Brass Tacks: Did You get ‘Em?

This week brought back an experience and a feeling I have not felt in a long time. It brought back the same anxiety, the same fear, and excitement that only one event can ever bring to you. The culmination of days, weeks, for some, even months of anticipation. The drop of a new shoe release. Nowadays, given Nike’s financial performance and the way the world has shifted, that same presence is no longer felt in sneakers. But back in primetime, back in the 2010s, it was a great feeling to be a young sneakerhead. It was a culture that lived off its history and style; each Jordan, Nike, Adidas, or whatever sneaker you got told a story through its colorway. The 72 and 10s about the iconic championship season of the Bulls having the then-best record in the NBA were different than the Flu Games, which were of Jordan’s actual flu game, supposedly being sick from the opposing team ordering bad pizza for him, or, as another story goes, he was out late and got sick. Silver Bullet 97s were inspired by rippling liquids, like a drop hitting the surface of a pond, and by the Japanese bullet train. It gained popularity in the Italian nightlife underground scene and grew into the most popular silhouette of the shoe today.

Sneakers are beautiful works of art, designed and inspired by nature, events, and people, and have made many great designers, including Tinker Hatfield, Peter Moore, and Eric Avar. This does not address the weight of collaborations like today with Nigel Sylvester and A Ma Maniere, or the legacy of Pigeon Dunks and Jeff Staple. It is like Frankenstein: creating another life out of hubris or love, loneliness or pride, to make something new, unheard of, but it must be done. A shoe is a declaration to the world of how a human being chooses to encase their persona as they interact with the Earth, grounding and tethering them to the mortal coil. The shoe signifies how much you walk each day, where you walk, what rooms you enjoy, your political and socioeconomic background, your beliefs, what you laugh at, what you cry at, and more, but the shoe, more than anything, tells you how someone walks every day. We know where you are walking to, yes, but how you walk and what you walk with matter most. The shoe is more than a window to the soul; it is a spiritual awakening. When you find the shoe that fits you, that matches you on this journey of life, it is a brother or sister who represents moments and events in time as you push the boulder up the hill for your finite time here with the right pair, as one man passes another, noticing your choice. He must imagine you happy.

On December 10, 2016, at 10 am, the Space Jam 11s had just dropped. The ten-headed beast, with its matriarch and a cup of wine perched on top, punished me for my beliefs and faith, then threw me away as it continued to march along. “Your submission was not selected.” What? That is what she told me as she marched along, humming and shouting, moving towards the horizon, offering false hope and heretical teachings. As soon as I closed the app, that text popped up, and out loud I said, “bruh what I’m not answering that” it was onto the next. Finish Line did not sell them, to my recollection, so that was a waste of time. Then to footlocker. The site was having trouble loading. Then boom, sold out in my size. This is when the prayers start, where the wishing begins. “Please, Lord, I know I don’t ask for much.” When you always ask him for everything, “God, if I could just get this one pair.” You will change a little, but not fully; you need him to get these shoes for you. This is existential. This is an event marked in history, and today you are the victor or the loser. So I was left with one option: Eastbay, may it rest in peace. I find the page. They have my size. I get to check out. It loads. It loads. It loads. Then I put in my card information. It went through! Seeing that confirmation, getting that email, the joy in kids’, men’s, or women’s hearts cannot be explained.

Space Jam 11s

This is just the online experience; the in-person is even worse and better. People get robbed and killed for shoes, lines camping outside, people running around. The true look at humanity itself as God holds his eye onto the world, and in those few hours his children speak to him with great candor. There is, in truth, no purpose to this, no reason to pay this much to act like this. You can easily get shoes at Walmart or get some Shaqs and do just fine, and many people do. To them, a shoe may be seen as just a piece of something to wear, something that provides service and nothing else. It does not hold meaning to them; it does not describe your views on the world or the ethos and philosophy that you ascribe to them; it is just a shoe. They are right because you cannot say what one thing means to another. Still, as the boulder comes rolling back down as all your work falls to the bottom of the mountain raised as an epitaph to your sins and misgivings to hold your penance for the rest of time you realize each time it happens each time you step out of the way how you understand each sin and action that brought you here what you use to take the pressure off of your foot to protect you from the reality to define your occurrence substantive or not matters more than anything. Art or service, each tells the other person what you think; whether you want it to or not, it is a truth we must accept. That is what getting those sneakers, what being a sneakerhead is about: it is knowing the difference in what it means to live in that way, as the universe professes its rebuttal in cold, lifeless, indifferent silence. Some either shudder and give in; others continue to climb up the mountain, stare into the maw of the dark crevice, and plunge into the gapping mouth to be tossed and thrown, hoping to acquire Icarus’s wings at least, but you never do. All you do is climb back up each day and do it again, while those who shudder are doing a different task.

Something in me, deep down, will not let me tell you that this all somewhat died, or it is asleep for now, but courage is under my shoulder, so it’s time. Sneaker culture, like most evils, seeps in through monotony diagnosed with a mundane apathy for culture. Like the men who were supposed to keep watch over Mordor, each generation cared less and took it less seriously. Man after man, losing the resolve to keep watch because, after a while, the evil becomes a bedtime story, not something that you remember. Not the shadow that loomed over you, threatening the very being and existence, but a ghost in the closet. It would be a lie to say reselling and profit were never a part of it, but it became abused when reselling and profit were the point, when that was the culture. A colorway brought back to be bought and sold by the hundreds, not cherished for what it meant to the community. There is story and meaning, existence and purpose in those soles. I remember when I bought the Flu Games with my grass money and wore them to school with the Nike Elite socks that meant something to me. My own story cutting yards, sweating heavily to make enough money, then just to barely get them. On top of my own story was Jordan’s ferocity to be sick, feel so close to the hunter and scythe, and still score 38 points. It tells you the person that he was, what Basketball means to him, what winning means, what it means to love and care for something so much that you sacrifice your own health. A rejection of the norm of sitting this one out, a rejection of the suicide. That story became, after a while, someone trying to flip the new release.

Like the men keeping watch over Mordor, we let them in. Resell prices out of control—dunks flooding the market. Shoes brought back without being given the proper care and materials. As if God was appalled, he smote Nike and John Donahoe and placed them in this perpetual cycle of the ten plagues, holding the Angel of Death by the reins until the perfect time. And the market has now subsided: shoes on store shelves are more performance-oriented than lifestyle and Jordan. Not a death but placed in hospice is the better comparison. It would not be fair to call it a bad time; some silhouettes are still hard to find, like the 11s, of course, when the holiday release drops, but ever since then it does not have the same love and care it once did. Maybe that is a good thing; these shoes are easier to get and more accessible. It is likely the elitist talking, but to defend him, it was something to wait for, knowing the time and place and your strategy before all the bots and resellers, and maneuvering during the release. Maybe this is a better time in the lull of the culture. Kids now do not have to go through all the pains. Can go to the mall or store without worrying that the guy next to you may get robbed. Knowing you might not get the shoe, knowing the chances are slim, and still doing it anyway because it means something to you. You understand the story of Michael Jordan, Tinker Hatfield, or Adi Dassler. You might want to be a shoe designer one day and wear those shoes, have them on your feet and feel the materials and understand the concept for your own silhouette. You might be a fan who enjoys the brand and thinks those shoes and sneakers are cool. Or you cut grass in the mid-summer heat to save up enough money to get shoes from a player whose perseverance and story mean the world to you because of the athlete you want to become. Shoes may be something others see as just something on your feet, but to many people in this world and me, they are worth spending hundreds of dollars on because they mean so much more. Like how you chose the perfect dining table or couch for your house, with the right cushions and the right hug of the pillows, shoes are no different. Sneakers are an intricate part of our lives, and if they were designed to be worn and thrown away again and again, something is lost in that. Humanity is made worse when things are made and used for their function, rather than given substantial existence. Within this plea is a chapter of people, like a small sect in a religion, who believe the culture deserves to be treated with respect. The respect of knowing the story, understanding the purpose and history of what you wear, because without that, it can be just something to be sold in a market. There is a reason why Hoka’s are bought and run through and why Air Max 95s are treated as something more. It is legacy, story, and an existence given purpose other than a marathon shoe. The Air Max turns into the Hoka by flooding the market for financial gain rather than caring for those it means something to. You build up a “hype bubble” of rare finds and costly sneakers, turning it into a corporate stock market suffocated by greed. Nike, in its hubris, flooded stores to collect profit and killed what made collecting fun, making everything hype means nothing is. With that came the proliferation of fake shoes that look identical to the real thing and are sold at lower prices, forcing resellers to hold on to the real pairs and Nike to keep producing. Then the bubble burst, and now we are here. It might seem like a resetting of the culture, and maybe it is. Like in the 2010s, shoes are on the shelves; they are much easier to get, as we have found—a clearing out of the riffraff to bring the ones who love and care back in. Sure, you can get replicas for cheap, but you can also get the real Taxi 12s, a shoe that you have wanted since you were young. Everything is cyclical in that sense; it all comes and goes, and the industry is projected to reach $120 billion by the end of this year. So maybe I am just the old head now, looking back on my time, thinking it was better before the Crocs and Birkenstocks. Today, every man can freely choose and wear what he wants, without the scourge affecting it. Like they used to, like they should be able to. This could be a better point in time. Still, it feels like a house ransacked, perverted by intruders. You pick up the pieces, sure, but you still remember what happened that night. It is seeped into the walls, encased in the very foundation. As beautiful as the art piece you called home looks, you see its soul is deteriorating from constant dilapidation from past transgressions. One that you let happen because you forgot to lock the door. That is probably what bothers me so much: I forgot to lock it. Now my kids will have to live with the mess and the effects. I just pray they understand the history and the folly of an old fool and old lover who did not keep looking and stopped bothering to remember. That they tell the story of a grandfather who made a mistake and paid for it. So their children’s children’s children do not make the same mistake, do not let it happen to them. It is funny because something tells me this same thought has come up before.

What brought these memories back to mind on this quiet August 23rd was the release of tickets for Dune Part III in 70mm IMAX on Tuesday, August 18th. 70mm IMAX has recently become a major thing to the populace; it is a major thing in general and a wonder and work of art. There are plenty of videos and discussions and explanations, Ryan Coogler’s being the best, on what it is. In layman’s terms, and to make this easy, the film is larger and runs horizontally, with 15 holes or perforations, at a 1:43:00 aspect ratio, which means you can see a lot more of what is shot. Now this is a great thing; it is beautiful, and I love it. Films shot in 70mm should not be blamed for what comes next; they are, in and of themselves, perfectly fine. But the but comes this year, on this fateful Tuesday. At work, as the clock struck 12 and the tickets were released, I thought, hey, it might be a little bad, but I am sure I will get a ticket. Wrong, how wrong I was; it was Saving Private Ryan. Men walking, holding their severed arm to their side, boys crying for their mother before being shot by bullets flying in the air, the noise taken from me by screams, explosions, and gunfire alike. All to be met with immortal circles, mesmerizing me in rage and apps and webpages refusing my pleas and access. It brought me back to those days of old. Out of sickness or trauma, it reminded me of what it felt like to get a Jordan on release day.

Saving Private Ryan beach scene

Like that young boy switching between sites as he helped people during service, I went to the theater after work because surely the kiosks work there and surely it cannot be that busy. As soon as my hand pushes the revolving door, it is like I entered the Tadaris, and it brings me back to the same beach as my ears begin to ring again. Lines everywhere, people in every corner and periphery. I scramble, hop in one, and the anxiety builds, the rush of the moment. I see someone by 7 tickets, another old lady holding up a line trying to get some Spider-Man Brand New Day tickets, and the anxiety increases. The man five heads in front of me leaves, and I progress forward, and it subsides. Then the kiosk begins to take its time as the circle turns in its singular eternity, cackling at me, and the worrying increases. This back-and-forth went on till I finally grabbed a ticket and felt the triumph and relief as I walked up the stairs and watched The Rivals of Amziah King.

Now, is this whole set of events good? As much as this question has bothered me today, it has bothered me ever since I watched The Rivals of Amziah King. A beautiful film about community, existence, things you are willing to do to fight for it, and what that love means to you. I think back to the days of old, to Jaws, The Exorcist, and Star Wars; when those movies as well came out, they were religious experiences, The Exorcist on the opposite end, of course. People lining up day of sold-out theaters, people going to see it seven times in a row. People literally being taken out and sent to the hospital from fear or spiritual repulsion, rejecting the evil from the screen. These experiences were not simply moviegoing; they were metaphysical and ontological events that made up each person’s portrait. There were times in human history when these films came out. Transportation to another world, living and seeing something you thought was fiction, a dream that cannot be dreamt. It was on the screen; it was there, and it proved you wrong with each blockbuster, with each new film, each new experience different and as important as the other. The blockbuster and the small film coexisting, living in harmony. Star Wars came out in 1977, but so did Annie Hall; for all its creator’s faults, it is still great. Eraserhead, The Hills Have Eyes, Suspiria, Opening Night It, and so many others gave new life to the artists who would come after and take hold of the reins of the industry. Still, more important, different and equally important stories were told on different scales by those both old and new. They were moments of fear, love, laughter, thought and contemplation, joy, and every emotion on the spectrum as we found ourselves happy amidst the cold refusal of recognition from the dripping blackness outside our window.

This seems right; this seems like the course of things, but the elitist or someone else comes and tells me this is false hope. This is committing philosophical suicide. Turning to the past and these ideas is a rejection of the truth in front of you. The film bros and their generic love of movies, hatred of anything else, and love of directors you would only expect people called film bros to love. That is what this is. Reject your suicide, throw away the gun and the noose, and take up arms, and unlike the men of Gondor, fight for what you want fight for your love as companies merge and theaters die. Even with small gasps from young filmmakers, this thing is still in jeopardy. Do not let them take your films like they took your sneakers. This is a decree to resist. Every man should be able to see this film; it should not be treated like expensive chaff. What format are you going to see it in? Expensive tickets sold and resold, not for the love of the story Denis Villeneuve is trying to tell of systems and their oppression and the ideas and concepts that reign as king and queen. Fight this fight or fall on the beach like the others. It makes sense to stand against this.

This sadly is not a fight that will be won, the next voice says as the boulder rolls over me down the hill. You are just a man; these are systems with money and power, and your theaters will be taken away, your companies will be consolidated into one, and you will stream your movie releases after one week in theaters. You will own nothing and be happy, as Ida Auken said. Maybe the stakes are not as dire as I put them; films have done great this year and made a lot of money, but the voice retorts, telling you to look at the small films outside the big ones and the two main ones. How are those doing? This past weekend looking at the box office of August 16th Spider-Man Brand New Day made $70 million taking its domestic to $785.7 million making it the 4th highest grossing domestic film of all time the Odyssey in it’s fifth weekend took in $23 million, which is insane, and half a billion domestically making it Christopher Nolan’s top grossing film internationally and will most likely soon be domestic as well. End of Oak Street made $21 million with a budget of $80-$92 million. Yes, Obsession and Backrooms were a big deal, but exceptions are not the rule. 16 movies were released that weekend, including Six The Musical, The Rivals of Amziah King, The Brink of War, and I can go on. Small movies need time to marinate to be in theaters more than one week, need marketing support, need word of mouth, and if you are not a breakout horror film or a blockbuster, how are you supposed to get that? Major stars head all of these films: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Matthew McConaughey, Jeff Daniels, JK Simmons, and yes, more. If they cannot even do it, how can even smaller films do it? A beautiful film like Tuner came out with lovely performances, and Dustin Hoffman, and no one saw it. The box office ecosystem cannot be healthy if this is what is happening. Small movies doing well gives people more reason to turn out, more reason to fall in love with these people and this industry. As great as Star Wars and the Marvel Movies are, Night of the Living Dead revolutionized horror movies as we know them, and, made in 1968, it tackled race, consumerism, and pop culture. Clerks sparked the 90s independent film movement. Even films that seem like classics now were far from the truth back then. The Princess Bride had to be fought for and still did not make a profit, but it is a film with too many beautiful anecdotes to count. The 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory barely turned a profit, with $4.5 million against its $3 million budget. Imagine all these films given a week without major stars, then thrown to some streamer or video-on-demand service. If you even have to think about it, well, I say to you, “Good day sir.”

It is a give-and-take, I say, then it comes back and says, “a give-and-take for who?” We see who can make movies and who cannot, who struggles and who does not. This all gets worse if you see it as a give-and-take. Your streamers, your technology has killed the industry: the small film, the DVD, or VHS. DVDs and VHS were a large part of the business’s revenue stream, allowing you not to make all of your money in theaters because the DVD was coming up behind it. This went away, changing the types of movies you can make. Now you split money so many different ways, and the streamers do not pay you or have streaming pay sharing as concrete as DVDs purposefully, I will add; those making these small films are a gamble now that people cannot make in the modern day that was not a gamble in the 90s, 80s, 70s, and so on. Outside of that, this is how cult classics are made: how you find films and share them. Godzilla (1998) I will sing from the rooftops as my favorite, and I only ever watched it through VHS. Gone With the Wind through VHS. This is not a story singular to me, and I am sure of that. That is why streaming is not a catch-all. It takes money away and leaves word-of-mouth to bubbles of interaction, siloing films to the point where you and your friends have only ever heard of a film. It may be okay to you, but to the world, the grander scheme of things, it is not. A film in the theater, a communal experience, is what breathes life into the industry and its people, and going with people you do not know, thinking new thoughts you did not think of, and interacting with something outside your circle and sphere is what makes it healthy.

There are only 25 active 70mm IMAX theaters; this makes sense for a large film like this to be in this situation. Does it make sense that this is a good thing? People fighting over formats and spectacles, instead of everyone being able to see. The idea of things holding more importance than the thing itself. It losing the point in its existence meant to become a trait for another, it falling into the cold. Is that what you really want? Do you really want to pay the resale price of $450 for three movie tickets that are in the front row? Would you prefer to pay $2000 for seven tickets to the Ft. Lauderdale showing on December 20 at 10 PM with priority entry? $1000 for two tickets on the first day and AMC Lincoln Square in New York City? I am calling out the big ones, but others are $100, $190, and so on, but far more expensive than any ticket should be, and I hope this is ringing a bell to another resell industry. Well, no, but what am I supposed to do? No response follows because the answer is clear. A pointless and endless task as I walk back down my hill and push this boulder again and again. Maybe some would call me stupid, others a hero, some somewhere in between. Either way, it is something that I must do because if it is left to chance, if it is let go by the sweet caresses of silence and dismissal, can one say they ever really cared?

Dune Part Three 70mm IMAX ticket prices on eBay

One scene that stands out to me from The Rivals of Amziah King as I think of all these things. It is not too big of a spoiler and is fairly early on, so do not worry, but it is a beautiful scene of love and care amidst tradition and community. A potluck of singing and dancing, getting food in line, learning of each person who made what dish and if you need to put it on your plate or not, as that person’s humanity will be placed inside of you with every bite. To going home to the house, singing a part you are scared to sing and doing okay, then being even more scared as your father figure brings the other band members over, and you are now part of the full rendition, singing and laughing and looking at each other in song and spirit. That scene helps me understand what pushing the boulder back up the hill means for me and the others, and why a small, infinitesimal microorganism of a being should even do it. Movie studios may be trying to become a few big conglomerates that kill the way movies are made and shove them to streamers, but I still have to fight. Those small movies have shaped me in ways I cannot explain, ways that have changed me as an individual and how I see the world. From Midnight Cowboy to last year’s Rental Family Film, like shoes, it is existential to me. Without it, our world is made lesser for it. Most of the catch phrases and comparisons and slang you use are derived from films; even worse, but forcing the point, America’s greatest export is its movies, its films that can be terrible and great, but it is still meaningful to our existence past nationality and creed. I have stressed numerous times the importance of films to me, and of small films, so I will not force-feed you again as much as I want to. But understand that if one thing is not important, its existence does not matter; then nothing does. Everything is inter-connected; it is woven together. When you lose something, it will affect you too. I fear the thought of this turning into a bubble and bursting, causing new filmmakers not to be able to speak, forcing us into a world where we turn out to the theater three times a year for a blockbuster and think we will watch the small films on Netflix, but in actuality do not because we are given so much choice; most people watch the same thing. With an unlimited number of options, we retreat into our echo chambers and silo our interactions, causing us to watch shows similar to what our friends and we always watch—reinforcing our beliefs and thoughts rather than a direct attack or revelation from new media and stories. A revelation and attack that is welcomed because only that confrontation can make us grow as individuals and as a society. As you continue to interact and contemplate and embrace it, it becomes you; it is you. Shoe or movie, your interaction within and in between them; they are the materials given to you as the demiurge to form the being of a human named Shane or otherwise. When that culture is lost, and those things are infected, the same happens to you and those who come after. Lesser building blocks a lesser existence. I do not want this change and reset to happen, as we will not come back from it.‍ ‍That is why my bark is loud, and my fight is eternal. You own it and continue the struggle without any hope or false ideas of some triumph in waiting. You reclaim your heart, and you push again and again, falling again and again, and in that someone sees a fool doing a momentous task, wasting time that is better spent on other things. Another sees those memories, the singing and dancing and the food on your plate, and they see the totality of what each step means in your eyes like the spirit giving a monologue through a speaker. Maybe a film bro becoming a genuine lover of the craft. A person or a child brought into the fold through the commotion, and you find a new love in that 70mm IMAX theatre or any theater because you did not wait in line to get a ticket. They must find you happy.