As the Colorado Avalanche wraps up another Tuesday-night home game at the Pepsi Center, Flash maneuvers his way through LoDo looking for fares. “This is such a dead-end job,” he says. “My back is killing me and my ass is numb.” Flash has been driving for Metro Taxi for just…
The first rule of publicity stunts is to deny everything, so that the masses and the media won’t know they’ve been played. No one understands this better than Bob Richards, a deadpan exec with the Denver division of Clear Channel, the nation’s largest owner of radio stations. When asked if…
Students who turned up for a journalism conference at Mesa State College earlier this month picked up some helpful hints, like not to become reporters unless they can deal with low pay, long hours and placement just below “Kobe Bryant defense attorney” on the list of most-respected careers. Yet many…
Todd Bertuzzi runs for mayor of Denver. Haiti nukes Fort Lauderdale. John Ashcroft and Mel Gibson get married at Caesars Palace. The Air Force Academy basketball team kicks a ton of tall civilian butt, then flies smartly on into the NCAA Tournament. Which do you find most improbable? The last…
The Plot Sickens Let’s get reel: I cannot understand why all the movie deals about Rocky Flats have fallen through. From reading Patricia Calhoun’s “Toxic Shocker!” in March 11 issue, it seems like this story has everything, from government villains to ordinary citizens as heroes (one a cowboy, even) to…
For Albert Galvan, his dad was a model of what not to be. The man was a violent alcoholic who frequently kicked his son and hit him with a belt for playing too loudly. Then he would turn on Albert’s mother and beat her for the noise his children were…
No one knows what Rosa Avina wished for on February 19 when she blew out the five candles on her birthday cake. But her biological and foster parents each had their own wishes for her. Ever since Rosa was a baby, her identity has been in limbo: Is she an…
For parents like Albert Galvan, whose daughter was seized by social services as soon as she was born, Senate Bill 117 offers new hope. The bill — also known as the Sunshine Gates Act, for the little girl who inspired its creation — would require social workers or police officers…
Tran Wills is Colfax. Her T-shirt says so. Not the old hooked-out, cracked-up Colfax, but the new urban-hipster Colfax. The street that’s home to Mezcal and the Red Room, Hairspray salon and Wills’s store. The stretch of pavement that accepts streetwalkers and winos as part of its charm but asks…
Former Air Force Academy cadet DonCosta Seawell was returned to a military correctional facility on February 9 — just 42 days after his release. Seawell had been sent to the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar in San Diego in 2002 after pleading guilty to forcibly sodomizing a disabled civilian woman. (Two…
Roses are red, violets are blue, if I’m really sorry later, can I rape you? The art of penning a good apology letter is certainly dying, if the note written by a University of Colorado football player to the woman who accused him of rape is any indication. As evidenced…
Colorado Avalanche announcer Mike Haynes may work on the radio, but he doesn’t use this fact as an excuse to dress down. He arrives at the Pepsi Center several hours before the Avs face the Calgary Flames clad in a well-tailored suit that would do any businessman proud. When asked…
Like everyone else, I was impressed when the University of Colorado announced a series of football recruiting reforms last week. But I had no conception of how drastic those changes would be — until I received an unmarked envelope that contained the following draft memo. To: University of Colorado Buffaloes…
Sexist Marks the Spot Musgrave reservations: Westword is a publication that I enjoy reading, and I will continue to do so. It functions much in the same way that Radio 1190 in Boulder does, providing a useful forum for viewpoints that otherwise would be ignored. In a letter in the…
Dena Melinn’s right foot has a nasty reddish look, barely bends at the ankle and is twice as big around as her left, as though the swelling from two years ago never really subsided. “I shattered my heel jumping a big, big gap,” she says. “I broke it in thirty…
In a belated effort to clear the air, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office offered up its souvenirs of a massacre last Thursday. It was quite a show — but not quite enough to dispel the stink that has clung to the biggest criminal investigation in Colorado history. For a few…
Thank the Supreme Deity of Sweets for Denver City Councilwoman Jeanne Raab. She always remembers the doughnuts, which is crucial, since a good sugar high is mandatory to get through public hearings. And that’s double-chocolatey true for Saturday-morning conclaves. Drawn in part by pastries, some thirty people met at the…
Despite all the technical advances in data retrieval that have come into common use over recent years, the primary venue for many periodicals remains the simple, time-tested news rack. No clicking, surfing or Googling is required. A reader need only walk up to a rack, lift its lid and grab…
If the Yankees don’t win the World Series this year, millions of shocked New Yorkers will want to know why. If the Colorado Rockies don’t finish last, three Little Leaguers up in the Rockpile will want to know how. Seen in the cold light of day, the 2004 Rox are…
The Fight Stuff Ref and ready: Eric Dexheimer strikes again! In “Tough Luck,” his February 26 column defending so-called Toughman contests, Dexheimer reveals a total ignorance of boxing — and of the reasons that many state legislatures have rightly sought to ban “Toughman” contests. Colorado was the last of the…
Last July 3 was a gorgeous day, about 85 degrees by early afternoon, and the 37-year-old park visitor was dressed for a spirited summer outing. He wore a hot-pink tank top over a woman’s black, one-piece bathing suit filled out nicely by the pair of latex breasts strapped to his…
Warnings and rules are posted all over Pierre’s Supper Club. No colors, no athletic wear, no weapons. Stay out of the kitchen. Hang on to the handrail when using the stairs — lest you fall down the shag-covered steps leading from the upstairs dining room to the downstairs bar. Since…
