Juan Carlos not moving on to semi-finals

He said he was prepared for bad news, and he was.

When Houston's Juan Carlos Restrepo learned Wednesday night on live TV that he wasn't moving on to the semi-finals of "America's Got Talent," he simply turned and skated off stage.

"I never lose - having the chance to perform at Radio City Music Hall in New York City is not losing," said Juan Carlos, a Rollerblade dancer.

"What happened to me was a dream come true."

Carlos, born 49 years ago in the city of Medellin, Colombia, has skated since childhood.

Until the talent competition, he was best known for entertaining commuters stuck in rush hour traffic in and around his Montrose neighborhood.

"I give them a little shimmy and shake," Juan Carlos said in an earlier interview with the Chronicle.

When Carlos traveled to New York to perform in the talent show's quarter finals, he kept his skates on before and after rehearsals and entertained random New Yorkers with his best moves.

Often fans wanted photos with him and hugs.

"These people, they loved me to death," he said.

During the Tuesday night performance, the Rollerblade dancer amped up his usual routine with fireworks shooting out of his skates, a few seconds of flight and 16 professional dancers in the background.

When, after all that, judge Howard Stern labeled his act "boring," Carlos was unperturbed.

"I really don't care what Howard has to say," the dancer said. "If I can make 6,000 people happy in Radio City Music Hall and one person not happy, do you think I have time for him?"

Carlos' motto suited him perfectly after he learned he was eliminated from the competition: "No negativity, darling. Move forward."

He will travel back to Houston on Thursday. "I'll be glad to see my dog, Heidi. I plan to sleep three days in a row," he said.