Month: July 2022

In the aftermath of the horrifying mass shooting in Highland Park, Illinois during a July 4 parade, the far right have done what they usually do in such situations: They tried to blame everything but the easy accessibility of assault-style rifles. The NRA actually posted about the glories of guns just before the incident, then made excuses after it happened. Marjorie Taylor Greene, meanwhile, fired off lots of fiction, prompting lots of bewildered pushback.

But the Georgia representative, who last week was simply making up words, wasn’t done. In a series of unhinged posts about the suspect, Robert Crimo, who has since been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, she went so far as to post an obviously photoshopped image of him.

Greene was demanding more be known about Crimo, who was only apprehended Monday night. “Release his records, school record, arrest, drugs and prescription drugs, hospitalizations, psychiatric,” she wrote.

Fair enough. But then she started speculated wildly, thanks in part to an image that was clearly doctored. It showed him smiling wildly, holding a bible while sitting in some kind of cell. One need not be an expert to know it was a fake, and not a very good one. But wouldn’t you know, it snookered the person who once believed in “Jewish space lasers.”

“Is he in jail or rehab or a psychiatric center in this photo? That’s not his bedroom,” she wrote. “22 yrs old and 5’11 and 120 lbs is not normal or healthy. What drugs or psychiatric drugs or both does he use?”

Not long thereafter, she offered a not-quite mea culpa, saying the image she posted — and used to fuel conspiracy theories about his history with mental health facilities — was “supposedly” photoshopped. But rather than prove her claims fake, she wrote, “More reasons to release his records. What’s wrong with him?”

There has been one part of Crimo’s history that’s come to light: In 2019, he threatened to kill his family, prompting a relative to call the police, who then confiscated numerous weapons. Three years later he was still able to legally obtain five guns, including the high-powered rifle he used to kill seven people and wound 30.

(Via Newsweek)

Believe it or not, Tom Cruise hasn’t had a billion dollar grosser until Top Gun: Maverick. During his first stint as the biggest movie star in the world, from the mid-‘80s through the mid-aughts, movies almost never made that kind of money. Then he was seen as kind of a weirdo for about 15 years, after his couch-jumping, Scientology-spouting antics made him a PR nightmare. But he’s worked his way back into the public’s good graces, and the reward is not only his biggest-ever hit, but also one absurd payday.

In a new piece for Puck, entertainment reporter Matthew Belloni breaks down the deal Cruise and his legal team worked out for the belated sequel he spent so long not wanting to make. His contract worked in two parts. First up, he was paid $12.5 million upfront. Then he scored 10 percent of the first dollar gross, “with escalators that increase his percentage at certain milestones,” Belloni says.

Right now the film’s worldwide gross is around $1.1 billion. It’s still in the box office Top 5 in North America. In fact, it’s behind last week’s big winner, the Minions sequel. Cruise doesn’t start getting backend until Paramount hits about $125 million in revenue, and they usually take about half of the box office gross domestically and a bit less internationally. If the film gets to $1.3 billion, which seems likely, Paramount’s revenue would be about $600 million, and 10 percent of that is, to be safe, about $55 million.

And that’s just from theatrical. He also gets cuts from home video, pay TV, streaming, etc. It’s not clear what his cut from those would be, but Belloni estimates that, end of the day, Cruise will get around $80 million to $90 million. He may even wind up with nine figures, just for one movie. And should there be a sequel, his contract would almost certainly be even better.

Anyway, good news for someone who’s already the most limber 60-something in the business.

(Via Puck)

Clairo‘s music can be pretty heartbreaking, especially when it comes to “Bags,” a vulnerable breakup ballad from her 2019 album Immunity. But the star has managed to render the song even more painful by inviting none other than Phoebe Bridgers to sing it with her on stage tonight in Milan, Italy at the Carroponte.

Crazed fans, of course, were able to capture the moment with videos on Twitter and frenzied captions. The footage is mostly screaming and the crowd singing along, but still, it was obviously a beautiful moment.

When the news broke that Roe V. Wade was about to be overturned, Bridgers was one of many musicians to use her platform to speak up about it. “As a white, upper-middle-class woman from California, even if it were to be overturned, I will always have access,” she wrote. “I have a friend who went to medical school — every time I need a doctor, I say, ‘Do you have someone that you recommend?’ So I would just go, ‘Hey, where do I go for the thing? Wink-wink.’ The people with access will always have access. What pisses me off is that we’re not talking about me. It’s so easy: I played in Texas the same week, and then I went home and was like, ‘Oh my God.’ Made the appointment. It was 12 hours of my life.”

On the 4th of July, a gunman opened fire at a parade in quaint Highland Park, Illinois, killing at least six people, injuring dozens and traumatizing (once again) an entire nation.

My family member who was at the parade was able to flee to safety, but the trauma of what she experienced will linger. For the toddler with the blood-soaked sock, carried to safety by a stranger after being pulled from under his father’s bullet-torn body, life will never be the same.

There’s a phrase I keep seeing in debates over gun violence, one that I can’t seem to shake from my mind. After the Uvalde school shooting, I shared my thoughts on why arming teachers is a bad idea, and a gentleman responded with this brief comment:

“Way to create more soft targets.”

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Soft targets. That phrase gets me every time.

As far as I know, there are only two places in the world where children in school or people gathering for enjoyment are referred to as “soft targets”—active war zones and the United States of America.

Never in a million years would I think to use the words “soft targets” to refer to schoolchildren—or parade-goers, or people enjoying a live concert, or grocery shoppers or people in a bible study. I wouldn’t even use the term “unarmed civilians” unless I were in the military and actively involved in a military operation.

They’re not targets, they’re people. People just living life.

That’s what freedom is supposed to be, isn’t it? The ability to just live life?

Instead, we are being held hostage by a militarized monster of our own making, one that says the answer to America’s gun violence is more guns. (The irony, of course, being the fact that we already have more guns than people.) We see it in the weird worshipping of weapons, the Christmas cards with the whole family carrying, the bizarre fetish with one interpretation of one constitutional amendment to the exclusion of all others. It’s in the language being used not only in reference to guns, but in reference to people just going about their daily lives—that is, “soft targets.”

u201cThis poem is a punch in the gut.u201d

— Nikita Gill (@Nikita Gill)
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The truth is we should be “soft targets.” No, really. That’s what freedom is. We should be able to go to school and the store and our houses of worship without fear of being shot. We should be able to peaceably assemble per our First Amendment right without being scattered and shattered by gunfire.

We shouldn’t feel the need to arm ourselves simply to go about our daily lives. Feeling compelled to carry a gun at all times isn’t freedom. Living like we’re living right now, with mass shootings on the regular, isn’t freedom. And adding more guns won’t make us more free. It won’t. It hasn’t.

If the Highland Park parade shooting proved anything, it’s that even an event with a police presence in an idyllic, upscale, objectively “safe” suburb isn’t safe from mass gun violence. There were good guys with guns there. There were good guys with guns in Uvalde, too. There were good guys with guns in Buffalo. So many good guys with guns. And yet, here we are.

It’s time to look in the mirror and recognize how ridiculous we’ve become. Other civilized nations don’t refer to children as “soft targets.” They just don’t. While we’re debating whether the U.S. is a gun violence outlier because of doors or video games or mental illness, which the rest of the world has as well, our peers in other developed countries live their daily lives with freedom that we do not have—the freedom to gather without worrying that a whack job with a weapon of war is going to open fire, the freedom to go to school without rehearsing for a mass shooting event, the freedom to not ever think about carrying a gun to defend themselves against other guns.

Gun violence can happen anywhere, yes. But it happens far, far more often here than in other developed nations. There’s a reason for that. Perhaps when we finally accept that our culture’s dysfunctional relationship with guns is the problem, the idea of referring to people simply living their lives as “soft targets” will be as disturbing here as it is everywhere else.

There were multiple mass shootings in America on July 4, including an attempted one in Philadelphia that sent crowds racing to safety. But the deadliest occurred in Highland Park, a suburb north of Chicago. Seven people were killed and 30 injured, with the shooter escaping the scene. Robert Crimo, 21, was later apprehended and has now been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. But new details suggest his actions could have been thwarted had there been stricter gun laws.

As per The Guardian, police first encountered Crimo back in April of 2019, after a suicide attempt. In September of that same year, one of his relatives called police after Crimo threatened to “kill everyone” in his family home. As a result, a police taskforce confiscated several weapons: 16 knives, a dagger, and a sword.

And yet four years later, Crimo was still able to legally obtain five guns, including the high-powered rifle he used to snipe at crowds at an Independence Day parade from atop a building. (Highland Park outlaws assault-style weapons within city limits, but officials don’t always enforce such rules.)

Police report that Crimo had been planning the massacre for weeks, even posting dozens of violent videos. One featured him reading, “Everything has led up to this. Nothing can stop me, even myself.”

The Highland Park mass shooting has so far followed the usual trajectory of such tragedies. Survivors and local leaders call on something, anything to be done, while far right second amendment absolutists tweet nonsense, knowing it won’t.

(Via The Guardian)

This year, Key Glock has been working tirelessly, releasing song after song after song, with videos as well. He released “No Choice” last month, as well as “12AM” and a remix of Denzel Curry’s “Walkin.” In March, he unveiled the deluxe version of 2021’s Yellow Tape 2, which had 30 songs and no features.

The 24-year-old rapper is back today with “Diapers,” a two-minute track with a seamless flow full of flexes and quips: “First name Michael, I ball like Michael / Tyson, 10-carats in rings bitin’ / Came in f*cking sh*t up, Joe Biden.” It also comes with a video with lots of smoke, wads of cash, and an appearance from Big Moochie Grape.

In April, the Memphis native was asked in an interview with Mormon how he’s been doing since the death of Young Dolph, who was his friend and was tragically shot and killed in his hometown of Memphis while shopping at a bakery. “I’m maintaining,” Glock said. “Like, I’m not getting better, I’m not getting worse. I’m just here right now.” He continued, “I can’t shake it, man. I ain’t even gonna lie. I can’t even shake it. It is what it is.”

Watch the video for “Diapers” above.

Another year and another hot girl summer for Megan Thee Stallion. She has been incredibly busy coming into 2022’s mid-year season, starting with the drop of her provocative video for “Plan B. She’s also been using her platform to spread awareness about a woman’s right to choose, starting a, “My body, my motherf*cking choice” chant during her Glastonbury festival set, and is trying to find time to chill out as festival season begins to pick up steam.

These music festival appearances are about to dominate Meg’s summer and she’s currently on top of the lineup of a slew of European fests. She just wrapped up a headlining set at Dublin’s Longitude fest and heads to Switzerland’s Openair Frauenfeld next. But in between these trips, she also knows how to find a shoreline or two to relax and recharge by the beach. According to Megan’s Instagram stories, she was just taking a breather in Portugal. She just posted a series of photos to social media donning a string bikini that does not leave much to the imagination. Posing both on the beach and against a marbled wall, the butterfly-themed swimsuit accentuates her curves to the max. “This why he obsessed, CLINGY,” she said in the caption.

From Switzerland, she heads to Wireless Festival in London, before an eventual grand finale at Lollapalooza in Paris. So there’s no telling where the next relaxation station will be.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Passing around your yearbook to have it signed by friends, teachers and classmates is a fun rite of passage for kids in junior high and high school. But, according to KDVR, for Brody Ridder, a bullied sixth grader at The Academy of Charter Schools in Westminster, Colorado, it was just another day of putting up with rejection.

Poor Brody was only able to get four signatures in his yearbook, two from what appeared to be teachers and one from himself that said, “Hope you make some more friends.”

Brody’s mom, Cassandra Ridder has been devastated by the bullying her son has faced over the past two years. “There [are] kids that have pushed him and called him names,” she told The Washington Post. It has to be terrible to have your child be bullied and there is nothing you can do.

She posted about the incident on Facebook.

“My poor son. Doesn’t seem like it’s getting any better. 2 teachers and a total of 2 students wrote in his yearbook,” she posted on Facebook. “Despite Brody asking all kinds of kids to sign it. So Brody took it upon himself to write to himself. My heart is shattered. Teach your kids kindness.”

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Parents saw the post and told their kids the heartbreaking story. So a group of kind upperclassmen at the school stood up for Brody by tracking him down and signing his yearbook.

“We walked in and we were like where’s Brody at? Is Brody Ridder in here? And they’re like yeah he’s in the back and we’re like Brody! We’re here to sign your yearbook bud,” Simone Lightfoot told KDVR. In a quick reversal of fortune, Brody had a line around him to sign his book and he received more than 100 signatures.

While students rallied around Brody at school, the story and Facebook post went viral, attracting the attention of one of the most beloved guys in Hollywood, “Ant-Man” star, Paul Rudd.

After Rudd heard Brody’s story he called him on the phone.

“I heard about you and I’m like, ‘I gotta talk to this kid, because this kid sounds like my kinda guy,'” he said in a recording posted to Facebook by Cassandra. “He likes chess, he likes fencing, he likes dinosaurs. Am I right?”

Rudd also sent him a letter that read:

“It’s important to remember that even when life is tough that things get better. There are so many people that love you and think you’re the coolest kid there is — me being one of them! I can’t wait to see all the amazing things you’re going to accomplish.”

He also sent a gift, an Ant-Man helmet for when Brody decides to take on “the WORLD!”

Rudd’s gesture was a wonderful example of someone using their celebrity to uplift others. It’s no wonder that Stephen Colbert once called him “the nicest person on the planet.”

The outpouring of support from his classmates and people from around the world was encouraging for both mother and son.

“It just made me feel better as a person. I don’t know how to explain it. It just makes me feel better on the inside,” he told KDVR.

“It made me feel like there’s hope for the school, there’s hope for humanity and there’s a lot of good kids in this world,” his mother added.

If you would like to send Brody a letter, mail it to:

Brody Ridder

PO Box 99

Henderson, CO 80640

Here at Upworthy we love to bring you feel-good stories, and this one was just too good to keep to ourselves. Imagine growing up your entire life not realizing you had a sister out there. That’s exactly what happened to Diane Ward and Mary McLaughlin. The women were born three years apart and were adopted, but neither knew the other existed until submitting a DNA test through MyHeritage. It took them 56 years to learn of one another.

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McLaughlin and Ward grew up visiting their adoptive relatives in each other’s respective city and never knew. McLaughlin lived in Detroit, Michigan, and would visit relatives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ward lived in Pittsburgh and would visit relatives in Detroit. It was as if fate was itching to make them bump into each other. And it gets weirder. For a time, both sisters lived in Michigan as children and, strangely enough, they actually lived only a few blocks apart.

McLaughlin grew up with their biological mother off and on but, after being left with the babysitter when their mother didn’t return, the babysitter and her husband became her legal guardians. McLaughlin’s mother became a “peripheral figure” according to People. McLaughlin told the Mirror that she was never officially adopted as her mother refused to relinquish rights. Sadly their mother passed away from breast cancer when McLaughlin was 26, well before the two sisters were reunited through DNA.

Ward told People, “We were basically just crossing back and forth most of our childhood.” Evidently the pair even went to the same bakery, yet never met. Ward continued “It’s just weird. Creepy weird. Because we were just in the same circle the whole time.”

At-home DNA tests, which have become popular over recent years, have been known to dig up family secrets, confirm suspicions or, if your family is a little less scandalous, tell you where you originate from. You spit in a tube, then you wait. Eventually you get an email telling you your ancestry results with normally nothing more exciting than finding out that Grandma Gina lied and you aren’t Italian after all. Only a few DNA testers are like McLaughlin and Ward, finding long lost siblings or birth parents.

With the pair having been constantly in and around each other’s orbits, McLaughlin pondered the thought to People, “Maybe we did see each other. Maybe we were even sitting at the same ice cream stand. Who knows?”

After discovering the other existed, the sisters were finally able to meet up a few months later to see each other face to face. Ward was aware of her adoption from the start and used MyHeritage for the DNA testing to learn more about her ethnic heritage and possibly find her birth parents. It never dawned on her that she could have a sibling. According to the Mirror, Ward is the one that initiated the reunion after getting a familial match with a maternal cousin who pointed her in the direction of McLaughlin, who then took a DNA test.

In June, Ward and her husband flew to Charlotte, North Carolina, from the U.K. to meet McLaughlin and her family for the first time. The sisters enjoyed a vacation at Nags Head Beach in North Carolina. It’s amazing that these two were able to meet after so many near misses. Now then can start making new memories together.

Jeff Staple is always looking into the future (no wonder he hangs with Andre 3000). With 25 years in the streetwear game, the legendary designer has proven not just the resilience of his brand, but the resilience of streetwear itself. And while that gives Staple every opportunity to rest on his laurels and collect his paychecks, he seems just as energized now as he was in ’97 — truly embodying that NYC hustler mentality.

You know, that scrappy pigeon lifestyle that has made his brand so iconic.

That energy was on full display last month when NTWRK and Staple’s brand came together for the second annual STAPLE Day — a one-day in-app and in-person shopping event featuring exclusive drops and rare collections. This year, it also served as the 25th Anniversary celebration of the iconic brand. Still, the biggest thing on Staple’s mind wasn’t the giant milestone he’d just passed, it was the growing interplay between Web3 and fashion and the relationship between brands and consumers in the digital space.

“Three years ago I would’ve said that the golden age just passed us,” he tells me of the state of streetwear in 2022. “I would now say that there’s been a recharge and I’m really excited to see what we’re all able to do in the next five years. I think it’s going to be on another level and I’m already seeing concrete, black and white examples of that happening.”

Look no further than STAPLE Day itself, which let shoppers around the country in on the exclusive gear, via the NTWRK app. Buying exclusive drops isn’t exactly a Web3 phenomenon, of course, but it is indicative of how streetwear’s global reach continues to be amplified thanks to technology. And that’s something Staple is keenly interested in pushing forward.

To dive deeper, we spoke to the visionary designer about the future of streetwear, his collaboration with Crocs, and his current favorite sneaker silhouettes. Let’s jump in.

I’ve been following Staple Day and that came with a lot of drops and collaborations. We’d never ask you to pick a favorite but what were some of the collaborations you were most excited to see people lose their minds over?

Yeah, it’s hard to pick a favorite. Some of the highlights were probably that we did a collaboration on a capsule collection with an artist named McFlyy who is based out of LA. Him and I have been chatting for a couple of years now pre-COVID, just fans of each other’s work and always trying to figure out a way that we could work together. Like when people say to each other “Yo, we need to do something together…” It’s like, “Yeah, we do” but then it’s cool when it finally comes to fruition and it was also cool that we met physically for the first time at Staple day to drop the collection, which is pretty amazing.

Another cool highlight was that we did a Topps baseball card drop and for Staple Day I was signing them in a special pigeon pink ink color that I don’t do anywhere else. And we actually had the PSA, which is the actual autograph authenticator for world-class, legendary athletes everywhere in the world. They were on hand to certify my autograph on the baseball card. So now part of that collection, if you see something that’s signed by me, whether it’s a sneaker or anything, you can actually go to the PSA and have it authenticated because I’m on the books now with them.

I think the highlight of the whole thing, which was the grand finale if you will, was that being that this year was the 25th anniversary of Staple, one thing that I thought would be fun to do was to look back from 1997, which is the year I founded the brand until today and choose my favorite sneaker from every year. My favorite shoe of ’97, ’98, ’99, 2000, and on and on. And then collect all of those 26 shoes together and give them away as one pack. And so one lucky winner won all 26 shoes, my curation of the best shoe that dropped every year for the last quarter-century.

Those all vintage pairs then?

Yeah!

Some of those shoes are pretty old now, for a sneaker, what was the condition on those?

All brand new, none of them worn. So we did the work and we paid the money to gather them all up. But yeah, some of them are quite old — I don’t know if you’d want to wear them because they might crumble. Some of them are vacuum-sealed in plastic, but it’s just an incredible trophy piece to have in any sneakerhead collection.

One part of your legacy is that you’re always willing to push things forward. So with that in mind, I’m curious if you think of streetwear as having a golden age — like some would say 90s hip hop is the golden age of hip-hop. Do you feel like streetwear has an equivalent or does it continue to evolve with the times? Are the best days ahead?

That’s a great question. Because if you asked me this like three years ago, I would’ve said that the golden age of streetwear has already passed and I think what happened with COVID and the separation of people around the world, it forced all of us to have like a hard reset. And in many ways, even though it was a terrible epidemic that had a lot of tragedy, I think there was a lot of silver lining in that too, because the people who managed to survive it came out with new insight, new perspective, if you will, and new priorities and that’s on a macro global level.

So of course all of that is going to boil down into different subcultures, such as street culture.

Then you add in this thing that I’m really passionate about, which is the metaverse and Web3, and really just ownership of your own IP. It is really interesting because I think this is like, if three years ago I would’ve said that the golden age just passed us, I would now say that there’s been a recharge and I’m really excited to see what we’re all able to do in the next five years. I think it’s going to be on another level and I’m already seeing concrete, black and white examples of that happening. So I’m super excited about it.

I’d like to talk about the term “streetwear.” I’ve talked to a lot of designers now and I’ve noticed a trend that some people who came up in the streetwear scene have been distancing themselves from that label and category. I don’t know if it’s ’cause they’re trying to appeal to a luxury market — which is ironic because luxury labels are already obsessed with streetwear. Do you still think of all of this as streetwear?

I still am cognizant of why people feel like there’s a stigma around the idea of a streetwear designer. And if they’re trying to break into a higher price point or a different customer tier, then it makes sense why they don’t want to have streetwear baggage on them. I totally understand where that comes from. And I feel the same way sometimes, but I’m more open to wearing it on my sleeve that when people ask me if they don’t know what brand Staple is, I have no problem saying like “it’s a streetwear brand.” I know some people will be like, “Oh, it’s a luxury high-end street-inspired…” — it’s like I don’t even know that stuff.

Streetwear or street culture, if you break down the word, it’s like the culture and the fashion of people walking on the streets, right? Like real people, whereas I feel like runway shows, couture and high fashion are really cool and inspiring to look at, but I also sometimes struggle to find the connection point between everyday life. And I’m even talking about everyday life in some, 1% gentrified place, like Soho or Fairfax, or what you see on the runway in Paris doesn’t ever translate to Prince & Lafayette or Harajuku. It doesn’t even translate there, but you have to remember that there’s a UPS driver that works in Flint, Michigan that loves Staple.

So how is that ever going to translate to him or her? And I’m always really cognizant of the everyday person, the normal guy that doesn’t go to Paris fashion week, doesn’t pop bottles in some hot club, he’s got a family, a great job, and he just wants to look fly. You know what I mean? That to me is what street culture is all about. It’s actual people who live and operate in these streets.

I never want to lose that person, this is my thing. So while the luxury world is very enticing and you get starry-eyed over it, I personally feel way more goosebumps, love, and satisfaction when a UPS driver comes up to me and gives me a fist bump because of how much he loves the brand. And I keep saying that because that literally just happened an hour ago, a UPS driver came up to me and he was just like, “Yo, your brand is amazing, I love it, spend half my paycheck on your brand!” and that to me is better than getting into any runway show.

Congratulations on the huge milestone of Staple being 25 years old!

Thank you.

I know you can’t give away everything, but what are some of the most exciting things we can expect for the next 25 years and what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned in this journey?

The things that I’m most excited about are the merging of this digital world with the physical world. As I mentioned before, that really excites me because I think we’ve already been heading in that direction for nearly a decade now where most of our lives are consumed on a screen or expressed through a screen. So to me, the leap to way more of that is not a huge leap. Whereas I know some people are very scared and skeptical of the metaverse or Web3 or NFTs. But I know for a fact we’ve already been there, we’ve already had eight of our toes in that water without people even knowing it.

You just look at music or sneakers or fashion, or even home, even home interiors. If you bought an Eames Lounge Chair and you’re flexing it in your home, probably 99% of the people who see that and experience it is through a screen.

The number of people who come into your house and sit on it is probably 1% of your circle. So it’s already been there, done that. I’m really excited for the masses to accept that art expression and supporting a brand can be done without actually owning the physical product. I think that COVID was a big accelerator of that because in two years people realized that, wow, we could actually still do things through a screen and just because we don’t get to meet up in person doesn’t mean that the world stops.

I think the other factor there is the environmental factor where the earth is going to force us to not make everything physically, but if that happens, then we as humans have to learn how to enjoy and appreciate things that don’t require a physical 3D object in our hands.

So that’s what I’m really excited about for the next quarter-century. I also recognize that my position in this field is that of an elder statesman, so I recognize that I can either be that old guy in the club that’s trying to bro down with young people and pop bottles, or I can just spread the knowledge. And I definitely want to take the latter. Everything that I do, I try to share the wealth and just share those experiences with the younger generation and get inspired by each other because they can get inspired by the learnings and the experience and the wisdom that I have from a quarter-century of street culture and then I get inspired by them because of just the raw, relentless energy. If I do talks or interviews, it’s typically with someone in their twenties or thirties, because we’re just learning from each other, it’s really dope.

It’s interesting that you’ve mentioned having eight toes in the water, because I think in terms of a digital life, a lot of people don’t realize that gamers have been doing this for, long time. But I do wonder your take given the crypto NFT crash that has happened recently. Do you see that as just growing pains or is that a bigger warning sign? Does it worry you or is it just part of the journey?

It doesn’t worry me. I also want to expressly say I’m not giving financial advice here, but it doesn’t worry me because to me it’s just a factor of currency exchange. I’ll give you an example — if I want to go to Tokyo next week, if I want to experience Tokyo to its fullest, I have to change my USD into Japanese Yen. Next week the exchange rate could be really beneficial to me or it could be really bad for me right? Anyone who’s traveled across borders knows that “Oh, I’m getting hammered by the Euro!” or “Wow, I’m killing it in great British pounds.”

You know what I mean? So it fluctuates and because crypto is so new, the fluctuations are really, great and tremendous, but it’s just the course of doing business, things go high things go low.

Even though we’re at a real low right now, I think it’s a great time to build and innovate because it’s cheaper for somebody to get in now. Obviously, if you bought high and if you own a lot of digital assets, you’re feeling the crunch of it right now. I totally get that but if you were ever interested in building something in Web3 now is the time. It’s like if you’re building a house, do you want to build a house when lumber and steel are at their highest or at the lowest? You want to build when it’s at its lowest and that’s where we’re probably at right now. So it’s two sides of the same coin really.

I noticed on your Instagram that you gave the Air Presto Hello Kittys a shout-out. Definitely one of the best drops of the year. And I think that goes down to the full packaging, not just the shoe, the box and everything. What other big sneaker drops of 2022 have really caught your attention?

I think overall it’s really exciting what’s been happening with Crocs, we dropped the Crocs recently, my friend Salehe Bembury has been killing it with Crocs and it’s really cool to see a brand that five years ago, you wouldn’t be caught dead wearing out in public. It wasn’t even a no-name brand, Crocs, was a mockery of a brand. Straight ridicule and in such a short amount of time, it’s become like this fashion icon piece.

I think that’s cool because I love the brand. Obviously, I collaborate with them, but I also think it’s cool if you’re a marketer or if you’re into building brands or if you own a brand that is maybe not “hot” or viral right now, it’s a great case study, there’s no such thing as being over, anything can happen. I really love that.

The New Balance coming out are amazing. Their made in USA line is great and they’re also a great case study in the idea that slow and steady wins the race. They never tried to sign some Kanye West level rapper to do a sub-line with, they just held their ground. All of their collaborations have this great running DNA through them and where they lack maybe in crazy left field out-of-the-box innovation, they kill it in consistency and they slowly but surely grinded away at youth culture. Now, I live in downtown New York City — I definitely see more N logos on the side of people’s shoes than swooshes right now.

The last shoe I want to call out is the Tom Sachs General Purpose Shoe. I don’t know if you’ve seen that one. It’s like the “boring shoe” I love the shoe, and I think what Tom is trying to do in terms of beating the resellers and doing this thing where he claims they’ll be no resale or up sell prices because he’s going to make this shoe so readily available for everyone who wants it, that it won’t be an issue… I think is Tom is an incredible artist, but he’s not a sneakerhead who’s had four decades in the game.

While his mission is pure and innocent, I think it’s going to be harder than it sounds to pull off. Because you know, coming from me, who’s been doing a lot of collaborations and high heat sneaker drops. It’s not easy to thread the line between the idea of let’s get everyone who wants a pair to have a pair for regular retail price and also not worry about excess inventory overages and discounting.

How do you predetermine six to 12 months in advance that 134,500 people will want this shoe and get all of them that shoe and not over and not under produce? If it’s under, you have resale prices, if it’s over, you’re at the factory outlet and people are making fun of you as an artist. So it’s really interesting to see how he’s going to tread that line. I think he made the proclamation without yet figuring out how it’s actually going to happen.

If you look at the resale prices of his general-purpose suit, right now, it’s $400, $500, so it’s already not working. So I’m really keen on watching how that goes, cause he’s doing this like in partnership with Nike. So let’s see if one of the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest footwear brand can actually figure this out when they’re both on the same page.

You mentioned it in passing, but I really want to talk about your Crocs collaboration, the Sidewalk Luxe Clog. Definitely one of my favorite Croc drops. A constant in your work, as I said before, is this willingness to redefine what sneaker culture is, which is what I think Crocs doing in real-time. What are some of the touchstones of Staple that you brought to that collaboration and was it hard to get Crocs to do those giants pigeon Jibbitz?

I want to say it wasn’t actually, but they were surprised by the idea, even my own internal team was surprised of the idea. They tried to convince me out of it and if you look at the other Jibbitz, the New York City-style Jibbitz, that more so came from my team, they wanted to do that and not the big pigeon talons. But I was like, no, the big pigeon talons have to stay!

Then the Crocs team was like, ‘we’ve never made Jibbitz this big, we don’t even know if it’ll function properly, or it’ll stay on your foot.’ But we tried it and it worked out and I love that we kept on doing it. And it’s obviously the thing that you see talked about the most about that shoe. It was great working with them all in all, I’m glad we did it. In fact, I actually submitted that Croc to the Guinness Book World Records for the largest shoe they ever made in history. So I’m hoping I get a Guinness out of this too.

I mean, someone has to hold the title right?

Exactly.

To close out, aside from the SB Dunk, of course, what are your five favorite sneaker silhouettes right now?

Right now I’m really varied, I wear Hoka a lot. Hoka Clifton 5 is one of my favorite shoes, I wear Crocs classic of course, the Staple Croc, I just came out of wearing a lot of Salomon S-lab. Solomon is this ski brand, they have a division of shoes called the S-lab that I’ve been wearing a lot. Less so as a summer shoe, but in the spring and winter, you definitely wear them. I’ve been wearing the New Balance 2002 R Protection Pack, which I had a customizer by the name of Staniflou do a pigeon version on that 2002 R, which you can see on my feed, which is beautiful. And I’ve been wearing the shit out of those.

And last, let’s say, the Hello Kitty Presto. I’m back on my Presto tip.