How to Pay Rent, Get Famous, and Wake Up Before Noon

The Burg: Chemistry

2006-10-19T13:39:00.000-04:00

I'll Throw 'Em Where I Want

2006-09-12T14:21:00.000-04:00

I found this one to be helpful,

but this one I couldn't abide.

The Burg: Blind

2006-08-22T10:14:00.000-04:00

Uh, not to just repost and repost Burg stuff here, but I wrote this one, so it counts. And plus, I'm totally going to start writing new things and putting them up here. I freakin swear!

The Burg: My Humps

2006-07-11T18:18:00.000-04:00

I have heard this is the funniest thing The Burg has done. That's just...great.

The Burg in the New York Times!

2006-07-11T18:17:00.000-04:00

The Burg got a great writeup in the New York Times. Read it here: http://screens.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=38

The Burg: Street Food

2006-06-01T13:04:00.000-04:00

Subscribe to the webcast on iTunes and stick it up your pod.
Sign up for the mailing list at theburg.tv

The Burg: Hip or Dangerous

2006-06-01T12:57:00.000-04:00

Subscribe to the webcast on iTunes and stick it up your pod.
Sign up for the mailing list at theburg.tv

Just Found This

2006-05-21T13:07:00.000-04:00

The column this was attached to didn't really work out (and just so you know, there weren't any fat jokes), but I didn't want the picture to go unseen. Guess where I sat down?

Pumpkinhead In: Why I Hate Myself

2006-04-28T11:41:00.000-04:00

Goodbye Cruel World

2006-04-13T14:55:00.000-04:00

This is my last cry for help, people.

But...How Do I Get My Toothbrush Out?

2006-04-13T14:19:00.000-04:00

Headlines Don't Get Much Better Than This

2006-02-02T09:45:00.000-05:00

But Mommy! I want the one with drugs in its belly!

Corduroy

2006-02-01T13:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'll admit I have a problem with corduroy in general, but this guy was clothed head to toe in brown corduroy, the exact same brown corduroy, and it infuriated me to no end. In fact, I was originally sitting in the seat you see him in now, but his furry brownness encroached upon my periphery until my thoughts narrowed to a singular fixation upon the question of what on earth would possess someone, not merely to dress themselves in homogenous corduroy, but to purchase a pair of pants and a jacket, not a suit, but loose fitting crummy clothes of the exact same brown corduroy and then wear it together? Someone with something wrong with them, that's who.

And if the visual offense weren't grave enough, the lousy bastard was tall, meaty, and loose in his seat - such that when the train came to a halt, he freely shifted his body and his weight with the force of the train, pressing up against me until it settled to its stop, shuffing him back those few inches to where he was before. Oh, how I hated his oozy seat etiquette and his disturbing clothes. (Interestingly enough, the shoes and socks didn't bug me. It just figured he'd be wearing shoes and socks that looked like that.)

That's when I stood up with as much irritation as I could convey without audibly exhaling (a petty and artless tactic if ever there was) and started taking his picture. I took 4. I wanted to tempt the odds with this one, that he might occasion to look up at my phone pointed right at him, a smirk upon my insitgating face. "Are you taking my picture?" he would ask, fully prepared to give me the pounding I probably deserved. "No, just playing Q-Bert," I would reply. "That Coily thinks he can trap me, but I always manage to give him the switcheroo." And then I would take another, and have a hearty chuckle.

Some Pictures

2006-01-27T15:44:00.000-05:00

Cheat Death

2006-01-25T13:14:00.000-05:00

Feeling suicidal? Awaiting your turn at the gallows? Never fear! POM will somehow make those things not happen! It alleviates suicidal tendencies by supplanting them with the desire for revenge against the company that sold you this syrupy concentrate garbage for upwards of $3, and each POM purchased comes with a coupon for free governmental pardon (not valid for non-gallows related sentences.)

Save the Courts, Horses, And By All Means, Forward!

2006-01-11T11:48:00.000-05:00

Earth to Rep. Louise Slaughter and John Kerry: Stop sending me emails. You guys are idiots. I don't know why I signed up for your email lists, it must have been a liberal impulse during the last election or one of the various ensuing scandals, and I don't want to unsubscribe so much as I want to prevent the two of you from ever sending another email again. Democrats, especially ones with newsletters, are all decry and no deliver.

The causes are a little easier to stomach than the loser Democrats (nobody loses like Democrats - especially you, Kerry, you stink, you hear? Stink!!), but I have reached the end of my tolerance for those as well. I refer to the Humane Society, PFAW (how the hell ever I got on that list) and, it pains me to say it, Moveon. I just don't want to get so many crappy emails! I can only be outraged about so many things, and my lot in life is taking precedent right now. I'll get back to you when I'm rich and philanthropish.

The Humane Society has an ongoing epic about saving some kind of wild horses. I helped initially by forwarding the petition around (it seems the biggest way you can help anyone or anything on the internet is to forward their lousy crap around to everyone you know ((I'm not even acknowledging the possibility that a newsletter would move someone to donate money, even though the option is always there, pot-shot though it may be))) and then I received an email saying the horses were saved. I was happy for the horses, and felt good about myself for contributing to their salvation by forwarding the details of their plight (I don't remember what the deal was anymore) to all my compassionate contacts. Then a day later I got another email saying the horses were still in trouble and that there was a continuing dire need for continued email forwarding and fat-chance donations. After that I continued to get emails featuring pictures of horses and more text than I cared to read, and it occurred to me that the only thing one gets when trying to affect social change on the internet is subscriptions to superfluous newsletters.

Down is the New Up

2005-12-08T15:23:00.000-05:00

I'm going to start leaving my fly down to capitalize on opportunities for hilarity.

And also to show how graciously I can take a good fly-related ribbing. I won't be embarrassed at all! People will shout, "XYZ! Look at that guy! He has neglected to examine his zipper!" And then, when all eyes are on me, I will just zip it slowly and adjust my belt, and then I'll find the cutest girl in the bunch and toss her a twinkle as if to say, "That's right. Nothing gets to me."

Maybe I won't even zip it! I'll just look down at it and take a moment to process it - like I'm saying to myself "Yep, everything's in order," and then, if I'm sitting down, I'll rest my drink in it or something. Haven't you heard? Down is the new up!

Hopefully I will not forget on a day when I'm not wearing any underwear because I have no laundry. That could get a little hairy, if you catch my meaning.

(Just kidding. I have no hair below my neck ever since the accident.)

Dog Eat Dog

2005-11-29T10:09:00.000-05:00

I handed my coffee cup to a guy getting off the subway this morning and asked him to throw it away for me. A normal enough request, but - maybe it's just New York - I felt like I was requesting something altogether outlandish in asking him to do that for me, couldnt' recall another time in which I had asked a stranger for a favor, any favor, least of all one so common as to throw my coffee away for me, and wasn't able to stop myself from grinning like a jackass while I did it. He took it, though. Nice guy. Real pushover. Not gonna make it in a city like this, a dog-eat-dog city like this.

Speaking of which, the dog-eat dog nature of this city has really caught my attention of late. I feel like everywhere I go, there's some dog eating some other dog, and I'm really beginning to wonder what is to blame for the spike in canine cannibalism. Perhaps it's some chemical in dog food. Perhaps it represents a shift in canine consciousness to the existential, and dogs, not having the presence of mind to abide law and order, and suddenly preoccupied of the notion that they exist a meaningless moment in an eternal slinky-slunk of meaningless moments, have taken to eating each other, because why the hell not, right? Nothing matters anyway and they're goddamned dogs. You don't believe me? Take a look at some contemporary dog-art and you'll see what I mean. It speaks to a species in the dark, without a candle, and is overtly fixated upon imagery containing dogs eating other dogs. I think there's a gallery at the MOMA.

Peasant

2005-11-21T13:43:00.000-05:00

Last night I had a crust of bread and water for dinner so I could see what it was like to be a peasant of olden times. It was all right.

Of course, it was a pretty big crust of bread because it was actually a loaf, and my water was light pink Vitamin Water (Focus - Vitamin A + Ginkgo), but I just decided that I was marrying old-time peasant fare with modern portion sizes and water-flavors, and that it still counted.

Rats. I forgot to check to see whether or not I felt more focused after I drank that Vitamin Water. Probably not, but what if? I'm not one to downplay the importance of unearned focus, lazy peasant as I am.

Lot In Life

2005-11-16T21:01:00.000-05:00

She has a boyfriend. Of course she does. Would it be any other way?

If I had a nickel for every girl I pursue who turns out to have a boyfriend, I might be somewhere close to a dollar. Maybe two. In the last year, that is. Lifetime? I might be pushing 5.

O accursed fortune! Not only can I not have the girl I want, I also can't be reimbursed in change!

New Site!

2005-11-14T01:10:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the new site! I hope you like it - I've made a few changes and added new content. I've separated the blog from the weekly column. The blog will contain news and anytime I feel like screeching and hollering, this is where I'll do it. There will be a new column every week, and Podcasts just about that regularly. One notable change is that there is no RSS feed for the weekly column. Just check back Mondays. Also, I intend to instate a comments feature on the podcasts in the coming days. Oh, and in the coming months I'm planning on turning Sketches into a video download section, so you know.

Thanks for visiting. Send your feedback to matt@howtopayrent.com. If you like what you see, please tell someone about it.

Oh, and definitely check out the podcasts.

Matt

Mold

2005-11-09T21:42:00.000-05:00

Uh oh. There's mold growing in the soil in my plant. Damned plant. I bought it when I was out with a girl, thinking yes, this is what couples do, and if all continues as it's going, I soon will be part of a couple, a glorious and coveted couple, the couple I have longed to be part of for way too long, this feels so healthy and so normal, huzzah, a couple! She likes the plant? I'll buy the plant!

I don't want to keep you in suspense: I punked out. I didn't call for a week or so and she let me off easy. She was very cool about it.

So now I have a plant. I have never been interested in maintaining any plants beyond the cactuses that have been with me since college. I like cactuses because they're both easy to take care of and their outward weaponry coupled with their interior softness provides an apt metaphor for me and all my accursed male brethren.

But now I have a plant, and although I have been seriously neglecting it, it refuses to die. Figures. That's life for you. I can't wait until the day I finally start loving the plant so it can brown up and shrivel, just to spit the way of the world in my disappointed face. Oh well. I doubt I'll ever seriously care for the plant.

I should probably deal with the mold, though. Mold does release spores after all. But who feels like going up the street and buying a pot and soil? Not to mention the hassle of relocating it to a new pot. No. I'm going to put it off for a while. I'll do it soon.

I wonder if the mold could be bad for me. Maybe. I wonder if there is a mold spore that, when inhaled, turns the innards of its host into goo, just melts all the organs into one big glop, all the while the afflicted person thinks first that they are a little sick, then sickness coupled with internal pain, equally distributed, so that they chalk it up to the aches and pains of being everyday sick. It is not until they can't control their bodily functions or move, or think from the pain entire, and by then it's too late to take any mold-antidote that may or may not exist.

It's probably not that kind of mold, though. I think they would take measures to keep that kind of spore out of consumer-grade potting soil.

It's not really worth entertaining the notion that the spores might combine with my DNA and give me super powers, since that is clearly not going to happen. I don't think I would want to be a mold-based mutant anyway. If I was a mutant hero, or villain, actually, scratch hero - if I was a mutant villain, I would definitely want to be a cute one, and mold-man is not fucking cute.

Unless I was just like any normal guy, any normal guy with a palpable dark side, for it would show in my shadowy eyes, and all I would need to do is get close to a victim and breathe into them, whereupon they find themselves afflicted with the very body-goo mold I speculated upon a moment ago. Come to think of it, this mold-man thing could be okay. My eyes could even be green!

But no, if there was deadly poison in my breath then I couldn't make out with girls. Forget mold-man. If I ever want to really take out my murderous aggression on the human race, I'll just have to settle for bombing an abortion clinic or murdering an evolution scientist. Oh, wait. Is that even a crime anymore? Whatever. Point is, I like to make out with girls.

Ooh! Maybe it's the kind of mold that makes you hallucinate like drugs. Is there such a mold, or am I thinking of frogs? That would be a gas!

Let's take stock here: I've imagined three mold scenarios: one bad (death-mold), one mixed (mold-man), and one good (drugs-mold). It's ripe for experimentation!

The only question that remains is, do I try to eat the mold, mix it with a drink, or powderize it and snort it? I think powderize. Yeah. Put it in the oven for a few minutes to dry it out, get it all crispy, then choppy choppy, sniffy sniffy, and at last we'll know the truth!

I'm A Slutty Kitty!

2005-10-25T12:04:00.000-04:00

This Halloween I’m going to be a sexy kitten! I’m going to be a slutty nurse! A French Maid! I’m going to be a sexy nurse kitten! A Frenchy nurse sexmaid!

Because everyone knows: The only thing for girls to wear come Halloween is something slutty! (cue: idiot music.)

Earth to World: Stop talking about that. I mean it. I have had it. I have had it up to here. No, beyond here. Up to so far beyond here, that I can’t even represent it with my hand placed above my head. I would literally have to fire up a jetpack and then jump on a trampoline placed on top of the empire state building and then ignite a boost in my jetpack with my hands stretched as far above my head as I could reach to physically represent the “here” to which I have had it up.

“But we can’t stop talking about things like that!” the world cries in unison. “People need something trivial to talk about. If you want to take something away, take away something real, like Karl Rove or the darkness that threatens to cast its oily cloak over our eyes and our lives, don’t just ruin our small talk! Halloween sluttiness is gold! It makes you really feel like you have a connection to all the cold strangers with whom we share our complacent existence! Take that away and all we have to talk about is the rainy month we’ve had!”

Next person who starts on this topic while I’m in earshot is going to receive an invoice from me, demanding compensation for precious seconds of life lost, and for what? Nothing, that’s what for.

Me, on the other hand, I’m going to be a slutty kitty, but a boy kitty. It’ll be like, the opposite of what everyone will expect! And my girlfriend is going to go as a Fireman! Who wants to be my girlfriend?!

RODNEY

2005-10-22T16:12:00.000-04:00

Dear Diary,

RODNEY PEIFFER IS A JERK A GODDAMNED JERK AND I DONT EVEN CARE THAT I'M TAKING THE LORD'S NAME IN VAIN RIGHT NOW, I AM REALLY GOD-GOD-GOD DAMNED PISSED AND MAD AND FURIOUS. >:0

Oh great. Oh just wonderfully great. After I wrote that first part I was to mad to stand still so I kicked a hole in the door. Oh, damnit. (See, God? I'm back to not taking your name in vain, so I hope you forgive me for doing it before -- I kind of want to erase it, but a Diary's a Diary, and leaving it in there doesn't make me proud of it or anything.) Now what's going to happen when Mom gets home? Probably nothing, when I tell her what happened.

Rodney wouldn't stop hitting me on the head in art class. He was acting like he was joking but I tried to get him to stop and he wouldn't and then I just got shaky and I felt hot like I was trapped and it was all his fault, like that he had a grip on me from all sides, with the hitting and the laughing, there was nothing I could do because he is bigger than me and he wasn't listening to a word I said! ALL I HAVE EVER BEEN IS NICE TO RODNEY. HE'S FAT AND UGLY AND I WAS NICE TO HIM AND I DONT KNOW WHY HE WONT BE NICE TO ME. WHY IS NO ONE EVER NICE TO ME? EVERYBODY PICK ON JEREMIAH, HE'S LITTLE AND DOESNT FIGHT BACK! HURRAH!!! GOD-GOD-GOD-GOD-DAMN IT!!

I'm sorry God. I love you God.

I hate you God.

I love you God.

I hate you God.

I love you God.

I hate you God.

I love you God.

I hate you God.

DAMNIT, stop, I'm inserting a break, that's it, it's over, I love you God and that's Final.

I hate you God.

I love you God and that's it. That's all.

I hate you God.

I love you God, the end, on off off on.

I hateI love you God. I LOVE YOU GOD.

I hate you God I hate you God.

SOMETHING ELSE. I love you God. SOMETHING ELSE NOW. I hate you God. I love you God start over start over do don't do don't on off off on.

Josh is having a Halloween party and I actually got invited! :-D That makes me really happy because I LOVE Halloween and I don't think I've ever been invited to a Halloween Party before. Not since I was really little and we touched things like eyeballs and brains, only they were actually food but they feel like gross things in the dark. I wonder if we'll do that at Josh's party tonight? Or maybe that's a kids thing. Sometimes I feel so dumb but how can you know what goes on at a party when you don't get invited to them? :-/

Josh is a nice guy, though. He's a little too cool I think for us to ever really be friends, but he's nice to me. I don't know if he would have stopped Rodney RODNEY from hitting me on the head, but he invited me to his party, so that's a start. What I really need is someone who likes me enough to get that jerk to not hit me on the head. Oh well. I'm kind of worn out. I'm gonna download the MONSTER MASH! Then I can play it real loud and just kind of dance around and let it all out! :P

S'up?

2005-10-17T23:44:00.000-04:00

Dear Diary,

S'up y'all? Dis Jeremiah in da hizzow!

Hehe I'm just kiddin'! That's not how I really talk! I wish! Maybe more people would want to be my friend if I talked like I was cool. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to make bein' me cool. Maybe one of these days I'll figure it out! :P

Speaking of being cool, I got a skateboard!!! I know I don't know how to skate but how hard could it be? I thought it would be fun and also a good opportunity to make some friends. I could use a friend or two.

Dan isn't my friend anymore as of last week. I was doodling a wiener on my desk and he saw it and called me gay and now everyone calls me gay. But I wasn't doodling a wiener because I like wieners, I was doing it just to be joking around!!! Oh well. It's hard to explain yourself sometimes. :(

It gets pretty lonely when your best friends are your online buddies and you're diary (not that I don't like you, diary, of course I do, it's just that I wish real people wanted to talk to me and be around me. *sighs*) Maybe when the dudes see me shreddin' on my brand new board, with my kickin' helmet and other safety gear, they'll think I got it goin' on!

It'll be sick!!!!

Until next time, I be blingin! Or whatever, I don't know, I'm just clowning around! Maybe some day I'll make my living being silly. I certainly hope so. I'm such a weirdo, I don't know if I could do anything that didn't require a little goofiness! %P (Is that even a face? I don't know, but the eyes were googly so I thought I would use it!!!) Bye Diary! Love you!!!

~J

I like signin' my name with just my initial!! When other people do it, I always think there mysterious! It doesn't seem mysterious when I do it, though. At least not to me it doesn't. No matter what I do, I always know I'm me. :(