Snake America Ninety Two
Snake is a weekly email covering collectible vintage clothing -- Leg Day Observer is the Grant's Interest Rate Observer of fitness. This week: Summer footwear. Subscribe
SPECIAL SUMMER FOOTWEAR EDITION
My friend Alex Russin broke his Diplomats slides on Tuesday -- what was he doing? -- and asked me to find some possible replacements and weigh their pros and cons. Slides are faster than shoes, and popular in Philadelphia. Rihanna designed a pair for Puma, and if you need to get somewhere quickly, your need slides.
Pump Fury Sandals, Reebok: Marketed as a slide-on version of the Reebok Pump Fury, which is the best piece of footwear you can buy today. Pump Furys are made of two overlapping pieces of neoprene and leather and sometimes other materials; these slides are missing the middle piece. The Furys' original colors were were bright red, neon yellow and black and white, colors that went against the wishes of Reebok's marketing department. They were a runaway hit, and resembled the shoes Ned Flanders wore jogging in Season 2 of The Simpsons, when Homer walks the dog(1). Bjork wore a pair on a record; Jackie Chan had some, Steven Tyler let them fly at a recent Aerosmith show in Flagstaff, Ariz., and Toshiki Yamamoto, an 85 kilo weightlifter for Japan, wears them now and then, too.
Per a photo on the Reebok Japan store (scroll up), they have a back heel tab. How do you get your foot in there if you're in a rush? Are these really slides? These look good with new socks, but they aren't fast, and have more in common with people who step on the back heel of their Vans in the bodega buying cigarettes. Endorsed but not recommended.
Clogposites, Nike, 11: There's that really good Scharpling and Wurster call about the music scholar with impeccable taste. Wurster calls in to Scharpling as a guy who says he saw the Stooges at 10 years old -- he calls Iggy Jim and the Beatles at 6 -- "boring ... really goofy ... ear candy." At 15 he played the Velvets, Horace Andy, Max Romeo, Skip James on his radio show ... then he got Big Star back together, moved to New York ("I'll always have a soft spot for Doug ... you know him as Dee Dee Ramone").
The premise is the record collector is a pretentious asshole. By 1980 the Music Scholar opens a store in New Jersey selling European prog and "stuff for teeny boppers" like The Fall and Residents ... he only listens to air mixes in the '90s -- "45 minutes of just silence." He then says he heard a new record on the radio that ... "took me back to when I was 10 years old ... I was transported by the energy and urgency of this performer. Oh my God, this voice. I would go so far as to say he was the voice of the 90s and his voice continues to just go further out there, just blowing minds." The call went on September 4, 2001 ... the voice and record in question was Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit. He then asks to listen to Blink 182 and Creed ... like I said, it's pretty funny. But since Limp Bizkit are un-ironic subjects of critical examination, listening to the call now is different than it used to be.
I hate getting in the weeds but if the Music Scholar was into sneakers and not into records, these slides would be Limp Bizkit. A Clogposite has the body of the Foamposite, which is the most protective basketball shoe of an era of overprotective basketball shoes, but no heel and ankle, which are the shoe's most protective parts. It is therefore is the height of design understanding. It's as crazy that sane people listen to and think seriously about Limp Bizkit now as it is that these shoes are available for sale again on a handful of sites. Also recommended.
Oregon Nike Benassi slides, on sale: If you visited Philadelphia any time since the Korean War then you'd have noticed half the city wears slides and socks instead of sneakers. And not just in the summer. And when they wear sneakers they let their tongues stick out and don't tie their laces so they can put them on faster. Alex says that when he was at Temple, Coach Lon Chaney's basketball team only wore shoes on the court, and slides and socks everywhere else, even in the dead of winter. These slides are Oregon, not Temple, but are an otherwise accurate representation of Philadelphia. Oregon slides are the best color(2) because they're the most close to sold out of the assembled schools. Recommended.
Gucci Tian slides, $280: Gucci does it again. I said last week that they make jeans with bees on them. And the Barneys on 7th and 16th has a sweater with both no sleeves and Donald Duck on it for $900. Add these slides to the list of Gucci's achievements -- the only problem here is they're not expensive enough, but at least they won't go on sale.
Nike Huarache sandals: Will Alex buy these? It's hard to say.
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Leg Day Observer 8:
Tian Tiao squat jerk, 221 kilos: This dude Tian is the same weight as the guy Toshiki who wears Pump Furys, but has a better haircut: his fade is so low it's almost Philadelphian. Less importantly, he's also a better lifter. Tiao squat jerks, which is jumping under the bar from the clean and squatting it up. (Keep your eye on the barbell when it's at his shoulder -- he gets under it.) The squat jerk is easier when done right, since it's from a position of better strength but is harder to do right since a lifter only has a 2 degree range to hold the bar. It also looks cooler (because it's easier). There's another video of Tiao adding another 22 lbs. to the bar and cleaning it. He stands up like it's nothing. And the video of his squats, which aren't to max, and which aren't what he trains specifically, which are not far off the world record in his weight class for raw powerlifting. And also, like I said, his haircut.
Thanks for reading.
Snake
(1) Further research ... shows these are closer to the Air Trainer SC Highs, the Bo Jackson shoes, and later a pair of Raf Simons sneakers/ski shoes from his 2008 collection.
(2) Texas is white - I like black a bit more.