Don’t Have a Cow, Man Megan Hall’s “Not a Pretty Picture,” in the July 9 issue, paints in unintentionally comic perspective a most cherished modern sacred bovine: the notion that art and its purveyors are “loftier” than useful things like hotdogs and those who vend them. This notion and the…
Sonja Winfield works in the trenches–the pink, lacy trenches of the Joslins Intimate Apparel department. What goes on here, though, is neither rakishly romantic nor deliciously self-indulgent. Most of the time, it’s not even fun. “It’s a good thing I like -ologies,” says Sonja, the chain’s expert bra fitter. “Psychology,…
Poor Ken Calhoun. The former Denver Post vice president of marketing, known as “Ken4Boys” in Internet chat rooms, didn’t so much as get his Bermudas unzipped for that “hot oil massage” he’d talked about with a supposed teenage boy he had planned to meet on a Florida vacation. But within…
A lot of things decorate the walls at Reliable Enterprises on West 38th Avenue. There are signs advertising that the business will, for a fee, provide translations from Spanish to English, notarize documents, Xerox them, fax them, prepare tax returns and handle immigration applications. There are two Broncos pennants, several…
Everyone heard the explosion. It sounded like someone had detonated a cherry bomb behind the apartment. A man named Bud opened the back door to see what the hell was going on. Big mistake. There were three of them in the parking lot, three wild men lit by the midnight…
You go, Dennis!: Press releases don’t usually excite us, but this one stuck out. On July 3 we received an official notice from the Denver Post on its letterhead, announcing that editor-in-chief Dennis Britton was retiring August 31. Joy in Mudville! Any discombobulation at the dailies is always good news,…
Two attorneys can live in a town where one cannot,” proverb collector V.S. Lean noted a century ago. Colorado’s booming economy has brought a corresponding surge in the number of practicing attorneys in the state–now estimated at around 20,000, with actual attorney registration pushing 28,000. And with the disputatious tide…
For a man who’s dedicated his life to creating art, Steve White sure knows how to make a mess. When he got out of the Army in 1969, protests over the Vietnam War were getting ugly. It was then, White says, “I decided I just wanted to spend the rest…
Last Saturday, three days before the All-Star Game, Petey Maestas waited two hours for the chance to hit a home run off Randy Johnson. Johnson, the hawk-nosed, fright-wigged, six-foot-ten-inch flamethrower of the Seattle Mariners, has not been enjoying the best of seasons–seven wins, seven losses, seventeen home runs yielded in…
HOW IT ALL BEGAN “I was selling portraits door-to-door, and the boss died, so I decided to go to the mall and play the clarinet. On my first day, I sat on a bench and made $60 playing one song after another. I didn’t look up at anyone. I just…
The Bused of Denver Although I enjoyed your annual Best of Denver issue as well as your domestic-violence series, I didn’t know how much I’d missed Patricia Calhoun’s columns until she came out swinging in her July 2 “You Can’t Get There From Here.” Give ’em hell, Calhoun! Send Pat…
Ken Storch and LJ Dalicandro are on a case, the case of a lifetime. They pick an isolated booth in the corner of a suburban Denny’s, light up thin cigarillos and give the restaurant the once-over before they start talking. When coffee arrives, Dalicandro whips out a buck knife to…
On the night of April 1, 22 members of the Mt. Gilead Baptist Church–twelve adults and ten kids–dropped by a Perkins restaurant in Aurora for some coffee and pie. When they asked to be seated together, the manager refused. When they offered to wait or break up into smaller groups,…
Billions and billions served: “AT&T-TCI deal could cut costs, expand services,” said the Denver Post in a headline announcing last week’s monster merger. It was a modest little prediction in keeping with the breathless coverage so far afforded the deal, which of course is the latest step toward all U.S…
Has Denver’s much-ballyhooed “pop-top” ordinance gone flat? The ordinance was passed five years ago by the city council after Washington Park residents complained bitterly about huge second-story additions to area homes that dwarfed neighboring houses and blocked sunshine. The ordinance imposed height limits on the additions–commonly known as “pop tops”–and…
New York writer Ray Jadwick had been through a lot in his journey out West. Roswell, New Mexico: He bought a pair of rattlesnake boots from a roadside Indian who kept calling him “Bro.” Tombstone, Arizona: He ran into a guy who thought he was Johnny Ringo reincarnate–the legendary foe…
If you had a nickel for every man, woman and child watching the World Cup on television, you could buy Denmark–or maybe a decent lunch for two in Paris. Astonishing but true: Around the globe, 37 billion people are currently glued to their sets as assorted South Africans, Paraguayans, Dutchmen…
Yawn Care Your (yawn) Best of Denver (yawn) issue had such (yawn) variety from the (yawn) past few years’ issues (yawn). It was really interesting (yawn) reading all about Aimee Sporer’s (yawn) hair again, and (yawn) all those neato paragraphs by you clever Westword staffers about such (yawn) really cool…
The bus stops here. During last year’s State of the City address, Wellington Webb urged the Broncos to give up on Stapleton and instead support a new stadium downtown. Even in these heady economic times, Webb warned, a Stapleton site was too darned expensive. “Where is that money coming from?”…
There’s not a cloud in the sky. If Neil Slade were just another picnicker at Mt. Falcon Park, this would be an auspicious sign. But Neil was looking forward to something cushy and cumulus. If it were floating in the sky above him right now, he’d deign to show off…
Krystal was getting ready to go to her weekly batterer class when her husband threw a glass of water in her face, called her a slut and took her car keys away from her. No wife of his was going to be counseled about domestic violence–not without a fight, anyway…
Janice didn’t know why she tried to kill the other girl. “She just pissed me off,” she told counselor Adolph Montana. So Janice had lain in wait, and when the girl approached, she stabbed her and kept stabbing her until the knife broke. Montana knew what lay at the roots…
