A Vice who can be habit-forming

When you have what it takes, it shows. No amount of hiding or veering away can keep it out of sight.

Vice, Jose Mari Visceral in real life, has been lording over the lounge scene for years on end, earning as much as P10,000 from tips a delighted Fil-Am balikbayan showered on him, in just one night. His was the most successful solo show at Chatterbox, giving its producers Anna Paz a welcome bonanza middle of last year.

And yet, Vice took up political science with an eye on becoming a teacher someday.

His low-profile lifestyle was thrust into the limelight when he made classmates and teachers laugh at his jokes and antics. But that was all.

Little did Vice imagine that one day he’d stumble on Raymond’s Bar in Malate, and seal his fate by going onstage to sing falsetto. The bar has since closed down, but Vice’s career has lived on.

Andrew de Real, owner of The Library, saw Vice and decided to manage the raw talent that made him gape in amazement.

Vice is the type of performer who can sing while reclining, ala Lani Misalucha.

He can crack jokes on stage without sounding offensive, and even end up signing autographs for the very person he made fun of in the audience.

His secret?

"I put myself down first before I put down others," Vice answers, smiling widely.

Not even big fishes who ask him to hold private parties for them are spared. Vice recalls demanding money from former First Lady Imelda Marcos when he performed in her house at Wilson, San Juan, because "you earned a lot just by selling your shoes!"

He’d tease Imee Marcos about her looks on stage and get away with it. The key, it turns out, lies in Vice’s quickness of mind.

"I’m a fast thinker. Scripts slow me down. I thrive in spontaneity," he says. He is no overnight success, though. Just like all performers at Punchline, Vice had his baptism of fire as amateur talent. The veteran ones tested him by making him the butt of jokes, bringing him down through insulting lines directed at him. Everything though, was in the spirit of fun, much like those scary but necessary initiation rites a college freshman goes through.

Not only did Vice survive, he also won his colleagues over by parrying their jokes with his own.

"I was never an underdog, even in school. So what I did was take down notes right after and studied how best to counter the jokes," Vice says.

He has so mastered the art of perking up the lounge scene Vice has yet to have one rest day in his daily schedule. He is at Punchline every Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. He takes center stage at Laffline Tuesdays and Fridays. Thursdays are for The Library (which will soon open a branch in San Francisco, California where Vice will also perform) while Mondays are for the newly-opened Sitcom Live.

On March 23, Vice makes it a double celebration by marking his birthday and third anniversary as live performer with a solo show at Music Museum. Produced the second time around by AP Productions, the show is sponsored by San Miguel Beer.

The prospect of entertaining a bigger crowd is scaring the daylights out of Vice. But he knows the stage lights have a way of transforming him into another person the minute he steps up to the microphone. The jittery, jumpy Vice suddenly disappears and a performer in his element – teasing and playing with the stage lights, emerges.

Now, the time to see that transformation, not only in the lounges, but in a much bigger venue, has finally come.