For years, I fought the urge to buy a pair of Crocs, that homegrown phenomenon that has millions of people shuffling around the planet in what look like wading pools. It wasn’t the shoes’ appearance that bothered me, or the stories of people getting their Crocs stuck in escalators, or…
Dear Mexican: As a Mexican-American, I’ve lived in St. Louis for about seventeen years and have seen a substantial influx of my brethren. Nevertheless, I’m for border security — against the no-good, godless Canadians. I hate Canadians! Funny accents and cold weather — ha! Why is America not closing the…
I lost my camera, some of my hide and a piece of my heart to Piñon Canyon. That’s the stunning swathe of scenery east of Trinidad and hard on the 235,000-acre Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site, which the Department of Defense created in the early 1980s in the largest condemnation of…
I may have lost my camera, some of my hide and a piece of my heart in Piñon Canyon, but I also brought some of the land home with me — and not just the dirt in my boots and the cactus spines in my skin. I’ve signed up to…
Today is Trucker Appreciation Day at Johnson’s Corner. “Being a truck driver is often a thankless job,” Chauncey Taylor, owner of the 56-year-old roadhouse off I-25 just north of the Berthoud exit, told the Coloradoan.”We want to show our appreciation for and thank truck drivers — after all, it is…
Pat Schroeder was always quick with a quip when she represented Denver in Congress for 24 years, from 1972-1996, whether she was talking one-on-one with a reporter or treating the masses to her opinion of the “Teflon presidency” of Ronald Reagan. In China with members of the House Armed Services…
Ameristar is betting on Black Hawk. Today, the company will cut the ribbon on its 33-story, 500-plus room hotel that towers over the old mining/new gaming town — a hotel that boasts not just a renovated casino, but luxury suites, a spa and the “only rooftop pool” in Black Hawk…
When asked about the catfight over his run for the U.S. Senate nomination, Andrew Romanoff usually repeats some variation on this line, first offered up at his Pueblo campaign announcement two weeks ago: “Democrats are a lot like cats. When you hear them making a lot of noise, it sounds…
According to the FBI affidavit and indictment unsealed yesterday, twice this summer Najibullah Zazi checked into an unnamed Aurora hotel that had a kitchen, where he attempted to cook up a bomb with items he’d bought from a nearby beauty-supply house. To keep this country safe from terrorists (and other…
Owing to an aunt who taught ballroom dancing classes, I know more than I should about that world. And even so, I was amazed — slack-jawed, even — when Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader whose tactics earned him the nickname “The Hammer,” showed up as a contestant on…
Dear Mexican: In “Garfield” strips in the funny pages that appeared earlier this year, Garfield is wearing a sombrero and taking siestas. While cute and all, isn’t that the sort of thing that we have been striving to stop? What was Jim Davis thinking? Maybe he needs a refresher course…
When we heard that Joe Rogan, the host of Fear Factor, had moved to town, we immediately started working on our list of the Ten Most Frightening Things About Life in Denver. The fact that a DIA shuttle driver could be part of an international terrorist conspiracy came in at…
Political journalist Helen Thorpe had a problem when she moved to Denver: She came here to marry John Hickenlooper, an entrepreneur who soon decided to plunge into politics and was elected mayor of Denver. What does a top reporter married to the town’s top politician write about? The underdogs, the…
The 22nd Annual Uptown Sampler runs tonight from 5-8:30 p.m., and there’s no better way to get a taste of how this neighborhood has finally grown into a real restaurant row. It was 25 years ago that Cliff Young opened his eponymous restaurant at 700 East 17th Avenue, in a…
The back of the Beauvallon, Craig Nassi’s monumental mess, is now wrapped in scaffolding and fabric, like a Christo construction looming over the Golden Triangle. But the art of this deal isn’t pretty. The building is in receivership, and the last three retail tenants — who dared to complain about…
When Cliff Young’s opened back in 1984, it was the hottest restaurant in town — a beautiful space on East 17th Avenue that was full of beautiful people eating beautiful food. After that run ended in ’93, Young wound up moving to France, where he bought an old manor house…
It was “old home week,” Mayor John Hickenlooper proclaimed yesterday at the kick-off for a new event, Denver Beer Fest, which has the town overflowing with more than150 beery happenings between now and September 27. Hickenlooper was referring not just to the setting of the announcement — the Wynkoop Brewing…
City officials and other Denver dignitaries will be on hand this morning when the Four Seasons project tops off with the placement of “The Mast,” a 75-foot capper to the 45-story hotel-and-residential development on 14th Street. There was a little less hoopla last Friday, when city officials cut a ribbon…
Dear Mexican: We gabachos get differing reports regarding the Reconquista. Some say it’s a genuine movement, well under way. Others claim it’ll never happen, but that it’s useful as a slogan that both antagonizes white America and energizes young Mexicans. Let’s say for now that it’s a genuine movement destined…
Steve Horner is not happy, and his unhappiness fills my voice mail, spilling over in message after message. The source of this bitter spew? A recent ruling from the Division of Civil Rights, an “amended determination” in response to charge No. P20090009X, a complaint that Horner had originally filed against…
As she kicked off her campaign as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate yesterday, former Lieutenant Governor Jane Norton promised to stand up to the “big spenders in both parties.” But big spenders in the Republican Party have certainly stood up for Jane Norton before. In fact, they helped…
The Best and Worst of National News for July according to GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is out, and Kenny Be — yes, Kenny Be,Westword’s sensitive and insightful staff cartoonist — is on the hit list. Here’s the story from GLAAD’s website: THE WORST The Denver Westword…
