Palms Out Blog: School Is Not A Fashion Show

You remember: you wanted these kicks, at that time, to impress those people, and your mom said nuh-uh kiddo, you're getting your shoes from Payless. You wanted L.A. Lights (yes, there was a time when LA Gear was hot), and got knee high galoshes. You wanted the Kevin Garnett's, and instead got the Mutumbo's. Woe upon the child that wants hot shit, but only controls enough of the economy to make prudent investments in Lemonheads and Now & Laters... maybe a Snickers bar if you're really ballin'.

Painful and traumatic memories get attached to "not having." You can still remember the pointing and smirking once heads realized you rocked smelltoes and wannabelike-mikes.

Enter Nike: the corporate behemoth that is devious and evil minded, not because 6-year-old Colombian boys sew oh so coveted Jordans while only being allowed two bathroom breaks per week. Nope, that's not the reason, so good for Nike. Rather, because it is well aware of your painful memories, and thus, mercilessly exploits them. It seems that within that last few years, everything released has been a retro something or other. Peep the hot new Retro Air Max Nutlint with new and improved leather upper. Nike is having a field day bringing back ghosts from disappointments past and suckering us into thinking these shoes are ill.

Your mom was on to something; nope, not about the fashion show thing, she was clearly way off base there. But why should she have spent 100+ hard earned bucks on shoes that look like a cross between a straight jacket and the phlegm adorned pavement directly outside of Bar 11 on St. Patty's Day? The other problem with this whole retro thing, besides us spending money more out of sentimental feeling than actually thinking the shoes are anything but atrocious, is that I'm seeing the "Lean With It" generation rocking Penny's as if they're new fondu. I guess this is how my moms felt when I was bumping Mase's "Feel So Good" to no end, not even knowing it had a huuuge sample from back in the dizzay. If retro's are the new, well, new -- since regular new by Nike kind of sucks (blazers, assaults and court forces excluded..), what are the young'ns going to have remade when they're no longer mommy dependent? Retro retro's? I guess in that regard, it sucks to be them. Anyway, peep the Air Max CB 2, Air Max Uptempo and some other kicks I just remember as The Deion Sanders -- shoes that would have been better left in the 90s.

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