Shoes

Though the agency claimed that Bacon Shoes would be a perfect way for Sketchers to overcome the branding disaster precipitated by marketing weight-loss shoes to pre-teen girls, public reaction proved negative and the product was not a success. [Washington Post; vid via John Biggs]

• [vert]

  Some possible explanations: mentally ill, brain damaged, inebriated, doesn’t give a fuck what the people on the train think (alternatively wants the people on the train to think he’s batshit so they won’t fuck with him)

  None of which, IMO, make this terribly funny or even interesting.

  No… I find it more interesting that people have a reaction of “Ha haha… (if I just point and laugh at that which is different, people will not notice that I, too, have my faults and differences).”

• [MarlboroTestMonkey7]

  Practicing before a meeting with the boss?

  • [Morrigan]

    +10

• [Porf]

  Ah, The Bronx….why am I NOT surprised? LOL

• [GregS]

  I, for one, welcome our new shoe-licking overlords.

• [hinten]

  Potentially mentally ill not because he is licking his shoe but because of the intensity and duration that he is licking his shoe.

• [Morrigan]

  Breakfast!

• [vtblues]

  Spitshining?

• [Anonymous]

  Er, what?

• [Bill]

  I love this performance art triptych: man licking / man ignoring / man reading. I wonder if they are from the same performance art school as the guy who got naked on the train recently ( http://randyreport.blogspot.com/2011/05/crazy-ny-man-on-6-train.html ).

  I love the new crop of artists in NYC!

• [extra88]

  I love that in my RSS feed, this was the article immediately after the Serendipity, the net and cities article.

• [PeaceNerd]

  relevant http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk0AepboK3I

• [frankieboy]

  It’s called mental illness. What are we supposed to do? Laugh? How about developing a sense of compassion and perhaps think “there but for the grace of God go I”. Performance art? You’ve got to be kidding.

• [songofsixpence]

  This is precisely why I do not live in NYC.

  The worst that I have to deal with is the odd coyote.

• [KyP]

  maybe a licking form of pica?

• [IronEdithKidd]

  Or…the shoe may actually be bacon flavored.

• [Bill]

  @frankieboy: and you are qualified to call it mental illness, how?

  • [vtblues]

    And Bill, you are qualified to call it performance art, how?

• [Anonymous]

  Looks more like he’s shining them. He seems pretty concerned with the look and detail of the thing and might just not give a shit what you people thing.

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  He might not be mentally ill. He might have overcome the germophobia that others have.

• [Loafer]

  Every kid should be encouraged to do this, they’d build up a great immune system and have crazy clean shoes to boot.

• [Dave Hustava]

  …Perhaps the inability to accept that it might be performance art could be considered a type of mental illness…?

• [robcat2075]

  Man raised by cats.

• [Nicky G]

  I was in NYC last week for work, and can attest to the fact that New Yorkers have an absolutely amazing ability to tune out ALL aspects of the world around them, most notably when it comes to other people. I once saw this punkish looking dude walk up to this young lady, probably in her 20s, on the street, stick his middle finger right in her face about 2 inches away from it, and then walk off angrily. He obviously had no idea who she was, and vice versa, as the guy continued to do it to everyone else around while he walked down the street. The girl didn’t even seem to notice that he was there. Astounding.

• [zorlac]

  wow, that shoe isn’t even very sexy.

• [Rob Beschizza]

  There’s nothing wrong with him! You people should read the post once in a while. It says right there that it’s a bacon shoe.

• [Michael Smith]

  I think he might be The Cat

• [the r kelly]

  For the record, there is no ‘t’ in Skechers.

  Yes, pretty fucking stupid, but it is what it is.

• [tobergill]

  Grooming – it’s not just for monkeys….

• [mutantchair]

  Making fun of the mentally ill…. classy.

  • [BrainDance]

    He isn’t necessarily mentally ill, just weird.

    If a man wants to lick a shoe, let him lick a shoe.