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Piece Description
Jos Mansell is a sneaker fiend. He became a passionate collector of sneakers in 1999, and now more than one thousand pairs of Nike sneakers crowd his apartment and spill over into a storage unit he secured to contain his ever increasing collection. Jos concentrates on Nike basketball shoes, and his meticulously organized and protected collection sports pairs that are five to twenty years old. After just twice on his feet, Jos returns the shoes to their box. Four years may pass before they see the light of day again. Why shoes? And why Nike basketball shoes? They’re pop culture symbols, particularly of the hip hop culture Jos has loved since it first hit the scene. And he’s convinced that basketball shoes are aesthetically superior to all other styles of athletic shoes. Broadcast History: Aired on KQED FM's Hot Soup program, 6 April 2003.
Broadcast History
6 April 2003 over KQED FM San Francisco
Transcript
MUSIC Tr 07 What’s The Difference
Jos Mansell is a sneaker fiend. By his count, he has several hundred pairs of sneakers in his collection. So when I visited this lanky thirty year old at his apartment, I expected to see a room filled floor to ceiling with sneakers.
Instead what I found was a neat and crisply ordered room, and not a sneaker in sight. But they’re there, in columns of orange boxes perfectly stacked to the ceiling in the open air closet, and tucked away under the smartly made bed.
ACT #1, Jos: Tr 01- 0:45.1
INCUE: Over my lifetime I’ve probably owned over fifteen-hundred pairs of shoes…
OUTCUE: … you were essentially wasting money..
But that was a slash and burn collecting style Jos pursued while his feet were still growing. He graduated high school, settled into a size thirteen and began to work to earn the extra money he’d need to buy sneakers....
Read the full transcript
Musical Works
1. What's the Difference
Artist: Dr. Dre
Album: 2001 Instrumentals Only
Label: Interscope Records
Year: 1999
Length of Excerpt: 1:22
2. The Next Episode
Artist: Dr. Dre
Album: 2001 Instrumentals Only
Label: Interscope Records
Year: 1999
Length of Excerpt: 1:07
4. My Adidas
Artist: RunDMC
Album: Best of RunDMC
Label: BMG Special Prods.
Year: 2003
Length of Excerpt: 0:27
Additional Files
- script (SneakerFiendScriptV4.doc)
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Emon Hassan
Posted on May 07, 2005 at 07:23 PM | Permalink
Review of Sneaker Fiend
An offbeat story of a man who claims to have gone through every emotion known to man when it came to collecting sneakers. His knowledge and love of sneakers, and the care he gives to maintain them is straightforward and unapologetic. And why not. After all, it's as legitimate as collecting anything else, really. If you think this story ends with him, wait till you meet his girlfriend.