Here are John King’s contributions to the April 2026 edition of the Loose Lips reading series.

---

The Cobra

Since last month I watched Sylvester Stallone’s Cobra, which came out in 1986. At the hermeneutic, existential core of Cobra is this urgent question:

Can a mid-1980s steroidal clone of Dirty Harry be good and profound and transform how human beings think about law enforcement and the Platonic concept of justice?

Fuck no. 

Brigette Neilson is cute in it. I forgot how cure she was in it.

Cobra is probably better than the film of Red Sonja. I refuse to find out, now that I have a heart condition.

The Shoes

On March 9^th, The Wall Street Journal reported on President Trump gifting what are believed to be black Florsheim Lexington cap-toe leather shoes to the men on his cabinet and other staff.

This topic didn’t last long in the public discourse—apparently, we are at war or aggressive peace with Iran or something—but I did hear at least one television comedian mock not just the weirdness of the gesture but also mocked the shoes themselves.

Please do not mock Florsheims, beloved Orlandoans here in the city beautiful, the drinkers and dreamers and poets and all of the above.

For decades of my life, I have joyfully worn Florsheim shoes, a brand that began in 1892, only a scant decade after Donald Trump was born. I wore the Cordovan loafers, size 13EEE, and I wore Florsheim Lexington wingtip leather shoes in the same enormous size.

Unlike the shoes worn by Trump’s minions, however, my shoes fit.

That these servants wear misfit shoes is symbolically perfect, we can all agree. This is the shoewear form of gaslighting.

The president wanted to do something nice, asked them for their shoe sizes, which could be heartwarming, if weird, except that the president still got the gift wrong, which is also perfectly symbolic.

Watching Mario Rubio shuffle in oversized shoes makes him seem like a little boy trying to be like daddy.

The shoes cost $145. Donald Trump has reported autographed these Florsheim gift boxes, which presumably diminishes their resale value.

My wingtips cost me $125 in the 1990s.

By the year 2000, Florsheim shoe stores were no longer plentiful in American malls, and the business has changed hands and fates often since then. I stopped wearing Florsheims once I could no longer get the worn-out soles repaired. A cobbler can only cobble so much over the years. Every re-soling takes away a little more shoe.

When I wasn’t near Florsheim stores, I switched to Doc Martens, but eventually those stopped fitting my Protean, aircraft carrier sized feet.

I now wear Vans, which come in a size 16. Oh, I am on fleek.

I am not sure I could fit into Florsheims now. But thirty years ago, when I put them on, I felt right. I became more of myself. I was slipping into a century of classic footwear, in a company created by the German immigrants Sigmund Florsheim and his son Milton S. Florsheim.

After innumerable vicissitudes of the marketplace, the company is now back under the full ownership of The Florsheim family.

Here is where a punchline would be, if I bothered to write one.

---

John King holds a PhD in English from Purdue University, and an MFA from New York University. He has reviewed performances for Shakespeare Bulletin.