For the past decade-plus, I’ve used vacation time during the Christmas season, and prior to 2006, I’ve missed precious few significant news developements. The reason is simple. Newsmakers (and plenty of those covering them) tend to lay low during the last half of December and the first few days of…
There are some restaurants where the world does not intrude — rooms where time does not pass, weather does not change, current events go unnoted. Often inadvertently, these restaurants have successfully stopped time — a trick that mad scientists and evil super-geniuses have been attempting since forever with dark matter…
The Original Hip Hop Chocolate Launch Party has been cancelled due to inclement weather. But don’t worry, you’ll get your chocolate fix next Thursday, January 4, when the party has been rescheduled. It’s still taking place at 9 p.m. at Blue Ice Martini Bar. Visit www.myspace.com/hiphopchocolate for the latest…
Ever since last week, we’ve known that Brooke was going to have a freak-out party in Episode 7. But that didn’t make it any less painful to watch last night. In most seasons of The Real World, the producers tend to include one person who is relatively normal and relatively…
Okay, we could have done better. We admit that. We lied about our age. We faked our memoirs. We called ourselves Art or Daxis and told the escort we were from Kansas City. We stole other people’s identities, maxed out the credit cards and blamed the illegals. And yes, we…
In Colorado, 2006 will be remembered as the Year of the Great Pretender. Many of the most notorious newsmakers were people masquerading as someone or something they weren’t — leading secret lives, conning the public, boasting of a competency they didn’t possess or taking credit for achievements and even crimes…
“Ten Years After,” Alan Prendergast, December 21 The Usual Suspects Once again, a voice of sanity and reason regarding the case of JonBenét Ramsey. Sadly, it is ten years later, and many innocent people have gone through hell just for stating the obvious: The Ramseys are the true suspects in…
After six episodes of The Real World: Denver, we still haven’t seen anyone do any work — which makes me wonder if having them employed by Outward Bound was more of a liability than it was worth. This could also explain why the cast members have that nasty habit of…
Media types are suckers for anniversary stories. Even if it’s the anniversary of a homicide, which just sounds so…wrong. What are we celebrating, exactly? On Tuesday it will be ten years since the death of JonBenet Ramsey. There have already been a couple of prime-time recaps of the crime, and…
She would have been sixteen now. A boy-crazy cheerleader, maybe, or the dorky president of the debate team. A wobbly-voiced contestant on America’s Got Talent. Or just another girl in narrow-legged jeans at the mall — diamond stud in nostril, cell phone clamped to ear. Who can say? Instead, she’s…
The door of the bus opens, belching a stale blast of vomit-scented air into the night. Inside, empty plastic bottles that once held rum and coke, whiskey and coke, gin and tonic, you name it, are scattered everywhere: on the floor, on the plush chairs, in the pockets of the…
Sometimes you feel like a nut. Tom Tancredo, Colorado’s most notorious export, was at his office in Centennial last Wednesday, about to head for Denver International Airport, when he got word that his speaking engagement before the Miami Rotary Club — the official topic was “Renewing America: The Need for…
Sometimes I’m amazed by how much of a man I am. I’ll be at the gym, 35-pound plates on both sides of the bar, just ill bench-pressing, and I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror — muscles taut, beads of sweat cascading down my forehead, iPod blazing Eminem…
In late November, Broomfield-based Noodles & Co. announced that it had signed with FEED Tribes, a Boulder outfit that’s developed a system allowing members to pay for products using their cell phones. Both the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News ran business stories about this agreement — but neither…
“Pot of Gold,” Joel Warner, December 14 Memoirs of the Geisha I am originally from Denver, and from time to time I try to catch up on all things “home” and scan Westword online. “Pot of Gold” was brilliant, in-depth and wonderfully interesting. It was so well composed, it did…
In the white squall of media coverage surrounding the Denver Nuggets of late — and I do mean “white” — the criticism has been flying like a Southern pilot on the Concorde: fast and racist. Take the latest Carmelo Anthony smack-my-bitch-up incident against the Knicks this Saturday in New York,…
Not quite cynical enough about weather forecasting? Then here’s an item that should make you feel even more jaded. As he watched the snow falling this morning, a sharp-eyed reader thought of this article in the December 6 Denver Post. Headlined “Arrival of El Ni�o May Mean Dry Winter for…
Yeah, it’s snowing — and if predictions are even close to accurate, it’ll continue to do so for quite some time. But unless I’m very much mistaken, this is Colorado, where snow is a part of life. So why are the local stations reacting to this slow-moving weather system as…
Excess—that’s what I love about the Palace Arms. And not just plain excess. Not cheap, tawdry, modern excess but classy, well-aged and dignified excess. The kind of excess that almost demands you don an ascot and monocle before partaking. And yet, there is no credit check at the door, no…
Pick up any paper, check any website, talk to anyone at a sports bar, and you’ll find yourself inundated with opinions about Carmelo Anthony. He’s nothing but a thug. He’s misunderstood. You can take the NBA player out of the street but you can’t take the street out of the…
After many years of effort, my son, Nick, recently earned the ranking of Eagle Scout — and shortly thereafter, he received letters of congratulation from two elected officials, Representative Tom Tancredo, in whose congressional district we live, and Senator Wayne Allard. However, he’s heard squat from Colorado’s other senator, Ken…
We knew it was coming, but nothing could prepare us for the true awfulness of the deed itself. The fourth (and, if God is merciful, last) television documentary on the JonBenet Ramsey case concocted by University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey and British producer David Mills aired in the…
