The latest candidate to throw his 10-gallon hat into the race for mayor is a Nietzsche-spouting semi-nudist who lives in New Jersey, twice posed for Playgirl and regularly rakes in $300 an hour crooning off-key in Times Square.
Inside the Life of the Naked Cowboy
The Naked Cowboy’s panty-prancing around the Crossroads of the World has made him a hit with camera-snap ping tourists all over, but it’s his off-hours persona that’s really bizarre.
When The Post ar rived at his home in suburban Secaucus, the nearly nude performer, whose real name is Robert Burck, answered the door wearing only Superman boxers and a massive $20,000 white gold and diamond chain.
Nearly all of his belongings are contained in four clear plastic drawers, two of which are filled with underwear.
Burck, 38, keeps a notebook in which he meticulously records, in a shorthand he created, the daily minutia of his life — where he performed, how long he worked out and his philosophical and motivational musings.
“If you don’t know the recipe, you can’t model the man,” he said.
On a typical day, the Ohio native — who at one point was so hungry for exposure he posed as a prostitute on “The Jerry Springer Show” just to be on TV — rises at 6 a.m. and reads for several hours.
He obsessively references his reading, spouting off his take on philosophers such as Nietzsche and religion and motivational authors like Anthony Robbins and Robert Greene.
“You can talk to me about any topic in the world, especially philosophy and theology. I can break down Buddhism, Taoism and Shintoism, any religion there is, and explain how it literally all means one thing,” he said.
Since deciding to run for mayor of New York City, Burck started watching Fox News for hours on end and reading such books as Bill O’Reilly’s “Culture Warrior” and “A Documentary History of the United States” by Richard Heffner.
Under the election-law rules, he has to move to New York City by Election Day, Nov. 3, to be a legitimate candidate.
After his daily reading, Burke, who lives in his girlfriend’s town house in a pleasant gated community with her three children, straightens up the house, dusts, vacuums, takes out the garbage and, time permitting, touches up the white paint on the walls with a tiny brush.
“If you have an environment that looks chaotic and s- – -, it changes who you are,” he said.
He is so into cleanliness that he will pick up other messes he comes across.
“If I go to the gas-station bathroom, I clean the toilet if it’s a mess,” Burck said.
His girlfriend, Cindy Fox, 42, a part-time X-ray technician and personal trainer whom he met at the gym, said, “When you see him in Times Square, he’s funny, joking. There’s also a very serious part of him.”
After he comes home from work, the two often chill out on the couch and watch a movie or TV shows like “Law & Order” or “Seinfeld” reruns.
“He’s also very affectionate. When we get done at the end of the night, he’s all mushy,” said Fox, a pretty blonde with large blue eyes and long lashes.
Burke had been living in a cheap Secaucus motel for $50 a night before moving in with Fox.
While she talks, Burck, still in his boxers, sits on an easy chair by the window, painting the words “Naked Cowboy” on a pair of briefs spread out on a square canvas.
He routinely runs 10 miles a day. When he is on the elliptical exercise machine, he reads his six-page list of 30 affirmations, a rambling, cosmic wish list.
No. 5: “I have the No. 1 reality show in the world!!!”
No. 21: “I go the distance for the populations of the world.”
No. 27: “My NYC penthouse has glass ceilings and walls!”
Despite his Spartan lifestyle, his goals center on making billions and becoming a revered world figure. He says he wants to be bigger than the pope or Michael Jackson in the 1980s.
Nearly every day, unless he’s traveling, he hits Times Square to do his shtick. He typically arrives at around 11 a.m. and stays until about 2 p.m. He claims to make between $200 and $300 an hour, but his real money comes from licensing his brand, which he zealously guards.
He sued the Mars candy company for $4 million, claiming it violated his trademark by putting an animated image of a guitar-strumming, blue M&M clad in briefs and cowboy hat on its Times Square billboard. Mars settled the suit for an undisclosed amount.
In addition, Burck can earn as much as $10,000 a day for appearances and sells T-shirts, underwear, DVDs, his music and even Naked Whey protein supplements, which he has for breakfast every morning.
His career as an underwear-clad busker began in the 1990s in Venice Beach. After his stint as a stripper in the University of Cincinnati, where he earned a political-science degree, he headed to LaLa Land hell-bent on stardom.
One day, he headed to the famous beach boardwalk and tried his act out — fully clothed — among the street performers. No one batted an eye. A friend suggested he strip to his undies and — voila! — he made a hundred bucks.
From there, he took his act on the road. When he would arrive in a new city to perform, he would call both the police and the press so he could land on TV and in the papers while getting arrested for performing in his undies.
He started performing regularly in New York in 1999. The NYPD, for the most part, left him alone, and tourists took a shine to him.
Ten years later, each day begins with him pulling his cream-colored Cadillac Escalade SUV into the Icon garage on West 44th Street. He parks for free in exchange for plastering an Icon sticker on his guitar.
He can be found singing in his skivvies pretty much daily now, often around West 45th Street.