While most politicians wait to finish their political careers before writing memoirs, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray is bucking the trend with the release of his new book: The Porcupine Eater. The volume, which chronicles the mayor’s story from cradle to city hall, provides a compelling narrative of the man behind the mustache and his commitment to, well, whatever Adrian Fenty didn’t support. To understand the book’s somewhat peculiar title, we turn to the foreword by AFT president Randi Weingarten. There we learn that she had recounted the now-famous Michelle Rhee bee-eating incident to Gray while the two were attending a function at the National Zoo. The mayor became enraged by the tale, yelling “She thinks that’s tough?!?” before ripping off his shirt outside the porcupine exhibit, hurdling the fence, and capturing one of the critters barehanded … “He had this crazy look in his eyes as he devoured it whole,” recalls Weingarten. “With needles still protruding from his lips, he let out a roar of victory and screamed, ‘how’s that for tough!?!’ Right then and there, I knew this man had what it takes to lead the nation’s capital.”
Vincent Gray, The Porcupine Eater: Bees Won’t Cut It in My Town (Washington, AC/DC: Quill Pig Press, 2011).