Democracy Manifest: The Succulent Life of Jack Karlson

​"Gentlemen, this is Democracy Manifest!"

​In 1991, a man named Jack Karlson was apprehended by police outside the China Sea Restaurant in Brisbane, delivering what would become the most iconic monologue in internet history. But what is the true story behind the "Succulent Chinese Meal" guy?

 Was he a dangerous criminal, a misunderstood artist, or simply a man who knew his judo well?

​In this episode, we dive deep into the wild life of the man also known as Cecil George Edwards. We move beyond the viral video to explore Karlson’s history as a serial prison escapee, a master of disguise, and a legendary Australian larrikin. From the "charge" of eating a meal to his final years as a celebrated folk hero, we investigate the man who turned a routine arrest into a performance for the ages.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Honourable Mentions. Hello, listener, and welcome back to another episode of Honourable Mentions.

SPEAKER_04 0:18

Hello, Neil. Oh, that's Dave. What's up, bood?

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Can you do honourable mentions in an Australian accent, please? Go.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

Honourable mentions? Because they go upwards when they finish a sentence.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Of course. I've been to Australia.

SPEAKER_04 0:32

Have you ever been to Australia? Clang! Sorry, there's a name drop there. I'll better pick that one up.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

So I'll tell you an amusing story. When you go to Australia, you go to Sydney, you go to Sydney, and in the middle of Sydney, they've got a harbour, which is called Sydney Harbour. And then over that harbour, linking the two sides together, they have a bridge. And it's called Sydney Harbour Bridge.

SPEAKER_04 1:04

I'm sorry, I I I just completely drifted off. Anecdote for you there.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Was it an anecdote? My worthy travels. But the reason I asked you to do Honorable in an Australian accent. Honorable mentions, mate. Today, mate. Are you doing any of those honourable mentions today, mate? That sort of stuff. It's because we're heading to Australia for today's episode.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

So you're ready and strapped in?

SPEAKER_04 1:36

I'm strapped on, yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

No, not if you've got your strap-ons. Are you strapped in?

SPEAKER_04 1:41

Oh, strapped in as well, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Because we're going jetting off to the other side of the world to Australia.

SPEAKER_04 1:48

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Where we're going to meet Cecil George Edwards.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

Cecil.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Who was born in Brisbane, Australia, on the 6th of August 1942.

SPEAKER_04 2:00

1942.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

1942, Gobba. Now, young Cecil, he grew up poor.

SPEAKER_04 2:06

Ah, bless him.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

With a single mother who couldn't afford to keep Cecil and his brother Alan.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

He only had the one mother then.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

He only had the one mother, but she had two sons, Cecil and Alan.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Alan, another Alan.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Another Alan?

SPEAKER_04 2:22

Yeah, we had Al Alan Capone, haven't we? We we talked about Alan Capone before, haven't we? Yes, yeah, we've got a memory of an elephant. I went to the zoo once and saw an elephant.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

So from the age of seven, Cecil was sent to a series of orphanages and boys' homes where he was physically and sexually abused.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

That's fills.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

That's pretty horrendous.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Particularly as a fourteen-year-old ward of Blackheath Presbyterian Boys' Home in the Brisbane suburb of Oxley. That's where he got treated particularly badly when he was fourteen. By his mid-teens, Cecil had received the one true education of his formative years and was a practiced petty criminal. But then he's Australia, isn't he?

SPEAKER_04 3:19

I mean Well they're all criminals.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

I was gonna say. With arrests for stealing cars and robbing liquor stores, or as they're known in Australia, mate. They're called bottle shops.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

Bottle or bottle.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Bottle shops.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

Why didn't you say bottle in?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Or botlows. That's what they call this. Because everything's a webo or a botlow or a Steve O, so they call them botlows. One such botlow robby robbery. Botlow Robbie, that sounds like a mate of his. One such botlow robbery led to his capture and a short prison sentence after which Cecil Edwards started going by an alias.

SPEAKER_04 3:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Can you get can you guess what that alias was?

SPEAKER_04 4:01

Australian criminals. Mel Gibson.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

For the benefit of the tape, if well Gibson's lawyers are listening in. We're not alleging anything.

SPEAKER_04 4:08

Two Jackmans, first Australians I can think of.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Any Australian. What about Carly Minogue or Skippy the Bush Kangaroo or that bloke who used to go around punching crocodiles in the nuts for a living? Could be any of them, couldn't it? Now we're talking about Cecil Edwards started going by the alias of Jack Carlson.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

Oh, I haven't heard of him.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

No, I you will do. While being held on the drunk and disorderly, Jack's fingerprints were matched to a series of crimes right across Australia.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Wasn't he?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

In 1966, he was twenty-four years old and jailed in Bogo Road. Told you everything to know.

SPEAKER_05 4:49

Yeah. Which served Rodo.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Bogo Rodo. Bogo Bogo Rodo. Which served as Brisbane's main prison from 1883 to the 1980s. Nowadays, of course, it's a cultural heritage site, tourist attraction and event venue nowadays, offering historical tours. He was in prison. He was in prison in Bogot in Australia.

SPEAKER_04 5:12

They didn't do historical tours because people were in prison.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

It was notorious for its horrific conditions and in inhumane practices. Can you enlighten on that a little bit? So not only was he in prison, but he was in possibly the worst prison in Australia, which is itself a large open air prison. As we know.

SPEAKER_04 5:33

What is um inhumane things? Is it make him like two in a bucket and things like that? I think worse than that. Perhaps made him read um tour guides of Northampton.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Perhaps made them videos on Northampton whilst listening to piped in Coldplay music. Imagine that. Perhaps they perhaps the worst offenders were he deported back to England and Northampton.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Imagine that because Australia I've been to Australia, didn't I mention that?

SPEAKER_04 6:04

No, you've not mentioned that, no.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

I'm not making it. Well, Australia is actually a really, really nice place. Fantastic country full of really nice people. In fact, lovely weather. Um but yeah, imagine being sent from there and say, right, mate, you can't have this anymore. You're off to Northampton. Oh dear. That's inhumane, isn't it? That's a good good suggestion, Neil.

SPEAKER_04 6:27

Thank you. Thank you, Stephen.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

So, old Jack, we're calling him Jack now, because that's the name he was going by.

SPEAKER_04 6:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

So if you're paying attention, this was Cecil, it's now Jack, same person.

SPEAKER_04 6:37

Yeah, I'll think I'll change my name to Jack if I was called Cecil.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Jack Carlson was on a train going from Bogo Road Jail to face one of his charges, a breaking, entering, and stealing charge at Maryborough Magistrates Court.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

Maryborough, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Maryborough Magistrates Court over at Brisbane way there.

SPEAKER_04 6:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Know that.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

He was handcuffed to a police officer for the journey, but when the officer fell asleep, Jack picked the lock on the handcuffs with his belt buckle, moved along the carriages, and simply jumped off and the train slowed down to let another pass. He's on his toes.

SPEAKER_04 7:16

He was, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_01 7:17

He's on his toes. He then avoided some.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

Did he did he roll a few times and get up and go Jazzans?

SPEAKER_01 7:25

But he then avoided all police roadblocks set up to recapture him by giving his name. He gave his name and address as Jack Carlson, which all checked out, especially and get this. Especially as he'd been arrested and processed under another alias, the Helmet Markson.

SPEAKER_04 7:48

What? Helmet Marksman? Helmet Markson. Oh, they said the helmet marksman. As in Jimmy. As in Helmet Marksman. Don't go for the Fez, go for the helmet.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

So he's he's using all these aliases, so they've they're looking at there saying, right, we're looking for this Helmet Markson.

SPEAKER_05 8:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Upmarch is Jack Carlson. Are you Helmet Markson? No. You look a bit like him. Well look at my paperwork.

SPEAKER_04 8:18

Yeah. I'm that would that would fool anybody, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 8:21

This is my address. I don't know how he had paperwork when he just came out of prison.

SPEAKER_04 8:25

Yeah, well I get that see when I walk in a shop and people say, Are you Brad Pitt? No, I'm not. I don't look like him, I know, but yeah. Do they? Yeah, they often.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

Are they saying that because they think you look like Brad Pitt or are they using the cockney rhyming slang?

SPEAKER_04 8:38

That's earth a kit.

unknown 8:39

As a swear.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Which we won't go into because we don't do that on this. We're responsible broadcasters.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

Yeah, we don't say shit. Oops.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Two years later, Jack was locked up in MacLeod prison on Victoria's French Island for another theft. Surrounded by marshland, no one had ever I stress that word. Ever made a success. It was nicely stressed. I could have stressed the word had.

SPEAKER_04 9:14

You could have put dramatic bit a bit more dra drama into it.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

So okay. Two years later, Jack was locked up in MacLeod prison farm on Victorious French Island for another theft. Surrounded by marshland, no one had ever made a successful escape from French Island until Jack Carlson came along.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Flipping away from a work detail, he and another convict hid out in a brush and shrub island for days, avoiding air and land searches. Eventually, so Jack's story goes, they flagged down a fisherman who just so happened to be unfamiliar with the area and unaware that there was a prison on the island. And Jack convinced him to give them a lift to the mainland. Well. I don't know how you could be unaware there's a prison on an island. You probably see it.

SPEAKER_04 10:13

Exactly, yeah. That was in Australia, I'm sure it'd be big old a big old priso.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

How long was Jack Carlson free as the morning breeze?

SPEAKER_04 10:24

For the rest of his natural life.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

To give you a clue, it's between one and four months and comes after two months.

SPEAKER_04 10:33

That's a good clue, Steve. One after four after comes after two. It's gotta be three.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Well, well done. It was three months. Did you use a calculator there? Or was that all done?

SPEAKER_04 10:45

No, I used my fingers, thank you. Well done.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

It was three months until he was back inside again, picked up with a friend called Peter Maund.

SPEAKER_04 10:54

Peter what's he maunted? Is he upset?

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Peter Maund, M A U N D. Both of them in a stolen car and carrying safe breaking tools they were when they were stopped.

SPEAKER_05 11:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

At their court date to face their charges, Maund arrived wearing scruffy clothes and looking like he hadn't seen the inside of a bathroom in months.

SPEAKER_04 11:16

No respect for himself, has he?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

No respect for himself. Whereas Jack was neat and tidy in a sharp suit and tie. Nice.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

Well done, Jack.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

In the courthouse holding cells, Jack persuaded the other prisoners to heck and spit on him and call him a dirty cop when he and Maund were called.

SPEAKER_04 11:37

Say again? When he was in when he was down in the in the holding cells, he he convinced all the other people in the cells to spit on him.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

And call him a dirty cop when he and Maund were called to court. So here we go. Here here lies within um some some uh a sense of deliberate practice in what otherwise would be seen as as perhaps a little bit of madness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:03

Can you spit on me?

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Entering the courtroom and acting all confused, Jack introduced himself to the supervising officer and asked where Carlson and Maunde could be found. The officer said they were in the holding cells. Jack said they weren't, because he's just come from there with another prisoner who he had with him, who was of course Maurne.

SPEAKER_04 12:27

Mourned.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

And they were heading for another courtroom. Amid the panic of a potential serial escapee not being where he should be, Jack escorted Mourne right out the front door into freedom. And that is a true story. So when you say he was what's he doing? Put no effort in at all, turn up looking all scruffy like that. It was deliberate. That was their plan all along.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

Oh. So they're very clever, very wise, and but then again the people in the courtroom were a bit thick.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

It was only a few days before they were recaptured as they hold out in an apartment on Sydney's north shore. I've been to Sydney. Have you? Yeah. I spent a lot of time in Sydney.

SPEAKER_04 13:14

I bet you're having dirty pig.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

I've also been to Australia. Yeah. Good bloke. Um this time police blocked every court building, entrance and exit, and Jack was handed down an eight-year sentence. So this time I thought, well, you ain't gonna do that again.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

You ain't gonna come and he's gonna stay in Northampton.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

He's gonna stay in court in in jail. They probably said to note, if you don't stop being naughty, you're off, mate.

SPEAKER_05 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

You're off to n to Northampton.

SPEAKER_05 13:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

So that would strike me up, wouldn't it? The year was 1968 and Jack's life was about to take a dramatic turn.

unknown 13:52

Ooh.

SPEAKER_04 13:53

Did he say Jesus?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

No, the word dramatic is used there in lots of senses, and if you bear with me, we will find out. He wound up in Parramatta, a prison in Sydney area, where he was put in an unusually large cell with an inmate named Jim McNeil. Jim McNeil? Hello Neil. He must have said Hello McNeil. McNeil was very intelligent, a lover of poetry, and a student of politics and philosophy, but serving time for a string of violent armed robberies.

SPEAKER_04 14:29

Well, he obviously didn't um use his talents to get himself into a political background or anything, did he? He just thought, nah, sod it, I'm gonna just gonna beat people up and rob 'em. Don't like him.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Violent armed robberies. He heard about Jack's detective escape and thought it was hilarious. Yeah, I bet he did. And so the pair bonded immediately. They began a debating society that invited local college students to discuss topics of the day. They brewed something called pruner. Yeah?

SPEAKER_04 15:01

Yeah, I was talked out of it.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

That's the one. But they brewed something called pruner. So that'd be prunes. Out of yeast and raisins stolen from the prison kitchens.

SPEAKER_04 15:19

Yeah, so it'd be prunes, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Jack said that it was disgusting, but it got you good and proper drunk. So it's all you everything had an O on the end, didn't it?

SPEAKER_04 15:28

Yeah. So perhaps they invented polos. Pruno, polo.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

What the game or the f or the uh whole I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

Did Frank Bruno come from there?

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Well he could have done, couldn't he?

unknown 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Br Bruno Polo Polo shirts, polo mints, the polo game, water polo. Oh there's all sorts of things I invented over there. Yeah. Do you think Bono comes from there?

SPEAKER_04 15:52

Yeah, it's wasted, isn't he? It was just it was just like Bon.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

I thought he was Irish. Yeah. Probably did then. And Boney, the dog treat, probably ended up coming from over there. Called Boneyo.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

The gravy granules.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Oxo. Oxo, mate, yeah. You'd have been you'd been Neo. Alright, Neil Oh.

SPEAKER_04 16:16

I don't know. There's loads of stuff coming from over there.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

I bet there is. I said to you's life in nineteen sixty-eight was about to take a dramatic turn.

SPEAKER_04 17:05

It did say dramatic turn. Dramatic turn.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

While they're inside these two, these pair. No, while these two were inside.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

Oh right, okay. That's a bit wrong, isn't it? While these two were got back to his old school days.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

While these two were inside their overly large cell with their debating societies and things, Neil, hello Neil.

SPEAKER_05 17:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Began writing plays. So do you see now I say the word dramatic had several meaning? And he was finding that he was pretty good at it too.

SPEAKER_04 17:50

Mm-hmm. Well, in his own opinion.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Well no, lots of people were saying he was good at it. I mean, he's Australian, so he was no Shakespeare. If you're English, you just turn out Shakespeare, don't you? That's what we do. But no, he they he was a he was a crimp, but he was quite good at it too. And our our friend Jack took to painting to find out he was fairly good at that as well. He eventually painted portraits of his fellow inmates that many of them kept once they were released. Nice. But it was McNeil's plays that really started to attract attention with characters based on real inmates, including Jack Calsen himself. His plays were set in a single cell or easy to put on, and a company was formed called the Mess Hall Players that perform McNeil's plays and other works, not only to prisoners and staff, but to the fee-paying public who would enter the prison gates to witness Australia's prison playwright. Ooh. So this is this is McNeil. Yeah. Jack found, as well as having a talent for painting, he was something of a natural theatre actor.

SPEAKER_04 19:03

A charismatic Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

A charismatic presence treading the boards.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

A bit of a thespian.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him Horatio.

SPEAKER_04 19:18

Oh I love him. He's so good. I love him. He's such a darling. Things like that.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

But I don't think you go through a prison calling people darling, do you?

SPEAKER_04 19:25

Well, the actors do, don't they? They call everyone darling and love everybody. Everyone loves him.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah, but in prison that could get you in a in a bit of a situation.

SPEAKER_04 19:32

It depends on what you're into. If you're like a bit of a golden golden gay time.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Could be a miscommunication, couldn't it? So McNeil. Hello, Neil. After Jack proved himself a charismatic presence treading the boards. McNeil was released in 1974. And if you check back through the records, that was an actual year.

SPEAKER_05 19:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

And almost instantly became a star. Star, that's what you wanted.

SPEAKER_05 20:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

He was invited to the swankiest parties, and I have to be careful how I say that. The swankiest parties with Australia's in crowd. He even married an actress and won prestigious awards. So when you say, yeah, he was right in his plays and he was good in his opinion. No, he wasn't. He was good in everyone's opinion. He had a hit.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

I take that back now. I take that back now, okay? Right. Calm down.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Jack had to serve another two years without his mate, and was released in 1976. But when he was, McNeil gave him starring roles in his plays, which in turn led to him being offered some parts in TV shows. So Jack Jack's life was definitely on the up. He met and married a lady called Ivanka Jugum.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

Ivanka Chugum.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Jugum.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

Oh Jugum.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

I think she was a Slavic.

SPEAKER_04 20:58

That sort of name Ivanka.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Ivanka Jugum. Jack and Ivanka, who he called Eve, so we'll stick with that. Had two children, Heidi and Jim McNeil Carlson. So he even named his son after his mate.

SPEAKER_05 21:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Jim McNeil Carlson. They were happy together for a while until associations from Jack and Eve's past lives caught up with them in a convoluted heap of criminals, love triangles, and psychopathic serial killers.

SPEAKER_04 21:33

It sounds like life in Northampton.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

It does, I was gonna say for you, that's just another Tuesday, isn't it? But for for Jack and Eve, that was a whole heap of mess coming their way. A couple came involved in busting someone called Australia's Charles Manson, a dangerous psychopathic raving loon by the name of Barry Quinn, out of jail.

SPEAKER_04 21:58

Sound very psychopathic, didn't it? Charles Manson sounds good, isn't it? Barry Quinn.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Well, I my name's Barry Quinn. Barry Quinn was the one-time boyfriend of Eve. And there had been many attempts to get him out of jail, but Jack had a solution that involved fake medical emergencies and clambering through hospital windows. He was good, Jack. Jack knew how to escape from places.

SPEAKER_04 22:26

He did, didn't he? Wow.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

He did. And it worked.

SPEAKER_04 22:31

It didn't.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

An Eve freed Quinn, along with Eve, who had played the part in the hospital of his concerned girlfriend, went to lay low until some of the heat died down. So what had happened was they'd got this Barry Quinn. Hello, my name's Barry Quinn. They got him to fake an emergency, medical emergency. Something worse than that. I think they gave him some sort of drug that that sort of slowed his heartbeat down or something like that. Could have been Manflu, could have been any, let's face it, you in Australia, could be anything, couldn't it? Any tropical disease, pick one.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

Yeah. Bitten by an ant.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Yeah, exactly. One of those spiders over there. You've got the toilet lid and there's a spider the size of your face. So what they did anyway, they face.

SPEAKER_04 23:18

If a spider's in a toilet, why are you putting your face near it to see what how big it is? What are you doing with your head near a toilet?

SPEAKER_01 23:25

I was just using the size of your face for our listener, who's who should still be with us, hopefully. Hello, listener. Hope you're doing well. Our listener would like to think, well, how big are these spiders? And I say, they're roughly the size of your face. So the listener then immediately thinks, okay, I can now picture that.

SPEAKER_04 23:43

Yeah, but everyone's got a different sized face.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah, but you know what I mean? That's big for a spider, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 23:49

Yeah, you could have said like 15 centimetres, and then that's a specific size. Everyone knows about it.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 23:55

But I'm concerned about your your head being near a toilet.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

I don't know the biological ins and outs of Australia's arachne population. So I can't tell you the size of the city.

SPEAKER_04 24:05

Well, there you go. That's anyway.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

This has nothing to do with our story. Let's just carry on willy-nilly, shall we?

SPEAKER_04 24:18

Yeah. They were good in the eighties. When they fin when they nilly, what were they called?

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Willy-nilly. Millie Vanilly. They weren't good in the eighties because they they were cheats.

SPEAKER_04 24:29

Sorry. You know it's true. Girl. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yes. It worked. Anyway, a nudie freaked Queen along with Eve who played the part in the hospital was concerned. Girlfriend went to lay low until some of the heat had died down. We've covered this.

SPEAKER_04 24:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

He climbed out anyway, he was pretending he was ill, he wasn't that ill. Once they got him in the hospital down there, and Eve was with him, they shoved him out the window. She followed him out the window. Jack helped them escape. But things turned sour quickly, because Jack, while out one evening, as he was his wont to do, strolling down the street.

SPEAKER_04 25:03

Can do, he's a free man.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

He's a free man, nothing stopping him. He was shot from a passing vehicle.

SPEAKER_04 25:10

What just randomly or?

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah. Shot in the leg from a passing vehicle.

SPEAKER_04 25:16

Fair enough. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

The trouble is, he was in the state of Victoria where he couldn't go to the police or seek medical attention because there he was still a wanted man.

SPEAKER_05 25:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

So they still had a warrant out on him for his previous misdemeanours. Then Eve, who was in hiding with Hello, my name's Baby Quinn.

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Baby Quinn.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Baby Quinn? She didn't return from hiding out, even though he was caught 69 days after his breakout. So Jack was only thinking, well, where's she gone then?

SPEAKER_04 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Because 69 days.

SPEAKER_04 25:51

Where's Michelle gone?

SPEAKER_01 25:52

Where's Mayor's Michelle gone, mate? Tragically, her body was found with a blood-soaked copy of the Melbourne Herald dated 16th of November 1978, and she'd been shot.

SPEAKER_04 26:04

As well.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

So had she been shot on the 16th of November, or did someone throw that there? We don't know. We just don't know. But she was shot, um whereas Jack was shot in the leg. Eve was shot deaded. Oh. So it's very tragic, isn't it? Prime and criminals had moved on to a more violent era, and Jack Carlson did not want any further part in this. He and the children moved from town to town poaching the odd sheep. I don't think that meant like putting a sheep into boiling water. I think it meant stealing the odd sheep.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Liberating the odd vegetable or two.

unknown 26:43

Again.

SPEAKER_04 26:44

Liberating them is that like digging them out of the ground and letting them free. Go free, carrot, go free.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Or robbing the odd grocery store of what they needed.

SPEAKER_04 26:53

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

So they're l they were living on the land, basically, and they did that for the year.

SPEAKER_04 26:58

Yes, they were, weren't they? Hand to mouth.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Hand to mouth, and he was showing his children bushcraft and how to survive in the outback of the wild Australia's.

SPEAKER_04 27:08

Yeah, how to deal with the bush.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

Yes, but the bush as in the geographic area of the Australia in a not bush as in what you were thinking of.

SPEAKER_04 27:18

You done it wasn't. I was thinking of um the what you said the first bit, didn't filthy pig. They have to learn the the art of the bush.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

One day Jack had a bit of a a bit of a brainwave. I don't know what was the matter with him on this day, but one day he decided to show Jim this is his son Jim. Decided to show Jim the art of cracking a safe. He chose a safe in an estate agent's during opening hours while the staff were still in there. Of course they called it.

SPEAKER_04 27:50

I can just show my son how to crack this safe.

unknown 27:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Of course they called the police, and when they arrived, Jack riled them into beating them with their batons. And all the time pretending to enjoy it, and even helping himself to a quick choke of the chicken. If you get where I'm coming from. No, I don't. He was pretending to enjoy it and he enjoyed it rather too much. I mean imagine being his kids.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

Your dad's there getting beaten by batons, and then he's trying to pull hot white coconuts from the veiny palm tree. Is that what you're trying to say?

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Yeah, I mean, imagine that. Imagine watching that. He hoped to prove himself mad and get sent to a mental hospital rather than prison because they were easier to break out of.

SPEAKER_05 28:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

And he was sent to a mental hospital. And he did break out of it. Jack Carlson was only ever arrested once more in his entire life, and it was the 11th of October 1991.

SPEAKER_04 28:52

A long time ago. But long time after he escaped from for his misdemeanours.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

Yeah, so he kind of knew what he was doing, I suppose, but his ch his children must have been.

SPEAKER_04 29:02

He knew how to pull it off.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Oh, I see what he did there.

SPEAKER_04 29:06

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

That's very good.

SPEAKER_04 29:09

Yeah, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah. You said that with a bit of relish.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

I did. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

This is 11th of October 1991, okay? So Jack was treating his friend to lunch at a restaurant in Fortitude Valley in Queensland this time. So it's getting around Australia, isn't he?

SPEAKER_04 29:25

I don't know. I don't know geographically of Australia. It's too big.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

It's not Brisbane, is it?

SPEAKER_04 29:30

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

I don't know where is Brisbane. I don't know. Yeah. It's it's in Australia.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

Yes, over there somewhere. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Roughly roughly the same size as the other one. You would, wouldn't you? Yeah. Yeah. I've been actually, do I tell you?

SPEAKER_04 29:41

No, you've not said that, no.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

No, yeah, I've I've I've spent a lot of time in Sydney. Oh, okay. Both. Yeah. It was a long flight in Sydney just had to be sitting in the seat next to me. He was treating a friend to lunch at a restaurant in 42 Valley in Queensland. He'd been there so many times it'd often get Treated to a complimentary drink. She was a bit of a regular.

SPEAKER_04 30:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

In fact, he'd been there so many times he'd caught the attention of a fraud investigator working for American Express. It turns out that someone in the area had wrapped up quite a bill using stolen credit cards.

SPEAKER_04 30:17

Well, do you think it was our man?

SPEAKER_01 30:19

According to a police detective who was called to the scene, a restaurant worker pointed out Jack to the investigator because he was certain he had presented cards in two different names in the past. Now that's not unlikely, is it? Because we know Jack has got some aliases going on.

SPEAKER_04 30:36

Yes, it was it was Helmet Marksman.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Helmet Marksman, his his real name is Cecil Edwards.

SPEAKER_04 30:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

And Jack Carlson is just the name he made up and pulled out of his ass. So yeah, who knows?

SPEAKER_04 30:48

Pull Jack out your ass, you're doing alright.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

The investigator immediately recognised his prey and called in the police. Or the or the police o, I suppose I might call them over there. They're called Coppers. And said he had one of Queensland's most wanted cornered. Because the call had gone out that an international gangster had been cornered. So this is escalating, isn't it? That escalating corner.

SPEAKER_04 31:17

It sounds like it is.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Police surrounded the restaurant and were beaten to it by the waiting media who had been tipped off. The arrested officer said Jack was as calm as anything. He was happy to go with us, he said. Well, as happy as you can be to be arrested until he saw the media, and that's when he just went berserk.

SPEAKER_04 31:37

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, I'm getting excited. I think I know what it is. No, no, no, no, no, no, not that far.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Jack's rant made the news. He knew he was innocent, and apparently as soon as the cop car drove away, he said that was fun and returned to absolute calmness. It was his resemblance to either a genuine international gangster or a notorious dine and das merchant, a Hungarian chess player named Paul Charles Dozer that landed him in bother. No one realised that they actually did have a known criminal with outstanding arrest warrants and a history of daring prison escapes. So that's why Jack was let free the following day with nothing more than an apology. It wasn't until 2006 that someone uploaded the clip to the internet of his arrest outside this restaurant that it took the world by storm. It's become one of the biggest memes ever, with millions upon millions of views, merchandise is available, and despite a mystery as to who Mr. Dremocracy Manifest was, Jack Carlson or Cecil Edwards eventually felt secure enough to appear on Australian TV. He sold paintings of the arrest right up until he died of prostate cancer in 2024. Was he a succulent Chinese meal? It was a succulent Chinese meal.

SPEAKER_04 33:11

So he was, I thought he wasn't the Krim, but he was a Krim.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

He was a Krim.

SPEAKER_04 33:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

He had existing arrest warrants out for him when he was arrested. But they just let him go because he wasn't.

SPEAKER_04 33:29

All right. See, you know your judo well.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

Not assuring anything. One couple.

SPEAKER_04 34:37

Oh, I see you know your judo well. Ah, yes. There he is.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

And you, sir, are you ready to accept my limp penis? How dare you! The greatest arrest in history. Without question. And listener, if you haven't actually seen this, you can find it all over the internet on YouTube. We have played a clip for you of the audio, but of course, the actual visual recording has been made and it is widely, widely available. And I think Neil would join me. Hello, Neil. Bonjour. Will you join me in recommending to our listener that they, if they haven't already seen it, they spend a little bit of time researching Jack Carlson's arrest. Yes, and um and looking at it. You probably won't find it listed as Jack Carlson, but you'll certainly find it as Democracy Manifest.

SPEAKER_04 35:41

Or succulent Chinese meal.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Or suck that's another name, but people called it by that. But it is the greatest arrest in all history. A man became a legend on the back of that.

SPEAKER_04 35:56

You sir. Are you doing it except my limped penis? How dare you!

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Yeah, it's absolutely brilliant. So there we go, listener. We've wasted your time again with another episode of Honourable Mentions, though. And we look forward to seeing you next week, where we will come back to you with another episode of Honorable Mentions, though, booty. But we don't know whether it'll be in Australia in honourable mentions. I don't think it will.

SPEAKER_04 36:25

Well, we should need time to travel back.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

But I tell you what, we can go anywhere in the world. They can't stop us now.

SPEAKER_04 36:32

No.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Thank you. Thank you, Louis.

SPEAKER_04 36:34

Starship said, nothing's gonna stop us now. Was that Starship?

SPEAKER_01 36:37

I thought you it was, yeah. I thought you were gonna start singing it.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

No. I did things like that. I'll let the listeners get that into their head and they'll think, oh, I might listen to that one. I like that song.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

No, they won't, because they'll be too busy googling Democracy Manifest.

SPEAKER_04 36:51

Oh yeah, of course of all.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

And listening to other episodes of Honourable Mentions, of course. Which are available wherever you stream your podcasts.

SPEAKER_04 37:00

And if you found that might be, Stephen.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Yes, if you found this episode, I'm sure you can find others.

SPEAKER_04 37:05

Yeah. Just just you know, use a bit of common sense.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Well, listener, we would like to really say thank you because we do mean it. I know we say it at the end of every episode, but we do mean it, don't we, Neil?

SPEAKER_04 37:17

I do, I I mean it fruitfully.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

You mean it fruitfully, do you?

SPEAKER_04 37:21

Yes, I do, uh with relish.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Or gentlemen's or no.

SPEAKER_04 37:28

Just regular gentleman's relishes his own private kingdom.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

See you don't you don't bother spraying that everywhere. So thank you, listener, once again, for joining us for another exciting look back in time at someone who led an extraordinary life.

SPEAKER_04 37:46

He did lead an extraordinary life, didn't he?

SPEAKER_01 37:49

He did lead an extraordinary life. Not necessarily on the right side of the law. But you know, he was he was just a good old boy, wasn't he? Never meaning no harm.

SPEAKER_04 38:01

Yeah. Been in trouble with the law.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

It's all you ever saw. Been in trouble with the law since the day he was born. He had kind of sums him up nicely. But yeah, there we go. Thank you, listener. Once again, we keep saying that, but we do do mean it, really. I go to bed every night. I go to bed every night and close my eyes and think, hello, dear baby Jesus. Thank you for our listener. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 38:25

That sounds a bit wrong, stop it. Sounds a bit creepy, doesn't it? Yeah, plug it in. Thank you. Stop it.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

But there we go. Well, join us next week for another episode of Honourable Mentions, you slag.

SPEAKER_04 38:39

Bye.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

You have to say bye now.

SPEAKER_04 38:43

Uh bye.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

Good day, listener. It's me, Margot Robbie off of the films and that. You can't tell by my accent that I'm Australian. No, really. I enjoy a good old, succulent Chinese meal as well as the next IV. I just happened to say thank you for doing my name to honorable mentions over real salary. I actually met Steve wants, but he doesn't like to talk about it. But I still know how much you need to have any other one.