So What The Fuss?

Imelda Marcos

Sneakers are religous and political talismans to Young Americans: they confer respect upon the wearer and testify that he or she belongs to a certain community. Sneakers are heady stuff and the stakes are high. Alex Kuczysnski, "Sneakers Try to Live Up to the Nostalgia," The New York Times May 19, 2005

The shoes, the shoes, it's gotta be the shoes 'cause girlies they clock, they stand around and jock. Mr Funke, "Chief Rocka," Here Come The Lords

I was in Alphabet City the other day. Shamefully iPodless I amused myself by sizing people up or rather down since it has been said that shoes say a whole lot. When I arrived at Kate's Joint's I surveyed the footwear of the vegetarian diner's ecletic patrons and derisively concluded that all east village/alphabet city/lower east siders rock Converse (dirt dotted, well worn, scuffed and frequently duct taped). I thought how counter culture cliche chic until I remembered the Asics on my feet keeping the counterculture cypher I momentarily maligned complete. I know, Converse are neither unique nor new but they are found in higher and dirtier concentrations in certain communities (for equally high but cleaner concentrations see Compton); Nike's too since the ascent of the Dunk (which I admire from a distance) and the Air Rift which I rock religously. I feel bad about what Nike's doing in the world and I swear I (or my mama I should say since I had/have no cash flow) hadn't bought Nike's 5 or six years prior but damn if I didn't bury my principles for style. Of course, this kicked off an 'eff the (so called) third world de facto enslaved Nike craftschildren' spree. I found this Nike iD thing and fell in love with the idea of customizing kicks. I made some iD track shoes that I never wore for any endeavor other than stunting. They had my initials on them and said 'fly'. Everybody liked them except for J; he said I laced them too tight. That was like 4/5 years ago so you can imagine my gleeful surprise when during a recent visit to NikeiD.com to VOTE FOR PREFIX (The Yellow, Blue and Tan ones customized by Dave Park) in the Nike iD blog contest. I found out I can customize Air Rifts.

Is it back to charging motherfuckers 11 for an O?*

*Nota Bene-I have NO idea what this means (nor do I understand how to "flip money 3 ways") but it seems appropriate.