She almost spotted me. God, that would have infuriated my mother. All that preparation (the workout sessions in the pool, the treadmill, the baths) blown in one instant because Sylvia — I’m sorry, Pond Hollow Sylvia James, as she is known in the circuit — caught wind of me and…
After the Rocky Mountain News reduced its once-extensive stock listings to a single page, business editor Rob Reuteman spoke with dozens of unhappy readers — and few were reassured to learn that the data is still available on the Rocky’s website. “I was talking to ninety-year-old guys who’ve been subscribing…
Murder, She Wrote So long, punk-rock girl: When I saw the cover of the February 16 issue, I thought to myself, “That girl looks familiar.” Lo and behold, the girl’s name was Brenda. I never knew her last name, so I had to read Jessica Centers’s “Femme Fatale” article. Sure…
When Brenda Denton rolled into Denver in the late ’80s, she quickly made a name for herself on Capitol Hill. She was the Queen of Punk. Psycho Brenda. Brenda the Bitch. Her black leather jacket was hand-pierced with rows of fat, heavy screws that jutted out like spikes along her…
For the past eight years, I’ve been completely faithful to my snowboard. Addicted to it, actually. I could never see a reason to go back to skis, although the convenience of poles was something I envied every time my board got stuck on the flat stuff. But when I strapped…
“Suit up, you chump,” a fan uttered to Denver Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin as K-Mart sat injured on the bench last Wednesday evening, watching his team do battle with the Chicago Bulls. And while Martin may not have had any part in the Nuggets’ eventual 110-107 loss, he mirrored his…
Through no fault of my own, actual pieces of news sometimes, somehow, work their way into the inner confines of What’s So Funny headquarters. Situated comfortably in my vacuum-sealed, germ-free giant obelisk that hovers menacingly above the city, kestrel-like in its vigilance, one would think mine would be an impregnable…
There are so many things wrong with “Shot-and-Beer Pittsburgh Froths at Mouth,” a January 18 effort by Rocky Mountain News columnist Bill Johnson, that counting them all would require a calculator with the power of a nuclear reactor — but one stands out above the rest. Johnson described driving past…
The Turn of the Screw Take out the trash: I am appalled by Jason Sheehan’s “Drinking, Smoking and Screwing,” in the February 9 issue. I have taken note of his restaurant critiques in the past, and have even visited several establishments based on his recommendations. Never again. His crude language…
Red was the only color that seventeen-year-old Contrell Townsend couldn’t wear. Contrell’s parents had pulled him out of Montbello High School in the fall of 2003 because he was rolling with a crew of known gang members, full-fledged Bloods. Against their better instincts, they allowed Contrell to return to Montbello…
The siren song of illegally copied Japanese anime DVDs is a hard call to resist, even among the most honorable devotees. Staying on top of the animation niche known for saucer-eyed hot chicks and cyberpunk samurai is an expensive hobby, with movies averaging $30 to $50 and specialty items going…
Music teacher Tresa Waggoner is having a devil of a time in Bennett, where the school board has put her on paid leave while it investigates a handful of complaints that she showed snippets from a video on Charles Gounod’s Faust — a video that the teacher, an opera singer…
Look, I’m not going to lie to you. Originally, this column was going to be a cheap attempt to make fun of a hippie. I wasn’t really proud of that, but I was going to do it anyway. Because it was so there for the taking. It was as if…
Although many Denver sports fans have never heard of talk-show host Dino Costa, he’s determined to seize their attention — and once he does, he’s convinced that local listeners will recognize his greatness. “If and when I ever get an opportunity to work on a station like, let’s say, KOA,…
No Whine Before Its Time Chipotle off the old blockhead: Do you pay Adam Cayton-Holland? I just finished reading the February 2 What’s So Funny, and I have noticed this column evolving into Adam’s whine piece to get free food, VIP tickets, invitations to parties, etc. Can’t you guys pay…
Here’s how you get from the center of Denver — the intersection of Colfax and Broadway — to the center of the mapping universe: Start out going SOUTH on Broadway. Turn RIGHT onto West Colfax Avenue. Proceed less than one-tenth of a mile. Turn RIGHT onto 15th Street. Turn RIGHT…
Beware! Here there be Horndribbles. They slink with squishy tentacles and fuzzy antennae, a menagerie so grotesque it makes the denizens of Where the Wild Things Are look like Beanie Babies. Only a few dozen of the creatures have ever been seen by human eyes, tracked down in the wilds…
It seemed like just a goofy political crush when www.drafthick.com, a website pushing John Hickenlooper for governor, first popped up in April 2005. Even though Hizzoner repeatedly rejected their advances, the besotted individuals behind the drafthick campaign continued to believe he was just playing coy and kept sending mash notes…
My freshman year of college was not going so well when my mother paid a visit. My attempts to write a column for the shitty school rag had blown up in my face like Peter North on an Asian, and it seemed my sophisticated new Connecticut acquaintances were not nearly…
To former Wall Street Journal scribe Jonathan Weil, a “biopsy” is an inquiry into a seemingly healthy enterprise that exposes a potentially fatal disease — financial irregularities, perhaps, or evidence of fraudulent behavior on the part of an executive. In contrast, an “autopsy” is a piece detailing why and how…
Digging for the Truth Buried treasure: I would like to praise Joel Warner’s “Digging Deep,” in the January 26 issue. My grandparents came to McElmo Canyon in 1913, and my grandmother taught at a country school near the Castle Rock site. When I was a small child, she told me…
The invaders arrive in the cool, early morning. The imposing sandstone edifices and towers, dotted with darkened windows, had been quiet and peaceful, a silent city hidden deep within a rocky tableland rising hundreds of feet above the Colorado desert. But now the canyon echoes with voices and the sounds…
