It’s not often when journalists go out of their way to praise scribes at rival publications. But today, Lynn Bartels (pictured), a consistently outstanding and refreshingly funny reporter for the Rocky Mountain News, did just that this morning, when she sent yours truly the following note: The best reporter at…
Actor/comic/singer Jamie Foxx’s appearance at the Colorado Convention Center, previewed in this week’s Backbeat section, has been put on hold. The show was originally supposed to happen on Saturday, January 13, but it’s now scheduled for Wednesday, April 4. Why? According to a press release sent out by Another Planet…
After being greeted by this same scene outside my door in northwest Denver for the third morning in a row, I was inspired to compose the following: I followed the rules But the tree man won’t cometh. Help me, 311! — Joel Warner…
Memo to Crocs Inc.: The Shoe Goddess wants her cut. Back in 2005, when Westword was trying to explain the surging global sales of hideous, crayon-hued plastic shoes designed in Niwot, we availed ourselves of the professional insights of the Shoe Goddess, a clog connoisseur who was on a vain…
After the Rocky Mountain News entered into a joint-operating agreement with the Denver Post several years ago, many newspaper-business observers predicted that, figuratively speaking, the Rocky would soon go from wrapping fishes to sleeping with them. Instead, the tabloid has stayed above water thanks in large part to the steadfast…
The results are in for the Daniel Libeskind-proposed redesign of Civic Center, and the public’s responses are being unveiled tonight at the Denver Parks & Recreation Advisory Board hearing. But you wouldn’t know that from the city’s website. There’s nothing on the city’s homepage, and if you click over to…
Michael Wheeler, one of the Pleasures Dudes, is riding the stripper like a horse. She scampers on her hands and knees while Mike slaps her butt and flails for the television camera. It’s just after 9 p.m. on a Tuesday — a slow night at Dandy Dan’s, which makes the…
Every city has bargain-basement pitchmen: TV and radio hucksters who launch themselves into our living rooms with high-decibel sales pitches that confuse poor Grandpa and cause toddlers to shriek for quality pre-owned vehicles. The Pleasures Dudes may have carved their own peddling-porn niche, but their shtick follows a time-honored practice…
When discussing his approach to broadcasting, CBS Radio’s Don Howe is a model of civility. “I really believe that radio is a competitive medium,” he maintains, “and I feel it’s very fair to creatively compete to reach audiences.” In practice, though, Howe’s business philosophy is anything but polite. During the…
I have a friend whose name is Hot Gary. This is not his actual name, of course, but it’s my duty to protect his identity, so I’ll refer to him as Hot Gary — even though everyone knows his real name is Gabe and that he still lives with his…
Although the snow is taking a mounting toll on the local economy, Denver is doing a booming business in secret snowboard trips, as boarders from across the country descend on the Mile High City to test its slickest rails and ramps, benches and bridges, then report their findings to national…
“Paint the Town Read,” Amy Haimerl, January 4 Read Alert! What a truly awesome story! This is what Westword should be about — this article makes it interesting to live here, uncovering little-known bits about the city. It is actually kind of a relief from some of the more titillating…
This photograph, snapped by Kenny Be at the corner of Stout and Park Avenue West in late December, inspired the following: A burned-out building Not a good advertisement For fire and safety…
Circusized Peanuts. What a great name for a record. And as I remembered it, Peanuts was also a pretty kick-ass album. Not quite as good as Deadly Kung Fu Action — the classic Warlock Pinchers album, which contained the immortal ditty “Morrisey Rides a Cockhorse” — but pretty kick-ass nonetheless…
Today’s Spotlight section of the Rocky Mountain News included a regular feature — one of David Letterman’s signature top-ten lists. In this instance, the topic was “Top 10 Signs You Watched Too Much College Football,” and the final item read, “In bed, your wife says, ‘Get a Trojan’ — and…
In The Graduate, a brain-dead fat cat famously advised Dustin Hoffman’s character to devote his professional career to “Plastics!” These days, however, up-and-comers would be well advised to stay away from this field — at least if they’d hoped to specialize in compact discs. Recently released 2006 sales figures from…
Death Becomes You It’s death metal Tuesday at the Larimer Lounge. Okay, I made that crap up; there’s no official, on-going weekly theme at the Lounge. Nonetheless, that’s precisely what’s on tap — too much metal for one hand. Stop by tonight and have your ass handed to by Cryogen,…
Today, just before lunch, Bill Ritter was sworn in as the 41st Governor of the Colorful State of Colorado. As el jefe nuevo of our square state, Ritter would do well to take a cue from the behavior of his predecessor, the illustrious Bill Owens, during his last days in…
OpenStage’s Splitting Infinity, which I review in the January 11 issue, made me think about the one Nobel laureate I have had the privilege of meeting: Nigeria’s Wole Soyinka, a forceful critic of colonialism and winner of the prize for literature in 1986. Soyinka was attending a conference on the…
“There are hundreds and hundreds of books in this collection, enough to fill an entire storage unit, and almost all of them have some value beyond just being a used book,” says Dale Lashnits, who’s coordinated a Book Sale at the Aurora Central Library Community Room, 14949 East Alameda Parkway;…
The second item of the December 21 Message column concerned ESPN Radio’s shift from KLZ/560 AM to the former KCKK, at 1600 AM, as well as the break-up of Tim Neverett and Jim Armstrong, hosts of 560’s stellar a.m. gabfest The Press Box. At the time, Armstrong, a Denver Post…
The much-ballyhooed arrival in Denver of the scroll bearing Jack Kerouac’s On the Road manuscript brings back memories of the last great Beat convergence in these parts, a time when wacky Kerouacians crowded the University of Colorado campus in Boulder to revel in all things Jack. The year was 1982…
