Barry Manilow "Copacabana (At the Copa)"

As our morning host was on paternity leave, one of the radio station's weekend DJs named Rob was filling in on the morning show. I worked as Morning Show Producer at the radio station--a role I learned on the fly. The mood in the studio that week felt similar to when I was a kid and my Dad worked a double at the steel mill: dinner consisted of pancakes and my mom let us stay up late to watch Knots Landing with her. In other words, the mice were playing while the cat was away. Since our radio station was the official sponsor of Barry Manilow's Chicago stop on his tour, we had the chance to interview him and give away numerous pairs of tickets to the show.

I never understood why we gave away concert tickets to an artist's show that we never played, so I urged Rob to play "Copacabana" after we awarded the tickets during Friday's morning show.

"We can't break format!" he shot back. (Breaking format meant that we played a song that wasn't on our approved playlist of music.)

"Just play it," I casually said.

After a few more rounds of "I'm just here filling in and don't want to rock the boat...", Rob finally agreed to play the song. Within about 45 seconds of the song starting, the hotline in the studio started flashing. The hotline is a private phone line that only station employees use, and it's never a good thing when someone calls the hotline. Typically, the person calling is your boss asking what the hell you're doing. In this case, it was my mom. She called from work to say that she couldn't believe we were playing "Copacabana" and then hung up the phone. Phew! Crisis averted. After the show that morning, Rob immediately went home to avoid being yelled at by our Program Director, Mark (who never actually questioned us or seemed upset that we broke format). Rob later complimented me for being the voice that he used to be--the one that knew it's better to ask forgiveness than get permission.