Locals Don’t Drive Denver Dailies’ Web Traffic

As noted in a More Messages blog from late April, the Denver dailies interpreted recent circulation figures in different ways, with the Rocky Mountain News headlining a precipitous dropoff and the Denver Post suggesting that the numbers had actually stabilized. However, both cited robust online figures. Omniture Website Traffic Reports…

The Chickens are Taking Over!

Step aside, mountain pine beetle. There’s a new, unstoppable animal taking over our fair state, and its name is the urban chicken. First the Denver Botanic Gardens held an April 26 class on raising chickens in the city, even though no one seemed certain whether the chickens were even allowed…

Last Call

Pass the lutefisk! Do those Minnesotans know how to party, or what? Last week, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty signed a bill that will let local municipalities push back closing time from 2 a.m. until 4 a.m. at bars across the seven-county Twin Cities area — but just from August 31…

Your Gas Scout Reports: Best Deal on the West Side

In Chicago they’re forking over four bucks a gallon for basic unleaded. The going price at the chain stores around town today ranges from $3.68 to $3.78. But the Bradley at 50th and Federal is holding the line at $3.59. Today, anyway. Get it while the getting is good, junkies,…

Delegating Denver #44 of 56: Rhode Island

View larger image Rhode Island Total Number of Delegates: 33 Pledged: 21 Unpledged: 12 How to Recognize a Rhode Island Delegate: Rhode Islanders are the third-thinnest of all U.S. residents, which is a miracle, considering that there is a Dunkin’ Donuts shop on every corner in the state. It’s because…

Twilight Author Stephenie Meyer Sticks It to Her Fans

No doubt many area fans of Stephenie Meyer (pictured) were thrilled to discover that the young-adult author would be appearing at East High School Auditorium on Monday, May 19, to talk about her latest book, The Host. I know my fifteen-year-old twin daughters were. But whereas virtually all book-oriented appearances…

The Rocky Mountain News Spotlights a Post-Apocalyptic Robin Hood

Most folks who aren’t part of the print-journalism industry don’t understand why a newspaper would publish a correction for an item in that same day’s issue. After all, why apologize for an error instead of simply fixing it? However, newspapers pre-print certain non-breaking-news-oriented sections of oversized editions, like those that…

Redbelt Almost Makes a Moviegoer’s Dream Come True

I began going to movies in 1967, when my parents took me to see Disney’s oh-so-faithful adaptation of The Jungle Book (I’m sure Rudyard Kipling would have loved the voice work of Phil Harris, who portrayed Baloo the bear as a perpetually dazed hippie/slacker). And while I’ve always loved the…

Pundit Watch: Kevin James

If Chris Matthews has to ask someone “Why are you screaming?” then you know something interesting must be going on. And that it was, on Hardball this week. Conservative Los Angeles political commentator (and occasional talking head on CNN and CourtTV) Kevin James was on to address President Bush’s recent…

Gone, Not Forgotten

It was almost two years ago that the parents of Jennifer Marcum posted a billboard by Shotgun Willie’s, offering a $20,000 reward for anyone who could tell them the whereabouts of their daughter, who’d been working as a stripper at Shotgun Willie’s before she disappeared. The last her parents knew,…

Hey, Loser! Take the Beautiful Quiz

Attention, all snooty contemporary art nerds and starving painters/taggers/sculptors/illustrators/photographers/designers of Denver! Want to check out the screening of Beautiful Losers at the Mayan next Thursday? For free? Test your skills at identifying the artists behind the works shown after the jump. The first three people to send a correct list…

Aaron Rose Discusses Beautiful Losers

Art geeks will recall the Beautiful Losers exhibition that toured American museums from 2004 to 2006 (it featured Colorado native Evan Hecox) and the subsequent book of the same name that profiled the emerging aesthetic category now known as Urban Contemporary. Well, the man behind both of those projects, Aaron…

Sally Perisho Puts Together a Great Show

A few years ago, Sally Perisho was in the driver’s seat at the Center for Visual Art, and in that role was one of the city’s chief movers-and-shakers when it came to art. But since she was forced out of her choice gig by a bureaucrat in Metro State’s administration…

Swapping One McPrison for Another

On May 14 the Colorado Department of Corrections announced that it would be bringing nearly 500 state prisoners back from Sayre, Oklahoma, where they’d been stored in a private lockup like so much toxic waste for months because of a lack of bedspace in Colorado prisons. At first glance, this…

Creative Space Survey Released

Last year, the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs and the Denver County Cultural Council hired Artspace Projects, Inc. to conduct an online survey meant to assess the need for space among those in the creative fields, including the visual arts. The survey results, released at a town hall meeting at…

Graffiti Documentary Tonight

Check out the trailer for the new graffiti documentary Bomb It, screening tonight at the Starz Film Center to kick off three days of graffiti events organized by Kim Owens over at www.kaffinebuzz.com. Directed by Jon Reiss – who will be on hand afterward to answer questions – the film…

Shmuck

Alert! Take your frog out of the freezer! Earlier this month, the Colorado Division of Wildlife suggested that one of the best ways to deal with frogs not native to Colorado is to euthanize them by putting them alongside your frozen peas and corndogs. “It might sound cruel, but the…

Letters to the Editor

“Boys Will Be Wetboys,” Jared Jacang Maher, May 1 Chairmen of the Board The funny thing about a boy with a skateboard is that you can do what you will with it. If it makes you get some rad trick that no one has done, you would be satisfied —…

Night Moves

Someone in Denver is throwing a Pajama Party, and Westword’s been invited. It started two months ago, when staff writer Joel Warner discovered a mysterious handwritten letter hidden at the bottom of a deposit-envelope receptacle at a downtown Wells Fargo ATM. The unsigned note requested that whoever found it draw…

Tale of a Daily Newspaper Odd Couple

The recent announcement that the Colorado Daily will abandon its headquarters at 2610 Pearl Street in Boulder in order to share space with the Boulder Daily Camera hardly caused an uproar among locals. Just three readers posted comments on a Camera article about the change — and only one saw…

Hatchet Job

Last week, I took a walk in a juggalo’s shoes — or at least his T-shirt. Juggalos may be hated the world over, but nowhere do they feel less welcome than at Colorado Mills. Although juggalos can buy shirts and hoodies and jerseys with the red Hatchetman logo of Insane…