ROCK THE BELLS.
A couple of days ago, Rock The Bells, made a stop in Jones Beach, New York and thanks to Urb Magazine and Guerilla Union, I was offered practically all access to the festivities. I gotta be honest. Hip-hop shows, for whatever reason (They suck? They're lazy? I'm old?) are pretty wack for the most part. Admit it. I love the culture as much as the next guy, but actual live shows? "Turn my mic up!" "Wherez Queens at?" "Is Connecticut in the houz?" It's 98% that. And 2% dopeness...which means you're looking for a needle in the haystack. And there was definitely a lot of that here this day. But there were also a bunch of gems. Highlights below:  We got there pretty late and Mos Def was the first act I caught in its entirety. On a scale of 1-10, I gave Mos like a 5. A lot of singing other people's songs and chanting. I'm not hating because I love Mos. He was one of the first celebs to rock Staple in an ad and I helped design a lot of early Rawkus shit. Maybe Hollywood has him preoccupied. But when he brought out Talib Kweli and Pharoahe Monch, it was O V E R. "Simon Says", "Respiration"...man...it was a backpackers wet dream. Then came the Wu show which was dope just to hear all these old joints. Ghost, Rae, Meth and honorary Wu-Tang/Right Guard spokesperson Redman was all present and accounted for. A lot of these photos are backstage post-act shots...I was too enthralled during the performances to shoot.  Ticallion Stallion  Pretty Tony in a pensive mood.  Dave aka Plug Two of De La Soul. Needless to say, backstage was a hip-hop hall of fame. It was pretty epic. The highlight of the show for me was Nas. I've had the luxury of being on tour with Nas for a brief moment back when God's Son came out. No hypeman. No party DJ. No electric show. Just One Mic & Nasir Jones. That's all you really need. He killed it. But just for good measure, Sean Carter himself came out and and dropped a few verses. Amazing to say the least. Funny story: So I was out in Denver, CO with Nas on one of his tour stops. Apparently, in the music industry, Nas notoriously travels light. While most have a dozen security...friends, fam, ho's, baby mama's, etc...the entourage can easily get to 50 people. From my recollection, Nas had DJ LES, himself and Mike B. his right hand. THAT'S IT. So after the Denver show, I was milling around back stage and Mike B. comes out of the trailer and asks me I want to hang out in the trailer. Vivid thoughts of BET After Hours and King Magazine are rushing through my head as I enter the trailer. When I get in, the aforementioned crew is sitting on chairs, sharing a pineapple. I kid you not. No ho's! No groupies! I alluded to expecting something different and Nas just said "Nah, we workin'." On the van ride back to the hotel...no music playing. No one smoking a blunt. Just some small chatter about the next day's itinerary. These dudes were on a BUSINESS TRIP. Nothing more. Nothing less. And no, Kelis, Nas did not pay me to write this. It's true. I often found Nas just typing rhymes and verses into his Blackberry. Nasir is a true poet, in every sense of the word. Like an enigma. A prophet. Someone you're not really supposed to fully understand. Anyway, just thought I'd share my fifteen minutes with Mr. Jones.  The "N".  Hov.  No More Beef. More like BFF. Thanks again to Alex (GU) and Raymond (Urb) for the great times.
POSTALCO.
 Often when people think of great "brands", big names pop into their heads. "Apple", "Nike", "Google", "Porsche", etc... But many times, great brands can be small. The difference between a "great brand" a "great idea" is that a great brand is a business. If you made some amazing thing, but only one piece for yourself...well, you came up with a great idea. How do you produce this? Market it? Sell it? Distribute it? That is the puzzle of creating a great brand. Often in Japan, great brands beguile even the savviest Harvard MBA. Many brands in Japan take the least obvious course to success. It's hard to say exactly why. I personally think it's a mix of: A) the customer's open awareness to discover something new and interesting. And B) the maker's "craftsman" attitude towards things. As Tet likes to say "Craft with Pride". On my last trip to Japan, I met Mike who is the owner and founder of a brand called POSTALCO. Postalco sells stationary supplies, bags and accessories. It's a small business run by him and his wife. They have a store. It's in a hard to find area of Tokyo in a hard to find building, tucked into the 4th floor. They are only open Wed, Thurs and Friday. And the first and third Saturday's of each month. But not past 5pm. Why? Because it's Japan. And they can. It's not a big business. They have no advertising campaign or celebrity spokesman. They've never had a line for a release of their pigeon-logo notebooks. But by all definitions of a "brand"; Postalco is perfect. Over dinner we talked about the stresses of business. Growing it...nurturing it...staffing it, etc. In the back of my head, I wanted to tell him to stay perfect. Even if it means staying small. I think Mike operates his business on the perfect cusp of where "hobbies" end and "business" begins. You can tell by his output that he loves his work. And he crafts each piece with pride. For him (and the thousands of others who own businesses like Postalco), the secret to creating a great brand, is maybe to stay exactly the same.   
HAKONE.
 If you ever find yourself in Japan with a half day completely free, I recommend taking a quick train trip to Hakone. It's only 2 hrs away from Tokyo but worlds away from the hustle and bustle of the city. If you leave Shinjuku Station by 10am, you can go to Hakone and be back in town by 3pm the same day. Visit one of the oldest hotels in Japan— The Fujiya Hotel. Great food, service and atmosphere. It's tucked into the side of the mountain and very secluded.     Old and historic antique shops...  The area is famous for its "onsen" (or hot springs). But if you don't have time to visit them, try this cafe where you dip your feet into natural hot spring water while sipping tea.  Train Culture in Japan is totally different than in America. For example, traveling a distance from New York City to Chicago would be done on a train in Japan without batting an eyelash. In America, 9 out of 10 people would fly. The entire experience is completely different I guess, so we can't be blamed.
BACK TO REALITY.
So now that the Pigeon madness has subsided (for now), we can return to the regular scheduled programming of "Jeffstaple: This Is Your Life!" I didn't even get a chance to finish blogging about my last trip to Japan. Which was short but very eventful. Some highlights:  First off, if it wasn't for Taku at Polyphony (makers of the Sony game, Gran Turismo) acting as host, it wouldn't have been nearly as interesting. First night we landed, we grabbed dinner with Asako formerly of Celux/LVMH, now official Lady of Leisure. After dinner we went to a rockin' party at the top of Roppongi Hills, then bailed and went to Tsutaya to read magazines till 2am because we're old and boring. If you're a hardcore sneakerhead, you might have heard of a magazine called ShoesMaster. They wanted to do a story on the NBs that we just dropped and about my other views on the culture. It ended up being a 2hr chit chat rather than an interview...which is always better.  (Hiroko of Staple JPN helping with translations, Tetsuya from NB, and Shoesmaster Team)   Discovered this really hidden obscure Japanese restaurant. Check out this door. It reminds me of "Being John Malkovich". The food was divine. I don't think I can find my way back there though...it was really hidden.  Japan has the HatoBus...translated...it's the Pigeon Bus. I'm jealous.
NB REED SPACE.
Today was the first Reed Space drop. It was cool, calm and collected. (We learned from last time!)   I went out the day before and gifted the campers some tees and hats. Felt bad for them sleeping out there for so long. Plus I wanted them to be fresh and clean before they came into the store...haha...    First in line at Reed Space. Look at the joy in his face.  This trooper flew in from Puerto Rico just to get these NBs...that's love. So we old out in about 30 minutes. We're expecting another shipment soon though. Stay tuned!
NB SINGAPORE.
Time keeps ticking....and Singapore gets their New Balance booty. Good looking out for these photos!  The new Flying Pigeon Tee.   Great to see people walking out of the store with the shoes on. They are a great sneaker peoples...WEAR THEM! These were from the store Le Vault. +++  Leftfoot Singapore gets their share also. Gotta love the reaction of the young lady as she checks out the pigeons. +++   "Limited Edition" shop in SG also got to party it up. Another person who's gonna wear these kicks out. Thanks everyone...
A FALLEN NRF MEMBER.
These were words taken from the last game of the NRF Season...the Finals at Madison Square Garden. They highlight a player by the name of Jesse Thompkins III. ....That wouldn't last long though with the explosive Jesse Thompkins (8 pts/4 rebs/2 blks/1 stl) playing the way he was on both ends of the floor, appearing to be one of the few players who actually seemed more comfortable with the longer court..... ....The inbound found Ricardo Viramontes, who looked up court and somehow found Jesse Thompkins with a pass. Thompkins caught the ball with 1 second left. When the ball left his hand, it felt as though the air in the room had been sucked out of it. The silence in the arena seemed to testify to the drama of the moment: We were all witnessing a potentially game-winning shot. The ball seemed to float towards the rim in slow motion as the Uptempo players looked on in disbelief and the Huarache players looked on in wild-eyed prayer. The entire season was a synthetic leather orb floating through Madison Square Garden. The backboard lights ignited red as the ball started to descend towards the rim. The buzzer sounded. And as the ball caromed off the backboard and Thompkins crumpled to the parquet in utter disappointment, the Uptempo bench erupted in one sudden ecstatic moment of realization: they were the new champions of the NRF.... It's fitting that Jesse took the last shot of the entire NRF Season. Today, it was informed to me that Jesse Thompkins III has passed away. Details of the cause are sketchy at the moment but it involved Jesse being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Apparently he was caught in the middle of a multi-car accident while he was out jogging....probably training hard for the next NRF Season. Jesse's a 3 year veteran of the NRF and graduate on Columbia University. He's been with Team Huarache since the beginning under the coaching eyes of Andrew Simon. This year, they finally made it to the NRF Finals and the floor of MSG. In January 2006, Jesse was voted Player Of The Week. He had 14 pts / 3 rebs / 2 blks and 1 stl in one game. Jesse was in the film industry. He did work for Spike Lee's 40 Acres and a Mule as a production assistant on "INSIDE MAN". He also worked on such films as "Michael Clayton", "Munich" and more recently "Definitely, Maybe". He even acted briefly on the TV Show "Homicide: Life on the Street". Jesse and I got to working together recently as we were putting together a sizzle reel for the NRF. Basically we were compiling video and photo footage of the playoffs to create a little 1 minute clip. It's been a while since I heard any progress and I was going to hit him up this week, in fact. Truth be told, I even have a check sitting on my desk made out to his name for his video editing services. I mean....the way Jesse went...he literally had to be at that exact spot at that exact second. Maybe if the video took 10 more seconds to render...or if he re-tied his shoelaces while he was jogging...he would still be here. It's obvious someone in heaven needed him. Rest. In. Peace. Brooklyn's Finest. October 1981 - August 2008 Jesse Thompkins III +++++ PS: Attached are some photos I have of Jesse. In a few days, I will post a video clip on www.nikerecessfederation.com. It's the video he showed me to pitch the idea for an NRF sizzle reel. He used himself and made it look like a video game. It was dope and it won me over. And in doing so, Jesse created a memorial for himself. We'll miss you homey.  
NB.08.06.08.
 Depending on where you live, the New Balance Pigeon 575 is only hours away from being released. In NYC, it will be 08/06/08 at 1pm at Reed Space (Orchard Street Entrance!). Probably a bit earlier uptown at Barneys. The only 2 spots in all 50 states that will have it. The Aussies down under will get it first and then Japan, HK, Singapore, and further on west. Please send me photos of the release form your respective region! I'll do a post later on the global release. Email them to info@stapledesign.com.
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