At least until it kills you.

HBO’s demystifying documentary on 7′4″, 500-pound wrestling legend and unwitting sticker model Andre the Giant supplants the giant narrative of wondrousness with the heartbreaking reality of being too large physically, culturally, and biologically to survive.

Andre The Giant: “It’s difficult everywhere I go. They don’t build anything for big people. They build everything for blind people, crippled people, for some other people but not for big people. So we have to fit in there, and it’s not too easy all the time.”

Wrestling has always understood the role of spectacle in its desire to entertain, and André was a 24/7 spectacle.  He’d enter the ring by stepping over the ropes, then toss extremely muscular men through the air as if he were tossing flatware into a dishwasher. He’d cover an interviewer’s face with his massively fleshy hand like the facehugger from Alien. He’d quaff twenty beers in a row on his way to finishing off a case of wine. He left people awestruck.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: “He grabs me out of the chair, and he holds me up, and then he puts me on an armoire. He just set me up there like a little doll. This just shows you how strong he was.”

“Andre the Giant” is a spiritual cousin to ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary series, sharing a producer in The Ringer’s Bill Simmons. It also shares a lean focus on conditions outside of sports that influence the athletes. The turning point in American wrestling was the rise of the World Wrestling Federation (now the WWE), who turned once-regional stars into national heroes, propelling André to maximum exposure just as his abilities were starting to atrophy.

In his 20s Andre was diagnosed with acromegaly, a condition in which his pituitary gland produced excess growth hormone. Acromegaly is incurable but treatable yet Andre declined treatment fearing it would interfere with his livelihood as the world’s most famous wrestler/living giant. This also meant his body would continue to grow while his organs remained the same size, causing him constant and irreparable pain. During the filming of The Princess Bride the man once capable of lifting wrestlers was now unable to catch the petite actress Robin Wright.

Hulk Hogan: “There was never a bed, there was never a knife, there was never a fork, there was never a chair [that would fit him]. It was like if you had to sit on baby furniture your whole life in a dollhouse. I just remember the 14-hour flights from JFK to Narita in Tokyo that I knew he could not go in the bathroom.”

Andre had a gentle and tender side away from the cameras—the side of him that cried when strangers made fun of his height in airports. It’s the side of him that caused his alpha male co-workers at WWE to tear up during their recollections of him. It’s a rare day when WWE CEO Vince McMahon can’t maintain his composure.

Dr. Terry Todd: “[Andre] mentioned to me once that’s he’d be so grateful if he could have one day a week in which ‘I can just walk around and I’ll be the size of a normal man. I could go to a movie, I could get into a cab. I could have my own car, a normal car’.”

What do giants dream of? Pillaging? Conquering? No, simply to ride in a normal car. I’m 6′9″ with hands that can palm an iPad yet I can fit in a regular chair and occasionally blend into my surroundings. Andre the Giant was humungous and internationally famous so he had almost nowhere to hide.

Under the guise of a straight sports biography Andre the Giant is, in truth, a horror movie with a heart.

The post Film Review: “Andre the Giant” appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.

I parked on the roof of the Walnut Creek Kaiser Permanente Hospital garage because it had the most space for my big-ass SUV. Instead of riding the elevator five floors to the ground I took the stairs as a low-league attempt to hit my 10,000 steps for the day. Every floor was divided into two mini-flights of stairs, so I bounded down to the halfway point, pivoted the other direction, bounded down again, pivoted, bounded, pivoted…and almost brained myself on the ceiling.

I’ve been extremely tall for a long time, and my spider-sense automagically keeps me from hitting my head on things, but my spider-sense assumes that ceilings are a constant height. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the staircase height was shrinking floor by floor! At the speed of my descent I could have injured myself en route to the hospital, which is funnier to think about now than when I was eyeball-to-support-beam with the ceiling.

When Kaiser built its Walnut Creek outpost in 1953 it was deemed “The Dream Hospital: The Last Word in Modern Design”, a fantastical concept that was completely tossed out when they clumsily erected the parking garage. To be fair, an “Alice in Wonderland-inspired twist on Being John Malkovich’s 7½ Floor low-ceiling offices” does not flow off the tongue quite as smoothly.

On my return to my car I took the elevator. Across from it was a poster that read “For your health, take the stairs”. Not on your life, Kaiser.

The post What’s in My Damn Face Today? appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.

Christopher Elliott, reporting for The Washington Post:

JetBlue Airways announced an overhaul of its cabins last year that, by the way, would reduce its legroom by two inches, to just 32 inches.

Remember when JetBlue bragged about having the most legroom in economy class? That’s over. Also over: easily buying seats with extra leg room.

On domestic flights, it’s not just the premium economy class seats that are full, but also the previously non-premium seats preferred by tall people, such as seats in exit rows and bulkhead rows. Tall passengers say they have resorted to negotiating for more room when buying it isn’t possible.

Federally speaking, extreme tallness isn’t a disability so the airlines have no federal tallness policies to follow. Unless extremely tall passengers complain loudly and often about airplane accommodation reduction, the airlines will continue to squeeze an expanding populace into smaller seats.

The post Airlines to Extremely Tall People: “Suck It Up” appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.

Mark Montgomery French: How tall are you?  

Alexa Fraser-Herron: I am 5′9″ and a half.

You seem taller. 

I think it’s my gravitas (laughter), and my taste in shoes.

Where are you from? 

I’m from Los Angeles. I was born in a natural birth clinic in Azusa, California. My parents were living in Hollywood, in an apartment down the street from Hollywood High, but for whatever reason they wanted to have me there. So when my Mom went into labor they drove an hour out to Azusa. I was born in the “Oasis Room”. There’s a photo of the doctor that birthed me, holding me, and he’s wearing jeans. And it looks like we’re just in some cool hippie bedroom.

Is your family tall? 

On my mother’s side a lot of us are Scottish, and us Scots are pretty tall. She’s taller than me, maybe about 6′. My father, on the other hand, is about my height and his mother is this teeny tiny Austrian woman. So I’m a mix in terms of background.

How old were you when you ended up reaching 5′9″? 

I was about twelve.

WHOA! 

I’ve been this height for a really long time.

How, how, how was that change? 

That was…fucked. I was in seventh grade, I was this height, I had glasses, I had crooked teeth and I felt super awkward, not attractive and definitely not athletic. Every other person and a lot of adults would share their opinion of what I could do with my marvelous height, and it never failed to either be modeling or basketball. I was like, “awesome”. Even though I was a kid, I knew enough to know that if I went out for modeling jobs I would probably get fully roasted for not being thin. And the basketball thing was a joke because I was not athletic at all. And then if there was any interest in your pre-pubescent love life, it was “Oh you should be with that guy. He’s tall like you.”

I remember sitting in the front row of my high school geometry class with terrible vision—I was wearing glasses but they must not have been the correct prescription—and my teacher Miss Berger was trying to pressure me into sitting in the back of the class. I said “I can’t see the board” and she said “What are you talking about? You’re so tall”.

Because height and distance are totally the same. Well, she wasn’t the physics teacher… 

No, not at all.

Your mom is tall, so I guess her reaction to you being tall and shorter than her was probably not a big deal. 

She was very protective of me. For school photo day—where they get all the kids together to take a group shot—I was always, always relegated to the back row. And she’d always say “That’s so fucking stupid”.

When I was 12 years old we went to New Orleans for the first time. We took the Amtrak train and my mom got a little cabin for us since it was a three day trip, and I used to take off around the train by myself. Part of being that height at such a young age is that a lot of men just assume you’re older (or maybe they don’t because there are plenty of grown men that are gross that like younger girls anyway).

I remember seeing this guy around the train that was kind of cute, and I was too young to understand how old he was. He would like kind of, you know, notice me and watch me and I kinda got this feeling like that we liked each other. And then when we got into New Orleans, I saw him out in the crowds of people looking for their bags. I was separated from my parents for like a second and he swooped in to make his move. And his line was—in 1992—“hey, were you ever at a party in Florida in 1981?” It was the most random assemblage of facts as he was trying to figure out if we’d ever met before. All of a sudden my mom was right there, and she said “She was a year old in 1981 so no, that wasn’t her.”

Creepy. 

A little bit.

Do you still get people coming up to you in public about your height? 

Oh, totally. It’s mostly men that I think are interested in me and maybe use it as a way to kind of get in and pick me up, or make an idiot of themselves. I don’t know. One of the most recent memorable examples was when a guy sidled up to me while I was waiting across the street and said “You’re my height! How tall are you?”

Wow. He really thought that one through. Did you actually end up playing basketball or modeling? 

Of course not. If I’ve modeled anything it would’ve been in the early days of Etsy when I made stuff, but definitely nothing professional.

Did your height change how your friends related to you?

Growing up I bounced around a lot in terms of friend groups. Sometimes I had friends that were bigger and more Amazonal than me. I often was the tallest in the group, and like the funny fat girl trope I do think that when you’re not conventionally attractive or “normal” it does make you work harder to get accepted. I’ve been a crack-up funny person for as long as I can remember so that might have been a part of it. I never had trouble making friends or keeping them necessarily because I was fairly fun to be around. But every now and then there’d be the whole “Ooh, Alexa, go for that guy. He’s tall too!”

Because that’s how it works. (laughter) 

During my time in art school I sat through so many inane critiques and I saw when people really aren’t that engaged—I don’t want to say when they’re not intelligent because I think there’s more to it than that—they just hone in on the most obvious thing. “You’re tall. What’s that like? Oh, your hair is red.” Mm-hmm…

Since your height has helped you be a crack-up, how do you think it’s helped you as a filmmaker? 

Oh wow. That’s kind of a deep dive. (mimes plugging her nose and jumping in the water) I love film. I watched tons and tons of TV and movies from a very young age. I was an only child until I was ten and to my parents I was the guinea pig baby where they maybe did all kinds of stuff wrong and they’re were too young to know. One of those things was that the TV would come on as soon as I got up and no one told me to shut it off. And once I got home from school it came right back on again and stayed on typically until after I fell asleep. I fell asleep watching television all the time and I’ve watched sooooooo much stuff: all different kinds of genres, highbrow, lowbrow, what have you.

I feel like a lot of that informed my point of view as a filmmaker. Being tall—obviously I don’t think that’s all there was to it—but my height and always feeling different when I was growing up,  maybe worked in tandem with the kinds of music and film and TV shows I ended up being attracted to and identifying with. And once I started to actually make movies, I definitely became drawn to stories that are a little bit different with characters that you don’t often see.

I got teased a lot for my appearance, my height hyping part of that. Growing up in L.A. in the eighties and nineties, I feel very fortunate that instead of me being “Oh, I’m ugly and useless so I’ll just go hide until I go to college”, I leaned into stuff and was like, well, “fuck you”, and embraced certain aspects of myself. You start picking aspects of pop culture and film and music that builds you up and protects you, right?

What were you watching that made you say “THAT is something I’m going to take and inspire me to make something else”?

It’s funny now revisiting stuff that I remember watching growing up, not realizing it back then that it totally was contributing to my identity as a storyteller. One of the big ones was Jonathan Demme films. Silence of the Lambs came out when I was twelve and I was like, “Oh my gosh, the Something Wild/Married to the Mob guy made this like really slick movie with Jodie Foster.”

If you remember, Married to the Mob and Something Wild all had these really kooky, weird characters with really rad clothes. A lot of it was counterculture-y and different. And there was Sister Carol, who’s like the Jamaican woman that was always a peripheral character in his stories, and if you watch Rachel Getting Married she sings in the wedding. I always love that, not necessarily inside jokes, but if you like a certain filmmaker and you watch their work you’re sort of rewarded with those in-jokes and those Easter eggs and those themes that keep coming up, like “Goodbye Horses”. He made that song famous with the Buffalo Bill stripping scene in Silence of the Lambs, but he actually used that song in several of his films before he made that.

What other music were you listening to at the time?

I really liked The Crow soundtrack that came out when I was in junior high and kids were discovering bands just by listening to this.

Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots…

Jesus and Mary Chain, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. But more important for me was the touchstone that it provided. I got the James O’Barr graphic novel that The Crow was based on and there are Joy Division lyrics all over it. And the song that Nine Inch Nails does on that soundtrack is “Dead Souls”, which is a cover of Joy Division. Joy Division was a big band to me—I remember there was one kid in my high school that wore a Joy Division t-shirt, I think it might have been the statue of the woman that’s lying back with her hand over her eyes.

Back then if you wanted to listen to music you’d have to go buy it, you’d have to commit, and I didn’t have a lot of money. So I remember asking him “Do you listen to Joy Division? Are they any good?” And he’s like, “they’re awesome”. I bought Substance and I still think it’s a near-perfect album.

What do you think regular-sized people are surprised about that’s normal to you because of your height?

How much it’s a topic of conversation, but I think that if you’re below a certain height it’s a topic of conversation for you too. “You’re so small and blah, blah, blah.”

The effect is that you’re not actually a human being, you’re a thing for them to comment and gawk at. “You’re adorable! It’s so wonderful that your tiny hands can turn the wheel!”

My thing that surprises regular-sized people is how much effort it takes to actually transport myself anywhere. If I fly it has to be a first-class seat. 

Oh my God.

First-class isn’t even comfortable, it’s just doable. My knees are up against the seat in front of me but I’m just able to walk upright after three and half hours in the air. 

I’ve been flying a lot in the past year and I usually end up in the cheap seats. I guess it’s my hips or something but I really prefer to have my legs crossed, and trying to cross my legs back there is just…(laughter)…my knee comes up to my ear and hopefully I’m not kicking the person next to me.

I just helped one of my oldest friends move out of L.A. where she’d been living for 17 years.

And by oldest, you mean she’s 95.

Yeah, she’s 95, super old…(laughter) She mentioned she was driving to Oregon with her cat, and I said “Do you want me to come with you”? I thought it’d be a really good bonding thing and I could also be there to support her. Then it dawned on me that she has a fucking Fiat, and I said I would help her drive! I’m glad I did it, but ho-ly shit. I’m 55 percent legs by the way. I did the math. (laughter) That should be a question for your interviews. You should start bringing measuring tapes.

“Pardon me, what percentage of you is leg?” 

I do remember when I worked retail that a friend of my boss came in one day and he was incredibly tall. He had to have been 6′7″, 6′8″. And because I’m tall too, and I’ve had people falling over my height, I just blurted out—as a comrade—“Oh you are magnificently tall. That is so wonderful”.

That’s nice.

Instead of saying “Ya FREAK! How tall are you? Is there the opposite of lifts you can wear for your shoes?” (laughter)

Dips!

It just carves out the floor wherever you go.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

The post Interview With a Tall Person: Filmmaker Alexa Fraser-Herron appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.

High school is a marvelous place where young people can pretend that no one is looking at them with judgment while everyone else is totally looking at them with judgment. Every unformed facet of your being—from your shoe choices to your skin colors—are fodder for public discussion and private dissection. Although extreme height guarantees you’ll be picked last for dodgeball there exists a college scholarship where extreme height is mandatory.

Say hello to Tall Clubs International, who awards up to $1000 scholarships to first-year college students if they are women 5’10″ and above or men 6’2″ and above. The application process requires crafting an essay titled “What Being Tall Means to Me” (which could be the focus of an entire blog), and you’ll need to be sponsored by one of the 50+ local clubs in North America. But if you’re a good well-rounded tall student you certainly have a shot.

The application request ends February 1, 2018, and the submission is deadline is March 1, 2018, so you only have two weeks to make this happen.

Good luck!

The post Your Tallness Could Earn You Cash For College appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.

The holidays are a wonderful time for extremely tall people to cram into their friends’ tiny cars and attend festive parties featuring ill-fitting rental chairs and dangerously low-hanging ornaments. There is also the specter of “Secret Santa”, where someone gets you a gift that not only doesn’t fit but is so completely useless to an extremely tall person that it borders on a hate crime. Armed with our Top 5 Worst & Best Extremely Tall Holiday Gifts, CircusTall is here to help your clueless friends make your season bright while minimizing your chances of a rage stroke.

• Phone Accessories •

NO: Selfie Sticks

The purpose of a selfie stick is to extend the natural range of the human arm so you can place your camera far enough away to capture a shot without cropping out someone’s head. But to a person whose own arm is extended past the natural range of the human arm, a selfie stick is the foulest aluminum-clad insult since Jolly Green Giant cans. Avoid them like the plague.

YES: Selfie Ring Light

If you want really to improve the quality of selfies, introducing more light is always a smart choice. Not only will it enhance skin tones but it also adds definition and subtle contouring to duck face poses. Advaka makes a Selfie Ring Light with three brightness levels, a USB-rechargeable battery, and a universal clamp so it attaches to all phones.

• Bed and Bath •

NO: Bath Bombs

You envision warm lavender-tinged vapor transforming the bathroom into a healing spa. Nourishing shea butter bath bombs sensually dissolve in the clawfoot tub, releasing tender bubbles of rose and lemongrass into the air. Every moment unleashes more nutrient-rich organic essential oils and healing herbs designed to soothe and rejuvenate. Perfect gift for your stressed, tall friend, right? BUT NO. Reality is they’re sitting on the chair next to the tub unsoothed and unrejuvenated because they don’t fit in the damn tub. (And they knew that when they started that madness but HEY MAYBE BATH BOMBS ARE MADE WITH ELF MAGIC and can expand the size of the tub if they just sit in a certain way like maybe this way or if they turn and place this leg or perhaps the other leg…like…like………ow.)

Unless your tall friend has a built-in jacuzzi, hard pass on the bath bombs.

YES: Extra Tall Shower Head

The extremely tall probably have cleaner necks than the general population since most shower heads are about neck height for them. If only the evil selfie stick could be repurposed to raise shower nozzles above one’s own head—would the gentle caress of overhead jets then be possible? Totally. HotelSpa makes a rainfall-style shower head with an integrated 2-foot extension arm. The actual shower head is a 10 x 10-inch square, engulfing its user in water, like a regular person.

• Kitchen •

NO: Fashion Peelers

The utilitarian handheld vegetable peeler was functionally perfected in the 1950s, so the largest differentiation between models nowadays is decorative. Whether they nest together like ultra-sharp Pringles, are forged from exotic metals, or feature whimsical veggie-shaped handles, they are near-universally too small for extremely large hands to use safely without causing wrist cramps.

YES: OXO Good Grips Peelers

OXO focuses on ergonomically-designed, non-slip, easy-to-use kitchen tools, but the key principle here is their girth. The grip area of their Good Grips Peelers is thick and padded so the hand can relax while peeling instead of forcing all the tension into fingers and wrists. They also come in multiple colors, so you can ward off dinner-based Repetitive Stress Injury in style.

• Health and Wellness •

NO: Spinal Massage Balls

With great spinal length comes a great responsibility to keep that spine in top condition. Spinal massage balls (aka lacrosse balls) allow one to roll away muscle knots in the back and relieve tension, including pain perhaps received from playing lacrosse in the first place. Their small size makes them easy to transport yet massively inefficient when used on an extra-large back.

YES: 36-inch Foam Roller

But an extra-large foam roller is big enough to cover that extra-large back or any other body part. With a LuxFit 36-incher, a deep tissue muscle massage is just a roll away, or one can lay upon it for spinal stabilization. Its large size makes it ungainly to transport but extra-large backs may simply insist on purchasing one for the road. And for the lacrosse tournament.

• Electronics •

NO: Wired Headphones

“One size fits all” is a well-worn clothing deception but the logic behind it creeps into all wearables, including headphones. Whether they are over-the-ear classics or gym-ready earbuds, there will come a time when they will pop out of the ear canal because the cord is Too. Dang. Short. for the tall friend. Lift a box over the head—pop! Go for a run and head turn to the left—pop! One could solve this issue by strapping the phone in an armband, thereby shortening the cord distance at the risk of causing an arterial embolism.

YES: Wireless Headphones

When the size of the world constrains basic movements, every inch of freedom is a magnificent gift. Wireless headphones seem unnecessary until one realizes how long headphone cables have kept one in light bondage. Earbuds are great for active sports, but if the desire is to be submerged in bass take a look at Beats Studio3 Wireless Over‑Ear Headphones. It’s generally the priciest but it does feature a blindingly-quick Bluetooth connection speed, nearly eliminating the multiple tap-and-pray rituals that one performs with other Bluetooth devices.

Summary

Make an extremely tall person happy this holiday season with a gift that will surprise and delight. The items in this guide will help wash away the sadness of receiving that “one-size-fits-all” holiday sweater. (Which didn’t come from you, right?)

The post Top 5 Worst & Best Extremely Tall Holiday Gifts appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.

Four of these bad boys are mounted to the ceiling of every BART train. I took this shot while standing face-to-screen with it. Although the back of its all-metal chassis tapers up, the front of it hangs down four inches, so if I stood underneath the camera I’d crack my skull. (Yes, a tool of public safety is privately violating my own safety.) I try to avoid standing by this would-be cranium crusher but it’s always placed near the train doors, and during rush hour that’s usually the only standing space available.

At least twice a week my head is directly in front of the lens, providing BART’s security team with 20 solid minutes of complete darkness. I assume one day a quickly braking train will create a violent jolt, and security will wonder why my video footage suddenly turned blood red.

But the joke’s on me because for the last 20 years nearly all of their cameras were fakes.

Although BART has functioning security cameras in their stations, over 70 percent of BART’s security cameras on their trains were decoys with blinking lights. They believed that the mere impression of surveillance was good enough to deter crime, as if criminals were basically crows who could be scared away by the scarecrow camera above their heads.

Their ruse was only revealed in 2016 when a young man was shot to death on a BART train and law enforcement asked to see the crime’s video footage, which didn’t exist. Oops. BART deflected any notion that protecting 127 million yearly riders with a blinking decoy was criminally negligent, and then immediately replaced every blinking decoy with an actual camera.

So now when I stand too close to the dome-cracker/video camera, I can feel truly confident that I’m actually impeding the public’s safety, warm with the knowledge that I’ve only been endangering myself for the last two decades.

The post What’s in My Damn Face Today? appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.

You’re not really blonde. In fact, almost no one is really blonde.

Your weave is beginning to unravel.

Female pattern baldness is a thing, and it’s happening to you.

Your cheap hair replacement surgery makes your follicle patterns resemble crop circles after a plague of locusts.

Your combover is fooling no one, but up close it’s a fascinating structure made from equal parts old hair, rubber cement, and sadness.

You may want to look into a lice removal strategy. Like, today.

That patch of grey you keep re-shaving? It’s gotten wider.

Dandruff held in place with mousse is still dandruff, but thanks for not shedding on me.

Even though you’re completely bald, that’s no excuse not to moisturize your ashy dome.

I offer the previous insights out of love for my fellow humans, and from the desire to not see so much of your raggedy scalps.

I once saw a dude rocking a yarmulke shaped like a cylindrical watermelon slice, complete with seeds and rind! He brought his A-game to his dome, and to him I give a hearty thanks.

As for the rest of ya’s, the bar has been set.

The post The Truth at the Top of Your Head appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.

When you have big-ass feet, you learn to lower your expectations about choice. The day I wrote this article Zappos.com offered 5481 Men’s sneakers & athletic shoes in Size 13.  But when I searched for my true dimension of Size 17, I was greeted with this insult result:

“Men Sneakers & Athletic Shoes” we found 159 items!

That’s a choice reduction of 97%. Zappos’ search refinement selectors for Performance, Brand, and Color are absurdly pointless when all their Size 17 shoes fit on two pages. This isn’t their fault since most shoe companies simply don’t make big-ass shoes.

But the following shoe companies not only make big-ass shoes, but they also allow for dozens of color and fabric options for the logo, lining, laces, sole, tongue, heels and more. For an extremely tall person with limited shoe choices, it’s the difference between getting a Mickey Mouse sticker and going to Disneyland.

All of their shoe design customer experiences will be ranked on the CircusTall scale of “Yeah!” (it’s awesome), “Meh.” (it’s okay), or “Eh…” (it’s underwhelming).

NikeID

Ease of use:
Nike started selling NikeID customized shoes way back in 1999, and their OG status is reflected in their refined sense of user experience. Each shoe is clearly represented by static zoomable images taken from six basic angles, making it easy to tell which area of the shoe has been changed by your actions. Their selection interface is clean and readable.

Customization options:
They have a staggeringly large selection of shoe styles in multiple sports, including basketball models from such one-named icons as LeBron, Kyrie, Kobe, and, er, Paul George. Nearly every section of the shoe can be customized from one of a dozen colors, with additional metallic choices for the swoosh, and custom text on the heel.⁽¹⁾

Special features:
Some models allow you to customize your width or select images for the sole. Nike also has a respectable selection of custom cleats.

Maximum size: Men 18, Women 15
Number of styles: 49 for Men, 24 for Women
Price: $95–$340
How does it fit?: True to size
Visit the site

Overall RatingYeah!

Vans Customs

Ease of use:
The Vans Customizer allows you to easily rotate a gorgeous 3D model of your shoe with buttery smoothness, making design choices simple to view and fun to change. Their selection interface is tidy and compact, allowing for the shoe to display as large as possible.

Customization options:
Slip-on, Authentic, SK8-Hi, Old Skool, and Era models are available across four styles, but the big play here is the sheer volume of fabric choices. You can choose Peanuts characters, Major League Baseball logos, cat heads, pizza, plants, donuts, and on some shoes you can even add flames or checkerboards along on the foxing (aka the rubber sides of the shoe).

Special features:
Unlike anyone else in this guide, Vans allows you to upload your own images to add to your shoe design. It’s $10 extra, only applies to Slip-on and Authentic models, and the Terms and Conditions is unsurprisingly restrictive, but the power to make a truly individual mark on your design is compelling.

Maximum size: Men 18, Women 11
Number of styles: 18 for Men, 13 for Women
Price: $75–$110
How does it fit?: True to size
Visit the site

Overall RatingYeah!

Converse Custom

Ease of use:
Converse is owned by Nike, so in a bold move of corporate synergy Converse Custom uses the same interface as NikeID. Each shoe is clearly represented by static zoomable images taken from six basic angles, making it easy to tell which area of the shoe has been changed by your actions. Their selection interface is clean and readable.

Customization options:
You can drape Chuck Taylors, One Stars, and Jack Purcells with a wide variety of colors, rubber sidewalls, metals, and fabrics, including leather and satin. If you’ve dreamed of strutting around in wine-colored velvet Chuck high tops with an embossed leather logo, you’re in for a treat.

Special features:
Floral prints, camouflage, and leopard skin are available in some models, as well the ability to place different patterns on each side of your shoe, bowling-style.

Maximum size: Men 17, Women 13
Number of styles: 26 for Men, 6 for Women
Price: $75–$150
How does it fit?: True to size
Visit the site

Overall RatingYeah!

mi adidas

Ease of use:
Obliquely named for a song from former Adidas spokes-rappers Run-D.M.C., the mi adidas site is cinematically fluid. You can rotate an angled shoe that convincingly responds to your touch. The selection interface fades up when you need it and fades away when you’re done, leaving your shoe as prominent as possible, but only on mobile. The desktop site’s design is straight Clunkasorous Rex, with an ungainly large interface and tiny shoe display.

Customization options:
They have a cornucopia of running, basketball and tennis shoes, featuring Superstar, Gazelle, Stan Smith, and Pureboost models. In addition to applying colors to multiple shoe areas, you can also select numbers, sock liner text, lace jewels, and glow-in-the-dark soles.

Special features:
mi adidas is the only custom shoe vendor to offer slides, which you can then customize with the debossed icon of a fist, if debossed fist icons are your thing.

Maximum size: Men 20, Women 15.5
Number of styles: 38 for Men, 29 for Women
Price: $45–$170
How does it fit?: A bit snug, but true to size
Visit the site

Overall RatingYeah!, but on desktop, Meh.

YourReebok

Ease of use:
The YourReebok site is a bit clumsy in execution. The selection interface is quite large, the shoe area is quite small, and you can’t can’t change shoe angle until you’ve finalized a color selection. After experiencing the tactile sensuousness of the Vans site, the tappity-tappity-tappitiness of YourReebok is frustrating.

Customization options:
Crossfit Nano7, Club C, InstaPump and Havasu models are available for customizing with a respectable selection of colors and material. Havasa features fun patterns such as Tangled Clouds and Junk Workout. The InstaPump model allows you the change the color of the pump bladder, so that’s something.

Special non-feature:
YourReebok has the smallest shoe sizes of all the vendors in this guide, barely qualifying for as a resource for those with big-ass feet.

Maximum size: Men 15, Women 11
Number of styles: 6 for Men, 6 for Women
Price: $75–$155
How does it fit?: True to size
Visit the site

Overall RatingEh…

NB1

Ease of use:
New Balance’s NB1 lets you completely rotate an angled shoe horizontally, which is smooth to use for viewing selected areas, if not quite Vans smooth. The selection interface takes up half of your screen, shrinking the view of your selected shoe, but the design is clear enough to prevent you from getting lost in the details.

Customization options:
NB1 has but three baseball and three running models. There’s a minimum of options in fabrics and accoutrements but they do have a nice selection of color choices.

Special features:
All the vendors allow for custom text, but NB1 is the only one that lets you pick individual heel numbers. They also let you upgrade to gold-plated cleats, if you want to go to “Beast Mode”.

Maximum size: Men 16, Women 13
Number of styles: 6 for Men, 6 for Women
Price: $125–$200
How does it fit?: True to size
Visit the site

Overall RatingMeh.

Big-ass Customized Shoes Summary

These six vendors offer thousands of shoe options to owners of big-ass feet. All of these sites feature pre-designed starter models for you to play with, as the potential for creating great ugly is real. Nike, Converse, Vans and mi adidas (on mobile only) are the easiest and most fun to use, but the other two have value as well, as a meh choice is better than no choice at all.

Number of shoe styles were calculated from Men Size 12+ and Women Size 10+. Complete offerings of shoe style, sizes and prices are subject to change. Sites were judged by their mobile interfaces.

The post CircusTall Guide to Big-Ass Customized Shoes appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.

Haroon Siddique, reporting for The Guardian:

British scientists found that every 10cm* increment in height increased the chance of developing high-grade prostate cancer by 21% and the risk of death from the disease by 17%.

The 141,000 men followed by the nearly 14-year study were all white guys, so you extremely tall non-white dudes still have a shot at height not being at cancer risk for you. Or to put it another way, they have no meaningful data on you at all.

*American translation: 10cm is just under 4 inches.

The post Aggressive Prostate Cancer Targets Tall Guys, Says Depressing Study appeared first on CircusTall.com — Very tall pop culture writing at its funniest.