20 REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL IN 2010

This blog is, in a convoluted way, a hype blog of sorts. Except it’s the stuff that gets me hyped, which means it’s always going to dip into dark realms of self-indulgence that should alienate more than a few people. That’s just how I like it. Forget retrospectives for the moment too. The lead into 2010 is going to be underwhelming, but as the year unravels and you get used to writing ‘2010′ on cheques or paying-in slips (both fairly old-fashioned habits to carry a date that seems so futuristic, but, hey, for the most part, we’re a regressive people) there’s some good things on the horizon. It won’t be all-wack-everything in the near future. Why? Because here’s twenty reasons to be cheerful over the next twelve months -

WHEN SANTA GOES BAD

Funnily enough, I don’t hit the hay with visions of sneakers dancing in my head. That’s because sports footwear is my day job. I’m in it for cash and freebies. It’s not some fanboy zeppelin that runs on raw footwear enthusiasm. No, no, no. Truth be told, I’m more enthused by horror flicks than lumps of poorly-glued pleather, and because it’s Christmas, what could be better than a blog post cash-in to leach some of that goodwill? Last year, my rubbernecking preoccupation with the macabre was fuelled by the darker than dark case of Bruce Pardo, who dressed up as Santa and went on a Christmas eve killing spree, armed with firearms and a homemade flamethrower. Horrific, but it tapped into my cinematic Santa Claus fears.

Billy Bob’s ‘Bad Santa’ perfectly captured into that temp job, thinly disguised seediness that shopping centre Santas maintain; they’re sinister in their faux-bearded pretence, feigning interest in talk of PSPs and GI Joe, before handing out 99p tat. Even in history, the early Netherlands St. Nick (Sinterklaas) rolled with a captured devil (without sounding like David Icke, it’s curious that the big man’s name is an anagram of ‘Satan’), latterly Zwarte Piet (‘Black Peter’), depicted as a Moorish sidekick; meaning an excuse for blackface makeup. Beat that for un-PC. It’s a long way from a chuckling rotund man in a magic workshop on some snowy plain. Santa was clearly a  prick from day one.

THE NOUGHTIES WEREN’T ALL THAT

We’re meant to have these in the next ten years. Hope there’s prototype Spinners in a warehouse somewhere.

I’m guilty of steeping these blog entries in the past – dwelling in the past and failing to look at the current cultural climate. It’s something I’ve pledged to resolve but there’s a reason for that. For all the bluster, mass of available information and glut of social networking resources, the noughties weren’t that good were they? Seeing as I’ve been alcohol-free for the duration, I think I saw them clearly enough for what they were – full of shitty buzzwords (I even used one seventeen words back) and referential nonsense. It was a decade bookended by misinformation, grand-scale terrorist attacks, economic meltdown, flu panics and punctuated by reality shows, a couple of military invasions and with some localised suicide bombs in the middle for extra misery, it hasn’t been what I expected.

I’d anticipated space holidaying, flying family-sized hatchbacks and video phones – actually, we got that one but then realised it was better in theory. I’m grateful for the little box giving me limitless music on the move and high-speed pornography, but is that it?

2009 – A GOOD YEAR FOR HERZOG FANS

” Camisea, 15 April 1981…After hours of his incessant ranting and raving, I ate the last piece of chocolate I had been keeping hidden in my cabin. I ate it practically in Kinski’s face, which he was holding very close to mine as he screamed his lungs out. He was so dumbfounded by my act of self-indulgence that all of a sudden he fell silent.”

I’m in the midst of logging sneaker-related listings to sum up the year at time-of-writing, but truthfully, two of the highlights of 2009 arrived courtesy of Werner Herzog’s outsider fascination, oddly earnest treatment of a trashy screenplay and oft-overlooked skills with the pen when it comes to logging his surroundings and general frame of mind (check the Free Association reprint ‘Of Walking In Ice’ for a primer). Were it not such a clichéd prospect for one who so effortlessly sidesteps the norm, a daily herzogspot.com from the man himself would be e-gold. But you’ll never get that.

What we did get, other than a superior Q&A in Vice’s phenomenal film issue, one of the best issues of anything in a while, alongside the De La FRANK151 and a fine dinner conversation in the States recently regarding the perceived madness of kings Kinski and Herzog, was a publication of the director’s journals during the troubled production of ‘Fitzcarraldo’ and a sequel of sorts to Ferrera’s ‘The Bad Lieutenant.’ That’s more than enough for me.

THE ‘EIGHT-BALL’ JACKET PHENOMENON

“I’m a gorilla, I beast everything in the eye/Rock an Eight-Ball jacket in the middle of July“ Ghostface

Elaine: “What is that?“

Puddy: “It’s my new coat.“

Elaine: “You ditched the fur?“

Puddy: “Yeah, I saw Jerry wearing his. He looked like a bit of a dandy. Check it out! Eight-Ball! You got a question, you ask the Eight-Ball.“

Elaine: “You’re gonna wear this all the time?“

Puddy: “All signs point to ‘Yes!“

When fibre-optic cable fitter Raoul Cooper agreed to meet police in a vacant parking lot in Mableton, Georgia on the evening of the 9th of July this year regarding issues of child neglect he got a surprise – in addition to members of the local force, a SWAT team and NYC police officers promptly surrounded and arrested him on suspicion of first-degree murder dating back eighteen years. The reason for the homicide? To obtain an Eight-Ball jacket. Now that trend’s been and gone, frequently  lampooned for good measure just to put it to rest, Raoul must be more than a little salty that he threw it all away and took a life for a flash-in-the-pan piece of gaudy cowhide. I frequently suffer bouts of jacket envy; though I’d like to point out I’ve never been quite so enamoured with any outerwear that I’d take up arms, but for me, the Eight-Ball was one of my first true jacket lusts.

TAKING THE PLUNGE INTO PAPER

In recent years there’s been a dearth of good magazines that aren’t aimed at high fashionistas or plummeting the depths of lad mag high street payola. Beyond the Far Eastern publications you’d be hard-pressed to find anything particularly wearable.

Mr Kan’s recent blog post about the possibility of some background dealings in relation to column inches in those magazines raises some interesting points, but still, I’d sooner have access to publications with that kind of content, payola or not, than the increasingly scant newsagent shelves. I live for print.

I used to want to forge a career in print, but realised I lacked the written skills to make the necessary mark to pay rent (though some wannabe scribes get by regardless), many of the senior staffers were upper-middle class twits rather than the grizzled journos I’d expected, talking about their press pass visit to Creamfields is if they were Michael Herr on assignment and that clearly that monitor I was gawking at rap news, porn and footwear on all day was going to obliterate paper one day. Thus the dream was over.

“INFLUENCERS” & 2001 NOSTALGIA

Is there a more misused term than ‘influencer’? Every time anyone uses it at corporate level, somewhere a puppy dies. It’s that bad. Anyone swanning around thinking they’re influentual almost certainly isn’t. If they afford themself the title that’s even worse, like thinking you’re funny, but being flowed free product specifically to wear in order to shill more to a moronic crowd daft enough to follow their lead perches at the same tier as the guy holding the ‘Golf Sale’ sign down Oxford Street. The ‘influencer’ just has a nicer jacket, but the outcome is usually similar – pushing mass-produced sportswear in a targeted way. Clowns. But this blog was never meant to be the negativity zone, otherwise I would’ve vented here in self-indulgent fashion at being snubbed in favour of even bigger toys than myself (now that’s truly toy) for events or the startling ineptitude of so many blank eyed public relations people making a limited edition pig’s ear out of the brands they’re paid to promote. I don’t want to make this blog that place, so let’s talk influences. Like Chucky D said, most of my influences don’t appear on no seeding lists. But a few do.

‘SNEAKERHEADS’

Working with sports footwear, or as Scoop Jackson would call them, gym shoes, on the daily, It’s easy to get very, very jaded, and lose sight of exactly what lured you into making them a profession of sorts. In my case it was a fluke. As with anything attracting disciples, there’s tiers of hoarders, collectors and fanboys who’ll pick a particular boomtime that was a cut-off when things were purer and the herbs were less involved.

With sports footwear it’s a tough one to call. Things are still mighty healthy, but the early ’00s was a point when the big brands truly capitalised on the cult of the collector, and when they entered the fray and saw the extra $$$ to be made, things went out of control. At time-of-blogging, visions of Jordan XI retros are on the mind – just as religious types can suffer a loss of faith, the avalanche of drivel has caused a few doubts lately, and to be excited about a release proves there’s still some personal mileage in the industry. But that shoe is a design that’s fourteen years old. It still looks fresh, but still, fourteen years. That things tailspinned from an aesthetic direction in favour of re-rubs of former classics is a debate that won’t be unleashed on this blog, bearing in mind that it was meant to be a sneaker-free spot. But hey, worlds are always going to collide on occasion.

SPIRITUALIZED’S ATMOSPHERIC REENTRY

Today the Observer’s Music Monthly breathed its last with a rollout of the decade’s best albums. As you’d expect it was deeply wishy-washy, with many Dizzee namedrops and Mike Skinner jocking. The reason? Because ‘best album’ polls are generally dated before the voting journos involved have even hit send on that mail with the rich text attachment.

Opinions are like rectums and all that, because while Spiritualized topped ‘97 polls in several publications, looking at recent polls, the dated ‘Urban Hymns‘ and overrated ‘OK Computer‘ have lapped ‘Ladies And Gentleman We Are Floating In Space‘ and its celestial glory. Which is, of course, an injustice. While Yorke read ‘No Logo’ and became toe-curlingly politicised in the most fey, ineffectual manner, and Ashcroft moped about solo in Wallabees, Jason Pierce and his fellow cosmonauts kept the faith, even if commercial success gradually rolled back to a cult following.

CAMBER: NO NONSENSE

It’s apparent that Camber don’t do funny business. There’s an enduring mystery to this sports/workwear brand that’s nicely at odds with every other brand letting the blogsphere see every inch of their inner workings down to the guts – they make great product, so hard wearing that it nearly falls into the current workwear boom that’s got your local hipster hotspot looking like dress rehearsals for ‘The Grapes Of Wrath’ with added GORE-TEX. This has been the year of the heritage range. Marketing guy spots local urchins in denim and workboots, discovers the hype blogs and realises that all they need is their old logo on a patch, Vibram on the sole and voila! They’re in the running.

In the tumble to show just how goddamn old and authentic they are, old brands are acting less like the bemused Farnklin Davis who expressed concern for Ben Davis fan Snoop Dogg around the time he was aquitted of murder charges, “I heard something about that Snoop Dogg guy getting in trouble…” or a crotchety old man chasing a young man in cropped chinos wielding a DMC-GF1 off his factory property. Nope. Now it’s all blogger tours and storytelling.