The Westword.com blog shortcut, December 9 edition

May we escort you to some blogs? Today in Cafe Society: • A slice from Mermaids Bakery and Pie House. • Now open: Mangia Bevi at Palazzo Verdi. • Mark Tarbell dubs his new restaurant Mark & Isabella. • Tyler Nemkov on what burned his toast. • The Cody Inn’s…

Denver Blogs: Republicans find their savior in… Facebook?

We’re carving up the mountains of the Colorogosphere in search of hidden trails that we can… ah, screw this metaphor. Here are a bunch of links. Send us more.Colorado Republicans: Coming to a Facebook page near you. (Face the State)If you stumbled on this while surfing the web for a…

Today’s Night & Day featured event: Blonde Venus at Fresh City Life

You can’t fault Chris Loffelmacher for being sweet on Marlene Dietrich: Her timeless, leggy androgynous beauty and sultry singing voice (not to mention the cruelly sexy German accent) still ring chimes for plenty of folks, a truth that Loffelmacher, director of the Denver Public Library’s Fresh City Life series, clearly took to…

Josh Penry’s fears about a plethora of parolees a big mythtake

Josh Penry (pictured here) wasn’t a happy man at the legislative hearing on parole policy December 8, and that’s probably a good thing. Penry, the Fruita Republican state senator who takes a back seat to no one in his tough-on-crime posturing, has been hollering about the supposedly alarming increase in…

Denver Realtors protest West Washington Park’s anti-duplex plan

Yesterday, the Denver Board of Realtors made a last-ditch effort to protest a proposal to keep mega-duplexes out of West Washington Park. As we chronicled here last week, Councilman Chris Nevitt’s rezoning plan to preserve the bungalow, single-family feel of one pocket of the city has exploded into a controversy…

Tom Tancredo’s idea for Obama’s public-works project

Tom Tancredo may be near the end of his service as a U.S. Representative from Colorado, but he’s still making wacky public pronouncements — and thank goodness. Today’s example? According to the Denver Post, he suggests that some of the money proposed by president-elect Barack Obama for an enormous public-works…

Party on at the Loews Denver Hotel

The results are in from the Loews Denver Hotel’s Scrooged contest — in which workplaces that can’t afford an office party could submit three-minute videos to YouTube featuring their boss and the reasons why the office deserves a festive holiday gathering. And judging by the winner’s dry humor, that party…

Gawker on the odds the Rocky Mountain News survives

What with the news about the Tribune Co. filing for bankruptcy yesterday, it’s no surprise that the folks at Gawker are wondering if some notable newspapers will fail in the near future. “Newspapers: The Official Survival Odds” finds writer Hamilton Nolan weighing in on the future of the New York…

Wake-Up Call: All aboard the Phil Anschutz express

Seconds after Scripps-Howard suddenly announced that the Rocky Mountain News was for sale last Thursday, hopeful eyes were turning to Phil Anschutz, the local billionaire who’s already saved another local institution — the Ski Train that has taken generations of skiers from Union Station to Winter Park, the city-owned resort. And unlike other…

Former Bronco Mark Schlereth’s soap-opera outtakes

In a 2001 Message column, we profiled former Denver Bronco Mark Schlereth under the headline, “Two-Way Player: Mark Schlereth Tries to Balance Local Radio With a Rising TV Career.” Seven years later, he’s still trying to do so. While he doesn’t have a daily radio position in Denver at present,…

The Westword.com blog shortcut, December 8 edition

What just happened? This stuff. Today in Backbeat Online: • A live review of the Smashing Pumpkins at the Ogden Theatre. • Eric Eyl’s Mile High Makeout deals with dead days. • Ozric Tentacles moves to Fort Collins. Today in Cafe Society: • Steuben’s toasts the end of Prohibition –…

The long silence of Matthew Murray’s parents

Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see any comments from Ronald or Loretta Murray in the one-year anniversary stories about the church shootings in Arvada and Colorado Springs. But then, the Murrays haven’t been eager to talk publicly about the multiple tragedies spawned by their deeply disturbed son Matthew,…

Jack FM: Barack Obama’s choice?

Is there anything Barack Obama’s name can’t be used to sell these days? This question arises as a result of a Jack FM promotion I stumbled upon the other day. Those of you with cars manufactured during the past few years know that many radio stations include a signal with…