. This should be it right here.
It was an Etsy business.
Music.

(01:25:36):
What you were working on when i was trying to talk to you before the
break hot shot chris warren sister station on
news channel 13 tonight yeah yeah it's six o'clock tonight
our good friend john craig you remember john johnny boy my buddy why am i not
on 13 you were in italy you know all right not that he thought of you first
but well he had to get to the older employees well he heard that you know you

(01:25:59):
weren't there because you were born in 1982 so exactly my mom My mom and dad told me all about it.
I could have told John Craig, hey, my mom and dad told me this, this, and this.
Well, I was actually on the radio, not even a month into my radio career,
when I was working that night, July 20th, 1969.
So I was in the Times Union talking about it last week, and John saw it and

(01:26:20):
said, maybe we can go talk to my old friend, Chris Warren.
Old, old friend. Right. Well, that's true.
There are not many left who remember that. I'm older than 50,
obviously. Not many left who remember that.
Nice guy. So, yeah, 6 o'clock tonight on News Channel 13, there'll be a little story.
You know, was there TV then? Seriously, you had TV? Okay, was it color TV?

(01:26:41):
No, well, actually, the person in the newsroom while I was in the studio on
the air, the news person had a little black and white portable TV brought in
so he could watch while it was happening. Oh, okay.
Now, I want to ask you another thing, Chris. We tried to get through this this morning.
On this day back in 1937, the gentleman who invented radio passed away. Oh.
That'd be Marconi. But how do you say his first name? Google?

(01:27:03):
G-U-G-L-I-E-L-M-O. I just came back from Italy, and I'm having a hard time.
Guglielmo. Why didn't you ask while you were there? Well, his name was Gugi. They called him Gugi.
Gugi, what are you working on? Radio. Radio. What is that? Don't do that. So how was your trip?

(01:27:23):
Oh, beautiful. Cool. Italy.
Roma. Roma. Yeah. Then there was Florence. Okay. Then there was... I remember her. Assisi.
I'm sorry. And there was a CC. Okay. Okay.
Did you saw-saw? St. Francis of Assisi. And I was singing the song,
A sailor went to Assisi, to see St.

(01:27:43):
Francis of Assisi. I haven't heard that since my twin cousins used to patty cake with that.
Oh, okay. And then we went to Venice, Verona, and then Venezia. Venice. Wow.
We were in the gondola on the river, on the canal around it.
It was beautiful. I was asking, Joe, what was the food like? Great. Oh, okay.
It's all I care about. Many of the meals were prepared. There's wine on the
table, water, and plenty of wine.

(01:28:06):
They keep bringing the wine, bringing the wine. Well, yeah, because you'll leave a bigger tip.
They're no dummy. They're different on tips over there. Oh, are they?
A lot of these dinners were already prearranged because it was part of the tour.
So we didn't have to do that. Well, that's nice.
Their tips are different. You have to look at the check. If it says Servizio,
then they've got a tip sort of included, but not entirely. Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting. And then there's Coop or something. I mean,

(01:28:26):
it's just. So you can leave more than what they take, if it does say they've already taken some out.
They're not. They don't expect what we get here, I think. I think that's what
I was told. I don't know. I don't want to be a cheap...
Cheap American. Well, you'll know when you try to get back in the country. Cheap American.
Joe Gallagher, don't let him back in. My barber, Uli, was from Italy.
And he used to, Joe, Joe, he would tell me things about Italy.

(01:28:48):
It was great. It was a beautiful. Now, who was your barber?
Uli, he passed away a few years ago. Uli was the man. Okay. Because I knew an
Italian barber in Schenectady. I just wondered.
Oh, no. Ulysses. And he came back from, he came from Italy when he was a young
guy and became a citizen. But anyway, Italy is a beautiful country,
and there's just so much that you can see. Good for you.
Yeah, I'm glad you enjoyed it. How was the weather? Was it good? Yeah, yeah.

(01:29:11):
It's not like being on News Channel 13
tonight talking about—so John Craig interviewed you, did he? Yeah, yeah.
I'm sorry he didn't mention you, Joe. I apologize.
Did he even say, how's Joe? He didn't ask about anybody back here,
although he told some great stories about, you know, some folks he's worked
with over the years. Never.
But no. We were buddies. We worked here together, Johnny. Yeah, I know.

(01:29:32):
I know. We got along fabulous. I know.
He used to do the weather for me occasionally when I was working for Jamie over
on TRY. I'll be watching six tonight.
I figured. You know, what the heck. I am not going to sit there and watch you.
Hey, that's okay. You'll have a second chance.
We're going to put it up on the TRY website probably afterwards.

(01:29:54):
Okay. Yeah. Oh, that's where you work? I work at 98.3 TRY. Yes,
I do. I saw you in for the free food yesterday.
Did you even say so long to Kevin at all? I sat across from Kevin at lunch right next to the boss.
Right next to the buffet. Yeah, right near the buffet so I could go for seconds
easily, yeah. I saw Kevin and I said, Kevin, are they here for you or the food?

(01:30:16):
These radio announcers are the biggest freebies in the world.
But anyway. We let him eat first. Kevin left from, yeah, from the station.
Yeah, exactly. He left, you know, he did yesterday morning.
Yeah. And I guess he went past 10 o'clock.
Okay. And then, you know, says his goodbyes, goes to the little luncheon we had at 1130.
He gets a text that the moving men are there. So they're emptying his house.

(01:30:39):
He goes home, puts the family and the dogs in the car, and heads for Florida.
I mean, you know, that's a radio guy.
That's just how it works. Nice family, nice guy. He'll be missed.
And I don't know if you heard, but he's going to work for the station,
the cluster down there for iHeartRadio. Hot diggity dog, I say.
Yeah, that's great. Hot, really.
That's very hot. Well, true, although he left some ridiculous stuff here when he left.

(01:31:01):
Oh, yeah, the weather. This is nuts. Yeah. I got to take a break.
I don't know if you want to hang around. We're going to talk Richard Bond,
the HVCC astronomer, about 50 years ago, the landing on the moon.
Oh, we'll hang around. Okay, good. We'll be right back. 846 WGY.
WGY AccuWeather forecast. All right. Thank you.

(01:31:22):
Be very careful. The heat today is really going to be excessive.
We're going to see excessive heat warning remains in effect from noon today to 8 p.m. this evening.
Right now, we are under an excessive heat warning.
Advisory, a heat advisory, but the excessive heat warning will be from noon
today till 8 p.m., then back to a heat advisory from 8 a.m. this evening through 8 p.m. tomorrow.

(01:31:47):
Now, Richard Monda is with us, astronomer at HVCC. Hi, Richard, how are you?
Good morning, Joe. Good to be talking with you again. Welcome back.
Yes, well, thank you. Big day today, 50 years ago.
What are your remembrances of that day? Yeah, it's amazing that 50 years already
went by when many of us were sitting in front of our black and white televisions watching a fuzzy,

(01:32:09):
blurry image of Neil Armstrong coming down the ladder of the lunar module and stepping onto the moon.
What about the people who, I read a story yesterday, and I've read this before,
people who say it never happened?
Well, there's a lot of people that say that, and most, as far as I know,
everything that they've said has been debunked, such as there's no stars in

(01:32:32):
the sky behind the astronauts.
And if they were really on the moon, there would be.
Well, it turns out, remember, these were the days of film photography,
not digital photography.
And the astronauts had the white suits on to reflect a lot of light.
So they were very bright objects against the dark background.

(01:32:55):
So the exposure had to be made very quickly for the astronauts to appear correct in the photographs.
And that didn't give enough time for the starlight to accumulate on the film.
So the fact that there aren't any stars in the background of the lunar photographs
really makes a lot of sense. Right. That's one example.

(01:33:18):
Now, I know that Neil Armstrong was the first man to step on the moon,
and I know that Buzz Aldrin went out. Did Michael Collins go out,
too, or did he stay on the ship?
No, although the Apollo missions were three-man missions, two of the astronauts
went from the command module into the lunar module, and the lunar module took
them down to the moon's surface.

(01:33:39):
So only two of the astronauts of all the six missions that landed on the moon
went down to the moon's surface, and that gave us 12 men on the moon.
Wow. And let me ask you this.
NASA's getting involved with the Orion. They're getting now a new project.
Will it be bigger and even go further?
Right. In recent years, it's been back and forth with some things,

(01:34:01):
such as George Bush initiated, President George Bush initiated the Constellation Program,
which was to complete the International Space Station and return to the moon by 2020.
That was canceled by President Obama in 2010. 10.
But what has come out of that is the Orion crew capsule, and President Trump has reinitiated the,

(01:34:25):
program with a target date of 2024 to get to the moon.
And hopefully over the next couple of years, we'll see the test missions for
those rockets in the Orion crew capsule.
And then around 2022, 2023, people going into orbit around the moon.

(01:34:47):
And then 2024, an actual landing on the moon. That's the timeline right now.
And you want to be on one of those, right? Sure, no problem.
Well, Richard, good. It's good talking with you. Good reflecting.
We'll have to get together again soon, but thank you so much.
We really appreciate your expertise and your information today.
Okay, Joe. Have a good day. You too. Take care. Richard Mond, astronomy professor.

(01:35:08):
He teaches astronomy at HVCC, and he really is a very knowledgeable guy.
Chris Warren, speaking of lunar.
Now, one of the fun stories about Michael Collins still being up and orbiting
the moon while the other guys are on the moon.
At one point, somebody points out that Michael Michael Collins is the only person
on, only human not watching this on TV.
The poor guy didn't have any kind of feed from the moon. It was all being beamed back to the earth.

(01:35:33):
And so he never saw any of, you know, the walking on the moon until he saw the
film later. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that something? I didn't know that. Yeah. Crazy.
I got a text here from Mike King. Mike King. I remember Mike. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, great. Another family leaving New York State and coming to Florida.
They moved to Florida to get away from it. Now everybody's following them down there.

(01:35:54):
Yep. And I'm worried that Mike and his wife may move back here.
We don't want that. No, that's true.
We don't want to chase them back here. But Kevin, he can have my job again.
He's going to be in Sarasota. So if he's on the radio next March when I go down
to Anna Maria Island, I'll be able to listen to him. Nice. That's right near Sarasota, yeah.
Right. That's very nice. Yeah, yeah. And we'll mention. Maybe drop in for dinner one night.

(01:36:17):
Maybe he'll mention my name. John Craig didn't.
What time are you going to be on? I'll be on Channel 13 tonight at 6 o'clock,
sometime in the 6 o'clock hour.
Hot dog, man. Commemorating this famous day. And you're filling in for Jamie?
And I'm filling in for Jamie today from 10 till 2, and then tomorrow I'm on
for this guy Chris Warren from noon to 6.
Hot dog, kid. That guy's a half-foot. Yeah, he is. He really is. I'm with John Craig.

(01:36:42):
I know John Craig better than you know John Craig. Why wouldn't John Craig?
You did work together on the very same station. But I mean, I was in the same
building with him. We were right here. We worked together on them. I knew him too.
Yeah, but. You know, so. I'll be watching six or ten. We'll see if you hadn't,
you know, you left the country.
I mean, how patriotic is that? You know, the moon landing anniversary is coming
up and you leave the country. I'm watching ten tonight. What time is it?

(01:37:04):
It's not that I'm jealous or anything. Yeah. I hurt. Oh, he says it'll probably
be repeated on my four at nine o'clock tonight.
Just so you know. That's great, Chris. Mr. Self-promotion. You got it.
The new Bob Cutmore of radio.
Bob was the same way. He would promote it. It was great. I miss Bob,
too. Well, thanks for having me on, Joe. You're awfully nice that way.

(01:37:26):
He used to say the same thing.
All right. Well, we'll see you next Saturday. I hope so. All right.
Take care. Chris Warren, 855-WGY. I'm a salesman.

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