Skeptical -- and requesting anonymity -- museum employees had predicted as much last year, when the museum announced that its proposed intergalactic journey would be scaled back to about half of the projected 40,000 square feet ("A Spaced Odyssey," September 19, 2002). "The original idea was that you'd take a trip through space," one employee said at the time. "Now what we have is a mishmash of whatever could be fit into the budget. There are going to be a lot of questions when it opens. People will see a beautifully renovated building with very little in it."
The renovation is indeed beautiful, particularly the new 18,460-square-foot west atrium that boasts what could be the best view in Denver. But, as predicted, the exhibit itself has "very little in it" -- just a dozen interactive displays, albeit very cool ones. After exiting the "Space Odyssey entry corridor" -- a hallway that's bare save for a few pictures of the cosmos and some blinking lights overhead -- the first exhibit you encounter is "Martian Dust Devil," a $100,000 gift from U.S. Bank. One little boy included in the ranks of 700 VIPs (gee, and here we thought John Elway and Shagman were it for celebrities in this town) treated to a sneak preview two days before the official opening tried to get interactive with the dust devil, tirelessly pulling its cord. But it wasn't until a museum volunteer stepped in and gave the cord a few hard yanks that the dust began swirling in a display about as exciting as what you get at home when your vacuum's still running and the bag becomes unattached.
For more adult entertainment, there's the twenty-minute play Living in Space, starring local actors Melanie Cruz, Misha Johnson, Andy Bock and Erin Pennington, and a space news program produced daily that features, among other things, insightful interviews with museum-goers dining in the T-Rex Cafe.
"I think the thing that's really fun is finally having it open," says museum spokeswoman Julia Taylor. "People are really connecting with the exhibits."
A good thing, too, since the museum even changed its name from the century-old Denver Museum of Natural History in order to cash in on the space craze. Plans for that identity switch were guarded as though the Space Shuttle depended on it -- and close enough, as it turns out.
For those who still haven't forgiven the museum for putting an end to its laser-lights show, the highlight of Space Odyssey is undoubtedly the renovated Gates Planetarium, now showing A Cosmic Journey. As one astute teenager pointed out, however, the virtual tour of space is very Earth-centric, skipping right over Mercury and Venus on its way here. The snarky high-schooler was none too thrilled with the narration, either. Indeed, the cheese was thick as the familiar voice of KBCO Morning Show host Bret Saunders described how Earth's atmosphere is in perfect balance for animal and plant life: "As Goldilocks said, it's not too hot, not too cold; it's just right."
The asphalt jungle: With the Vans Westminster Skatepark closing this Sunday, June 22, suburban mommies will have to find a new place to send their kiddies for the summer -- maybe even the Denver Skatepark (the horror!).
In its most recent quarterly report, Vans Inc. indicated that it was considering closing one or more of its twelve skateparks, having lost nearly a million bucks in the previous quarter because of increased competition from municipal courses. But just two months ago, manager Jason Craver swore that things were going just skatingly at the Westminster facility he'd been brought here to run, even though the skatepark charged a $50 annual membership fee plus $5 to $7 more per two-hour session ($11 to $17 if you weren't a member), while many other area skateparks are free (Off Limits, April 24).
Wipe out! Turns out that Westminster is the only Vans park that's closing -- for now. And only company headquarters can talk about why. "You have to talk to corporate," Carver says, "but I guess there was no business. It's just a bad area, bad location."
Westminster?
Chile today, hot tamale: The sign above the Blue Bonnet bar is hopeful but cryptic. "I met my wife here 10 years ago," it reads. "Maybe you could find a wife at the Blue Bonnet."
Hmmm...was there something we didn't know about the venerable Mexican eatery on Broadway, which celebrates its 35th anniversary this summer? Should lonely men ask for the "special" menu? Was that one really hot tamale inside the corn husk? We had to know.
Exhaustive, Sauza-fueled research led us to the sad conclusion that, aside from the standard margarita-swilling population, the Blue Bonnet has no surplus of brides-to-be. Nope, just some guy named Larry Johnson, who met his future wife at the bar a decade ago -- tacos, side of beans, life partner: $19.35. Every year, the Johnsons celebrate their anniversary at the bar, and every year the restaurant's staff switches out the number of years on the sign they made in Larry's honor.
Ah, romance. Judging from the placement of the sign, the Johnsons-to-be met right in the middle of the service well, no doubt disrupting the Bonnet's usually orderly booze-shlep. And while marriage is great and everything, you've got to have priorities.
And if those priorities are less of the death-do-us-part variety and more let's-shag, Rooster's is happy to step in. Although the bar -- located in that notoriously "bad area" of Westminster -- doesn't have a sign announcing how many of its customers have happily coupled, the count must be high, since it advertises itself as the place "Where the Lonely Get Laid." And there seems to be a ready supply of stories verifying the bar's success rate. "Pound for pound, I will have as many Ferraris and H2s as any of Regas's clubs," says owner Rick Roos, comparing Rooster's to those hot spots in Denver proper (or improper) run by Regas Christou. "And I hire hot chicks. My girls are knock-down gorgeous."
Maybe so, but it was no beauty queen who plucked that slogan for Rooster's. "A sixty-something woman with this lipstick she couldn't color inside the lines and faux fur around the neck" hit on Roos while he was closing the bar one Monday night, he remembers. "She was something out of a sitcom." And when he told his manager about it the next day, she supplied the laugh track. "She tells me she comes in here every Monday night, and she gets laid every Monday night," Roos says. " don't get laid that much."
Roos, an experienced stand-up comic who didn't need to buy a bar to get gigs (although he does take the stage at Rooster's) and also has an affinity for think-outside-the-box motivational tapes, quickly saw potential in the episode. And out came Rooster's "Where the Lonely Get Laid" slogan, to join such bar paraphernalia as T-shirts and G-strings emblazoned with the Rooster's logo. (In the case of the panties, a very small logo.)
And if the Blue Bonnet will stand up for you at a wedding, Rooster's is there for you in divorce court. "Our Divorce Night is very popular," Roos says. "We bring in dance instructors to teach the typically older crowd to do hip-hop steps."
Because that'll always get you laid.
A crash course: One of our Off Limits correspondents recently reported -- very happily -- that Geico had dropped her rates by $30 a month, an unheard-of occurrence, especially considering that pesky 60-in-a-40 speeding ticket. Befuddled, she kept looking at that big, bold type that told her: "Effective July 1, 2003, the Colorado legislature chose to let the No-Fault laws expire. As a result of this change in the law..." yadda yadda yadda thirty bucks a month! Woohoo! New strappy sandals! Well, maybe one strappy sandal!
Wait -- maybe no strappy sandals. Buried behind Geico's giddiness at Colorado dumping its thirty-year-old no-fault system were all the declaration pages. Both Uninsured Motorist and Bodily Injury Liability coverage rates for her ten-year-old convertible actually went up. The savings came solely from the deletion of Personal Injury Protection, which used to cover expanded medical costs, lost wages, child care, chiropractic work and a host of other accident-related needs. Now, instead of the all-in-one package deal, Geico was trying to sell a buffet of options to make up for the drop in premiums. Want uninsured-motorist coverage? Check here. Want medical-payments coverage? Sign this form.
Still want those strappy sandals? Next time, keep that lead foot off the accelerator.
