Too Many Fire Chiefs

After it was all over — the emergency meetings and votes of no confidence, the suspensions and resignations, the backroom intrigues and public squabbles, culminating in the ouster of the fire chief — Charlie Neppell decided it was time to give credit where credit was due. So when the board…

Mountain West Conference Lineup

Centennial’s Comcast Media Center is such a mammoth facility that its hallways have been given street names to prevent the uninitiated from wandering it like disoriented lab rats involved in a pointlessly cruel maze experiment. Hence, visitors must traverse part of Uplink Avenue and take a long walk along Programming…

The Joy of Sox

When I was nine years old, I lost my virginity to a gym sock. The best part about it was that I was not biologically developed enough to actually, how you say, manifest, so there was absolutely no mess to clean up! I just put the gym sock back on…

Letters to the Editor

“Final Checkout,” Luke Turf, May 17 No-Tell Motel While I found “Final Checkout” an interesting and informative article, I believe you do a great disservice to motel residents such as Amy Limon and Charles Young by including the story of Amy Hess-Kibben alongside theirs. Most people have a hard time…

Job Search

The paranoia at the Denver Post is running high these days. The paper wants to cut 37 positions via buyout offers, but if not enough employees age 50 or older take the deal, executives have already said they’ll achieve their goal through layoffs. As a result, younger staff members, who’ll…

This Note’s for You

Notes like this one are the backbone of nearly every shitty, irritating relationship forced upon us by the horrors of modern life. If it isn’t the roommate, it’s the neighbor, or the jackoff that works two cubicles down. Some of us leave them, some of us are the target of…

Superpowers Clash at Cannes

In what could very well be foreshadowing of the next global war, this year’s Cannes festival was dominated by the current superpower (that’d be the good ol’ U.S. of A.) and the superpower on the rise (China, of course). Unlike the coming conflict, this fight features lots of arty close-ups…

A New Era of Openness

A May 22 blog item focusing on Jared Polis’ decision to run for U.S. Representative in the second Congressional district noted that he stopped returning phone calls and e-mails from Westword after the appearance of a warts-and-all profile of him was published in 2004. The piece concluded that “Polis will…

Becky Due Wants to Take Your Call

Call her, just don’t call her bitch. Becky Due is a Colorado-based feminist author who’s been through the shelters and skid row. Men have walked all over her, beat her, and for a long time Due allowed herself to be a victim. Then she picked up a pen and started…

J’ Shabu

“I’ve been thrown out of some of these bars. Chased out. Ignored. I don’t do karaoke, but I know a place where one might indulge their proclivities for singing half-drunk versions of Mandy or Forever in Blue Jeans until late in the night or early in the morning. I know…

Stop Skitchin’

Skitching: all the kids are doin’ it – at least according to the Denver Post. Last Thursday, a Littleton teenager died after being run over by his buddy’s Jeep while “skitching,” meaning he was riding his skateboard while holding onto a moving vehicle. But those who assume that the death…

eBay–Touched by the Greasy Hand of Faith

I know when I eat any kind of fried food, thoughts of evil float around in my head. The Devil uses trans-fat to tempt humankind and I can say I am tempted many times a day. While I’m stuffing that fried Twinkie in my mouth, I say a prayer, hoping…

A Colorado Springs McEducation, thanks to Wal-Mart

News today that Denver International Airport is hoping to place advertisements in the plastic bins used at security checkpoints is sure to stir up complaints about turning security screenings into one big commercial. If you can’t be spared from an advertising bombardment as you take off half your clothes and…

CDOT Reconsidering Trains Along I-70?

Last week, Colorado Department of Transportation head Russell George announced that the agency would be reexamining its stance that highway widening is the “preferred alternative” for addressing gridlock along the I-70 mountain corridor…

Jared Polis Wants to Represent

On May 21, Internet millionaire turned Democratic Party insider Jared Polis formally declared his intention to run for the second Congressional district seat currently held by Mark Udall, a declared candidate for the U.S. Senate. (Polis’ website can be accessed here.) By doing so, he’s opening himself up to a…

Live Review: Animal Collective at Cervantes’

Thickly bearded and shrouded beneath a floppy hat, Sir Richard Bishop warmed up the eager, Monday night crowd. Sort of an edgier Leo Kottke, after about thirty minutes of lighting-quick guitar instrumentals he lightheartedly lambasted the freak folk scene, trying to count the beards in the crowd. Then he broke…

Goodbye Dahlia

As noted in an April Message column and blog items like this one from May 7, the Rocky Mountain News appears to be focusing much of its impending staff slimming on the features section. Some employees have already been shifted, in whole or in part, to duties elsewhere in the…

Political Face Off

“The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice,” said Theodore Roosevelt. But Roosevelt was wrong, dead wrong. The most successful politician is he who looks most like sexy George Clooney. Of course, old Teddy never could have known this,…

What You Missed This Weekend

Click the links for a slideshow of the event The Omens Hi-Dive Saturday, May 19th Yerkish and Red Cloud West Oriental Theater Friday, May 18th The BBC America Brit Bus Tour Civic Center Park Saturday, May 19th Bow Wow Vows Aspen Grove Saturday, May 19th…

Colfax Marathon: Street of Pain

The concept is great: a marathon on the longest non-highway street in America. It’s the reality that sucks, at least for those of us who subjected ourselves yesterday to the torture that was the Colorado Colfax marathon. The course is an uphill battle of Colfaxian proportions, with the majority of…

The Colorado Rockies Lead the League — in Sucking

During the first several years following their April 1993 debut, the Colorado Rockies were the envy of Major League Baseball thanks to the incredible fan support they enjoyed. But less than a decade and a half later, the team has pissed away every last drop of that good will. The…

Third Annual Colfax Crawl–May 19, 2007

Red Room (along with seven other bars along East Colfax) 7:00 pm Saturday, May 19 My favorite memory from my first Colfax Crawl was my former German roommate being mistaken for a prostitute. We were sitting on the corner of Colfax and Williams stuffing Burger King in our drunken mouths,…