Duke Riley & Mister Squirrel

I interviewed Duke Riley yesterday, both for my own curiosity and for the Brooklyn Rail. While talking about Duke's submarine, his driftwood bar on Plump Island, his takes on nonprofits, the waterfront, development and globalization, not paying rent, living in a pigeon coop, the Greenpoint Terminal fire and the clothing store that came out of it, boating, his tattoo shop and more that I can't think of right now, he had in his shirt a baby squirrel. He found the squirrel in Cape Cod, where he spent the previous weekend. He tried showing me how the squirrel runs up his leg, but he wasn't wearing the right pants. Making a pouch out of his shirt with safety pins and carrying around a water bottle and pine nuts (the only thing the squirrel would eat), Duke carried the squirrel to a nearby cafe and then to the park. I asked if he had a name, and Duke decided to name him Mister Squirrel.