by Scott Vogel
No one can pinpoint exactly why a group of otherwise mild-mannered seniors suddenly felt the urge last August to leap into their Skechers Slip-ins and gather for evenings of joyous dancing, mad wailing and doowop approaching the Dionysian, or how such ecstatic happenings morphed into something resembling a movement. But everyone knows where it all started: the Dunkin’ Donuts on Lawson Blvd. in Oceanside.
On certain Mondays at 6 p.m. last summer, patrons who’d parked under the orange and pinkness innocently hoping for a cinnamon roll or frozen Coolatta often found themselves treated to something far more decadent--the sight of dozens of men and women in their ’70s and ’80s swaying trance-like in unison against a parti-colored backdrop of brightly frosted and sprinkled doughnuts. The source of this rapture, a karaoke machine, was typically visible from the parking lot, as was a microphone-wielding man crooning, say, “Dream Lover” with the confidence of a cult leader, his voice almost commanding his charges to raise their arms heavenward watusi-style, or to jitterbug with total strangers.
And while rumors of the evenings circulated for months, their existence could not independently verified until November, when @longislandwiseguy posted an Instagram reel of footage taken from the parking lot. It quickly racked up over 13,000 likes, eliciting comments such as “Impossible to love this more,” “How are we not attending?” and “Live, Laugh, Love Oceanside.”
Determined to divine the origins of this strange spectacle, Newsday attempted to contact a member of the group, an apparent insider who’d posted a few videos of his own, a man known within the YouTube community as “surfingjoe.” This turned out to be the alias of 82-year-old Joe Ponte, who claimed that “when AOL came out, they said don’t use your name, so I put Surfing Joe,” and also that he’d had a Newsday paper route in the ’50s (“I made 8 cents a week,” Ponte noted, still smarting from the memory) before admitting, finally, that he had indeed posted videos depicting the burgeoning Dunkin’ doowop movement.
“I thought, I’m going to take it to the next level and market it,” Ponte said in February, adding that he was well-connected thanks to past stints in government and public relations. “When I put it out there, it went viral all over.”
As it happens, it was Joey Karp who’d originally had the Dunkin’ takeover idea. Karp, 77 (“I woulda been 78 but I was sick one year") is the lead singer of Joey and the Paradons, which specializes in “the music and sounds of Brooklyn and the Bronx” and has been performing regularly since 1959, these days mostly in Florida during the winter. It was there that Karp witnessed “something similar at the Dunkin’ in Boynton Beach on Tuesday nights,” he recalled. “People loved it. They came from everywhere.” While sipping coffee on Lawson Blvd. one morning, it occurred to Karp and Ponte that, as the latter put it, “you shouldn’t have to go to Florida to twist and shout,” so the men decided to act, according to their friend Mikey Campiglia.
“We started talking to Rocky”--Rocky Sheik, owner of the Oceanside Dunkin’. “This was in July of last year. He called corporate,” Campiglia, 74 , said. “They loved the idea, and we did our first one on Aug. 7.” Soon, the gatherings, which had begun with fewer than a dozen attendees, had grown to well over 50, forcing the faithful to bring chairs from home to supplement the doughnut shop’s.
After months of delays owing to negotiations and the Paradons’ annual Florida tour, Newsday was at last invited to witness the seniors’ latest get-together in person at Dunkin’, on May 13. What Newsday would also witness that day was a series of events that would threaten the group’s very existence, events from which it would emerge stronger and more defiant than ever.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Ponte when we met that afternoon over a Watermelon Burst jelly doughnut at a Dunkin’ back table. Soon, Karp, still tan from his Florida dates, joined us.
“What’s going on?” Karp asked Ponte.
“We can’t do it inside,” he replied, adding that after the group’s last meeting in February, someone had allegedly come down with something--a cold, maybe--and complained about the congregating to Dunkin’ management, which had responded by forbidding all future indoor meetings. Ponte had received the bad news just minutes before we arrived.
“Well, then, we’ll do it outside,” said Karp matter of factly, reminding Ponte that they had done just that when faced with large crowds last summer, closing off part of the parking lot and running an extension cord from Dunkin’s juice to the karaoke machine.
Ponte shook his head. “It’s too cold,” he said as Karp headed out the door. It was true. The sun wasn’t even close to setting and temperatures were already in the 50s. Furthermore, there wasn’t time to alert the group via Facebook to bring jackets and chairs. “No one will show up.”
Just then, Campiglia, wearing a gray Brooklyn sweatshirt, arrived with his own tale of woe. “I can’t even be here tonight,” he said with obvious disappointment in his voice, adding that he’d just dropped by briefly on his way to get a prescription for his wife, who was sick at home. “When she gets a cold, forget it.”
“It’s okay. It’s not happening,” replied Ponte sadly, filling Campiglia in on what had occurred. The group nervously considered its options. Outside, dozens of karaoke penitents were arriving, some even carrying chairs, as if they’d sensed that trouble was afoot. What about Grandpa Tony’s in East Rockaway, someone wondered? Too far. The Carvel on N. Long Beach Road? Too small. In retrospect, should they have tipped Dunkin’ employees better? Probably.
“Hey, Mikey,” said Karp, who’d just returned. “They’re going to let us do it inside next door.” That was certainly a nice gesture on the part of the establishment, all agreed, and it was spacious too. But there was a problem with, well, optics. The windows and shelves of Smoke N’ Convenience were lined with glass pipes, impossibly tall and brightly painted bongs, bubblers, hookahs, whippets, stash jars, “It’s 420 Somewhere” signs and the like.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” said Ponte. “There’s all that paraphernalia over there.”
Karp shrugged. “Big deal. If it was against the law they wouldn’t allow it.” He turned to a woman holding a lawn chair who’d been eavesdropping. “Would you do it next door at the smoke shop?”
“Yeah, but are they smoking in there?” asked the woman.
“No,” Karp assured her.
By 6:45, Russell Targove, who runs the group’s karaoke machine and serves as its master of ceremonies, had set up shop on the munchies aisle of Smoke N’ Convenience next to the Doritos and Funyuns. “This is all about us,” he said into the microphone, warming up the crowd with a big smile, even as he apologized for Campiglia, who would not be appearing due to his wife’s illness. Before Targove, two dozen chairs had already been set up--some from Dunkin’, which had offered to loan them as a kind of consolation prize--and more were on the way, all carefully arranged to maintain an aisle for the shop’s regular customers.
“We are here today to enjoy the fact that we all love doowop music, we all love the ’50s,” he continued. “We love harmonies, anything to do with the style of music from the ’50s and ’60s.” A small cheer came up from the crowd. Then a surprise: “Look who’s here. It’s Mikey from Brooklyn!” Improbably, Campiglia was making his way to the microphone. “Maybe we’ll let him sing one song.” More cheers.
“Okay, my wife thinks I’m out at CVS getting her medicine,” he told the crowd, hazarding an impersonation. “‘You’re singing?! I’m dying in bed and you’re singing?!’” Laughter. “Forty-nine years next month.”
“Maybe bring her something from here,” joked Targove as the first notes of “Dream Lover” began to play. Every night I hope and pray, sang Campiglia, who in addition to doing a decent Bobby Darin, added a few athletic dance moves that amazed not a few onlookers. The number went over well, so did a second, “Let the Little Girl Dance.”
Then it was time for the pros, first Karp, who launched into “Silhouettes” by The Rays followed by The Silhouettes’ “Get a Job.” Mike Jones, 62, brought the house down with “Rock the Boat,” and then his wife Patricia did the same thing with “Midnight Train to Georgia.” By then, an overflow crowd had set up chairs on the sidewalk and the police had arrived--not to stop the proceedings, as it turned out, but because of a fender bender in the parking lot. Also wandering in were a much younger group, Smoke N’ Convenience’s actual patrons, who appeared both mystified and captivated by the unfolding scene.
“This is so random, I love the energy,” offered a middle-aged woman in a tie-dyed T-shirt, clutching her purchase and making a hasty exit. Kelvin Wright of Island Park, another customer, found it “kind of ironic to have a smoke shop be used for karaoke,” but soon warmed to the notion. “I think this should become a tradition,” said Wright with a laugh.
At the back of the smoke shop, behind the counter, sat Giovanni Collado, the young man who’d persuaded his boss to host the desperate seniors and was either an unsung hero or an easy mark, depending on your point of view. “Honestly, I’m kind of risking my job here, I’m not gonna lie to you,” admitted the 22-year-old. “But I don’t really care. I’m doing something good for someone.”
Among those for whom Collado did something good was Kathy Fanelli, who watched the proceedings from the sidewalk, breathing with the aid of a nasal cannula. She did not in the least regret traveling all the way from Shirley for her first doowop night, she said, nor the fact that the evening had turned out to be less Dunkin’ than doobie. “I might even buy some of the products,” she joked. “You know, the arthritis and everything? What the hell!”
Inside Smoke N’ Convenience, the setting sun seemed to bathe every face in a warm glow, none more so than that of 91-year-old Eileen Wilhelm. Wheelchair-bound and stricken with Alzheimer’s, her sparkling eyes and beaming smile signaled nothing less than a return to her former self, however fleeting. “You watch, she’ll have an appetite tonight,” predicted her son Paul. “She’s having a ball.” Meanwhile, his mother swayed back and forth to the strains of “Diana,” recalling the lyrics with complete accuracy.
Performing the Paul Anka classic was, you guessed it, Mikey Campiglia, who’d apparently left after his third song (“Why You Do Me Like You Do” by the Cleftones), only to deliver his wife’s medicine, change into a navy button-up and come back. Among those who applauded his return was Barbara Murray.
“It makes you feel alive, it’s memories, it’s wonderful,” said the Oceanside resident, who made her own way back to doowop only recently, after a post-pickleball visit to Dunkin’. Still, Murray immediately fell under its spell again, and was soon seen cutting a rug with Franklin Square’s Len Cascone among the fritters and crullers. As she recounted the episode, Cascone looked over at her, right on cue. He flashed his eyebrows, and just like that the pair were dancing again.
By then it was dark outside, and Targove, having promised Collado that all doowopping would cease by 9 p.m., packed up the karaoke machine, his slow winding of the cords an unspoken commentary on the group’s uncertain future. Meanwhile, Karp and others carted out the last of the chairs as Cascone, 81, looked on expectantly, as if waiting for an after-party invite. He confessed to being fuzzy about several of the evening’s details. “I don’t know what happened to the Dunkin’ Donuts owner, although I understand he didn’t want to have us,” he said. “That’s okay. We’ll have it here. Or somewhere else. They can’t stop it!”
Others, Mikey Campiglia among them, agreed that the day’s hiccups had served only to underscore the importance of the group and its mission. But as he stood on the sidewalk under the Dunkin’ sign, his face a study in determination with accents of pink and orange, Campiglia seemed consumed by deep questions: why the group had been born where it was, how much power it had derived from its doughnut shop-ness, whether it should abandon its home turf so easily without a fight.
“It’s the Dunkin’ Donuts on Lawson Blvd. that everybody knows,” he said. “We can’t go anywhere else. This is where it started. This is where it’s going to stay.”
Campiglia’s words proved prophetic. “I think everything calmed down,” read a text from Ponte to Newsday not long afterward. For whatever reason, Dunkin’ owner Rocky Sheik had a change of heart after receiving a phone call from one of the group’s members, Jimmy LaMarca, 82--“I’d be 84 but I was sick two years”--and they would return to the doughnut shop within a matter of weeks.
The room was positively buzzing when Targove called the proceedings to order on June 17, a mood that some attributed to the picture-perfect weather, others to the triumphant return home, and still others to the caffeine content in DunKings iced coffee. An overflow crowd numbering 60-plus was in attendance, among them Karp, Campiglia and several older women seated up front, groupies who’d taken to calling themselves the Donettes. Also present was LaMarca, who wore a T-shirt that said The Grandfather in “Godfather” font and crooned “That’s Life,” delivering the lyrics about riding high in April and being shot down in May without an ounce of irony.
But I know I’m gonna change that tune
When I’m back on top, back on top in June.
His tireless efforts at promoting Dunkin’ doowop on social media having paid off in spades, Joe Ponte was beaming, showing Newsday a text from Town of Hempstead councilwoman Laura Ryder’s office about karaoke being “a wonderful way to bring the community together” and reminding everyone within earshot that Ponte means bridge in Italian and building bridges was exactly what he’d been doing.
And not long after that, Paul Wilhelm arrived, struggling to hold the door open while wheeling his mother Eileen into Dunkin’ and then through a packed house. The smoke shop get-together in May had done her a world of good, just as he’d predicted. “I took her home, Mom was so happy,” he reported, adding that she drank an entire milkshake before going to bed.
Wilhelm stood in the doorway, smiling as he watched Dunkin’ doowop work its usual magic, bringing so much joy to so many people in so tiny a space. But he was also saddened by the scene. “Nobody does anything like this anymore,” he said, shaking his head. “There used to always be something like this going on. Nowadays, there’s nothing. Now, everybody’s just miserable.”
Even as he watched his mother grin and pat her thighs to someone’s rendition of “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” though, Wilhelm’s mood brightened. “Somebody should give these guys a permanent space,” he said. “Or at least donate a tent they could put up in the parking lot. This place is helping people.”