So what IS an angry shoe? Manolos?

And now everything comes full circle and you can buy a pair of Converse with Kurt Cobain lyrics on them. Aren't you so happy Moe?

@ihateyourescalade: Doc Martens with white shoelaces?

I still rock the Chucks, even right now in my law office, but I will always miss my four-colored pastel high tops from 1983.

Aqua Socks are not an unnecessary phenomenon. Have you ever tried to walk out into a really rocky lake full of zebra muscles? I rest my point. They may look dorky, but nobody can see your feet submerged in water.

@ihateyourescalade: doc martens are angry shoes. i think they are awesome, but they can be seen as angry to others.

@Snowbunny: I'm not getting on your for your spelling, but I just had the most DISGUSTING image of a lake of zebra muscles instead of, I assume, some kind of bivalve. EEEEEEEEEEW.

@ineffable.me: I was going to say! Since when did Converse become a political statment on the order of Docs or Birkenstocks? To me they've always just been cute (if completely devoid of arch support) shoes for slacker-types and casual wear.

@ihateyourescalade: Those sneakers with the wheels in them are angry shoes. No, wait, they just make ME angry. Homicidal, even.

@dosido: Amen on the arch support. Mine have Dr. Scholl's in 'em.

I wear LA Gears.

I'm more of a Vans girl; I like shoes I don't have to tie. I am really antsy when one shoe is tied tighter than the other; I am constantly tying and re-tying and trying to make things perfectly even.

I don't get how people have Chuck Taylor's for year's. I had two pairs in middle school (end-era grunge) and they both fell apart within 4 months. My mom didn't like them because they had no arch support, so she was glad to see them go.

@rednrowdy: The only pair of Docs I ever had were so uncomfortable I wanted to kick things with them. To hurt the shoes.

the lifetime of 3 and a half pairs of chucks has still got to be less than a year.

@BAngieB: @Snowbunny: I second that - aqua socks are essential - for water sports. I think she might have meant the unfortunate trend where un-athletic people co-opt athletic clothes to look sporty (remember bike shorts and Tevas? *shudder*). I seem to recall a brief moment where aqua socks were actually worn as *going out of the house and not to visit a body of water* shoes. Ugh. Worse than ballet slippers.

@ineffable.me: The oxblood ones.

@blondegrlz: Heelies? Don't know why their maker doesn't just call 'em Kid-Killers and be done with it.

Eh, Chucks are like low-grade LV or Dior: instantly recognizable, often (if you were anything like me as a teenager) meant to portray a certain subculture affiliation. No malice is intended, because catching the eye of a boy wearing the same shoes as you (and instantly assuming that they may like the same music as you, ie Fugazi, Nirvana, Pavement, etc, esp. if this were 1997) was my tried-and-true pick up method.

Don't they make a shoe at something like blackspot-shoes.com, where you can get a crusty, vegan looking Chuck Taylor, only it's made by not Poor Chinese Orphans(TM)?

Yes, I guess there are:

[adbusters.org]

@J.D.Regent: This is what I'm sayin'!

@ihateyourescalade: see? angry!

i know many people who couldn't handle doc martens. i couldn't afford a pair myself. then again, i just bought two pairs of old navy flats online yesterday, so you can see where my allegiance lies. the key to life is comfortable shoes, and save the pretty painful shoes for when you're sittin' down.

@BAngieB: gotta love casual friday

@braak: Haha, my male vegan friend has these. he's great. Super Skinny boy.

@J.D.Regent: I've had mine for like 4 years. I don't wear them every day (and never in the summer, 'cause I'm in sandals), but they get a lot of wear in the winter time.

@SarahMC: oh my god I know what you mean.

@braak: No Sweat makes some, too.

And whenever I see those Target Converse commercials, my 8th grade snob kicks in and I think "Pffft...One Stars are NOT All Stars."

I used to wear cheap payless knockoffs that cost 15 dollars bach then...does that count? seriously hate Chuck Taylors now, hate. They're no different than Nike or new Balance or whatever sneakers the kids are wearing these days...except they have no arch support and get fucked up really quickly. Fetishizing Chuck Taylors and turning them into some "it"show is no different from the other more commercial sneaker brands the hipsters are trying to avoid...The fact that they are owned by Nike is so appropriate...Nike owns Cole Haan too, btw...

Slacker ambivalence? Indecision? No, no, no. Peewipers. That's what they are, the shoe for making squeaky sounds across a freshly waxed grade school gym floor.

@dosido: I'm way too young, I didn't even know that actually happened. How horrifying, they're usually electric blue and magenta and lime green all in one mesh shoe.

I wear boots proudly made in the PRC by PLA Factory #4, or whatever it said on that shite label that faded to nothing after years of wear. Everyone thinks I'm making some sort of statement by wearing them all the time, some think I'm just a Finnish metalhead and thus weird, but I'm really not. They're just really comfortable combat boots.

Also Moe used to live in China? That's also cool. I've only ever visited Southern China for short stints lived in; Shanghai, Dalian and Tianjin. Avoid foreigners like the fucking plague. Moving in a week, sadly.

I've had my pair of chucks for six years and they last so long because about a year into wearing them, they became more hole than shoe and now there just isn't anything left to disintegrate. BONUS - once you wear away all the fabric on the inside, they stop being so stinky because the rubber doesn't hold stinkyness.

I'm obsessed with BC skimmers right now. They also only last a season, but they only cost $25 bucks, if you go to the right stores. And they look cuter with skirts

@Dear Blond Diary...: @hortense: I just found these things again, I think I want to buy some.

I've got a pair of sneakers that I wear now that I bought from K-Mart, and I'm sure were constructed by Poor Chinese Orphans.

@ihateyourescalade: I hate those shoes so much! I was in a store a while back, and a mom came in trying to buy them in a small size for her two-year-oldish kid. They were like "we aren't allowed to carry that size, but you can get them on their website". Because THAT is a good idea right there.

I was always a PF Flyers girl...but even those are owned by New Balance...and have been a part of the Converse family. But clearly, I'd rather have a brand debate than talk about the consequences of buying any of these shoes in the lives of others.

Today I am rocking some extremely angry Fluevogs. They are knee-high biker boots that zip up. There's a buckle across the ankle and two more on the side of each calf. They have red logos on the bottoms of the stompy black soles.

Also they say "Made in Portugal." I am picturing a sweet old man named João lovingly constructing my shoes and then driving away on a scooter. At least, that's what I like to think.

@SarahMC: My adorable Chucks that have a little black kitty on them are the hardest shoes to tie correctly. They're either so loose they rub blisters on my heels so so tight I lose feeling in my feet. I need, like, stretchy shoelaces.

My dad has worn Chucks for as long as I can remember. Natural white (occasionally black), low tops. Limousines for the feet.

He and my mom recently had a going away party, moving out of the city they had been in for almost 30 years. He happened to be wearing some non-Chuck sneakers and a friend of mine from high school approached me, very distressed, and demanded to know why my dad was not wearing Chuck Taylors, was something wrong with the world? My dad is a classic.

@ihateyourescalade: Are we sure those weren't invented by the ghost of Charles Darwin?

Mourner: "I was so sad to hear that little Timmy died. What happened?"
Mom: (sniffs) "He was just rolling around the mall on his Heelys and (sniff) he tripped and plunged straight down the escalator!"
Award Presenter: "You're Timmy's mom? Congratulations, I have here your sons posthumous Darwin Award! You must be so proud!"

@Dear Blond Diary...: I agree! I am not a chuck's fan in practice, though I do think they can look really cute. But they fall apart, aren't comfortable and have no support.

With this statement in mind, please observe my favorite pair of shoes (except in black)...[www.shoes.com]

My life has been marked by many pairs of Chuck Taylors so far. In high school I had a pair of high tops that I had artistically cut and frayed, then decorated with beads on safety pins. And a pair of plaid flannel ones, which was sort of meta-grunge.

These days I like my basic black. I alternate them with my Kangaroos as my casual footwear. I'm a bit Lily Allen in my shoe choices really. Anytime I can get away with wearing sneakers or flat with a dress, I will.

@SmoothLeather: Chucks arent low-grade anything man. Chucks are chucks and it's a rite of passage for cool kids.

I've only had one pair of chucks semi fall apart on me, but that was after like 4 years of constant wearing.

I used to wear chucks in jr. high (80s, so the high tops of course), then vans for a long time. Particularly the two-toned lace-up ones. I tried to buy another pair of chucks a few years ago. But they were soooo uncomfortable. Ugh. Then I tried the Vans. Ditto. I guess I used to wear them before I had to take public transportation and walk a lot. So it's all about the scandahoovian clogs for me. I am nerdy, but my feet feel good.

I own perhaps one of the last pairs of Chucks to have been Made In America. It says it right on the sole. I never wear them. I guess I think they're a collectors item.

My black high tops just fell apart (literally -- I was walking a week ago and the sole of the left shoe CAME OFF between step 64 and step 65. My foot got wet), so I replaced them with a pair of lo-top, slip on plaid chucks. And then I discovered that CROSSWORD PUZZLE slip on chucks were on sale. So I bought those, too, and am waiting for them to come. Because I am a crossword puzzle junkie.

I still mourn those black high tops, though. They were only on their sixth year!

@J.D.Regent: My high school ones are still in one piece, although they ain't pretty. I'm 28.

@tscheese: The Blackspot shoes are made in Portugal, too. What's up with that? Is there a secret shoe industry in Portugal?

When I was fourteen I wore chucks to show that I wasn't buying into your system, man, and then when they sold the company to Nike it broke my heart a little. Even though I hadn't owned a pair in like a decade.

Also, I got a pair of one stars because, in the issue of People that had the article about Kurt Cobain's suicide, there was a picture of his dead foot wearing 'em. I was like, those are RAD.