So I’m innocently sitting at the Haywood Road co-op, enjoying a cone from Ultimate Ice Cream (a business newly opened in the back of the market) and idly scanning a bulletin board in the dining area as I worry my single scoop of mango sorbet. My eyes land on a flier for a July 20 show featuring the Good Old Boyz, a local classic-country-flavored band whose members include ex-Blue Rags Woody “Hollywood Red” Wood and Scott Sharpe. Both were wearing near-identical pairs of what have to be the most unattractive eyeglasses ever to grace the faces of scrawny fashionable musicians. C’mon, guys, you can do better than that! Those glasses look like prison-issue, or what might have been worn by one of the extras on an episode of “CHiPs” circa 1977: You know, the dude at the key party who’s on the lam, macking on a nubile Cheryl Tiegs look-a-like before she decides she wants a piece of Ponch instead. For Woody, I’d suggest some classic rocker glasses instead — either Buddy Holly thick-and-black or little round Lennon frames. As for Sharpe, who was born in the wrong century anyway — 150 years ago, he’d be the scoundrelly British troubadour serenading the king’s wife outside her boudoir, only to be beheaded the next day — he could probably pull off some Victorian-style pince-nez glasses on a chain. … In the name of fairness, I’ll admit that not too long ago I had to acquire a pair of glasses myself, though I can barely remember to wear them. They’re pink, and it’s easy to tire of pink glasses. It sucks to be 36.
—Melanie McGee Bianchi
Sorry Melanie. If I were still interested in anyone’s fashion advice, would I be more likely to take it from a newspaper writer or a musician? You guess.
Good to see the “image is everything” campaign still has its supporters. What kind of socks were they wearing?