DJ Trava

Posts Tagged ‘Bugs Bunny’

This is a story I want to try to tell without using brand names, and it should be pretty easy, at least the way that I’ve been thinking it in my head.  This is a story about shoes, and generations, and how material things sometimes do make a difference.  The differences they make, however, are usually radically different than the value one originally puts on them, perhaps.  When I was a kid, I loved red shoes.  I suspect it has its origins not somewhere in hiphop culture or punk culture at all, but in Bugs Bunny.

This character, Gossamer, was the one who had the red hair all over its body, and big tennis shoes.  It was a monster, too, and was involved in some kind of plot to make the rabbit into dinner, ultimately settling for sending him, sleeping, down the moat and back home.  I loved that monster, and I wanted to be that monster, but I was turning into a very tall and skinny kid.  If I’d known about the Ramones then, maybe that would have been an outlet, but for now, this was it.  I always wore a lot of white clothes, because my mom had some interesting beliefs that included white clothes, so in my mind I pictured that with my white clothes and big red tennis shoes, I’d be like the monster in a reverse color kind of situation.  It wasn’t as successful as my 7th grade dreams promised, and I wasn’t the cool guy, but it worked out all right.

I had forgotten about that until one night, thinking about a trip to New York.  The top hotels look interesting.  I showed a site with a picture of a room to my daughter, who was ten, and all she could say was, “When can I have red high tops?”  I guess my wife was showing her my childhood photos, and she saw the big shoes on my big feet, which was easy when contrasted to my skinny body in white cloth.  That’s all that she talks about these days, so I’m not going to try to make New York important to her.  Maybe we’ll pick up some new shoes at the airport.