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Winnipeg Free Press

Happy to make a spectacle of himself, it's pub staffer's daily duty to don a unique pair of sunglasses

The future's so bright, they've gotta wear shades. Vancouver resident Lori-Ann Keenan always dreamed of having her name appear among the Guinness World Records, the British publication that since 1955 has been charting an array of remarkable human accomplishments, such as the fastest-run marathon by a person dressed as an elf (2:58:16), the longest standup comedy routine (40 hours and eight minutes) and the most baked beans eaten in under 60 seconds using chopsticks (59). At first, Keenan, an author and entrepreneur, wasn't sure what sort of record she should set her sights on. However, after reading about an 87-year-old Hawaiian woman who in 2015 was recognized by Guinness adjudicators for possessing the world's largest collection of sunglasses — 1,506 individual pairs — she had her answer. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS James Brown has posted a selfie every day this year of himself wearing a unique pair of sunglasses and there's no sign — based on the volume of shades at his disposal — of him slowing down anytime soon. 'OK, well I can't eat 18 hot dogs in 30 seconds, and I can't put 500 cigarettes in my mouth but I could do… sunglasses. And that's when I started,' Keenan told reporters in June 2019 when news spread that she had realized her goal by amassing 2,174 pairs of shades. 'You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find 2,000 pairs of sunglasses that are completely different,' she went on, sporting a pair of red-tinted specs at a press conference. 'It's a big job.' Closer to home, Corydon Avenue resident James Brown is in the midst of a sunglasses undertaking of his own, though he readily admits he has a long way to go if he intends to surpass his Vancouver counterpart in the record books. Since New Year's Day, Brown, a shaggy-haired sort who has never met a band T-shirt he didn't love, has posted daily pics of himself on social media. Each photo shows him parked on a tan-coloured couch in his living room donning a new pair of sunglasses chosen from a personal cache he keeps on a multi-tiered shelving unit together with records, CDs and assorted items from his childhood. 'Honestly, when I started this whole thing, I didn't even know how many pairs I had,' he says, throwing on a pair of aviator sunglasses, a style featuring bold rims and thick temples favoured by Elvis Presley, one of his rock 'n' roll heroes. (To prove his point he breaks into an a cappella version of Patch It Up, from Presley's That's the Way It Is album.) 'Don't get me wrong — it's been a hoot and people seem to be getting a big kick out of it — but if I'd known it was going to go this long, I might have thought twice.' 'I've already told all my buddies that when I'm finally done with sunglasses, I'll host a big party where everybody can come over and pick out a pair to take home'–James Brown Brown, 55, grew up in the North End but has lived in the Earl Grey neighbourhood for most of his adult life, save for a short period in his 20s when he moved to B.C. After playing guitar in his fair share of 'crappy' bands, he landed a job booking acts and handling the sound board at the Cavern, a subterranean Osborne Village watering hole that closed in 2019. He has carried out much the same duties at the King's Head Pub for the past five years, and if there is one thing the Exchange District hot spot has in common with his former workplace, it's the inordinate number of sunglasses he and his co-workers discover strewn under tables at the end of the evening, when they turn the house lights on. 'Almost always it's cheap plastic pairs that get handed out for birthday or bachelorette parties. They end up in our lost-and-found box for months without ever getting claimed and that's what gave me the idea for this project,' he says. Bright and early on Jan. 1, a few hours after party band Doctor Rocktopus packed the pub's dance floor, Brown posted a shot of himself on Facebook wearing a pair of pink wraparound sunglasses — he calls them his Bret 'the Hit Man' Hart specimens — along with the message, 'Did you ever go to the bar & lose your sunglasses? Well I work at that bar & I found 'em!' He added that he had recently noticed his 'pile of shades is MASSIVE,' and that he was interested in seeing how many days in a row he could go before running out of a different pair to slap on. 'Betcha I make it to my birthday (June 23),' he added. Well, we're happy to report that over 120 days later, Brown and his shades are still going strong. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS There's no shortage of shades to be found at Brown's workplace, the King's Head Pub, where cheap plastic pairs are routinely left behind at night's end. Last week, on Day 113, he donned a heart-shaped pair, with a rainbow arching between the lenses. Days before that, on an afternoon when the temperature outside climbed to 20 C, he appeared in a pair made to look like yellow daisies, writing 'FINALLY! SPRING!' as the caption. To date he has sported everything from thrift-store finds to more expensive Dolce & Gabbanas to, on Day 36, a pair of 3-D sunglasses he's held onto for 25-plus years. 'Back in the '90s I used to work at HMV. I scored a lot of free swag at that gig,' he wrote that morning, explaining 'the '90s hip-hop rapper Nas had an album called Nastradamus and these glasses came with the CD.' Wednesdays A weekly look towards a post-pandemic future. In addition to sunglasses Brown has scooped up on his own — Flamingo glasses? Check. Super Mario? Check. Valentine's Day? The Easter bunny? Check and check — he's also been on the receiving end of gifts from people who've been following his antics online, some of whom are complete strangers. 'As this has gotten more popular, people I don't even know have approached me at the bar or Safeway or wherever. They're like, 'I love the sunglasses thing and the effort you're putting in,' then, while they're shaking my hand, they hand me a couple of pairs. I guess they're afraid I'm eventually going to run out, and they want me to keep 'er going.' MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS What started as a lark for Brown, has turned into a months-long streak of daily social media posts sporting different pairs of sunglasses. Sinden Carswell is the lead singer of Cross Roads, a Top 40 band that performs at the King's Head on a regular basis. Carswell and her bandmates were made aware of Brown's sunglasses venture and, in early March, dedicated their rendition of the Corey Hart smash Sunglasses at Night to him. 'We did it while all wearing a pair of funny sunglasses, and I even changed the lyrics of the first verse to I wear my sunglasses at night / so I can leave them at the King's Head for James Brown,' Carswell says with a chuckle. 'After our performance I gave James the pair of checkerboard glasses I was wearing to add to his collection because he indicated that he liked them so much.' This weekend, the members of Cross Roads have a second surprise for Brown. A couple of weeks ago they had a T-shirt produced with their image on it, labelled 'Cross Roads Sunglasses at Night Tour 2025.' 'We had it made for him and we'll be presenting it to him for our next King's Head gig,' Carswell says. (What's next on the setlist? ZZ Top's Cheap Sunglasses? Boys of Summer — You got your hair slicked back and those Wayfarers on, baby — by Don Henley?) 'Like I said, I didn't really plan on this going for more than a month or two, so it's been a fun surprise,' Brown says. 'It's a nice feeling when somebody out of the blue goes, 'I like what you're doing there.' It makes my day.' Still, Brown doubts he'll miss what for the time being is a daily ritual when it eventually comes to a close. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS Brown with some of the pairs in his collection. 'I collect lots of other things — Hot Wheels, guitar picks, fridge magnets, Kinder egg toys — so you never know, I might be back with something else. I'm a single guy with lots of time on my hands, sometimes a little too much,' he says, nodding toward a wall in his apartment he has adorned with 13,000 glued-on googly eyes, those small black-and-white crafting pieces used to mimic eyeballs. 'I've already told all my buddies that when I'm finally done with sunglasses, I'll host a big party where everybody can come over and pick out a pair to take home. I mean, if there's any here you have your eye on, by all means, be my guest.' David Sanderson Dave Sanderson was born in Regina but please, don't hold that against him. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.