Snake America Eighty-Three
Snake is a bi-weekly newsletter covering after-market goods on eBay. This week: Jordan Moc Lows and some Navy dungarees. Subscribe.
eBay: Nike Air Jordan Two3 Moc Lows, size 11, $105: Nice pair of weird Jordans, priced at the men's heavyweight class(1). I'm not sure what Two3 Jordans are, but these are VIIs with the top chopped off. They came out in 2002, and the shoes look older. They're scuffed, and the leather is the same color as the leather on the Jordan Xs that came out in 1994. Jordan Xs are the ones on the Michael Jordan statue outside the United Center in Chicago, but he didn't wear them in a basketball game. How'd that happen? Those original Jordan Xs are depressing-looking. Maybe Jordan boycotted the Xs because they look like people who don't get any fresh air and leave the blinds down ... A 2012 post on sneakernews.com ran across photos of an auction: The shoe features the bottom-end build of the Air Jordan VII but with a laceless, slip-on upper construction, so while the idea of an Air Jordan-inspired casual shoe sounded intriguing, that wasn’t so much the case because if anyone can remember that far back, these were under heavy, heavy markdowns (we’re talkin’ $20 a pop). Certainly one of those ‘forgettable’ models of the Jordan Brand lineage, but still worth looking back on, especially when these fresh images pop up. Not a bad peg ... emphasis added. A commenter said he wouldn't wear them to clean the pool. Another said they'd consider wearing them to mow the lawn. I like the idea of Jordan, having not worn Jordan Xs in his career, wearing their aesthetic imitations while vacuuming or cleaning his pool or mowing his lawn. Anything Jordan may have done in house shoes. Polishing his trophies? Broiling a steak? Nike has a hierarchy of house shoes ... at the very top are the $55 slide/slip-ons with Air technology -- the best since they're the most superfluous. You don't need Air to walk to the fridge! Then the Nike Air Mocs, the loose, fat and thick sock(2). Below those are the original water socks, and after that Air Moc clogs, which I've owned and weigh four pounds each. Newer water socks round out the bottom. Somewhere in there are the abovementioned.
eBay: Vintage Naval denim dungarees, $200: These are pretty cool, since their legs are so wide. I guess they are the types of pants sailors wore. Vintage Army trousers are green or invisible camouflage, and wide (pre-Vietnam), but not as wide as the Navy's bell-bottoms and huge jeans. Those Army cuffs weren't flared -- they just look wide in current auctions since soldiers then wore pants on their hips, like Rob Lowe when he lost his shirt to the mail chute in Tommy Boy (USA 1995), and because people were short back then. There are stories about how sailors were such badasses, but how much trouble can you get into if your pants are super loose and you're wearing a neckerchief? I bet either a lot of trouble or none at all ... Anyways I like the idea of the Navy distinguishing itself as a service branch by its loose blue pants. The Coast Guard is more seafaring, but its pants aren't as loose. How'd it start(3)? Cursory web searching reveals that early Naval officers wore what they wanted from port to port. Megadeth shirts? The Navy's historical site -- decommissioned -- goes into detail:
...one of the first recorded descriptions of an enlisted man's uniform comes from Navy files telling of the arrival of Commodore Stephen Decatur in New York with the frigates United States and Macedonia in 1813. The files disclose that the sailors were clothed in "glazed canvas hats with stiff brims, decked with streamers of ribbon, blue jackets buttoned loosely over waistcoats and blue trousers with bell bottoms."
It was three years later before the first regulations concerning the [Enlisted Mens'] uniform were sent to the Navy ... both a summer and winter uniform were described .... The summer uniform was described as, "a white duck jacket, trousers and vest." The winter uniform prescribed was similar to that worn by Decatur's men and was to be, "Blue jacket and trousers, red vest, yellow buttons and black hat."
Not bad how only one person remembered to write down what everyone wore and then everyone had to wear that on the job forever. Did he wear the glazed canvas hat on purpose or didn't he? There is a lot of good stuff on that historical Navy page, which is a compiled collection of articles about bell-bottoms from military magazines. One entry reports on how the Navy brought the bell-bottoms back in 1978 for the first four pay grades ... In another, Gene Kelly, a former Navyman, said the "monkey suit" was comfortable, and that's why his dancers wore it ... a piece in All Hands, the Navy magazine, in 1946, asked people on the street what they thought about the uniform:
"Some of the childish actions … by enlisted men are, in my opinion due to the uniform. I, myself, have done things that I normally wouldn't have done, if I hadn't felt that I was dressed as a child," says a Quartermaster, one of the guys, pretty senior, who helps steer the boat. The 2nd Class Motor Machinist's Mate, which is a type of engineer disagrees with his 3rd Class equivalent. The first item on the page is an All Hands story about how sailors were now either wearing a uniform that looks like Dickies, or Levi's 501s. Why was this page decommissioned?
Thanks for reading.
Snake
Last Snake: Ended items, including the Kools Penguin (Ended.)
Snake Before That: Different ended items, all of which are Nike (Ended.)
(1) Check this out ... damn.
(2) Nike Air Moc Vents are too full of holes to make this list.
(3) The SEALS presumably rebelled against loose pants in forming their elite reconnaissance unit.