Norton Hears a Who Janey, get your gun: Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s perceptive “Calamity Jane,” in the November 7 issue: Jane Norton and Bill Owens, extreme in any other era, are just your average 21st- century Republicans. Only minutes after the Republican takeover of the state senate had been confirmed, my…
One by one, they arrive on their Harleys. Young to middle-aged men wearing ponytails, beards, Sturgis T-shirts, bandannas, black leather vests and matching chaps. Women in fringed leather jackets and denim. Those who don’t ride much anymore come by car, but they still dress the part. If they were pulling…
As he walks through the showroom at Titan of the Rockies, the Lakewood motorcycle dealership where he’s repair-shop foreman, Nick Nichols relays the history of Indian motorcycles. When he passes a vintage 1940s model, he lets out a low whistle: The mint-green bike is a beauty. After years of dwindling…
The good news about the sale of Good Shepherd Catholic Elementary School is that the deal doesn’t have to wait on a decision from Rome, a cumbersome process that could delay any closing by months. And while the transaction still requires final approval from Denver archdiocesan councils, Good Shepherd’s pastor,…
Quick! Before the half-dozen declared candidates in Denver’s May 2003 mayoral election start slinging mud around, there could be just enough time to clean up the muck left by recent political dirty tricks. Among the muddiest: the anti-Wayne Allard ad tagging him as a hater of children (more on that…
Today a woman came to Dr. John A. Grossman to discuss getting her eyes done. Since Grossman is widely considered the finest cosmetic surgeon in Denver — and arguably also in Beverly Hills, where he keeps an office — she assumed she was in the right hands. “I looked at…
If you lived in upstate New York in the late 1980s and early ’90s, as I did, there was really only one sports story worth paying attention to. No, it wasn’t the Buffalo Bills, a team on the cusp of setting a record for Super Bowl futility, dumping four straight…
North Carolina Republican Senator Jesse Helms is best known as a supporter of hot-button issues like tobacco subsidies and the Confederate flag, and not as a computer visionary. But reports indicate that Helms, who will retire from the Senate at the end of this term after thirty years in office,…
The Sound of Música Swallow hell: Harrison Fletcher’s “Meanwhile, Back at the Ranchera,” in the October 24 issue, was an interesting look at the Mexican music scene. But the Galindos shouldn’t get too comfortable: I’m sure that their concert business will soon be gobbled up by the same corporate giants…
Memo To: Jefferson County Sheriff John P. Stone Re: Columbine I know that you’re a busy man. You’ve got a lot on your mind and only a few weeks to go before you clean out your desk. So I’ll try to keep this short. I realize, too, that you’re tired…
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold weren’t the only ones engaged in a shooting spree at Columbine on April 20, 1999. Denver police officers were generous with their own ammunition that day, firing at phantoms and pumping rounds into a school full of trapped students long after the killers were dead…
TV pitchman Tom Bodett may promise to “leave the light on” for would-be guests of Motel 6, but the City of Denver is about to bring out the klieg lights for the proposed city-owned hotel next to the Colorado Convention Center. The city may soon issue $347 million in bonds…
One of the most bruising battles of the current election has been the heated contest between state senator Marilyn Musgrave and state senate president Stan Matsunaka, squaring off for the 4th Congressional District seat being vacated by Bob Schaffer. But according to Greeley attorney Richard Blundell, whatever licks Musgrave, the…
Mike Speck believes in life, liberty and the pursuit of happily doing whatever you want to do on your own property. Since 1989, he’s lived in Wonderview, one of the last affordable neighborhoods in Evergreen, a 33-home subdivision where, historically, everything from tidy lawns to eccentric yard art to benign…
Once upon a time, in a city right outside your door, reporters at assorted media organizations actively competed for stories, with the aim of scooping anyone and everyone. But while such battles still take place on occasion today, things are infinitely more complicated than they once were. Consider the tale…
When I was a kid, my father had a friend named Morris Kleinman, an elegant, witty lawyer with a passion for tailor-made suits, Bombay martinis on the stem and the New York Yankees. Renowned as a tiger in the courtroom, Mr. Kleinman was an indulgent and generous man outside the…
No Kidding Candygram: Regarding Julie Jargon’s “Knock, Knock, Who’s There?” in the October 24 issue: So, what’s the next step? What do you do about a “business” whose owners are all but invisible? I’ve had the same experience in my neighborhood — kids I don’t recognize ringing my bell after…
Delia Flores has selected raspberry lipstick, a blue headband and six tiny gold hoop earrings for the evening. Although she still has to wear her khaki uniform and lug around a dustpan and broom, Los Temerarios, Mexico’s hottest romántica band, is playing tonight, and she wants to look good. A…
While most people are buying candy to give to kids on Halloween, Greg Zerwas is haunted by kids trying to sell him candy. Kids dropped by Zerwas’s northwest Denver duplex several times over the past two summers, peddling $7 boxes of chocolates. They didn’t look like they came from his…
While the manure — a substance that Republican Wayne Allard, the Senate’s only veterinarian, is very capable of recognizing, according to one of his ads — continues to accumulate on the campaign trail, a few voters unhappy with the negative tone of the major parties’ campaign for the U.S. Senate…
If you’re not careful, a telephone can ruin your romance. That’s the message of Gian Carlo Menotti’s 25-minute-long The Telephone. Although the opera was written in the late ’40s, baritone Chris McKim, who’s analyzed his part, considers it oddly up to date. “This is one of my favorite lines: This…
On the afternoon of October 15, viewers in Colorado’s 5th District with their televisions tuned to Channel 4 saw someone plenty of them had probably never eyeballed before — the Democrat wishing to represent them in Congress. Why is Curtis Imrie an unknown to so many voters? Even in this…
