Hi, my name is Karsh and I am a shoe whore. Given how I love to be barefoot, this is an interesting conundrum.

It started when I was a kid back home; Death-Phoenix was always one to scold me for running around barefoot outside and in the house. “Boy, put your house shoes on!” she would say. I’d call them horseshoes because they were actually these nurse-white corrective shoes with thick magnetic soles. A simple walk to the refrigerator sounded like the Budweiser Clydesdales were stopping through for a bite to eat. What’s worse is I had to wear the clodhoppers to bed; the shoes would magnetically affix to two metal bars parallel to the sides of my bed in an attempt to make me legs straight.

Oh yeah, I kinda skipped over that whole birth-defect-doctors-say-he’ll-never-walk-again
thing. It’s a non-issue, really. I was in marching band, for cripes sake.

Anyway, around six years old, I was taken off the shoes and finally got to wear what I called “big people’s shoes”. My first pair? Some sky blue Cuga’s with a red racing stripe and two velcro straps. You could not TELL me I wasn’t pimp! But I hated them. I’d wear them around the house to appease the folks, then go outside and run through gravel and hot asphalt with no shoes on.

It’s Alabama. Shaddup.

Wearing shoes sort of equated to punishment for me, especially when Sundays rolled around. Death-Phoenix and Ma’dea were of the school of thought that kids should wear shoes a size too big to grow into them. The thing with me was that I was outgrowing the size-too-big shoes as often as they were bought. My first pair of dress shoes were some tassled wingtips Ma’dea got at a barbershop with a marrow-brown three piece suit for $50. I looked like a mini T.D. Jakes. I’d be all stuffy in church hearing the latest reason I was going to Hell, and then when service let out, off came the shoes and socks. Imagine a stocky seven-year-old in a bad three-piece suit wearing no shoes. No wonder Death-Phoenix thinks I’m a little off. That shit felt like Chinese foot binding.

Ever since then, wearing shoes has been an awkward thing for me. Insoles and heel inserts do nothing; they just feel odd and are more of a pain-in-the-ass than a pleasure under my foot.. Dozens of shoe-store trips with Death-Phoenix who lamented even taking me because aside from having flat feet (no doubt that my arch was worn out from all the barefoot behavior), one foot was a half-size smaller than the other one.

“Yes, he’ll take the left shoe in a 10 and the right in a 9 and a half.”

Then came the beauty of New Balance. I was at Lenox Square and bought a pair of red New Balance 574′s. I wore those shoes EVERYWHERE. Ever since then, New Balance 574′s have been my shoe of choice, years before they suddenly became the hipster footwear of choice. But dress shoes? Now that’s a whole ‘nother beast.

I hate dress shoes with a passion. The unforgiving sole. The stiff heel. The forced arch. I can’t do it. Rockport makes a good shoe for dress…the rest of them just don’t cut it. I’ve dumped Stacy Adams, put Giorgio Brutini back on the boat, and Kenneth Cole back in the closet. If I had my way, I’d wear my New Balance all the time.

*sigh*

If only they made dress shoes….