Forums >Off the Beaten Path>People Say I'm Crazy
Found a 2001 article on Robert Vervloet, aka Sport Jester: http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-627-people_say_im_crazy.html
"Next, Vervloet began carpet-bombing influential figures in various sports, including top skaters, running gurus and rowing coaches. After a long correspondence, Vervloet traveled to Emmaus, Penn., last year to put on a cat-running clinic for Amby Burfoot, the editor of Runner's World magazine. Burfoot, the winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon, says none of his colleagues could replicate the 20-percent gains of in speed and efficiency that Vervloet promised, but he was impressed by Vervloet's passion."
an amazing likeness
After leaving Portland State University, Vervloet found work impersonating a woman for a Portland phone-sex service. "Somebody told me, 'You don't know what it's like being a woman,' so I thought I'd find out," he explains. "But the real women [at the service] didn't like me because I made more money than they did." Vervloet then sold sex toys and donned rubber gloves to swab out private viewing booths at Fantasy Video. "I got what I wanted out of the job," he says. "People say 'sex sells,' and I wanted to know why."
Check out this RA thread with SJ from 2009 for an in-depth exploration of the article....51 pages of concentrated goodness.
Acceptable at a dance, invaluable in a shipwreck.
I hadn't seen that thread. That article has so many good quotes, though:
'Vervloet quit selling cars but maintains an occasional gig as a car psychic on the radio. Callers tell him the make, year and color of their vehicles, and he describes their personalities. "You drive what you are," Vervloet says. It's a seemingly logical assertion, complicated by the fact that he doesn't own a vehicle.'
SIGH.
Runners run