June 16, 2024 • 14 mins
Original Air Date: June 16, 2024
Dave Cervini, or DC, as we knew him was a fabulous promotions director at WYNY NYC, a country radio station, before it became WKTU! Jim Kerr & I were amazed at his exuberance and total joy in his job. Dave is now a dad and proud author of the children’s book ”I Didn’t Know I Could Do It Until I Tried On My Own”.
Dave Cervini, or DC, as we knew him was a fabulous promotions director at WYNY NYC, a country radio station, before it became WKTU! Jim Kerr & I were amazed at his exuberance and total joy in his job. Dave is now a dad and proud author of the children’s book ”I Didn’t Know I Could Do It Until I Tried On My Own”.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to a friend who goes wayback to when Jim and I went country,
when in nineteen eighty nine we joinedWyny, not knowing a thing about
(00:27):
country music, but learning very quicklyand really learning to love and appreciate not
only the music, but the artistswho were so kind, so generous,
and so appreciative of radio. Soduring that time, Dave Servini, who
was joining me this morning, wasthe promotions director of Wyny, and I
(00:49):
never saw a more enthusiastic promotions director. I mean when we were involved the
most. The biggest memory for mewas when we had fundraisers. We had
weekend fundraisers once a year to raisemoney for the Saint Jude Hospital, which
gives free care to children who havelife threatening illnesses like cancer. And Dave
(01:15):
was not only the person who organizedthese amazing telethons where we raised over a
million dollars in a single weekend bydoing basically nothing but begging, but Dave
not only organized these events at theWoodbridge mall, which by the way,
was just recently sold, but theysay that they're going to keep it as
(01:36):
a mall. But he he recruitedstars to come on board. But he
was an entertainer himself. I mean, he was just so enthusiastic and so
on board and he was just acrucial part of the Wyny team. And
(01:56):
the reason he's joining me this morningis he is the author of a children's
book. I didn't know I coulddo it until I tried it on my
own, and it's basically about independence, about learning independence all the way through
life. First of all, it'sgreat to see you, Dave. I
(02:17):
miss you. What an intro Idon't know, but it's all true.
This is yeah, this is mybiggest memory. So tell us the background
of the book. How did youcome to write a book? Well,
I have started a little bit laterin life and starting my family, and
(02:39):
six years ago I was blessed tohave my first child and his name is
Kai. And as you may wellknow, when you have children, one
of the many things that you dois to read to them and thousands of
books, you know, every nightbefore they went to bed, when they
(03:00):
wake up in the morning, tocalm them, and there were so many
children's books out there, and beingtouched by the gift of fatherhood was something
that I couldn't explain, and Ijust I needed to write it down.
And so I started writing poems aboutmy experiences of being a father. And
(03:25):
there was one book, and thepoems were about, you know, a
child being mischievous. I actually havefour more books ready to go. Wow,
this one was the one that reallyjumped out, and they're not you
know, I don't think of themas books. I think of them as
as love letters to my son.And the worst part is is that since
(03:52):
then I've had a daughter. Hername is May and I realized that I
can't write books about him because she'llbe really mad at me if I don't
write books about her. So we'reworking on books about May too. I'll
have a whole collection. But therewas one book, and a lot of
people remember this book. It's calledI Love You Forever. I Like you
(04:15):
for always. As long as I'mliving, my baby, You'll pay.
And it's a story of a motherwho takes care of her child, watches
her child grow up until it becomesan adult. And the sweetest part about
it is that It always ends withKai just came in and handed me a
book. It always ends with Italways ends with the same line. And
(04:41):
as I was watching him grow upand learning how to eat, learning how
to walk, learning how to talk, it just came to me that I
wanted to write this story about him. And so it begins with him being
born to the point where he windsup learning how to walk, learning how
to talk, learning how to share, and then learning how to you know,
(05:06):
he graduates college, he gets ahouse, and then he eventually has
his own wife and then his ownbaby, and he realizes that with all
that he learned while he was growingup, that he'll be just fine.
And you know, you touch onthat at the end of the book.
When you're expecting a child, it'snot only joyous, it's terrifying. It
(05:30):
is absolutely terrifying because you're so worried. I think most of us. Are
we up for the job? Arewe up for the task? So I
love that it came full circle andyou learn to do it yourself, right,
I mean, it's just the themeof the I just loved that it
(05:53):
came full circle and tell us aboutyour your You don't illustrate, so you
had an illustrator, So how didyou hook up with the illustrator? So
we've we've found a freelancer who wasable to do it. And you know,
when you when you get to thepoint where you're actually going, you
know, I'm going to make thisbook, there are so many ways that
you can you can go in withthe way the illustrations look. And we've
(06:20):
looked at different children's books and thedifferent illustrations that were were in the books.
And then my wife and I,Linda, we decided on a sort
of a you know, a realitycartoonist kind of feel, and we sent
the picture. We sent actual picturesof Kai throughout his growing stages and my
(06:40):
wife, so all the illustrations inthe book are actually of them. And
and the nicest part is that towardsthe end, uh we we live upstate.
We're in California now, but welive upstate New York. We have
a house, and I sent hima picture of our house. So when
if nobody ever reads the book,at least when Kai grows up, he'll
(07:03):
look at the book and he'll seeus standing in front of what was or
what will still be our own home. So Musam, who was the illustrator.
Really he caught the essence of hisgrowing up and we thought it was
wonderful, so we'll use him forthe future books as well. I'm speaking
(07:25):
with Dave Servini. He is theauthor of I didn't know I could do
it until I tried it on myown. It is a children's book.
And Dave. I know Dave becausehe was the promotions director of Wyny which
is now k T you. Wewere both there for the end of country
radio in New York City, whichwas highly highly successful and nobody has done
(07:50):
it since, but they should becausethis is a format that is very successful
in New York City. Should bedone again. But anyway, Dave is
an entrepreneur. He's a stay athome dad now for Kai and his daughter
May. How did that all happenthat he became a stay at home dad?
(08:13):
Because this is you know, Imean, I want your journey to
be known as well, because it'salways interesting how where life takes us.
Well, it's interesting. It wasvery devastating when wy Andy went off the
air. One thing I never realizedand didn't know until later on when we
(08:35):
met with one of our program directors, one of our many program directors because
I had been there for sixteen years. Was that by Mike Q rating as
my alter ego. So I wasthe promotion director but also on the air
as DC, who was known forgoing out to all the different locations.
(08:56):
Was one of the most popular,you know, people on the station,
and I loved soaking that I lovedthe attention, as you probably can remember.
And that went away. We changedthe KTU and I stayed at K
to You for a year and thenit was it was really interesting going from
(09:16):
I say, cowboy Boots to Capeziosbecause I went from country music to disco
and it just wasn't as fulfilling.It was sad to be in the same
hallways and not have that beautiful senseof family that we had at the staff
at W Y and Y. SoI went to one oh five point one.
I worked there for five years,and in the five years that I
worked there, it was six formatchanges. Oh my god. I was
(09:39):
lucky that I was in the promotionsdepartment at that point because all the on
air people get fired every time theychanged. Sure, and when they finally
changed the power one oh five,which is one of your sister stations,
I knew that it was time forme to move on, so I took
a year off. I drove acrossthe country, and I had been putting
together a v in New York becauseI had gotten divorced and moved from Long
(10:05):
Island to New York City, andI was looking for a way to make
friends. And you know, meetup in Facebook didn't exist back then,
so the only way to go out, I thought, on the Upper West
Side and meet somebody would have beento go to all the bars. So
every single night I was I madeFOMO fashionable before FOMO was out there,
(10:26):
and I went every single night outto all the parks on the Upper West
Side, up and down Columbus Avenue, and came home drunking alone most of
the time. And I realized thatthere was something more that is to life
than doing that. There has tobe something more. I wanted to do
all these things now living in NewYork City, but I had nobody to
(10:48):
do them with. So I woundup putting together non for profit events at
non for profit groups as a wayto meet people. And I did them
with the intent that I'm going todo a hike and I'm going to meet
a woman who likes to hike,and I realized that I wound up making
the best friends I ever did inmy life doing that for non for profit
(11:11):
groups. So in two thousand andfour, I just said, you know
what, this is my path inlife. So I started a company called
the New York Social Network, andessentially we do cooking classes, hiking trips,
camping trips, wine tastings. We'rebringing a good group to New Orleans
for the Jazz Festival. Just funthings for people to do who come to
the city and who want friends todo things with and necessarily can't get their
(11:35):
own friends to do with, orthey want to make new friends. And
it's been a wonderful experience because Iget to do a lot of things that
I love to do with other peoplewho share the same mindset. So this
is our twentieth year, and eventuallymy thought process did work out. I
wound up meeting a beautiful girl namedLinda, who can tell us the story
(12:00):
how did you meet her? Soback in the early days, we did
speed dating events, and I lovedthe fact that I was the one in
control of the speed dating event becauseI would essentially be able to be the
alpha male in the room and haveaccess to being able to talk to all
the women. And one particular eventshe belonged to the New York Social Network
(12:26):
never had come out to an event, and I needed more women to balance
the men and female ratio of theevent, and so we would invite women
for free to get the even numbers. So she came out, and I
tried not to date my clients,and I thought that she was attractive,
and it also was a little bitof a younger group, so I moderated
(12:50):
the group. We chatted, andshe left, and she came out to
another event that we had at Tavernon the Green, which was just a
purely social event, not a speeddating event, and we chatted a little
bit more and then I said,you know what, I think that she's
really nice. I'd like to,you know, pursue something, but I'm
trying to be professional and not takeadvantage of being the organizer of the group.
(13:15):
And one night I had nothing todo, and it was a Friday
night. I was sitting in myapartment and I was like, Wow,
I'm not planning an event tonight,and I went to a meetup dot Com
event at the Empire Hotel across fromLincoln Center. And she was there and
we had a chance to chat,and we wound up talking till like three
o'clock in the morning, and shewent home and I said, you know
(13:37):
what, I'm going to break myrule. I'm going to ask her out.
I went to bed and I wokeup the next morning. When I
woke up the next morning, shehad emailed me and said, I think
I'd like to go out sometime.And that was history. Wow, that's
a wonderful story. We only havea minute left again, I'm talking with
Dave Servini. I didn't know Icould do it until I tried it on
(14:03):
my own. It's a children's book. Okay, we have one more minute.
First of all, how can peopleget the book? So right now
it's on Barnesannoble dot com. Justsearch for Dave Servini C E ER V
I N I or the title.I didn't know I could do it until
I tried it on my own.And when's the next book coming out date?
(14:24):
It took about a year to putthis together the right way. I
think we'll do a little bit quickernext time, but we'll be sure the
first one to know. Okay,thank you. Oh it was so great.
Reconnecting with you. It's been solong. Thank you, Shelly.
Great to see you've been listening toSunsteen sessions on iHeartRadio, a production of
New York's classic rock Q one Ofour point three
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio,conversations about issues that matter. Here's your
host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein. I want to introduce
you to a friend who goes wayback to when Jim and I went country,
when in nineteen eighty nine we joinedWyny, not knowing a thing about
(00:27):
country music, but learning very quicklyand really learning to love and appreciate not
only the music, but the artistswho were so kind, so generous,
and so appreciative of radio. Soduring that time, Dave Servini, who
was joining me this morning, wasthe promotions director of Wyny, and I
(00:49):
never saw a more enthusiastic promotions director. I mean when we were involved the
most. The biggest memory for mewas when we had fundraisers. We had
weekend fundraisers once a year to raisemoney for the Saint Jude Hospital, which
gives free care to children who havelife threatening illnesses like cancer. And Dave
(01:15):
was not only the person who organizedthese amazing telethons where we raised over a
million dollars in a single weekend bydoing basically nothing but begging, but Dave
not only organized these events at theWoodbridge mall, which by the way,
was just recently sold, but theysay that they're going to keep it as
(01:36):
a mall. But he he recruitedstars to come on board. But he
was an entertainer himself. I mean, he was just so enthusiastic and so
on board and he was just acrucial part of the Wyny team. And
(01:56):
the reason he's joining me this morningis he is the author of a children's
book. I didn't know I coulddo it until I tried it on my
own, and it's basically about independence, about learning independence all the way through
life. First of all, it'sgreat to see you, Dave. I
(02:17):
miss you. What an intro Idon't know, but it's all true.
This is yeah, this is mybiggest memory. So tell us the background
of the book. How did youcome to write a book? Well,
I have started a little bit laterin life and starting my family, and
(02:39):
six years ago I was blessed tohave my first child and his name is
Kai. And as you may wellknow, when you have children, one
of the many things that you dois to read to them and thousands of
books, you know, every nightbefore they went to bed, when they
(03:00):
wake up in the morning, tocalm them, and there were so many
children's books out there, and beingtouched by the gift of fatherhood was something
that I couldn't explain, and Ijust I needed to write it down.
And so I started writing poems aboutmy experiences of being a father. And
(03:25):
there was one book, and thepoems were about, you know, a
child being mischievous. I actually havefour more books ready to go. Wow,
this one was the one that reallyjumped out, and they're not you
know, I don't think of themas books. I think of them as
as love letters to my son.And the worst part is is that since
(03:52):
then I've had a daughter. Hername is May and I realized that I
can't write books about him because she'llbe really mad at me if I don't
write books about her. So we'reworking on books about May too. I'll
have a whole collection. But therewas one book, and a lot of
people remember this book. It's calledI Love You Forever. I Like you
(04:15):
for always. As long as I'mliving, my baby, You'll pay.
And it's a story of a motherwho takes care of her child, watches
her child grow up until it becomesan adult. And the sweetest part about
it is that It always ends withKai just came in and handed me a
book. It always ends with Italways ends with the same line. And
(04:41):
as I was watching him grow upand learning how to eat, learning how
to walk, learning how to talk, it just came to me that I
wanted to write this story about him. And so it begins with him being
born to the point where he windsup learning how to walk, learning how
to talk, learning how to share, and then learning how to you know,
(05:06):
he graduates college, he gets ahouse, and then he eventually has
his own wife and then his ownbaby, and he realizes that with all
that he learned while he was growingup, that he'll be just fine.
And you know, you touch onthat at the end of the book.
When you're expecting a child, it'snot only joyous, it's terrifying. It
(05:30):
is absolutely terrifying because you're so worried. I think most of us. Are
we up for the job? Arewe up for the task? So I
love that it came full circle andyou learn to do it yourself, right,
I mean, it's just the themeof the I just loved that it
(05:53):
came full circle and tell us aboutyour your You don't illustrate, so you
had an illustrator, So how didyou hook up with the illustrator? So
we've we've found a freelancer who wasable to do it. And you know,
when you when you get to thepoint where you're actually going, you
know, I'm going to make thisbook, there are so many ways that
you can you can go in withthe way the illustrations look. And we've
(06:20):
looked at different children's books and thedifferent illustrations that were were in the books.
And then my wife and I,Linda, we decided on a sort
of a you know, a realitycartoonist kind of feel, and we sent
the picture. We sent actual picturesof Kai throughout his growing stages and my
(06:40):
wife, so all the illustrations inthe book are actually of them. And
and the nicest part is that towardsthe end, uh we we live upstate.
We're in California now, but welive upstate New York. We have
a house, and I sent hima picture of our house. So when
if nobody ever reads the book,at least when Kai grows up, he'll
(07:03):
look at the book and he'll seeus standing in front of what was or
what will still be our own home. So Musam, who was the illustrator.
Really he caught the essence of hisgrowing up and we thought it was
wonderful, so we'll use him forthe future books as well. I'm speaking
(07:25):
with Dave Servini. He is theauthor of I didn't know I could do
it until I tried it on myown. It is a children's book.
And Dave. I know Dave becausehe was the promotions director of Wyny which
is now k T you. Wewere both there for the end of country
radio in New York City, whichwas highly highly successful and nobody has done
(07:50):
it since, but they should becausethis is a format that is very successful
in New York City. Should bedone again. But anyway, Dave is
an entrepreneur. He's a stay athome dad now for Kai and his daughter
May. How did that all happenthat he became a stay at home dad?
(08:13):
Because this is you know, Imean, I want your journey to
be known as well, because it'salways interesting how where life takes us.
Well, it's interesting. It wasvery devastating when wy Andy went off the
air. One thing I never realizedand didn't know until later on when we
(08:35):
met with one of our program directors, one of our many program directors because
I had been there for sixteen years. Was that by Mike Q rating as
my alter ego. So I wasthe promotion director but also on the air
as DC, who was known forgoing out to all the different locations.
(08:56):
Was one of the most popular,you know, people on the station,
and I loved soaking that I lovedthe attention, as you probably can remember.
And that went away. We changedthe KTU and I stayed at K
to You for a year and thenit was it was really interesting going from
(09:16):
I say, cowboy Boots to Capeziosbecause I went from country music to disco
and it just wasn't as fulfilling.It was sad to be in the same
hallways and not have that beautiful senseof family that we had at the staff
at W Y and Y. SoI went to one oh five point one.
I worked there for five years,and in the five years that I
worked there, it was six formatchanges. Oh my god. I was
(09:39):
lucky that I was in the promotionsdepartment at that point because all the on
air people get fired every time theychanged. Sure, and when they finally
changed the power one oh five,which is one of your sister stations,
I knew that it was time forme to move on, so I took
a year off. I drove acrossthe country, and I had been putting
together a v in New York becauseI had gotten divorced and moved from Long
(10:05):
Island to New York City, andI was looking for a way to make
friends. And you know, meetup in Facebook didn't exist back then,
so the only way to go out, I thought, on the Upper West
Side and meet somebody would have beento go to all the bars. So
every single night I was I madeFOMO fashionable before FOMO was out there,
(10:26):
and I went every single night outto all the parks on the Upper West
Side, up and down Columbus Avenue, and came home drunking alone most of
the time. And I realized thatthere was something more that is to life
than doing that. There has tobe something more. I wanted to do
all these things now living in NewYork City, but I had nobody to
(10:48):
do them with. So I woundup putting together non for profit events at
non for profit groups as a wayto meet people. And I did them
with the intent that I'm going todo a hike and I'm going to meet
a woman who likes to hike,and I realized that I wound up making
the best friends I ever did inmy life doing that for non for profit
(11:11):
groups. So in two thousand andfour, I just said, you know
what, this is my path inlife. So I started a company called
the New York Social Network, andessentially we do cooking classes, hiking trips,
camping trips, wine tastings. We'rebringing a good group to New Orleans
for the Jazz Festival. Just funthings for people to do who come to
the city and who want friends todo things with and necessarily can't get their
(11:35):
own friends to do with, orthey want to make new friends. And
it's been a wonderful experience because Iget to do a lot of things that
I love to do with other peoplewho share the same mindset. So this
is our twentieth year, and eventuallymy thought process did work out. I
wound up meeting a beautiful girl namedLinda, who can tell us the story
(12:00):
how did you meet her? Soback in the early days, we did
speed dating events, and I lovedthe fact that I was the one in
control of the speed dating event becauseI would essentially be able to be the
alpha male in the room and haveaccess to being able to talk to all
the women. And one particular eventshe belonged to the New York Social Network
(12:26):
never had come out to an event, and I needed more women to balance
the men and female ratio of theevent, and so we would invite women
for free to get the even numbers. So she came out, and I
tried not to date my clients,and I thought that she was attractive,
and it also was a little bitof a younger group, so I moderated
(12:50):
the group. We chatted, andshe left, and she came out to
another event that we had at Tavernon the Green, which was just a
purely social event, not a speeddating event, and we chatted a little
bit more and then I said,you know what, I think that she's
really nice. I'd like to,you know, pursue something, but I'm
trying to be professional and not takeadvantage of being the organizer of the group.
(13:15):
And one night I had nothing todo, and it was a Friday
night. I was sitting in myapartment and I was like, Wow,
I'm not planning an event tonight,and I went to a meetup dot Com
event at the Empire Hotel across fromLincoln Center. And she was there and
we had a chance to chat,and we wound up talking till like three
o'clock in the morning, and shewent home and I said, you know
(13:37):
what, I'm going to break myrule. I'm going to ask her out.
I went to bed and I wokeup the next morning. When I
woke up the next morning, shehad emailed me and said, I think
I'd like to go out sometime.And that was history. Wow, that's
a wonderful story. We only havea minute left again, I'm talking with
Dave Servini. I didn't know Icould do it until I tried it on
(14:03):
my own. It's a children's book. Okay, we have one more minute.
First of all, how can peopleget the book? So right now
it's on Barnesannoble dot com. Justsearch for Dave Servini C E ER V
I N I or the title.I didn't know I could do it until
I tried it on my own.And when's the next book coming out date?
(14:24):
It took about a year to putthis together the right way. I
think we'll do a little bit quickernext time, but we'll be sure the
first one to know. Okay,thank you. Oh it was so great.
Reconnecting with you. It's been solong. Thank you, Shelly.
Great to see you've been listening toSunsteen sessions on iHeartRadio, a production of
New York's classic rock Q one Ofour point three
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