From Oktoberfest to the Night Market, a Dozen Free Things to Do in Denver This Weekend
The last time I can recall seeing this city even vaguely like it is right now — mired in a whirlwind of excitement over the Democratic National Convention — was in 2005, when we hosted the NBA All-Star Game. Then, as now, Denver was aflame with gawkers and groupies, holier-than-thou…
One-thirty in the afternoon on a blistering Monday in late July, and the Flobots are hardly forming like Voltron. The tour bus was supposed to leave from this Save-A-Lot off Federal Boulevard at 12 p.m. sharp to make it to a gig tomorrow night in Dallas as part of the…
A job is a job is a job. No matter how cool it is, there will be days when you hate it, guaranteed. Your job could be receiving blow jobs, and eventually there will come a day when you walk into the office and think to yourself, “Jesus Christ, I…
(Read more tales of soccer fanaticism — including a breakdown of some of the game’s greatest disasters and the story of Spain’s biggest rivalry — at the Latest Word blog.) As part of this year’s season-ticket holder package for the Colorado Rapids, fans were offered the choice of attending a…
(See Adam Cayton-Holland’s “DNC Orientation Video” at Demver, Westword’s DNC blog.) What is it about a completely and utterly media-saturated event that makes me want to turn my pen away from my reporter’s notepad and violently stab it into my eyeball? It could be that since I am allegedly a…
When I was a pup coming up, if you made the East High School Boys’ Varsity Soccer Team, you landed in City Park Lake. I do not know if this tradition persists, but ten years ago, it was a given — as intrinsic to the institution as fights in the…
If you don’t know who Todd Barry is, you should. The twenty-year comedy vet has performed all over the world, honing a dry, deadpan delivery that has allowed him to say things about himself such as “The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen said I was the best comic once”…
In the soccer world, the term “friendly” can be a very deceptive one. It refers to a match with no actual implications, no qualifications on the line — just a good-natured gathering between two teams with nothing to lose or gain. In reality, though, friendlies are typically anything but. And…
Every once in a while, you meet a guy who’s so annoyingly Colorado that you might as well call him ‘Rado. To merely say that this man possesses qualities characteristic of the Centennial State does not do him justice. Because that could also cover the ranchhand who screwed around a…
I remember a time when this city was actually manly, when big, bloated hombres wore mustaches and didn’t take shit off anybody. Beef was always what was for dinner, and if you ordered it prepared any higher than medium rare, you got slapped in the mouth for being a pussy…
During major international soccer tournaments, my friend Darren and I are in almost constant contact. We’re either watching games together or texting back and forth about the games. And since Euro 2008 has been in full swing since the beginning of this month, I’ve been getting lots of texts and…
Dear Book Person, Ask any gifted, but not talented sixth-grader what Vincent Van Gogh did. “He cut off his ear and sold one painting in his lifetime.” What an underachiever! I cut off my arm during a psychotic episode. I was a promising stand up comic in Denver, twice voted…
Clear Creek Annabel Lee, my purebred Chessie she-bitch, has successfully graduated from puppy kindergarten. Please feel free to express your congratulations in the form of emphatic atta-boy slaps on my ass. In addition to “sit” and “give me five” — tricks that I taught young Annabel myself — as a…
Everyone knows that 27 is the rock-star death year. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison — they all died at that very young age. Naturally, it made sense to assume that I would pass then, too. What’s So Funny is to humor columns what Hendrix was to guitar: on drugs…
Sunday nights are bad for me. Maybe it’s because I stay out till God knows when on Fridays and Saturdays chasing after God knows what. Or maybe it’s just typical American dread. Monday morning, back to school, back to the office, back to reality. Whatever it is, I’m never able…
I was up on stage, midway through some new routine that I would probably never use again, floundering, when a man walked off of Colfax and straight into infamy. He was frazzled and drugged-out-looking — nothing out of the ordinary for a Tuesday-night comedy open-mike at the Squire Lounge. Unlike…
Jessica Young can remember the exact moment when politics infiltrated what was until then her exclusively biological viewpoint regarding the Gunnison sage grouse. “I was out to breakfast with a lot of different guys from the Division of Wildlife,” says Young, then a visiting scholar at Western State College of…
This past Saturday, a column appeared in the Rocky Mountain News under the headline “At ‘Westword,’ the sh— must go on.” The piece was penned by a balding man named Dave Kopel, and the two dashes in the headline weren’t referring to “show.” No, Kopel was citing our rag’s predilection…
I wanted to get above thirty. Thirty sounded respectable: the number of days in June, the number of minutes it’s safe to stare at Rachael Ray before your head explodes. Thirty would be an accomplishment, something I could brag to people about and they’d stare back at me, impressed, and…
I was scrolling through my DVR listings last week, dutifully recording Top Chef and Escape to Chimp Eden — yes, I know I could do a series recording and save time, but I hate series recording, because your box always picks up every episode aired, and just like that, 40…
Truth be told, El Hijo del Santo probably could have ridden comfortably on his father’s coattails. The son of legendary professional wrestler and Mexican icon El Santo, El Hijo was born into a large shadow and could easily have cashed in on his father’s good fake name. But Mexican wrestlers…
While most people lament their fate when they find themselves seated in a cubicle, typing away while surrounded by others doing the exact same thing, like some sort of sad-sack, plugged-in prairie-dog colony, me not so much. Because I have embraced my prairie-dog status and created a series of escape…
