Bill Clinton Needles Gary Hart at Warren Beatty Tribute

Poor Gary Hart. The former senator, erstwhile presidential candidate and subject of two recent Westword Q&As (click here and here to check them out) got to walk the red carpet with — woo-hoo! — Arianna Huffington prior to an American Film Institute tribute to actor/director Warren Beatty, and he was…

The Westword.com Blog Shortcut, July 8 Edition

Need more bloggery? We’ve got plenty. Backbeat Online lends an ear to a gig co-starring Littles Paia, Slight Harp, Bird Names, Sic Alps and Milton Melvin Croissant III. Expect prose that melts in your mouth. Cafe Society dishes out dish about Mel’s in Greenwood Village, and The Cat’s Pajamas brushes…

Baseball, Hot Dogs, Money Woes and Beetlekill

So the Fourth of July 2008 has passed; we know this because we’re enjoying the yearly accounting of Will Smith’s box-office returns. Tradition, you know. And American tradition overall is alive and well, it seems. I spent the 4th up in a cabin (can you still call it a cabin…

McCain Comes to Denver, Tries to Make Friends

John McCain, fresh from his Denver town hall that made nearly as much news for the ticketing of a protester than for what he said, must be a little lonely. After all, the guy lacks support from liberals — even those who used to have some grudging respect for the…

Dog Days of Summer

In my experience, most people can’t identify a pit bull to save their lives. I say this because my dog (pictured) is mistaken for a pit bull constantly. He is a large bull-breed (a Victorian bulldog, if you’re interested), but most certainly not a pit bull. Yet, when he approaches…

Things that Won’t Be at the Presidential Memorabilia Exhibit

The American Presidential Experience, the largest traveling presentation of presidential memorabilia, will set up shop in Invesco Field’s parking lot during the convention. Here are some of the items you will not see at the exhibit: -Back-up set of George Washington’s false teeth with MO DOLLAZ spelled out in diamonds…

Librarian Rousted Outside McCain Town Hall Is a Former Reporter

The item on the Denver Post’s Politics West blog about the ticketing of Carol Kreck outside a July 7 town hall appearance by presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain refers to her as a “60-year-old librarian,” following the lead of the ProgressNow Action website, which sent out a news release…

When MSNBC Comes to Denver, Be Very Afraid

The invasion of press from around the country and the globe for August’s Democratic National Convention should offer up scares aplenty, with MSNBC contributing to more than its share of jolts. The network plans to set up anchors Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann in outdoor sets, not Pepsi Center booths,…

Dean Singleton Fights Back Against Bad MediaNews Press

A More Messages blog from June quoted Dean Singleton, the head of MediaNews Group, which owns the Denver Post and dozens of other newspapers around the country, taking a shot at “whining editors, reporters and newspaper unions” that “continue to bark at the dark, thinking their barks will make the…

Leeroy Jenkins Rocks ROFLCon, Snags Wired Mention

It’s not too surprising that one of the biggest hits at ROFLCon, the Harvard University conference on Internet celebrity, was Colorado native Ben Schulz. After all, Schulz is the player behind that unlikely and slightly unhinged World of Warcraft superstar, Leeroy Jenkins. A Wired magazine article on the April conference…

Alice Producer Mikey Goldenberg Wants Your Sponsorship

Mikey Goldenberg, the executive producer of the Alice 105.9 morning show starring jocks BJ, Howie & Jennifer, has come up with an idea perfectly calibrated for the post-Warhol age, when fame (of a sort) is available to anyone willing to post a video on YouTube of himself being injured in…

Spammer Tries to Get Clicks With Bogus Obama Death Report

Few of us have positive thoughts about those nefarious techies who make their living clogging our e-mail in-boxes with mortgage deals, Viagra offers, pyramid schemes or cyber-bugs capable of reducing our computers to smoking heaps of rubble. But I’ve reserved a special place in Hades for the person or persons…

The Curse of Coors

Before Barack Obama settled on accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in Invesco Field at Mile High, convention organizers also considered Coors Field as an alternative to the Pepsi Center. But Invesco has two advantages over the ballpark: It can hold 20,000 more people (a total upwards of 76,000) — and…

Democratic National Convention In-Security

So the Denver Police department wants the force in Colorado Springs to provide 58 officers for the Democratic National Convention. Yeah, that’ll do it. Rest easy — at least until the convention itself, when the cops will have their hands full even if the masses are well behaved. And if…

The Westword.com Blog Shortcut, July 7 Edition

Join us as we see the sights, and sites, at several other exotic Westword blogs. Backbeat Online boasts a bunch o’ over-the-weekend reviews featuring Hot White (pictured) opening for Mae Shi, plus Mustangs and Madras and The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. The Cat’s Pajamas introduces us to local designer…

Your Show Lands McCain, Obama

Your Show, the 9News public-affairs program hosted by Adam Schrager, has come a long way since its 2007 launch, which was outlined in this Message column from that year. The July 6 edition of the production, which airs Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on Channel 20, boasted an extended conversation with…

Digging Up a Murderous Family Plot

Kirk Mitchell’s front-page story in the July 7 Denver Post about the bodies found on the McCormick ranch 22 years ago brought back memories of one of the most badly bungled murder investigations in Colorado history. Westword published my exclusive prison interview with Michael McCormick back in 1987 — long…

Different Takes on Convention From National, Local Press

On July 6, the New York Times published “Delays and Rising Costs for Convention Raise Worries for Democrats,” a compendium of information and speculation about preparations for August’s Democratic National Convention. A lot of the most embarrassing items in it surfaced previously in the Denver dailies. For instance, the fact…

Delegating Denver #51 of 56: Virgin Islands

View larger image Virgin Islands Total Number of Delegates: 9 Pledged: 3 Unpledged: 6 How to Recognize a Virgin Islands Delegate: Blown (way) off course during his second voyage, Christopher Columbus chose a religious theme and named this grouping of islets for the virgin handmaidens of some obscure marriage-avoiding saint…

Piss and the Rocky Mountain News

In the second item of his July 5 column, Rocky Mountain News media critic Jason Salzman wondered if any entries from the late George Carlin’s famous list of seven dirty words you can’t say on television, first delivered in the early ’70s, can now be printed in the paper for…

Rene Marie, Meet Sister Souljah

Anyone who was surprised that Barack Obama criticized Denver jazz vocalist Rene Marie for singing the tune popularly known as the Black National Anthem instead of the “Star-Spangled Banner” prior to Mayor John Hickenlooper’s state-of-the-city speech doesn’t have a very long memory. In doing so, he was simply having a…

It’s Mile High for the Obama Acceptance Speech

Suspicions confirmed: Early on July 7, the Democratic National Convention Committee announced that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will deliver his acceptance speech on August 28 at Invesco Field at Mile High. Look below for the DNCC’s official press release and or click here for Patricia Calhoun’s take in…