New feature: Missed it Mondays 

What is it?

Well…This one time I was watching this funny TV show.. it was.. I can’t really remember it but it was really funny. Then I had an idea for a dream vacation. I mean I had the spread, OK. The beach, the hotel. Then I wrote all this all of this down.  Wrote it all down, really wrote it, like 5 pages. Fucking lost it. 

Here’s the first installment. Get ready to weep.

1. Un-Taiwans, almost as cool as taiwans. Not all patent, but a gradient swoosh, and white, and crispy. These shoes don’t even have a price since you never see them. People drop coin for the real thing, but these guys are sleepers. Some guy meanwhile got away with them for $70 shipped, less than the price of the pair of dunks in any heavy tax state. If these were my size, I’d be crying in my Diet Pepsi.
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2. New Balance MT580s. I’m not even sure what year these are from, or what series. There are definitely more of these than there have been Governor Generals. These are definitely loud, but they also go for about $300 new, so whoever copped these - they’re real, and rare, at size 11 - made out like a thief. Good for you, heatman! 
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3. DS Air Jordan IIIs, but from 1994. No one got a deal here; that’s not the way it works. But god damn if this isn’t a hot purchase. See that NIKE AIR on the back? Because I don’t see no damn Jumpman. If you told me in college that Jordan IIIs would be going for $400, I’d have spent my paychecks on Athletes World’s Black Cement IIIs that got returned  to Nike HQ (three pairs sold). As it stands, I don’t own any IIIs any more, and at this rate, I might not. But damn if I don’t get a law degree one day just so I can buy boxes like that whenever I want. If you have $400 to drop on sneakers, you might as well ball like a dogg. 

Look for more of these, every Monday. Get your games up til then..

Now… I don’t celebrate Christmas any more than I celebrate the CFL, but our sister site big hardcore.net is a big Xmas nut so I thought that I’d post some treats, auctions ending (gators in flavors, like) now and later that you can look at while I get some Chinese food, go see a movie alone and go to the casino (also hopefully alone). Merry bart the flexmas!!!!!!!!.

Up here is one of the better jordans to not get re-released. These are seven rings of hot fire. This particular pair is in really good condition and for the flyness of the shoe, and the condition, it is worth its price right now, although I don’t ever remember them going for 400 bucks. I don’t know if times have changed, and more people are into sneakers, inflating prices, or if a handful of fellows with great taste are bidding up this beautiful baby to rent money status. The shoe is definitely wearable - no cracking - and in showroom shape so you can do whatever you want with it, I won’t judge.

Some old deadstock Nike 1992 Air Spans just rolled up from a seller with a great name. I don’t know how I feel about 1992 era puffy white sole runners. I am sure that at this point in my life I am over the Air Max 1, but I don’t know if I have outsized hoodrack sized style to pull these things off without looking like I’m actively trying to vibe a museum. Or maybe I just dont like weird round soles unless theyre at the bottom of a 97. Regardless, this is one of the few shoes these days that is peeped by true heads… maybe Im saying something here.

Are you dreaming of a white Christmas? Because if you are, might help to get some shoes and put those KAWS x VANS on ice til mid February when the snow melts and invest in some boots, or, if you’re heatunit inclined, some ACGs. While nothing will ever be as indestructible as an Air Max 95 Z, the Terra Humara, a Philly favorite, comes close. I have worn mine two straight winters and they remain in showroom condition, unlike the jewels I copped that day in 04. dave luvs kicks has a couple (Humaras) here.. makes me question whether he really does. Humaras are a tricky thing because with the wrong colorways, any ACG-fence sitting they got completely goes out the window, and youre about a foot away from coochs (new) fav shoe - and if you’re not down with that, here’s a used one from England for all you skinheads - true ACGs of strength. But this seller, who has those old girls and I believe a camo one (not in my size), has the right idea for ACG shoes. Not too much brown, not too many m and m colors either, but somewheres in the middle. And I fucks with that, and hope you will too.

Finally, check out this blackhawks shirt. They kicked our ass on Saturday but I fucks with that, I got a Mitchell and Ness fitted and a friend in Chi town. Whatever, I’m an Islanders fan, just like my grandmaany ways, merry Christmas to all my non jewish friends (aka all of you, with like two exceptions. Sorry mom) and have a happy Boxing Day to all my jewish friends.

^^might be fake. whatever ho ho grave

Here are a pair of OG Nike BWs, or classics. I’m not sure if they’re classics or BWs - I use a boolean search for both just to cover my bases, which is hard because it yields a lot of SBs. I am not sure if the box lists them as Air Max Classics or Air BW’s, but one is the other. The model was released in 1992, and purple/black, most famous colorway, is best remembered from a Boyz II Men photo shoot from that year.

This is one Nike that holds up well. For every wool dunk, multicolored Air Max 93 or Flight 89 with 360 Air there’s a subtler Nike that commands enduring appreciation*.

I picked up a pair of these in Brown, Black and Tan in 2002 at a duty free shop in Europe. I don’t know what happened to them, and if it was my preferred size I’d still be losing sleep over it. In the right colors, the shoe can make you look like you actually are from Europe. Stay away from the awful new retros and go with the original runner colors or anything metallic:

*There was a guy on campus way back who’d always rock the 2000 gold/silver Euro versions of these, with skintight stonewash 501s and a sleeveless Black Album era Metallica shirt. More than one co-ed was heard to have been crushing on him in the library. Despite the shoes he still looked like a drifter. Whatever.

Just surfing around…

VERY weird. Didn’t these used to go for over a G? This thing was a hyperstrike, 24 pairs. Now look at them. Still a good look for Ramones sexpunks in bands though. nh

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:

One of the better shoes nike has ever made or run with. Sheeds, there were about 5 of them. First, if I’m not mistaken, the white (low), then the black, then another one, then the red. After that, there was a duotone or two, but by this point I had moved up north and it was harder to follow. Nike put a lot of time and money into the Sheed line, and a lot of extras. We’d see lows, monochrome. He’d wear mostly pistons colorways, highs. But how fly did they look on gettyimages or in SLAM?Out of all the things Rasheed Wallace was known for - big man, would foul out, would get T’d up, took that game to OT last year with a 1940s grandma-belly shot from half court, can have a decent work ethic, was a Tarheel (and a good one), is sometimes motivated, but not always, is always important (the Pistons can’t even beat the bucks without him), he will shut down Chris Bosh like it’s going out of style, he got sent away from portland for being a bad influence (in the 90s!), the NBA dress code was instituted because of him, his championship wrestling belt and his garbage bag, he sat out a quarter of the regular season because of technicals, he does not have one regional Detroit ad during the many, many league pass games I copped last year, the thing on his head - the most impressive is that he has played his entire career, college, Portland, Detroit and presumably high school, in Nike Air Force 1s.Do you know what that means? It is impossible to convey what kind of a feat this is. I did this for a weekend, I am quite thin, and I could barely make it to work the next week. After a game in Taiwans (that’s right) and a game in these same black sheeds, I was feeling the effects of a shoe as old as I am. My knees were shattered, my feet felt like loose bones in a bag, my back was tight and I had the shittiest kneck. These shoes have no support and very very little air. That a big fellow - and sheed is about 7′3, 500 lb - can pivot and shimmy, shoot, post up (well..not that last one) and lead the league in winshares*, in shoes designed more for being a hustler Barry than playing hoops, makes the rest of his life not seem like a New Yorker article.I wore this very pair on the train and got one of the best sneaker related compliments of my life (wealthy dowager). But after balling my spindly frame felt like shaq on Thanksgiving. Sheed is the guy, he does it himself. He’d be into that auction title, check that out. These shoes sell themselves, despite serious hindrance. This is why I will leave the room when the spurs come on but I will watch Pistons basketball on a sunny day. Whatup George Blaha..Click this link to see to believe:*probobly

Escapes. These used to be my shit, boy, let me tell you. I was looking hard for a pair of these from about late 2002 til sometime last year. Right after i put them on my to cop list, I heard they went on sale in that huge footaction purge. Like dudes I knew had been finding them for $10. In the high tops. I was wearing more high cut sneakers back then, and placed a premium on looking like an asshole (from the ankles down) and these were up there. The red swoosh, as much a part of the colorway as the thick brown leather, was just fly. But every time a pair came on ebay, I balked. there was one guy from the eastern rim that was selling them for $120, and for a college student with a weak canadian dollar, that was a lot of money. Another guy had a revolving door of these old boys for about $60, so i just never bid, copping other things (some sneakers, mostly sundries), until, of course, he ran out.

I was in stocking feet, overseas, one summer, when I had a night job and a possible conflict of interest. One of my internships was for an extremely right wing israeli news agency (I had another one on the opposite side of the political spectrum) and sometime in june 2005, I was to work security at an anti-disengagement fundraising concert in the heart of the west bank. My boss drove us over there in his fiat, me and this russian chick from brooklyn with dreads down to her ass, and we had about half an hour to kill at his house, which was about a block away from the concert. I remembered about halfway to the gigger that I was watching a pair of DS escape highs in my size from a private seller in the US. I had come to the holy land with not nearly enough sneakers and had ordered a couple pairs already, even if no one noticed (I wasnt in Tel Aviv). So I called my sabra uncle, who lived in the US longer than I have, from the fiat and asked him if he could login to my ebay and place a reasonable bid on the Escapes. Unfortunately, he was in the market buying weekend treats, not near a computer. An hour later I was in my boss’ modest house, with a green garden and a fine view, staring at the business end of an early century Dell, looking over my shoulder, thinking long and hard about whether i could take the 30 seconds and commandeer my employer’s personal computer and have my feet quenched after a three year thirst. I instead helped myself to some fresh fruit and went about my business.

I got a pair of these a year later but they were too small, and I eventually sold them, without even wearing them out of the house.

Click here, then: