1. Colorado will have a presence at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony because: A. John Sayles’s Silver City, shot here and screened secretly in Aspen on December 31, sneaked in under the wire in the Best Adaptation of an Original Adaptation category. B. Boulder documentarian Sandy McLeod’s Asylum is nominated…
In a belated effort to clear the air, the Jefferson County Sheriffs 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…
In recent years, Colorado has been very, very good to late-night-TV laugh-seekers, thanks to a string of shocking stories that have gone national with a vengeance. Yet Jay Leno, David Letterman and the rest of their comic fraternity have tended to treat each tabloid eruption, from the murder of JonBenét…
When University of Colorado president Elizabeth “Betsy” Hoffman put CU head football coach Gary Barnett on paid administrative leave on February 18, she criticized him for making insensitive remarks about once-and-future kicker Katie Hnida — and there’s no doubt he’d done just that. Barnett’s statement the previous day that, from…
The ever-vigilant Colorado Senate recently passed a bill that would ban so-called Toughman contests — three-round pick-up boxing matches that pit untrained fighters against each other, generally in front of drunken fans. The proposal, which has since been PC-ishly amended to address “Toughperson” contests, now awaits a hearing in the…
Mister Write Great expectations: It had never really fazed me, how much I enjoy this fine paper we are all so lucky to have in this town. It was maybe the third time reading the February 19 Worst-Case Scenario, “Right and Righter,” that it hit me. (That was probably the…
The opening of the Daniels Fund’s new office building in Cherry Creek last November was a festive occasion. A who’s who of Denver’s prominent and powerful were in attendance to help christen the foundation’s swank new headquarters. Bill Daniels, the legendary cable-TV entrepreneur who created the billion-dollar fund, had personally…
It’s highly appropriate that the former home of one of Denver’s most notorious playboys is now one of the city’s best party spots. Cable magnate Bill Daniels built the mansion, which he dubbed Cableland, on Shangri-La Drive in the Hilltop neighborhood in 1986, and the place is as over the…
Rita Bertolli first noticed the work crews in the ravine last April. From the kitchen of her family’s home, at the end of a Green Mountain cul-de-sac, she could see them out there, taking measurements and planting little red flags in the high grass. The hubbub struck Bertolli, a 23-year-old…
1. Carmelo Anthony spoke out about the NBA All-Star Game selection process that snubbed him and his teammates. Quoth the super-rook: A. “A bunch of old guys picked another bunch of old guys.” B. “I was surprised they didn’t take anybody from us, but I guess it’s Denver.” C. “We’re…
Want to know how to talk a girl out of her shorts? Here’s some advice from our favorite pitchman, Kid Rock (aka Bob Ritchie), who tells all in the March issue of Blender, the Maxim spinoff: “Have a big…bank account. And a lot of liquor! That’s why I drink all…
Rich Tosches has every right to be depressed. Last fall, his nine-year run as the Colorado Springs Gazette’s most popular and controversial columnist came to an abrupt halt, motivating him to jump to the Rocky Mountain News in January. Too bad the Rocky position didn’t work out, either, and he…
There’s no radio. Mother Nature provides the air conditioning. If you’re 6′ 3″, forget it. Houdini would have trouble squirming in and out of the thing. Wind this tiny, bug-eyed British beast up to 105 miles per hour or so, and it starts ripping and crashing into the oncoming air…
Love and Loss Collision course: As I sit here with tears in my eyes, I wanted to send a brief letter thanking you for Julie Jargon’s story on Shawna Rush, “Running Scared,” in the February 5 issue. I grew up in Fort Lupton, where the Rush family lived briefly, and…
Tracy Rollert thought it would be fun — roaming around an abandoned old school with her boyfriend, Jim, maybe making love to him in an empty classroom. A neighbor who saw them climb the chain-link fence surrounding the property yelled at them to be careful. Instead, the fearless 36-year-old removed…
Three years ago, a Newmont Mining Co. truck spilled almost 300 pounds of mercury at Yanacocha, Latin America’s largest gold mine, located just north of Cajamarca, Peru. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency listed the company as one of five top chemical polluters in the United States. Now the Colorado-based…
1. As the heat increases at CU for the school’s allegedly rape-inducing 2001 recruiting session, Big Buff Gary Barnett denied wrongdoing on The Fan radio show with all but which of these? A. “Fire me, fire everybody, if we’ve done any of this stuff.” B. “We do not break rules…
Nothin’ says lovin’ like something from the oven, so if this Valentine’s Day requires more than flowers and chocolates, stop by Le Bakery Sensual for a pair of Janet Jackson’s breasts. Capitalizing on Jackson’s very public Super Bowl breast-baring, the confectionery that specializes in sexy, penis-shaped cakes, among other treats,…
Words are the building blocks of journalism, and misplacing even one of them can cause the entire superstructure to collapse. The Denver Post found this out the nasty way during the past several weeks, when separate words led to significant errors in a pair of page-one, above-the-fold stories, about President…
Just minutes before the kickoff of Super Bowl XXXVIII, John decides to fill up his plate with Swedish meatballs and cold cuts at a game-day party in an Aurora home. “Sorry,” he murmurs as he cuts in front of the TV screen, intruding on everyone’s field of vision. John is…
What Would Jesus Do? He’d raise a glass: Regarding Marty Jones’s “Salvation by the Glass,” in the February 5 issue: A thousand blessings on such a cool church! Jesus always hung out with the “disreputable” people when he was on Earth — I think he’d fit right in with this…
Shawna Rush was a small-town girl who was taught to respect other people, to mind her elders and to give selflessly. Growing up, she and her three sisters ate supper with their parents, Roy and Johnanna Rush, every night that they didn’t have basketball or volleyball practice. They went to…
