Omens of Winnipeg    
Pat St. John was the Program Director of CFRW Winnipeg when he called me at my parents’ house in Toronto.  My mother answered the phone and he asked: “Can I speak to Nils?”
 
She called me to the phone and Pat said: “Hi Rick?  You've got the job and your new name is “Mark Elliot”.
 
Unsure, I said: “I don't like it.”
He said: “Do you want the job?”
I said: “I'll get used to it.”
 
Kimberly was perplexed and that was putting it mildly.
She had met me as “Rick Shannon”, fallen in love then run away with a guy who was now called “Nils Johanson” in Toronto and now my name was changing again to “Mark Elliot”.  She stopped calling me anything and referred to me in French as “Poupoune” or “Teddy Bear”.
We hit the road for Winnipeg and spent the first night in Parry Sound, Ontario.  That was where I first felt Kirsten move in her belly.  That was the most memorable part of the trip to Winnipeg.  Barry Manilow was singing “Mandy” and beginning his career of heartbreaking songs.  They play like an orchestration to this part of our lives.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRIylF76-wc

Poor and broke, it was hard on a shotgun relationship at the best of times and these were not the best of times.
 

I had moved up in status and salary by taking the job with the CHUM Network station CFRW Winnipeg.  In Canada this was the big time.  I started at $650 per month doing midnights.

The General Manager of the station had been a hero of my radio listening childhood, Bob Laine and when I got to work for him at CFRW Winnipeg I was in awe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEbqZhHxJA4
 
Laine noticed my slack jaw when we met.  He said “I hope you're not one of those Toronto kids who grew up with a radio under your pillow, because if you tell me a story like that I'm gonna deck you right here on the floor!”
 
I stammered and started shaking nervously as I muttered: “But, but, but, i-i-i-i-i did grow up listening to you...”
He decked me with one punch to the gut.
 
I avoided mentioning his past to him again until he gave me the cue that it was okay.
 
I'd be allowed “one question, and one question only” each time we met.  That made me think about it because I had marveled at his work on the air.  How did he come up with ideas for features?  How did he get his zany sound effects?  What were the best contests?  How could you make a name in the community?  Most importantly: How could I win the ratings?
 
He helped me develop the personality I’ve had on air ever since. It happened not long after I'd arrived.  I looked up at 3 am to the glass door of the control room and there was “Bob-O”, Bob Laine smiling with his thumbs up for what I'd just done on my last set.
 
He came into the control room and shook my hand.
“I like you kid!” he said with gusto.  “You're nuts!” he added as a compliment.
“I like it when I hear somebody try to make something out of this night shift, and you're the guy!”
“Meet me in my office tomorrow at 5 after the station closes and we're gonna start to work together...”


 
 
https://soundcloud.com/markelliot77/cfrw-1976
 
 
So began my daily trek to Bob's office for aircheck sessions and the first one was the most terrifying.  I knew I'd made a mess of a weather forecast in the first hour of my show that night and I expected to be chewed out for it.
 
Bob played my first break without saying anything.  On to the second where I flubbed the call-letters.
“SEE-EFF-ARE-DOUBLE-YOU!” he emphasized when he spoke to me.  “You're saying SEE-EFF-ARE-DUBBA-YOU!”  He rewound and played the offending passage again.  “Get it right!”
 
Yes-sir!
Next came a joke that fell flat.
“NO JOKE” he said without stopping the tape.  Another break, another “NO JOKE”.  He was tearing apart my stand up and obviously not amused.
 
Finally came the weather forecast that fell out sideways and upside down from my mouth.  Mangled and mutilated I laughed out loud on the air because I couldn't get it right no matter how hard I tried!
 
Laine listened, then brightened up smiling! “THAT'S FUNNY!”  “That's you being you!”
“Stop trying to be a comedian and just be yourself...That's funny!”
 
This was the best advice I was ever given for my career in radio.

 
 
He was right...I was nuts
I held myself together on the air, but off air was insanity.
 
Kimberly only lasted a day or two until I took my last $100 until payday and put her on a train to her sister’s home in Ontario.  I had entrusted my Aunt Alma to find me a place to live in Winnipeg and she'd fixed me up with an apartment in her building.
This seemed okay until I got there.  523 Logan Avenue in the notorious North End of Winnipeg was the worst part of town to find yourself in 1975.

This gives a rough idea about what 523 Logan looked like when I arrived
 
This was a slum.  A rickety old building that looked like it was going to fall over under the Salter Street Bridge.  The apartment was recently vacated when the tenant died.  It wasn't dirty as such, but old and worn out with leprous green paint and furniture that had been rejected from the Salvation Army Store.
 
This was NOT a place I'd choose to live.
I had never visited my aunt until I got to Winnipeg in 1975, but she had visited me many times growing up in Toronto.
 
She was thrilled when I came to Winnipeg, but what I had not foreseen was that she lived really poor.  My parents had made a break from the slums before I was born.
Alma had never left them.
This kind of poverty was something neither of us were expecting and until things got better Kim had to be in a safer spot.  She left for her sister’s home in Kitchener, Ontario not on good terms because I was nobody’s hero.  We were not happy and the arguments were brutal.
 
I was a junior in an entry-level position on a radio station 3000 miles from home.  I was on-trial for the first 3 months and could be let go at any time.  Alma made sure I didn't starve or go without pocket money, but it was hard those first two weeks until a paycheck appeared.
 
Payday, the first stop was the Safeway Grocery Store! Binge on everything I'd been missing!
Next was finding someplace else to live.
A deejay has fans from the first minute you are on the air.  Somebody would call for a song or a talk, or because they had nothing better to do.  A lot of times calls came looking for a date...
 
Rosalie Tremblay, the music director at CKLW Windsor warned the high school girls who answered their Listener request lines in the evenings: “These are not normal boys.  These are not boys like you meet in school.  You DO NOT want to date these boys!”
 
We were oversexed, over-drugged and drunk a lot of the time.  CHUM got a bunch of young, good-looking, good sounding boys to man their Top 40 radio stations across the country and we were all picture-perfect!
Naturally, this attracted attention.
I got my first stalker in Winnipeg.  She was really determined because in winter the temperature drops to -46 which in Celsius or Fahrenheit is damned COLD!
 
She would just “show up” as I left my apartment (She tracked me down).  Knew exactly when I was leaving for work or leaving the radio station. When I'd be in a restaurant or a bar.  I didn't realize until later how often people would be attracted to me.

He Called Himself "Butt Ugly" And was to establish the Seattle music scene in the 90's

Steve Young (Neil Hiltz) and I were journeymen together in Winnipeg 1975. I called him Neil and he called me Nils. We were two kids from Toronto who were homesick and living in Manitoban exile. It was SO DAMNED COLD!
I’d warm the car on a Friday night, letting it run quite a while before it was warm enough to drive. We didn’t know thermometers dropped to -50 Fahrenheit or Celsius. Steve did evenings on Q94 FM while I was on Midnights at 1470 CFRW AM. Our nights off coincided on Fridays so we hung together most of the time.

I wasn’t the only friend who tried to tell Steve that “Leisure Suits” weren’t cool anymore, but he didn’t get it. I don’t think either of us made enough money then to worry about “wardrobe” yet. Both of us were still unspooked by “the Business” and we were having fun.

I have a lot of memories of Steve from that year, and in every one of them he's wearing the same brown leisure suit.  He may have slept in it.

We had a Friday night ritual drive to the Trans-Canada Highway to drive up and down the overpass. The memory of what “a hill” was…Sort of. At least it was the closest thing two kids from Toronto could find in Winnipeg!

Steve was one of my best friends in every sense of the word. I may even be doing my job today because I called Steve after I’d completed rehab in 1988 and asked him “What do I do next?”
I was pretty sure I’d destroyed my career before I crashed and burned on the air in Ottawa in 1987.
Steve told me to forget about Ottawa and march right over to AM 800 CKLW/CKLW FM. “They don’t know what they’re doing…I hear them on scans of Detroit and they’re clueless”.
He was right, of course. I was able to rebuild my career from that advice and I made sure Steve knew it.
Steve always had time for a friend, in need or in deed!
I can’t say that about many people I’ve known but I’m proud to say it about Neil!

Steve and Jamie West-Oram of English group the Fixx.
 
The “Back to School 1976” campaign had me at The Hudson Bay Company Store in downtown Winnipeg.”

 
The Bay was a huge department store and I was doing cut-ins for the station from the teen section on the main floor.  Crowds showed up to meet the deejay.  The deejay though was completely oblivious to what was going on.  I finished work and Kimberly met me to shop for linens.
 
It was at the checkout line that she noticed a group of young girls gathered round watching me.  “His head is going to sleep on that pillowcase” one girl sighed as the cashier rang my purchase.
I had a fan club...

 
 
Lots of other things told me I was doing well.  My three month trial ended and I was on staff.  Also, I had to make regular appearances for the radio station at dances, fairs, and shows.
I emceed my first rock concert at the Winnipeg Arena.
 

ZZ top was appearing with Heart as their opening act.  The story-telling about me includes a tale of how I walked onstage and introduced “Zed Zed Top” in fluent Canadian!
I didn't actually do it; but I never argue with a good story.


We did an Easter Egg Hunt that year at Assiniboine Park in an event that never happened again!
Listeners dug up everything that wasn't nailed down, (Winnipeg City Parks was horrified at the destruction!) and my car wouldn't start that morning.

Assiniboine Park Winnipeg

I got to the radio station and all that was left was the station news-cruiser.  So, Kim and I piled into the car and drove to Assiniboine Park only to be mobbed when we drove in the gate.
We were the only ones fool enough to drive a marked cruiser with station call-letters screaming “1470 CFRW” on the sides.  A crowd mobbed the car and started bouncing us up and down, screaming for our lives as we thought we were going to die!
 
Don't Drive a Marked Station Vehicle to an Event.
We didn't die that day, because I got out of the car and talked the listeners into NOT killing us.
 

Wolfman Jack was another Winnipeg experience. 
“Join us in the Skyview Ballroom of beautiful Viscount Gort Hotel to meet Wolfman Jack!” the promo said.
The scene that afternoon was total chaos as thousands converged on the location and over-packed the room to the point that people were literally swinging from the chandeliers.  The Wolfman peeked from behind the curtains while the deejays were introduced.  I got a cheer, then the Wolf came out on stage and immediately the crowd surged.
Little kids in the front row were getting squashed and screaming.  The deejays started grabbing children while the staff hustled the Wolfman out of the hotel before someone was killed.

Wolfman was touring Canada for CHUM and doing live shows on all of their stations.  He did one with CFRW and met with the announcers.  “Was it true that the Mexican Army had stormed a radio station he ran in Mexico?” 

 https://soundcloud.com/markelliot77/wolfman-jack-xerf-1968

“Yes, it was true”.  Another asked if he’d really done shows from an airplane with a mobile transmitter.  “No, that never happened.” The Wolfman had stories to tell, and he was happiest when one of the guys pulled out a stash of pot.  At dinner that night at the posh Hotel Fort Garry there had been no table available when he arrived.  A $100 bill from his top pocket to the maitre'd made a table and chairs appear from nowhere!
 
My boss’s wife worked at a bank and the dinner conversation was about how to rob that bank.
He also paid a visit to our recording studio and made me my very own Wolfman Jack I.D.
 
 https://soundcloud.com/markelliot77/mark-elliot-with-wolfman-jack-1975-cfrw-winnipeg
 
“Ladies and Gentlemen you’re listening to Mark Elliot”.
I don't think I ever really appreciated my looks when I was a boy.
My family never said anything about my looks except that I looked ok.  It was taken for granted that we all looked fine.  I didn't think anything about my appearance until people started to take notice of me.
Tall people want to be short.  Fat people want to be thin.  Everybody seems to want to be a blonde.
I was tall, thin and blonde.
Famous with the teenagers who listened to my radio station, I got to be a “teen-idol”.

 The poster boy that girls & boys pinned up in their bedrooms beside their Leif Garrett posters.

 
Kimberly and I were unmarried.
Kirsten had been born in Quebec City and Kimberly’s family took her back eventually. That is to say they took Kimberly back home.  Not Kirsten.
I couldn't do anything because I was in Winnipeg and too broke to consider anything, but Kim's family still wanted Kirsten adopted and wouldn't allow her back into their home.
She was born on January 26th, 1976 but I couldn't reach Kimberly.  I didn't know which hospital in Quebec City she was in and her sister kept hanging up the phone when I called.
Eventually Kim's brother Michael picked up the phone and told me where she was.
I couldn't get time off from work and didn't have the money to send for Kim to join me so I called my sister Ingrid to ask if she could get my child from the hospital and she agreed.
 
Now the baby was safe, but not Kim.
 
Also, Kim was desperately sick following the birth.
She had endometriosis.  A disease where the lining of the womb does not flush out with her monthly period, but instead kept building up like a cancer inside of her.  She was always in pain and regularly needed care.  The only time it became inactive was when she was pregnant.
 
My mother had tried to talk me out of marriage to Kim and failed.
I think Mom knew that I was gay and this would be a disaster, but I couldn't keep from doing what I thought was the honorable thing.  This relationship was explosive and was to prove disastrous.
She always went after my face.
 
My sister used to slap me when I least expected it and Kimberly noticed one day when she raised her hand near my face that I winced.  “Why that reaction?” she asked, and I explained that I had a fear of being slapped.  “Poor thing!” she said, then always hit me in the face when we argued.
Once in Winnipeg when I had a public appearance she clawed my face like a tiger.
I couldn't appear at the event because of the marks on my face and when I did show up at work at the radio station I was hustled into the boss’s office immediately.
“What happened?” was Pat's hushed question.  My answer was that “I cut myself shaving...with a rake...”
Everybody knew we were “the battling Johanson's”.
The relationship was on again, off again, so many times that no one believed we'd ever settle down.
Finally, we gave it an agreement that if we headed back east we would try to make it work.
Still, with all the frictions and battles we were separated more than we were together.  Kirsten was settled with my sister, but without an adoption I couldn't keep her.  I had no rights at all as a father.
My family wanted Kirsten to stay in a stable home, as did I.
The lowest ebb was when I had to call Kimberly to beg that she sign over my daughter to my sister.
I thought for sure that we were done.
Then all was settled, and we reconciled again.
Who could predict that we'd get back together?
 

Last edited by Mark Elliot (September 29, 2015 4:05 pm)