Milestones and Kicks

When people talk about milestones, it's usually about defining moments in their lives, the things that made them reconsider who they are and who they might be. It's a reasonable way of looking that things in this paradigm, as human experience is often represented and felt in a linear fashion, with points at intervals in which you check the engine and assess the situation.

But what if time isn't linear? what if time exists as a web of interconnected pathways, in which disparate elements all seem to converge in an eddy of expansions and contractions in time? It's when your life is viewed in the context of the chaos that is life, not the order that is history. Perhaps it would behoove a storyteller to continue tackling the messiness of the narrative process through different tools of our culture. I would say that this isn't a new idea, that innately we can understand the human experience at the level of complexity that we individually take in every day.

In Music and cinema we can understand the different ways of thinking about time and experience, with plenty of visionaries proposing something ordinary in the extraordinary and the contemporaries who propose something extraordinary in the ordinary.

But enough of that. It's all really an excuse to narrate about shoes.

Granted, plenty of other things would suffice in terms of describing my life narrative (and they have), but I suppose I want to get away from the nominally extraordinary situations that made us who we are.

And I like shoes. So there.

My first shoe love (a pun, get it? hurfhurfhurf) were LA Lights, those LED blinking sneakers that would burst a red color every time you took a step. I got them as a 4-5 year old and couldn't help but be mesmerized. In fact, I don't remember a whole lot about my life as a 5 year old, other than getting into trouble a lot and looking at kids blinking LED shoes. Never mind that the product has come under fire because the first generation of shoes had mercury in the LED units, lolz.
Elementary School and Middle School had me doing just about everything a young suburban boy could do: soccer, running around, goofing around, going to to church, playing football, playing outdoors, roller hockey, etc. The Adidas SS2G was a popular shoe for my mom as myself and my older brother Stephen clamored for another pair as the one before them wore out. Comfortable, reliable, and versatile. We wore these everywhere, and we could always count on the edge of the herringbone pattern area on the sole to start falling apart first as they broke down.
Adidas was a behemoth back in the 90's, putting out retros and very classic designs that inspired the hell out of anyone who got them. The Adidas Superstars, Forums, Top Tens, and their cleats were on everyone's feet.
What my oldest brother, Joe, the my middle brother Steve wore back in the late 90's were the Adidas Sambas. Old school soccer turf shoes with the classic white stripes personified the style I wanted, and actively thought about: athletic, sleek, timeless and always relevant, and always in the action. I could have worn them everyday of my life, but never got around to owning a pair until high school, when I got myself a pair for indoor soccer, even though there might have been cheaper, more technically superior options. I still have the sambas in my closet, ready to go at a moments notice.
I first got into playing basketball seriously in college, but I do remember playing at church as a 13 year-old. My older brother had gone to the Nike Outlet, the year was 2001. Vince Carter had just rocked the world in the 2000 slam dunk contest (I didn't care though, I was rocking n00bs in Pokemon) and had his first signature shoe, the VC1.
I received this pair from Joe, and I totally geeked. the sleek midcut shroud, the support ribs, the red shox pillars (brand new!) were so out there and seductive to my hormone ridden mind that I played in them even though they cut off circulation to my feet, they chafed in three parts of my foot, and I sprained my ankle in them. Just goes to show how seductive a shoe can be... or how impressionable I was.

After the VC1's were tossed, I asked my mom for a new pair of shoes. I remember looking online on our 56k modem, looking for sleek shoes that were classy and of course, versatile for any purpose. I really liked this black pair of reebok basketball shoes: a good price and a good looking, elegant shoe. the Patent leather sold me on it, even though the shoe was named the Afronaut II. They fit my feet perfectly, and the only real drawback in performance was the ventilation. These were really stinky sneakers, and eventually got stolen from my gym locker after basketball tryouts (I got dunked on and got cut from JV. Good times)

The sneaker belonged to the ATR Line, which caters mostly to people who play "Above The Rim" with affordable prices (AKA African Americans). In this part of my middle school career, I was definitely into hip hop and hardcore rap. I remember Eminem and Linkin Park were big back then, and I was tuning into Method man and the Wu Tang Clan (mostly because my last name is Tang), and got into "hood certified apparel", like a ratty Adidas Hoodie and the ATR Alpha sneakers with the icy-translucent outsole. those were the days of acne, solitary jaunts from middle school to home, overall argumentation with the people that cared and total shyness with the people that didn't. Oh man.


The shoe that really got me into the Performance Basketball Shoe game were the Adidas Game Day Lightnings. In 2003 and 4, the Pistons were on top of the western conference. They had just killed off the NJ nets (remember the Tayshaun Prince block on Reggie Miller?) and the kids at school who cared were ecstatic. I remember a few games in that season where Chauncey Billups wore these awesome shoes, which featured a wrapped outsole, those organic heel counters and Asymmetric stripes and speed lacing. That the main endorser was Sebastian Telfair (SUCK) was of no importance to me.

I drove to the mall to get a pair, but ended up buying the low-cut version with the pebble-leather, which was still pretty awesome. The traction sucked, the shoes overheated and there was no ventilation or traction. they chafed your ankles so badly you had to double sock and your foot slid around like a fish, the synthetic leather wore out after a few wears, but the GDLs were sleek, BAMF shoes, even given their performance suck rating of C- by Kicksology.com.

College was a time for exploration, with a lull in performance shoes in comparison to the early part of the decade. With the success of shox and the development of other air cushioning technologies, Nike put forth team basketball shoes with the same uppers but different cushioning implementations that looked OK and performed reasonably well. Kids were spoiled by the Huarache 2k4 which were performance beasts, but the team sneakers offered in 2005 gave one plenty of colorway options.

Even if the Air Max Elite Jermaine O'neal sneakers were designed with big men in mind, the cushioning on them were pillows on my feet: I had to get them. The "Killer Bees" colorway was awesome as well. I sprained my ankles twice in college, once with Shox (I never learned back then, but now I know they're a gimmick!). After recovering a little, I got these sneakers and, though they were inherently unstable, Nike did try to make up for it by providing space for a Huge-Ass ASO ankle brace. Regardless, I suffered a severe ankle sprain in these shoes WITH the brace. They went on ebay thereafter. My explorations in awesomeness from this point on were much more critical in terms of looking at sneakers not just from an aesthetics POV, but the context in which they were designed and especially in terms of pure performance. I DID learn a bit more about holistic learning and thinking in College, a good use of tuition money I suppose. I was a big fan (and still am) of Ben Wallace, a tenacious defender and true Afronaut. Of course I watched what he was wearing on the court in 2004: the And1 Chosen One. When they retroed in 2007 I bought myself a pair of awesomeness.

Ventilation in the forefoot, unconventional heel cushion system in the back, an asymmetric collar to prevent ankle rolling and promote range of motion elsewhere, and a LOCK-DOWN fit. This would probably be the first shoe I ever bought that actually performed well on court. And1 was a great sneaker brand for me: all of the shoes I got provided a great lock-down fit and performed admirably, and at a great price. My Favorites: the Tai Chi mid, the Onslaught, the Asphalt and the Grip Mid. Still looking for another pair of And1's (they're out of the high-level performance market now, which sucks).

In College I became a born-again christian, and I think that learning about humanitarian causes and social justice topics really appealed to me. I had a phase with my sneaker game where I found cool shoes and then, realizing how much I had, would give them or sell them a low price to friends and others (ebay, etc.). Stephon Marbury's sneaker line had great intentions (even ben wallace joined him for a year), but unfortunately steve and barry's went out of business and we were cut off. I remember hurrying to a liquidation sale and buying starburys for some folks (which made sense because they were all in their sizes, not mine X_x). The shoes opened up my own thoughts about sneakers.

I had a closet-full of shoes back a few years ago, and did some sneaker art on the side. I thought to myself that God had given me some capital, and that I should use them instead of burying them in my closet. I donated a lot of shoes my junior and senior years of undergrad, either giving them to the Salvation Army or selling them on eBay for a cut of the profits going to charity. After my disappointments in Mid-top shoes, I was on the lookout for something stable and supportive: after all, a stable base will save your ankles from getting tweaked. Enter low-cuts. in this era, finding things that fit like soccer shoes and offered outriggers and lateral support were plusses for me in all aspects.

I have had Nike Free 5,0 trainers, Kobe IV sneakers, the Steve Nash zoom MVPs, and of course, the zoom BB2. (don't forget the Adidas Pilrahna, which has the biggest outrigger in the history of shoes). In my mind, the best shoe I have ever purchased have been the Nike Zoom Tr. I have 3 pairs of them (the above colorway I gave to Stephen), and I can't stress how supportive and natural they feel on your feet. they look good, the material is quality, and the construction permits the shoe to be used for it's designed purpose: cross training on hard surfaces. And.... I've not sprained my ankles since.

I've played basketball, weight lifted, run and skateboarded (unsuccessfully, but it wasn't the shoes fault this time) in them for years. At this point in my sneaker obsession, I've toned it down a bit.

1. I have little money to spend on shoes
2. I have plenty of shoes and one pair of feet.
3. I have found pairs that fit well.

I used to buy shoes by look, by price and by the limits of my wallet at the time. I could have saved my money to buy the pair I really wanted (which is a better idea than buying bargain sneakers and hoping they perform well), but my own search for identity and figuring out what I want and need has been mirrored, to a certain extent, by sneaker consumption.


Does any of this resonate with you? How have your patterns of consumption mirrored your own growth as a person?