If you’ve seen this link and wondered if it’s true, sadly, it is. If you haven’t seen it, you need to know that Paco, NYC radio legend, and my friend, needs your help. Paco was the first person I was ever on the air with and we’ve stayed in touch throughout the years. I’m hoping everyone who ever knew or listened to him will help him and his wife, Margarita, out by donating and letting others know. Below is how we met – and just one of the reasons this is so important to me, personally.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/disco-dj-quotpacoquot-92-ktu-mega-aka-manuel-navarro
It was May of 1992 when I got a call from a stranger named Oscar who told me he got my name from a producer of Spanish language commercials who told him I did voiceover work in both English and Spanish. Oscar said he worked for Metro Traffic and they provided traffic reporters to radio stations across the NY area and around the country. He said they needed a reporter who spoke Spanish for one of their Spanish language stations and asked me to come in to the studio to record a demo. I said “radio? Live? No way – not interested”. He continued to call me until he wore me down and I went into the studio to translate and record a demo for Radio WADO. Much to my surprise I was approved, and the next thing I knew Oscar was taking vacation for a week and I was to be on the air, on Radio WADO filling in for him.
I was terrified. Sure, I did voiceover work, but live radio? But I had agreed so at 4am on a Monday morning I was in the studio preparing to do my first reports. That shift was nerve-wracking but the report was in the middle of the newscast, so all I had to do was listen for them to say “here’s the traffic report” and then read the translation I had carefully prepared from the information the producers were gathering, and hope I didn’t screw up. But this was a split-shift and at 2pm I was back in the studio to do the afternoon reports. Before my first report I called the studio to tell the host I was standing by, as I’d been instructed, and I begged him to please, please just introduce the traffic and let me read my report and not talk to me or ask me anything because I was too nervous, it was my first day, and I had never done this before. We hang up, a couple of minutes later I’m on the air and the first thing the host says is “So Melissa, you’re filling in for Oscar this week – before you give the report tell us about yourself”.
That host was Paco.
I was mortified but muddled through and by the end of the week I had become much more comfortable. At week’s end I was congratulating myself on not only getting through it but actually enjoying it more each day, when I realized that Paco, the Paco who threw me under the bus that first day and who gradually through that first week was 100% responsible for making me more and more comfortable on the air, was the same PACO that I had grown up listening to on WKTU – Disco 92, and who was one of NYC’s great radio legends. I’m SO glad I didn’t know at the beginning of the week that I was about to spend my first week on the air with a radio superstar.
Paco and I worked together for years, first with me filling in on WADO and then later when he moved to Suave 93.1 / Amor 93.1 and had Metro assign me to his shift. From the early days we became good friends and he was one of the people I most enjoyed working with during my time at Metro. We used to meet up a couple times a week after work at a bar/restaurant on W. 56th street, sometimes with another of the DJ’s or reporters, often with his wife Margarita and of course the locals most of whom had nothing to do with radio but were our after-work hangout crew.
We’ve kept in touch all these years and most recently spoke about 6 or 7 months ago. I spoke with Margarita last week and the news is devastating. Cancer and Alzheimers – and on top of the horrific effects of both diseases, they’re struggling terribly under the weight of all the medical bills. They need help and I’m asking you – especially my NY radio peeps – to lend a hand, by spreading the word and donating.
Thank you, all.