PerthNow reporter Linda Parri goes one on one with Chopper in an interview she did for a university assignment.
Linda Parri interviews Mark Chopper Read. PICTURE: Linda Parri Source: PerthNow
A signed photo of Chopper in full flight. PICTURE: Linda Parri Source: PerthNow
Chopper Read at Contacio in Scarborough. PICTURE: Linda Parri Source: PerthNow
BEFORE I was a gossip writer I worked for one of Australia's most hardened criminals and notorious stand-over men - Mark Chopper Read.
It was an eye-opening experience for a Catholic-schooled girl in her 20s.
I was Chopper's Perth booking agent and publicist for several years and kept in contact with him as recently as this year.
I would find venues where Chopper could speak about his life of crime to wide-eyed fans in pubs and clubs all over WA.
Chopper was a loveable rogue
How Chopper wasted his life
It involved long road trips, late nights and some shocking stories.
From tales of eating a man's eyeball, to feeding another man to a concrete mixer, Chopper would never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
It was a freak show for entertainment – and he knew it.
So he hammed it up as any good actor or entertainer would.
He played the part.
Chopper's appeal to West Australians became evident after our first shopping trip to the city (Uncle Chop Chop needed a suit).
Walking down Hay St Mall, people were doing double-takes.
As their eyes fixed on his partially hacked ears, a look of recognition would glaze over their faces.
Walking past the Perth Magistrate's Court, emerging fans could not believe their eyes.
Chopper obligingly knelt down on the pavement to sign their court documents.
A quick trip to the Commonwealth Bank confirmed his appeal even stretched to the corporate sector.
Chopper was given a VIP interest rate.
And he was chuffed.
"How's that?" he beamed as he strolled out of the bank with a wake of grinning bank tellers behind him.
Even trips to Bunnings were very profitable for Uncle Chop Chop.
An axe would easily quadruple in value once he signed it.
So they'd be auctioned off after each show, along with an autographed crime scene photo of Siam "Sammy the Turk" Ozerkam.
The police photo showed Sammy lying in a pool of blood with his eye shot out, after Chopper killed him in self-defence.
It was a top seller.
Just as the public was fascinated by Chopper, he was equally as fascinated by the public perception of him.
He wanted to know what people thought of him.
After introducing him to my Mum, Chopper wanted a review.
I told him that she thought he had a nice face, with a good complexion, and didn't look like he'd done half the things he claimed to have done.
"Yes I did," he quipped defensively, before explaining his baby skin.
"Of course I've got good skin, I've had no direct sunlight for 23 years."
Chopper was very articulate and highly intelligent, often referencing historical events that he'd read up on in jail.
He would question me as to why people weren't laughing at his shows.
I'd explain they were probably in shock.
After a few drinks, he would become very generous.
It wasn't uncommon for him to be handing out $100 notes backstage.
But he was too generous at times.
I caught up with him during his performance at a Melbourne Comedy Club, following years of successful tours.
He was heavily sedated with methadone.
And he told me he was broke.
He told me he had returned to his drug habit and lost thousands supporting that of his mate and his mate's girlfriend.
His speech was so slurred he required two translators on stage during question-and-answer time.
Although he was billed as the show's "psycho", he was always the one calming down everyone else during disputes.
Chopper shared the stage with former footy larrikin Mark "Jacko" Jackson – who would often ruffle feathers.
Following an argument I had with Jackson after a show (he screwed up my invoice and kicked it like a footy), I drove back to the hotel enraged, in a separate car.
Chopper spent the trip in the passenger seat, calming me down.
It was ironic that this celebrated madman was pacifying the one person who was considered sane on that tour.
The tours included the Never Plead Guilty Tour, the Mad Men Have Got Money Tour and The Wild Colonial Psychos tour.
I was an aspiring TV reporter at the time, attending uni, and Chopper would patiently sit through mock interviews with me.
And there was nothing I couldn't ask.
"Did you really eat a man's eyeball Chopper?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because he was putting shit on Ita Buttrose. He said Ita Buttrose was a moll so I ripped it out and I ate it."
"Did you chew?"
"Yeah I put it in my mouth and drank it down with a pot of beer."
"What did it taste like?"
"It felt like swallowing a bantam's egg."
"Do you think that's normal?"
"No, but it happened a long time ago. I was off me head at the time."
So was it something he regretted?
"No I regret nothing. Because if you had your time, you'd bump into exactly the same asshole wouldn't ya?" he said.
"So there's no use regretting a thing, when the milk's been spilt, you can't put it back in the bottle. Don't regret anything."
"Is it true that you put a man into a concrete mixer alive?" I asked him.
"Yeah, he was alive when we put him in," he said.
"It's very difficult to stick someone in a concrete mixer because they've got bloody stuff welded onto the top of the concrete mixer so you can't put him into the concrete mixer so we pulled a bit of that out and started feeding him into the concrete mixer. But he didn't want to go into the concrete mixer.
"It's very, very difficult to stick someone in a concrete mixer. It's not as easy as it sounds.
"You have to feed him through head first."
"And what did that chap do wrong?"
"I forget at the moment. I'm sure it was something quite bad."
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I AM still fascinated by Chopper's public appeal.
Only last night I arrived home to my young English housemate, who was lamenting his death – unaware of my work history.
I questioned her interest, being that she is in her 20s and normally resides on the other side of the world.
"He only seemed to kill baddies and drug dealers," she said.
"And he seemed like a funny character in his movie.
"Even the police loved him."
But Chopper hated the movie.
He was upset that it depicted him shooting up heroin, something he said he'd never done in his life.
He also claimed to have never hit a woman, as was also conveyed in the film.
He contacted me last year wanting me to put together another WA tour, which would have been his last before he passed away.
But those plans were thwarted when he was admitted to hospital.
He didn't want to speak about his life expectancy.
"F***ed if I f***ing know. I couldn't give a shit anyway," he told me last year.
"I'm 57 years old, I've got cirrhosis of the liver and I've got hepatitis C.
"I don't know when I'm gonna f***** drop.
"I don't even bother thinking about it."
In January this year he told me he was "alright".
"They removed 26 cancerous tumours from my liver and I've got three more to go," he said.
Whatever the public opinion of Chopper, one thing's for sure.
He is an Australian icon, whether it be for the right or wrong reasons.
Next to Ned Kelly and Moondyne Joe, Chopper Read stands as an Australian icon in the criminal arena.
Like him or hate him, that's where he will reside in the archives of history.
