Matt-the-Jap (or Matteo Matubara if you dont like the nickname)

Hairy Homer

aodh_rua wrote:

Anyone remember the Vote 'No' to USI cartoon a few years back. It close with a Photoshopped Matt with the slogan Yoda Says No.

Anyway back to Matt's history. He came to Ireland in the late seventies to research links between Arab and Celtic cultures. He had previously been studying in Paris. As part of this he was working with some old manuscripts and he was accused of writing on the margins of the Tain Bo Cualaigne (Brown Bull of Cooley). The accusation were apparently led by Brendan Kennelly. Matt was kicked out of College, libraries and the rest. He did have some supporters in the academic community who got permission for him re-enter the premises bar the libraries.

**** me, he's not STILL there, is he?

He chatted me up once during a particularly drunken Saturday night in the Pav when I was an undergrad in Trinity. And my student ID (which I can still remember) begins with the digits 79 so what does that tell you?

The conversation was through the medium of scribbled notes. He can't speak or hear. In a fit of utter naive foolishness, I gave him my address when he asked for it. Imagine my horror when he showed up the following morning (Sunday) at some unGodly hour. Well before midday anyway.

What I can remember of the conversation:
he was born in Japan but educated in France.
He gives his name as Matteo Matubara
he drinks lots of tea.
he scribbles in English extremely fluently and well.

He gets really angry with you when you blank him the next time in the Pav to avoid a repeat disturbance.

Net Bastard

He's notorious for that kind of stuff, when I mentioned him at home one day the mother turned around and told me that he used to scab drinks off the students in some pub (can't remember which one) bout 30 years ago.

Apparently he could lip read very well and used to actually talk to people back in those days.

One time she went in under instructions from her mates to ignore the guy and stop buying him drink. So she's standing there at the bar when matt (they used to call him sony back then, only japenese word they knew) wanders over and stands beside her, just hanging about. She tries really hard not to pay any attention to him, but after a few minutes, cracks and says "well, cold out tonight, isn't it?". Matt replies "yes, but whiskey will soon warm us". The little legend.

celingfan

What more can one say
I WANT HIS BABIES
My children will be born legends.

jd

Hairy Homer wrote:

And my student ID (which I can still remember) begins with the digits 79 so what does that tell you?

.

Hee, mine begins with 84. Do you remember Maitland, anothe character who use to ang around TCD?

Chick

so he must be reaaaaally old by now then.....

Hairy Homer

jd wrote:

Hee, mine begins with 84. Do you remember Maitland, anothe character who use to ang around TCD?

Maitland Wolf, the White Witch?

I vaguely remember him, all right. Though he was more interested in little girls than big hairy engineering students like me.

chick wrote:

so he must be reaaaaally old by now then.....

Like a good wine, my dear. Improving with age.

Chick

Lol@wine. dunno when the last time was that someone called me "my dear"! aw bless! :D

IDM

He's definitely interesting to have around, all right.

Was pretty involved with DIS (Dublin Internation Students) first year and he often showed up to our random parties. Just mentioned this in another thread, but he can read/write in Norwegian. Now since when does a Japanese man born in France understand Norwegian ? Quite a linguist ... Would "talk" with him more often if it wasn't so awkward, really.

Chick

yeah i read ur other post on him IDM. but just because hes a genius as you called him, i dont see why he should be let away with murder. i dont care how many languages he can speak, he should have respect for other people.

Hairy Homer

He had a cameo role in some movie. He can be seen waving from a ship. Can't remember what film it was. Might have been Educating Rita, filmed in Trinity in 1982, but it could also have been some Irish film, the title of which I forget which was about a mother abandoning her two kids in a railway cafe.

Some trivia genius will know it.

jd

Hairy Homer wrote:

Some trivia genius will know it.

I think it was "Pigs"
(A much younger) Mannix Flynn was in it too

IDM

Chick wrote:

but just because hes a genius as you called him, i dont see why he should be let away with murder. i dont care how many languages he can speak, he should have respect for other people.

I wasn't implying that because he's very intelligent that he should be able to do whatever he likes. I agree that some of his past mishaps weren't exactly endearing and that punishing him was necessary.

Chick

Oh ok sorry I took you up wrong there so. Has he ever been punished or was his only punishment being banned?

IDM

I don't think they've ever gotten the police involved ... but I'm not the expert here. However, if you knew how much time he spends in the Arts building, banning him from it is definitely enough of a punishment to make him think twice about doing anything silly in the future ...

Chick

really? no ive no idea how much time he spends there, so ill take ur word 4 it til i get 2 c this lil man 4 myself

Hippo

unfortunately my student number begins with 77........matt the jap so called first appeared in the Lincoln Inn in 1979 and was a persistent pain in the arse with his bits of paper and scrawl. Unbelievable that he's still there. For you current students is Fat Pat Healy still sounding off loudly in Front Square? He was a very long term resident.

jd

Healy was around when I was there all right- he turned up every now and again in the Hist/Phil too.
BTW were you part of the JCR poker school, Hippo?

Hippo

Afraid I never played poker in the JCR, jd, although I play a lot now (definitely not in the JCR!). I was too busy helping to put on gigs with the fun-loving Ents crew. My fondest memory of the JCR is of how we used to er, laugh at U2 as they played yet another lunchtime show to a rapt audience of 15 dedicated souls. Ah well.

Hairy Homer

Hippo wrote:

unfortunately my student number begins with 77.....

You make me feel so young

You make me feel like spring is sprung..........
etc

Hippo wrote:

For you current students is Fat Pat Healy still sounding off loudly in Front Square? He was a very long term resident.

No!!!!! He CAN'T still be there!!!!!!

Next minute you'll be telling me that the fat bloke who always heckled in the Hist and stood for SU president as Apollo reincarnated (along with his retinue of supposedly Vestal Virgins) is still doing a PhD there. Can't remember his name. Thought he'd be dead by now.

Hippo

Dead by now? it would appear not. I'm sure I saw him cavorting through the George's Street arcade last week.

jd

Hippo wrote:

Afraid I never played poker in the JCR, jd, although I play a lot now (definitely not in the JCR!). I was too busy helping to put on gigs with the fun-loving Ents crew. My fondest memory of the JCR is of how we used to er, laugh at U2 as they played yet another lunchtime show to a rapt audience of 15 dedicated souls. Ah well.

Yeah- i was a hairy engineer/ents type.
I believe Donncha O' Dea and Padraig Parkinson are graduates of the JCR Poker school, as are two of my friends who play poker professionally. The JCR was taken over by a co-op and I doubt poker fitted in with the new ethos.

Never saw U2 in the JCR, but Sebastian Clayton's useless band played there when I was around.

IzzyWizzy

Is there a pic of him anywhere? I can't believe I've never seen him, I must have seen him without realising who he was!

Hairy Homer

jd wrote:

Healy was around when I was there all right- he turned up every now and again in the Hist/Phil too.
BTW were you part of the JCR poker school, Hippo?

Now they were a bunch of reprobates. I remember when the Herald reported how two of them were busted for playing the slot machines while pissed in some dodgy arcade with 10p pieces cunningly wrapped with sellotape to try and fool the machines that they were in fact 50p pieces.

Those were the days when we had BIG money.

jd

Hairy Homer wrote:

I can of course recall the surname but couldn't possibly reveal it.

The two guys I know were barred from most of arcades in town because they figured out how to fool the poker machines into payouts..
They were barred from Westmoreland Street (allegedly the scene of some brown paper bag transfers) and an arcade belonging to a former owner of an isp in Ireland!!
(any chance you could pm us those names!? and was that the film you were thinking of?)

Hairy Homer

jd wrote:

The two guys I know were barred from most of arcades in town because they figured out how to fool the poker machines into payouts..
They were barred from Westmoreland Street (allegedly the scene of some brown paper bag transfers) and an arcade belonging to a former owner of an isp in Ireland!!
(any chance you could pm us those names!? and was that the film you were thinking of?)

Certainly not. That would be libellous. Even though it's true and was a matter of public record 20 years ago, they could be highly respectable pillars of the community by now. (Unlikely I know but hey )

I'm not sure that Pigs was the film. Though I think the same actor that starred in pigs (can;t remember his name) was in this one too. He was also the star of Guilttrip.

Third_Echelon

I've always seen that guy around grafton st and dame st with the piece of paper.... Its interesting to know the history of the guy....

Hippo

Echelon, I suspect you may be thinking of a different deaf guy with a piece of paper who hangs around Dame Street tapping his ear. Definitely not matt.

Chick

so how do you now which one is actually matt, and which is the one whos muscling in on matts act

pCiaran

Only one of them hangs around Trinity. And he has a certain Asian cast to his features. As opposed to the other guy. Who doesn't hang around Trinity and whom you would not assume would be called Matteo Matubara.
pCiaran

Hippo

Yup, Matt is entirely oriental-looking and the guy on Dame Street looks like he's from Leitrim.