For Robert John Burck, a workday starts typically enough. He takes his laptop, leaves the New Jersey home he shares with his girlfriend and her three children, climbs into his car and commutes into midtown Manhattan.
What happens next is less typical. He strips down to his Fruit of the Looms, takes his guitar out to a traffic island in the middle of Times Square and lets it rip, strutting and posing as eager tourists point their cameras.
Being the Naked Cowboy – Burck’s calling for a decade – is not everyone’s idea of a dream job. But the Ohio native, 37, wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.
And if “personal branding” is the name of the game in today’s marketplace, he can only be called an huge success. Having struck out with little but his guitar and 36 pairs of underwear, he’s managed to parlay his buff physique and what by his own account are modest talents into an internationally known brand, guided by a dogged work ethic and a relentless focus on his goal: to become the most famous person on Earth.
Whether he’ll pull if off is open to debate, but there’s no question that he’s managed to attract both a good deal of attention and a respectable income, not just through the $300 an hour he says he makes on the street, but through a growing number of marketing and endorsement deals.
The Cowboy’s “office” is a shiny black Escalade SUV he parks in a reserved spot in a West 45th Street lot, which holds most of what he owns, including a journal where he records his every move, a Naked Cowboy TV Web cam, and a dog-eared copy of “The Naked Cowboy Prayer Book,” a typewritten manifesto outlining his life goals, written over a decade ago.
One afternoon last week, he sat down in the front seat with @work to discuss his progress. A rapid-fire talker, he’s got a sharp mind and a formidable confidence, as well as a familiarity with the works of Emerson and Nietsche one might not expect from a man known for jumping around in his tighty-whities.
How did you get from a small town in Ohio to where you are now?
I read a book called “Unlimited Power” by Anthony Robbins. I was a very energetic person, had tons of ambition, but I was just a reckless fool. I was notorious for being the worst kid in town, with no one telling me I could direct my own life.
In that book, he made it clear I had made the decisions that led me to where I was, and that I could be anywhere I wanted to be. He tells you to write out your goals – physical, developmental, financial, social, emotional – so I did, and it’s been that every day since.
What were the goals you came up with?
(Reads): “Body of a champion, stone-solid ripped with extremely awesome muscularity, most flexible human being alive . . . most celebrated entertainer of all time, acting ability unlimited, sense of humor unrelenting.” I mean, when he told me to write out what I wanted, I had no problem. I wanted to make the pope, the president and everybody else look like imbeciles, like pure figureheads in a world where I ruled.
What did you do to realize that?
First, I started bodybuilding. I was the skinniest guy in the world up to that point – anorexic, literally going to a shrink every week. I started eating and joined the gym and gained over 100 pounds, and the next year I was the biggest guy in the school. Then I went to college. I got a political science degree from the University of Cincinnati.
How did that lead to being the Naked Cowboy?
I was a stripper to pay my way through college, and at some point someone said I should be a model. I started coming to New York City, and spent 2½ years getting photos taken, building a portfolio. And while I was doing that, I was dancing in every gay bar in town to make $50 a night, literally living on the street, and taking the Greyhound back and forth from Cincinnati, where my girlfriend lived. I was trying to be a model, trying to be an actor, trying to get on TV, basically anything I could do to get famous.
How did you end up playing guitar in your underwear?
I did a shoot for Playgirl magazine in 1998, out in Venice Beach. I had started taking singing lessons, so I took the opportunity to go out and play on the boardwalk. I went out in boots, jeans, the whole cowboy persona, and was ignored the entire day. The photographer said, ‘Why don’t you play in your underwear?’ I played in my underwear, I made the news, I made over $100, and I’ve been the Naked Cowboy ever since.
What was your next move?
I came back to Cincinnati and went down to Fountain Square and played guitar in my underwear. The police came and arrested me, and the next morning I was on TV, telling how I was the Naked Cowboy, born to spread healing to the nations of the world.
I went city to city for two years, doing the same thing. I would show up, call the news, say there’s a guy playing guitar in his underwear at such and such location, wait 10 minutes and then go out there. At some point somebody said, ‘Why don’t you go East, and you won’t have to drive 12 hours between cities. So I came East and got to Times Square, and obviously there were thousands and thousands of people, and the exponential factor of people taking pictures and taking that image with them.
So you knew you’d found the place you belonged?
Oh yeah. For a while I was staying in New Jersey, driving two hours each way every day. Then I moved closer, and spent five years living at the Royal Motel, a seedy little hotel that rents by the hour. I moved in with my girlfriend about three years ago.
How many days a year are you out there doing your thing?
Every single day, all the way back for the last 10 years. If I’m not here, it’s because I’m in another city or another country doing the exact same thing.
So weather doesn’t enter into that?
Hell no. The colder it is, the hotter it is, the better it looks.
What’s a typical day for you?
Every day looks the same. I get up, I sit in a chair for a couple hours reading. Literature, philosophy. From there I go to the gym, then I go home, eat chicken breast and veggies, and go to Times Square. Then I come home, work out again, read and go to bed.
Do you feel like the work you’ve done is starting to pay off?
Oh, definitely. The whole idea was to establish a brand, and then start selling licenses. We’re signing big deals now, and everyone on the planet is calling.
The name of this column is “Dream Job,” so let me ask: Is this a dream job?
Well, if you could pick your favorite thing to do in the entire world and do it all day, and every time you turn around someone’s trying to pay you money just because you do it? Come on. It’s not a job, it’s being paid to live to your own liking. I’m free and clear – a free man. “Only in New York” – I’m the epitome of that expression.
What’s the worst part about being he Naked Cowboy?
There is no bad part. Everything is awesome, and anything potentially difficult is a call to order. I’m all about growing through struggle and stretching my capacity, mental, physical, financial, social.
What’s your goal at this point?
Well, $55 billion is the number to beat. Gates and Buffett, they’re going down. And, just being realistic with myself, I want power. But power because I earned it. We see Paris Hilton, we don’t think, “Oh I really admire her.” But we see the Naked Cowboy and say, “I watched him day after day do whatever it took to make that money,” and you respect and honor that.
Of course there are people who see you and think, that guy’s totally ridiculous.
Yeah, people drive by in trucks and taxis and call me a lunatic, or tell me to get a real job. And to that I say: I guess he likes sitting in traffic all day.