12/4/07

Nerdlinger Resartus

It's not like I've never been excited about footgear before. Just not like this.

I mean, sure, shoes have done it for me from time to time. I bought some Penny Hardaway Air Max Nikes back in the day, and I thought I was the bomb. I'll bet I actually stood in front of the mirror and said, in a prepube squeak, "you the bomb!" I bought a pair of leather Borns and felt like a white collar working man, which is a surprisingly good feeling at first. Then the unsoftened vamps cut the shit out of the flesh on my hamstrings, and they went in the closet. As a lad I twice bought hiking boots and went up and down the Grand Canyon.

I even set the table once for the glory that was to come. I had a pair of totally sweet red and black Pumas that I tromped around in for two years. In fact, I keep them on hand for special occasions; occasions for which I require a pair of red and black shoes that match literally no outfit ever worn by anyone endowed with the scantiest alloy of sight and taste.

I was naive. I thought those Pumas would be the apogee, that nothing better could sheath my hooves. They would be the grandest muzzles I'd ever strap to my barking dogs. They signified the defining moment of my lower extremities. The king-crowns of my feet, they branded me as a free spirit, someone with a wild side, a high-energy risk taker who would damn the torpedoes and do something extreme. A person who could easily skateboard up and down a driveway without quite falling off. Somebody who might shift from foot to foot at a rock show because the jackass is wearing shoes that provide literally no arch support.

I was way out of control.

But let me tell you, that era is over. And I am excited. I am galvanized. I am through and through with gleaming eyes and bursting pride and a stretched-out smile a mile wide. Because I bought these online yesterday.

Will they fit? I don't know. I'm too extreme to care.

You know what these shoes say? They say, I will match wits with you, and I will win, but we will part friends. They say, I am a happy-go-lucky, self-contained, self-determining go-getter who doesn't care what you think, because I do what I like. They say, I'm desperately trying to create an identity for myself with accessories, and this is my best shot. They say, I've got no time for your jive, I've got walking to do in my awesome shoes... but not too much. They've got no arch support.

They're Puma Clydes.

Who's Clyde, you ask? Only the famed basketballer Walt "Clyde" Frasier. Perhaps you've heard of him? You'd best know him from his highly quotable appearance in a Just For Men hair-dye advert with Keith Hernandez in which he says, "No play for mister gray!"

He won the 1973 NBA Championship with Earl "The Pearl" Monroe, a relationship unforgettably invoked by Matt Damon in Rounders when, he says, he and Worm (Ed Norton) "fell into our old routine like Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe."

This guy is the godfather of my shoes!

I am way out of control.

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I must extend the warmest thanks to those wonderful people who come to my blog, day after day, by searching for "schenectady looby" and "hilary camel toe." It really, truly, authentically brightens my day every time I see it.

4 comments:

Sisyphus said...

Ok, what is a schenectady looby?

Dina said...

can't wait for the pictures of you in those shoes. you had better be smoking a cigarette and holding a book of dickinson poetry and a whiskey. mebbe on a windowsill, all pensive and removed. please.

jackanapes said...

sometimes i refresh your blog 9 or 10 times a day

D said...

I officially have the world's greatest readership. You rule!