At first blush, the classified ad recently posted on the Denver area of Craigslist.com seems pretty unexceptional. The main copy, which appears under the slug “Get Paid to Blog,” reads: “Examiner.com, a progressive news and information website, is hiring professional bloggers. If you have an edgy, unique writing style that…
In the August 3 edition of Westword, the lion’s share of the letter below is slated to be published. Its author? Consumer advocate and self-proclaimed “troubleshooter” Tom Martino, whose local duties include hosting a weekday talk show on KHOW and reporting regularly for Channel 31, Denver’s Fox-TV affiliate. The letter…
The bands on the July 29 Red Rocks bill don’t qualify as the newest and hottest combos on the planet. Ween, the show’s headliner, actually formed way back in 1984, although its first long-player wasn’t released until 1990. The Flaming Lips, which played in the second slot, are even older,…
The announcement that the North American Aerospace Defense Command, better known as NORAD, will soon be moving most of its personnel out of its not-so-secret headquarters inside Cheyenne Mountain stirred some distant memories of my wayward youth covering the national security beat. Two details stand out from a visit in…
On July 29, after five months of testimony and two weeks of deliberation, a California jury finally reached a verdict in one of the most complex capital cases ever brought to trial. Aryan Brotherhood leaders Tyler “The Hulk” Bingham (pictured) and Barry “The Baron” Mills were convicted of racketeering and…
Sure, the Cyclone rollercoaster stalled on its tracks last Sunday, but that won’t keep me from going back to Lakeside Amusement Park this summer. As soon as it’s green-lighted, I’ll be back on the beast that has been scaring me since I was a kid. My grandfather took me to…
Doug Ishii watches his wife, Wendy, from across the room as she mingles with her guests. He’s traded in his lab coat for a collared shirt, and peppered silver hair is the only indication that the Japanese man grinning toward the hostess could be a day over sixty. Wendy wears…
The first person Becky Due ever called a bitch was her mother. She caught a whuppin’ for it, and since then, Due says, she’s never called anyone a bitch again. Almost thirty years later, Due was on an airplane and heard a grown man call a young girl a bitch…
Jim Narcy could have warned Matt Lawrence to be careful in the 1900 block of Market Street. Two months ago, when the Westword photographer ventured out to take a picture of the building at 1920 that was being transformed into The Real World Denver headquarters, someone called the cops on…
It’s hard to find the time to hallucinate these days. Used to be, my only real priority was ingesting some sort of mind-altering substance and hallucinating — if only to discourse at length with Huckleberry Finn. “Huck, listen, dog, there’s no way I’m painting this fence,” I would say to…
As every college student knows, the price of textbooks is more obscene than anything Larry Flynt could conjure up. But the problem is infinitely more acute for learners in impoverished nations. “International editions of textbooks are generally half the cost of U.S. editions, which is great if you’re in the…
Highway to Hell Playing fast and loose: Luke Turf’s too fast, too furious article (“Rocket Men,” July 13) was as bad as anything I have read this summer — exempting that piece of shit The Kite Runner, as it stands in a league of its own. Feel free at any…
On July 25, over fifty supporters of the Derailer Bike Collective packed into the Board of Adjustment hearing room, where Derailer members Mackenzie Liman, Sarah Graves and Sarah Bardwell explained why Derailer should be granted a six-month delay of enforcement of the April 5 cease-and-desist order. In that order, the…
Certain members of the Denver Post staff continue to grumble about low morale and uncertainty in the wake of a buyout plan that shrunk the paper’s editorial roster by barely half of a targeted 25 positions. (The last item in the June 15 Message column provides the details.) But these…
Last night, the Fray appeared on the Tonight Show for the second time in six months — and just a week after the band was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman. The Fray played “How to Save a Life” — the title track from its debut — with…
Websites allow newspapers to put items online quickly, without having to wait for the presses to roll — and that’s a good thing. But letting the cat out of the bag only works if the cat’s actions are updated in a timely way. Yesterday morning, the city of Parker sent…
His Presidential-ness George Bush is scheduled to visit our fair city tomorrow. What the fuck is Dubya doing darkening our collective doorsteps this time? Why, politickin’, of course. He’ll be in town for a $1000-a-plate lunch in the Cherry Hills home of Charlie Gallagher (of the private equity firm Gallagher…
Crown prince: Thank you for “American Ace,” Jessica Centers’s July 13 story on Russell Enloe. Broadway will never be the same without him. He had a smile that brightened the room and a personality to match. He was a dear friend, and he will be missed by many! I see…
The Derailer Bicycle Collective doesn’t advertise its services in newspapers or the Yellow Pages. There’s no sign in front of the shop. Calls to the main number are returned sporadically, if at all. But for the collective’s eight core members, luring cash-carrying customers through traditional means simply isn’t a priority…
For the past thirteen years, Carolyne Janssen has used her mountain bike to commute from Governor’s Park to downtown, where she works as a graphic designer with Denver’s Department of Community Planning and Development. On June 30, she’d had a drink with co-workers in LoDo and was just heading home…
The rumor mill isn’t renowned for its accuracy — but every so often, gossipers stumble upon the truth. That was certainly the case regarding Bias, a youth-targeted project founded last year as a joint venture of MediaNews Group (owner of the Denver Post) and E.W. Scripps (the Rocky Mountain News’s…
Dave Walstrom has streetcar envy. He sees the system in Portland, Oregon, and wants it for Denver, specifically the stretch of East Colfax Avenue between Broadway and Colorado Boulevard that is his fiefdom as executive director of the Colfax Business Improvement District (C-BID). He covets the $1.5 billion in private…
