A Talk with Staten Island Chuck
This Groundhog Day, Staten Island Chuck once again proved hard to handle for a New York mayor. I caught up with the radical rodent for his frankest interview to date.
Did de Blasio drop you, or did you jump?
Ha! Let’s just say I wriggled.
Was that a political statement?
What do you think? I bit Bloomberg to show my support for the 99%. If you include rodents, the percentage is actually much higher. So, De Blasio got elected as a progressive, but he doesn’t get a free pass. If you want me to interpret my own symbolism, the point was: don’t drop the ball. I’m the ball in that metaphor.
Have you always been a political animal?
Not really. I just do what comes naturally. Look, February 2nd arrives, and I’ve been hibernating. These guys show up with TV cameras, and I’m like, "Hey, it’s not a good time! Do you realize I’ve been living off my own urine for months? I need to eat!" So I just go with my gut, I improvise. The political justification comes later. If you read a lot of Marx and Foucault, you sort of see, "Yeah, that’s why I did that."