“After a nuclear war, three things will exist. Twinkies, cockroaches and Air Max 95 Z’s”

“After a nuclear war, three things will exist. Twinkies, cockroaches, and Sick Of It All”

Two opinions, from two friends. Unfortunately neither of these are my size. Such a bummer.

ACGs, they’re my shit. For a while, if you saw me in the street, and you would, I’d be arcteryx’d and ACG’d out, something orange, or grey/brown, nutty on my feet. “That’s me dogg, on my block I didn’t have to play the big shot”, is what Brad meant when he’d post up in houston rocking Goadomes and a light fleece, ready for any weather. Then I moved back to Canada where everyone wore the hell out of that look, only their jeans had raisins (raisans? shout out to J Mascis’ Witch playing a secret gig tonight that I’m not connected enough to get into), peanut butter stains, dust from their little bag of chalk hanging off their jeans, tousled (knotted) hair. If not for some of these details, it might as well have been me. So I just ran a pair of 97s into the ground, trading an OG pair of Okwahns for a TV (which was not cable ready), selling beat-ass wildwoods for $30, spending the money on basketball magazines, bus tickets and feta burgers, etc etc. I was free for now I thought, with less clutter in my sneaker sanctuary, just an X minus 1 pair situation.

But man.. I don’t know what’s worse. That feeling I’d get when I’d leave the house with nothing to wear* or the feeling I just copped while looking at these. Such a sick color combo. Just enough black and white to make it totally look sleepy, and a highlighter yellow swoosh (and lacelocks) to set off your faded ass steep tech, or purple Theta AR, or whatever. I’m not sweating it too hard, because they’re way too large for my feet, but hey, to see a 1999 shoe - any shoe, screw an ACG - on sale, on the cheap, even with a bobo box, is bittersweet unless you cop it. I guess I just know what I like, but don’t always get it.

*worst feeling for about 5 seconds. Sometimes you don’t want to wear your beaters, no matter how icy.

Vintage Nike Air Zooms? Or so this guy says. It’s hard to say what this shoe is but it’s been one of the biggest ghosts in the game that I’ve come across. The first time I found it was a little over two years ago, I was checking out the crooked tongues board’s what did you wear today post, and this was on there, with no info, no further pics, no tag, no info, nothing. The poster was an OG rare air euro, with slim jeans, an air of mystery and a deep closet. What were these things? I didn’t actually find them, but my man Steve*, a Montrealer who never bought anything I’d sell, and didn’t actually buy much at all, and who got into NFL Football from his girlfriend, but he showed these things to me and put them on the case. Though I was washed up as long as two years ago, I spent a good week looking for info on these things, through my channels. But nothing. No clue, when they dropped, how much they went for, or anything. I gave up, and I think that after about six or eight months, but definitely later that year (2006), I got a handle on the handles and hooked Steve up. By that point it was too late, and Steve had spent the rest of his money buying fantasy football magazines so he could build a team lousy enough to not make the playoffs.

As far as the shoes themselves, they’re pretty special. The tag dates them to 1994, and the shape would suggest the same. The last looks to be identical to the huarache light, once a personal favorite by the entire heatunitreport.com team. Also, check out the speed lacing, which was rare on these types of shoes. It does make sense to have a light lacing system on a non air, light** shoe, but off the top of my head the only shoes I remember with these are the Lava Dome IIIs, not exactly bastions of stealth in design. No matter though. This purple and orange thing is as good an example of Beaverton’s confusing autonomy, and how it’s not long for this world.

These shoes should go for $15 or less, but are more likely than not to go the way of these, which is a shame. This shoe, cleaned up, could really turn some heads, and is a deal for under $40. It shouldn’t slip through the cracks again.

*Named have been changed. I mean, if I got into football from a girl…
**proper

Nike Air Max 98s . This shoe is the equivalent of putting a great jacket on a beautiful girl. I’ll see one on the sartorialist, and you’d think they’d look best in the summer, but plain janes and air max 97s are a lot alike, muted, understated, never mistaken for like, your Pamela Anderson or Dunk. The 98 is like a teched out version of the 97.. more lines, more curves, more colors, more air, but just as low profile, just as sleepy. Then the drunk sine curve of the line right above the air gets under your skin and you can’t think of another shoe. Terrible light techno/house, or whatever, band Red Snapper wore these on the back of a record, to their credit. They didn’t ruin them. You never see these.. This pair is a size 7, perfect for the girl in your life. Buy her them shits, they’re barely nikes, they’re sleepy, lazy and kempt, they were them all over Banff and Italy, Karachi and Brussels, wear them, get them.Look at that teeny weeny swoosh. I miss them, my pair, half a size too big, oh they looked fly. But they could never take the place of my Maxes. :pHope you all had a nice long weekend..

I would like to apologize for the light neglect washed over this blog. I have just relocated to a different country and my affairs have been in the air for a little bit. I just unpacked my own computer yesterday and after a day on the phone with Time-Warner, we are back in business.  

I  figured I’d start off this new phase with a representative sneaker, the Air Max 97 Gold/Red. Impact wise this is the best shoe Nike has made in fifteen years and taste-wise, it might be the best they’ve ever made. I was never a big fan of 95s, at least on my feet, but the 97 is a subtler, matte, flattened take on that admittedly revolutionary shoe. Yes, the 95 was designed after a skeleton and the 97 was designed after a shoe; yes, Eric Clapton owns a jet painted like a 95 but no one owns any conveyance resembling a 97*. Compton rapper The Game gave a shout-out to the 95s back when he was good (or back when his beats were, anyways), and the only musicians I have seen affiliated with 97s have been that band Red Snapper, of which the less said about them, the better.

But I still maintain the 97 is a better shoe. The 95 has a wide, wide last and is fatter than most air maxes and some air forces. It looks very strange with slim fitting, or at least modestly fitting jeans - If you’re wearing skinny Nudies or what have you, you might be more interested in beatle boots. It is also a tall shoe, with an almost exaggerated midsole and is only nomenclaturally a low-top.

The 97, on the other hand, is short enough that it might be the most low-profile Nike produced outside the odd tennis model. The colorways, while not as exciting as the 95’s, have more staying power**. They didn’t try to do anything too outrageous, color wise, because the design was already so out there. All those little lines, the infinite air all around the bottom, but still not much of it, why would they need a turquoise or teal? White and silver, gold and white, both with some red, do the job and match your jeans, khakis, or even your suit pants (if you’re bold). A caveat on this shoe: it is extremely narrow, with a low toebox. If you have a wide or high foot, don’t order these off eBay, or conversely, take out the insole.

*besides the shoes, duh.
**to be sure, the neon 95 is pretty untouchable from a design and color-wheel standpoint.

One of the illest colorways for about a minute. Doesn’t look especially hot anymore but damn was this fly back in the day. I never copped these but i had a pair of Air Max Storms that I wore the hell out of them. Definitely one of the better packs Nike has made in the last ten years. The quality was pretty fly for all of them, stitched right, not much mesh, dark midsoles, everything. They looked like they could weather a storm. Or even a storm II. Hard to say if they could though. The Huaraches were the least visible of the three and consequently the best ones IMO. They were the mids, not the fab five, but close enough and with a hole in the ankle, like a true Huarache. Huarache Machi!

Colors were a deep sultry brown with the satin in lakers colors. Whatup kobe, I see you. Maybe I even love you. Scoring 25 in the game, only four ahead of the rad man and less than half of AI’s. But who won? Everyone talks about how Kobe is playing on reserve and doesnt care and wants to be traded. I’ll tell you this, if this was the 1940s and I were Ted Williams (RIP), I’d want Kobe over John Glenn riding that plane. He could pick the antlers off a mosquito in motion. If this was Panama or The Boer War I’d want Kobe to be my general (no homo). If he was the captain of a boat I’d take the orders, big no homo.

Everyone hates kobe, but for the life of me i don’t know why. Is it because he knows what hard work is, and he knows why he’s the best? Is it because you sleep in on your day off, and he gets up at 5 am and takes a helicopter to Staples Center to beat traffic? Is it because you’re a pussy and cant wear crazy eights. Or when he sonned the hell out of Raja Bell. Most confident guy. I guess you can read Freedarko or ESPN for more ruminations, but in 2007 the Lakers are more the Clippers and Kobe gets a lifetime pass from me and hopefully all my friends

Anyways… not too into the neon or the overwrought speckling here. Most of the weird Nikes come out lately have been descended from this pack in one way or another. No black or white, lots of unusual colors, dark and deep, all having nothing to do with each other. This started a little before those smurf dunks or whatever the hell they were. The beginning of hypebeast, what was it? Like some dunks wrapped in carpet that looked like the good side of a bulk barn? Awful. If i had these shoes I’d spraypaint them shades of grey like in Roger Rabbit. I sold the hell out of my Storms to some loser in Germany. T Raumschierre I think.

Whatup jay bil, the only person who can pull these off, unless you click that link

*shoutout to aj, for letting me do ted williams RIP suicide missions in kenmore my 2nd day with sweet ink, on a beautiful august night in 2003. one

Am I clear?
Are these real?
The original Prestos, in 1999, or 2000, or so, were something else and a bag of chips. They came out in 16 stupidly named colorways (trouble at home, the hungry fisherman, chips and dip, stephen murphy) and had a serious, serious ad campaign. I dont know if anyone reading this is old enough to remember it (whatup usercd) but these ads were everywhere, men in sleeveless water wicking hooded sweatshirts jumping up and down white marble buildings, for girls, or away from beasts, under the hot sun. The ads were pretty mondrian (not mondrian, someone help me out here.. very basic color scheme, but not monochrome.. triochrome? trizome?), all clay and blue and white. Men with 3-extension buzzcuts and one day growth wore no watches or socks and there was not much in the streets, people or carts or sidewalks. As for the shoes themselves they were complicated, sleek and antisensical. Why such a vulnerable toebox, like a soft belly, and both hard plastic lacetowers? Why they… got weird sizing? Unisex? I was all about to start a presto bank in boston but then i left to go get a degree…

Jude keeps telling me that there’s a Presto with a Greek god’s face on the front, and I’ve never seen it, or heard anyone mention it outside of Jude and other Philly heads but it’s a grail of mine. Not the shoe, the picture.

As for this one, I think it’s a retro of the original black presto that came out turn of the millenium. My friend Nick says that the original black Presto is a perfect shoe, and it is. It’s a perfect shoe. This one is close.

Kind of a short update today. This is really one of the better Air Max 97s of the last few years. Besides the original colorway - not the one with the wrong, splayed air bubble - this is the best one since the shoe stopped being regularly produced. Monochrome kix - brogues, boots, flats, japanese slippers, crocs, white on whites, etc can be blocky. These are not blocky. Voltage Zoom Havens can be too sexy for some, but these are Air Max 97s. No one will think you’re wearing anything cool, unless you’re in Turin, the East Village, or similar environs. You want to see a dozen pairs of beat silvers in a row? Head there. Wanna see any old girl in a sundress buying an $11 coffee? Go there.

Nothing too bananas here but this is really a shoe worth looking at, what with all the fakes and boring co.jp’s chilling on ebay by the dozens. This shoe is a blue fire… any brighter flame would be a lie.

Take a gander: