Will Brodie
Hello everyone and welcome.
Thanks Ben for so generously providing the Preston Hotel to us for this event. I think you all agree a down to earth pub is a fitting venue for Guy.
Guy was a lot of things to a lot of people.
So, the idea today is to share as many aspects of his personality and life as possible from the people who know him best – all of you.
After I speak and Leora, Varda, Nif and Michael say a few words, and we show a slideshow the girls put together, we will open up the mic to anyone who wants to say something or share a memory. We'll also read a few words from those who couldn't make it today.
Don't be shy – Guy would not want you to hold back. You don't need to have anything written down, like some of us. Whatever comes to mind, - anecdotes, impressions and reflections – feel free to share. If you prefer to write down your impressions, there's a condolence book which will circulate.
This event is meant to be informal and from the heart. It's a celebration.
RIGHTO YOU LOT!
Here's your sheets – and no using mobile phones. Get your answers in on time or I'll take points off. And no correspondence will be entered into – my answer is the answer, full stop.
OK, grab your sheets, pass them on.
Question 14.
How did you meet Guy?
Guy chose me. I think he chose many of us to be his friend.
From the start, he was consciously seeking people to stimulate or support or teach him. He didn't just accept the crowd thrown up by school or work.
In my case, he'd somehow talked his way into Melbourne High – where most passed an exam to gain a berth – fresh off studying at the University of Life on the streets of Sydney.
He arrived unbidden, in the middle of a class, in the middle of the school year. Stood in the doorway, got looked over; assessed us. Made the requisite dramatic entrance. Came and sat down next to me. It was a silent class; we conversed in writing, pretending to take notes.
We became friends instantly.
More than that: Guy became my second brother.
Superficially, we had little in common: I was cautious and green; he was reckless and street-smart.
I was left; he was right.
Me a Pie, he a Blue.
But Guy knew something.
He was living in a hideous old green boarding house near South Yarra station, with psychotic neighbours who pissed on the stairs, a place his suburban classmates made jokes about. He told me how the hierarchy worked there; who was friendly and who to avoid.
I would learn this was trademark Guy. He would case a pub, a workplace, a party, a bureaucracy, to get what he needed and to find the most interesting people. He was always the canny survivor; the applied social anthropologist strategising to make an alliance or a friend.
When I met him, Guy was working as a model and a waiter in high-class restaurants and had won a David Bowie lookalike contest in a nightclub. His girlfriend was a statuesque blonde whose locks promoted a mainstream shampoo.
He asked for advice on his sex life, even though I hadn't yet been kissed.
He drank too much, smoked incessantly and had thoroughly explored drugs, his sexuality and real work during his runaway to Emerald City.
Originally adopted, he would soon be disowned by his adoptive parents.
He'd already lived.
I hadn't.
But I had swallowed wholesale the romance of Beat Generation mythology and expected the Big City of Melbourne to deliver me a bohemia filled with extraordinary, challenging characters with self-made worldviews.
No offence to my other beloved friends, many of whom are here today, but Guy was the one who delivered on that dubious vision!
A night out with Guy was an adventure, a picaresque experiment. He got me in all kinds of trouble I needed, and a fair bit I didn't. He introduced me to a fearsome Pommie cocaine addict sent to the colonies to straighten himself out; a fallen 70s TV magician; a belligerent French Chef, the family maze of Hooperville, middle suburb Masons, homeless pool sharks, a Turkish-Australian poetess, a gentleman investor, loving red-headed twin sisters, remarkable, arty girlfriends.
He once ran the Dog's Bar for free for a night when they were short-handed, just because the service was too slow. Just to pay for my drinks. He went unpaid, though they begged him to take a job there.
That was Guy's essence: a daring, confident, curious, people person. He knew the ways of the wealthy, but enjoyed the company of uncouth battlers.
He liked to haggle, negotiate, argue, debate – rarely did he pass the Swan Street bakery at 3.40am without securing free breakfast. Originally convinced attention and riches were his goals, he evolved, scrapping the attitudes of his upbringing when evidence demanded.
He tested ideas in real time.
And people.
King or pauper, every person had to prove themselves to Guy. He was often blunt or contrary when he first met someone. If they engaged his challenge, on came the formidable GL charm.
For those who passed the demanding audition, Guy's company was a prize. He maintained an inner circle of lifelong friends, but he went through intense eras with many others, deep-diving into their scenes, sharing himself fully and devouring everything they offered.
Art also had to pass muster – no matter how renowned, it had to have a personal meaning for him.
He loved Lou Reed but enthused about Coney Island Baby as much as Transformer. Loved Kubrick but preferred Barry Lyndon to 2001: A Space Odyssey. With Bob Dylan, it was uncelebrated Infidels as much as 'the classics'.
He had little poetry on his shelves, but a yellowed photocopy of Ginsberg's Sunflower Sutra was prominent on his wall.
He was a magpie in only one respect – that he eagerly gathered cultural morsels wherever he went.
Having passed a Uni degree without a high school certificate, Guy respected learning from conversations and observation as much as reading and study. He was fascinated by the dimensions of the world – its depth, height and anomalies.
So, he became the world's most idiosyncratic trivia compere. During the 90s at the London Tavern, a devoted weekly following was teased, harangued, and baffled by Guy's cantankerous delivery as much as his questions.
It was a boozy, ad-libbed one-man floorshow; sometimes a shambolic disaster, sometimes an improvised classic.
Despite his genius for getting by and finding jobs, Guy sometimes worried he didn't have his 'thing'.
Well, he was a fearless actor, excelling in a gruelling season of the Miracle of the Rose at the freezing Old Melbourne Gaol.
And he was a maverick filmmaker, an old school auteur.
But I reckon Guy's calling was his company.
He was great to be around. Provocative, funny, unpredictably insightful.
He was an artist, but of the moment. A champion of the ramble.
A raconteur.
Guy was an elite conversationalist.
His meandering chat-speeches were his unique creation, his personal art-form.
Spontaneous collaborative rambles that went off at bizarre tangents before somehow returning full circle, adorned with exotic scars from their rough passage.
Conversation was his artform, but also his lifeblood.
More than anything, having a chat was what he loved most.
It's why he loved old school pubs where you could meet people and get their stories and argue with them and tell them your stories.
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In later years, after horrific injuries and pills and booze, it was tempting to think he could no longer connect the dots when he wandered off into an obscure observation or a rant about the Carlton coaching.
But Guy still had it. His ramble would get bogged axle deep on an outback track, but he always made it back, the journey itself all important. There was always a point at which you thought the hero would fall into the tub of sharks, but the yarn always ended with a flourish of the cape as Guy's monologue somehow landed.
The flourish of the cape was slower, later.
Guy's health struggles were monumental. He hated that he couldn't be at his best more often. When he didn’t reply to messages, or want you to come around, you could surmise he'd fallen off the wagon, or he was just too unwell. He didn't want us to see him at his lowest.
But he'd been further down than any of us and fought back further, with incredible tenacity. Guy's rehab was a triumph. He licked 18 days in ICU. He just kept surviving. He had the guts to put up with unrelenting pain, broken sleep, crazy medical imposts.
In lockdown last year, he kept a 'kitchen diary'. Prevented from eating many foods because of his health problems, he became a dietician, a nutritionist, a 'fruitarian' in his own words, in search of pain-free nourishment. Carrots and canteloupes, blueberries and silverbeet… Typically, his orders went through Tiny from South Melbourne market, via Nif in Milan and led to recipes he shared. He hand-wrote twenty pages of recipes for me.
But his diary also discusses how his birth mother fought to keep him and his first name was David Wilson Edwards; how running second in a cross country race at school informed how he fought back in ICU decades later; how the death of his brother, when Guy was four, led to improvements in emergency triage in Melbourne hospitals.
And, finally, his sadness at the plight of a stranded rainbow lorikeet.
In sobriety, his inherent gentleness bloomed, and his unique observations were freed from addiction's grim smother.
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In recent times, I tried to touch base with Guy most days. I used text messages, not his preferred form, not that he ever complained about it. I regret not picking up the phone more often.
Inevitably, when a loved one dies, we seek these regrets, where we went wrong, what we could have done.
If you have such feelings, I encourage you to discuss them with someone today.
Then banish them.
Use today to exorcise the negative feelings and keep the love, not the pain.
We're so sad that he suffered so much. We were all so hopeful he'd win some more years with less anguish.
But there is nothing more anyone could have done. He was as stubborn as he was independent.
Guy knew you loved him, he had great memories, he was proud of his family and the friends he'd made and the lives you all led. He loved you.
It would be dishonest and unbalanced to let sadness crowd out the wonderful gift of his company, the great memories.
Guy was still Guy, after all the weeks in ICU, after all the misery of addiction and years of poverty and pain and struggle.
Whatever version of Guy you experienced, that spirit, that defiance, that generosity, that sense of humour and appreciation of people and nature… It was still there. That lust for life. He was broken in many ways, but Guy was Guy until the end.
I hope today we can remember the great gift of Guy's company, and the colourful times we enjoyed with him. And celebrate.
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One of the things you learn as a writer is that some topics are a tweet, some a news brief, some a feature article.
Guy Lederman was an epic novel.
Guy was unique; the mould was always broken.
As a friend, a brother, I can never repay the debt.
He gave more than he got.
All of us he chose are blessed.
