Following in the footsteps of such journalistic luminaries as Mike Wallace, Barbara Walters and Ed Bradley, The Dartmouth's Mark Sweeney catches up with the big names on campus and asks the questions that others have too much professionalism or integrity to ask. Today, Sweeney picks the mind of Matt Burgess '04.
The Dartmouth: You hail from Queens, New York. Undoubtedly you are a proud graduate of the so-called "School of Hard Knocks." How did your upbringing shape you as a person?
Matt Burgess: That's an interesting question, Mark. I was born and raised in Jackson Heights and the transition to Dartmouth hasn't been an easy one. It's a whole different world back home. Up here no one knows what "salugi" means and they think that Special K is a cereal and that I'm a good dancer because I can do the robot. When I leave the house at Dartmouth, The Wall Street Journal is sitting on my doorstep. Back in Queens when I left the house, I'd trip over a crackhead.
Can you imagine going off to school with your knapsack and lunchbox, and there's some junkie offering to get down and dirty on you for a dollar? What's an eight-year-old to do in that situation? Well, I know what I did. I ran upstairs and got my piggybank.
The D: Many around campus respect you as if you were a much older, learned and experienced man. Perhaps it is due to your endless supply of wit, intelligence and sagacity. Or more likely it is because your hairline is retreating faster than the Italian army in 1917. Either way, do you consider yourself a leader on campus?
MB: No. Next question, Mark.
The D: If you could model your life after any comic book character, which would it be and why?
MB: So I'm guessing you heard that I'm a big comic book fan. I know that's nerdy, but in my defense it's not like I go see the "Lord of the Rings" movies or play Dungeons and Dragons or vote. Honestly, comic book buying is my only geek vice.
I actually don't know which character I'd model my life after. Probably Zatanna. But I do know what super power I'd like to have: mime control. Not mind control. Mime control. I would have an army of mimes that did my bidding, that I could command to make invisible boxes or pull on invisible ropes or kill Larry from Food Court.
The D: Allow me to quote a passage from a prior interview with "Getting to Know..." Hall of Fame inductee Snowden Wright '04. He stated, "The fact of the matter is I am the greatest writer to ever grace the Dartmouth campus. Bar none. A close second to my writing prowess would have to be Matt Burgess. That little fella can write, even if he is from Queens and has a tragic obsession with White Russians, Daredevil comics and bars called El Rancho. Nonetheless, I can still write circles around him." How do you respond to this statement?
MB: I take solace in the fact that I was only one of 4000 people that Snowden managed to offend in that interview. Actually, Snowden and I are both creative writing majors, and our relationship is a lot like the relationship Hemingway and Fitzgerald had. Like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Snowden and I started out as very good friends; like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, we then became bitter rivals; and like Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Snowden and I make love every Tuesday. That's actually a lie, Mark. Snowden and I don't make love every Tuesday.
The D: Let's say you were to write a screenplay about your life. Which actor would portray you, and what would be the title of this movie?
MB: The two choices that first come to mind are Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp, but they have to be eliminated because both of those guys are good looking. The obvious choice to play me then is Willie Aames, who played Buddy Lembeck on "Charles in Charge." He doesn't look anything like me, but Hollywood special effects can go a long way these days. For the whole Matt Burgess look we'll shave his head, slap some hair on his tush, and get him that prosthetic penis from "Boogie Nights." What a great flick this would be.
In addition to Willie Aames, I'd like to bring back some more of my favorite actors who have unjustly fallen out of the spotlight: people like Dabney Coleman and Ernie Hudson and Maria Bello and Timothy Hutton (the great Timothy Hutton, who really could have had John Cusack's career if not for a few unlucky breaks).
The D: Your spirited demeanor, droll nature and revered dancing skills are three of the many reasons why you have gained such a high degree of popularity with the female population on this campus. In your opinion, what are your most appealing characteristics?
MB: My spirited demeanor, droll nature and revered dancing skills. Actually, any popularity that I have with the female population is entirely due to the fact that I have a wonderful girlfriend whom I tricked into dating me and whom I now hold onto for dear life.
As far as the girls of Dartmouth are concerned, since I have a girlfriend I'm completely non-threatening sexually. Girls are always inviting me to go shopping with them, they're always asking me over for "Sex in the City" and they're always dressing me up in turtlenecks and floppy hats and calling me Truman Capote. Actually only one girl would do that and she's dead now.
The D: Of all the songs that have won the Grammy for Record of the Year in the past 25 years, I'd have to say the most unlikely winner occurred in 1982 when "Rosanna" by Toto took home the award. Not only that, Toto won album of the year as well for "Toto IV," an LP that also featured the number-one hit "Africa." That said, what is your all-time favorite book?
MB: It's a three-way tie between "The Great Gatsby," "Where I'm Calling From" and "The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV." I'm a huge hypochondriac. I think I have every disease -- mental and physical.
I go to Dick's House every six weeks to get "my boys" checked out for testicular cancer. I get so nervous that whenever the nurse asks me to drop my pants, I invariably end up shivering in the middle of the room, completely naked. I honestly just got back from the proctologist where he checked me out for prostate cancer. Fortunately, all he found up there was the skeleton of a dead gerbil.
The D: To those younger and more impressionable readers of this article, what advice would you give to any underclassmen?
MB: Do what you gotta do to get by. Ethics were not a consideration back home in Queens. We had an illegal cable box, we all cheated at Spades, we fought dirty. My father ran a fake business out of our house called "Analytic Systems." It didn't exist; I was the vice-president. The company declared bankruptcy and my father, the CEO, collected money from the government (just kidding, IRS!). All throughout high school whenever I answered the phone it was always, "Analytic Systems, Matt Burgess speaking." That's a true story, Mark.
The D: Over the course of your world travels, what has been your favorite vacation locale, and what has endeared that place to you?
MB: I've never been on a real vacation. Whenever my family would go away for more than a few days, we'd come home to a house full of cockroaches. They'd be crawling on our chairs, sleeping in our beds, eating our beloved porridge. What a mess. The cockroaches in Queens are as big as footballs and they'll fly right into your face.
The D: What are your plans for your post-Dartmouth life?
MB: After this interview, I think I'm going to be spending a very long time apologizing to my loved ones.
