When I was Editor/Publisher of Running magazine, we gave some shoes to a certain outlaw journalist. – JDW
[On Woody Creek Rod & Gun Club stationery] Thanx for the Nike shoes. I’ve worn them in a good mix of situations since they’ve arrived… and for whatever it’s worth, here’s a professional evaluation:
They are ugly beyond reason & not anywhere near as comfortable on an all-day, all-night constant use basis as the Converse basketball shoes I normally wear… but they’re excellent for quick sprints up to 40 yards, and other special uses. I took them to Montreal for the Duran-Leonard fight & found them almost perversely uncomfortable after one or two hours of wear but in the most frantic kind of situations.
They were excellent. for instance, when I got myself involved in the sudden process of running down a hit-and-run driver in a narrow street at four in the morning outside a punk/rock club where we had gone for a private wake with/for Bob Arum. These things will definitely give you a quick start on almost any surface except ice or human grease, and they are almost as good as yr. tri-spiked baseball shoes for use in a Big League batting cage where you have to dig in against a machine that can lash a baseball past yr. butts at 99 miles an hour…
In a nut, these shoes are good for running down thugs and hitting major=league sliders… but not much else. The exaggerated slope of the sole from heel to toe made normal walking uncomfortable, especially on the kind of rugs you find in hotel lobbies. It’s like walking around in spongy high=heel clogs: The rubber tits catch on the surface of most rugs, the high slope of the sole put corrugated ridges on the balls of my feet whenever I went to the coffee shop or the bar, and the apparently deliberate lack of air-circulation inside the shoes made them a problem at all times. For general use & comfort, these Nike shoes would rate around a three (3) on a scale of ten (10), compared to a six or seven (6/7) for my Topsiders and eight or nine (8/9) for the Chuck Taylor All-Stars.
I have no idea what these buggers cost, but I’d never buy them at any price over $10 – and then only for special uses.
On other fronts, I put them in the washing machine with some clothes & other shoes – and the whole load came out pink.
So let’s just say it: These Nike shoes eat shit, and whoever designed them should be forced to wear the bastards for the rest of his natural life.
Okay… and so much for all that… [type][fades] Jesus, I’ve had to change typewriters now, instead of ribbons… those rotten carbon bastards will always run out before dawn.
OK, and fuck all this. All I meant to do was write a note to thank you for the shoes. Or at least the idea.
– Hunter, July 8, 1980
