[sneakerbattlebbq]

(import depuis insta)

I spent way too much time hallucinating while scrolling on the #sneakerbattlebbq hashtag, this thing launched by my man @AirRev and followed and commented from all those great sneakerheads from everywhere who are clearly giving dizziness for free with their incredible gems, too.
I wanted to share those days's craziest hashtag simply to praise the name of my old good friend, this AirRev guy, as I'm clearly so far away from all those shoes collectors.

I was living in my quiet little countryside town in eastern France and in the (very) late 80’s, basketball wasn’t huge here as it is now.
Of course, pretty soon everything changed worldwide with the Dream Team and all, snap, but in 89/90 very few french teenagers were deep into the NBA or/and shoes back in the day, and most of the time, it was the same heads that were into, let’s face it, hip hop invasion. There’s many reasons for that and instagram isn’t the best place for posting cheap and lame social studies results, but whatever, for many reasons, I was one of those guys, class of ’72, fed up with the French national principle habits (soccer and lame pop/rock), and US cultural hegemony totally got me at the time. Ok, still the case, but anyway.

So when some kind of « real Philadelphia b-boy with attitude» first put his Nike shoes on our small and modest playground back in those days, I knew something uncommon was happening in our lifes, where nothing happened really, never, ever (if you wonder what the f%¥ Adam was doing there, ask him to write his autobiography).
Of course, we also were both dumb as 20 years old or so young adults (ah ah ah) could be at the time, and I think it was an instant connection not only for the jokes, but also through the culture we had in common. What I couldn’t imagine at the time is that that guy became something else than some holiday pal, and that more than 30 years later (30 years ! You old man), he’s still one my best fave persons in the world, whatever the traps he get us during those decades, or the great plans, too. And I’m not saying this because sometimes during all those years, I sometimes got some mail from Ad that were mostly consisting of pairs of shoes, which was every time cool as shit, as you can imagine. And even if I was away from the sneaker mania that made him AirRev, this guy whom people still talk about today as the coolest ever, whatever the grey hairs in his beard today.

The romantic blurb is done, now here’s my #sbbbq modest add : back in 94, I’m doing the trip of my life (geographically speaking, but not only, cause, well, you’re doing stuff when you’re young, right ?), landing in NYC with the baddest English skills you can imagine, very few money in my pocket, no real plans except : a) going to Minnesota (don’t ask !) basically for some girl I met in France months before ; b) check my man Adam in Philly or NYC as he was there at the time ? Was he ? Damn, I got very few phone numbers, internet wasn't this thing, and damn, I cannot really understand what his mum told me when I was calling from some public phone.
Okay, we’ll see that later.

So it was my first US trip, I was all alone in NYC, and Adam, my sneakers-supreme-head wasn’t there to guide me. So, day #2 in NYC and I get into some store in Manhattan and spend some money in those Nike shoes (pic #1). Later, I took some Greyhound and made some hitchhiking (I was broke ! I shouldn't buy shoes) to reach the girl, and it got me quickly (I had an agenda) visit Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee and finally, Minneapolis. A couple of time later, I did the trip back, and those shoes were quite my only pair during this whole crazy trip, plenty of crazy adventures of its own (including some kind of traumatic ones, hell yeah).
I still got it ! I cannot throw away things, I’m this kind of pain in the ass when it comes to moving from a place to another and everything. But I'm throwing away old shoes usually.
Not those ones. Those are not the best shoes in my super short and modest collection.
But those are the ones I’ll never throw away, so I guess those are the biggest treasure in my collection, in some ways ? And for some reasons, when I see it in my garage with all the other boxes, I’m just thinking about one thing about my crazy, crazy US 94 trip : I was unable to see Adam and this was soooo fucked up.
This was my (very) personal non-contribution to the BBQ !
Also included is some other pair of shoes, the only one I’m not wearing (I wear ALL my shoes, including the rare stuff Ad sent me telling me to take care of it), some Puma cause you know, that guy.
Love you, AirRev !
Love reading all those #SBBBQ stories of you guys.
Sorry to make some detour about this !
#sneakerbattlebbq