Colorado’s first family spent a quiet Thanksgiving at their home in Centennial. But Governor Bill Owens wasn’t about to show up for dinner empty-handed. And so the night before, in search of some CDs for his kids, he landed at the Super Kmart at Broadway and Alameda. Savvy shoppers did…
Justin Mitchell’s life in newspapering has taken more twists than Chubby Checker. His curriculum vitae includes a lengthy run as pop-music critic for the Rocky Mountain News and a briefer one spent impersonating fictional columnist Ed Anger, the bizarro conscience of the extraterrestrial-friendly Weekly World News. Yet his current gig…
That ominous rumble gaining volume in the mean saloons and unhappy living rooms of Denver is the sound of a citizen army being mustered. Taking up their cudgels as they pull on their predominantly orange flak jackets, these aroused militia-folk are clearly plotting an advance on Dove Valley, there to…
Bitch, Bitch, Bitch Petty is as petty does: Regarding Eric Dexheimer’s “Scratching the Bitch,” in the November 13 issue: What a bunch of cowards at the State Capitol! First I read in Westword about Joseph Paiva and how Colorado grossly underfunds social services and then incarcerates those who fall through…
The two tickets in the scalper’s hands are so hot he should be wearing oven mitts. They read: “Oakland Raiders v. Denver Broncos, Monday, September 22, Section 104, Row 8.” Way down low, on the forty-yard line. Face value: $78 each. The scalper is demanding $500 for the pair. And…
When Nick Morales began teaching Chicano studies at Metropolitan State College of Denver several years ago, he relied heavily on the standard textbooks in the field. Those texts had a great deal to say about the Chicano experience in California and Texas, but Colorado was scarcely mentioned. “My students were…
1. How many pancake breakfasts could Bronco Daryl Gardener have bought at the Aurora IHOP (where he hurt his hand in a fight last summer) with the salary he’s expected to lose from a one-game suspension? A. About 500, give or take. B. None. He’s known as a selfish guy,…
After three decades as the Sex-Change Capital of the World, Trinidad might have to find a new nickname. Dr. Stanley Biber, who has performed some 6,000 sex-reassignment operations in the southern Colorado town, has set aside his scalpel after failing to find insurance. “I didn’t retire — I was forced…
Listeners of the three local stations owned by Infinity Broadcasting got an unexpected earful this past Monday morning when the nasal tones of Governor Bill Owens suddenly rode the airwaves of Mix 100, Kool 105 and Jammin’ 92.5. Infinity’s offices are in the Denver Post building — just one hot-dog…
In late October, as the Overland fire was scorching hundreds of acres in Boulder County, several Channel 4 executives gathered in the office of news director Angie Kucharski to watch the five o’clock newscast. For the most part, they were impressed with the presentation — until, that is, the monitor…
If you want to see the difference between a boys’ and a girls’ ice hockey game, stop by the Edge Ice Arena early on a Sunday morning. The building, part of the Foothills Recreation Complex southwest of Denver, is one of several erected in the metro area in recent years…
Paint the Town Ted Better dead than Ted: I just wanted to thank Patricia Calhoun for not pulling any punches in “Ted Alert!,” her column in the November 20 issue. This whole thing has been driving me nuts, and I don’t even live in Denver. When I heard about all…
2400 hours. Location: Outside of the Titan Missile Site 3, Complex 2B. A small truck speeds through the darkness down a wide dirt road, hanging an abrupt right onto an overgrown jeep trail. Two hundred yards into the field, the midnight-blue pickup stops, its headlights are cut, and Commander Chainsaw…
As final exams wrap up the fall quarter this week at the University of Denver, neighbors are breathing a collective sigh of relief. The year-round residents are ready for a break from the town-versus-gown clash with rowdy college students, a common occurrence at campuses across the country. “I think that…
1. The Adams County sheriff has taken an interest in some open-space areas because: A. Teen drag racers have been using the back roads for competitions. B. Gay men have been cruising there, looking for companionship. C. Marijuana crops have been discovered on the land. D. It helps the sheriff…
It took more than two years of investigations and hearings, but two weeks ago, John Dicke finally lost his psychology license. The State Board of Psychologist Examiners first became acquainted with Dicke in April 2001, when a man complained that his five-year-old son, Dallas, had been “stripped naked, tortured, restrained,…
Denver’s fabled pretty house — Casa Bonita to the gringos, transplants and otherwise uninitiated — received the royal treatment on the idiot box this month courtesy of everyone’s favorite F-bomb-dropping Technicolor fatass, Eric Cartman. Incensed at being passed over for a party at the venerable south-of-the-border chow shack on West…
The November 16 Denver Post was dominated by “Betrayal in the Ranks,” the first portion of an impressive three-part series about injustices visited upon women in the armed services. Too bad this proud achievement appeared in the same paper with an embarrassing item headlined “Post Music Writer G. Brown Resigns.”…
Five or six years ago, the Montreal Canadiens got around to sending Ralph Backstrom a chunky, diamond-encrusted gold ring to commemorate the six Stanley Cup championships the Habs won when he was a quick-skating, high-scoring center on the team, from the late 1950s through the 1960s. Backstrom cherishes the memento,…
Homeless Is Where the Heart Is Feelings, nothing more than feelings: While I have not lived in Denver since 1996, I still read Patricia Calhoun’s columns faithfully each week. “Rise and Shine,” in the November 13 issue, brought back an uneasy, helpless feeling I had while living downtown. My daily…
When Joseph Paiva was arrested for breaking into a half-dozen neighborhood homes around his mother’s Aurora house and stealing TVs, stereos, jewelry, CDs, lapel pins, coins and other fencibles, his mother was shocked. But as the days passed and she thought more about it, she realized that, really, she was…
There’s nothing like a good catfight. For the past two decades, animal shelters across the country have been describing themselves as “no-kill,” giving people the impression that if they have to part with their pets, at least Rover and Fluffy will end up with another family rather than in animal…
