Across the U.S., a growing number of homeless people have gained attention through the Internet. More than 17,500 videos on YouTube are tagged with the word“homeless.”Leslie Cochran, a street resident in Austin, Texas, who has twice run for mayor, has 10,775“friends”on his MySpace page. In Boston, the profile of Harold Madison Jr. — a homeless man better known as“Mr. Butch”— rose through online clips and a Web site made in his honor.
Mr. Jermyn was raised in Hancock Park, a historic L.A. neighborhood that’s home to some of the city’s wealthiest families. His father managed one of L.A.’s largest Chevrolet dealerships.
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.)
Joel John Roberts, chief executive of People Assisting the Homeless, which provides shelters for L.A.’s street residents, says the branding of Mr. Jermyn is“like designing a line of clothing patterned after Iraqi refugees fleeing the war.”
Mr. Hirsh and Vic Ackerman, one of the other founders of the clothing line, are sensitive to Ms. Jermyn’s concerns about her brother, but say Mr. Jermyn“specifically asked”them not to contact her about the clothing line or the contract. They view Mr. Jermyn as a“business partner”and say they make sure he’s aware of how his image is being used.
第一章 The Best Poses for Women (8)
“He knows everything that’s going on,”says Mr. Ackerman, noting that Mr. Jermyn nixed a set of promotional photos because he didn’t like his outfit and thought he“looked a little puffy.”