Seven reporter Chris Reason meets with Democracy Manifest meme man Jack Karlson 33 years after wild arrest

Milton, Brisbane, 2024. I’m outside the China Sea Restaurant. Inside is Jack Karlson. Mr Democracy Manifest himself. The man who threw the internet into a wok and set it ablaze with his impromptu and immortal words whilst under police headlock: “What is the charge? Eating a meal, a succulent Chinese meal?!”

I’ve waited for this moment for 33 years.

As a young, wet-behind-the-ears reporter I’d stood outside the China Sea in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley in 1991 in wide-eyed wonder as a simple arrest for credit card fraud turned into a theatrical spectacular.

Jack Karlson, alias Johan Helmut Karlson, alias Cecil George Edwards, alias Oscar-winning performer, was being dragged from the restaurant not so much kicking and screaming as royal command performance.

“Get your hand off my penis!” he bellowed at the red-faced officers as they tried to bundle him into the car. “Who is this guy?” I wondered. “He should get a BAFTA for bluster.”

He called it a post-lunch protest. The Queensland Police called it resisting arrest. And subsequently dragged him off to the Brisbane Watchhouse. And that’s where the magic happened: Well, a disappearing act at least. Within hours, Jack had managed to convince them they had the wrong man, and he deserved bail. Both claims were untrue, but somehow they believed him. More on that later.

The arrest came after an American Express investigator, tracking a series of “dine and dash” incidents of credit card fraud, followed the trail to the China Sea and deducted Jack was his man. He quickly and quietly called in police.

Fraud squad detectives arrived minutes later and asked Jack to accompany them to the police station. But he wasn’t budging. They might have been fraud squad, but Jack had fried squid for lunch, and he wanted to finish it. The detectives had to call in back-up. Dozens arrived. And so did we.

For years I’ve thought I got a phone call tip-off from police contacts, but this week I found out from my cameraman at the time, the legendary John Gordon (Gordo The Great, an institution of the Brisbane and Gold Coast media scene; now retired) that we’d actually heard it on the police scanner. We just happened to be nearby and spun the car around, the first media to arrive at 11 Duncan Street.

We could see this was going to be big: cops everywhere, the China Sea surrounded, the street blocked at either end. One cop told me the bloke inside was on a Top Ten List for fraud.

But what promised to be a spectacular kick-the-doors-in, guns-blazing moment, quickly turned into a comic non-event. Jack was led out, and the moment he saw the cameras, the performance began. But I was beyond disappointed. We’d gone from hard news Top Ten criminal lead story to somewhere behind the weather report — and that is death in the television news world.

But when I got back to the Seven newsroom that day, the outlook had improved markedly. I showed my news boss the tapes and he wet himself. The rookie reporter hadn’t realised he and Gordo had just captured television gold.

I was dispatched to follow up the story the next day. But by then, Mr Democracy Manifest had been bailed and disappeared. Into thin air.

He stayed in hiding for almost 20 years, staying off the grid. But after a thing called YouTube was invented, an unknown someone uploaded the 7NEWS camera tapes of the arrest that day. And they exploded online. Five million views and counting.

Jack went from anonymous to hyper-famous almost overnight. And that fame has just grown and grown.

There are T-shirts, beer coasters, key rings, posters — all with his face and words plastered over them. There’s a wine called “Get Your Hand Off My Pinot”. Chris Waller trains a racehorse named Democracy Manifest (valued: at $940,000). A musical has been written. There are Democracy Manifest air fresheners for sale online.

And now, there is a movie being made. And that brings me to yesterday, standing outside the China Sea, at its new address in Milton. The producers of the documentary (tentatively called “The Man Who Ate A Succulent Chinese Meal”; due for release next March) wanted to bring some of the key players that day together for a reunion. One of the police officers involved in the arrest, now retired, former Senior Sergeant Stoll Watt. The owner of the restaurant, still running it at 73, Mr Stanley Cheung. Jack himself of course. And the clueless young reporter who covered it on the day: this writer.

So I’m standing outside, my cameraman has wired me up with a radio microphone. The jacket is on, shirt tucked in. Everything is TV shiny. We walk in, braced for the big moment of reunion after 33 years. I’m nervous, I’m about to meet a cultural deity, an immortal of Australian folklore.

But as we enter the restaurant, cameras rolling, there are immediate looks of concern and gestures for us to stop still and stay quiet. Because Jack … is asleep.

He’s sitting bolt upright, eyes gently closed, alone in a table booth. There’s a collection of fine melamine crockery spread out before him: ready for a succulent meal.

But Jack isn’t well. If you couldn’t work it out before he woke up, you certainly could afterwards. The words come a little slower. The eyes take a while to register. His hands shake.

Family tell me he’s suffering advanced prostate cancer, and a medical melange of other ailments. Including cataracts. That and the shaking hands have all but ended his true life’s love — painting. Which has put a serious dent in his income. Worth noting that he also says he gets no revenue stream either from all the merchandise above that’s sold with his name, face and words plastered all over it. To that end, his family has set up a GoFundMe Page (just search ‘succulent Chinese meal’). We all get so much joy out of him; it would be good if you could help him out.

When he does finally rouse, I try again for the big moment. He’s up now, leaning on the walking stick and shuffling in my direction. “Jack,” I say. “You won’t remember me, but I’ll never forget you!”

And so begins an interview I’ve looked forward to for three decades. Sadly, it was tricky to navigate; two-word answers and many blank stares. Jack was struggling. I won’t say the conversation flowed like wine. In fact, it probably would have been better if we’d drunk the wine first. That had almost worked in his earlier live cross with ABC News. When it looked like he was about to fall asleep seconds before the interview with Michael Rowland in Sydney, someone slipped him a glass of red to perk him up. It was 8.05am. Too early. Jack gagged, looked like he was about to let loose the last succulent meal. Someone actually passed a bowl to him. For a few seconds it looked like we were about to see a moment of television that could have gone even more viral than his last. But Jack held it together. The interview happened without incident.

So did mine. At every level. What did he make of all the internet fuss and fame: “Be good if I could make a quid out of it!”

Why did he react the way he did when he saw Gordo’s camera? “Mighta been half intoxicated or something like that. Didn’t like the idea of being arrested!”

How did he compose such magnificent words on the fly and under duress? “I dunno, I just done it. No premeditation involved.”

We did clear up some mysteries of the day though. Former cop Watt revealed that while it was he who was accused of touching Jack’s privates, it in fact never happened. “I said to him ‘I didn’t touch you on the dick’. And Jack replied: ‘No, I just made that up!” There was no animosity over the arrest; the two are good friends now.

Watt also revealed that when Jack was finally up-ended and lifted feet-first into the back of the car that day, and they drove him away, the pantomime stopped instantly. “As soon as he couldn’t see the cameras, the big act was over. He deserves an Academy Award.”

As to who was actually meant to be arrested for the China Sea credit card frauds, Jack insists it shouldn’t have been him.

Others disagree. Top crime writer Mark Dapin (who wrote the gritty and compelling book “Carnage”, featuring Jack’s arrest on the cover) says his research firmly points to Jack as the serial ‘dine and dash’ merchant. A counter-myth has grown over the years though — that the Amex investigator was actually chasing a Hungarian fugitive called Paul Charles Dozsa who looked a lot like Jack. Dozsa and also happened to be a champion chess player. Check mate to him: Jack took the fall and had to go into hiding.

And he had good reason to run. Jack was wanted for questioning in NSW on fraud matters. And he had a long and colourful criminal past. He’d been shot once; his wife had been murdered. By his own admission, he’d been locked up for multiple offences and escaped jail at least 3 times — once by impersonating a police officer.

After he got bail that day in 1991, I interviewed the CIB boss at the time and he described him as “a prolific false pretender”. So why did they let him go, I asked. “We are sincerely sorry he got bail,” he said. In short, the police were embarrassed. Jack shouldn’t have been released.

Having to go underground also put a pause on Jack’s nascent acting career. He loved the stage and showed real promise — he’d already had several speaking roles in a series of classic TV crime shows including Homicide and Matlock Police.

But of course, no performance would come close to that day in 1991.

After Jack and I and the others had caught up — over what else — a succulent Chinese meal! — I asked him to sign the menu before announcing I had to do the dine and dash myself. Not sure who paid, I presume Jack used one of his credit cards, for old times’ sake.

But I will say it was one of the best days of my long journalism career — and it was nice to do a Chinese lunch with the great Jack Karlson, that didn’t end with a visit to the Brisbane Watchhouse.