The Moffat Tunnel Commission went out with a bang last week, engaging in one last act of defiance before being swept into the dustbin of Colorado history. At a New Year’s Eve meeting marked by angry exchanges between commissioners and audience members, the elected panel considered a plan to sabotage…
Anchors away! Channel 2 reporter Jann Tracey, who lost the tip of a finger while shooting a segment with a caged, allegedly tame bear last week (the station declined to run the bloody aftermath), probably considers TV reporting tough duty. But it’s nothing compared with actually watching the stuff. View…
Where does free enterprise end and profiteering begin? The answer depends on which side of the dollar you’re on. And in this case, Denver city officials are caught in the middle. Manager of Safety Fidel “Butch” Montoya has been called upon to mediate a dispute between the manager of a…
Whooooops! Afterward, Lionel Washington couldn’t hold back the tears. A devastated Shannon Sharpe wondered aloud if he’d be able to look at himself in the mirror come Sunday morning. Or face John Elway. Sharpe predicted it would be “years until the Broncos get over this loss. Probably the next century.”…
Pocket Change Regarding Eric Dexheimer’s “Growing Pains,” in the January 2 issue: You know, there are a lot of people deliberately paying less than $7,000 for lumpy, bumpy blue sex toys at adult stores. Glen has with him at all times something that most people have to keep in a…
Deep in a corner of my conscience is a wad of unfinished sweaters–one for every Bronco Super Bowl bust. Somehow, in the agony of defeat–or, perhaps more accurately, the discomfort brought on by excessive consumption of both crow and alcohol–lifting the South Stands would have been easier than hoisting those…
The two old men sit at a card table surrounded by space heaters that buzz and glow in their struggle against the cold. The table has been pulled over to a corner near the front window to take advantage of the muted winter sunlight. A small black-and-white television tuned to…
Glen Rains’s operation didn’t work out quite as he had hoped. “My penis is all globbed up on one side and dented on the other,” he explains slowly. “It’s out of contour. Before, it was reasonably concentric. Now there’s a divot on one side.” Not surprisingly, his wife, Kathy, is…
The announcement that a Denver victims’ assistance board is providing $50,000 to aid victims of the Oklahoma City bombing has created a schism among local advocates: While they agree that Denver should welcome the victims with open arms, some are balking at opening the city’s pocketbooks to them as well…
Dig, we must: With this week’s balmy weather, the immobilizing snow of two weeks ago has melted into memory–a very bad memory. Mayor Wellington Webb’s press secretary, Andrew Hudson, was sitting in the State Capitol on Wednesday, December 18, two days after the snow hit, when he got a page…
The Denver Junior Police Band, once plagued by scandal, has returned after an eight-year hiatus and is again trying to keep kids off the streets by getting them out there pounding the pavement as a marching band. Originally struck up in 1937, the band grew to be more than a…
This old cowtown is finally big enough to merit a splashy, 500-page coffee-table book filled with full-color photos and glowing prose. But Denver’s collective coffee table may not be big enough for two of them. The new year will see the appearance of a pair of lavish profiles of Denver,…
Distaff Dis Regarding Bill Gallo’s “Avs and Have-Nots,” in the December 26 issue: Perhaps Bill Gallo has a hard time remembering any great athlete who doesn’t have a penis (unless the athlete is “perky”–a pathetic adjective in any case). Here’s a handy little list to jog his memory: The “perky”…
Newt Gingrich is still hunting that giraffe. Three hours each week, the smug Speaker of the House pops up on Knowledge TV–the former Mind Extension University on cable–touting his own peculiar view of history in what is surely the country’s most tedious infomercial (no miracle car wax, no hair extensions,…
Some funny things happened on the way to the Pepsi Center. Jurassic Parker A mystery mourner left a wreath of plastic flowers at the westside gas station where “Dino,” a green fiberglass dinosaur representing the Sinclair Oil Company, had been run over and crushed by a wayward driver. International House…
For a few dullards moreJOHN JACOB DINGLEHEIMER JORG PETER SCHMITZ Occupation: Shlock artist/German national The close-brush artist of LoDo was known mostly for his insufferable science-fiction-themed paintings until he showed up in the BMW that ran Rocky Mountain News columnist Greg Lopez off the road at 100 miles per hour…
Grab your crying towels–and wipe away a flood of ’96 tears. Denver was a boomtown this year. In fact, the whole state seemed ready to blow at any minute. The speed limit accelerated to a rip-roaring 75 miles per hour, allowing residents to flee Colorado even faster whenever Channel 7…
Above all, 1996 was the year Denver wore the Scarlet Letter–that big red “A” at once symbolizing the city’s first professional sports championship and its shameless dalliance with the new kid in town. All hail immediate gratification: Marc Crawford’s beautifully coached, deeply talented Colorado Avalanche had scarcely forgotten the taste…
Home for the Holidays I have read Westword for a long time, and during that time there have been a lot of great articles–but none as great as Kyle Wagner’s “Trash Landing,” in the December 19 issue. I would just like to compliment you and the Mulherns for the wonderful…
Quentin Jones’s cheek pressed into the grit of the asphalt parking lot. His head was immobilized by the nightstick a cop had jammed into his neck, and his arms and legs were pinned down by other officers. From the corner of his eye, sixteen-year-old Quentin could see that his father–who…
Of the nearly 500 Christmas decorations Mary Mulhern has rescued from dumpsters over the past twenty years, the recently acquired Mr. and Mrs. Snowman are her favorites. Made from aluminum cans covered with cotton batting, their cheery faces fashioned from bits of felt, the happy snow people show no signs…
The former treasurer of the College Republicans on the Auraria campus became disenchanted with the party and has found a new campaign: He’s organizing a student club for pagans. These days, “I’m basically a conservative libertarian,” says Nicholas Bull, a 21-year-old Metropolitan State College English major. “I had a problem…
