Now, two paragraphs ago, we wrote there were two things that contributed to this decision. What was the second thing? Well, Beau had started feeling itchy about his home living situation. This is the only part of this page of the website that Beau felt awkward about describing to this writer. He feels his family situation is none of anyone's business. He doesn't want to get into any arguments with anyone over what he "should have" done in his life when those people just weren't there. That's why there is no description in here of who Beau lived with as he was growing up, either at birth or in 1983. Let's just say that, as mentioned once or twice before above, he had a "supervisor" at home. Most people have parents; Beau and the others living in his home had a "supervisor." Well, the thought of him taking a course for two years, followed by him looking up and wondering, "What do I do now?" upon graduation, with no money coming in, didn't exactly thrill Beau. It meant at least two more years of living with his "supervisor." And if Beau hadn't quit Red River, he sure as hell didn't want classmates in study groups coming to his place because he didn't want anyone meeting his "supervisor." (During anything Beau has described above, all his activities involving friends took place elsewhere; no one ever came into Beau's home, not since the brothers a few times in the 1970's.) Beau was 21 now and itching to get away from his "supervisor." He originally thought he could hack it for two more years while he was at school. But two years can still be a pretty long time to a 21-year old.
So it's now late September 1983. Beau Hajavitch is still living at home, and has no clue what to do with his life. Too bad you couldn't make a living playing air guitar, singing the songs to, and generally wanking out to the new Kiss album, the first without their makeup, "Lick It Up." Beau decided it was about time that he get away from his "supervisor" and move out on his own. But that would have to wait just one more year.
Beau took a job as a courier driver. This lasted only nine months, but for more positive reasons. This job was a nightmare. Courier jobs are not meant for used cars, and Beau didn't really realize this. The used car he had been driving, which he had purchased from the aforementioned schoolmate who got him his McDonald's job, died during this time, and Beau bought another used car. But with the rigors of the courier job came the ever-constant need for car repairs, as his new car was now on the road for well over 40 hours a week as Beau made his deliveries. Beau had kept his little Chicken Delight delivery job through this whole period, too, so he now had two jobs that consisted of delivering things. Have you ever delivered things non-stop on a Friday from 8:15 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.? This meant that Beau's car broke down frequently, and when it did, that meant Beau was off work and not getting paid. So it's like a double whammy, because then you're paying expensive bills for car repairs at the same time the money has stopped coming in. Beau found that all the income that was coming in from the courier job was being poured into keeping his car on the road, with very little left for him.
In the middle of these nine months, though, Beau had become faster at doing the job, and eventually cut loose the Chicken Delight delivery driver job. This gave Beau more time to begin applying for jobs again.
Beau applied for every job in the paper he thought he could do, or try to do, mostly office jobs. Things like "order desk clerk," or "order filler." Beau didn't know what those jobs were, but they sounded stable. He must have photocopied and sent that resume a hundred times. He had never worked so diligently at finding a job in his life. He needed to be able to afford to live on his own.
Finally, in the summer of 1984, one company came calling. It was a pharmaceutical wholesaler, one of those that had the job listed as "order filler." Beau found out this had meant picking products off shelves (i.e. "orders") and putting them in boxes to send to Manitoba and Ontario drug stores. Beau took the job on July 30, 1984. The courier job was kissed goodbye. (So was Beau's car soonafter; he bought the first brand new car of his life in 1986.) As a result, after only three months on the job (that was enough), Beau left his "supervisor" for good, never to be seen again, and moved into his own apartment in the hip and trendy Osborne Village area of Winnipeg. He has never looked back.
Beau has been with this company ever since. As this website is being written in 1998-2000, he is still there. He only spent the first year and a half actually filling orders, though. Beau has worn various hats in his time there, from warehousing of pharmaceuticals to buying merchandise to receiving of merchandise in the company's computer system. He currently is the company's returns clerk, checking off overstocked and expired merchandise from those same Manitoba and Ontario drug stores and sending the expired merchandise back to the suppliers for credit. (And you probably thought merchandise in stores that goes beyond the expiration date just gets thrown in the garbage, right?) Beau has made the kind of money he never dreamed of making at this company, enabling this kid from St. Vital who had never really been out of Winnipeg before to fly to, in his years there, places like Toronto (three times), Minneapolis (three times), Vancouver, Seattle, Montreal, Philadelphia, New York, Orlando, and Los Angeles, not to mention to drive by car numerous times to all those places in North Dakota like Grand Forks, Fargo, and Minot.
But, hold on here.......what about Hard Rock Heroes?
You now have the impression in your mind that throughout Beau Hajavitch's life he has desired to focus on his personal life, just using his job as the means to further his personal life, whether that meant being a fan of rock and roll and the music industry, or being a fan of television and the television industry, or just going to bars looking for girls. Well, now that Beau's working and home lives had been settled, and improved, Beau retuned to focusing again on his personal life.
But as far as friends went, that part of Beau's life was in a state of flux. As time got farther and farther away from the McDonald's era, the more he and the friends he still had from that era went in different directions. Some residue continued for a while; Beau's best friend he had bought his first car from and had gotten his McDonald's job from had acquired a doorman's job at a biker-bar type beverage room. So Beau started hanging around there a lot. When you work at a McDonald's for three years, you literally meet hundreds of people, so lots of people Beau and his friend knew would drift in and out of the bar. This was around 1987 and 1988.
But by around 1989 or so, things had pretty much changed. One friend of Beau's disconnected his phone and up and got married to a girl he had basically just met, not telling Beau anything. He sure changed his life in a hurry. Another guy that hung around their little group tried to pick up the same girl Beau was after in a bar when he had a pregnant girlfiend at home. That was the end of that guy in Beau's life.
But it's not like Beau was ever starved for people or things to do. One era seemed to just float into another era by coincidence. (Now, finally, we start our slow ascent into the Hard Rock Heroes era.)
On radio station 97 ROCK KIS-FM (call letters CKIS), a new radio team had started to attract some attention. They were Tom and Larry, and they worked together in the late morning on the station, Monday to Friday. Their pairing was an accident; Tom was the DJ on that shift, and Larry was the newsman who had been on the air since 6:00 a.m. But Tom wanted someone to be his companion, and Larry became his sounding board. Together, they manned the boards for several very goofy call-in shows that, for some unknown reason, attracted all these regular callers who would become these "characters" on the air. Listeners tuned in to these shows like The Morning Prize Question, What The Heck Was That, and the Animal Call, just to hear these goofy regulars calling in as these characters. There were original characters such as Mr. Yahoo, Alcoholic Andy, and Steve Slueth, and some were doing their impressions of celebrities like Arnold Schwartzenegger or Bobby Hull. Sometimes they would take a stab at playing the game or answering the question, and sometimes they would just give an outrageous answer for Tom and Larry to laugh at and to "buzz" them off the air with their famous buzzer. To add to the fun, Tom did live versions of these call-in shows Monday nights at a bar called Bullwinkle's under the "Psychedelic Mondays" banner. "Psychedelic Sundays" was an oldies show on the station, which was supposed to translate to that kind of music being played in Bullwinkle's on Monday nights as a promotion. But by sticking Tom's live "Prize Question," etc. in the mix, the music became forgotten, the hits of the day were just played, and the term "Psychedelic Mondays" took on a whole new meaning.
Now, Beau was at work during the time Tom and Larry were doing their schtick. But on certain days, Beau found some time, and decided he wanted to be part of this cornball humor. So he started calling in as David Lee Roth.
He had Tom and Larry in stiches with his occasional calls. But the best was yet to come.
Tom and Larry were such a hit that they were tranferred to afternoon drive on the station. This was excellent news for Beau, as this was during an era where Beau was working from 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the wholesale. This meant that when Tom and Larry did the call-in shows, Beau would not be at work any more. He would be on the way home from work, or at home. This led to some weird ingenuity on Beau's part; he couldn't get home in time for certain call-ins, so he would call in from pay phones on his way home. Beau was constantly searching for good, isolated pay phones on his way home, where there would be no one around to hear him scream that familiar greeting into the receiver of, "WELL, HEY MAN, LIKE, IT'S DAVID LEE ROTH, MAN, HOW'S IT GOING?" In addition, Beau of course needed to tape every time he got on the air, so he carried a ghetto blaster around with him in his car. He would keep it on with him as he dialed (to make sure the call-in segment wasn't over yet) and started taping with the sound down once the phone rang. Beau started attending Pychedelic Mondays much more frequently, doing the David Lee Roth schtick there live. That was great fun. Tom started doing more schtick on Thursdays at The Diamond Club, another rock club, after the KIS FM Thursday night band radio simulcast, and the regulars, including Beau as David Lee Roth, joined him there, too. Other DJs on KIS FM started their own call-in shows, and some of Tom and Larry's regulars called in to those, too, including "Diamond Dave." Most notable among these were Jack Hammer's and Tiger "Tigger" Williams (that's a hot babe, folks)' overnight shows on Friday and Saturday nights and Brother Jake's morning show Monday to Friday with his "Early Morning Prize Question." (That's interesting, to call in doing "David Lee Roth" at 6:10 in the morning in your underwear after you've only been out of bed for two minutes. Your prep for that consists of thinking of a funny answer lying in bed as you're waking up.)
Everyone around town was starting to know Beau as a bonafide minor celebrity, as the guy who did "David Lee Roth" on 97 ROCK KIS FM. Meanwhile, Beau noticed a weird little cable access TV show was starting to gain controversy and popularity in Winnipeg.
Everyone knows what "cable access", or "public access" is by now; Do-it-yourself TV on a channel that your cable company is obligated to provide by the broadcast regulator, the CRTC in Canada or the FCC in the United States. In Canada, the regulations are much stricter as to what goes on and what doesn't. In the U.S., you just pay your money and you can do whatever you want. In Canada, there is no money exchange allowed and your program must be one that benefits the community. Considering that, it's a wonder The Pollock and Pollock Show slipped through the cracks.
The Pollock and Pollock Show consisted of a middle-aged brother and sister team with the last name of Pollock who did everything from silly, crazy dancing around and outrageous antics to political commentary, all while dressed in outrageous outfits. Apparently the show didn't start out that way but "evolved" into that. Beau became aware of the show like many Winnipeggers did, by reading a local newspaper columnist who started writing about the show often. After tuning in a few times on Thursday nights, Beau saw that the Pollocks were constantly screaming for people to come and join them on their show. They already had one regular, a little guy who liked to dance shirtless and wearing a Lone Ranger mask. Beau thought this would be the perfect place to showcase his "David Lee Roth" talents on television, to broaden his horizons to a more farther-reaching audience than the crowds of Bullwinkle's denizens who attended "Psychedelic Mondays" Monday nights at 1:00 a.m.
Beau called up the Pollocks and after an interview, he was accepted to join the fun on the show. Beau basically did his Psychedelic Mondays thing; since those live appearances were just an extension of the radio call-ins, Beau felt no need to try to look like the real David Lee Roth; it was all more in the attitude and swagger. At Bullwinkle's and The Diamond Club, Beau just wore sunglasses and a straw hat covered with rock merchandise, along with a funny or rock band t-shirt. Same for The Pollock and Pollock Show. Beau continued his Roth mannerisms, like screaming, "WHOAA-OHHHHH!!" and Beau's own patented takeoff on Roth, saying "man" a little too often than the real former Van Halen singer would. But it didn't last.
The first two shows were fine. At the taping of the third show, the Pollocks, especially the sister, demanded that Beau not wear the hat or sunglasses or say "man" all the time. They lost all understanding of what Beau was trying to do. Beau was not trying to showcase himself here; this was just another extension of the radio call-ins as "David Lee Roth." Beau didn't want to do anything that wasn't as Diamond Dave. So Beau stormed out of the third taping and went home. He didn't appear on that, or any other, Pollock and Pollock Show again.
Actually, by this time, coincidentally, the radio gig was starting to dry up as well. 97 ROCK KIS FM was at the time illegally operating as a rock station, when their licence from the CRTC specified they were supposed to be an adult contemporary station. The powers-that-be finally caught up to the station and demanded that they uphold their licence or their broadcasting licence would be taken away from them. Thus they did, causing key on-air personnel who wouldn't be caught dead working at a soft-rock station to leave. This shifted Tom and Larry to the morning show, as neither Tom nor Larry opted to leave town. This also meant their call-in shows had to become much more real (like TV game shows) and much less zany, as outrageous jokes, antics, and stunts are not suited to soft-rock stations, at least they weren't then. This meant that for around three calls in a row, once Beau got past his "David Lee Roth" intro, Tom would just say something like, "Have a nice day!" and hang up on him. At a subsequent "Psychedelic Mondays," Tom told Beau not to call in any more. Beau wanted to give Tom a piece of his mind (after all, Tom couldn't tell Beau what to do: Beau didn't work for KIS FM and he felt he could call in whenever he wanted, maybe even as himself), but he still had that night's schtick to do onstage and didn't want to do anything to jeaprodize it. (By then, Beau was a regular user of props onstage.) Beau had brought a friend with him that night to witness what would be one of the last "Psychedelic Mondays" nights. After Beau finished his schtick, he walked offstage, his smile turned into a frown, and he said to his friend, "Okay, let's get out of here." That was the end of Beau's "David Lee Roth" days.
(Ironically, the Canadian FM radio regulations changed just a year later in 1991, eliminating the designation between "soft" rock and "hard" rock. Today, that station is called Power 97 and is Winnipeg's top-rated rock station. Neither Tom nor Larry are on it anymore, and have split up as a team. They are both still on the air in Winnipeg at other stations.)
So the radio gig was gone, so was the TV gig, and Beau had gotten bit by the TV bug. So what was Beau to do? Do his own show? No, not quite.....how about.....scam his way onto someone else's show?
When Beau did the Pollocks' show, he met a guy at the cable company named Curtis who was a volunteer there, working on the technical aspects of producing television shows. Curtis also produced and hosted his own wrestling show called "The Wrestling Analysis." Beau was, and still is, a huge wrestling fan and the two hit it off right away. Curtis offered Beau his own opinion segment on The Wrestling Analysis, and Beau jumped on it. Again, Beau did about three or four segments before he was turfed from the show because Curtis' co-host didn't like the segment. But this little stint was important, because it was Beau's first shot at just being himself on television and not as the outrageous "David Lee Roth." After Beau taped his last show with Curtis, he told the production staff of his new idea, to start his own rock show to be maybe called "Hard Rock Heroes" or something like that. Beau had his interview with the cable company, and after telling them he could benefit the community by providing coverage of local Winnipeg rock bands, his new show was accepted.
And, with that, presto! Hard Rock Heroes was born. Hard Rock Heroes debuted on November 22, 1990. It lasted almost three years and a more detailed biography of the show itself can be found in the "Show Biography" portion of this website. It was definitely the biggest, and the most wonderful and most notable thing Beau had ever experienced since his early McDonald's days. Through a girl he had tried to pick up in a bar he met another girl named Tracie who was a big fan of rock bands and who had just had Slaughter over at her house when they opened at the Winnipeg Arena for Cinderella (and when Beau interviewed Slaughter on Hard Rock Heroes). They hit it off as friends and Tracie and Diane became Beau's camerapeople when he did interviews. Beau had to buy a camcorder and proper microphone and do all the location legwork for Hard Rock Heroes himself, along with Tracie and Diane, because most bands that would appear on Hard Rock Heroes play in bars between midnight and 2:00 a.m., well past the time the camera and sound equipment need to be locked up for the day back at the cable company's studio. In fact, the Cinderella/Slaughter concert was the only time Beau ever used the cable company's equipment.
The stage was now set for the latest era in Beau's life. Through Tracie and Diane, Beau became friends with many local rock bands. Through Beau's own legwork for the show, he met other bands. It created a whole new social circle of people in Beau's life, although the funny thing about it was this social climate now existed entirely in bars. Whereas in the past there was school, McDonald's, house parties, bush parties, or just the inside of a guy's van, now the scene was firmly in Winnipeg's bars and nightclubs like The Zoo, The Diamond Club, Night Moves, and Georgie's. Remember, Beau had both a full-time job and a TV show going (and he still had to do the dishes and the ironing), so there wasn't time for a whole lot. But Beau knew that on any given weekend night, he could go to one of these places and there would be members of Shanghai Slash, Leathur Dogz, Specula Black, or Ballroom Zombies hanging out there, not to mention all the girls. The ugly grunge scene had not quite hit yet in Winnipeg around 1991 or 1992, so girls were still looking like sexy hairband groupies in the bars then. With Hard Rock Heroes going, pickup lines became so easy for Beau; he just had to start talking about his show, albeit a lot more guys recognized him in the bars from Hard Rock Heroes than girls. "I don't watch TV," said most girls. ("Oh well, at least we're talking, baby," thought Beau.)
In August 1993, Hard Rock Heroes, along with every other cable access program on the channel, was cancelled. (See "Show Biography" on this website for more info.) This sent Beau into a tailspin. Coincidentally, Beau was starting to do through some office politics at his wholesale job, which would manifest itself in various forms straight through to 1996 and once more in 1997. And not only that but by 1993 the grunge and alternative scene had hit and 80's cock-rock hairbands were falling by the wayside left and right, including the mainstays in Winnipeg's music scene. It's as if the cancellation of Hard Rock Heroes induced the cancellation of Winnipeg's music scene. Girls in bars looked downright ugly and completely untalk-to-able. It seemed like both the world and Beau's world came to a screeching halt. The world came to an end and started all over again.
Beau at this point felt totally drained but didn't know why. Beau had applied to Muchmusic for a VJ position three times during the Hard Rock Heroes run, even landing an interview with Nancy Oliver of Much. (Beau had to walk through the "Much environment" to get to her office and was one of the big thrills of Beau's life.) After the third time, though, Beau felt he was spinning his wheels on the show, and he guesses it was just pure adrenalin keeping him going those last few months, because after the show ended, he just didn't want to do anything and he couldn't figure out why. He tried looking into therapy, but that cost $90.00 an hour, so screw that. (Beau might pay $9.00 an hour.) As far as legitimate media gigs at real Winnipeg radio and TV stations, Beau figured he was open to offers from those stations. Those offers never came. (Beau didn't want to work in commercial radio anyway; that was the enemy of Hard Rock Heroes. But there's more on that subject on the "Show Biography" page of this website.)
So life went on. In his personal life, Ballroom Zombies had just started as a band as Hard Rock Heroes was ending, so their gigs helped ease the pain Beau was experiencing as he was being "shit on" at his job in the mid-90's and as he was going through post-Hard Rock Heroes syndrome. Also, just as Hard Rock Heroes was ending, Beau met Kelly Fairchild, who Beau was never able to do anything with on the show, but whose bands, first Skare Lewys and The Maroons, then Dik Trickle, also helped to keep the rock and roll faith through the turbulent middle part of the decade.
The one good thing about Beau's work life during this period was that in March 1994 Beau started to work on a computer. Coincidentally, at around the same time a little new invention called the internet was starting to gain ground as a new pastime that would go on to change the world forever. Being both a big rock fan and a big wrestling fan (and a television fan), Beau became very interested in this new thing called the internet and spent the next few years teaching himself how to "do" both the internet and Windows (and computers) in general. Beau took courses and hung out at Zine's InfoCafe, a combination cafe/magazine shop/internet surfing place on Corydon Avenue. Beau was hooked and loved it. He bought his own computer and went through the trials and tribulations of getting it and his combination printer/scanner and the device that captures TV pictures (like the Hard Rock Heroes pictures you see on this website) going. The ultimate product of those years is this website you are reading right now.
Beau's work problems began to subside in 1996 or so, and with one brief exception in 1997, that part of his life has remained fairly stable as Beau heads into 1999 and 2000, except that Beau now has a position that requires a lot of man-hours. Beau sleeps a lot as a result, which has to do with why it has taken so long for this Hard Rock Heroes website to get started. Beau has worked very slowly and very patiently in getting this site uploaded, and he feels it is worth it because it documents a very important time in his life that can be well-documented and that the Winnipeg general public also may find some interest in. "Who is this guy?" you may have asked. Well, now you know.
Life is not as good as it once was for Beau, but it's okay. Beau is 37 now, way too old for Muchmusic, but it doesn't matter that much anymore. Grunge is finally gone and flashy girls and clothes are back in again. Girls in today's clubs like The Roxy, UfRia, and Wise Guys are looking nice again. (Except now they're 20 years younger, not just 10 years younger like the people Beau hung out with when he did Hard Rock Heroes.) Beau still sees some of his old Hard Rock Heroes friends when he has the time to go out. I guess time heels all wounds, although in this case the aging process is probably a factor too. In 2000, Beau loves Britney Spears, but he has recognized that in this second life of his, things have changed and that this isn't his music world anymore. It belongs to another generation now. Beau will never feel the affinity toward Limp Bizkit or The Backstreet Boys that he felt toward Styx, The Village People, or Warrant and Poison. Beau still keeps up with music a bit but realizes he is a bystander now. Beau isn't in high school or even in his 20's now. The people he went to high school with or worked at McDonald's with all probably have families, mortgages, and children now, while at 37, Beau works, sleeps, does housework, surfs the net and builds this site, and watches Nitro, Thunder, and Raw (and once in a while, Smackdown). (Among other TV, but those wrestling shows alone are at least six hours per week!)
So what's next for Beau Hajavitch as he enters middle age? This writer doesn't know, but he does feel that it's funny that he's writing Beau's mini-biography as part of this website at the same time that all these wrestlers are writing books like Mankind, The Rock, Diamond Dallas Page, Arn Anderson, and Ted Dibiase. Because he feels that after reading all the celebrity biographies you can read, including those wrestlers' biographies, that you'll never read a biography that's quite like this one. I know that Beau hopes you wish him well and that you'll enjoy the rest of this website. No one knows what the future will hold in store. But I think we should all realize that whatever life holds in store, good or bad, it adds to our psyche, makes us stronger, and hopefully makes us wiser. Thanks and take care.
