When Jerry Robertson was twelve, thirteen years old, he used to climb into his Uncle Bob's stock car at the old Englewood Speedway, hoping to get his future in gear but quick. "Lemme hot-lap the car," the towheaded kid would plead. Every time, Uncle Bob just grinned and shot a...
To mark the fortieth anniversary of the Beatles' invasion of America and Denver, cruise down to the historic Brown Palace Hotel (where the lads stayed after playing at Red Rocks on August 26, 1964) for a special Beatlemania Overnight Package. "There was a line of people three deep all the...
On the sixth floor of Denver police headquarters at 1331 Cherokee Street is a cluster of rooms few people know about. From these spartan offices that overlook the mountains beyond and the city below, murders, rapes and robberies are solved. It's the cop shop's very own crime lab, where handwriting...
THURS, 12/11 Showtime needs a little love this season. A lone toy fresh from the factory, he sets off on an adventure, discovering a whole crew of lockin' and poppin' playtime allies to provide a solid dose of holiday spirit. It's all part of the new family-friendly production Toyz, A...
"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library," said Jorge Luis Borges. And standing at the gates to that paradise will be a librarian, one index finger pressed to pursed lips while the other punches the delete key on the computer system tracking patrons' reading records,...
Sam Howe loved being a Denver cop. He also loved to clip stories about crime and police work from the newspapers. Fortunately, he worked at both jobs for a long, long time. Howe began his law-enforcement career as a deputy city marshal in 1873 and became a member of Denver's...
Don't laugh, Cheri Thurston says. It's not as easy as it looks. Contrary to popular opinion, she explains, jaw clenched, struggling with the right shoulder, this is a serious instrument. It's a 25-year-old Petosa from Seattle that cost $6,000. If it were a violin, some would argue, it would be...
"Meeting in fifteen minutes, people," shouted the newspaper editor before slamming the door of his office. "That means everybody." The water-cooler conversation started gushing. Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon. So the rumors were true: The paper was being sold. Watermelon, watermelon, watermelon. The paper being sold was not Westword, but the Denver...
Thursday, September 4 Puttin' on for dogs: Audience members willing to plunk down a few bucks tonight will be treated to an evening of partying down with Denver-area bands, but down-on-their-luck canines will be the main recipients of Music for Mutts, hosted by Camp Bow Wow as a benefit for...
The September 18 Rolling Stone touts a list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time," but the accompanying article is not nearly as wide-ranging (or definitive) as its headline implies. The late Andrés Segovia may be widely regarded as the finest classical guitarist of the twentieth century, but Jann...
Amid the nourishing chaos of city life, we urban dwellers find ourselves brain-deep in startling juxtapositions. Mid-morning one Tuesday, a formation of squawking geese sweeps its shadow across a used-bookstore window, dimming the dog-eared covers of The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen, and Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol. An instant later,...
Considering that visiting New Yorkers are often amazed to see cows running wild on the Colorado range (in NYC, the bovines are confined to the Bronx Zoo), we could almost understand Hillary Clinton's gaffe in her new book, Living History. But since New York's junior senator spent eighteen years in...
In the heart of LoDo rather than up in that slightly scary warehouse district, Engima Afterhours is 21st-century fresh, not '90s stale. The decor is a notch above the basic black-paint-on-wood look found at many other late-night locales, and this newish addition to Denver's club index pumps out the latest...
They say people get the government they deserve. As state legislators vote to cut off medical care to children, that may not say much for the people of Colorado. But, taken as a group, the people who want to run Denver are a good reflection of the city they call...
While Westword doesn't encourage irresponsible drinking, we know that many of you will be riding the hangover tide on New Year's Day. To help preempt the pain, we asked some local experts for tips on curing your self-induced misery. Pressure Power: To silence your jackhammer, try acupressure, an ancient Chinese...
The Colorado Music Association unveiled its Music Directory at a holiday party this past Sunday, passing out copies of the comprehensive talent guide. The directory, more than two years in the making, lists the vital statistics of as many working bands and artists as COMA was able to gets its...
The wine room at Adega Restaurant + Wine Bar is made of glass and green light. It's a powerful presence, beautiful in the way that cubist art can be, or a '50s-era Hugo Gernsback-inspired Greyhound bus station. There's an undeniably weird majesty in the geometric arrangement of its towering shelves,...
Golden is the most modest indie supergroup imaginable. The band, which appears on Tuesday, August 13, at the 15th Street Tavern alongside Rye Coalition, Kind of Like Spitting and the Gravity Index, sports an impressive underground pedigree. Alex Minoff, who splits singing and guitar-playing duties with Ian Eagleson, has logged...
Statewide drought be damned, releases from Colorado musicians continue to flow into local retail bins -- and the mailboxes of Backbeat writers. In the first installment of a two-part batch of reviews, we focus on artists whose names fall into the first half of the alphabet; see next week's issue...
Trick or Treatment Courting disaster: I very much enjoyed Stuart Steers's "Looking for a Fix," in the September 26 issue. You can tell a lot about a society by how it treats certain groups within it -- children, women and sick people in particular. When it comes to the disease...
On September 3, you can learn whether you're on the city's most exclusive list: a roster of people and organizations in the Denver Police Department's intelligence files. Some of those on Denver's second most exclusive list -- the cast of characters considering a run for Denver mayor in 2003 --...
There Auto Be a Law Hacks and flacks: Regarding Patricia Calhoun's "Take a Memo," in the August 15 issue: Wow! How refreshing it is to read a real piece of journalism that is based on the truth. It is so frustrating and discouraging to see the public-relations machines of these...
