SF’s Legendary ‘Bush Man’ Is Still At It—In Key West, Florida

A busker/street performer had an infamous, 35-year Fisherman’s Wharf run delighting and infuriating random tourist passersby by scaring them while disguised as a shrubbery. But we now learn that he’s still doing that same schtick 3,270 miles away, decades later, in Key West, Florida. 

The “Bush Man” is still disguising himself as a plant and then popping out to scream at and scare tourists, a street performance act he started in San Francisco back in 1980.  

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A faithful Broke-Ass Stuart reader took this video last week in Key West, tipping us off that the original San Francisco Bush Man continues to perform his tourist-scaring act in Florida to this very day. 

There have actually been two different Bush Man street performers over the years. The “World Famous Bushman” David Johnson was the original, and appears to be the performer currently doing the act in Key West. There was another Bush Man, Gregory Jacobs, who started as a partner but then turned competitor with the same act according to SFGate. Gregory Jacobs died in 2014.

A media report in 2003 said Johnson claimed he made $60,000 a year from donations for doing the act. Who knows what kind of money he makes these days, and in his new location of Key West, Florida.