By the time Arvada native Christine Pomponio-Pate arrives at the prestigious Arnold bodybuilding show in Columbus, Ohio, in early March, she’ll have been intensively preparing her physique for close to four months. Her body-fat percentage will be near 9 percent — between a half and a third of that of…
Bosses pick up Juan Lopez Gutierrez for quick jobs. He landscapes or builds houses. He paints walls and lays floors. Different men pick him up in different trucks for different gigs every week. He tries to avoid getting stiffed his pay. He looks for the company’s name, the business address…
One hundred and two days. That’s how long it took Josh Caldwell and Hunter Weeks to travel from Seattle to Boston on a Segway — a journey that takes roughly five hours by plane. Last August, the pair hit the road with a couple of digital video cameras, plenty of…
Bare feet and backless blouses may be all the rage in Boulder, but that’s where the flesh flashing stops. On February 4, cops shut down a fashion show after receiving an APB concerning escaped breasts on the runway. Organized by Jason Rens and Gretchen Jones of the Buffalo Exchange, the…
We were somewhere around the Capitol on the edge of downtown when the booze began to take hold. All night we had been drinking, pouring alcohol on top of thick, prime-cut steaks devoured with gluttonous glee in celebration of a friend’s birthday and the NBA All-Star Weekend. I remember sourly…
There were no major train wrecks in Colorado over President’s Day weekend — unless you counted the transitions during late local TV newscasts. The juxtaposition of overblown NBA All-Star Game plugs with coverage of a statewide manhunt and, later, the suicide of Colorado-based counterculture figure Hunter S. Thompson left debris…
In the midst of the hip, the hop and the hype, the NBA All-Stars managed to shoot a little hoop over the weekend. As befits the Mile High City, some would say, most of it was above the rim. From the rookie-sophomore game on Friday night to the slam-dunk contest…
Ready for Blastoff It’s the Rael thing: Regarding Patricia Calhoun’s “Space Case,” in the February 17 issue: Mr. Roehr’s evaluation of the whole Ward Churchill controversy is really right on the money. It couldn’t have been expressed more clearly — but once again, it seems that the media have to…
5:55 a.m.: 7600 Broadway They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway…but right before dawn, on the hillside where Broadway begins, the only lights are a hint of orange and pink on the horizon to the east, the beacons of a convenience store a few blocks down the two-lane…
Inmates who joined in a hunger strike at the Colorado State Penitentiary last month were hoping their protest would attract a media feeding frenzy — and put pressure on officials to modify harsh conditions at the state’s supermax prison. Instead, they just got hungry. The official story of the strike…
Get ready for some serious barking. The city’s one-year pilot program for off-leash dog parks will end February 28, and neighbors and pet owners are already baring their teeth. There was much ado about everything last year when the Denver Department of Parks and Recreation floated the idea of creating…
Denver could be showing another art exhibit the door. Jared Anderson, director of The Assembly art gallery, has come under fire from the Denver Zoning Department because his monumental sculpture (below) — it’s fifty feet long by fourteen feet high — could violate a little-known subsection of the city’s zoning…
Every year at about this time, which just happens to be Black History Month, I am seized by sudden anxiety attacks. Questions will race through my skull, causing my eyes to roll back in my head and my lips to tremble. Often I will speak in tongues. What was the…
Talk-show host Ed Schultz apologizes for missing a scheduled interview. He explains that Tom Daschle called, and he “couldn’t get him off the phone.” Schultz insists that Daschle, who was Senate Minority Leader prior to losing in last year’s election, isn’t a blabby pest with too much time on his…
Then those Things ran about With big bumps, jumps and kicks And with hops and big thumps And all kinds of bad tricks. — The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss Just because you enjoy having guests doesn’t mean you have to invite everyone. Every organization has its Things…
Between Iraq and a Hard Place Band of brothers: Laura Bond’s “Iraq and Roll,” in the February 3 issue, was the best article I have read in Westword for months! It gave a real feeling for the horror of war. I’m glad that the members of Lucid Dissent found comfort…
Suzanne Shell raises chickens in rural El Paso County. It’s not the world’s most exciting job, but Shell’s other pursuits — which include working as an author, journalist and documentary producer, running a contentious website called ProfaneJustice.org, offering her services as an expert consultant to parents accused of abusing and…
The Rocky Mountain Progressive Network has undergone some changes in recent months — and, no, it hasn’t recruited Ward Churchill as its new spokesman. To gain a larger national presence, its name has been changed to Progressnow.org; it’s hired the technophile behind Howard Dean’s much-lauded Internet campaign to launch the…
The prosecutor asked for thirty years. Probation officials suggested 24. Under Colorado law, the minimum sentence for knowing and reckless child abuse resulting in death is sixteen years in prison. Last week, Alamosa District Judge John Kuenhold decided to split the difference. He gave Krystal Voss twenty years for causing…
“I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General,” the patter song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance, features tongue-twisting lyrics, but they’re never so twisted as when Gene Scheer plays the Major-General. For this past weekend’s Colorado Symphony Orchestra performances, Scheer added a thoroughly modern, and local, twist…
We really ought to add an amendment to the Constitution. I don’t have the phrasing down quite yet, but it’s something to the effect that you should be allowed to say what you want and write what you want, just because. You know what I mean? Maybe it could read…
The creative forces behind Bias, a proposed multimedia venture aimed at young adults, seem convinced that there’s nothing more hilarious than homicide. Among the first items in a sample issue of Bias magazine that’s been shown to potential clients in recent months is “Drink to the Lost,” a feature urging…
