In many ways, the rise of the Internet was like the rise of the wild, wild West. Both phenomena drew thrill-seekers and fortune-hunters by the thousands, eager to make a buck off an untamed environment ripe for exploitation. Both saw a rapid and dramatic fallout when it became clear that…
The economic challenges facing journalism are grave, but they haven’t managed to kill one of the industry’s most venerated traditions: the all-expenses-paid trip of dubious news value. Despite planned remarks by Democratic National Committee chairman (and recovering screamer) Howard Dean, the 2008 Democratic National Convention’s Fall Media Walk-Through, staged on…
History Lesson #1 In 1829, William Bent headed west to join his older brother in the fur business. William was twenty years old, the son of a Missouri supreme court justice — and, like his brother Charlie, who would one day be the first governor of the New Mexico Territory,…
Westword’s resident funny man recently sat down at a computer to send questions via e-mail to Zach Galifianakis, who sat down at a computer to answer them. Though he may have stood. The following is the correspondence: Westword (Adam Cayton-Holland): Hey, Zach, Adam Cayton-Holland here, writer for the free alt-weekly…
It’s been a rough week for Charlie Morrison. First, he wrecked his truck. Then the local dance night promoter spent three days in jail for trashing the Broadway motel room where he and some fellow revelers were crashing – an alleged charge that could add up to a felony. Then…
On Sunday, the city hosted its first — but with any luck, not last — Kurt Vonnegut appreciation event, with assorted celebrities (or what passes for them in this town) reading two-minutes snippets of his work, fans doing the same, and then Mayor John Hickenlooper — whose father went to…
The new restaurant is small — a shotgun storefront in the middle of the Highland Square action, surrounded by boutiques, bookstores, galleries and other restaurants, with seating for thirty, maybe, a small patio and a loud sound system that plays non-stop reggae that drifts out into the street and down…
It’s a strange day for Rockies fans. Our delegation to the House of Representatives in D.C., upon hearing that the Massachusetts delegation had introduced a resolution honoring the Boston Red Sox, decided they would draft their own touchy-feely, this-land-is-your-land-this-land-is-my-land, version of orange slices and group hugs after a little-league loss…
We need help with a caption for this photo of Howard Dean at today’s media walk-through of the Pepsi Center in Denver for the upcoming Democratic National Convention. In the comments section below, post your suggestion for the most apt caption…
To paraphrase Dick Cheney, Representative Tom Tancredo’s quizzical presidential campaign is in its last throes. But it’s going out with a bang — literally — with a commercial running in Iowa that makes Lyndon Johnson’s infamous 1964 mushroom-cloud spot look subtle. The ad, which you can view below, begins with…
Hundreds of journalists are in town for a Democratic National Convention briefing at the Pepsi Center today, a taste of the thousands who will descend on this city next August. Last night, the journalists got their own taste of Denver at a reception at the Wynkoop Brewing Company, the town’s…
As described in the Westword story “The Legend of Leeroy Jenkins,” Colorado resident Ben Schulz’s World of Warcraft character Leeroy Jenkins has become one of history’s most famous video-game screw-ups, inspiring Jeopardy questions and appearing on schoolgirls’ T-shirts in Korea. Now, two and a half years after Leeroy first garnered…
View larger image Illinois Total Number of Delegates: 185 Pledged: 153 Unpledged: 32 How to Recognize an Illinois Delegate: Since October 12, 2007, Illinois state law requires all children to observe a moment of silence at the start of every school day. This is not some wishy-washy compromise cooked up…
The folks behind the 30th annual Starz Denver Film Festival didn’t discover Juno, the film at the center of the bash’s November 10 “Big Night” presentation at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. The indie previously received major plaudits at festivals in Rome and Hollywood, and the buzz around its screenwriter,…
In his November 9 introduction for director Norman Jewison, the recipient of the Mayor’s Career Achievement Award at the 30th annual Starz Denver Film Festival, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper quoted dialogue from one of the less distinguished entries in the Jewison canon: Other People’s Money, a 1991 flick starring that…
Looks like we miscounted. In his November 11 column about the Bill Ritter-bashing front-page editorial that inspired this edition of the Message, Denver Post editorial page editor Dan Haley revealed that the broadsheet has published three other page-one salvos since 1946 — not two, as Rocky Mountain News media analyst…
It was all celluloid all the time this weekend as the 30th Denver Film Festival kicked off in fine fashion on Thursday and really got rolling through Sunday. I know they have a corporate sponsor, and to be really accurate I should call it the Starz Denver Film Festival, but…
Tonight, KBDI Channel 12 will repeat of “When Kids Get Life,” a Frontline special that profiled five young men in Colorado who received the mandatory sentence of life without parole when they were convicted of first-degree murder in adult court — even though they were juveniles when the crimes were…
You can call the Broncos’ season at the midway point at lot of things, but boring isn’t one of them. Boring? That’s going 10-6, finishing as a Wild Card team and getting eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. With our craptastic division, this team could still do that…
Old magicians never die. They just disappear in a puff of smoke, usually through a trapdoor. When I heard that the New Denver Civic Theatre had actually booked a live magic show for the next four weeks, staged by up-and-vanishing illusionist Nick Felix, I knew I had to get Vel-Dini…
I forgot my cell phone yesterday, which doesn’t seem like that big of a deal; I’ve only recently started carrying one, owing to my unreasonable, Luddite-like hatred of the damned things. But the timing of my oversight in this case proved to be especially poor. Around midday, my wife, who’s…
While Coloradans raised their glasses last September in a coordinated toast to British beer expert and frequent Colorado visitor Michael Jackson, who died on August 30 at the age of 65, they will lower their glasses today to salute Earl Dodge, the six-time Prohibition Party presidential candidate and longtime Denver…
