Zone full of boyz
M’illumino d’immenso
Above is the seven syllable poem: ‘Mattina’ (Morning), by the great Modernist, Giuseppe Ungaretti, written in the trenches of World War I.
Say it out loud. There is a beauty to the repeated vowels and n and m repetition. It is tough to translate, some say it is un-translatable, but this is basically what it is getting at:
I flood myself with the light of the immense
Vague. This poem jumped at me when watching a Pavarotti performance on YouTube last week. The clip, from 1 June 1999, was of the five members of Boyzone singing No Matter What with the plump King of the High Cs at his concert Pavarotti & Friends in Modena, his hometown.
Stephen Gately and Ronan Keating lead and Pavarotti accompanies them with additional Italian lyrics. The remainder of the zone full of boys were providing backing vocals and harmonies. Shane Lynch was wearing an ankle length trench coat.
The crowd roared at Pavarotti’s first line:
Se credi in ciò che fai, qualsiasi cosa avvenga,
che ti illuminerà
(If you believe in what you do, whatever happens,
that will enlighten you)
Sounds familiar. Ungaretti. I thought about this on the MTR while it spliced under Victoria Harbour, all the way across to Kowloon.
The Kowloon Bay International Trade and Exhibition Centre
A large shopping centre with snaking elevators, screaming toddlers and smells of bleach and fried chicken. But on the third floor, an outpost. An enclave hidden from the suburban grubby commercialism. A 15,000 seater. Where Boyzone would be performing.
In an incredible turn of events, my uncle Davy actually knows Ronan Keating. He made a phone call, sent an email and got his darling godson tickets to the show. I love him anyway, but I love him more for making this happen.
I feel like I tried to escape Ronan but he followed me here, to fucking Hong Kong. Well, that is the narrative I will play over in my mind. Davy asked me how many tickets I wanted in Dublin a few weeks ago. I said just the one. These spiritual moments are often best alone. I also was weary, playing scenarios around in my head. My first day of work at the water cooler:
‘Hello fellow kids, does anyone want to come to see Boyzone with me?
This is actually sacrilege to the band. I love Ronan and I love them. How can you not love the AAAAAA rhyme scheme:
Girl I’m on a mission
To cure my condition
‘cause’ without your kissin’My heart’s just a prison
I’m hoping and wishin’
That girl I’m forgiven
Davy sorted three tickets. So, at the water cooler one morning a friend from work said he was a fan of Take That, I said:
Well this is the Hibernicised version my man, strap in!
And an Australian friend who only was aware of the Rubberbandits’ track Boyzone. I said that was all he needs.
Scopophobia: The fear of being looked at.
Standing out. It can be a good and a bad thing. I am teaching English to Chinese children. They call me Mr. Cherry and are amazed by my freckles. Yesterday in order to get the attention of a particularly rowdy bunch I started singing:
What would you do if I sang out of tune
Would you stand up and walk out on me…
I finished the verse. I had them all in the palm of my hand for that short period. Only short, it has become apparent that all are born anarchists and most only gradually conform under societal pressure. Next time I will treat them to When You Say Nothing At All. A Chinese child then challenged me to a sing-off saying he knew all the words to Amazing Grace. And he did.
Freckles: they asked me what they were. I actually don’t really know. And explaining the idiosyncrasies of skin defects or genetic skin disorders or whatever it is that they are, would be difficult in broken playful English. I am constantly being looked at, gawking at me, all thinking:
‘What is that thing?’
But I think I have conquered scopophobia to a certain extent. As a young man I was looked at for many reasons at various times. But one moment stands out. It plonks itself high above all the rest.
As Boyzone were onstage, tennis balls were being stuffed into pockets and rucksacks and under wooly hats as people made their way to the Aviva Stadium last week. Disgruntled fans protesting the autocracy and buffoonery of John Delaney.
In 1972, the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai was asked about the impact of the French Revolution. “Too early to say,” he replied. In the Aviva last week, like the Tennis Court Oath made by the Third Estate on 20 June 1789, tennis balls were centre stage in a historic revolution of the peoples.
‘What were the results of the 2019 Tennis Ball revolution?’
‘Too early to say’
The smell of rot still lingers. But keep on throwing those balls. We’re playing quite well. Primavera dei Popoli.
Seeing Ronan Keating in the flesh and Mick McCarthy in the dugout made me think of my early years growing up in Ranelagh. There was a strange Celtic Tiger synchronicity hangover going on in my mind.
It was around this time, I embraced Ronan Keating. He was riding high, post-Boyzone, sitting on London park benches with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts and looking good while doing it. I became a huge fan of Picture of You, from the soundtrack of Bean: The Movie (1997), in which Mr. Bean corrodes Whistler’s Mother’s face with paint remover. One of the greatest scenes in cinematic history.
Mr. Bean actually stars in the video for Picture of You and all the Boys don the tweed and red tie and bounce around in his Mini Cooper. What a joyful song. When Ronan holds the note at 2.28–2.31 and the drums stop and the trumpets chirp, few things make me as happy. I won a talent show lip syncing this song with my friend Rob. We did a Boyzone Eminem mash-up and it blew the arse out of the theatre.
In 2001, my singles collection, in my bed side locker by my steel bunk, contained three discs that I juggled around in my Sony Walkman. Ronan Keating’s Lovin’ Each Day, Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me and Dustin The Turkey’s Sweet Caroline.
I would listen to them and play tip the can and vandalise signs and walk along the leafy avenues, through Herbert Park to games at Lansdowne Road.
25 April 2001
For my fifth birthday, my dad brought me to a game v Andorra. I was taught how to boo. ‘Purse the lips and moo like a cow’. After some Andorran prick kept faking injury, even calling for the stretcher, being carried off and then running back on a few seconds later. Dodgy PyreKnees.
Hats, scarves or blowhorns!!?
Bottle of coke, Toblerone?
Maybe both?
7up?
Perhaps a Triple Decker?
All items with Not for Individual Resale written on them. Shrewd cowboy business going on along the streets and canals off Lansdowne Road. Dad got me a court jester’s skull cap with green mickey shaped branches, a little bell on each end. Jangle jingle jangle jongle.
Anywan lookin’ for tikits folks!!?
24 May 2006
At a game against Chile on a stretched May evening I watched from the terraces, leaning against metal with my disgruntled sister and dad. An 18-year-old Alexis Sanchez came off the bench. 1–0 to Chile. Highlight: a fan kept saying
‘Jayzas, bit chilly lads, isnn iht?’
He said it about 10 times. Each timed to comedic perfection: during periods of silence or an extended stoppage. This was also the night I first heard the chant:
‘We all dream of a team of Gary Breens…’
Sung to the tune of the Yellow Submarine. In later years, like many young teenagers, I developed an unhealthy obsession with lavatorial humour. Another mutation of The Beatles’ sea shanty then tickled my fancy:
‘We all dream of the jacks in Stephen’s Green’
The chant can be as long as you want to be. Number one to seventeen. Usually it peters out but on that particular night they did the full thing. Gary was playing. There was a feeling of emptiness amongst the crowd when it stopped, the last few minutes had been filled with the comfort of a jaunty tune. The silence pushed away the prior happiness. But, a well-timed ‘Jayzas, bit chilly lads, isnn iht?’eased the pain. He should have patented that. Like when Jeremy in Peep Show says he is sitting on a potential fortune with the aim of selling the headline ‘Three-0 Walcott’ to a tabloid, when Theo turns 30. Theo actually turned 30 recently. And some papers hooked onto the joke. (http://www.threowalcott.co.uk/)
Other games in the wooden seats, punters drinking from hip flasks and the two old clubhouses plopped at opposite diagonal corners
30 April 2003
Game versus Norway. Late arriving but got there about ten minutes in. Duffer, the FAI Player of the Year scored after 17’. A rebound swelled the net.
Euphoria?
No. I cried my eyes out, in my green court jester hat, the jingles only adding to the pain of my bowed head.
‘What happened Dad?’
‘WE SCORED!’
Increased blubbing. I was a child. 3ft 5 inches. Drowned in a canopy of legs, plastic Guinness cups and the tails of sheepskin coats. Raucous cheers, raucous tears. Anguish that I missed this historic moment, Duffer putting Ireland 1 up against Norway in a friendly. Shackleton and Crean getting the last laugh.
‘You can shove your Viking longboats up yer arse!’
‘You can shove your Nordic sea gas up yer arse!’
‘You can shove your Roald Amundsens up yer arse’!
Dad picked me up for air. Sky of blue and sea of green with a team of Gary Breens in a huddle on the other side of the pitch. This was my first return to the stadium since the incident versus Nigeria. Damned if I go back.
16 May 2002
The Incident versus Nigeria
Last warm up game before the 2002 World Cup. Versus Jay-Jay Okocha and his Super Eagles. Pre-Saipan. I was a member of a world cup parade alongside the youth of Dublin. Alphabetical order. Leading the charge with another lad, representing Argentina. I was in the azure and white stripe, he wore the ultramarine away strip. 32 teams represented by double acts in home and away jerseys.
Two weeks previous, my mum brought me to Champion Sports on Grafton St. By a strike of complete coincidence, she bought me the Argentina kit. Not because of an affiliation to the nation but because it suited me. It contrasted nicely with my auburn eyes and hair, according to her. Autumnal colouring. I brought my own kit along to Lansdowne that night, making it easier for the organisers. Nice that. The jerseys were provided for the others thanks to the kind people of Champion Sports. Alas, perhaps due to their over generosity with replica jerseys, they no longer exist.
I remember having my head down. Don’t look up. I was the only one wearing black socks, all the others wore white. Standing out. We formed a circle around the centre. The teams entered the field. As Amhrán na bhFiann was roared out the stadium. In a delirious state I raised my head. Shyness and embarassment had fixated my stare upon my socks. 85,304 eyes. Glued to me and only me. Fuck. Warm. Oh shit. A stream. Yellow wet puddle at my boots. On the well sheared grass.
I pissed myself just near my heroes. Breen, Breen, Breen, Breen and Breen. A few feet away. On the historic centre circle. Filled the Umbro boots to the brim. The ref was taken aback. Squelched away as the game kicked off. People were looking. Towards the faux Tudor clubhouse. Dad was waiting for me, smiling, then squinting his eyes, realising:
Oh. Christ, he’s pissed himself.
The shorts were beige. The stain looked as obvious as a grease stain on the exterior of a chip bag, vinegar soaking through. Frank the Parade Leader and Mr. Motivator, took me by both shoulders, stared into my teary eyes:
“S’Allriigh chapp, app’ns too de best o’us”.
This helped in no way. Frank turned to the paraders and announced that all the kits were actually a gift from Champion Sports
‘ Yis can all keep’em!’
But I had brought my own. No gift.
Today, 31 March 2019, being Mother’s Day, I blame my mother. She compliments my colouring too much.
Nothing for the wee lad but a plastic bag for his soaked shorts.
At least, I can say my urine sits in the roots of the old Lansdowne Road, only few can say so. And better still, some fucker may have bought a commemorative slab of the turf and now has my piss roots on his mantel beside pictures of loved ones and a porcelain vase.
Match ended in a 1–2 loss to Nigeria, not nearly as eventful as the parade. People got what they paid for. Roy’s final game in green. For a while at any rate. Out of the fire and into Saipan.
This was the pinnacle and a possible trigger for scopophobia for years to come.
Now 22 on an MTR in Hong Kong, I thought and felt that moment, of torment and embarrassment. But I had conquered the scopophobia. I wanted to be noticed.
Pink Socks
A friend’s dad once gave me two pieces of advice: While playing left back for Dalkey United Under-9s (High in confidence after receiving ‘Under-8 Player with Best Attitude’ at the end of year ceremony the previous summer), he told me to show the attacker the outside and push him towards the touchline; and also, more importantly, that if you are ever playing in a trial (I never did play in a trial, but his son did and he is a professional sportsman now, so sound advice): Wear pink socks. The ideology is that in every decision and judging panel, there would always be one who would say:
‘What about that bloke in the pink socks…’
I applied this to the gig. I had to stand out. I wore an aggressively loud green polo neck. The design seems to be based on Palaeolithic cave scratchings. A fish. A leaf. A bow and arrow. A cow. The material is the consistency of a thick towel. I bought it on Alte Schönhauser Straße in Berlin, three summers ago. I was eighteen and regretted buying it. Someone once described it as something Jim Furyk would have worn during the 1991 Players’ Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
Do you ever do that when you buy a piece of clothing and then regret it? Until there is a time when it becomes your favourite. It was part of a kilo of clothes I bought for 25 quid. Still unsure, I wore it to Electric Picnic later that summer. I wore it when it spat rain during Born Slippy and when Blur played Parklife and the Vengaboys flew a bus to Ibiza.
On the Sunday night in September, an opportunistic prick stole most of that kilo of clothes. Bag and all. Lost in Laois. This green polo was all that was left. It was on my back. Since then it has become a favourite. And it seemed suitable for Boyzone, loud and nationalistic. An ‘Up-the-Republic’ jazz that is hard to come by.
I actually couldn’t stop smiling during the gig. Beautiful tributes to Stephen Gately, wonderful naff costumes and synchronised dance moves and Ronan’s distinctive guttural voice. A journey back into the alien world of 1990s boyband mania.
The gig was an all-seater. The people around me were mainly Chinese women and I didn’t stand up because no one else had and I would block most of the room. They’d all be looking for Restricted Viewing discounts. We were very close to the front. When Keith Duffy came down to the fans up against the stage, the wild screeching crowd rushed off their seats to him. Keith is ill in Bangkok, I hope he makes a quick and swift return to the boyz. The zone needs him.
Towards the end they sang When You Say Nothing At All followed by an encore of a Life Is A Rollercoaster / Picture of You medley. I stood up. I had to. And it was only then that I realised I had about 5 inches on everyone around me. About five rows from the front in my polo, luminous in the stage lights, it felt I was face to face with all of the boyz. I felt their eyes on me. Ronan saw the smile on my face, I saw the smile on his. I was like a 50-storey sky scraper in bucolic Louth. They had to have seen me.
They brought a kid up on stage. Looked the same age as me when I pissed myself.
Holy fuck, I thought, it would be perfect if he pissed himself. Go on, son, I know you want to! It would be me, here, passing on the ceremonial pants of piss! Go on!
I know you want to!
Whistle and think of ripples in the rock pools!
WHISTLE AND THINK OF RIPPLES IN THE ROCK POOLS!
Noli temere.
Don’t be afraid!
Don’t be afraid!
But he didn’t.
I left the gig smiling all the way back to Wan Chai in the rickety bus. Sepia dreams of Notting Hill parks and Mr. Bean gargling coffee and Ronan smiling down the lens.
You’ll be there
When I needed somebody.
That kid on stage refreshed that idea of those early days in Ranelagh.
Shortly after that game v Nigeria in 2001, Dad pitched a documentary to RTÉ. It would consist of myself and him travelling all the way to Saipan on the Trans-Siberian Express. I think I was scarred from the incident versus Nigeria.
Will I piss myself at every game?
Will I be murdered and thrown into the murk of Lake Baikal?
Will I be force fed Borscht?
In the end RTÉ turned it down. My grandad was furious on behalf of his lineage. He offered to executively produce it, send his son and grandson off along the tracks. But it fell through. I blame the incident in that centre circle. A curse.
But now in Hong Kong. I have seen Boyzone. Scopophobia is gone and I haven’t pissed my pants in quite some time.
This time next year:
I pledge to return to Europe, from Beijing to Moscow on the Trans-Siberian Express.
A reverse voyage.
Lake Baikal, baptise me in your cool waters, the deepest in the world!
An odyssey to avenge the wrongs bestowed on my family by the national broadcaster.
Get stuffed RTÉ!
Go on then, serve me up a bowl of Borscht, Comrade!
Прощай weak bladder!
Mother, Father, Sister, prepare the fatted calf, the prodigal son will return.
But not yet. The journey from Boyzone to man has only just begun.
Zona di Ragazzo. M’illumina d’immenso!
Boyzone. You flood me with the light of the immense!