Snow came to the high country just in time for all the national media crews in town for Monday Night Football to get some pictures of the white stuff — to add to their thousands of images of the floods that inundated much of Colorado this month, leaving behind mounds of mud and hundreds of millions of dollars in destruction.
And it looks like an additional casualty of the destruction, at least for now, could be the rollout of that new Colorado icon. When it was announced last month, the idea was to incorporate the icon whenever new signage went up around the state. And there will certainly be plenty of signs marking all those repair projects, but the green-and-white triangle — ironic that it looks so much like a warning sign — is not the Colorado symbol that people have been clinging to during these trying times.
Instead, the iconic C from the Colorado flag is more popular than ever, popping up on everything from decals stuck on the helmets of Colorado State University players and the jackets of their coaches during this past weekend's much-watched Alabama game to numerous flood-victim benefit posters to T-shirts proclaiming solidarity with Colorado. But the most omnipresent image may be the one designed by Littleton artist Scott Brooks, who created a picture he dubbed "Protected by Love" as the floodwaters were rising on Thursday, September 12, and slapped on his Facebook profile that morning. Friends quickly adopted it for their own profiles, and by day's end, "Protected by Love," shown above, had gone viral. See more of the flood of art inspired by this disaster on the Latest Word.
**********The real thing: It's been a while since any of Denver's big athletes starred in a good reality-show drama, possibly since the halcyon days of La La's Full Court Wedding, the 2010 VH1 reality show that followed La La Vazquez as she planned her wedding to then-Denver Nugget Carmelo Anthony. Well, let's rephrase that: It's been a while since any of Denver's big athletes starred in some good reality-show drama — on purpose. Broncos linebacker Von Miller has certainly been dealing with a fair bit of reality, and drama, over the past few months, as have some of his teammates.
But the Mile High City is now set for not just one, but two reality shows focusing on Denver athletes. The first is Eric & Jessie: Game On, which appears to focus on the wedding and day-to-day amazingness of dreamy Broncos receiver Eric Decker and his wife, country singer Jessie James — who, it was revealed last week, are expecting a baby. But this is not surprising if you catch the preview's focus on sex. With any luck, one episode will delve into the reasons that Decker sucked so badly in his first game of the season against the Baltimore Ravens. The show debuts on the E! Network on Sunday, September 29, just hours after the Broncos play the Philadelphia Eagles.
And then there's Millionaire's Mama's Boy, which is supposed to debut sometime this year (we're guessing it will be near the start of the NBA season) on the Oprah Winfrey Network and star eccentric Denver Nuggets center JaVale McGee and his outspoken mother, former WNBA basketball star Pamela McGee.
"Famous for being domineering on and off the court, Pamela is not only JaVale's mom, she's also his business manager, working to build an empire while trying to keep a tight rein on the glitz and girls that come with the life of an NBA star," reads an announcement for the show. "Meanwhile, Pamela's managing her own life, which consists of her equally fabulous single girlfriends who also have sons coming up in the league. When Pamela needs someone to laugh with or a shoulder to cry on, she turns to her girls. Like Pamela, they are single mothers raising their sons while dating and chasing their own ambitions...Ultimately, it's a show about family, love and the unbreakable bond between a mother and her son; all seven feet of him."
Will this show rise to the occasion?
