Top Shelf Stories
In a world that often shuns the uncomfortable, we embrace it with open arms—and open laughs. Our candid narratives around our stories assure you that awkwardness is a shared human experience. Tune in, enjoy the ride, and maybe learn a thing or two.
Top Shelf Stories
Revisiting 90s Fashion and the Generational Tech Divide
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
This episode delves into the challenges of parenting in a consumer-driven society, contrasting our childhood experiences with modern-day realities. We share personal stories highlighting the nostalgia of starter jackets and the implications of raising overly pampered children in an often disposable world.
• Growing up with significant differences in childhood wealth
• The importance of teaching kids the value of hard work
• Reflections on iconic 90s fashion and nostalgia
• The absurd evolution of children’s footwear trends
• Balancing technology use with childhood experiences
• Navigating the complexities of modern parenting
If you enjoyed this episode, let us know how our stories resonate with your experiences!
Nostalgia for Old NBA Logos
Speaker 1Top Shelf Stories with J, chris and Tony.
Speaker 2What's up, fellas Yo what up.
Speaker 1What up, dude, what up?
Speaker 3So, tony hey.
Speaker 2So Jay's such a fucking trap? All right, I'm in the middle of talking right now. I'm used to that. Jay took it real serious, took off his headphones, curled up in a little ball on his couch.
Speaker 3Not yet.
Speaker 2I'm sharing the couch with you, so my son just celebrated a birthday.
Speaker 3Congratulations. How old is he?
Speaker 2He's 12. And in the short 12 years he's been on this planet, he has gotten everything he's ever wanted dude, our kids are gonna be wrecked and and at this point, at this point, he's just we're just getting him shit to get him shit. Now, right, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3There, there's like nothing left that he wants so that playstation 3 that you got for him, it was never used, right the?
Speaker 2playstation 5, the old school. He's on it every day. Matter of fact, it's been a year since he's played with his Xbox. Why is?
Speaker 3PlayStation more popular. Why does he have both?
Speaker 2I have both and he's got Nintendo Switch.
Speaker 3Well, I have that too. Yeah, keep naming it off, I probably have it.
Speaker 1Mm-hmm. The fuck is wrong with you people.
Speaker 2I like tech, but we just got done. You know it's like he's been opening presents since Christmas. I know you're probably not listening to this right now, but it's the very beginning of January when we're recording this. He still has unopened presents.
Speaker 2No, actually he had to take a break christmas because his unwrapping arm got sore yeah, right, I guarantee you got all of your, both of your kids, three presents each no, no, those kids get a lot of shit yeah, I got 18 for each one of mine so, so this is where I'm going with it, right, um, my kids, my kids, get spoiled to a level that, um, you know, it's like the thing you always want to give your kids better than you had sure, and I get that. Here's the thing. My my wife grew up really poor and she thought she grew up really poor until she heard about how poor I grew up.
Speaker 3Well, first off, you're there for them. That is a present all in itself that you have not experienced. So you're already ahead of the ball.
Speaker 2But the game but we live in a super disposable world where, where you know things, things are made super poorly and they're made really affordable and it's not that big of a deal to just get your kids something anymore um well, you didn't think of like the cost of a video game.
Speaker 1The video games are still like 60 bucks, right they?
Speaker 3were 60 bucks in the 90s I know it's kind of mario brothers. It's kind of like a used car. If you buy it right, when it comes out it's 60.
Speaker 1You wait two weeks, it's 50 sure but like, yeah, but things are kind of cheaper in the entertainment sector. The, the tech sec, yeah for real.
Speaker 2So we got to talking about about some stuff from my childhood and I. I never really had a lot and like of anything tony's like.
Speaker 2Remember, when we order pizza, I have to eat that for five days, so so we, we were talking about something and we weren't even on the subject of these gifts or anything like that. But my son started talking about NBA logos yesterday, okay, and he was looking through and he wanted me to pick out my favorite three. And I'm looking through them and I'm like, oh man, I'm like some of these are so different than what I remember from back in the day. And he pulled up this retro list of NBA logos.
Speaker 1The game's not only got the logos of today, it's got the logos through history.
Speaker 3Aren't they kind of the same throughout?
Speaker 1Sort of, but not.
Speaker 2Some of them are. Some of them are wildly different, but one that remains semi-unchanged Bucks the Bulls Is the Bulls the Spurs Charlotte.
Speaker 1Hornets. They're not even a team anymore, though. Well, I'm saying like they're like bobcats or wizards. Now Something, something.
Speaker 3There's no Charlotte Hornets.
Speaker 2They're in a different state, but I'm saying when you go through all the old logos when you go through all the old logos, it says like this logo. From this time to this time, this logo, like the Bucs, have like nine different logos and some of them even more than that, and through all these lists, like throughout the history of the Charlotte Hornets, it was always the same logo not called charlotte hornets, I'm saying on this retro list okay, sorry, this logo throughout this amount of time.
Speaker 2so I seen that old logo and I was like, oh shit, and it made me. It made me remember about saving my money for such a long time For everything, to buy a Charlotte Hornets starter pullover jacket.
Speaker 1Everybody wanted that, oh my.
Speaker 3God Dude, I had a Michigan Wolverines one. People were getting shot.
Speaker 1Yeah, they were.
Speaker 3My brother got beat up for one.
Speaker 1I think it was a Charlotte Hornet one. I want to tell you, though, the Charlotte Hornet one was for girls.
Speaker 3My brother had that one too, though I swear to God.
Speaker 1Yeah, it was for girls.
Speaker 2Well, I mean. I'm okay if you're calling me a bitch, but don't you fucking talk about Dan like that.
Speaker 3Hey, tony, explain the pullover. It was like half zip down, so so it zipped down.
Speaker 2It zipped down to basically the bottom of your rib cage. I had the whole front of it was a kangaroo pouch so I had not a starter. Oh whoa I'm still, still explaining. It was made out of super terrible polyester polypropylene tarp material.
Speaker 1It had like a, like a tent like feel to it like, yeah, like sort of rain, repellent but not quite very it was made very poor quality painted zippers. It was made of of used tents from campgrounds all around the usa I'm confident that our parents told us to not chew on our zippers when we were little, not for our teeth but for preparation for preparation of these coats zippers and, at the time, I remember that too, that's crazy.
Speaker 2I mean, we're talking early 90s. Oh yeah, they were so expensive, oh yeah I don't remember how much they were.
Speaker 3They were like 69.95.
Speaker 2No, they were more than that they were. They were over a hundred dollars.
Speaker 1So do you remember? So that was starter jackets right starter starter starter if it wasn't starter so you got the finisher no, there was a brand called logo athletic. It was an la. It was the same fucking coat, except for on the zipper thing instead of a starter s and a star. Yeah, you're fucked. It was an l and an a?
Speaker 3I've never seen those, ever you don don't know Logo Athletic no.
Speaker 1So I had a Buffalo Bills one, because it was blue and red and white, like America.
Speaker 2And it had a little button. You pressed on it that every time you press this it puts the lotion on the skin.
Speaker 1No, it was a Buffalo Bills, wasn't that his? Name the football team no, that was Hann Buffalo Bills, wasn't that his name? The football team? No, that was Hannibal. Lecter, tony doesn't even know the Buffalo Bills are so I never got the foo-foo baby powder blue like the color of my car, one like that yeah, it was.
Speaker 3It was a pretty color pretty.
Speaker 2But but here's the thing in in 1993 you weren't shit if you didn't have a starter pole.
Speaker 3I wasn't shit then, dude well, you also needed to get the start or the nike air shoes maybe it was a starter, maybe, it was a start, it is a starter. You had it had to say start had logo athletic though you could have nike, but if you didn't have the nike starter, just like a nike air, you're not the shit so.
Speaker 2So I had several paper routes growing up, because if I had to rely on my family to buy me designer things I would still be waiting. So I had all these paper routes. Me and my buddy split about a dozen of them. We were delivering papers somewhere along the lines of 90 to 100 hours a week. Was it the news like the actual newspaper, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel? Okay, or actually it was the Milwaukee Journal yeah, 90 to 100 hours a week. Was it the news like the actual newspaper, the milwaukee journal sentinel, or?
Speaker 1actually it was the milwaukee journal.
Speaker 2Yeah, and then we also had the weekend sentinel route because we weren't allowed to do the week does the sentinel routes because they were mornings does the weekend pay more or the week pay more? Weekend by a lot really, yeah, dude, we had to go steal shopping carts just to get them over to our route and we had shopping carts parked at the end of blocks and we used to have to.
Speaker 1You used to have to go down to the big warehouse and pick up your papers to deliver to you?
Speaker 2they didn't take them to the neighbors I don't know what they do now and all the losers would have one route and they would be able to carry them to their route. But you know, we were picking up pallets worth of newspapers every week, so we were stealing shopping carts. But I just I saved up forever to get this fucking jacket and it was such a big deal to me and I was so excited to finally be like, have have, like the cool thing, and I swear to god, that thing got stolen within two days, did you get?
Speaker 3beat up and raped.
Speaker 1No only got, raped, only got beat up once and only got raped once and they weren't related you sat down at a george webb, put it on the peg and someone took it off the peg no, we were, uh, we were playing basketball in my friend's driveway.
Speaker 2Um and I use that term loosely it wasn't like a normal driveway, you, you imagine in a cul-de-sac. It was like he had a little concrete pad behind his house and his house was positioned on the street very awkwardly and his dad ran a business out of their garage. So they poured this big concrete pad and we had a basketball hoop that you could actually actually now, I think about. It was bolted to his porch upstairs and, uh, we would play in this little concrete pad and there were just a couple kids playing with us and one of them grabbed my coat and took off and I didn't realize he did it and it was gone and I never seen it again. And, uh, and I'm telling my kid about this and he's like, why don't?
Speaker 1you go buy another one, he goes he goes well.
Speaker 2Which one did you get to replace it? And I said there was no replacing it. I'm like I didn't have parents like you have, where we oh you don't have a coat. Now we go out and get you a coat. My mom was like tough shit, you should have put a bike lock on it to the railing, like that's your fault. So I had to go back to wearing my generic winter coat. Yeah, and uh, I was not a fan. I was not a fan of my my kid brought up. Uh, he goes. How come every time you tell me a story about about how you got the most amazing thing growing up, like the coolest thing, and the stories always end and it gets stolen. And I said, there again, I grew up in a city, you grew up on a cul-de-sac. Yeah, dude, fucking everything I've ever owned was stolen every bike, every fucking good baseball card I had so on, on a cul-de-sac, when there's an unfamiliar car driving down everyone calls the authorities, get notified immediately who the fuck is this?
Speaker 3what the fuck you doing? You cannot turn around in my cold sack. What is that? A 2019?
Speaker 1what the fuck call the police? It's a 2019.
Speaker 2They're not from here oh my god, immediately, immediately. You drive into my subdivision right now with, uh, with your little beater ass van jay. Uh, people, people are immediately sharing ring videos. Anybody know this person is somebody having uh, yeah, like somebody having roofing work done.
Speaker 3Do you have a roofing work, an app or something for local?
Speaker 2Oh no, there's a group chat of 20 women.
Speaker 3Oh so everyone puts you in a group chat.
Speaker 1No, the guys don't get in on it, my big thing when I was a kid was my grandmother would get us new shoes every year for Christmas. She gave what New shoes. And I could buy like almost any shoes I wanted, except for Jordan's, I think 75 bucks was my line that I was allowed to buy.
Speaker 3You get the Jordan and these shoes.
Speaker 1Jordan airs. I would get almost for like three or four years in a row. I got the Reebok pumps, the low tops.
Speaker 3They were the Emmett Smith pumps. Oh my God.
Speaker 1Because, again, nike was too high, too high price those fucking things you pump, they don't even fucking inflate. I had one that had the little little basically like a Schroeder valve, a Schroeder valve on there with a little canister of nitrous that you think CO2 you would put in your hand.
Speaker 3I've never heard of that.
Speaker 1Oh dude, I had this thing. It was like the size of two lighters and it came with a little canister, like a whipped cream canister, like the little whipped cream canisters that. Whippets are in, but this was CO2, I think. And what have you put too much co2 in there, your fucking?
Speaker 2shoe explodes. Yes, that's exactly what would happen, dude, if you put too much in it would explode.
Speaker 1Back in the 90s, there was a price for every game you played, but I remembered, I remembered because, these little containers were, like you know, 89 cents or something, and so I only had 10 or so. So I would always be the guy who was just pumping them by hands.
Speaker 3Because I didn't want to use up my fucking Sprayer. I never knew they had a CO2 cartridge for the pump. I mean, that's a lazy person's pump.
Speaker 1Who else had those shoes?
Speaker 3I had those too.
Speaker 1Who was the basketball player that wore them? Barkley maybe? Yeah, barkley definitely had those.
Speaker 2Do you know what I'm?
Speaker 1talking about I know.
Speaker 3Tony, do you know what he's talking about? The pumps Like a basketball, half basketball, in front of the lip or the sole or whatever the fuck I'm talking about.
Speaker 2On the tongue.
Speaker 3That's the word I was looking for, thank you.
Speaker 2And it pumped up the tongue to make them fit tighter on your foot.
Speaker 3That's it.
Speaker 1That's all they do the shoe that I would get had these ratchet strapping lines over the ties too that you could fucking ratchet down.
Speaker 3Where the fuck are you finding these shoes?
Speaker 1Dude, they were the shit, the Emmitt Smiths.
Speaker 3Dude, I had I'm looking them up I had some cream colored Bo Bo Jackson's and I fucking loved more than life itself, and if I could get those again I'd buy them again and put them in a frame, or some type of solo proof glass.
Speaker 2So those shoes were really popular, but I had to change my style based on my budget. Yeah, this was once a year. There was no like running around in jordans.
Speaker 3That was for my rich friends dude, the pumps weren't that expensive I think I I always had the nike cortez's.
Speaker 2What? Are those yeah, what the fuck is that? Um, basically cholo shoes like like if you were in a gang and you were hispanic. You probably still have cortez's, so you're rolling in the hispanic games and, uh, the cortez's were slightly coming back.
Speaker 3What was your gang name, tony?
Speaker 2uh, I was never affiliated with a gang, the chubby tacos, no, no, no, they wouldn't let me in because I wasn't full-blooded Hispanic. Yeah.
Speaker 1Did you try to get in gang?
Speaker 3No, Never tried. It's always like we want me to kill.
Speaker 1Yeah, dude, right here.
Speaker 2I'll go kill somebody for you with the rage for my stolen starter jacket.
Speaker 3What is it, Chris? What do you got? What did you find?
Speaker 1The Reebok preseason. Emmitt Smith pumps. That was the shoe dude.
Speaker 3I don't remember this.
Speaker 1That was the shoe. You see that little black knob. Is that the shoe?
Speaker 3you had.
Speaker 1You see that little black knob right there on the tongue that's the pump. That was where. No, that little black knob.
Speaker 3Oh, that's a release to air. No, that was where you insert.
Speaker 1No, that was where you inserted the fucking.
Speaker 3Oh, really oh my God.
Speaker 1Okay, that was also the release, but there was like a little valve in there dude.
Speaker 3That was the craziest and weirdest thing that I thought was cool. At the same time I didn't understand it, and I think that's the thing that sold something you don't understand the Merlin Nike.
Speaker 2Cortez's, those look, I would buy them today. I actually did buy a pair of like three years ago and they're. They're not cheap, they're here, Like they're still $90.
Speaker 136 bucks. That's a normal price for a shoe, 36 bucks for the red ones.
Speaker 3They look used but wait, are they red or the yellow Are like they for the red ones. They look used. But Wait, are they red or are they yellow? They're white and red, but they're actually yellow and red.
Speaker 1Hey, those kids that made them shoes are our age. Now what?
Speaker 3What are you talking about?
Speaker 1These are the shoes right here. These are the exact pair I had, I think. Okay, explain it, though no one can see a fucking picture it's a pump with a strap over the top or you could strap it down. It had velcro. It looks like there was a pump with the tongue. It's a shoe, I don't know they look way more complicated.
Speaker 2You're the one who made us record a podcast today okay, now listen.
Speaker 3Uh, my kids shoes that they like nowadays look like fucking foreign objects from an alien world.
Speaker 1Yeah, the shoes now are wild.
Speaker 3They're ridiculously ugly. They are abstract. First off, they don't even make sense. I don't think you can even put a fucking foot in them. Literally, they have angles and folds and things that just don't make sense.
Speaker 2Those are the shoes that I bought my child yesterday.
Speaker 3That actually looks normal compared to the ones I've seen, and this shoe he's showing me just has a huge sole and it's very bright and colorful.
Speaker 1See, they're fucking weird too. Very bright and colorful. They probably weighed like a half of a half a pound.
Speaker 2Yeah, so they're Giannis shoes.
Speaker 3Oh, Giannis has got really bright.
Speaker 2He likes the bright colored shoes and they're purple in the back and they gradient through a couple different blues and end up being turquoise at the toe of the shoe.
Speaker 3So both of my kids have the Giannis shoe and one shoe is different color, different color than the other shoe. Is it different color? No, they're both the same color.
Speaker 2Uh, they're in a very bizarre shape for a shoe and there's very bizarre lines that run through them. I look at what kids like now and and I just think every single time like I would have got my fucking ass whooped for wearing that shit. Like there's no way that the kids are great above me. Wouldn't just beat me, senseless but tony yeah, wearing like hot pink shoes, like these kids wear the wildest kids.
Speaker 3They're wearing it yeah, the kids above them are wearing the same fucking shoes remember our pants.
Speaker 1They would be so wide at the bottom. Now, these jankos now these pants.
Speaker 2No, they're all tight as hell, like jay's, like jay's, jay's, fashionable I looked at jay's pants and I'm like did you have to roll those on you?
Speaker 3um. First off, they're sweatpants.
Speaker 2They're not actual you probably had to get them wet so that they were a little more stretchy.
Speaker 3That would make it way harder to put on but hey, so let's go back to these.
Speaker 1The kids now. They get everything, right everything. The kids get everything. There's nothing left to give them I'm starting to worry that that's a problem that's a problem.
Speaker 1It's a very huge problem. It's a very big problem and I notice it in the actions of my child where, like the littlest thing like the internet oh dude, we've had spotty internet lately with my internet thing it's not fucking working for some reason. Every once in a while it stops and it means the TV stops, it means the Google devices stop, that means the fucking iPad with the YouTube on it stops, and it's like the kids don't know what to do with themselves.
Speaker 2Am I right? 10 seconds into no internet and they're like I'm bored, I'm bored.
Generational Divide in Technology Understanding
Speaker 3Dude. Well, the new trend that I've noticed with kids is if you talk about something you want to purchase, like today my kids were talking about the squid games show on netflix. It's a very popular thing for every fucking person in this world and they will. He, my son, my youngest son, wanted to buy all the games they play in the show and my wife's like, okay, I'll look it up on amazon. Just I found one for 10 bucks. It's like no, you gotta buy it from tiktok tiktok shop. What the fuck is tiktok shop? Do you guys know?
Speaker 2what? Do you guys know what that is? Uh, it's a place you can go and buy super cheap, super asian made shit. Yeah, it's probably the same thing as timo.
Speaker 3Well, yeah, but Teemu has a way better name.
Speaker 1It's just Amazon on TikTok but like okay.
Speaker 3so kids don't know Teemu, they don't know TikTok shop, because they watch this shit.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's advertising in the app.
Speaker 3That is fucking brilliant. It's the app trying to keep you in the app. These guys that do these apps understand and they see the age groups that kids are like, they know their understand and they see the age groups that kids like, they know their demographic and they sell to their my kids. Everything they want is on TikTok shop Make your kids trade.
Speaker 1Fuck the TikTok shop. Make your kids trade phones. They're completely different age groups. They'll go on YouTube on their brother's phone and they'll be like what the fuck is this? You should try it. I wonder how much they wouldn't even be. They're not even that far apart.
Speaker 3They even use the right ages, so I don't understand how they can actually all your kids, according to the app, are in their mid-30s the. The app knows, it knows how, because it's that simple although my my youngest kid did Did just get kicked off From TikTok Like they deleted his entire TikTok.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, you can only search Titties so many times, you should.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't know, man, they know that, even though you signed on as an adult for him.
Speaker 3I didn't do that. He did it himself, chris. You think I'm that gonna? I didn't do that, he did it himself. Chris. You think I would? I'm that irresponsible?
Speaker 1okay, don't answer that but yeah, I don't know man, I'm trying to to get my kid to be a little more like rounded and it's in there. In these kids it's not like they're totally ruined. I've found like in general, found in general, they have it in them to like get rid of the need to have everything cool.
Speaker 3But there's no way to take it completely away. So they have to understand it because you know what the future is. Uh, yeah, all this media, uh, online on your phone. So that is the future. You need to know how to use a phone apps. You need to know how to use all that shit. You can't fucking take them away and say, hey, you can't use it, don't learn it, don't understand it. Then you're like Tony, he mails you your fucking computer because he doesn't know how to fucking send you an email yeah, but I'm yeah.
Speaker 2No, you're not. You're not wrong about that. Like I don't want to learn more shit you should.
Speaker 1Technology wise, I really don't I?
Speaker 2I've basically crafted a pretty solid for the most part 80 analog life and and I'm towards like where where's the red, white and blue cord?
Speaker 1keeping electrical tape over your cameras does not constitute an analog life, tony.
Speaker 2I said, I said about 80, everything I try to do, almost everything hands-on. The only thing in my life is this fucking phone, and a couple times a year, as long as I, as long as I don't need the gps on it because I don't have a rand mcnally anymore uh what?
Speaker 1they ain't printing that shit anymore either, dude you don't know what a rand mcnally is.
Speaker 2Sounds like a sex position. It's the oh, you did the rand mcnally rand mcnally was the most detailed city by city atlas. You could buy so shit. It is how you found how to get everywhere. You could buy one for the whole United States or for your city specifically.
Speaker 3You know what my round of McNally alley is, People that I know I'm like. How do you get here? They tell me that's my McNally.
Speaker 1So I still do keep a map in the car.
Speaker 3You're fucking crazy you never know, dude. What With your blanket and survival kit?
Speaker 1yeah, actually I mean it's a pretty solid point I mean the maps in the glove box, because that's most logical.
Speaker 3But fucking dude. I well, okay, when I first uh got I understood like what my dad had to do to find a house, to get to a job, I was like no fucking way, am I ever going to do this. Then GPS came along. I'm like, fuck yeah, finally have a chance.
Speaker 2And then you know, Maybe this is why the last episode you were saying that Madison's four hours away.
Speaker 3I picked no freeway, all streets.
Speaker 2Maybe it's because of your lack of map skills.
Speaker 3No, because accidentally my phone was on no freeway. All side streets Least use of tolls.
Speaker 2That takes you to Sheboygan first.
Speaker 3There's no tolls in fucking Madison.
Speaker 2Well, thank you for joining us today and, if you liked what you heard, do something on the interweb to tell us that.
Speaker 3What's the word Tony always says Hit me again, hit me again. Well, we appreciate you guys for listening. This is Top Shelf Stories and this is with Chris. Come on, let me hear it in the beginning. Who is it with?
Speaker 2I don't understand what's happening right now. He's going to say Chris, jay and Tony.
Speaker 1Chris Jay and Tony, or Jay Chris Tony Hit the music.
Speaker 3Oh yeah, I keep forgetting. God damn it Is it on. Okay, see you later. Next time no, that's too loud.
Speaker 1Perfect. You should just put your headphones on next time, see you later.
