People & Places

He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere! When Bill Gates came to town, who sat up front, looking more Microsofty than Gates himself? John Hickenlooper. When it’s time to pick a new architect for the Denver Art Museum, who will be putting his Beatlemania-coiffed head next to that of First Lady Wilma Webb? John Hickenlooper. Ever since the self-professed recovering geologist got involved with Denver’s first brewpub — the now venerable Wynkoop Brewing Company — he’s been a landmark on our local scene, albeit a rather peripatetic one. And with his latest crusade, Hickenlooper’s really standing tall: The Wynkoop is now serving as headquarters for the campaign to save the Mile High Stadium name, a fight armed not just with sentiment, but hard economic facts. Cheers!

And we’re talking a big party, too — a genuine blowout downtown, where Denver residents can dance in the streets instead of being tossed off of them by jackbooted cops, as they were during last year’s party-pooping December 31 crackdown. Hey, it wasn’t the real start to the millennium, anyway, city officials belatedly pointed out. So true. And now we’re expecting big things from Denver on December 31, 2000, starting with a downtown open house complete with entertainment and ending with fireworks at Coors Field. Any chance of that? Stay tuned, says mayoral spokesman Andrew Hudson: Wellington Webb will discuss this very topic during his annual State of the City speech in early July.

Readers’ choice: Multi-block party

When he was alive, cable mogul Bill Daniels was known for his generosity toward employees and colleagues alike, helping dozens of locals launch their own businesses. When he passed away earlier this year, Daniels left the bulk of his $1.4 billion estate to create a foundation that will become Colorado’s largest, giving out 5 percent of its assets every year. About 75 percent of the foundation’s annual donations will be made in Colorado, but Daniels didn’t forget our neighboring states: the other 25 percent is earmarked for Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico. Education and health care are expected to be priorities for the new Daniels Fund, and Coloradans should have reason to be grateful to Daniels for years to come.

Escuela Guadalupe is a small private endeavor developed under the wing of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, itself a cast-iron anchor in the midst of a community torn by poverty and struggle. The school debuted last year, catering only to students in kindergarten through grade two. But small isn’t necessarily problematic; in fact, it’s the escuela’s saving grace: Offering straightforward bilingual education in intimate, uncrowded classrooms with help from parents, who are required to volunteer a certain number of hours to the school annually, its goal is to challenge students without compromising their ability to learn. Next fall, the plan is to begin adding grades as the original student body matures, giving kids who might have been chewed up and spit out in the public schools a chance to excel all the way up to the eighth grade. ¡Viva la escuela!

Kids will be kids, and that’s the real beauty of this project: Fourth- and fifth-grade “history detectives” at Dora Moore School did all the legwork for the Women of the West Museum’s Denver Neighborhood Women’s History Trail project, the first link in what museum officials hope will one day become an interconnected trail through the West designed to acknowledge the oft-unrecognized historical and community-building contributions of strong and singular women. They did it with the kind of uncontainable enthusiasm and grace only a kid can muster, and the resulting brochure and tour proved both fun and fascinating.

At CU’s main library, you can absorb the works of Aristotle, Socrates, Petrarch, Shakespeare, Kant, Crumb, Trudeau and the Marquis de Sade by way of osmosis as you nap luxuriously in one of the many study cubicles or on the couches that have been conveniently interspersed throughout. There’s nothing more impressive to a smart gal or guy than someone lying there, drooling on himself with an open copy of Plato’s Republic draped across his chest. You can even nod off reading the New York Times or the Economist in the library’s periodicals room. If you’re lucky, your dreams will be filled with images of Alan Greenspan sitting George W. Bush Jr. on his knee and explaining the importance of the Federal Reserve.

Most people prefer to nod off in their own homes or offices, but then again, not every home or office has central air conditioning. So why not head over to the three-month homes/offices of our elected lawmakers? Take a seat in one of the big, comfy chairs in a basement committee meeting room, where the temperature stays at a moderate seventy degrees, put your head back, and do what the legislators do: Dream about getting something accomplished. As an added benefit, the droning of whatever distinguished gentleman or gentlewoman has the floor will knock you out like a lullaby. Sleep tight!

It’s fashionable in architecture to put up new buildings in styles that date back a hundred years. But many of these new old-timey buildings are too conservative to be visually interesting. Not so for the 1899 Wynkoop Building, which was developed by the Nichols Partnership and Loftus Development and designed by Sheers + Leese Associates and the Neenan Company. The particulars of the handsome neo-traditional building were worked out by Chris Sheers to complement its next-door neighbor, the beloved Ice House. With design oversight by the Colorado Historical Foundation, the bulk of the building — which according to zoning could have been a skyscraper — was downsized in a deal that allowed the developers to punch windows in the formerly windowless walls of the Ice House. The tradeoff was necessary because, surprisingly, the Ice House and nearby Union Station aren’t within the boundaries of the landmark district, like the rest of LoDo, and therefore not protected. In spite of this, the building fits in and is a lot better than what we might have expected.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people were so excited by the development of the electric light that they found applications for it that we can hardly imagine today, like attaching bare lightbulbs to oak beams. One forgotten device was bathing a building’s facade in light after nightfall. When Silversmith Cohen began to rehab the old Chamber of Commerce building — which was designed by Denver architects Marean and Norton in 1909 — in order to turn it into the Chamber Apartments, they found, first in local history books, and then buried in the terra cotta on the building itself, a hidden indirect lighting system. But like the rest of the place, the wiring was decrepit. The system was refitted to state-of-the-art standards, and this spring, though the building itself isn’t finished, the electricity was turned on again. Now this old-fashioned light show is one of downtown’s brightest spots.

Cherry Creek has undergone relentless change in the last ten years, and although the neighborhood has never been more alive with shoppers and residents, the new buildings being thrown up to accommodate them are…not so alive. Among the ugly new additions, however, is an elite but ever-dwindling group of gorgeous older buildings that have long defined Cherry Creek as a center of urbane luxury. None of these is more beautiful or more impeccably maintained than the Ilona of Hungary building. Designed by the Denver architectural firm of Frank & Lundquist, the white building has a muscular frame of exposed structural members that elegantly contrasts with the delicately pierced sunscreens that shelter it. The suave 1970s confection communicates the dedication to beauty that is the chief pursuit at Ilona of Hungary, a European-style spa and a health- and beauty-aids manufacturer. The company was founded by George Meszaros, a world-renowned beauty consultant, and his wife, Ilona. The two were 1940s emigrés from Hungary who met in this country and moved to Denver in the 1960s for our then-clean air. Hopefully, the just-announced plan to renovate the building will do nothing to spoil its swank character.

I-70 commuters call it “the flying-saucer house” or “the Sleeper house,” after its cameo appearance in a Woody Allen movie, but architect Charles Deaton considered it a personal statement of freedom. The acquisition of Deaton’s masterpiece by software mogul John Huggins, after years of neglect by a previous owner, is good news for all lovers of non-Euclidean geometry. Huggins is investing the care and cash needed to finish the interior of the never-occupied house with the aid of Deaton’s designing daughter, Charlee. He’s also building an addition, following the plans drawn up by Deaton (who died a few years ago) and local architect Nicholas Antonopoulos of Praxis Design. When completed this summer, the result will be an incredible mountain retreat — and the unique vision of an important artist realized at last.

In 1992, despite its charming 1920s Italian Renaissance revival style, the venerable old Midland Building had been written off by everyone, including the city’s hardcore preservationists. Believe it or not, the high-rise wasn’t, at the time, considered to be historically valuable. The fact that it was designed by one of Denver’s greatest early-twentieth-century architectural firms, Fisher and Fisher, didn’t seem to matter, either. Luckily, the building’s developers, Corum Real Estate Group, skipped the possibility of a surface parking lot at the site and instead decided to take advantage of downtown’s boom times by turning the Midland Building into residential lofts. Now, as the redo moves toward completion, no one would doubt the building’s historic credentials or its value to downtown’s architectural diversity. One great challenge for the restoration architect, Paul Bergner (in consultation with David Owen Tryba), was the need to re-create the exterior massing and details of the first floor and mezzanine, which had been lost in a misguided 1970s rehab. The project reminds us that in historic preservation — as in baseball — it ain’t over till it’s over.

It was downright bizarre. Over the last decade, one LoDo building after another has been cleaned up and given renewed life. But until late last year, the neighborhood’s grand dame, the Sugar Building, and her Wazee Street consort, the Sugar Building Annex, stood right in the middle of this urban revival, empty and neglected. Both of these early-twentieth-century modernist buildings were designed by the distinguished Denver architectural firm of Gove and Walsh — which also did Union Station and the Ice House — and built as offices for the Great Western Sugar Company. Finally, a specially created corporation, Sugar Cubed LLC, stepped up last year. The restoration job it commissioned is fabulous and extremely light-handed. Credit for that goes to Josh Comfort, the Denver architect who let the beauty of the original buildings shine through. LoDo renovations are already old news, but thankfully, two of its best buildings didn’t miss out.

Readers’ choice: Forney Museum/REI

The widow of Bob Magness, legendary founder of cable company TCI, Sharon Magness is one society lady who’s concerned with more than just fashion shows and stuffy luncheons — though she seems to like those, too — and she’s become Denver’s go-to woman for those in need. While Magness is involved with many of the groups traditionally patronized by Denver’s elite, including the Denver Art Museum and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, she also gave $250,000 to the campaign to replace the library at Columbine High School after the parents of the massacre victims asked the community for help, as well as millions to Volunteers of America, which works with the homeless, the elderly and the destitute. It’s this attention to the most vulnerable Denverites that sets Magness apart from the rest. Well, that and her tendency to arrive at black-tie dinners astride her Arabian horse Thunder, the Broncos’ mascot.

High-rises have been popping up like mushrooms in the past year, but instead of being downtown, most of them are in the suburbs, where it seems that every community is creating its own skyscraper park — just about all of which have been soaring successes. The first and foremost of these many decentralized central business districts is the Denver Tech Center and its adjacent developments in south Denver, Greenwood Village and Cherry Hills Village, where it has been the tradition to build high-style examples of cutting-edge contemporary architecture. The latest masterpiece to adorn the south corridor is the Hines Tower, a neo-modern sculptural triumph by Pickard Chilton Architects of New Haven, Connecticut. Made of polished metal and tinted glass that has been as carefully detailed as a piece of jewelry, the thirteen-story building was assembled in a complicated group of volumes and shapes that have been clustered and stacked. The shiny metal framework grid that envelops the curtain walls makes the building appear taller, because the position of the interior’s floors cannot be seen from the outside, as is typically done. Even among its handsome neighbors in and around the DTC, many of them visible from I-25, the sharp-looking Hines tower stands out.

Call it monstrous or magnificent, bombastic or beautiful. That the spanking-new Daniel L. Ritchie Center for Sports and Wellness at the University of Denver could elicit such a wide range of responses suggests the aesthetic power of the $70 million athletic facility. Designed by Denver architect Cabell Childress, with technical support from the Davis Partnership, the center opened last fall, but some finishing touches — like a gigantic ceramic tile mural by Maynard Tishler — are still being applied. The focal point of the whole thing is its impressive and overscaled gothic tower, which is surrounded by a dizzying array of rectilinear wings. But there’s also the inspired and mind-boggling abundance of expensive materials, like the two-tone sandstone and limestone on some of the exterior walls, the copper sheeting around the rest, or the gold leaf that has been generously applied to the tower’s conical roof. More than anything else, it was Childress’s ambitious vision and DU’s apparently very deep pockets that made the postmodern Ritchie Center the best of the many buildings that rose from the ground in Denver last year.

Readers’ choice: The Pepsi Center

Central Denver’s ongoing renaissance has finally caught up with Denver’s main street. Once a lively and attractive urban boulevard, East Colfax went into a tailspin in the 1960s, attracting a mix of porno theaters, bars and fast-food joints. Over the years, many people simply avoided the thoroughfare altogether, overlooking the fact that it still had several fine historic buildings as well as some of Denver’s funkiest retail stores. Now Colfax has turned the corner, and people are finally rediscovering the potential of downtown’s doorstep. More than a dozen buildings have recently been renovated, the Fillmore Auditorium brings in world-famous musicians, and loft and office conversions have delivered a jolt of energy. Let’s hope East Colfax can hang on to its offbeat spirit as the developers move in so that Denver will have a main street it can truly be proud of.

The wild card on Channel 2’s nutty new morning program, Dan Daru has become the loopiest a.m. performer since chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs was booted off the Today show. With his backward cap, manic delivery and energy enough to power New York City for the next hundred years, Daru, who’s married to the station’s nighttime anchor, Wendy Brockman, is blessedly unconcerned about embarrassing himself. And why not? After all, that’s his job.

She rocks!

He’ll give it to you straight.

The cut that adorns Kyle Dyer, who co-hosts Channel 9’s morning block, seems simple, but it’s deceptively complex. Her swingy, springy helmet of black hair represents a style midway between pixie and Prince Valiant that’s perfect for a woman on the move. You go, girl.

Readers’ choice: Aimee Sporer, Channel 4

Marc Soicher favors the sort of slicked-back coiffure associated with Miami Heat coach Pat Riley and modern mafiosi; he always seems ready to make his viewers an offer they can’t refuse. The style must be hereditary: Channel 9 sportscaster Drew Soicher, Marc’s brother/doppelganger, wears a version of it, too. Their arrival in the market has meant boom times in the hair-oil industry.

Readers’ choice: Ed Greene, Channel 9

Like a number of other stations, Channel 4 is now supplementing its morning news broadcasts with an info banner that runs along the bottom of the screen. Some of the data presented is superfluous: How many times do we need to see what temperature it’s going to be at noon? But the notes about drive times on major thoroughfares, presented in the simplest, most user-friendly manner possible, are a godsend for anyone who may not have time to stick around for the more complete traffic reports offered up by Luan Akin, local TV’s finest eye in the sky. In addition, Channel 4 continues to offer Pinpoint Traffic, an easy-to-read map that allows viewers to see how their personal drives are moving — or not. Consider these features a road-rage chill pill.

In late August, Channel 7’s helicopter videotaped a car chase that ended with Denver police officers beating the suspects they’d pursued. Not only was the footage a sterling display of pricey, state-of-the-art technology, but it generated some real news by providing graphic evidence of a police department run amok. That’s the kind of thing television is supposed to do.

The Colorado Lottery didn’t think it was taking a gamble when it hired noted local advertising firm Karsh & Hagan Communications to produce its TV ads, and at first the decision paid off. Karsh & Hagan created some excellent and very funny ads, including the “Stranger Things Have Happened” series. In one of those ads, the company used the story of a San Francisco police officer who walked his beat carrying a wooden puppet dressed as a cop. Although his department tried to make him stop, the officer, Bob Geary, went to the media and was allowed to continue carrying Brendan O’Smarty (the dummy) with him. The Colorado Lottery’s luck ran out, however, when Geary sued, claiming the agency had used his likeness without his permission (the case was transferred from San Francisco to Denver in April). In the suit, Geary also claims that the Colorado Lottery used him in order to entice children to gamble. Better luck next time.

Readers’ choice: Rocky’s Auto

It’s too soon to tell if the newscast being assembled for our neighborhood Fox affiliate will be worth a damn. But by raiding high-profile talent such as Ron Zappolo, Tom Martino and Phil Keating, Channel 31 has already thrown a much-needed scare into the complacent folks at the network outlets. This just in: Fox is known for shaking things up.

For years, Marty Coniglio’s weather reports have been Denver’s most accurate. Now he’s finally getting a chance to prove it in prime time — and he’s making the most of it.

Readers’ choice: Mike Nelson, Channel 9

The sportscasters who dominate Denver these days tend to be a bit on the dull side; with rare exceptions, they deliver the scores and highlights with maximum efficiency and minimum flair. But not Vic Lombardi, who’s flashy, funny, energetic and a little off-kilter. He shoots — and he scores!

Readers’ choice: Tom Green, Channel 7

The longtime ratings leader is undergoing a serious brain drain: Ron Zappolo and Phil Keating have already split for Channel 31, and veteran Ed Sardella is retiring from day-to-day duties. So if the station stays aloft, it will be because of Adele Arakawa, who’s solid, forthright, and lends a welcome edge to a broadcast that desperately needs one. Bet against her at your peril.

Readers’ choice: Ed Sardella, Channel 9

Unlike most television execs, Velasquez doesn’t hide behind a desk. Instead, she regularly steps in front of the camera to deliver editorials that have become tougher and more credible as time has worn on. Just as important, she’s inspired the improvement of the station’s once-unwatchable newscast. This return to respectability hasn’t paid off in a larger audience: Channel 7’s ratings remain anemic. But Velasquez deserves credit for focusing on substance over style.

As anyone in Denver who watches the news on anything like a regular basis knows all too well, no area news program is consistently excellent. But there’s little doubt that Channel 7’s 10 p.m. offering is the most improved. The anchor duo of Mitch Jelniker and Anne Trujillo is solid and credible; sports guy Tom Green is a fine writer who’s witty to boot; and Marty Coniglio offers up weather predictions that have a better than even chance of being right. The station seems to have rejected the glitzy, superficial Natalie Pujo/”Real Life, Real News” era once and for all — and thank goodness.

Readers’ choice: Channel 9

Good a.m. television is a matter of balance: It should be bright and sunny enough to motivate viewers out the door, but not so gabby and giddy that folks will be looking for kittens to run over the second they slip behind the wheel. Channel 9 doesn’t always turn this trick; that damn you-made-it-through-the-week song they play every Friday under a montage of wacky anchor antics is a threat to the entire Front Range pussycat population. But main man Gary Shapiro, weather trivialist Ed Greene, business boy Gregg Moss and follicle innovator Kyle Dyer are good company who, on most mornings, mix lighthearted insignificance and actual news in just the right proportions.

Readers’ choice: Channel 9

His hey-dude antics have been an evening staple on KBPI for years — so when the station’s morning show, The Lockerroom, appeared on the verge of cratering (again!), no one was surprised that Willie B. was asked to save the day. What was unexpected, though, was his decision to work days and nights simultaneously; he spends Monday through Friday mornings from 5:30 to 10 a.m. in the company of cohorts Marc Stout and D-Mak (Darren McKee), then returns from 7 to 10 p.m. for a solo stint. Hook that man up to a caffeine IV.

Pleasures don’t get much guiltier than this — but who’s complaining? Although The Sports Zoo can seem downright stupid at times, the unmistakable chemistry between Dave Logan, Scott Hastings and Susie Wargin generally leaves drivers with smiles on their faces. And when you’re stuck on I-25 at 5 o’clock on Friday afternoon, a smile can be a mighty powerful thing.

Most radio programmers believe that the fastest route to big ratings is to ratchet up the obnoxiousness factor — and more often than not, they’re right. But KBCO’s Bret Saunders is the exception to this rule. He’s become one of the most-listened-to personalities on the air by rejecting the usual snickering tag-team byplay in favor of a format that blends good conversation with humor that dares to be smart. Wouldn’t it be nice if this became a trend?

The TV mini-series version of author Lawrence Schiller’s JonBenét Ramsey opus, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, featured numerous area reporters, including Brian Maass and Raj Chohan, portraying themselves — and not once did any of them seem shocked that stooped, bald Colorado Springs investigator Lou Smit was personified by tall, hirsute Kris Kristofferson. Credibility be damned: Give us more face time!

The man who works the late shift, Rick Barber is unique among his contemporaries in that he allows callers and interviewees to yak to their heart’s content instead of cutting them off if they don’t agree with his opinions. There’s a practical reason for this, of course: Because more folks call radio stations at 3 p.m. than 3 a.m., he’s got to make the most of those who do. But his low-key approach is a welcome throwback to the days when talk radio was actually about talking.

The brainchild of Tom Grant and David Lampe, www.localstation.com is an opportunity to hear the finest dance music being made in Colorado and beyond. The site includes numerous channels, tons of archived shows spotlighting genres such as techno and trance, DJ profiles and links aplenty. It’ll make your computer sing.

In last year’s Best of Denver issue, we named KVCU-AM, the radio voice of the University of Colorado at Boulder, “Best Non-Commercial Station.” This year that qualifier deserves to be removed. Although its management and personnel continue to change, the station is the best outlet in the area for intriguing music that hasn’t been beaten to death by repetition. It’s a beacon of creativity in an area that’s all too often an imagination-free zone.

Last October, Clear Channel, the owner of eight radio stations in the Denver area, merged with AMFM, controller of six local signals. Because of FCC regulations, Clear Channel was then forced to divest the half-dozen AMFM properties — and the purchaser of three of them was Infinity Broadcasting, the most prominent challenger to Clear Channel nationwide. The results of these deals won’t be known for a while yet, but they’re likely to lead to a titanic scrap unlike any that Colorado radio observers have ever seen. Let the battle begin.

Once the overseer of six powerful Denver radio outlets owned by Texas-based AMFM, Bob Visotcky was the most controversial figure in Denver radio during 1999 for a slew of reasons, including his defense of Howard Stern in the wake of some controversial post-Columbine comments and his decision to move classical station KVOD from FM to AM, which he figured no one would notice. (He was wrong.) But Clear Channel’s purchase of AMFM meant Visotcky’s days were numbered in Denver; he was shipped out to Los Angeles, where he was sacked in a matter of months. Radio can be a nasty business, even for the people who make it that way.

“Hector” is surreptitious and confused and underappreciated, and, therefore, everything great art ought to be. The cooperatively drawn comic strip is the pet project of Tom Motley; the collective (also called Hector) shifts shape regularly, losing some participants and gaining new ones, inviting guests and kicking out the old ones, but, hey — that’s what keeps it fresh in the first place. “Hector” strips have appeared in a wide variety of magazines, including Brazilian and Belgian zines, in Steve Rasnic Tem’s High Fantastic Colorado sci-fi/fantasy/horror anthology, and in local indie publications The Hooligan and The New Censorship. The group even had its own two-week show at the ILK gallery. One thing’s for certain: All Hector members and guests have wonderfully twisted perspectives on life, which, when intertwined, provide the most unbeatably perverse underground humor and general weirdness this side of a page of S. Clay Wilson ink from 1969. That’s scary. But it’s the good kind of scary.

It’s still kind of small — distribution is about 10,000 copies around the city — but this Denver-based magazine chronicling the area’s many professional African-Americans is developing quite a following, and plans are afoot to distribute it across the country, in the U.K., and as far away as Africa. Covering topics as diverse as the resurgence of actress Pam Grier, the business of black history and the best black investors, In the Black gives a measure of hope that Denver is becoming as diverse a city as its boosters and politicians claim.

He probably won’t appreciate the wording of this accolade. He prefers the designation “city reporter” to “gossip columnist” — and his regular offerings are indeed skimpier on dishiness than those of his colleagues and competitors. But in his good-spirited way, Dick Kreck does a better job than anyone else of demonstrating why Denver is an interesting, historical and fun place to live and play.

After the media mag Brill’s Content published a puffy piece about how the News covered Columbine, the Post‘s Mark Obmascik fired off a letter noting numerous gaffes made by the News along the way. A month later, the News‘s Lynn Bartels, along with colleague Kevin Vaughan, shot back in the same publication and subsequently suggested that Obmascik’s own Columbine writing was riddled with errors. Hope those Pulitzer Prizes calmed everyone down.

Mike Klis and Tracy Ringolsby, baseball writers for the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, respectively, have been on the outs since last summer, when Ringolsby knocked a Klis article about the impending departure of Rockies general manager Bob Gebhard not once, but twice during appearances on 950-AM/The Fan. But the situation boiled over in late May, when Ringolsby told Klis, who was engaged in a heated conversation with the News‘s Clay Latimer in the Coors Field press box, to “get the fuck out of here.” Klis responded by jumping on Ringolsby from behind and punching him in the head. No charges were filed, but relations between the two remain as icy as a snowcone in Antarctica. Brrrrr.

Desperate to dump the goody-two-shoes image she’d earned as one of the stars of 7th Heaven, seventeen-year-old Jessica Biel, a healthy (very) Boulder girl, took off both those shoes — and everything else, and posed for a raunchy cover and nude spread in Gear. The pictorial earned the mag a $100 million lawsuit from Aaron Spelling, producer of Biel’s TV series, which prompted this response from publisher Bob Guccione Jr.: “As for his assertions that Gear is sleazy, it’s like the pot calling the kettle black. We are an entertainment magazine with serious journalism. But I must have missed the serious cultural references in Melrose Place and 90210.”

Since shortly after the murder of JonBenét Ramsey became his second career, Peter Boyles has ridiculed Lisa Levitt Ryckman — or, as he calls her, “Lisa with the Two Names” — for allegedly being a lapdog for John and Patsy Ramsey, whom Boyles would like to see tried in connection with their daughter’s death. Ryckman struck back in a letter to the editor of Westword in which she revealed that she’d refused to appear on an episode of a Gerald Rivera show that was also set to feature Boyles out of sheer “disgust.” At press time, the pair still hadn’t kissed and made up. Thank goodness!

KHOW was the scene of even more fun when Peter Boyles and Sam Riddle, former spokesman for the late secretary of state, Vikki Buckley, got into a hilarious on-air spat over Riddle’s new role as a spokesman for the parents of Isaiah Shoels (one of the students slain at Columbine). The bickering ended with Riddle implying that the proudly sober host still had a cocaine habit and Boyles offering to settle things with his fists anytime, anywhere. Subsequently, the pair kissed and made up. Damn it again!

After the arrest of two juveniles in the murder of schoolteacher Emily Johnson, mayoral spokesman Andrew Hudson publicly vilified KHOW talk-show host Peter Boyles for his lurid speculations about the killing — and Boyles struck back with a vengeance, providing some of the past year’s most colorful fireworks. Subsequently, the pair kissed and made up. Damn it!

The Monday after Barbara Walters dished with John and Patsy Ramsey on a very special edition of 20/20, Colorado Governor Bill Owens appeared with the queen of celebrity chats on Good Morning America, criticizing her for giving two people he obviously wants to keep under an umbrella of suspicion a free ride. Walters defended herself at the time, and later told her fellow yakkers on The View that she felt “sorry” for the Guv.

There have been many books written on the murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey, some exploitative, some wildly speculative, some self-serving, some serious in intention and some plain stupid. But the clearest, most compassionate and most level-headed is JonBenét: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, by Steve Thomas, the leading detective on the case. Thomas’s own inclinations are clear: He believes that Patsy Ramsey killed her daughter in a fit of rage after a bed-wetting incident. Since the release of his book, Thomas has come under intense attack, not only from the Ramseys, but from office of Boulder DA Alex Hunter and the Boulder Daily Camera. He has been branded a bitter, irrational man, an incompetent cop and a money-hungry publicity-seeker. Yet in this flurry of ad hominem recrimination, Thomas’s facts have been neither addressed nor disproved. This book may bring us as close as we’ll ever come to understanding the murder of JonBenét.

For psychic power, Dorothy Allison had nothing on Linda Arndt, the onetime Boulder cop who was the first officer on the scene following the disappearance of JonBenét in December 1996. In a Good Morning America interview with ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas, the network’s designated JonBenét quiz-master (she also spent a week interrogating Steve Thomas), Arndt came across like an X-Files character too screwy for even Mulder to believe. Her dizzy account of the moment when her eyes met John Ramsey’s over the body of his dead daughter (“My mind exploded. I mean it, literally…I saw black with thousands of lights”) was easily the most hilarious performance in a case full of them.

Shortly after the conclusion of the Ramseys’ successful PR gambit, the pair made gaffe after high-profile gaffe, leading to the most entertaining flameout of the year. To recap: After John and Patsy’s off-the-cuff offer to take lie-detector tests was accepted by the Boulder Police Department, they imposed a myriad of conditions in an apparent effort to weasel out of doing so, only to subsequently stage a news conference announcing that they’d passed their own tests, paid for by them and conducted in secret. That was followed by a bizarre faceoff on Larry King Live with Boulder detective-turned-author Steve Thomas and the Ramseys’ decision to post on their Web site, www.ramseyfamily.com, a composite sketch of a possible slayer based on the imaginings of the late Dorothy Allison, a psychic.

Even people who loathe John and Patsy Ramsey (and there are loads of them) would have to admit that the couple conducted a hugely effective publicity tour to hype The Death of Innocence, their we-didn’t-kill-our-daughter-JonBenét epic. From artful buildup (newspapers printed stories about the book’s publisher keeping the tome under armed guard prior to its release) to media payoff (much-ballyhooed interviews with Barbara Walters, Katie Couric, et al.), the blitz was a work of advertising-age art.

In September, The Onion, a national publication that makes up funny news (as opposed to those publications that would be better off making up funny news), produced a story in which fictional Columbine High halfback Jason LeClaire stated, “We have begun the long road to healing. We’re bouncing back, more committed than ever to ostracizing those who are different.” Kellie Nelson, his just-as-imaginary girlfriend, added, “A school where the jocks cannot freely exclude math geeks, drama fags, goths and other inferiors without fearing for their lives is not the kind of school I want to go to.” Unfortunately, this generous slab of hilarity was omitted from The Onion‘s Denver/Boulder edition for fear some locals wouldn’t be all that amused. The only way Coloradans could see it was by visiting the paper’s Web site, www.theonion.com.

Since the opening of Denver International Airport, which he considered a boondoggle, Amole, the veteran columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, has spent much of his time penning nostalgic offerings for the over-eighty set. But just prior to the first day of school at Columbine High School following the shootings there the previous April, Amole got back to current events with a vengeance. His piece, “Let Columbine Open Media-Free,” was practically the only call for restraint in the coverage of that event, and it rang even truer because of its appearance on the same page as a couple of articles that exemplified the exploitation he decried. Welcome back to today, Gene. Hope you stick around for a while.

This year, the FBI released the 33-page file it had compiled on John Denver, which included reports of death threats made to the entertainer, as well as references to possible drug use. “It was alleged Denver was pretty well strung out on cocaine,” said one entry linking the Mafia with a benefit concert that Denver had headlined in Colorado. Far out!

Readers’ choice: 2001

In a city with its share of things that smell bad — the Purina facility, the stock show grounds and the police department, to name a few — it’s a welcome relief every so often to sniff something sweet. To that end, when the wind is just right, the Jolly Rancher plant gives off the tantalizing scents of grape, apple, watermelon and other fruity fragrances that fold down out of Wheat Ridge and settle in northwest Denver. The company, which was founded in Colorado in 1942 by Bill and Dorothy Harmsen, is now owned by Hershey. It produces fifteen million pieces of candy a day. Just call it aromatherapy that doesn’t suck!

The most captivating thing about this new park along the South Platte River is that it doesn’t disguise what it used to be: a sewage-treatment plant. Instead of tearing down all the ponds and sluices that had been used to treat Denver’s waste, the park’s designers opted to save some money by simply filling them in, leaving an intriguing patchwork of concrete walls and steps that blend right in. What was once the edge of a sewage tank is now a place to sit and have a picnic, and rows of trees fill up former filtration ponds. Immediately to the west of the park is the Heron Pond Natural Area, a wetland teeming with wildlife that somehow managed to survive in the midst of a heavily industrialized district. This park has given the long-neglected Globeville neighborhood a new jewel and turned an eyesore into a green space that still honors the industrial legacy of the site.

No, it’s not nice, and, yes, you can get arrested, but covering the houses in the Denver Country Club/Polo Grounds neighborhoods with toilet paper in post-midnight raids is an age-old tradition in Denver. And for good reason: There are lots of places to hide behind well-trimmed bushes and stone entry gates, there are no major streets with long sight lines for roving eyes, and the professional landscaping, branchy old trees and grand homes afford many excellent ledges that a well-thrown roll of toilet paper can easily latch on to. Best of all, there’s no reason to feel sorry for the very wealthy people who live here after you’ve TP’d their manors; they’ll just have their staffs remove the offending paper products in the morning.

Those queers at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center don’t wipe with just any toilet paper. No, they use sheets from The Homophobe Book, otherwise known as “a roll call of political stinkers.” Printed on this exclusive tissue are drawings of Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Buchanan, Jesse Helms and Sam Nunn, along with shitty quotes from those well-known anti-gay crusaders. (Schlafly: “Distributing condoms in public schools is ‘teaching safe sodomy.'” Buchanan: “Gays have waged war on nature…AIDS is nature’s retribution on gays.” Helms: “Homosexuals are trying to force their way into undeserved respectability.” Nunn: “My gays in the military policy?…We don’t ask and they don’t tell…keep on hiding.”) A case of the paper was donated to the center about a year ago by a local entrepreneur who had originally tried to market it at the 1993 gay and lesbian March on Washington; he was apparently less than flush with success, and the leftover boxes sat in a Denver garage for the next few years before they were discovered and distributed to local gay organizations. “We proudly use it every day,” says Mike Smith, the service center’s executive director. “It makes going to the toilet a politically correct experience.” You might say it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “Kiss my ass.” The tissue does get lots of comments, Smith says, though some of them are kind of crappy: “It’s not the softest toilet paper. We get complaints about quality — but it’s for a good cause, so people use it.”

Need we say more?

The new city of Lone Tree, tucked beside Park Meadows, is tiny — but it displays big humor in its newsletter, Timberlines, which recently included a photo essay suggesting that the town’s hideous — and empty — Club Disney building be replaced by something a little grander — say, the Taj Mahal. Even Lone Tree’s motto provides a few chuckles: “The city that’s growing…carefully.” Unless, of course, the good people of Lone Tree approve that whopping annexation they’ll be considering this summer.

The Tea Party’s over in Glendale, and so far, its attempts to deal a winning hand in Central City have failed. Maybe the time has come to throw in the cards and move on to a town that could truly benefit from the Tea Party’s colorful antics: Highlands Ranch.

When Tea Party founders Chuck Bonniwell and Mike Dunafon wanted their man in Glendale, they brought in Veggo Larsen, a financial planner from Manhattan, to run the town — and do their bidding. But it turned out that Larsen was his own man who ignored the Tea Party’s agenda in favor of pushing for the people. As a result, Bonniwell and Dunafon tried to dump Larsen along with former Tea Party faithful who’d turned against them. But so far, good government is winning in Glendale, and when the Tea Party’s latest recall efforts failed, Larsen sent a sympathy note to Bonniwell. “He dedicated so much of his life,” says Larsen, “and toiled endlessly to destroy the reputations and lives of people who lived and worked in Glendale, and it’s gone largely without rewards. Having been the close and dear friend I was for so many years, I just figured some acknowledgement was appropriate.”

His legacy entrenched, Roy Romer seemed happy to have Coloradans remember him as the rugged, bomber-jacket-wearing governor he was. But less than two years after leaving office, history was already being rewritten — or repainted, in the case of Romer’s official portrait. In what turned out to be a bit of a secret operation, Romer removed from the State Capitol a portrait that depicted him in his trademark jacket, giving the thumbs-up sign; in its place, he installed a Daniel Sprick portrait that showed our former guv in a staid gray suit with a blue tie. He made the switch to “honor the tradition” of hanging more formal portraits in the Capitol, Romer explained. Too bad: He must have forgotten that a man makes the clothes, not the other way around.

When Chad Lowe, Rob’s little brother, left the set of Take Me Home: The John Denver Story, he must have thanked God he wasn’t a country boy. Certainly the TV movie, which aired in April, had this state cringing over the golly-gee look at our most saccharine adopted son, Henry Deutschendorf, who single-handedly inspired the ’70s rush to the Rockies. Played by Lowe, Denver came off as a squeaky-voiced, wire-rimmed Muppet — perhaps in tribute to what was arguably Denver’s best performance, on Sesame Street. Far out.

He could have settled into his golden years like everyone else, content to retire in his nice, Spanish-tiled mansion on the 7th Avenue Parkway, collect Social Security and wait for visits from the grandkids, but not the man from Holly. No, 71-year-old former Colorado governor Roy “Roamin'” Romer just couldn’t let it go. In early June, Romer quit his post as chairman of the Democratic Party’s national convention to become the superintendent of one of the largest and most contentious school systems in the country, the Los Angeles Unified School District. Why? Well, as he told the New York Times, “I’ve always been a risk-taker. That’s something in my nature, I guess. I like tough jobs. I like new things. But if you bring skills to the table, how can you justify not using them? I can’t just go back to the stream in Colorado to fish. That’s not the way to go.” We wish you luck, Roy. But we’ll keep a fly-rod waiting, just in case.

One day Ken Chlouber’s dressed in a red, white and blue flag-patterned biker shirt with the sleeves cut off, helping Governor Bill Owens’s skinny, citified son sit up on the back of a mule to promote Fairplay’s Burro Days; the next he’s sporting $1,000 lizard-hide cowboy boots and a $190 studded shirt from Billy Martin (“that drugstore-cowboy store, for the silk-underwear cowboy,” Chlouber calls it), accented with some of Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s turquoise-and-silver jewelry. “I got reason,” the Leadville Republican says of his very expensive duds. “When I was a kid and we were on the farm, my mama made my shirts out of chicken-feed sacks. I swore if I ever had money in my pocket, I wouldn’t do that anymore. So I buy high-dollar shirts and boots, and the hell with the rest of it.” That’s the same bootstraps spirit the long-haired, gun-lovin’, law-passin’ assistant majority leader brings to the Colorado Senate, and he wants his image to match: “I represent western and rural Colorado, which by its nature is strong, tough, independent and resilient. I hope I’m the same way. What you don’t want to do down here at the Capitol is to blend in. I want to be a piece of cotton in a sea of polyester. I want them to know I was here, and the day I’m gone, I want them to miss me.” That’s guaranteed, pardner.

She may be a Boulder liberal, but Dorothy Rupert, a onetime high school teacher, has managed to get some things done during her fourteen years in Colorado’s Republican-dominated state legislature — nine in the House and five in the Senate. Rupert has worked tirelessly for civil rights for minorities, women and homosexuals, as well as for the well-being of Colorado’s children. She has championed education and for years tried to create a House-Senate committee on children and families. Last year she was successful — after years of wrangling — in getting the legislature to outlaw the genital mutilation of young girls in Colorado. Though term-limited out, Rupert does not intend to go quietly into the sunset. She is still working for the renovation of the State Capitol, and she intends to remain active as an educator and organizer.

Wellington Webb’s concerned about the legacy that his three terms as Denver mayor will leave for the city, and for much of this year, it looked like that legacy would focus on big buildings and very clean streets. As a result, many of Denver’s homeless — and their advocates — felt like they were given the bum’s rush. In June, however, Webb announced that the city would create a homeless shelter specifically designed for single women and families — two groups shut out of most of the existing shelters — that could serve up to 24,000 people a year. In addition, the city will subsidize a residential treatment program for homeless men with substance-abuse problems. We’d drink to that — if it weren’t politically incorrect. Cheers, anyway, to Webb.

We paid for the fixup, so why wait in line to see the chief executive’s crib when it’s now online? There’s nary a Big Mac wrapper in sight among the still photos of the Governor’s Mansion offered at www.archives.state.co.us/govs/mansion/index.htm, but we do get a glimpse of a guest suite powder room (tub in background, commode not pictured). Almost like being there, but what would Bill Owens know about that? Eighteen months after he moved into the place, we hear his heart is still in Aurora.

In late June, the Metro Denver Network officially unveiled its pricey new slogan design to lure high-tech industries to the Front Range. But somehow, we just don’t think “Convergence Corridor: Technology With Altitude” is going to do the job. Fortunately, there’s a perfectly good name available — one with proven marketability — that Denver’s about to dump on the scrap heap. Mile High-Tech scores!

SWAT officer Terry Reibeling is the kind of big, tough professional whom other cops like to have around when the chips are down, and he made two heads-up arrests last year that deserve special recognition. Less than a month after the Columbine murders, he pursued a suspicious vehicle that was lurking outside a suburban mosque, uncovered an arsenal of guns and bomb-making materials, and, with the assistance of Denver police, subdued a would-be terrorist. Two months later he responded to a 911 call and tackled a drunk, 300-pound intruder in swim trunks who’d been sexually assaulting a pregnant woman. “This guy is one outstanding sergeant,” Sheriff Pat Sullivan said after the second bust. We agree.

Where there’s smoke, there’s ire, and in the early days of the fires, residents complained that they weren’t getting enough specifics from the local media. But that’s because they hadn’t tuned into www.pinecam.com, the Web site belonging to Wayne Harrison, an assignment editor for Channel 7. Usually, Harrison’s six-year-old site is devoted to folksy chats about living in the mountains. But in June, it went hardcore with hourly updates on the fires — and the hits just kept on coming.

Hey, man does not leave by bread, and bedroom, alone. When the Hi Meadow and Bobcat fires displaced dozens of families, Coloradans rushed to donate cash and compassion. But perhaps the most appreciated donation came from Colorado Springs resident Randy Barnes, who volunteered to record old Grateful Dead tapes for a man who’d lost his collection when his house in Pine burned down.

You’ve got to wonder: How many arguments have been settled over a beer or two? That must have gone through Boulder homebrew guru and Association of Brewers president Charlie Papazian’s head when he organized a brewers’ delegation to China last November to compare notes with Chinese counterparts, review the history of Chinese brewing and discuss such weighty issues as brewing technology, production, quality control and the global beer market. Planned under the sponsorship of People to People, a Seattle-based organization that develops international goodwill exchange tours for students and professionals, the trade mission had the distinction of being certified by the U.S. Department of Commerce. “It went great,” says Papazian assistant Mark Snyder. “We made some contacts over there, and I’m sure he will definitely go on other missions. I’m not sure where yet, but it’s definitely on the radar.”

There’s no use taking Academy Awards night too seriously — particularly if you’re South Park co-creator Trey Parker, late of Conifer, and you’ve been unexpectedly nominated for a statuette in the Best Original Song category. Parker’s satirical anthem “Blame Canada” (from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut) didn’t win the Oscar. But Parker, who can never resist popping Hollywood on the nose, caught every eye in Los Angeles with his outfit — a facsimile of the scanty, attention-getting “dress” Jennifer Lopez wore several weeks earlier to the Grammy Awards. His cohort, Matt Stone, came garbed in a replica of Gwyneth Paltrow’s 1999 Academy Awards attire.

He’s everywhere! He’s everywhere! When Bill Gates came to town, who sat up front, looking more Microsofty than Gates himself? John Hickenlooper. When it’s time to pick a new architect for the Denver Art Museum, who will be putting his Beatlemania-coiffed head next to that of First Lady Wilma Webb? John Hickenlooper. Ever since the self-professed recovering geologist got involved with Denver’s first brewpub — the now venerable Wynkoop Brewing Company — he’s been a landmark on our local scene, albeit a rather peripatetic one. And with his latest crusade, Hickenlooper’s really standing tall: The Wynkoop is now serving as headquarters for the campaign to save the Mile High Stadium name, a fight armed not just with sentiment, but hard economic facts. Cheers!

And we’re talking a big party, too — a genuine blowout downtown, where Denver residents can dance in the streets instead of being tossed off of them by jackbooted cops, as they were during last year’s party-pooping December 31 crackdown. Hey, it wasn’t the real start to the millennium, anyway, city officials belatedly pointed out. So true. And now we’re expecting big things from Denver on December 31, 2000, starting with a downtown open house complete with entertainment and ending with fireworks at Coors Field. Any chance of that? Stay tuned, says mayoral spokesman Andrew Hudson: Wellington Webb will discuss this very topic during his annual State of the City speech in early July.

Readers’ choice: Multi-block party

When he was alive, cable mogul Bill Daniels was known for his generosity toward employees and colleagues alike, helping dozens of locals launch their own businesses. When he passed away earlier this year, Daniels left the bulk of his $1.4 billion estate to create a foundation that will become Colorado’s largest, giving out 5 percent of its assets every year. About 75 percent of the foundation’s annual donations will be made in Colorado, but Daniels didn’t forget our neighboring states: the other 25 percent is earmarked for Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico. Education and health care are expected to be priorities for the new Daniels Fund, and Coloradans should have reason to be grateful to Daniels for years to come.

Escuela Guadalupe is a small private endeavor developed under the wing of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, itself a cast-iron anchor in the midst of a community torn by poverty and struggle. The school debuted last year, catering only to students in kindergarten through grade two. But small isn’t necessarily problematic; in fact, it’s the escuela’s saving grace: Offering straightforward bilingual education in intimate, uncrowded classrooms with help from parents, who are required to volunteer a certain number of hours to the school annually, its goal is to challenge students without compromising their ability to learn. Next fall, the plan is to begin adding grades as the original student body matures, giving kids who might have been chewed up and spit out in the public schools a chance to excel all the way up to the eighth grade. ¡Viva la escuela!

Kids will be kids, and that’s the real beauty of this project: Fourth- and fifth-grade “history detectives” at Dora Moore School did all the legwork for the Women of the West Museum’s Denver Neighborhood Women’s History Trail project, the first link in what museum officials hope will one day become an interconnected trail through the West designed to acknowledge the oft-unrecognized historical and community-building contributions of strong and singular women. They did it with the kind of uncontainable enthusiasm and grace only a kid can muster, and the resulting brochure and tour proved both fun and fascinating.

At CU’s main library, you can absorb the works of Aristotle, Socrates, Petrarch, Shakespeare, Kant, Crumb, Trudeau and the Marquis de Sade by way of osmosis as you nap luxuriously in one of the many study cubicles or on the couches that have been conveniently interspersed throughout. There’s nothing more impressive to a smart gal or guy than someone lying there, drooling on himself with an open copy of Plato’s Republic draped across his chest. You can even nod off reading the New York Times or the Economist in the library’s periodicals room. If you’re lucky, your dreams will be filled with images of Alan Greenspan sitting George W. Bush Jr. on his knee and explaining the importance of the Federal Reserve.

Most people prefer to nod off in their own homes or offices, but then again, not every home or office has central air conditioning. So why not head over to the three-month homes/offices of our elected lawmakers? Take a seat in one of the big, comfy chairs in a basement committee meeting room, where the temperature stays at a moderate seventy degrees, put your head back, and do what the legislators do: Dream about getting something accomplished. As an added benefit, the droning of whatever distinguished gentleman or gentlewoman has the floor will knock you out like a lullaby. Sleep tight!

It’s fashionable in architecture to put up new buildings in styles that date back a hundred years. But many of these new old-timey buildings are too conservative to be visually interesting. Not so for the 1899 Wynkoop Building, which was developed by the Nichols Partnership and Loftus Development and designed by Sheers + Leese Associates and the Neenan Company. The particulars of the handsome neo-traditional building were worked out by Chris Sheers to complement its next-door neighbor, the beloved Ice House. With design oversight by the Colorado Historical Foundation, the bulk of the building — which according to zoning could have been a skyscraper — was downsized in a deal that allowed the developers to punch windows in the formerly windowless walls of the Ice House. The tradeoff was necessary because, surprisingly, the Ice House and nearby Union Station aren’t within the boundaries of the landmark district, like the rest of LoDo, and therefore not protected. In spite of this, the building fits in and is a lot better than what we might have expected.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, people were so excited by the development of the electric light that they found applications for it that we can hardly imagine today, like attaching bare lightbulbs to oak beams. One forgotten device was bathing a building’s facade in light after nightfall. When Silversmith Cohen began to rehab the old Chamber of Commerce building — which was designed by Denver architects Marean and Norton in 1909 — in order to turn it into the Chamber Apartments, they found, first in local history books, and then buried in the terra cotta on the building itself, a hidden indirect lighting system. But like the rest of the place, the wiring was decrepit. The system was refitted to state-of-the-art standards, and this spring, though the building itself isn’t finished, the electricity was turned on again. Now this old-fashioned light show is one of downtown’s brightest spots.

Cherry Creek has undergone relentless change in the last ten years, and although the neighborhood has never been more alive with shoppers and residents, the new buildings being thrown up to accommodate them are…not so alive. Among the ugly new additions, however, is an elite but ever-dwindling group of gorgeous older buildings that have long defined Cherry Creek as a center of urbane luxury. None of these is more beautiful or more impeccably maintained than the Ilona of Hungary building. Designed by the Denver architectural firm of Frank & Lundquist, the white building has a muscular frame of exposed structural members that elegantly contrasts with the delicately pierced sunscreens that shelter it. The suave 1970s confection communicates the dedication to beauty that is the chief pursuit at Ilona of Hungary, a European-style spa and a health- and beauty-aids manufacturer. The company was founded by George Meszaros, a world-renowned beauty consultant, and his wife, Ilona. The two were 1940s emigrés from Hungary who met in this country and moved to Denver in the 1960s for our then-clean air. Hopefully, the just-announced plan to renovate the building will do nothing to spoil its swank character.

I-70 commuters call it “the flying-saucer house” or “the Sleeper house,” after its cameo appearance in a Woody Allen movie, but architect Charles Deaton considered it a personal statement of freedom. The acquisition of Deaton’s masterpiece by software mogul John Huggins, after years of neglect by a previous owner, is good news for all lovers of non-Euclidean geometry. Huggins is investing the care and cash needed to finish the interior of the never-occupied house with the aid of Deaton’s designing daughter, Charlee. He’s also building an addition, following the plans drawn up by Deaton (who died a few years ago) and local architect Nicholas Antonopoulos of Praxis Design. When completed this summer, the result will be an incredible mountain retreat — and the unique vision of an important artist realized at last.

In 1992, despite its charming 1920s Italian Renaissance revival style, the venerable old Midland Building had been written off by everyone, including the city’s hardcore preservationists. Believe it or not, the high-rise wasn’t, at the time, considered to be historically valuable. The fact that it was designed by one of Denver’s greatest early-twentieth-century architectural firms, Fisher and Fisher, didn’t seem to matter, either. Luckily, the building’s developers, Corum Real Estate Group, skipped the possibility of a surface parking lot at the site and instead decided to take advantage of downtown’s boom times by turning the Midland Building into residential lofts. Now, as the redo moves toward completion, no one would doubt the building’s historic credentials or its value to downtown’s architectural diversity. One great challenge for the restoration architect, Paul Bergner (in consultation with David Owen Tryba), was the need to re-create the exterior massing and details of the first floor and mezzanine, which had been lost in a misguided 1970s rehab. The project reminds us that in historic preservation — as in baseball — it ain’t over till it’s over.

It was downright bizarre. Over the last decade, one LoDo building after another has been cleaned up and given renewed life. But until late last year, the neighborhood’s grand dame, the Sugar Building, and her Wazee Street consort, the Sugar Building Annex, stood right in the middle of this urban revival, empty and neglected. Both of these early-twentieth-century modernist buildings were designed by the distinguished Denver architectural firm of Gove and Walsh — which also did Union Station and the Ice House — and built as offices for the Great Western Sugar Company. Finally, a specially created corporation, Sugar Cubed LLC, stepped up last year. The restoration job it commissioned is fabulous and extremely light-handed. Credit for that goes to Josh Comfort, the Denver architect who let the beauty of the original buildings shine through. LoDo renovations are already old news, but thankfully, two of its best buildings didn’t miss out.

Readers’ choice: Forney Museum/REI

The widow of Bob Magness, legendary founder of cable company TCI, Sharon Magness is one society lady who’s concerned with more than just fashion shows and stuffy luncheons — though she seems to like those, too — and she’s become Denver’s go-to woman for those in need. While Magness is involved with many of the groups traditionally patronized by Denver’s elite, including the Denver Art Museum and the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, she also gave $250,000 to the campaign to replace the library at Columbine High School after the parents of the massacre victims asked the community for help, as well as millions to Volunteers of America, which works with the homeless, the elderly and the destitute. It’s this attention to the most vulnerable Denverites that sets Magness apart from the rest. Well, that and her tendency to arrive at black-tie dinners astride her Arabian horse Thunder, the Broncos’ mascot.

High-rises have been popping up like mushrooms in the past year, but instead of being downtown, most of them are in the suburbs, where it seems that every community is creating its own skyscraper park — just about all of which have been soaring successes. The first and foremost of these many decentralized central business districts is the Denver Tech Center and its adjacent developments in south Denver, Greenwood Village and Cherry Hills Village, where it has been the tradition to build high-style examples of cutting-edge contemporary architecture. The latest masterpiece to adorn the south corridor is the Hines Tower, a neo-modern sculptural triumph by Pickard Chilton Architects of New Haven, Connecticut. Made of polished metal and tinted glass that has been as carefully detailed as a piece of jewelry, the thirteen-story building was assembled in a complicated group of volumes and shapes that have been clustered and stacked. The shiny metal framework grid that envelops the curtain walls makes the building appear taller, because the position of the interior’s floors cannot be seen from the outside, as is typically done. Even among its handsome neighbors in and around the DTC, many of them visible from I-25, the sharp-looking Hines tower stands out.

Call it monstrous or magnificent, bombastic or beautiful. That the spanking-new Daniel L. Ritchie Center for Sports and Wellness at the University of Denver could elicit such a wide range of responses suggests the aesthetic power of the $70 million athletic facility. Designed by Denver architect Cabell Childress, with technical support from the Davis Partnership, the center opened last fall, but some finishing touches — like a gigantic ceramic tile mural by Maynard Tishler — are still being applied. The focal point of the whole thing is its impressive and overscaled gothic tower, which is surrounded by a dizzying array of rectilinear wings. But there’s also the inspired and mind-boggling abundance of expensive materials, like the two-tone sandstone and limestone on some of the exterior walls, the copper sheeting around the rest, or the gold leaf that has been generously applied to the tower’s conical roof. More than anything else, it was Childress’s ambitious vision and DU’s apparently very deep pockets that made the postmodern Ritchie Center the best of the many buildings that rose from the ground in Denver last year.

Readers’ choice: The Pepsi Center

Central Denver’s ongoing renaissance has finally caught up with Denver’s main street. Once a lively and attractive urban boulevard, East Colfax went into a tailspin in the 1960s, attracting a mix of porno theaters, bars and fast-food joints. Over the years, many people simply avoided the thoroughfare altogether, overlooking the fact that it still had several fine historic buildings as well as some of Denver’s funkiest retail stores. Now Colfax has turned the corner, and people are finally rediscovering the potential of downtown’s doorstep. More than a dozen buildings have recently been renovated, the Fillmore Auditorium brings in world-famous musicians, and loft and office conversions have delivered a jolt of energy. Let’s hope East Colfax can hang on to its offbeat spirit as the developers move in so that Denver will have a main street it can truly be proud of.

The wild card on Channel 2’s nutty new morning program, Dan Daru has become the loopiest a.m. performer since chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs was booted off the Today show. With his backward cap, manic delivery and energy enough to power New York City for the next hundred years, Daru, who’s married to the station’s nighttime anchor, Wendy Brockman, is blessedly unconcerned about embarrassing himself. And why not? After all, that’s his job.

She rocks!

He’ll give it to you straight.

The cut that adorns Kyle Dyer, who co-hosts Channel 9’s morning block, seems simple, but it’s deceptively complex. Her swingy, springy helmet of black hair represents a style midway between pixie and Prince Valiant that’s perfect for a woman on the move. You go, girl.

Readers’ choice: Aimee Sporer, Channel 4

Marc Soicher favors the sort of slicked-back coiffure associated with Miami Heat coach Pat Riley and modern mafiosi; he always seems ready to make his viewers an offer they can’t refuse. The style must be hereditary: Channel 9 sportscaster Drew Soicher, Marc’s brother/doppelganger, wears a version of it, too. Their arrival in the market has meant boom times in the hair-oil industry.

Readers’ choice: Ed Greene, Channel 9

Like a number of other stations, Channel 4 is now supplementing its morning news broadcasts with an info banner that runs along the bottom of the screen. Some of the data presented is superfluous: How many times do we need to see what temperature it’s going to be at noon? But the notes about drive times on major thoroughfares, presented in the simplest, most user-friendly manner possible, are a godsend for anyone who may not have time to stick around for the more complete traffic reports offered up by Luan Akin, local TV’s finest eye in the sky. In addition, Channel 4 continues to offer Pinpoint Traffic, an easy-to-read map that allows viewers to see how their personal drives are moving — or not. Consider these features a road-rage chill pill.

In late August, Channel 7’s helicopter videotaped a car chase that ended with Denver police officers beating the suspects they’d pursued. Not only was the footage a sterling display of pricey, state-of-the-art technology, but it generated some real news by providing graphic evidence of a police department run amok. That’s the kind of thing television is supposed to do.

The Colorado Lottery didn’t think it was taking a gamble when it hired noted local advertising firm Karsh & Hagan Communications to produce its TV ads, and at first the decision paid off. Karsh & Hagan created some excellent and very funny ads, including the “Stranger Things Have Happened” series. In one of those ads, the company used the story of a San Francisco police officer who walked his beat carrying a wooden puppet dressed as a cop. Although his department tried to make him stop, the officer, Bob Geary, went to the media and was allowed to continue carrying Brendan O’Smarty (the dummy) with him. The Colorado Lottery’s luck ran out, however, when Geary sued, claiming the agency had used his likeness without his permission (the case was transferred from San Francisco to Denver in April). In the suit, Geary also claims that the Colorado Lottery used him in order to entice children to gamble. Better luck next time.

Readers’ choice: Rocky’s Auto

It’s too soon to tell if the newscast being assembled for our neighborhood Fox affiliate will be worth a damn. But by raiding high-profile talent such as Ron Zappolo, Tom Martino and Phil Keating, Channel 31 has already thrown a much-needed scare into the complacent folks at the network outlets. This just in: Fox is known for shaking things up.

For years, Marty Coniglio’s weather reports have been Denver’s most accurate. Now he’s finally getting a chance to prove it in prime time — and he’s making the most of it.

Readers’ choice: Mike Nelson, Channel 9

The sportscasters who dominate Denver these days tend to be a bit on the dull side; with rare exceptions, they deliver the scores and highlights with maximum efficiency and minimum flair. But not Vic Lombardi, who’s flashy, funny, energetic and a little off-kilter. He shoots — and he scores!

Readers’ choice: Tom Green, Channel 7

The longtime ratings leader is undergoing a serious brain drain: Ron Zappolo and Phil Keating have already split for Channel 31, and veteran Ed Sardella is retiring from day-to-day duties. So if the station stays aloft, it will be because of Adele Arakawa, who’s solid, forthright, and lends a welcome edge to a broadcast that desperately needs one. Bet against her at your peril.

Readers’ choice: Ed Sardella, Channel 9

Unlike most television execs, Velasquez doesn’t hide behind a desk. Instead, she regularly steps in front of the camera to deliver editorials that have become tougher and more credible as time has worn on. Just as important, she’s inspired the improvement of the station’s once-unwatchable newscast. This return to respectability hasn’t paid off in a larger audience: Channel 7’s ratings remain anemic. But Velasquez deserves credit for focusing on substance over style.

As anyone in Denver who watches the news on anything like a regular basis knows all too well, no area news program is consistently excellent. But there’s little doubt that Channel 7’s 10 p.m. offering is the most improved. The anchor duo of Mitch Jelniker and Anne Trujillo is solid and credible; sports guy Tom Green is a fine writer who’s witty to boot; and Marty Coniglio offers up weather predictions that have a better than even chance of being right. The station seems to have rejected the glitzy, superficial Natalie Pujo/”Real Life, Real News” era once and for all — and thank goodness.

Readers’ choice: Channel 9

Good a.m. television is a matter of balance: It should be bright and sunny enough to motivate viewers out the door, but not so gabby and giddy that folks will be looking for kittens to run over the second they slip behind the wheel. Channel 9 doesn’t always turn this trick; that damn you-made-it-through-the-week song they play every Friday under a montage of wacky anchor antics is a threat to the entire Front Range pussycat population. But main man Gary Shapiro, weather trivialist Ed Greene, business boy Gregg Moss and follicle innovator Kyle Dyer are good company who, on most mornings, mix lighthearted insignificance and actual news in just the right proportions.

Readers’ choice: Channel 9

His hey-dude antics have been an evening staple on KBPI for years — so when the station’s morning show, The Lockerroom, appeared on the verge of cratering (again!), no one was surprised that Willie B. was asked to save the day. What was unexpected, though, was his decision to work days and nights simultaneously; he spends Monday through Friday mornings from 5:30 to 10 a.m. in the company of cohorts Marc Stout and D-Mak (Darren McKee), then returns from 7 to 10 p.m. for a solo stint. Hook that man up to a caffeine IV.

Pleasures don’t get much guiltier than this — but who’s complaining? Although The Sports Zoo can seem downright stupid at times, the unmistakable chemistry between Dave Logan, Scott Hastings and Susie Wargin generally leaves drivers with smiles on their faces. And when you’re stuck on I-25 at 5 o’clock on Friday afternoon, a smile can be a mighty powerful thing.

Most radio programmers believe that the fastest route to big ratings is to ratchet up the obnoxiousness factor — and more often than not, they’re right. But KBCO’s Bret Saunders is the exception to this rule. He’s become one of the most-listened-to personalities on the air by rejecting the usual snickering tag-team byplay in favor of a format that blends good conversation with humor that dares to be smart. Wouldn’t it be nice if this became a trend?

The TV mini-series version of author Lawrence Schiller’s JonBenét Ramsey opus, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, featured numerous area reporters, including Brian Maass and Raj Chohan, portraying themselves — and not once did any of them seem shocked that stooped, bald Colorado Springs investigator Lou Smit was personified by tall, hirsute Kris Kristofferson. Credibility be damned: Give us more face time!

The man who works the late shift, Rick Barber is unique among his contemporaries in that he allows callers and interviewees to yak to their heart’s content instead of cutting them off if they don’t agree with his opinions. There’s a practical reason for this, of course: Because more folks call radio stations at 3 p.m. than 3 a.m., he’s got to make the most of those who do. But his low-key approach is a welcome throwback to the days when talk radio was actually about talking.

The brainchild of Tom Grant and David Lampe, www.localstation.com is an opportunity to hear the finest dance music being made in Colorado and beyond. The site includes numerous channels, tons of archived shows spotlighting genres such as techno and trance, DJ profiles and links aplenty. It’ll make your computer sing.

In last year’s Best of Denver issue, we named KVCU-AM, the radio voice of the University of Colorado at Boulder, “Best Non-Commercial Station.” This year that qualifier deserves to be removed. Although its management and personnel continue to change, the station is the best outlet in the area for intriguing music that hasn’t been beaten to death by repetition. It’s a beacon of creativity in an area that’s all too often an imagination-free zone.

Last October, Clear Channel, the owner of eight radio stations in the Denver area, merged with AMFM, controller of six local signals. Because of FCC regulations, Clear Channel was then forced to divest the half-dozen AMFM properties — and the purchaser of three of them was Infinity Broadcasting, the most prominent challenger to Clear Channel nationwide. The results of these deals won’t be known for a while yet, but they’re likely to lead to a titanic scrap unlike any that Colorado radio observers have ever seen. Let the battle begin.

Once the overseer of six powerful Denver radio outlets owned by Texas-based AMFM, Bob Visotcky was the most controversial figure in Denver radio during 1999 for a slew of reasons, including his defense of Howard Stern in the wake of some controversial post-Columbine comments and his decision to move classical station KVOD from FM to AM, which he figured no one would notice. (He was wrong.) But Clear Channel’s purchase of AMFM meant Visotcky’s days were numbered in Denver; he was shipped out to Los Angeles, where he was sacked in a matter of months. Radio can be a nasty business, even for the people who make it that way.

“Hector” is surreptitious and confused and underappreciated, and, therefore, everything great art ought to be. The cooperatively drawn comic strip is the pet project of Tom Motley; the collective (also called Hector) shifts shape regularly, losing some participants and gaining new ones, inviting guests and kicking out the old ones, but, hey — that’s what keeps it fresh in the first place. “Hector” strips have appeared in a wide variety of magazines, including Brazilian and Belgian zines, in Steve Rasnic Tem’s High Fantastic Colorado sci-fi/fantasy/horror anthology, and in local indie publications The Hooligan and The New Censorship. The group even had its own two-week show at the ILK gallery. One thing’s for certain: All Hector members and guests have wonderfully twisted perspectives on life, which, when intertwined, provide the most unbeatably perverse underground humor and general weirdness this side of a page of S. Clay Wilson ink from 1969. That’s scary. But it’s the good kind of scary.

It’s still kind of small — distribution is about 10,000 copies around the city — but this Denver-based magazine chronicling the area’s many professional African-Americans is developing quite a following, and plans are afoot to distribute it across the country, in the U.K., and as far away as Africa. Covering topics as diverse as the resurgence of actress Pam Grier, the business of black history and the best black investors, In the Black gives a measure of hope that Denver is becoming as diverse a city as its boosters and politicians claim.

He probably won’t appreciate the wording of this accolade. He prefers the designation “city reporter” to “gossip columnist” — and his regular offerings are indeed skimpier on dishiness than those of his colleagues and competitors. But in his good-spirited way, Dick Kreck does a better job than anyone else of demonstrating why Denver is an interesting, historical and fun place to live and play.

After the media mag Brill’s Content published a puffy piece about how the News covered Columbine, the Post‘s Mark Obmascik fired off a letter noting numerous gaffes made by the News along the way. A month later, the News‘s Lynn Bartels, along with colleague Kevin Vaughan, shot back in the same publication and subsequently suggested that Obmascik’s own Columbine writing was riddled with errors. Hope those Pulitzer Prizes calmed everyone down.

Mike Klis and Tracy Ringolsby, baseball writers for the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, respectively, have been on the outs since last summer, when Ringolsby knocked a Klis article about the impending departure of Rockies general manager Bob Gebhard not once, but twice during appearances on 950-AM/The Fan. But the situation boiled over in late May, when Ringolsby told Klis, who was engaged in a heated conversation with the News‘s Clay Latimer in the Coors Field press box, to “get the fuck out of here.” Klis responded by jumping on Ringolsby from behind and punching him in the head. No charges were filed, but relations between the two remain as icy as a snowcone in Antarctica. Brrrrr.

Desperate to dump the goody-two-shoes image she’d earned as one of the stars of 7th Heaven, seventeen-year-old Jessica Biel, a healthy (very) Boulder girl, took off both those shoes — and everything else, and posed for a raunchy cover and nude spread in Gear. The pictorial earned the mag a $100 million lawsuit from Aaron Spelling, producer of Biel’s TV series, which prompted this response from publisher Bob Guccione Jr.: “As for his assertions that Gear is sleazy, it’s like the pot calling the kettle black. We are an entertainment magazine with serious journalism. But I must have missed the serious cultural references in Melrose Place and 90210.”

Since shortly after the murder of JonBenét Ramsey became his second career, Peter Boyles has ridiculed Lisa Levitt Ryckman — or, as he calls her, “Lisa with the Two Names” — for allegedly being a lapdog for John and Patsy Ramsey, whom Boyles would like to see tried in connection with their daughter’s death. Ryckman struck back in a letter to the editor of Westword in which she revealed that she’d refused to appear on an episode of a Gerald Rivera show that was also set to feature Boyles out of sheer “disgust.” At press time, the pair still hadn’t kissed and made up. Thank goodness!

KHOW was the scene of even more fun when Peter Boyles and Sam Riddle, former spokesman for the late secretary of state, Vikki Buckley, got into a hilarious on-air spat over Riddle’s new role as a spokesman for the parents of Isaiah Shoels (one of the students slain at Columbine). The bickering ended with Riddle implying that the proudly sober host still had a cocaine habit and Boyles offering to settle things with his fists anytime, anywhere. Subsequently, the pair kissed and made up. Damn it again!

After the arrest of two juveniles in the murder of schoolteacher Emily Johnson, mayoral spokesman Andrew Hudson publicly vilified KHOW talk-show host Peter Boyles for his lurid speculations about the killing — and Boyles struck back with a vengeance, providing some of the past year’s most colorful fireworks. Subsequently, the pair kissed and made up. Damn it!

The Monday after Barbara Walters dished with John and Patsy Ramsey on a very special edition of 20/20, Colorado Governor Bill Owens appeared with the queen of celebrity chats on Good Morning America, criticizing her for giving two people he obviously wants to keep under an umbrella of suspicion a free ride. Walters defended herself at the time, and later told her fellow yakkers on The View that she felt “sorry” for the Guv.

There have been many books written on the murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey, some exploitative, some wildly speculative, some self-serving, some serious in intention and some plain stupid. But the clearest, most compassionate and most level-headed is JonBenét: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation, by Steve Thomas, the leading detective on the case. Thomas’s own inclinations are clear: He believes that Patsy Ramsey killed her daughter in a fit of rage after a bed-wetting incident. Since the release of his book, Thomas has come under intense attack, not only from the Ramseys, but from office of Boulder DA Alex Hunter and the Boulder Daily Camera. He has been branded a bitter, irrational man, an incompetent cop and a money-hungry publicity-seeker. Yet in this flurry of ad hominem recrimination, Thomas’s facts have been neither addressed nor disproved. This book may bring us as close as we’ll ever come to understanding the murder of JonBenét.

For psychic power, Dorothy Allison had nothing on Linda Arndt, the onetime Boulder cop who was the first officer on the scene following the disappearance of JonBenét in December 1996. In a Good Morning America interview with ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas, the network’s designated JonBenét quiz-master (she also spent a week interrogating Steve Thomas), Arndt came across like an X-Files character too screwy for even Mulder to believe. Her dizzy account of the moment when her eyes met John Ramsey’s over the body of his dead daughter (“My mind exploded. I mean it, literally…I saw black with thousands of lights”) was easily the most hilarious performance in a case full of them.

Shortly after the conclusion of the Ramseys’ successful PR gambit, the pair made gaffe after high-profile gaffe, leading to the most entertaining flameout of the year. To recap: After John and Patsy’s off-the-cuff offer to take lie-detector tests was accepted by the Boulder Police Department, they imposed a myriad of conditions in an apparent effort to weasel out of doing so, only to subsequently stage a news conference announcing that they’d passed their own tests, paid for by them and conducted in secret. That was followed by a bizarre faceoff on Larry King Live with Boulder detective-turned-author Steve Thomas and the Ramseys’ decision to post on their Web site, www.ramseyfamily.com, a composite sketch of a possible slayer based on the imaginings of the late Dorothy Allison, a psychic.

Even people who loathe John and Patsy Ramsey (and there are loads of them) would have to admit that the couple conducted a hugely effective publicity tour to hype The Death of Innocence, their we-didn’t-kill-our-daughter-JonBenét epic. From artful buildup (newspapers printed stories about the book’s publisher keeping the tome under armed guard prior to its release) to media payoff (much-ballyhooed interviews with Barbara Walters, Katie Couric, et al.), the blitz was a work of advertising-age art.

In September, The Onion, a national publication that makes up funny news (as opposed to those publications that would be better off making up funny news), produced a story in which fictional Columbine High halfback Jason LeClaire stated, “We have begun the long road to healing. We’re bouncing back, more committed than ever to ostracizing those who are different.” Kellie Nelson, his just-as-imaginary girlfriend, added, “A school where the jocks cannot freely exclude math geeks, drama fags, goths and other inferiors without fearing for their lives is not the kind of school I want to go to.” Unfortunately, this generous slab of hilarity was omitted from The Onion‘s Denver/Boulder edition for fear some locals wouldn’t be all that amused. The only way Coloradans could see it was by visiting the paper’s Web site, www.theonion.com.

Since the opening of Denver International Airport, which he considered a boondoggle, Amole, the veteran columnist for the Rocky Mountain News, has spent much of his time penning nostalgic offerings for the over-eighty set. But just prior to the first day of school at Columbine High School following the shootings there the previous April, Amole got back to current events with a vengeance. His piece, “Let Columbine Open Media-Free,” was practically the only call for restraint in the coverage of that event, and it rang even truer because of its appearance on the same page as a couple of articles that exemplified the exploitation he decried. Welcome back to today, Gene. Hope you stick around for a while.

This year, the FBI released the 33-page file it had compiled on John Denver, which included reports of death threats made to the entertainer, as well as references to possible drug use. “It was alleged Denver was pretty well strung out on cocaine,” said one entry linking the Mafia with a benefit concert that Denver had headlined in Colorado. Far out!

Readers’ choice: 2001

In a city with its share of things that smell bad — the Purina facility, the stock show grounds and the police department, to name a few — it’s a welcome relief every so often to sniff something sweet. To that end, when the wind is just right, the Jolly Rancher plant gives off the tantalizing scents of grape, apple, watermelon and other fruity fragrances that fold down out of Wheat Ridge and settle in northwest Denver. The company, which was founded in Colorado in 1942 by Bill and Dorothy Harmsen, is now owned by Hershey. It produces fifteen million pieces of candy a day. Just call it aromatherapy that doesn’t suck!

The most captivating thing about this new park along the South Platte River is that it doesn’t disguise what it used to be: a sewage-treatment plant. Instead of tearing down all the ponds and sluices that had been used to treat Denver’s waste, the park’s designers opted to save some money by simply filling them in, leaving an intriguing patchwork of concrete walls and steps that blend right in. What was once the edge of a sewage tank is now a place to sit and have a picnic, and rows of trees fill up former filtration ponds. Immediately to the west of the park is the Heron Pond Natural Area, a wetland teeming with wildlife that somehow managed to survive in the midst of a heavily industrialized district. This park has given the long-neglected Globeville neighborhood a new jewel and turned an eyesore into a green space that still honors the industrial legacy of the site.

No, it’s not nice, and, yes, you can get arrested, but covering the houses in the Denver Country Club/Polo Grounds neighborhoods with toilet paper in post-midnight raids is an age-old tradition in Denver. And for good reason: There are lots of places to hide behind well-trimmed bushes and stone entry gates, there are no major streets with long sight lines for roving eyes, and the professional landscaping, branchy old trees and grand homes afford many excellent ledges that a well-thrown roll of toilet paper can easily latch on to. Best of all, there’s no reason to feel sorry for the very wealthy people who live here after you’ve TP’d their manors; they’ll just have their staffs remove the offending paper products in the morning.

Those queers at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center don’t wipe with just any toilet paper. No, they use sheets from The Homophobe Book, otherwise known as “a roll call of political stinkers.” Printed on this exclusive tissue are drawings of Phyllis Schlafly, Pat Buchanan, Jesse Helms and Sam Nunn, along with shitty quotes from those well-known anti-gay crusaders. (Schlafly: “Distributing condoms in public schools is ‘teaching safe sodomy.'” Buchanan: “Gays have waged war on nature…AIDS is nature’s retribution on gays.” Helms: “Homosexuals are trying to force their way into undeserved respectability.” Nunn: “My gays in the military policy?…We don’t ask and they don’t tell…keep on hiding.”) A case of the paper was donated to the center about a year ago by a local entrepreneur who had originally tried to market it at the 1993 gay and lesbian March on Washington; he was apparently less than flush with success, and the leftover boxes sat in a Denver garage for the next few years before they were discovered and distributed to local gay organizations. “We proudly use it every day,” says Mike Smith, the service center’s executive director. “It makes going to the toilet a politically correct experience.” You might say it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “Kiss my ass.” The tissue does get lots of comments, Smith says, though some of them are kind of crappy: “It’s not the softest toilet paper. We get complaints about quality — but it’s for a good cause, so people use it.”

Need we say more?

The new city of Lone Tree, tucked beside Park Meadows, is tiny — but it displays big humor in its newsletter, Timberlines, which recently included a photo essay suggesting that the town’s hideous — and empty — Club Disney building be replaced by something a little grander — say, the Taj Mahal. Even Lone Tree’s motto provides a few chuckles: “The city that’s growing…carefully.” Unless, of course, the good people of Lone Tree approve that whopping annexation they’ll be considering this summer.

The Tea Party’s over in Glendale, and so far, its attempts to deal a winning hand in Central City have failed. Maybe the time has come to throw in the cards and move on to a town that could truly benefit from the Tea Party’s colorful antics: Highlands Ranch.

When Tea Party founders Chuck Bonniwell and Mike Dunafon wanted their man in Glendale, they brought in Veggo Larsen, a financial planner from Manhattan, to run the town — and do their bidding. But it turned out that Larsen was his own man who ignored the Tea Party’s agenda in favor of pushing for the people. As a result, Bonniwell and Dunafon tried to dump Larsen along with former Tea Party faithful who’d turned against them. But so far, good government is winning in Glendale, and when the Tea Party’s latest recall efforts failed, Larsen sent a sympathy note to Bonniwell. “He dedicated so much of his life,” says Larsen, “and toiled endlessly to destroy the reputations and lives of people who lived and worked in Glendale, and it’s gone largely without rewards. Having been the close and dear friend I was for so many years, I just figured some acknowledgement was appropriate.”

His legacy entrenched, Roy Romer seemed happy to have Coloradans remember him as the rugged, bomber-jacket-wearing governor he was. But less than two years after leaving office, history was already being rewritten — or repainted, in the case of Romer’s official portrait. In what turned out to be a bit of a secret operation, Romer removed from the State Capitol a portrait that depicted him in his trademark jacket, giving the thumbs-up sign; in its place, he installed a Daniel Sprick portrait that showed our former guv in a staid gray suit with a blue tie. He made the switch to “honor the tradition” of hanging more formal portraits in the Capitol, Romer explained. Too bad: He must have forgotten that a man makes the clothes, not the other way around.

When Chad Lowe, Rob’s little brother, left the set of Take Me Home: The John Denver Story, he must have thanked God he wasn’t a country boy. Certainly the TV movie, which aired in April, had this state cringing over the golly-gee look at our most saccharine adopted son, Henry Deutschendorf, who single-handedly inspired the ’70s rush to the Rockies. Played by Lowe, Denver came off as a squeaky-voiced, wire-rimmed Muppet — perhaps in tribute to what was arguably Denver’s best performance, on Sesame Street. Far out.

He could have settled into his golden years like everyone else, content to retire in his nice, Spanish-tiled mansion on the 7th Avenue Parkway, collect Social Security and wait for visits from the grandkids, but not the man from Holly. No, 71-year-old former Colorado governor Roy “Roamin'” Romer just couldn’t let it go. In early June, Romer quit his post as chairman of the Democratic Party’s national convention to become the superintendent of one of the largest and most contentious school systems in the country, the Los Angeles Unified School District. Why? Well, as he told the New York Times, “I’ve always been a risk-taker. That’s something in my nature, I guess. I like tough jobs. I like new things. But if you bring skills to the table, how can you justify not using them? I can’t just go back to the stream in Colorado to fish. That’s not the way to go.” We wish you luck, Roy. But we’ll keep a fly-rod waiting, just in case.

One day Ken Chlouber’s dressed in a red, white and blue flag-patterned biker shirt with the sleeves cut off, helping Governor Bill Owens’s skinny, citified son sit up on the back of a mule to promote Fairplay’s Burro Days; the next he’s sporting $1,000 lizard-hide cowboy boots and a $190 studded shirt from Billy Martin (“that drugstore-cowboy store, for the silk-underwear cowboy,” Chlouber calls it), accented with some of Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s turquoise-and-silver jewelry. “I got reason,” the Leadville Republican says of his very expensive duds. “When I was a kid and we were on the farm, my mama made my shirts out of chicken-feed sacks. I swore if I ever had money in my pocket, I wouldn’t do that anymore. So I buy high-dollar shirts and boots, and the hell with the rest of it.” That’s the same bootstraps spirit the long-haired, gun-lovin’, law-passin’ assistant majority leader brings to the Colorado Senate, and he wants his image to match: “I represent western and rural Colorado, which by its nature is strong, tough, independent and resilient. I hope I’m the same way. What you don’t want to do down here at the Capitol is to blend in. I want to be a piece of cotton in a sea of polyester. I want them to know I was here, and the day I’m gone, I want them to miss me.” That’s guaranteed, pardner.

She may be a Boulder liberal, but Dorothy Rupert, a onetime high school teacher, has managed to get some things done during her fourteen years in Colorado’s Republican-dominated state legislature — nine in the House and five in the Senate. Rupert has worked tirelessly for civil rights for minorities, women and homosexuals, as well as for the well-being of Colorado’s children. She has championed education and for years tried to create a House-Senate committee on children and families. Last year she was successful — after years of wrangling — in getting the legislature to outlaw the genital mutilation of young girls in Colorado. Though term-limited out, Rupert does not intend to go quietly into the sunset. She is still working for the renovation of the State Capitol, and she intends to remain active as an educator and organizer.

Wellington Webb’s concerned about the legacy that his three terms as Denver mayor will leave for the city, and for much of this year, it looked like that legacy would focus on big buildings and very clean streets. As a result, many of Denver’s homeless — and their advocates — felt like they were given the bum’s rush. In June, however, Webb announced that the city would create a homeless shelter specifically designed for single women and families — two groups shut out of most of the existing shelters — that could serve up to 24,000 people a year. In addition, the city will subsidize a residential treatment program for homeless men with substance-abuse problems. We’d drink to that — if it weren’t politically incorrect. Cheers, anyway, to Webb.

We paid for the fixup, so why wait in line to see the chief executive’s crib when it’s now online? There’s nary a Big Mac wrapper in sight among the still photos of the Governor’s Mansion offered at www.archives.state.co.us/govs/mansion/index.htm, but we do get a glimpse of a guest suite powder room (tub in background, commode not pictured). Almost like being there, but what would Bill Owens know about that? Eighteen months after he moved into the place, we hear his heart is still in Aurora.

In late June, the Metro Denver Network officially unveiled its pricey new slogan design to lure high-tech industries to the Front Range. But somehow, we just don’t think “Convergence Corridor: Technology With Altitude” is going to do the job. Fortunately, there’s a perfectly good name available — one with proven marketability — that Denver’s about to dump on the scrap heap. Mile High-Tech scores!

Where there’s smoke, there’s ire, and in the early days of the fires, residents complained that they weren’t getting enough specifics from the local media. But that’s because they hadn’t tuned into www.pinecam.com, the Web site belonging to Wayne Harrison, an assignment editor for Channel 7. Usually, Harrison’s six-year-old site is devoted to folksy chats about living in the mountains. But in June, it went hardcore with hourly updates on the fires — and the hits just kept on coming.

Hey, man does not leave by bread, and bedroom, alone. When the Hi Meadow and Bobcat fires displaced dozens of families, Coloradans rushed to donate cash and compassion. But perhaps the most appreciated donation came from Colorado Springs resident Randy Barnes, who volunteered to record old Grateful Dead tapes for a man who’d lost his collection when his house in Pine burned down.

You’ve got to wonder: How many arguments have been settled over a beer or two? That must have gone through Boulder homebrew guru and Association of Brewers president Charlie Papazian’s head when he organized a brewers’ delegation to China last November to compare notes with Chinese counterparts, review the history of Chinese brewing and discuss such weighty issues as brewing technology, production, quality control and the global beer market. Planned under the sponsorship of People to People, a Seattle-based organization that develops international goodwill exchange tours for students and professionals, the trade mission had the distinction of being certified by the U.S. Department of Commerce. “It went great,” says Papazian assistant Mark Snyder. “We made some contacts over there, and I’m sure he will definitely go on other missions. I’m not sure where yet, but it’s definitely on the radar.”

There’s no use taking Academy Awards night too seriously — particularly if you’re South Park co-creator Trey Parker, late of Conifer, and you’ve been unexpectedly nominated for a statuette in the Best Original Song category. Parker’s satirical anthem “Blame Canada” (from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut) didn’t win the Oscar. But Parker, who can never resist popping Hollywood on the nose, caught every eye in Los Angeles with his outfit — a facsimile of the scanty, attention-getting “dress” Jennifer Lopez wore several weeks earlier to the Grammy Awards. His cohort, Matt Stone, came garbed in a replica of Gwyneth Paltrow’s 1999 Academy Awards attire.