For Denver, the annual Columbus Day Parade and accompanying protests, arrests and ear-splitting rhetoric is a seasonal rite as familiar as the changing of the leaves. By this point in October, the anti-Columbus Day groups have held press conferences, hung posters and announced events several months in the planning. But…
When I found my house, part of what sold me on the property was the xeriscaping. While the back yard is a fecund mecca of non-nativity, bursting with species that suck water from the soil till it’s drier than my mother’s tear ducts from years of disappointment, the front yard…
Gotta love all that fur. Lining up your online content… Cafe Society features Jared Jacang Maher’s piece about mistaking a group of bears — that would be members of the hirsute gay subculture, not the creatures who shit in the woods — for a rugby team. No goal. In addition,…
Scott Pomfret. Scott Pomfret is an anomaly: a gay Catholic. When he decided to write Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir, a book about his experiences in his Boston church, it changed his life in ways he hadn’t expected — including being removed from his shrine. Westword caught…
Get me a 40oz of Powerade, homie! Denver officials, not content with being the only city in the world to offer an urban snowboard park, recently disclosed that they are planning the first-ever downhill mountain bike course built in the inner-city. Scott Robson, deputy manager for the Denver Department of…
FOVAMP’s billboard for Jennifer. This past Saturday, at the annual meeting of the non-profit group Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons (FOHVAMP), I heard a true crime tale that involved one of Westword’s own. A serial killer was uncovered because of a phone call made by Luke Turf, back…
State troopers confront a protestor. Yesterday afternoon, Governor Bill Ritter stood on the west Capitol steps to voice his opposition to Amendment 48, a.k.a. the Personhood Amendment, which would define a fertilized egg as a person. (Read Westword’s recent 48 coverage here and here.) But anti-abortion protester John Wiechec’s voice…
Bob Schaffer’s Facebook photo. Has anyone ever smiled that big without nitrous oxide? Like Democratic senatorial opponent Mark Udall, who’s begun toying around with Twitter, Republican candidate Bob Schaffer is trying to use new-technology communication methods to get his message across. But in the case of his Facebook page, the…
“Jeez, my thumbs are getting really sore…” Reporters at the Rocky Mountain News aren’t the only folks learning how to Twitter these days. Democratic senatorial hopeful Mark Udall is also using the micro-blogging service, and he’s doing so in a notably cheesy way. His Twitter account is labeled “Quick! Lock…
John McCain wants to be your friend. Chug-a-lug! In the hilarious Saturday Night Live spoof of the vice presidential debate between Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Joe Biden, Tina Fey, as Palin, joked about college students turning the exchange into a drinking game, with participants guzzling every time she tossed…
So close and yet so far away… New on YouTube: a video showing a desperate Broncos fan almost but not quite getting an autograph from QB Jay Cutler. Look below for the clip, which shows Cutler stepping closer… and closer… and closer… only to pivot at the last possible moment…
Planes Mistaken for Stars made our best band-name list. Blog-day afternoon. Backbeat Online collects the Top 10 Denver band names — a roster sure to excite fans of Lyin’ Bitch and the Restraining Orders. Also available for the clicking: Chairlift’s appearance in an Apple commercial and an invitation for musicians…
Justin Dillon. Musician Justin Dillon had never made a film before, but he felt he had to do something about the horrific reality of human trafficking. Thus was born Call + Response, a part-documentary, part-concert film that opens Friday, October 10 at the Starz FilmCenter in the Tivoli Student Union…
Every open-mic night needs an aspiring comic who may or may not be homeless. The Squire has Gary. Before we begin, I’d like to acknowledge that in making this endorsement, I’m violating all sorts of basic journalism tenets. But screw it. At the time of this writing, I’m chock full…
FM uses one of those words their old printer didn’t like. Editor’s note: See update below. The writers at FM, a quarterly music-and-arts magazine, like a lot of words — and sometimes they start with the letter “F.” That wouldn’t seem to be a big deal in this particular century…
Travis Henry, Montana-bound. It’s been too long since we’ve had a good celebrity trial in Colorado. The various Joe Nacchio hearings don’t really count — just because his photo’s on lots of dart boards owned by former Qwest employees and investors doesn’t make him a star — and the Kobe…
A banner from the Obsession website. The Denver Post and many other newspapers across the country took plenty of heat for their decision to insert sampler versions of Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, a DVD that many subscribers saw as a not-so-subtle promotion for Republican presidential aspirant John…
Domingo Lopez-Avaloy. In August of 2004, a twelve-year-old girl was assaulted by four men in the Heatherwood Apartments in Aurora. She told police that hands came from all directions, tearing her clothes off, touching her breasts, putting fingers inside her, raping her. The officers found the girl’s Superman underpants in…
The men of Weezer suit up. Blog-blog-bloggin’ along. Backbeat Online is all about Weezer. Click over to read a full review of the band’s October 5 gig at the Broomfield Event Center alongside Angels & Airwaves and Tokyo Police Club. And also check out our original 1994 interview with Weezer…
The Camera plunges into suckage. Daily newspapers are notoriously cautious when it comes to language issues. A More Messages blog from August notes that the Rocky Mountain News’s spelled the word “ass” as “a–” in a piece that quoted Colorado Republican Party chieftain Dick Wadhams. In addition, the Rocky posted…
Jared Polis. On Sunday, the front page of the Denver Post’s Perspective section was dominated by endorsements of Democrat Jared Polis, who’s running for Congress in the 2nd District, and Republican Marilyn Musgrave, making her third re-election bid in the 4th District. Hard to imagine stranger bedfellows, considering Musgrave’s well-documented…
