Respect Authority

My high school career aligned perfectly with the height of Fast/Furious-inspired, Walmart-muffler-enabled Honda Civic mania. So make no mistake, I’ve seen some pretty weird shit done to cars. Seriously, one young man went so far as to paint the hood of his Eagle Talon with primer in the hopes of fooling people that it was actually made of carbon fiber and not merely a composite of recycled Diet Coke cans. And, seriously, people believed him.

All of this might not sound so strange considering high school is a pretty bizarre alternate reality in the first place. This is probably also why when I look at Vans’ 1974 bus West Coast Customs is currently working its otherworldly witchcraft on, all I can think about is how fucking awesome it is and not the fact that skating the mini ramp inside it would almost definitely lead to some kind of most unfortunate injury. Read More ›

Who knows how a gigantic clothing company like Levi’s expects to get away with this, but for some reason I have a feeling the words “huge out of court settlement” will be involved.

Levi’s teamed up with small-time company and obvious dogshit conveyor belt GMI-USA to produce a run of sneakers. The idea behind the relationship is that the line would ultimately cost Levi’s less than if the brand had headed the project itself, while at the same time, the smaller company got to slap Levi’s ubiquitous logo on their shameless bootlegs to help push the product. Everybody wins, right? Heh, well… kind of… nobody does, actually.

Unfortunately for Levi’s, while they may have saved a few bucks, they got a slew of pathetic knock-offs of the Supra Skytop, Vans Authentic and Converse Chuck Taylor in return. Of course, copying three of the most easily recognizable models in the entire shoe industry only makes it that much easier to spot your illegitimate clones. So nice work, morons, but there ain’t no more room for half-steppin’ in the shoe game. You get what you pay for, bitch. Read More ›