It’s getting harder and harder for Denver audiences to see their hometown hero and Last Comic Standing winner Josh Blue, as he’s booked solid through June 2007, headlining rooms all over the nation. Sure, those glued to the city’s comedy scene can catch him every now and again when he…
It’s a dog-eat-dog world. But while this story in no way involves a canine actually consuming another canine, it does involve a dog. And a diamond ring. Michael McCullough has been in Colorado for two months, having moved here from Michigan, where he attended Michigan State and at some point…
When I first moved into my house, there were three purchases I intended to make immediately. I wanted a barbecue, on which I could quickly determine what foods can be grilled. What’s cooking tonight, Adam? Glad you asked: macaroni and cheese, Hot Pockets and flan. The second buy would be…
Dan Heidel met Qusair Mohamedbhai while waiting for the bus. Every weekday morning, Heidel would walk from his apartment to the stop at Ninth and Downing, then catch the #12 bus to the Brown Palace Hotel, where he worked as an assistant comptroller. It was his routine: He knew the…
And a good morning to you, too, assembled Chipotle executives! Please allow me to begin by thanking you for taking time out of your busy schedules to hear some of my ideas for your new marketing campaign. We at the What’s So Funny? ad agency realize you have your choice…
Since the rise of the Internet, whenever the subject of “kids these days” comes up, someone inevitably points out that the kids just have too much information to deal with. It’s the go-to excuse. Heinous SAT scores? Well, what did you expect, what with all that information being forced down…
Had Ben Kweller been alive and making music during the ’70s, he would have made a killing writing theme songs for classic television shows. His best tracks feature catchy melodies that build and singsong choruses that just smack of we’re-gonna-make-it-after-all optimism. One minute you want to cry, the next you…
You don’t get to be a man of Dealin’ Doug’s stature without understanding the first rule of celebrity: Always leave them wanting more. I learned this over drinks with the automobile baron himself. Oh, you didn’t hear? Dealin’ Doug and I had a drink together. No big deal. Except that…
If Jenny Lewis has learned anything from her high-profile friends and semi-frequent collaborators Conor Oberst and Ben Gibbard, it’s this: The bigger you get, the more people hate on you, so let the authenticity of the music be the final word. Nowhere is this lesson more obvious than on Lewis’s…
If I were promoting a baseball team, I would make sure that the seats closest to the field were always filled. That way, even if there weren’t that many fans in the stadium — because, say, their team had pretty much ensured its sixth consecutive losing season by that point…
I’m having a housewarming party at my new pad this weekend. If you don’t know about it already, that’s because you’re not invited. The house isn’t all that big and can’t accommodate the barbarous hordes I’d like, but I imagine we’ll reach at least thirty or forty peeps, maybe peak…
I have a message for the baristas at the Starbucks at Sixth and Broadway: tall café mocha, whipped cream, hot, not cold. There will be occasional days when I request a piece of your pumpkin loaf, but please do me the extreme favor of not assuming that I want it…
The last time I eagerly waited in line for something, it was a Dave Matthews concert. Yes, I know that’s gay. But there was a time when the Dave Matthews Band severely rocked my world. Severely. That time was 1997. And while the rest of my high school firmly embraced…
See if you can figure out this dream. I’m in the swank penthouse of a mammoth New York City hotel, and my whole family is there: mom, dad, both sisters. They’re occupying themselves the way peripheral characters in dreams tend to, and I’ve got my eyes glued to the horizon,…
As the rest of the country watched Last Comic Standing, fell in love with Josh Blue and on August 9 voted him the winner, the people of Denver thought one thing: “Isn’t that the same Josh Blue who appeared on the cover of Westword a year ago?” Trust me, that’s…
You might think it’s hard for a 24-year-old who doesn’t binge-drink or do drugs and is staying celibate until marriage to relate to the rest of Gen Y. But Rory Vaden is down, as evidenced by this April 12 entry on his blog, titled “Discipline of Rap”: Believe it or…
Rory Vaden does not believe in luck. More than anything else, he believes in discipline. It’s his mantra, his ethos, the single factor responsible for everything that he has achieved so far in his young life, and for everything that he will achieve. In a blog entry on www.disciplinedynamic.com, his…
When Jeff Tweedy talks, people listen. And if they don’t, well, he makes them. Just ask anyone who caught the cantankerous alt-country troubadour’s solo show at the Gothic Theatre last February. Dressed in Bob Dylan’s beard, Tweedy brooded across the stage with his guitar and harmonica, demanding absolute silence from…
Mayor Hickenlooper, I believe I speak for all of Park Hill when I say bienvenue, bienvenidos and welkommen to the neighborhood. And while I understand full well that your reported move to the tree-filled east Denver nook that so lovingly reared me is not yet definite, I choose to ignore…
Kids say the darnedest things. Once when I was substitute-teaching a third-grade class in east Denver, I went around the room and asked every student, one by one, what they wanted to be when they grew up. It’s a hackneyed gimmick, I know, but you wouldn’t believe some of the…
“Form another pyramid, look how we slid/All over Park Hill, Stapleton politic/On a twenty-dollar bill all in it together/You can’t fuck with this stormy weather, yaknahmean?” Indeed we do, Mr. Cappadonna, indeed we do. And similarly, when your Wu-Tang Clan protégé Masta Killa tells us that “It’s Brooklawn day, Pinkhouse…
There are things that I’ll miss about my apartment. Riding my bike around City Park in the early evenings, studying the birds. The way the moon drifted across the eastern set of windows like a lunar clock tracking the progress of the night. Then again, there are things I won’t…
