The Sock Guy

[Rich Engle]

OK, I got started back up on this one because I was attempting to joke around with one of my music partners, Lesley--she runs the folk group I play in known as Silver Branch.

I have no idea whatsoever as to why this came out of me; perhaps it was the sheer trauma of the situation. So I will hold forth:

Back around the late seventies, and extending into the early eighties, I was working at two music stores, one of which I started working at when I was 18 years old. I bounced around the two stores, but the primary one was a small, highly-developed boutique guitar store: Oh, you know, we sold Fender Custom Shop guitars, Valley Arts guitars, and so forth. It was a helluva shop.

So, one day I am working said shop and I get this, er, rather disturbing phone call. After I do the greeting, I get a question, with a rather creepy voice behind it:

"What kind of socks are you wearing?"

Now, I don't care who you are, but when you get that kind of call, off-rip, it creates a certain sort of internal confusion. Should I answer him? It is just that disarming.

I looked down, because I actually was not sure what kind of socks I had on. I discerned that I was wearing sneakers, and white athletic socks. So, I answered--"White."

He said "OK, fine," and hung up.

You can imagine what rolls through ones' head at that point. This, in the middle of conducting business.

My boss, owner of the biz showed up to relieve me, and I was clearly remaining in a slightly disturbed state. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him of the phone call. He said "Oh, that's just the Sock Guy--he calls all the time. You just have to tell him what kind of socks you are wearing and then he leaves you alone."

Right.

As the time progressed, six years, this went on. Actually, the more honest you were about describing your socks, the quicker the engagement was. You kind of got used to it after some time. And, he was quite polite; most times he even thanked you--very professional on the phone.

Eventually I discovered that our store was not the only target. There were at least 3 or 4 other unrelated businesses in the area that he was calling. I guess he had a call list, or something.

After awhile, we all kind of got used to the routine.

And then, it just stopped.

I don't know what ever happened to the Sock Guy, but in a certain respect, I admire his artistry.

rde

Never Looked At Socks The Same Way Again

[9thdoctor]

An association:

There is no more unfortunate creature under the sun than a fetishist who yearns for a woman's shoe and has to settle for the whole woman.

Karl Kraus

[George H. Smith]

I associate my first purchase of an Ayn Rand book (The Virtue of Selfishness) with a shoe fetish, for the following reason.

I have told the story before of how I first encountered Ayn Rand by watching her first appearance on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show. (I think this was during the summer of 1967.) After seeing Rand's next two appearances, I made a mental note to take a look at her books during my next visit to my favorite Tucson bookstore.

A couple weeks later, Greg (my best friend) and I were in that store, looking around. I wasn't interested in fiction, so I scanned the philosophy section -- and there I spotted VOS. I didn't know Rand had written a book with this title, so I took the book off the shelf and walked over to Greg.

Greg was looking through a book that interested him, and next to him, crouched down looking at books on a lower shelf, was an odd looking guy, perhaps in his late teens, with very thick glasses. I said, "Hey, Greg, look what I found: The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand, that woman we saw on Carson. This is my kind of title; I gotta buy this book."

As we were talking, Greg got this weird look on his face and pointed down with a thumb. When I looked down I saw the guy gently rubbing one of his hands over Greg's left shoe. Greg said, "What are you doing?"

The guy looked up and said, "You have very nice shoes. I really like shoes. Would you take one off so I can look at it?"

Greg said to me, "Let's get out of here," so I quickly purchased the copy of VOS, and we continued our conversation in the car.

For years the power of association kept a hold on me, and when I read or discussed VOS, I often thought of a shoe fetish. Fortunately, this did not cause me to become overly fond of shoes. I mean, I like shoes okay, but I don't really like shoes.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

OK, I got started back up on this one because I was attempting to joke around with one of my music partners, Lesley--she runs the folk group I play in known as Silver Branch.

I have no idea whatsoever as to why this came out of me; perhaps it was the sheer trauma of the situation. So I will hold forth:

Back around the late seventies, and extending into the early eighties, I was working at two music stores, one of which I started working at when I was 18 years old. I bounced around the two stores, but the primary one was a small, highly-developed boutique guitar store: Oh, you know, we sold Fender Custom Shop guitars, Valley Arts guitars, and so forth. It was a helluva shop.

So, one day I am working said shop and I get this, er, rather disturbing phone call. After I do the greeting, I get a question, with a rather creepy voice behind it:

"What kind of socks are you wearing?"

Now, I don't care who you are, but when you get that kind of call, off-rip, it creates a certain sort of internal confusion. Should I answer him? It is just that disarming.

I looked down, because I actually was not sure what kind of socks I had on. I discerned that I was wearing sneakers, and white athletic socks. So, I answered--"White."

He said "OK, fine," and hung up.

You can imagine what rolls through ones' head at that point. This, in the middle of conducting business.

My boss, owner of the biz showed up to relieve me, and I was clearly remaining in a slightly disturbed state. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him of the phone call. He said "Oh, that's just the Sock Guy--he calls all the time. You just have to tell him what kind of socks you are wearing and then he leaves you alone."

Right.

As the time progressed, six years, this went on. Actually, the more honest you were about describing your socks, the quicker the engagement was. You kind of got used to it after some time. And, he was quite polite; most times he even thanked you--very professional on the phone.

Eventually I discovered that our store was not the only target. There were at least 3 or 4 other unrelated businesses in the area that he was calling. I guess he had a call list, or something.

After awhile, we all kind of got used to the routine.

And then, it just stopped.

I don't know what ever happened to the Sock Guy, but in a certain respect, I admire his artistry.

rde

Never Looked At Socks The Same Way Again

Great story -- well written and funny. You are a good story teller. This is the sort of thing I like to read, because it shows that some thought went into the construction and telling of the tale.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

I associate my first purchase of an Ayn Rand book (The Virtue of Selfishness) with a shoe fetish, for the following reason.

I have told the story before of how I first encountered Ayn Rand by watching her first appearance on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show. (I think this was during the summer of 1967.) After seeing Rand's next two appearances, I made a mental note to take a look at her books during my next visit to my favorite Tucson bookstore.

A couple weeks later, Greg (my best friend) and I were in that store, looking around. I wasn't interested in fiction, so I scanned the philosophy section -- and there I spotted VOS. I didn't know Rand had written a book with this title, so I took the book off the shelf and walked over to Greg.

Greg was looking through a book that interested him, and next to him, crouched down looking at books on a lower shelf, was an odd looking guy, perhaps in his late teens, with very thick glasses. I said, "Hey, Greg, look what I found: The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand, that woman we saw on Carson. This is my kind of title; I gotta buy this book."

As we were talking, Greg got this weird look on his face and pointed down with a thumb. When I looked down I saw the guy gently rubbing one of his hands over Greg's left shoe. Greg said, "What are you doing?"

The guy looked up and said, "You have very nice shoes. I really like shoes. Would you take one off so I can look at it?"

Greg said to me, "Let's get out of here," so I quickly purchased the copy of VOS, and we continued our conversation in the car.

For years the power of association kept a hold on me, and when I read or discussed VOS, I often thought of a shoe fetish. Fortunately, this did not cause me to become overly fond of shoes. I mean, I like shoes okay, but I don't really like shoes.

Ghs

I got back from Vietnam in time to enroll at the U of A in Sept. 1967 and did manage to see one of the Rand Carson appearances. In the following spring I dropped out and drove to northern NJ where my Dad and step-Mother lived and got a taste of NBI before it imploded.

--Brant

[George H. Smith]

I got back from Vietnam in time to enroll at the U of A in Sept. 1967 and did manage to see one of the Rand Carson appearances. In the following spring I dropped out and drove to northern NJ where my Dad and step-Mother lived and got a taste of NBI before it imploded.

--Brant

My first wife -- the Objectivist nude dancer whom I mentioned recently on another thread -- lived in NY (where she studied modern dance) and attended many NBI classes. She liked them, but, generally speaking, she didn't like the social atmosphere. Perhaps because of her profession (not a profession, exactly, but just a way to make a lot of money without much work), she was keenly attuned to what she called the "sexual politics" of the NBI crowd -- not the higher ups, such as the Brandens, but the second tier types. She used to tell me stories of how some of the guys tried to impress her because they knew Rand or Nathaniel, and then use that to try to talk her into bed. She could spot phonies, especially men, a mile away.

Ghs