If you think of the four events of an all-around gymnastics competition as musical pieces, then the vault is a single, piercing high note that must be nailed without warmup. During the floor exercise, and on the uneven bars and balance beam, a gymnast has the opportunity to ease into…
The theory that faith and family values, red-state style, were the determining factors in the 2004 election may be overly simplistic, but local lawyer turned radio personality Dan Caplis detects plenty of merit in it. “What we’re seeing now has been in the works for a while, and it’s seismic,”…
Fetal Attraction Truth decay: I must confess, I wasn’t shocked when Kenny Be ran “attention-getting funeral announcements” for cremated remains from a Boulder abortion clinic in his January 27 Worst-Case Scenario, “EmbryObituaries & Immemorials.” I was shocked, however, that he had the intellectual dishonesty to only write his cute “obituaries”…
It’s 8:30 on a cold Thursday morning, and people are lined up outside the City and County Building, jockeying for position, eager to pass through the metal detectors just inside the door and escape the bitter weather. Marisela Aceve, a small, cheerful woman dressed in a white Lotto jacket and…
Several sisters of the University of Colorado’s Theta Beta chapter of Delta Delta Delta were, like, sooooo bummed last week when the Tri Delta executive board announced that their memberships in the national sorority had been terminated. “A culture change is in order,” Tri Delta president Michelle Shimberg declared. The…
Thursday, January 20, was a bad day for Denver liberals. George W. Bush was inaugurated into his second term as President of the United States, obliterating any lingering shards of hope that have comforted Democratic diehards for the past two months. It was time to finally accept that neither divine…
What makes a mom cool? What traits have one mother coming across as a stern taskmaster while another seems fun and easygoing? Why are some moms Georgia peaches and others Kentucky dykes? Why does one mom constantly get on your case, saying, “Take out the trash, Adam, take out the…
Many daily-newspaper sports columns read as if their authors injected adrenaline directly into their hearts before sitting down at the keyboard. They often vacillate between zeal and hysteria, tending to stake out extreme positions on any given issue. One day a guy’s a genius, the next he’s a bum, and…
Peter Forsberg’s in Sweden. Joe Sakic’s in limbo. The most inept commissioner in professional sports, Gary Bettman, is in dutch — with everyone from the wheat farmers in Bemidji to the guys who sell hot dogs at the Pepsi Center. In other words, the stars have been perfectly aligned this…
Uncle Tomahawk Beating the drum: In the January 20 Off Limits, Tom Tancredo is asked by the interviewer, “Any truth to the rumor that you’re going to declare yourself Native American?” To which he replies, in part, “I’m calling myself Tom Tom Tancredo. And I came up with that all…
When you shoot an elephant in the ass, bad things can happen. Rob Ramey learned this in Zimbabwe in 1990. Now the chair of zoology and curator of vertebrate zoology at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, Ramey is a gutsy, boots-on-the-ground researcher who mocks “armchair biologists.” He has…
Back in 1948, David Morison set out with a buddy to climb Pyramid Peak, a fourteener in the heart of the Elk Range, west of Aspen. His friend brought along a funny-looking camera with two lenses, spaced about as far apart as the eyes in your head. The climb was…
Denver Guardian Angel founder Sebastian Metz must have a guardian angel of his own. After surviving 24 hours of open-heart surgery on January 4, Metz has finally come out of a coma and is slowly healing. Last fall, just six weeks before his son, Rook, was born, Metz was diagnosed…
It’s not often that What’s So Funny uses the word “hero.” We don’t take that word lightly around here. But every once in great while, someone comes along for whom no other label seems appropriate. Mark Upshaw is such a someone. Shoot, he and his whole ragtag crew at the…
So great was the destruction caused by the December 26 Asian tsunami that even Americans who previously didn’t know Sri Lanka from Casablanca were riveted by the catastrophe. No wonder overseers at the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News immediately scrambled to figure out how best to handle the…
On a recent evening, Lori Bushere sweeps into the Sports Channel, a biker-friendly watering hole on West Colfax. She’s about twenty minutes late — her standard timing. She wears a dark, pinstriped business suit, steep heels, tall and teased ’80s hair, long, elaborately painted nails and a deep mid-winter tan…
An Interesting Development Urb appeal: I just wanted to say that Jared Jacang Maher’s “Building for the Future,” in the January 6 issue, was easily the best, most articulate feature story I have read in Westword since moving here in the summer. I greatly appreciate the goals of Westword to…
Death came many times for Christian LaFore in his twin sister’s dreams. Over and over, she saw his life end on the ski slopes, even though Christian wasn’t a skier. He did ride a motorcycle, however, and while she slept one night, Sarah LaFore watched Christian pull out of a…
The Viper stands perfectly still, her coiled body poised over a corner of table 1 at the Wynkoop Brewing Company. Her right arm is tucked back, her hand holding the cue by her waist. Her left arm extends over the faded green felt, fingers threaded around the cue tip. Brown…
The wine kept flowing at last weekend’s First Friday gallery openings, despite whispers that police might bust those establishments that dared to serve up swill without a liquor license. At last month’s festivities, Dina Castillo, owner of the D.C. Gallery on Broadway, found herself on the wrong side of the…
Were What’s So Funny to sponsor a sports stadium, it would no doubt be the greatest venue in the land, and the funniest. Seating just under 450,000 — so we could rent it out to China for organ-harvesting, if need be — the stadium would be a bastion of humor…
Charles Leaf sees a correlation between the five years he spent in the Marine Corps and his current work as an investigative reporter for Fox-owned Channel 31. “I believe it’s an important calling to serve the public, whether it’s serving your country or your community,” he says. As these remarks…
