Boys and Their Hoods

Paul Russo is feeling like his old self again. Sure, it took a year’s worth of pulling, yanking, stretching, a few rolls of surgical tape and the help of assorted homemade contraptions, but he finally did it. The once-circumcised Russo has regrown his foreskin. Don’t believe it? Just look at…

No Balls, Maybe a Strike

If you can come up with one good reason why Bud Selig shouldn’t be publicly drawn and quartered and his parts scattered from Fond du Lac to Madison, let’s hear it. Want to bestow mercy on Chisox owner Jerry Reinsdorf? Fine. Give him a nice schooner of Old Style before…

Letters

Bench Marks My thanks and congratulations to Westword. Alan Prendergast’s article on Judge Lynne Hufnagel (“Motion to Dismiss,” October 24) may have made the difference in this election. The judge got the boot, and justice is the winner. Ralph Smythe Denver The voters last Tuesday sent a clear message to…

Real Life. Real News. Real Bad.

Get real: If Channel 7 had given it some thought–a commodity as rare as a newscast without a promotional puff piece–the station wouldn’t have mentioned that “pitbull” tag so proudly worn by its new mascot, Natalie Pujo. After all, the last time a local television reporter tangled with pitbulls, she…

Edge

Forget which ski area has the lowest lift-ticket prices and what mountain has the most high-speed quads–you already know that (or the resorts themselves will tell you). The 1996-97 season has begun, and now that the skis are waxed and the snowboard has been tweaked, the most important info to…

Death of a Salesman

It was the dog that let them know something was wrong. His neighbors knew Steven Wickliff would never allow his beloved golden retriever, Jake, to wander the streets. So when they noticed the animal had been running loose in their southeast Denver neighborhood, they called the police. When the cops…

Blake Like Me

Gramma Blake is not alive to see the drunken woman staggering up Gregory Street, her slot-machine earnings clinking in her fanny pack. Gramma Blake never did like this sort of thing. In the 1930s she would stomp down from her house on Blake Hill and into a Black Hawk bar…

Circling the Wagons

US West likes to highlight the diversity of its huge fourteen-state territory with TV advertising that periodically features cowboys chatting on pay phones and pickup trucks rambling through the Sonoran desert. Now the phone company’s opponents have picked up on the Western theme: They’ve formed a regional posse to hunt…

Off Limits

It’s my party and I’ll lie if I want to: Now that the elections are over, you can once again answer the phone at dinnertime, secure in the knowledge that it’s probably some annoying in-law rather than a candidate’s computerized whine. You can safely turn on the television without fear…

Below the Belt

Former Durango mayor Jeff Morrissey is accused of striking a low blow in the fight for a controversial southern Colorado water project that he supports. As a result, he faces two counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly making lewd comments to two women who oppose the Animas-La Plata water project…

A Crush on Orange

It ain’t no bandwagon. Ralph and Jimmy Garcia remember the day the Broncos got rid of their vertical striped socks in a public burning at training camp. They recall Lionel Taylor’s 100 pass receptions in 1961 and the moment when Jeremiah Castille fell on The Fumble at the three-yard line…

Political Animals

Enough. By the time he was on the homestretch of his 1,200-mile tour of the Fourth Congressional District, independent candidate Wes McKinley had had enough of Marvin the mule. Especially since the Greeley Tribune had passed over both the name-party candidates–Democrat Guy Kelley and Republican victor Bob Schaefer–in order to…

Letters

The Die’s Typecast Steve Jackson’s Bobby Hornbuckle profile (“Last Call,” October 31) was probably the worst article ever written in the very galaxy. Why? Because Bobby’s always been a monster bluesman, the baddest for miles around, but you slimebags wait until he’s dying to give him some press! Why weren’t…

Last Call

It’s been eighteen months since Bobby Hornbuckle sat in the same muted yellow light that now filters through the windows of Ziggie’s Saloon, talking about his battle with hepatitis and the lifestyle that had given him the disease. Heroin. Needles. Cocaine. Playing and living the blues. “If you want to…

Unfinished Business

In past years, the Regional Transportation District board elections have had all the political excitement and heart-pounding suspense of a Ross Perot infomercial. But this fall’s slate offers more drama than most congressional races; candidates have squared off over the future of Denver’s light-rail system, swapped insults over the accomplishments…

The Club Gets Drubbed

Tammara Keisler didn’t mind picking up after the members of the Colorado Arlberg Club. But the self-described “surfer girl” from Southern California thought it was totally bogus when the wealthy ski society fired her from an $11-an-hour housekeeper’s job to keep her from collecting a $500 bonus. So the 27-year-old…

Off Limits

Air today, gone tomorrow: Republicans aren’t the only ones who’ve been converging on San Diego recently. A bevy of nine Denver public servants had a grand old party of their own in the California sun last week, jetting southwest for a four-day regional conference of the Airports Council International trade…

The Vision Thing

Organizers are touting the upcoming Rocky Mountain Marian Conference, a three-day paean to visions of the Virgin Mary, as a chance for Catholics to strengthen their love for the Virgin and reaffirm their faith in God. But some Catholics are up in arms because one of the keynote speakers, Ivan…

Antlers of a Dilemma

In April 1994 rancher John Avery of southwestern Colorado noticed that one of his elk herd was ill. Now, more than two years later, Avery himself is feeling both sick and angry. His herd’s been quarantined, several elk have had their throats cut or have been shot to death, an…

Cowboys and Quarterbacks

Ex-altar boys built like beer trucks still go to Notre Dame. The future Nobel laureates are at Stanford, absorbing Plato. Those who crave ice cream and river rafting are bonding with Kid Rick up in Boulder–and calling home on the free telephones. Condominium-sized sprinters who live for the scent of…

Letters

Dis Honor Alan Prendergast’s October 24 article, “Motion to Dismiss,” made reference to the divorce action involving a local attorney whose estranged wife was dying of cancer. I performed a great deal of the research for the respondent in that case. Never in all the courtrooms where I have assisted…

The Rogue of Five Points

The Count of Five Points is playing a tape of himself reading Edgar Allan Poe in a sonorous voice: “From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were–I have not seen As others saw–I could not bring My passions from a common spring– From the same source I have…