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..

Hey girls… Today is your day, at least as far as Nike is concerned. While your man may be planted in front of the tube watching LOST, or worse, the Miami Heat, someone out there hasn’t forgotten about you*. Ever since Brand Jordan started fucking mostly with black and whites, the best red nikes for the last few years have been the valentines, shoes in women’s sizes released a week before Himself’s birthday. Mostly air forces, mostly air force lows, with court forces as of late (I do not approve) and air max 95s and others hence**.Women’s nikes are generally better than men’s: they’re wider (I’m not sure why***), cheaper, and have flyer colors. More room for your dogs, $10 less, pastels on the 360s, blue swooshes on the 97s, and patent on the air forces. Thanks to our boy Rasheed, who I love, hasn’t dropped a dime on the game since the red patents in ‘04, these are the closest we’re going to get to good freaking patent air forces.

Let me break it down:

These came out in 2005. They are air forces, they are low, and they are nubuck. I am listening to Anthrax and I wish I had a pair of these - I do not. The heart on the heel is tiny, and the sole might have a bunch of candy hearts on the inside, etc. The seller is also selling a Sixers jersey for girls. I couldn’t be bothered to check, but I assume it’s a Kerry Kittles swingman.

These came out in 2006. They’re pretty similiar to the red pair in that they’re both low air forces that aren’t patent, but these ones have a weird back tab (like the Chinese New Year ones) and no little heart. If it makes you feel better though, the candy hearts remain to be trampled under foot. Yum.

These came out last year and are a hefty departure from the other valentine air forces, mainly because they are at this point adhering to other nikes, instead of circling in their own valentine heat orbit. These were real similar to those Japanese air forces that came out in early 04, they were japanese exclusives but I copped them at Clientele, they were yellow and black, and white. Every time I wore them I would get props, not sometimes, but every time I put them on my feet, I’d get a commendation by someone who also had their afternoons free. I’ve never to this day had a pair of shoes that’s given me that, or known anyone else who has, so go figure. I sold them shits. These are the exact same shoe, but with a heart outline on the corner. Kind of feels like a put-on to me, to be honest. It’s not like during the Clinton administration they stuck a rose on an air force and called them Valentine’s; they didn’t, they wouldn’t think to do it. These aren’t Valentines, they don’t even have a heart. They shouldn’t have done this transparent a Valentine’s day shoe.

These came out a long time ago and are great. They’re mids, which are harder to wear, but they’re definitely the better of the cretaceous period of valentine air forces.

Click there, take notes, and cop some similar, or better yet, relisted heat! Happy valentines day to all the girls and skinheads out there! Who loves you

*Phil Knight.

**As always, my favorites are what they were last year, the year before, before, etc.

*** Could be because the women who rock a 12 have some strong feet

PE crazy, crazy PE… Player Exclusives’ - one offs the sneaker companies make for actual basketball players - are always incredible, from the tan XVIIs they wear at Brown to whatever Ray Allen decides to put on this week. That these sheeds are in my size is even more outrageous. Doesn’t he know I don’t have $1000 immediately (4 days and change) available on something I need? I’ve written about sheeds below, so I’ll only mention how “both teams played hard” is the best way I imagine they describe successful marriages (it is Valentine’s day, the shoes are red). But it’s because it’s V day, and why wouldn’t someone put my dogg’s shoe up, in my size, for money, today?PE sneakers’ values are barely defined by eBay prices, inasmuch that anything collectible can avoid eBay. There are always PE’s on ebay, sure, but more often than not, it’s the same guy selling the same pair of size 14 Bibby XIIs. The market itself is pretty hard to crack, as PE’s number in the handful. This one isn’t even Sheed’s number, it’s some guy named 30. George McGinnis? I wouldn’t be surprised. Some are so rare, you will never get them, the five dozen people who have all of them will never trade you. Sorry. After the rare eBay pair, your best bet would be to make friends with B1LLY HOYLE AINT NO CHUMP off niketalk, or someone off the grid. Good luck with that, too.

Happy Chinese New Year!These are not the new forces for this year, but are the 2005 Year of the Rooster model. As with the rest of the years - especially the monkeys - the roosters are great. The Rooster, Monkey, and my personal favorite the Horse are fine alternatives to those who want to wear all white air force low tops, but aren’t fly enough to rock jewels, or patent, or are too poor to buy taiwans. The little things make these forces: the odd choice of leathers, the colors - never exactly white, the script on the back of the tab on the Horse ones. The Monkeys’ swoosh goes from tan to nut, and is patent, there’s a little monkey in the corner. Great shoes, great new, great as beaters.The year of the rat is represented by free wildwoods, as well as vandals (with a cute lil beb rat) and court forces (of all things), for girls. Nike might just be giving up on this year for that part of the world, what with Yao’s presence at the Beijing Olympics and everything.

Here is a pair of vintage, OG - for our purposes - Nike Air Force One High’s, in purple and white, from 1992. This shoe is excellent for several reasons. First, it is monochrome. Only purple, purple stitching. There is some white, a swoosh, and the outsole is white. Most air forces with white outsoles can look fake; indeed, most are*. This instance is pretty real though: the quality of leather on this shoe is unbeatable. Nothing on a $700 Italian shoe I don’t mess with, but for a basketball shoe, it’s pretty damn good. These were made in China, yes, but the MIC Nikes are a little better than wherever they’re made now. This concept is nothing new, though. $2 Levi’s from Sears were sounder than any Swedish jean today, just like these dusty leathers spank a Lux out of the park like that.

You have to hand it to this shoe. It’s purple, it’s a high top, but it looks harder and tougher than a Timberland. I, myself am impressed. It should be noted that AF1s are very high, true high tops along with the AF2 and 3 High. I know my man Jay Bil has this exact pair. Reason enough to buy it, to be sure.I suggest adding this seller to your favorites. He always has some serious heat, and those photos remind me of random stores in Delaware or Connecticut. Kind of a slip through the crack powerseller. One offs of not so much quikstrikes, but random small run shoes from the last few years you might have missed out on. I tend to have at least one of his auctions, active or otherwise, on my list at all times.*One notable exception to this is the very fine Nike Hong Kong Air Force from, I believe, five years ago. I personally do not own a pair, but it is on my fairly short list of shoes I wish to buy, and maybe look at for twenty minutes when they come in the mail.

The Air Bakin was a pretty wacky shoe. If you ask me, they’re almost unwearable. They’re high, about a foot off the ground, and are either burgundy (I think they’re burgundy) or puce. They’re air, but they’re an old model, so they won’t feel resilient or anything. This was the shoe, or one of them, that got recalled because of the Arabic script on the “Air”. Fair enough I say, send these shits back to the stone age. The only dogs who can pull this off are either packing trail mix or a gun.
Otherwise, it just doesn’t click. I have to hand it to this pair, though. They are quite spanking, clean and fresh. I haven’t seen many with this gum rubber outsole, or even in yellow. Stay away from those reds, they are played out, man. This shoe, at its best, is a waterproof, sturdy, high top air max 97? Up to you if you think you can pull it off.

PS peep this guy’s other auctions, esp. his prices. $2K for a pair of IIIs? $250 for a rookie Garnett jersey? All right. If I was wealthy beyond my means I would definitely buy only overpriced stuff on the bay, from guys like this, just to ruin it for everyone.

PPS Gasol looked good last night. Kobe’s points dropped down real low… Is this a sign of things to come? How are they going to handle those weird twin towers come late March? I’m sure the triangle offense contains some sort of answer, even if it is just kick-out. There are onions in this sauce though…

220198380670 One of the stranger shifts in perspective in the sneaker game has been Nike’s complete shift to helping out sneakerheads, throwing them bones where they didn’t used to. In 2003 pining for rare airs and developing taste on Niketalk would mean something, but not yield much in the way of results. Like a wildwood? Too bad; only two will drop this year, and in colors you wouldn’t predict (what’s up, rhino). Now though it seems Nike is meeting her minions halfway, throwing out orange and paisley Joy Division Trainer IIs for all the college kids out there.. and it’s been five years since I was fucking with it for a year. The mask at Nike seems to be down, at least for the casual, sneakerhead division. You bark loud enough, ask for bright shoes, she’ll give them to you. I sort of miss the days when the old girl was an opaque monolith, giant, incalculable. What got pimped and why was never apparent, though sometimes she’d throw you a bone. Why did she drop those Mowabbs (scroll way down for AJ’s take)? Why did she make Mids, and then dead ‘em?  

These tech challenges fall with the latter. The originals were great shoes, with a great ad campaign, to be sure, and could hold their own on the quality of concept scale with any Jordan, Force, Flight, or Trainer, depending who you ask. But, forgotten to the sands of time, their image languished on the shelf. Rightly so: Andre Agassi, their face, cut his hair, copped a long term girl, and eventually fell off. As for the clothes.. weren’t no doggs wearing these like they did Jordan wear. So leave it to a handful of bums to bid up mislisted auctions, right around the New Hampshire primaries. Leave it to doggs making threads, nerds buying cred, bored men filling their nights with the rest of their paychecks.. So Nike hollered, and hooked some doggs up with a great shoe, one some have been bumping in the corner for a minute. But by this point it was too late… 

Here is one Lebron that’s fly. The low of the II. IMO the best low Lebron out there. It tends to look a little beat, but that’s because doggs haven’t been wearing them icy in a minute. But with some black socks, you’d be killing it. Cheap, too!

The illest of the forces. Coach Leather! Not as good as Gucci or LV, but good enough for two feet, if you ask me. Plus, a rare colorway (not the shoe, but of shoes in general), make this ragamuff a winner. Are these really a $200 shoe though? Come on.

What does everyone think of Chris Paul being in the running the MVP? Considering how odd votes are drawn to the trophy, it might be possible. But I’m not quite sure it’s his to win. First of all, Mo Pete is why that team is doing better, you know I’m a Raps fan. Paul IS nasty though, but he has a pretty good team. And PG’s should be their team’s MVP to begin with, but that’s me. It’s probably Lebron’s or KG’s to lose, in my opinion Lebron because his team is so putrid. I mean, they’re behind the Knicks in FG%. SMH. As for Garnett, I really feel like he’s doing more coaching than playing.. and he’s doing a lot of playing. They’re like a hot dog away from messing with a 1950s Indians or 70s Canadiens vibe, player coach and all that. Boston did a 180 because Jesus is spreading the floor and Garnett is heavier than.. well, Jesus. But the cavs, Lebron is getting incrementally better.. but those are Lebron increments, which are jumps most men will never make.

ps can we talk about Jason Williams
-friends with Randy Moss
-good hair
-complains
-is gangsta
Why doesn’t he have a shoe?