Good news, Woody Paige: Les Paul isn’t dead yet

It’s always dangerous when sportswriters include music references in their columns. Such citations are typically moldy — as, for instance, Rocky Mountain News staffer Bernie Lincicome’s dopey mention of Loggins and Messina, who hailed from an era “when music was fun,” he claimed in a December 7 piece. And all…

Dean Singleton to be honored with 2009 Community Cultural Enrichment Award

MediaNews Group vice chairman and chief executive officer/Denver Post publisher Dean Singleton faces the same kind of bleak economic outlook as any newspaper magnate, albeit with a number of intriguing twists — among them the potential closure of the Rocky Mountain News, the Post’s joint-operating-agreement partner in Denver. But at…

The Westword.com blog shortcut, January 6 edition

Now… where were we? Today in Backbeat Online: • Apples in Stereo energize Pepsi’s new ad campaign. • Hello Kavita checks in from the studio. • The new, improved Aubrey Collins. • Mile High Makeout: My head is spinning. • Rap-up: DJ Sabotage makes the finals for Scion Hypeman contest…

Denver Blogs: Is this man to blame for the Broncos’ demise?

Links: They’re like hot links, but not as delicious and awesome. Send yours to joe.tone@westword.com.Why do the Broncos suck? The answer is a guy named Gary in Houston. (Mile High Report)Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Tom Tancredo are riding into the sunset. Sunsets just got 34 percent more boring. (Face…

Today’s Night & Day featured event: Fresh City Life seeks fresh city cooks

We already love that the Denver Public Library’s changing, themed, free Fresh City Life programs always include a cooking series from season to season, offering culinary tips, demonstrations and samples for every local closet gourmet worth a dash of salt. Fittingly, in a fledgling new year marked by the need to tighten our…

New ski move spotted at Vail: “The Pants-less Hangman”

Leave it to those merry pranksters at the Smoking Gun to spot this moment of utter embarrassment and hilarity at Vail Mountain resort last Friday. It turns out a skier attempted to ride the high-speed lift at Vail’s Blue Sky Basin, but when the seat didn’t fold down all the…

Adam Cayton-Holland’s other career is worth laughing at

Unlike most laid-off journalists, Adam Cayton-Holland has another current vocation: standup comedy. So allow us to help hype it. A Cayton-Holland DVD called Dick Jokes for Artists is available now at his MySpace and Facebook pages, as well as at better retailers such as Wax Trax and Twist & Shout…

Some remarks about snarkiness

A handful of those who’ve commented on assorted blogs since we published information about layoffs at Westword have raised the topic of my alleged snarkiness as it applies to the Rocky Mountain News, which was recently put on the market — the suggestion being that I’ve chortled about the Rocky’s…

Some required reading by Lisa Rab

It’s been a mighty tough year or so for Lisa Rab, one of the staff writers laid off at Westword yesterday. She came to Denver from the Cleveland Scene, a onetime Village Voice Media property whose assets were sold to another firm and its archives taken offline. Hence, her award-winning…

Some required reading by Adam Cayton-Holland

Adam Cayton-Holland, who was among the writers laid off at Westword yesterday, is best known for his “What’s So Funny?” column — a natural outlet for someone who’s developed into one of the area’s most acclaimed young standup comics. A prime example: his October article about surviving a cougar attack…

Some required reading by Amber Taufen

Amber Taufen, one of the Westword staffers laid off yesterday, served as the paper’s assistant calendar editor — a position that calls for an ability to write well and often about a vast variety of topics and events. She did so with skill and lively wit — but she also…

The Westword.com blog shortcut, January 5 edition

Today in Cafe Society: • Twelverestaurant introduces its third menu. • Spice Boys to close shop, go all online. • A Milking It review of Blueberry Monster Crunch. Today in Backbeat Online: • A fresh start for Eric Eyl’s Mile High Makeout. Today in The Latest Word: • The Rocky…

Layoffs strike Westword

In the December 18 blog “Westword: All About Us,” publisher and Village Voice Media Chief Operating Officer Scott Tobias offered a relatively sunny assessment of the paper’s health, particularly in comparison with daily newspapers in major metropolitian areas. But today, the forecast is far less positive. At a meeting that…

Denver Blogs: Send your state senator some Paxil

Our daily scouring of the blogoshere for mile-high goodness. Send tips to joe.tone@westword.com. Ain’t no sunshine in the Colorado statehouse this legislative session. (Colorado Independent) For the Great Depression, there sure is a lot of construction news in Denver. (Denver Infill) The Spin Cycle: Local PR folks make predictions about…

Rocky Mountain News jumps the gun on shared-helicopter story

Less than an hour ago at this writing, the Rocky Mountain News website published “7News, 9News Sharing Helicopter,” an uncredited item about a decision by these two longtime rivals to use a single helicopter in order to save money during these economically agonizing times. But while the story will probably…

Denver Post confirms pension freezes, union negotiations

In mid-December, news broke that MediaNews Group head Dean Singleton (pictured) asked unions to open negotiations on new contracts early in the hope of saving a combined $20 million at the Denver Post and the Denver Newspaper Agency. But, as mentioned parenthetically in a December 16 More Messages blog, this…

The dollars and cents of Michael Bennet’s Senate appointment

More envy than pity has accompanied Bill Ritter’s appointment of Denver Public Schools’ Michael Bennet to fill Ken Salazar’s soon-to-be-vacated U.S. Senate seat. But the folks at Face the State have found a reason to feel sorry for the rising political star: He’ll be making less money in his new…