The Dalai Lama seemed quite pleased at the size of the Mongolian audience that greeted him at the Newman Center for the Performing Arts this past Saturday morning, reports Zula Tserendejid, head of the Mongolian Community Association of Colorado. And the Mongolians were quite pleased to see His Holiness as…
Here at Westword, we joke among ourselves about the Best of Denver curse, which strikes when we give an award to a worthy restaurant, business or program — which shuts down shortly after the honor sees print. Something similar recently occurred in relation to a Message column, but this ending…
Last year, it seemed as if Dalton Trumbo, arguably the most famous-ever resident of Grand Junction, had finally been embraced by his hometown. Now, however, the town’s daily newspaper seems to be balking, and for the quaintest of reasons: Trumbo was a pinko. No denying that. As noted in this…
Not all tagging is bad. In fact, some wall writing is intended as a public service. Just check out the alleyway postings recently found behind some Denver businesses. Thanks to the graffiti website www.12ozprophet.com for uncovering them. — Jared Jacang Maher…
Last spring, the announcement that hip-hop fashion mogul Marc Ecko (pictured) planned a graffiti festival in Denver resulted in major embroilment. But after months of halfhearted planning, a representative for Ecko says the fest is off. “We will not be doing the event in Denver,” writes Ecko’s senior marketing manager…
To quote that great intellectual, Yakov Smirnov: America, what a country! Where else can an individual be a complete unknown one day, and achieve planetary domination the next? An example of this phenomenon popped up on this morning’s edition of the Today show, when Matt Lauer interviewed Keith Olbermann, on…
Remember back, waaay back, when the local media was obsessed with a fellow named John Mark Karr? Well, mere weeks later, very few journos remain interested in the man who falsely claimed to have killed Boulder tot JonBenet Ramsey nine-plus years ago. KHOW talk-show hosts Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman…
The Fox reality show So You Think You Can Dance has done so well in the ratings that the network has created a tour featuring the program’s ten top finalists; the troupe performs in Denver on Tuesday, September 19, at the Colorado Convention Center’s Lecture Hall. Brian Friedman, a choreographer-turned-TV…
“Short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior.” That’s Earl Devaney, the DOI’s inspector general, telling a House of Representatives subcommittee yesterday about the ethical black hole among the bureaucrats who manage one-fifth of all the land in the United States. In…
On a sunny spring day, Denver Animal Control Officer J. Lopez was driving through Swansea, the working-class neighborhood bisected by I-70, with the windows rolled down to let in some fresh air. They also let in the sound of chickens “going crazy.” Lopez followed the crowing and cackling to 4344…
It’s not the size of the cock in the fight. It’s the size of the fight in the cock. And it’s not the strength of the cockfighting laws on the books. It’s whether or not they’re enforced. So says Ron Simons, executive director of the Society for the Prevention of…
Bill Menezes, the editorial director for Colorado Media Matters, doesn’t pretend to be ideologically objective — and neither does his organization. “We make it very clear on our website and anywhere else where we talk about Colorado Media Matters that we are a progressive research organization that is aimed at…
When Josh Blue was named the last comic standing, he automatically became Denver’s second-most-famous living celebrity — after John Elway, of course, and before… Dealin’ Doug? But Denver has no shortage of dead celebrities (Why else would Warren Zevon, now dead himself, pen the song “Things to Do in Denver…
The fates of David and Dina Weller all came down to a cigarette butt and blood. In the spring of 2005, the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde were ransacking the West Washington Park neighborhood, but Denver Police Department detective Philip Stanford didn’t have enough evidence to charge anyone. There were no…
I have a message for the baristas at the Starbucks at Sixth and Broadway: tall café mocha, whipped cream, hot, not cold. There will be occasional days when I request a piece of your pumpkin loaf, but please do me the extreme favor of not assuming that I want it…
Street Dreams Things to do in Denver before you’re dead: I just wanted to send my compliments about “A Federal Case,” in the September 7 issue. I loved your cover story about Broadway, was looking forward to another street — and here it is. I grew up in Denver, and…
Ah, MySpace, thou art a foul temptress. It’s amazing how the social networking website is treated by so many young adults as some sort of secret journal where they can spill their most outlandish desires and drug-addled exploits. It’s a virtual candyland for perverts and journalists alike. Nowhere else can…
There’s nothing that can bring back Sonja DeVries. But the Colorado Republicans just added insult to fatal injury when it sent out a release using the case of Sonja DeVires (sic) — killed by a drunk driver on July 18, 2004, when she was just nineteen— to bash Bill Ritter…
The current Message column concerns Colorado Media Matters, the first state-based spinoff of Media Matters, a Washington, D.C., organization devoted to counteracting, contradicting and correcting what the folks there consider to be “conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” Media Matters president, CEO and founder David Brock is quoted in the…
Before Gustavo Arellano started appearing in the pages of Westword, he appeared on The Colbert Report. To watch, click on the control below…
It’s been dark days for Colorado, what with Ward Churchill, JonBenet Ramsey and Michael Tracey in particular (and CU in general) in the news. How like the national media to kick a good state when it’s down. Two weeks ago, the New Yorker sidelined Denver, calling it a “second-tier city”…
On a dry day it’s not unusual to see upwards of thirty scooters and mopeds assembled along the inner sidewalk of Speer Boulevard as it runs past downtown. A protest of our nation’s oil addiction? A hot, new modster hangout? No, the scooters belong to students and professors of the…
