Outside Counsel

A couple of weeks ago LCA and I scoured the shoe stores of WNY looking for a pair of red Chuck Taylors. I forget when I bought my pair-- it must have been sometime in the late 80's. Even then they were not really sports shoes. You'd cripple yourself playing hoops wearing them. They were a hipster statement-- the shoes the black suited members of Blondie wore on the back cover of "Parallel Lines". They'd been in the attic forever when EGA dug them out roughly 8 years ago-- they were still a hipster statement, and if they were a bit tattered after she was done with them, so much the better from LCA's perspective. In the end we had to go online, and she got a slightly different color, but they are nevertheless a completely cool pair of kicks. There must be some sort of statute of limitations on how old you can be to carry off the look, because I know I couldn't. There is a reason my pair was in the attic, after all. If I'd tried to sport a pair of Cons much past 30 it would have looked like a Halloween costume. No irony would be conveyed-- it would just look like I was trying too hard. Nike has had a line of faux vintage shoes out for about a year now. I owned some of them when they were the rutting edge in running shoe technology, but that's not an argument for getting a pair-- they are too obviously intended for the boho crowd. On the other hand, I've been thinking about a pair of addias Gazelles for a while now. I haven't been able to pull the trigger yet, but I think I could get away with it. The shoe I really want doesn't seem to exist, and maybe never existed, although I could swear I saw them. Back when Asics was Tiger they had a shoe that was similar to the Gazelle. Suede uppers, rounded toe, they were gold with black trim, and they looked might sharp. I have been poking around in the stores on lower Broadway and online, but have been unable to find them, which means that I will probably continue to simply go with the shoes that have been retired from running, rotating them down to "okay to paint in" and then, to "what the hell, wear them rafting, maybe they'll get lost."