Conspiracy Theory

If you happen to commute via 470 Westbound toward I-70, then you might have noticed a hand-lettered sign hovering above the highway on the pedestrian overpass bridge a mile or so before the I-70 exit. “9/11 was an inside job!” the words proclaim, surrounded by stars, stripes and bright yellow…

The Bottom of the Rack

Fresh out of prison and hunting for a job, Casey Holden has picked up a few dirty looks and plenty of don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-yous. Now 26, Holden has been locked up most of the time since he’s sixteen, including the last four years in Colorado’s supermax — not the best place to…

A Bridge Too Far

And you thought the six-foot-wide pothole that poked a hole in an I-70 overpass in Golden on Tuesday was bad. On Sunday evening, 26-year-old Sara D’auray was headed south on I-25 as it passes below Speer Boulevard when a large chunk of concrete broke from the underside of the bridge…

The Magic Number

FORM I-9 EMPLOYMENT ELIGIBILITY VERIFICATION PLEASE READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE COMPLETING THIS FORM. Maria Tinajero never thought much about her number before it was stolen — at least not in the tangible way you think about a necklace or a photograph or any other prized possession. It was just…

The Messengers

Local TV news watchers know Channel 9 weather prognosticator Kathy Sabine as one of Denver’s sunniest personalities. But when she’s asked about some of the more emotional responses she’s received from viewers since December 20, when a blizzard kicked off a jaw-dropping run of inclement weather that could continue for…

Super Ape

Like many of you, I watched Super Bowl XLI — better known as the Showdown Between the Guy Who Does Too Many Ads vs. the Guy Who Makes Jake Plummer Look Competent. I’m sure in Chicago and Indianapolis, people were glued to their seats, but for the rest of the…

Lots of Yuk

Until he got bumped off by a diaper-wearing astronaut and the feuding would-be fathers of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby, defrocked New Life Church founder Ted Haggard was all over the late-night gabfests. After it was reported last week that Haggard, who’d undergone intensive counseling after male escort Mike Jones revealed…

Letters to the Editor

“Sky’s the Limit,” Adam Cayton-Holland, February 8 Put to the Test I appreciate your plain-speaking article on Skyland Community High School. As a member of Skyland’s board of directors, I am confident that Skyland can meet all of its and DPS’s objectives and be an exemplary school. It must be…

Naked Against Nike

To beat the swoosh, one has to think like the swoosh. As noted in Westword feature “Sole Survivor”, some people — known as sneakerheads — are crazy about their Nikes. Others, however, are as crazy about Nike in another way — crazy about the shoe company’s spotty labor and environmental…

Thai Time

Fusion is the devil’s cuisine. I’ve been saying that for a long time. And I’ve believed it ever since those dark days of my own forays into the seductive world of galangal, lemongrass and frisee. A chef has to be an absolute genius to make any sort of fusion work…

More Messages: Debt A-Go-Go

Everyone who’s ever tried to run a newspaper or magazine knows that coming up with great stories and presenting them interestingly is only half the battle. It’s just as difficult to keep the operation afloat — and an odd cyber-document related to Go-Go Magazine, a defunct local publication, demonstrates why…

The Grandma Awards

Just over four decades ago, actor Peter Sellers presented the Beatles with a Grammy they’d won for the song “A Hard Day’s Night.” In a film of this event that was shown during the 1965 Grammy telecast, Sellers referred to the prize as a “Grandma award” — and his joke…

Rich Folk Welcome, Poor Folk Not

“It’s not often that ‘diversity’ is used successfully as a justification for building McMansions,” writes a former member of the Loveland Planning Commission. “Try not to tear up as you envision homeless entrepreneurs, forced to sleep in their Porsche Cayennes on the Wal-Mart parking lot for lack of suitably pretentious…

Up in Arms

I was surprised as anyone that I loved the Palace Arms, the Brown Palace’s most august restaurant. Here’s a recent letter on that review. Typical Sheehan. This article typifies why I read Jason’s stuff, why I look forward to his next crafted statements. When I read Sheehan, I want to…

On the Road Again

Chef Michel Wahaltere has parted ways with the owners at Seven Eurobar in Boulder. And though he didn’t go into a lot of details on the split, Wahaltere did tell me that his reasons were pretty simple. First, he wanted to create a restaurant — whereas the majority partner was…

Learning the Hard Way

Colorado Education commissioner William Moloney’s decision to step down from the position in June, which is detailed in the Denver Post article linked here, comes as the biggest surprise since the sun rose in the east this morning. Moloney, who was appointed during the Bill Owens administration, has been under…

More Messages: Mr. Fix-It

When he left his job as city editor at the Denver Post, Evan Dreyer, the subject of this week’s Message column, probably thought corrections were behind him. But Dreyer, who is currently serving as Governor Bill Ritter’s communications director, recently had to revisit this territory. In this week’s “Pressure to…

Television in the Raw

Slathering raw fish on your hands on live TV is not your romantic Valentines’s date. But can it still be sexy? Damn straight, when it’s under the tutelage of Denver Open Media, Denver’s hip new public access TV station. See for yourself at DOM’s Valentine’s Sushi Dinner & Fundraiser on…

The Grill of It All

The lights are off most of the time inside Certified Customs, at 4815 E. Colfax. The shop’s owner, grills guru Nando Mondragon, the subject of a recent Westword profile, is locked up in Las Vegas, waiting to hear if he’ll be imprisoned on a parole violation or allowed to return…

Getting Motivated

Sitting in a seven-by-ten-foot cell all day, every day, for four years, Casey Holden learned how to do a whole lot of nothing. Now the world expects him to be a go-getter, a self-starter, a juggler of appointments and budgets and mounting financial obligations. And he has only a very…

The Missing Tools

Offense Report No: 07-42941 Date: 1-20-07 Type of Offense: Lost or stolen Location of Offense: South Denver Type of Premises: House Weapon/Tool Used: Keys Victim writes: I feel that we know who stole our tools, and one of the [Steve] was standing there while I was making the report to…

The Chappelle Show

I’ve performed at Comedy Works probably over one hundred times now, and I have never seen cops guarding the green room. There were two of them last night for Dave Chappelle. The scene demanded it: Tickets were hard to come by, people were trying to sneak in the back, everyone…