Telephonomenal!

First published on sydneyis.com.au, Dec ‘00

In just one short phone call, Chris Deal becomes emasculated by a truth he has tried to deny for twenty four years – that he is not prank caller and Greek kick boxing break dancing heart throbbing Guido Hatzis.

Some people make houses for a living. Some people make cars. Guido Hatzis makes phone calls. With his new album Whatever, the follow up to last year’s Aria award winning Do Not Talk Over Me, Guido continues his verbal assault on any ‘sckippy dickheads’ stupid enough to pick up a ringing phone, and any ladies lucky enough to encounter ‘the pleasure’.

There are a few ways of undergoing the Hatzis experience – some more or less enjoyable than others. You can listen for his appearances on Triple M, you can purchase his album (highly recommended if you wish to avoid a ‘schlinging schnap kick to your head mate’), or you can just get a job as a telemarketer and wait.

For those unaware of Guido’s particular talents, he either is a 21-year-old ‘kick boxing legend, chick magnet and humble genius’ from the Melbourne suburb of Pascoe Vale, or an Irish born Australian comedian named Tony Moclair, with a serious case of the Dr. Jekyl’s. Which is which I cannot say, as anyone knows the only straight answer you will get will be from the honorable Mr. Hyde, if you are lucky enough to catch him in a moment of clarity. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately for me, the doctor was definitely in the day of my appointment, and very much in the mood for a chat… as long as the topic didn’t stray too far from himself.

So what are you doing at the moment Guido?
Mate I’m just staring out at the most beautiful view in the world.

Where are you?
In front of a mirror.

Where is this mirror?
At my home in Pascovcale.

What’s Pascovale like?
Mate there’s a lot of concrete put it that way. But I put it on the map. That simple mate. When I walk outside you can see me from space mate.

Why?
‘Roids.

‘Roids?
Yeah mate.

Hemorrhoids?
Try steroids mate. Don’t bring your bottom problems into the conversation so early mate. I don’t want to know.

I’m new to the whole Guido thing; can you tell me a little bit about you?
Well mate. How long have you got? You got six hours? I can talk about myself for six hours non-schtop. Believe me I’ve done it.

Well give us the short version.
Well mate, I’m just a, extremely good looking unbelievably intelligent kick-boxing champion and humble genius. My humility… it stuns people. They look at me and say, how can he be so good looking, so intelligent, so well built and be this humble? Sometimes I myself am overwhelmed by my own humility.

But you don’t appear to have a job.
Well mate I do got one job mate. It’s FTL mate.

FTL?
Full Time Legend. I’m on a legend’s allowance from the government.

How much do you get from legend’s allowance?
Well mate that varies. It’s just cash in a brown paper bag. Don’t aschk too many questions all right.

What do you have to do to get a legend’s allowance?
Well mate you gotta be a legend to start, so I wouldn’t bother you applying.

But what sort of things do you have to do on a day to day basis?
Well mate you just gotta look good, and that come easy to me, but would be very hard for you I’m sure. And you just gotta make a lot of calls to the dickheads out there.

Did you ever make prank calls as a kid?
Mate I don’t consider them as prank calls. Prank calls are the lowest form of comedy.

You don’t consider what you’re doing as prank calls?
Nah, I’m just speaking to dickheads mate.

Did you ever think you’d get an Aria award for speaking to dickheads?
Well mate basically I deserved the Aria because I am so good looking. But I gotta tell you mate, when I got it I was shocked an honored. Shocked at the thought that they might give it to any other dickhead.

Did you ever think you could make a living out of speaking to dickheads?
It was either that or go on the professional kick-boxing circuit, the weight lifting, or peddling illegal steroids mate. There are many career opportunities open to me.

Isn’t it a risky business though?
Well mate I love rishk. If you’ve eaten my Nana’s cooking you will love rishk all right.

How many people in your family by the way?
Well mate there’s my mum, my dad, my nana, my cousin Vana, and me.

You’re an only child?
Yeah mate. When I was born, my parents realised they had reached the pinnacle of perfection, so there was no point in having any more.

There appears to be only two types of men to you, dickheads or poofs. Is that true?
Yeah mate. When I say poof right, it’s important to understand because some people they get uptight and poofy about it. They gotta understand that by ‘poof’ I mean any man who is less of a man that me. And that is one hundred percent of other men. Nobody is as much of a man as me. If you are not Guido Hatzis you are a poof.

How do you constitute to be a dickhead?
Mate it’s the same thing. Schkips equal dickheads.

All skips are dickheads?
Most. Schkips who buy my CDs, they get a dickhead exemption.

But you sell a lot of CDs, so that’s a lot of dickheads getting exemptions.
I know mate. Believe me, ‘Dickheads Anonymous’ are working very hard filling out those exemption forms mate.

What about women?
What about them?

My theory is that all women want you no matter what they say.
Mate of course. Mate, as soon as you are born as a woman, you enter the Guido Hatzis fan club. It is involuntary. Most women, they go into a trance like state after I have spoken to them. Doctors have a name for it. They call it love. But what women have to understand, is if yous want to go out on a date with me, there is a 15-year waiting lisht. You gotta write that for the women who are reading this. 15 years from now I may return your phone call.

How many women would that be?
Um… what was it down to? Mate, we have mathematicians trying to calculate that figure. Three of them have already gone insane mate.

Do you have a girl friend?
No I don’t have a girlfriend.

Why not?
Because mate, and this is the official statement. If I take one woman, I break the hearts of twenty billion, and I couldn’t sleep at night. Normally I can’t sleep at night because of the unbelievable amount of illegal steroids going through my system, but if I broke the hearts of all those women, I’d probably die mate.

That’s very caring of you.
Well I’m just thinking about the well being of women. I feel guilty enough mate. When I go to a beach, it cause pandemonium right. Heart attacks. Strokes mate. Mate women, when I go to the beach they need to take three towels.

Three?
One to sit on – two to mop up their drool.

When you call women do you always have an agenda to get their home number?
Mate I don’t need to get their number right, they get mine.

I didn’t think you’d give out your number because you’d get hassled all day.
Well mate they’re doin it. Yous are schpeaking to me right now.

But you called me.
Well you called me.

No you called me.
Nah you called me.

I distinctly remember sitting by the phone when you called me.
Listen mate, if I gave my phone number out, I’d have John Howard on the phone to me every day sayin ‘mate, mate, how am I going to run the country mate?’ Bill Clinton would be ringing me sayin ‘how do I get chicks mate?’

Have you ever rung John Howard and asked him to take a spell?
Well mate here’s the deal mate. I rang him a while ago when he was looking at buying a house. And I say to him, ‘John mate, yous can come and stay at my place, but yous has gotta sleep on the couch and work at my nana’s fish and chip shop. But if you steal any pickled onions, I’ll give you a schnap-kick to the head mate!’

Whatever is out now through Universal records.