I’ve passed this guy many times. I always thought he was scary and weird.
I stop by to interview him this morning but he’s not at his regular spot — dancing beside the gas station near Burton Way.
I finally find him alone with his piled-high red shopping cart in an alley. He’s dressed in black spandex as usual and shuffles papers in a folder.
He’s grimy and disturbed.
I extend my hand when I introduce myself. He won’t shake hands. He says he doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want me to take his photo.
He keeps saying, "No, no, man. I appreciate it."
He moves away from me.
I leave him alone.
LOS ANGELES — The newest sensation at the center of Hollywood’s fashion scene isn’t a famous designer or starlet. It’s a 56-year-old homeless man who spends his days dancing on roller skates.
John Wesley Jermyn has been a fixture in West Los Angeles for more than 20 years. Nicknamed "The Crazy Robertson" and "The Robertson Dancer," he is a constant presence on a stretch of Robertson Boulevard that has become the city’s trendiest shopping corridor and a prime strolling spot for tourists and movie stars. Among locals and online, there’s much speculation about Mr. Jermyn’s personal history, including one oft-repeated rumor that he’s a secretive millionaire.
…A star athlete in high school, Mr. Jermyn was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the 1969 Major League Baseball draft. He attended Pepperdine University and played a season for a Los Angeles Dodgers’ minor-league team in Bellingham, Wash. (He hit just .205 and made 12 errors in 63 games, according to the Society for American Baseball Research.)
