If you're not one of the many people left homeless in America from whats been happening in the past couple years, you probably still spend your every waking moment on the Internet researching and shopping for shit you dont need. That's what I started doing early this winter when I was searching for the Marmot Mammoth, the jacket that the kids call the Biggie. The Biggie has enjoyed some less-than-flattering press in the past year or two when twice in the news kids in the Bronx were killed over their big-ass jackets. Then a couple weeks ago, another kid was in the Post for getting mercked over his Biggie in the LES. Black kids get killed all the time in New York City, and that shit is rarely in the news but I guess when the media sees a chance to paint minority children as savages who care more about a status symbol that human life, they jump on it like it's their job. (Even though when you think about it we're all just savages who care more about status symbols than other people. But that's for another time.)If you didn't grow up Uptown or in the Bronx and you've never heard of this thing, it's not a big surprise. I grew up not even realizing the Biggie was even so regional and hadn't thought about Marmots in years until I started seeing a resurgence on the 1 Train of kids rocking their big-ass, bright-ass Merms. So, to fill the rest of you in, part of the mystique of the Biggie is that it comes in really bright colors (different ones every year), is sold exclusively through Paragon Sports, and retails for $630. That's right, six hundred and thirty fucking dollars. I copped the black one with gold on the inside, but now I feel weird rocking it unless I'm wearing some shoes I know I can run really fast in.There's a lot of wild shit you can find on the Internet about this motherfucker if you have problems sleeping and nothing fucking better to do. For one, there's the "Reviews" section on the Paragon page, which will have a dude from Upstate being like, "I love this jacket. I wear it to all my son's soccer games!" and then someone named Yung Stone from 119th and Lexington who wrote TWO SEPERATE REVIEWS (you can tell he didn't just double-post because they're worded differently) talking about how he hopes they come out with electric blue to match the foamposites. Also pretty much every review is from a New Yorker telling you that if you're from New York you shouldn't cop one or you will be robbed.On YouTube there's a dude from Washington Heights named Alacka Simon who's got a song over the "On to the Next One" beat called, ready? "On to the Next Biggie." At one point he's wearing TWO yellow Biggies at the same time (I see you baby). Also theres a video called "Vado Going Ham in a Blue Biggie" which is… something.There's also a very confusing Facebook page dedicated to the Biggie where people seem to be trading mostly Biggies, Montclers, and Pelle Pelles. Half of these guys exclude crucial information like size or color; I got frustrated just imagining trying to coordinate any kind of real transaction with any one of these individuals.Anyways, the important thing I took away from all this is if I ever feel like I just can't take it any more, I can just put on my Biggie and come out of the house doing something vaguely provacative and I'll promptly explode in a whirlwind of blood and goose down. In the end, isn't that what we all really want?Lakutis is a male rapper. He's on Twitter - @LAKUTIS
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