City librarian Rick Ashton is still pushing Denver to establish an independent library district funded by property taxes — but don’t look for it to show up on the ballot this coming November. For almost a year, Ashton has been floating the idea of establishing a library district in Denver…
The Denver City Council was a real three-ring circus Monday night, when a public hearing had been slated for fifteen-year-old Heather Herman’s initiative to ban the use of exotic animals for entertainment, particularly by circuses such as Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. Before the real public comment could begin,…
This holiday season, many of you no doubt basked in the shared warmth of the same comforting customs that people have enjoyed for centuries during this festive and peaceful time of year: Sipping a warm glass of port, wearing your fanciest clothes, spending quality time with your friends and favorite…
At any given time, untold thousands of folks are trying to get into journalism — and quite a few are looking for a way out. The turnover rate among members of the media may not be as high as that of, say, fast-food employees (probably because reporters usually don’t have…
Are You Cracked? I’ll connect you now: David Holthouse’s “Call Me,” in the January 1 issue, was a fun read. I really, really liked it. It gave context to the agitated junkie who always seems to be screaming into thin air via the pay phone at 11th Avenue and Grant…
It can be difficult to find pantyhose that fit properly when you’re a 6’2″, 220-pound hunk with lumberjack legs and large, flat feet. This is a problem that Bill has learned to live with — just one of the many sacrifices a girl-in-training must make for beauty. “Sometimes I’ll use…
Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the show that transforms sloth-like macho men into burgeoning metrosexuals, received the seal of approval from American television audiences this year. But the male makeover is hardly a new phenomenon: Christopher Gradford, a cosmetologist, drag queen and owner of Studio Lites, has been beautifying…
In the summer of 2002, three punks from East High School and their Brickyard skate crew (BYC) gained sudden and unexpected notoriety. At the Tony Hawk Skate Park Tour, BYC member Alex Calvert sneaked the crew’s banner into a prominent spot on the stage, hanging it among the high-dollar-sponsor advertisements…
1. During last year’s State of the State address, Governor Owens asked the Divine Being to bless all but which of these? A. You. B. Colorado. C. Ken Salazar. D. America. 2. Cribbing from an op-ed piece he wrote in 1990 for the Rocky Mountain News, Owens said this in…
When we last checked in on Rick Stanley (Hall of Shame, December 25), the former Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate was doing time in Adams County Jail after being sentenced to ninety days following his conviction for openly wearing a .357 revolver at a Thornton community event in violation of…
Now that the holiday parties are over, it’s time to get on with the serious business of the new year — picking the designer disease of 2004. After 9/11, anthrax was the disease of choice for late 2001 and early 2002, as fashionistas across the country integrated gas masks into…
Disc jockey and filmmaker Raechel Donahue is standing behind a bank of buttons, faders, computer screens and assorted doohickeys at the Mountain, Denver’s latest classic-rock purveyor, when the studio door swings open and five visitors pour inside. Leading the pack is Sire, the host of the Mountain’s weekly reggae program,…
They aren’t hanging any championship banners over Chopper Circle just yet. But Denver Nuggets fans are taking the brown paper bags off their heads in record numbers, and their families have cut back on those worried phone calls to the shrink. Hope, hoops and hooplah have returned to lift high…
Meow Nix Dumb and dumber: While I don’t condone violence against cute animals, I also do not condone the predictable letters to the editor written by dumb animals. I thought your December 25 Year in Review cover was shocking in a completely innocent manner. My young daughter enjoyed the shot…
The stark shale cliffs rise north of the interstate, towering over the town of Rifle. From below, the 3,500-foot stone pillars look forbidding and lifeless, like books placed on a shelf for show. But to Joe Clugston, there’s nothing dead about the geologic upheaval looming over his home — not…
All day and all night, I stand here, never moving, on the same sad patch of trampled grass while strangers use me. Eight minutes for 35 cents. A lot of the folks in my ‘hood don’t even pay; they just stick their grubby fingers in my slot and root around…
Only two people truly know who inflicted fatal injuries on Kyran Gaston-Voss a year ago, and they know it beyond any doubt. One of them, Kyran’s mother, has always maintained her innocence. The other, the mother’s ex-lover, changed his story dramatically in the days after eighteen-month-old Kyran was airlifted from…
Kitty Litter You’ve gone too fur: I love Westword and I read it every week, but I hated the cover of the December 25 Year in Review issue. I am a cat lover, and the gun to the cat’s head was in poor taste! Kay Whittle Denver Crossing the feline:…
1. According to an article on page one of the January 1, 2003, Denver Post, downtown Denver looked like what last New Year’s Eve? A. “Fort Lauderdale during spring break.” B. “Baghdad on a bad night.” C. “The National Western Stock Show during the mutton-bustin’ event.” D. “A Franciscan monastery.”…
Here, kitty, kitty: Hysteria over animal mutilations this spring evoked the “cattle mutes” of two decades back — a still-unexplained phenomenon in which cattle throughout the region were found with their innards neatly excised. In a rising yowl of anguish, local news outlets detailed dozens of attacks on pets, typically…
1. Tracy Baker. Arapahoe County’s e-mail-slinging, girlfriend-promoting clerk and recorder has earned a permanent place in the Westword Hall of Shame. After more than a year of very public wrangling with his fellow Republicans in Arapahoe County, Baker still refused to go quietly into the private sector. “I love what…
Linda Donelson pulled into her driveway at six o’clock on a wintry Monday evening in March. She’d just picked up her seven-year-old grandson, Caleb, from daycare, and he was eager to see his mom. But before Linda could open the garage and go in the house, she noticed a piece…
