(7/11) Tinker held the room and told a brief story about meeting AC, and then retreated to the crowd…the problem was, though, that it was Tinker, and the crowd simply could not stay away from him - everyone wanted to get their shot at having their moment with him. So, just when @sneakerpreservationsociety was about to kick things off with his ‘why’, the room was split in two - those that were desperately trying to hear Andrew, and those that were desperately trying to have a moment with Tinker. Unfortunately, the two groups were only a few feet away so many people seemed torn. I wanted to hear everyone’s why, and I also wanted to have a moment with Tinker, but it almost looked like we had to choose - one or the other. @snkrtechtalk had a dope presentation for his ‘why’ planned that a lot of us missed, simply because of the orientation of the room. At a certain point, it appeared that the vibe changed to’ let’s just enjoy each others company’ and the screen went off and the mics went away. A relief. That’s when I decided to make my move. What’s funny is that - even 3 days later - I don’t fully remember who was sitting next to me other than @big_macadoshis so I know he heard my pitch first: I held my bag of cards slightly open and said ‘grab one’. He looked at me a bit confused, but I nudged him: ‘just put your hand in there and grab one.’ He did and had a confused look on his face… I said “so, yeah, you know, us being in Portland, I thought it would be dope to ‘reimagine’ the Jordan Rookie Card as if he were actually drafted BY Portland and how different this room would look. Obviously - the shoes wouldn’t look that different, but I cut up a pair of 1’s in any case and just put them on the card. Enjoy.” Big Mac was stoked. From that point on, I gave the same pitch to just about everyone…a lot of folks were stoked, some were caught up with the room and others were just living in the moment. As I bounced around the room, I heard folks telling the story about how Sam Bowie was picked over MJ and I was happy that THEY were bringing life to what I had put in their hands…IMO a verified WIN for productive anxiety 😂