t’s okay to donate spare change downtown during the eleventh annual Denver International Buskerfest, but keep your handouts to yourself the rest of the time. The Downtown Denver Partnership recently issued a brochure admonishing local residents and business owners to “Support Real Change, Don’t Give Spare Change.” Turns out the…
When attorney Dani Newsum tackles current events during appearances on KBDI-TV/Channel 12 programs such as Colorado Inside Out, she does so at full speed, with her shoulders squared. So it’s no surprise that she hits just as hard once the topic turns to her removal from Head On, a series…
There’s a moment in his college career that senior Tom Preissing won’t forget. “It was one of the better feelings I’ve had in my life,” explains the captain of Colorado College’s highly ranked hockey team. “I can look back and say, ‘I did that.'” So, did this moment come when…
Creative Class Dismissed Reality bites: I was very intrigued by Patricia Calhoun’s “A Class Act,” in the June 19 issue. Sometimes it seems like the mainstream media can’t see the real Denver, which is very obvious if you just look around. Denver is full of people who would want to…
The Westword Music Showcase has come of age over the past decade — not unlike LoDo, where we launched the event in 1995. Now in its ninth year, the Showcase has moved out of its original home and grown into a can’t-miss annual celebration of area talent. And this year,…
“Here. You want to try something? Try this,” says James Purcell as he crosses behind the pickup truck parked in the Denver Zoo commissary garage. It’s 8 a.m., almost time for Purcell to make his first round of deliveries. The bed is filled to the sidewalls with fifty-pound bags of…
Denver’s smallest railroad is used to being overshadowed. Sitting at its tiny station behind REI’s superstore, the Platte Valley Trolley looks like a toy crafted specifically to enhance the riverfront’s newfound glitz. Kayakers plunge down the rapids at Confluence Park, and runners and bicyclists share the path that stretches out…
1. This space has been placed under quarantine due to prairie-monkey-dog fever. While monkeypox sounds funny, there’s reason for concern because: A. Colorado exports more prairie dogs as pets than any other state. B. The Centennial State might as well be called Prairie Dog Heaven, because 70 million of the…
As if it weren’t hard enough the first time for Jocelan Martell to hear how her son was fatally beaten, she now has to relive it again — all because of a technical glitch. On March 14, Martell had fought back tears as a witness described the brutal scene in…
What does $50 million look like? If it’s the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s new Space Odyssey exhibit, which opened last Friday to a crowd of 1,200 after many years and $50 million in the making, it looks like a lot of, well, empty space. Skeptical — and requesting…
Anyone who believes the issue of race in these United States has been resolved once and for all should book a one-way ticket to Fantasyland. For better or worse, ethnicity continues to influence countless aspects of everyday life, from employment and education to entertainment and sports. Yet television news rarely…
If we can believe Carmelo Anthony, a nineteen-year-old college dropout with some fancy ideas in his head, the Denver Nuggets are about to achieve greatness. This will happen soon after he, Carmelo Anthony, laces up his sneakers and becomes a Nugget. In fact, Carmelo believes he — not some overhyped…
Wired for Sound The displeasure of her company: After reading Patricia Calhoun’s “Carry On!” in the June 12 issue, I think Westword should sponsor a contest for the worst story about flying in the next few months. The winner gets to spend his or her entire summer vacation at DIA…
St. Anthony Hospitals, part of the Centura Health network, is emphatic about its mission — so much so that the hospital lists its “core values” on the back of every employee’s name tag and outlines its commitment to them on its Web site. Centura Health is a nonprofit, faith-based health…
For a story of dogs and socialites acting badly, the 3000 block of South Race Street is an unlikely setting. The Cherry Hills Vista neighborhood is a typical middlebrow community filled with ranch-style homes, manicured lawns and a few driveways featuring cars jacked up on blocks. The gated community four…
1. You think the moths are bad? Guess what? There are other flying threats. State labs are testing for West Nile virus. What species are they not looking for? A. Crows B. Magpies C. Hummingbirds D. Ravens 2. According to scientists, a bird is a good specimen if it has:…
The people of Denver may have spoken last week and said that yes, yes, they really want John Hickenlooper to be their man, but the people of Playboy gave him no such props. The July issue of the moribund men’s magazine featured a taste-testing of what it deemed the nation’s…
On June 2, when the Federal Communications Commission voted by a slender majority to slacken many of its broadcast ownership rules, most protesters who’d opposed such a move felt disheartened. Nonetheless, Colorado Springs’s Criz Stoddard — whose left-leaning Springs Action Alliance was one of countless grassroots organizations nationwide to demonstrate…
On a recent morning, former University of Colorado football coach Bill McCartney and Derek Hines stop by a new suburban course just north and west of Denver to play a little golf. Fortunately, they’re not playing together. Instead, they’re lined up on opposite ends of the driving range. This is…
Signs of the Times License to chill: I just wanted to applaud Patricia Calhoun’s sign-ordinance column, “Dollars and Nonsense,” in the June 5 Westword, and recount a similar experience I had last year while working for the City. I had parked downtown for an interview. My car’s front plate holder…
It must be Sunday, because Sword of the Lord is faith-healing on the 15 bus. “I’m Sword of the Lord,” he proclaims upon boarding RTD’s East Colfax line. “I’ve come to save souls and heal the sick. Amen!” Like his faith, Sword of the Lord’s afro is big and wild…
About a month ago, Marilyn Megenity walked into an auto shop in lower downtown and posed a somewhat unusual proposition. “I just bought a diesel-engine Mercedes, and I’m hoping to convert it to run on vegetable oil,” she told the mechanic. He paused for a moment, looked at Megenity, looked…
