The Naked Cowboy

I was sitting in the waiting room at the local car oil change place and picked up a few magazines to pass time. One of these was the October 2015 issue of “Money” magazine. I was just leafing through when an article caught my attention. The heading was “How Time Square’s Naked Cowboy Makes $150,000 a Year”.

The Naked Cowboy? I recall seeing him in 2000 but thought it was just a passing fad. He was still doing it in New York City fifteen years later!

I put the magazine down and Googled. There were many entries and pictures of him, even a biographical sketch by Wikipedia! I learned that his name is Robert John Burck and that he started his singing act in 1998. Interestingly, and probably because of his popularity, on October 6, 2010, Burck formally announced that he was running for President of the United States in the 2012 U.S. election.  I smiled imagining how the election debates would have been if he arrived to the debates in his attire (or lack of it…).

Upon return home, my curiosity led me to look in my photography Ali Baba cave for a picture I may have kept from that day in Times Square. And to my surprise, I found it! While there should be millions of pictures taken by tourists of him, I thought that mine was more in the street photography approach. It is not him the center of the scene but that young woman with her look.

One can only guess what she is thinking.

PS/ I am pleased to see that I was careful to include a glimpse of his patriotic underwear into the picture to show that he was not totally naked.

December 15, 2015

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2015