Zaturdays: Dust Collector

I’m a minimalist. Or I claim to be, because in reality I have a ton of stuff. In my defense, most of it has been pushed on me as opposed to stuff I’ve actively purchased. Now, I don’t want to live in an empty house with just a mattress on the floor but the idea has always been to get as close to that as possible without being a kook about it. I find that the more stuff I have the more I get the opposite of stoked. I can’t think straight when there’s something in front of me everywhere I look, especially if that stuff is in a pile that needs straightening. I’m also a little OCD. All of this said, I’ll admit to a pretty heavy collection of skate magazines with issues of Thrasher and TWS going back to 1983. So as I’ve moved over the years, I’ve packed up these boxes of magazines again and again and carted them from one place to the next. I don’t like it, but what am I supposed to do, get rid of ‘em? I’m stuck. When I die you guys can have them. Besides the magazines I have no other collections. And YET, I have a few items that I’m similarly stuck with, like some random trophies (First place Old Man Bowl Jam 2014!...in the basement), a “rare” Damn Am Brazil shirt, and a Koston bobble head. But, the one thing I really can’t figure out what to do with are my SPoT / Cliver co-lab Dunks. I don’t believe shoes are meant to not be worn. But at the same time it feels wrong to lace them up and skate them, because they’re too precious. The box even has Cliver’s signature! And there were what, like 100 of these ever made? You might ask why I got them if I didn’t want them. Well Adam from SPoT who spearheaded the project boxed them up and mailed it to me with a lovely handwritten note, and I was stoked, and grateful, but now 6 months later I’m like, what do I do with these things? The shoes are just collecting dust these days. I’m thinking maybe I should trade them for something I’m already committed to, like my magazine collection. I’m missing a few key early issues of TWS, so…if you have the Feb ’85 issue of TWS with the first ever published photo of McGill doing a McTwist on the cover, hit me up @paulzitzer on Instagram and maybe we can work out a deal.