Alias Poor Yorick

ALIAS POOR YORICK                       © J.M.Browett  

Vic Rhodes was a friend of mine. And a bit of a bastard. But that was what he wanted you to think. Behind it all was a man with a heart of gold.

 Famous for shows such as “Kentucky Fried Tofu”, “Dude Where’s My Cartesian Dualism Thesis” & “The Unbearable Lightness of Barry”, Vic was more than just a stand-up. He was an actor, director and producer, a singer, a motivational speaker, and briefly, a pimp in Collingwood. He told me “when life hands you lemons, go buy salt and tequila”

Vic died as he lived; on stage and falling over for no apparent reason. His death is still a mystery. Police found no suspicious circumstances, and an autopsy revealed only that one member of Milli Vanilli could actually sing and that Milley Cyrus is proof that Satan walks amongst us today. Pause for laughter, oops sorrow I wasn’t meant to read that bit out but I’m sure Vic would appreciate the joke. He ought to; he stole it from me five years ago and used it at Edinburgh two years running.

He was a quintessentially Melbourne comic, a local with an international reputation and a skewed and whimsical world view that made him universally loved and respected. I’m reading from his bio here. He once said to me “the truth will set you free but it doesn’t belong on your CV.” A veteran of seventeen Melbourne International Comedy Festivals, seven Edinburgh festivals and a prize-winning run at two Montreal Festivals with his controversial improv show  “I’M NOT SURE HOW THIS WILL GO I DROPPED TWO TABS OF ACID BEFORE THE SHOW, SHOW”  He  told me he wasn’t interested in the ‘easy’ laugh. Or the really difficult one. What he wanted was the laugh in the middle. I asked what this meant & he said  “ You can lead a pig to water but it still won’t be able to make a decent cup of tea” He was a man of whom it was often said “get this bastard out of here he’s drunk’

  There was so much more to him than the Vic we loved-to-hate on his  short-lived breakfast show “   Dicko&Dano&Davo&Jonno& Biffo& Beano& Heppo & Dero and Root the wonder-girl” cancelled after that tasteless prank call to the P.M. claiming to understand the economy

Nor would you get a true picture of Vic from his bio which insisted he was not a “comics’ comic’ but more of a panel beaters’ comedian.

He was a man of depth, and after he quit smoking, some width. I remember he said to me that he wasn’t one of those comedians hiding the tears of a clown, but more the inchoate rage of the dyslexic welterweight boxer. I’d ask him what this meant and he’d smile and call me a Philippine.

 Vic never chose the easy path , and this sometimes lead to failure: his proposed film bio of  70’s “warrior-rocker” Hawkefeather Firestone collapsed when we found out Hawkefeather had no American-Indian blood whatsoever and was notable only for having choked to death on someone else’s vomit. But that was Vic all over – always on the side of the underdog

 He identified with the oppressed and the dispossessed. He told me he felt somehow a cross between gangsta rapper Notorious B.I.G and Lenny Bruce, and I think you’d agree you don’t get that too often in a Xavier old boy. He was different.

Vic was a true innovator. Early in his career he spurned theatrical venues and developed his now-famous “taxi’ show, impersonating a taxi driver and taking his unsuspecting ‘audience’ on a long and meandering trip with a hilariously slanderous and scurrilous monologue before charging them $500 and dumping them at Ferntree Gully. This brilliant concept was stolen not only by other comedians but many taxi-drivers.

He was always in the vanguard of comedy. A whole show without jokes?  that was one of his. Abusing critics who complained that shows without jokes weren’t very funny? That was his idea. Arranging a hoax kidnapping of the family of the critic who gave his show “F--- I’m drunk” only a two-star review? That was definitely one of his. And it was technically a hoax because he never intended to keep them locked up for long. Was he serious? Who knows?  I often thought of him as an enigma. Or possibly criminally insane.

 He told me to make this public if anything ever happened to him:  it says “Paul McDermott you f-----g rich f------g bastard that whole wearing a suit and being funny that was my idea you stole it from me and you never even had me on your f------g show you f-------g bastard” And that’s Vic all over, even in death always thinking of others. Heart of gold. Brain of a syphilitic Hanoverian nobleman, but of a heart of gold.

Of course there was more to Vic than just Vic Rhodes the wildly successful comedian, there was Vic Rhodes the we’re-fairly-over-you-but there’s-still-a-job-for-you-on-the-Footy-show comedian. There were also his extensive charity commitments, overlooked by many, including Vic himself.  And who could forget his wild man antics out front of his band “ Three other guys who have to do what I say because I’m a star “ ? F--- I wish I could. Songs like “Kylie I want to root you” and “Nicole Kidman I want to root you too” will stay with some of us forever. Maybe longer.  

It’s impossible to sum up Vic Rhodes’ life in a single word, although “finished” certainly comes to mind. Perhaps the essence of this man can best be summed up by a line from his ill-fated TV Pilot cleverly titled “Ill-Fated TV Pilot” where the lead character, a hard-bitten stand-up comic turned hard-bitten writer says to his friend “ Doesn’t matter what you’re writing mate, porn for Penthouse or a eulogy for an old friend, if you’re paid for a thousand words, you write exactly a thousand words and then you