Hoagie Time Podcast Episode 42: Delco Footwear Flips

Hoagie Time Podcast Episode 42: Delco Footwear Flips

Episode 42: More Collingdale flavor this week. Dave and Adam Robinson from Delco Footwear Flips come by to hang. Delco Footwear Flips specialize in selling collectible and hard to find sneakers. We talk about the world of sneakerhead culture and much more. 

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Transcript

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The Greens coming out two games this year, two home games. Yeah, the bills bills and Dolphins It's a good look. Yeah. It's definitely a good look. They, they, Jersey's dropped today. They don't look as big, I realized. It's very slimming. It's like some of the Jack players kind of look like skinny. Like I don't know if they like that because, you know, when I played the game, I like to, you know, the bigger shoulder cats kind of thing the cowboy collar, you know, it's a, that's a lost kind of thing in football. It's all slimming. I'll take any slimming I can get. I saw you at that ATM a couple of weeks ago, man. Listen, I swear. Yeah, dude. Yeah. We're gonna throw that picture up. HT, we're gonna have to put that picture up on the YouTube. Yeah. Times are tough. I got it. But like, you know, No, it was you. No chip in an ATM. I mean, that's pretty fucking gangster. You gotta do what you gotta do. Times are tough out here in these streets. Yeah, yeah. HT, we rolling? Yeah, we've been rolling. It's right. We're in it. Yeah. We got the brothers Robinson from Delco footwear flips, everybody. Yo, yo. How it is. How are you, Fally and Adam? Real, real, yeah. Yo, second week in a row. I was in real college. Just think of that real college. Oh, dudes, well, not represent. Yeah. Out the mud. Oh, yeah, guys. Well, I only get your cap was the back. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Me and us here, Dave went to went to Westchester together. Dude, I was I was thinking about this like, I don't know what I've been doing the last 20 years, like, but relaxing, a lot of relaxing. Dude, so much relaxing. Yeah. Like I had a recording studio set up in my room in Westchester with the cassette. It was a cassette tape four track recorder. This is pre computers. And I got really fucking good at it and people were coming by and I was like recording demos for people and state. Us mixed tape. Us came by and like we recorded a rap song. It's fucking great, dude. And then like, like I was on a trajectory, like to be like a fucking real, like producer, like if I kept up with the times, then just a lot of relaxing went down. I've had so much relaxing. Just a bunch of taking it easy. So much relaxing, dude. But I'm all the kind of dudes your age were unbelievable rappers. Yeah, dude. And didn't even know like Stoffer, Doc, like half like that's a sick ass. Right. Like Jody Jody had like one of the hardest bars. She was like the original little Kim. She was. Do you remember Jody verse? I don't Jody Jody Barkley had a verse and the best line in it was, don't be fooled by the pretty face. I'll fuck your dad, kill your mom and leave without a trace. I like when chicks talk about fucking guys, like they're the aggressor. Exactly. I love gonna fuck this guy. This guy's this girl's parents. We're going to fuck these dudes. Like the dudes are just chilling. Yeah. Never knew you had a rap career. It was short lived. Short lived. Yeah. I don't know if it qualifies his career. It was fucking dope though. I then even doc, rest in peace. It was just Doc's birthday last Thursday. So shout out Eric doc. It would have been. I know you're listening to wherever you are. You want to know you're a diehard fan. 44, I guess. I get. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he was a year older than you guys. Yeah. Maybe maybe two. I was gonna be like, nah, he's only a year older than me. I forget I'm 43 now. Yeah. Stop. Stop keeping track around like 41. I guess. I think when you get to 40, it's kind of like, you know, it's all the same. Yep. Yeah. Like nothing matters anymore. I got time on that. What do you do? No, you don't. The thing is, you don't. The thing is, you think you do, you don't. We were all in that position where you're like, dude, like 20 years from now, fuck him, whatever. Then what happens? A whole lot of relaxing, dude. Yeah. Next thing you know. I can vouch for that. Yeah. You were the last graduating class of St. Joe's, right? Yeah. After. Yeah. After. And technically the last class of Bonner before came Bonner, Brandy. Oh, before it was co-ed. Yeah. I shit. So you, yeah. I guess that's just me. I got that bad omen on me. I remember seeing you on the news, like for one of those Bonner, like keep Bonner alive kind of like things and you were like the spokesman at Bonner. He had long hair back then. He had long hair, but you know, he could dance. I was a high school phobia. Yeah. You were dancing. You were doing this little dance kind of thing. Yeah. I mean news a couple of times for that stuff. Yeah. I remember seeing him. Snow days with the, when we rolled out like the iPads for the first time, Freddie was like, yeah, can you do this for us? I was like, yeah, sure. Sent at the kitchen table in Collingdale. Don't want to have classes and all that. Well, did you finally, did the students finally get something in return for the fucking astronomical tuition? Did you finally get iPads or something to help? Something. I think when we were in Bonner, I think it was three grand a year. And I think by the time you might have been there, it might have been up to seven. I was going to say, yeah, something I don't even know at that point. I'm pretty sure it costs more for him to go to Bonner than me to go to West Chester had probably. Yeah. It skyrocketed. And like when we were there, so it's three grand a year and back then to go like a St. Joe's prep was 10. Now it's 10 at Bonner. I'm thinking to myself for that education. Wow. And so perhaps got to be 40 a year. I don't know. I have no fucking idea how people do that, man. Yeah. Like now it's like more important to, you got to move to an area where you can go to their public school. It's just the retorting resources is what it is like. Tell them half. Preach. Taking all that money out of the middle classes pockets and just sending their kids fucking buying up sure real estate. Don't get them started on the shore. It's fucking bull. Will somebody please invite my friend down the shore? I don't even want to invite my friend to the shore. I don't even want to go to the shore anymore. It's all over my social media. See what you did guys down there. See what you did. Fucking dorks that are like, oh, so many years of not inviting him. Now he doesn't want to go to me. No, your dad bought a shore house 40 years ago. Now he doesn't want to go. That's why the ocean speaks to you. See what you did. Okay. Fuck. Well, do it live. Yes. One source subject down. No, I do. Yeah. Once, once we're subject down many to go. We're going down Seattle city soon. We're going to wow out down there. Are you going out in August? Somebody. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going out tomorrow. Actually. I'm doing like a beach. Yeah. Yeah. That, um, Mochella Beach party thing. Sweet. Have yourself a predictable time. Well, I'll make $800. No, thanks. That is what's up. That's what's up. Yeah. So we got, so we've got Delco footwear flips. We talk a little bit about that. Yeah. Sure. Let's get into it. Yeah. Go right ahead. How'd you get it? How did it start? Um, so I think it was more so in the beginning, personals like buying personal shoes. Um, it was just easy buy your own size. Want a new pair of shoes, clean up your old shoes and sell them. Have the money to buy them. Yeah. Then, uh, I think it was, of untapped market for us, we were just buying like our own stuff and then you have that time you buy smaller sizes. I mean, I'm a 13. Yeah. So I'm anything lower. Yeah. But you know, it was easy that way to just start with the big, big feet stuff. Yeah. Cause I knew there was only a couple of guys doing our sizes and you know, aside from giving us the Hamidowns and clothes, the shoes that just came next. Now, are they all restorations? Like they're not, do you do any of that? Like we do. So we kind of have two very different, um, skill sets. So Adam's really good about buying new shoes that are hard to get and getting them to the people that are willing to pay the top dollar for them. Uh, my area of expertise is more so like scouting out like thrift stores and flea markets and, and rehabbing older shoes, cleaning them, getting fresh pain on them, re gluing them if they need minor repairs and then flipping them that way. So Delco footwear flips is like, is it a marketplace? Like let's, um, what is it? Is it a website? Like let's talk like, like I've never heard of it. I tried doing a website, um, to drive traction to that, you know, um, it just, it didn't pay now. It was more so to get our name out there. But once, once we saw the potential to buy not just our size, you know, for personal wares, but other sizes, we kind of linked up and we're like, Hey, you know, we're both on Instagram. What if we make a page and just sell on that rather than sell on our personal accounts and, um, the Instagram was really, that was like the first start of us like actually doing it together. Aside from that, it was us sitting each other up. Yeah. Look what I bought this week. I'm going to post it and then, you know, we went from there Facebook. We kind of started that up to have like our own Facebook page, but a lot of the traction's through Instagram. eBay for him. Yeah. I saw a lot more pairs on eBay. Just there's a bigger market for used pairs there. Um, regardless of size or condition, whereas our Instagram page, I think gets a lot more looks from people that are looking for newer sneakers that just came out that you can't get in foot locker or champs. What's the benefit that they are finding a shoe that isn't out there and not available or is it cheaper like, or both? Well, it's why would, uh, the customer want to go through you guys. So that, that's, that's a two part answer. It's usually not cheaper than getting it at a foot locker or something like that, but it's supply and demand. They, they sell out a foot locker or you have to buy them online quick and then they're gone. So you're paying just huge fees from, from a reseller. Yeah. Um, the other upside to getting them from us, and I can speak for myself. I'm sure you can too. When, when you're just buying from Joe Shmo on Instagram, the likelihood of you buying authentic kicks is pretty low. You're most likely buying a pair of. Replicants or fakes or unauthorized kicks. Um, so unless you have someone that can legit check them and verify that they're authentic, you're probably buying fake shoes. If you're getting them from Facebook or Instagram, we've all gotten burdened. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's part of the game. You just kind of got to live and learn and take that knowledge. And hopefully it doesn't happen again. Is there some type of like, um, card or, um, the paperwork that comes with it? Like, how do you know you're not new? New ones, depending on where you buy them from, like with him with eBay, eBay shoes are authenticated and that'll come with like an authentication. What is it? A sticker or a, they give you a sticker, a little card that's like a dial to attach to it. Um, aside from that, like there's telltale signs of, um, like off of the size tag of the shoe, or if the shoe comes with a box, like the UPC code. Yeah. There's a lot of different things, but like it's going to sound so weird, right? To say yes. a There's lot of is shoes you can tell are fake, just from the smell. That's shit. Yeah. So if you see us huffing shoes, you know what I mean? Like it's for a reason. Fake shoes have a very, I get into that too. You know that, that, that new, yeah, it's, yeah, distinct. The fake shoes don't have that. Yeah. Glue. Yeah. It's like right out of the factory type. And what are you, what are your top shoes? Like the, like Yeezys and stuff. Like, is that, is that years ago or what's, what's it's definitely like Jordan's obviously always going to be like such a staple for everybody, whether you're in Delco or not. Yeah. You just hear Jordan, you're like, Oh yeah, I've had so many memories of those. But like the times, like last year it was Nike dunks. The year before that it was the Jordan one. Like there's just so many unpredictable times of like what's going to be hot. You got to take a chance and sometimes it pays. Sometimes it doesn't. Do you find like, is like almost like there's a song, song of the summer. Is there like a shoe of the summer like each year? Yeah. There most definitely is. And what price range are we talking these days? Well, I mean, I think again, we go into our markets, I think are a little bit different. I think for you, it's a lot stretched. Yeah. I think like for me, the pairs that I sell, I'm looking to make anywhere between 30 to 25 bucks a shoe. So not, I'm not out there killing it. The shoes that I'm doing are used. Um, I put a little bit of TLC in there, flipped them, turned around, invested back in by means comes. Um, whereas like with, with the pairs that Adams grab and you can buy a pair at footlocker for a buck 80 and within 20 minutes of them selling out, they're worth 400 bucks. Yeah, it's just, yeah, the market's got to be there for it. You know, it's probably playing that way too. Like just like the plan, like to sell out and stuff like that. Limited releases. Yeah. Like I've, I mean, talk about all the missed opportunities of me. When I was younger, I sold, I'm used socks and underwear to the parish priest, one in particular, and you talk about smelling them. That was the way that father, I'm not going to say, but yeah, that was the way he could tell whether it was real or not. And he would also pay more if they were soiled. Is that, does that ever come up? So you guys get more money if they're clean, not soiled. Yeah. We see the, the different game. It's all the money. If they're clean, uh, sometimes a couple pairs of shoes that I've had, have had a very distinct smell of trees or cigarettes. Yeah. That smells hard. You can't get that out. Yeah. Or cat piss. Cat piss is the worst fucking. You can try and clean them. You can try and use like dryer sheets or tea bags or cedar chips, but for the most part, once that smell is in there, it's, it's in there pretty well. Now, when you restore a shoe, like say, uh, more like I got a Reebok pumps the, and they're fucking old, like you restore them, but do they still have the light? Well, do they get the life back? Do they get an extra, do they get a year's worth of time? are Or they an old shoe that looks good? So it, it all depends what the kind of purpose is for it. If, if you're restoring shoes to simply look good, if you want to put them on the display shelf or whatever, you can probably get by cleaning them and just putting in some paint and then leather conditioner. Whereas like if, if you take an old pair of shoes and want to continue to wear them, uh, they're most likely going to need, um, glue where the upper meets the sole, cause the, the, the glue is really only good for about 10 years. Certain type of glue. I mean, you're not just using fucking Elmer, Elmer's right. Like I've learned that rubber cement. There's tons of YouTube videos that like kind of walked me through everything, but it was really just trial and error of different glues, but there's a, a brand I use called, uh, barge infinity cement or barge super stick that you have a very short window of time before that glue has cured and you're, you're, you're screwed if it has not on the right. Um, so I use that stuff and it works pretty well. So like it's cool to talk about like the specifics of that, but to zoom out a bit, like sneakerhead culture, right? So you guys are a part of that and you guys are helping this, you know, definitely you guys are leaning into that culture and doing your, your service to help that. So like, do you guys know, like out of curiosity, like when did that like become a thing like the sneaker culture, sneaker heads and what got you, is there any like particular shoe or video or movie you saw that got you guys into it? Like if we were talking hip hop, but you talk like New York, like in the 80s, right? Like for the start, is there like an agreed upon start for like that? Not so much like Air Jordan. Maybe like, did that make it kind of air Jordan? That's a good guess. Change the game. Yeah. I was always in the sneakers even growing up. Like I, I loved getting that new pair of sneaks for Christmas or whatever. Yeah. Um, and then when I went to Westchester, I kind of fell off a little bit. Um, shout out Bobby Sightse one day. We were going to play basketball. Shout out Bobby Sightse. I took him up in Clifton Zoo. Uh, we go play basketball. He gives me a pair of Air Jordan 11 space jams. We play, uh, I'm going to drop them back off and he's like, dude, just keep them. Yeah. So that kind of got me back into sneakers. Uh, once I had like a little walking around money out after college, after getting a house and whatnot, I just started buying all those pairs that I wanted as a kid and couldn't get what we're had as a kid and wanted to get again. How difficult is it to, you know, get them back out there and makes them, they not keep every what you, you know, what you fix and buy. I'm sure you're like, oh, I'm keeping the, I know exactly. One for me. One for you. So you got to like, you know, you got it, there's got to be turnover. You know, you got to do your work and then get them out. But I'm sure sometimes you've done the work and like, shit, these are fucking fire. The pair that I have on there now are my favorite pair. They're the Air Jordan six black and infrared. Um, I've probably owned this pair of shoes seven times and just once I wear it and it gets a little bit too beat up, I clean it, get rid of it and buy a new pair. So this is kind of one of those pairs that I have like a sentimental attachment to that I'll just keep getting. Um, so I always have to have a pair of these. It's funny. I have one sneak that I buy over and over. It's the new balance gray, the gray and white. That's I went on. Yeah. When I'm done the, the nine 90, I just buy a new pair of the gray and I've done that for 10, 15 years. That's the only sneaker. That's a hot shirt. Yeah. I mean, I've been wearing it for 10 years and like every, uh, you know, year or two, I mean, I, you know, I'll just buy a new pair of them. Like I don't go looking anymore. Yeah. You know, it looks good on you. When I was younger, I always, I like always got fucking like, not the thing I wanted, but like the knockoff thing that like, and I remember like the, um, the Reebok black tops came out like the above the rim with like the hexalite and it was like kind of like the Nike air type shit. And I thought that was hot. I asked for that and I got a pair of like, they were K Swiss black high top and they had some kind of thing in the heel where it was like, oh, this isn't hexalite, but it's close. And it was just this big indent in like the, in like the heel of it. Like you couldn't even see from the side. It was a cut out almost and it went up maybe like an inch and then it was like spongy up there. I put them on within 20 minutes. I stepped in dog shit and dog just filled up the entire indentation. I had to fucking get like a popsicle stick and like work it out. I was like, fuck this nowadays when it happens, you just throw my way and I can restore. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. The box. None of that shit scares you open short this. That's what I'll do. So like if somebody, if somebody's like a baseball card collector or something like that, right? Like there are cards like the harness Wagner and etc. Are there like, and I know there are, but you guys want to talk about like some of like the fucking holy grail type shoes. I was popping around on YouTube and there was somebody like a sneaker show. I know you guys do stuff like that. And the one video I saw, they were like, holy shit, this dude's wearing a $200,000 pair of whatever. Sure. You know, there was like that type of shit. Like what are some of the hottest, like most holy grail? I think the one it's probably up there with your favorite is the Nike air mag. Yeah. The shoes from back to the future too. Oh, did they, didn't they make them in 2015? They only made like, what was it? Like 2,500 pairs or like something astronomically low, but now they're like depending on the size anywhere between 15, 25,000. So how, like how does someone even get them? If they make them so low, are they kind of, do they even hit more? Or are they just like, do they give them a way to like people that already endorsed the shoes, like celebrities, movie set or like some stuff? Okay. So they were originally redone by Nike for Michael J. Fox's charity. So they made them the self-lacing just like in the movie specifically with the intent of whatever profits they made, they were giving to Michael J. Fox's charity. Um, so once those pairs were out, people kind of held onto them for a couple of years and then just the resale market took off on them. So like, if you see someone at a table with air mags, you know that they have absolute fire heat for sale and probably everything on their table, something that you can't afford. So you will come across them sometimes at a show. It's actually funny that I went me and our other partner, Joe Radico Jordan, I think. Joe Radico. Shout out Joe. Yeah, another, another condo boy. Some secondary. I don't know if it was their farm league team up there, but whatever it was, we had a, an event inside of a baseball stadium. It was absolutely cool. Super great experience. A dude was wearing a pair of the air mags walking around just like, didn't give a shit scoffing them up and he had like two more in his hands to sell. So like that dude, like he's just, he's papered up. He's papered up picture. I sent a picture to us cause he didn't come with us. I was like, yeah, dude, this guy's wearing air mags. He was like, holy shit. That guy's got it. As he was balling down. Yeah. So something like that would have to come with like all authentic, all like all papers of authenticity and special box. They do make replicas of those. You can get a really good pair of fake air mags for like three grand. Um, they look fake ones for three. Fake ones for three. Yeah. That's how good they look. That's how you know, it's interesting that you brought up the baseball card comparison, cause that's kind of how I see it too. It's kind of seems like that with like the shows and stuff like that. It's got a lot of similarities to that kind of, you know, that they, they control the, um, supply and just kind of watched the demand. Like, you know, they don't over kind of produce them at the level of shoe that you guys are doing. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's nice that we, we were able to like one, even go to these shows, like I never would have thought about doing anything like this. Yeah. And I didn't get into like Jordans or nice kicks like that until I was in college playing on the Newman basketball team. I was rolling into practice with like Nike reacts on and all the dudes had Jordans. I was like, oh shit, I gotta go. Yeah. You gotta stop. That was like my first experience. Obviously him always having them, but that was my first. I was like, dude, I got to get a pair of Jordans to fit in. Yeah. Start. Yeah. That's, that's what started it for you. Now do you guys stick primarily to sneakers? Like, or do we do like shoe repairs, like boots? Like, you know, I have repute repaired work boots before. Yeah. Not really a great repair. Right. I did a pair for, but our brother-in-law Mitch Stewart, shout out Mitch. Shut up Mitch Stewart. Yo, Mitch. He actually married like a girl that I'm really, I was really interested in. So I'm a little pissed off at just some girl. Yeah. Some girl that I was really interested in. So I glued a pair of boots for him. Shout out Emily. And I, I didn't use the right kind of glue and that the glue job probably lasted until the first time he went to go kick something and it just separated again. So yeah, repair and work boots or repair and shoes. It's a little more true. Yeah. There's a guy who the shoe you ever hear of him? He's over by the old Maggie O'Neill's. He, uh, he's done some faulty repair work on some boots I've had. So yeah. So I never knew like there's a lot of people that don't even know this exists, like your market, like, you know, it's a lot of people are just kind of wear out a pair of shoes or think that they're ruined and kind of go into the next one and not know that, you know, there's, there's life left in them. Yeah. I mean, there's, it's, it's weird how obviously when, you know, we meet new people and they're asked like, Oh, like what would you do? And we kind of tell them it's like, there's a market for that. Do you try to have like something in every size? We try. It's very hard. Um, cause I feel like a lot of times it's like sitting on stale inventory. Um, we definitely know, like we have a great following on Instagram. Like a lot of dudes hit us up that are buyers frequently. So we know kind of the gist of what sizes to carry. Right. Um, but we want to make it, you know, knowing that everybody can shop with us. So like we've sold toddler shoes. We do sell women's shoes. Like it's a little harder cause not G's up, hoes down. I was just going to say, word. Yeah. G's up. I was just going to say, if you guys do women's. Yeah. So we do, um, I think it's, are there women's sneaker heads? Yeah. Yeah. That's what, but they, they're very specific. They, I don't think that they really want to buy used. Yeah. Right. We're due. So very, yeah. Um, so it is, it is a little bit different trying to cater to the women. Um, but with us, we're trying to stabilize having a set inventory. So it's like, if someone hits us up for a size, we can say, Oh yeah. Here, this is what we got. Boom, boom, boom. Now Joe, does he have, what does he kind of do another end of the business? I'm like, us does the one kind of thing you do your expertise is the other. Is Joe kind of do more what you do or something completely different? For the most part, um, he's kind of like a utility knife with us. He, when he, you know, what is with us doing it, he does, uh, customs. Like Dave also does like splatter. You ever see those? Yeah. Cool. He'll take a pair of air forces, completely white and deck it out where it's taped off and splattered into like a certain design. That was like his real thing that he was into. So he's going to start doing that again. Yeah. But we also tried to get into like street wear. So like vintage jerseys, vintage band T's shirt you got on like these, these are just kind of advertisement. Yeah. Just advertisement. Like we wanted to get into another thing. You want, you know, fresh pair of J's match with like a throwback jersey. I mean, there's that's a fire fit. I'd pay anything for advantage. Michael Barkley, Bonner, Friar, Mitchell, Ness 87. What was your number? 87. Seven. Yeah. Yeah. That's 56 plus two length. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Real 87. Uh, Jimmy Davey was that before me year year because, uh, half an Oscar two years older than I am and Jimmy was very good. And, but the only reason I really picked it was because I mean, Jimmy was good, but I wanted, I wanted the last number on homecoming. So it made it look to like the people in the stands that I was the most important person getting called out to run. And it was, there was nobody in the nineties or 80. So everybody goes to them. I'm the last one they called. So I mean, I probably didn't make a tackle that whole season, but I was the last one called. Yeah. But I was the last one called at homecoming that says people in the stands. I'd be like, wow, he must be important. But what kind of street wear do we have? I like street wear. Um, so again, you know, it was, it was a trial and everything. Um, that's another thing where it's like, you really got to have a demand for a certain size. So it's like, you can't really just buy everything. Two or three acts, depending on the week I've had. But like, we do want to get into like really doing like a select throwback jerseys. So like basketball, um, some baseball, more football, because I feel like you see like a throwback football jersey or like a real vintage, like the Eagles, for example, the Eagles, uh, Kelly Green release today. You know, you have that old school Randall Cunningham, like white with the green, something like that. You just look at it as like, yeah, that's tough. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. We gather repairs over the last couple of weeks specifically for the Kelly Green Eagles jerseys. I was just thinking that if you have your kind of the wheels are spinning. Yeah, for that. Definitely. So it's, it's not something that we normally have done, but obviously with the Eagles being so good as of lately, like we wanted to do that. So we were kind of hoarding pairs at this point that are specific to the Eagles, whether they're the midnight green colorway or more so the new prop for the, the Kelly Green. Yeah. Now we're going to pretty much sell Eagles shoes all season long specifically to mid, you know, Sunday fit. And this is not like, this is a business that doesn't, you don't, there's not much overhead. So you don't have to have a storefront and you can kind of do it all online now. And like have kind of like your inventory at your houses or a room in the house. It's not something that you need to kind of dip in like a $700 a month rent to like a, you know, storefront. We thought about it, you know, there was a lot of sure there's benefits to it, but still, I mean, nowadays the positives and the positives outweighed to just kind of do it and send, do it and send. I think it was almost like a blessing in disguise that we didn't do it because I, I had like meeting set up with like different realtors and stuff like that to look at locations before the pandemic happened. And if we would have signed something before that, I mean, we, yeah, yeah, this guy was going home at it. I was, I was, you wanted storefront. I wanted to put my job, like my real job. Yeah. I remember, yeah. I remember you telling me that a few years ago that this was so, yeah, you were looking the, you have a good drill job. Yeah. I'm glad I didn't. But, you know, that passion is still there. And that's, that's what I was just thinking. It's awesome that you have a passion to where like, you know, you guys both that you jump into something and it's that important to you that, you know, you know, you would take a stab at it because like, you know, you got to wake up and like be excited about whatever it is you do. And to have that as far, you know, is fucking cool. There's a lot of people don't have that. Right here. No, I mean, music was that and still is, I guess, but. Yeah. So, um, there's like a few major sneaker companies, right? There's like Nike and I get Reebok and whatever, right? So like, are there any like emerging sneaker companies that are smaller, more boutique or is it always going to like, why it's funny that like, there's so many different industries where like, there's always more than like two or three big names. Like, are there any like up and comers? I have noticed before, I forget where I was, but I must have been in some kind of department store shopping for Mike or something. But I noticed there was this fucking pair of sneakers and it was, um, I want to say like word of God or something like that. Like something of God. Yeah. Lama fear, fear of God. And the sneakers were like $1400 and then there was like bullshit, like slides, like like pool shoes and they were like $600. And I was like, there's a whole world of this shit that I don't know about. What's, what's that stuff? Is that like just boom, you're, you're a fucking tech millionaire in California or you're Drake, you know, like no one else is buying this shit. Right. Like what is that? It's, it's, it's not necessarily like new emerging ones. I think a lot of the lower end, like, you know, Puma and like Adidas, new balance, like they're not, I don't think anyone's ever going to match like Nike. You know what I mean? Like Nike is just like the creme de la crème of shoes, right? But a lot of these lower end companies are starting to get into like younger athletes to promote their shoes and like promote their brain and stuff. So I think in some time, like there could be some noise from lower end, but Nike just has everybody in their pocket when it comes to like collabs where when you mentioned fear of God, like Nike has a collaboration with fear of God. So they swallow them up to answer his question. As soon as they come up, they'll swallow them. Yeah. Adidas has a collab with them now. It's coming out. Yeah. Like it's just, I think you just, you just got to be there at the right time where you see the potential for an athlete to be like your it guy. And it, it's just like a Steph carry or something like that. Cause he went away from Nike and he went to Under Armour, which is a good example of a company that kind of is the new guy and they're not the new guy, but in like, they're established and they, but it's, it's funny. You said that kind of like Instagram how like they, they were the shit, but they got swallowed up by Facebook. Like, so it's more like that. But I would, I would think Under Armour might be the last example of a new kid on the block. Yeah. Like that exported. So I've never taken a real, I'd never thought much about sneakers, right? So you guys look at it from a whole different lens than I do. Is there a reason Nike's the shit? Like, are it can struggle Jordan? Like, it was just association with endorsements. Like, is it just like who they pick? Or is it like this is a far superior product. The design is better. The variety is better. Like, or is it just there? They were the first ones. I think initially it was who they had wearing their stuff. So Jordan, Jordan made Nike pop on the map. Everyone wanted to get it, especially like hip hop culture. Everyone wanted, you know, like you throw a line into a rap song and boom, you know, you know, Air Force ones, they blew up probably after that rap. The Nike sign, it's a, it's a cool symbol. So I feel like recognizable. Yeah. It's like having that little polo horse. Like as soon as you're wearing it, everyone knows what you're wearing. So the little Nike, yeah, there you go. When you pull up, you gotta have that horsepower. That was power. Um, but in terms of like quality, Nikes aren't the most best shoe out there for quality wise. Um, there, there are a lot of shoes that are going to give you a lot more like cushion for your feet than, than a pair of Nike running shoes are. Like the pair of hokas that you're wearing now, I have a couple of pairs of hokas. They're by far more comfortable on my feet all day than, than a pair of Nikes are. So I wear those at a gym. I wear those to run. Um, but if I'm trying to stunt, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what's up. Um, but I remember kind of like when we were young playing basketball, you had to have high tops and I noticed now in the NBA, they don't even have anything over their ankles. Was that like a misconception? Like do they provide the same support to an athlete below the ankle or above the ankle? I don't, I mean, I, I personally don't, I don't think so. Um, I've tried to wear like low cut Kyrie's and, um, even some stuff. Kari's I got horrible ankles. Like I need, I'm also a bigger dude. Like you go up like a lot of weights coming down, you know, I mean, um, I think to this day, probably this best pair of basketball shoes I wore playing was like the hyper dunks, which are below the ankle. Yeah. No, they're, they're above the ankle. Okay. I don't even think people wear them now. Yeah. And to think I haven't seen anyone wearing high tops yet a long time. You had summer time, you know, but like, like, like in years, like I don't mean seasonally, like I haven't seen anyone wearing high tops in a long time. I see younger kids kind of have them with, with the tongue kind of exposed. Like that's kind of a look, but, uh, to think that like people ever played basketball in high top. Chuck's, yeah. And that's a great look. The first pair I had, I was playing in the pit with my dad as a coach. Yes. The green colored. I'd wear high tops. I was spraying my ankle every eight foot basket a couple of times a week. Dude, I didn't get long shoelaces and wrapped around the ankle. Then you put the tie them in the front and built lame beer or something. Yeah. Yeah. Oh dude. The fight I meet my uncle Reds. It's the only shoe he's ever worn. But so I, maybe 10 years ago, they were discontinuing them. I think he bought like 50, 60 pairs just so he'd never run out. But are they back? Like, do they still make the Chuck like creams? Yeah. Because it wasn't there. Something where they were going to discontinue them and they were done. I thought it was about 10 years ago. I'm not sure. I don't know if they necessarily were going to discontinue them, but like Chuck's are awful to wear. So they've tried to re-up the technology and use like thicker insole. So I hate your feet aren't as uncomfortable. So they've come back out. There have been a couple of collaborations with like John Varvados and different other like higher end people that I think have like re-sparked it. But I think you're always going to find people that are wearing Chuck's because it's a classic shoe. Yeah. They don't, yeah, they don't work for me. I try, I bought Chuck's maybe like five, six, seven years ago because I want, I like, I'd like the look and I just wanted like a fucking pair of shoes. Yeah. like And, I don't know. You can't slip them on. It's not a shoe that you can slip on. Yeah. You literally got to tie them out. Yeah. Dude, it's a lot of effort to wear Chuck. I need to get no support. I need to just step into it. Yeah. The van slip ones. Yeah. What's the, uh, what's the craze with the Crocs? Well, I love it. Yeah. Maybe like two, three years ago it became like finally popular again. Now do the, do the, do the big companies make them now or do you still buy the same old like Crocs? I mean, it's just the market like there's a shit ton of collections. And now you can, now you can, you pay like a couple hundred for them. Jesus. So it's, it's actually pretty cool. I like, I like to talk about this cause like it's, you know, they're Crocs, right? Right. So during the pandemic post Malone donated his own croc. Like he has his own, it's a black color way and a pink color way. He donated them to the hospital. So they gave them out to the workers for free. So like I wear those every day to work. But after that, I looked in and it was like, damn, these are actually really comfortable. So now like from that experience, I bought like four or five other pairs. Do you sock it? Oh, at work. At work. Yeah. But in summer, you know, each pair you have to spray them down the water, shake them out. I was, I was so against Crocs for probably the first week. It was, it was, it was divisive when this whole thing came back. Now I rock out with my Crocs. It's a, yeah, it's a God, I think it's a cool look. What's your, uh, we're going to pop over to Patreon in a second, but before we go, this is the public episode. What's your, what's your Instagram handles? Like, so we can check that out., Uh so it's Delco footwear LLC. Um, and that's, that's across Instagram and Facebook. Um, he, I mean, you have your own through eBay, but I do stuff on eBay too, but anything you want to find that's on eBay, either from my counter Adams, you can definitely find it on our Instagram Delco underscore footwear LLC. Great. I'm going to link all that to below. Cool. All right. Cool. We're going to switch over to the Patreon. Anyway, I'll see you guys next time. Bye. Thanks for watching.