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.

Don Henley "Taking You Home"

Being a part-time radio DJ meant that you held down another full-time job (usually outside of radio) and you generally only worked weekends and holidays. However, the reality is that your boss could phone you and ask you to cover a shift with little to no notice.

One night, late in the evening, my roommate knocked on my door to tell me that my boss was on the phone. I immediately knew he would be asking me to cover the overnight shift. That next day, my corporate boss from the New York publishing company where I worked was holding an important morning meeting that I needed to attend. He rarely traveled to our office and also had a name much like an adult movie star, so I was eager to meet him. I explained this to my boss who assured me that I would only have to cover from midnight until 1:30 A.M. because Kelli, another part-time DJ, would take over from there. Kelli worked as a bartender at a restaurant that closed at 1:00 A.M. and she would drive to the station immediately afterward. I was a sprite young 24 year-old who could easily bounce back from a night with five or six hours, so I agreed to work with the understanding that I would be home by 2:00 A.M.. My boss thanked me, and I hopped in a cab and headed to work.

Around 1:45 A.M., the radio station's hotline rang. The hotline is a special phone number that only employees of the station knew and used. It's rarely a good thing when the hotline rings (in fact, most stations have a strobe light that flashes to alert you when someone is phoning the hotline). Usually, that line is reserved for an angry Program Director calling to tell you what you did wrong or for fellow DJs to tell you they're running late. Kelli, who was already 15 minutes late, called to tell me she was in a car accident and would be late. Kelli's voice sounded shaken and frail. She said she wasn't injured and had to wait for the police to file an accident report and possibly might need a tow truck for her SUV. Remembering my early morning meeting at my other job, I asked her not to worry, just do what she needed to do and keep me posted. Nearly an hour later, she phoned again to say that she was almost done with the police and would soon be on her way...provided her car would cooperate. At this point, it was nearly 2:00 A.M. I told her not to worry about coming into work--I would cover the entire shift. Relieved, Kelli thanked me and told me she would pay me back somehow. I hurriedly phoned my boss's office at the magazine and left a voicemail explaining what happened and to say that I would be a little late coming into work in the morning.

With a solid two to three hours of sleep, I dragged myself into work later that morning but could not find anyone at their desks, in their cubicles or even in the company's break room. My boss' office door was closed, so I knew at least someone was there. Plus, there were purses and briefcases strewn about other people's cubicles, but no other people. I dropped my coat and backpack down and sat at my desk to check email and voicemail. Aside from the usual client email, I noticed an email from our corporate market manager with the porn star name. Before I could read the contents of the email, my boss was standing behind me and asked me to join him in his office. I walked with him to his office where he introduced me to a man sitting at his desk--at last, I finally met the corporate boss with the porn star name! This portly man (who was definitely not a porn star) informed me that our parent company discontinued one of the magazines in our office and also dismissed all but five people from my office. The Chicago office housed production, sales and editorial whereas our New York office contained billing, circulation and the corporate big wigs. Gone were our editorial and production folks including people I hired as well as others with 30-some years of service. Somehow, I was one of the five whose jobs were spared. When my boss at the radio station called me that afternoon to thank me for covering the entire overnight shift, I filled him in on the mass firings. He apologized again and promised to repay me in some way. Before too long, he would help rescue me from my job at the failing magazine with a newly created job at the radio station....

Toni Basil - "Mickey"

Being the low man on the totem pole at the radio station, I was assigned the 8pm to midnight shift on New Year's Eve in 1996.  I was all of 19 years old and (believe it or not) didn't drink, so me and my girlfriend manned the controls that evening.  My role was quite simple as the entire shift was voice-tracked (meaning someone else had already recorded all the intros to the songs -- my job was to play back those tracks).  The shift opened with an hour of 80s music ("The 80s at 8") followed by three hours of music.  I learned what happens when the music director schedules the music long before the commercials are merged -- as there was about 45 minutes of music scheduled and only about 5 minutes of commercials.  That meant I had 10 minutes to fill.  So, I quickly hurried to find music.  I found an 80s compilation CD and cued up the first song.  It was "Mickey" from Toni Basil.  Fine.  I hated the song, but I needed a song (or three) to fill out the hour.  After I started the song, I lowered the volume of the speaker in the studio and went back to finding another song to use as a time filler.  At some point, the hotline to the radio station started to ring.  The hotline is a special phone number for employees of the station to call if and when they need to speak to the DJ (I would later learn the Program Director only calls this number to yell at the on-air talent).  A strobe light illuminates whenever someone called this number, so it always got your heart racing as your inner voice screamed "What?!? What did I do?!?".  The person who called the hotline that New Year's Eve was the woman who did traffic for the station.  Our traffic folks worked at a remote facility and could hear the station through their headphones.  She told me how happy she was to hear the song playing while she was stuck working on New Year's Eve and how it was making her laugh.  Laugh?  Why would "Mickey" make her laugh, I wondered?  Anyway, I explained to her how I needed to fill some time and then she informed me that I was playing the SPANISH version of "Mickey"(!).  WHAT?!? (¿Como?)  I quickly raised the volume and sure enough...I was playing the damn Spanish version of the already awful song ("Mickey tu eres bien").  This was one of my first major freak outs in radio and I was convinced I would be fired or, at the very least, never find my name on the schedule again.  Thankfully, luck was on my side that night as none of the bosses happened to be listening (or they were already drunk) and it was never mentioned (until today).

Edwin McCain - "I Could Not Ask For More"

I worked as a Morning Show Producer for an Adult Contemporary radio station in the early-2000s.  One such interview I scheduled for the morning show was a phone interview with Edwin McCain.  McCain had two huge hits to close out the 20th Century: "I'll Be" and "I Could Not Ask for More".  There's a special phone line in radio studios called the "hot line".  Only station personnel is supposed to use the hot line, but we also give that number to publicity people when we book interviews.  When the hot line rang that morning, a man with a thick country accent said, "Hello, I'm Edwin McCain.  I believe I have an interview with y'all."  I almost didn't put the call through believing it to be a prank.  But, low and behold, Edwin has quite the thick southern accent.