For David Mallamo, fantasy has always been kinder than reality. At fifteen, with scruffy brown hair and glasses, he resembles his hero, Harry Potter — a boy who’s abused by his family but finds power and adventure in an alternate world. Now living in his tenth home since birth, David…
The structure of public funding for mental-health care changed dramatically in 1995, when Colorado moved from a fee-for-service system and began to operate on a managed-care model. Eight mental-health assessment and service agencies, known as MHASAs, were contracted by the state to provide mental-health services to Medicaid recipients, while seventeen…
The Gods of the Internet have truly blessed the geeks of Parker. They’ve bestowed onto local gamers a physical location where they can get their fix of virtual violence and computer camaraderie. It fell from the sky, they say, a little more than a year ago, landing with a dull…
1. Which words did the Colorado Supreme Court NOT use when rejecting last year’s GOP-friendly legislative map scribbled by the General Assembly? A. “Unprecedented power.” B. “Abhorring such a transfer.” C. “Res ipso loquitur (The thing speaks for itself.)” D. “Having failed.” 2. Clinton Portis helped keep the Broncos’ possibilities…
Diane and Elaine Klimaszewski, the buxom blond Coors Light twins, have been busy little ladies in the year since they graced Westword’s cover (“The Light Stuff,” January 23). On top of their daily duties of working teenage boys into a frenzy and helping Coors sell buckets of beer, they have…
Colorado’s first family spent a quiet Thanksgiving at their home in Centennial. But Governor Bill Owens wasn’t about to show up for dinner empty-handed. And so the night before, in search of some CDs for his kids, he landed at the Super Kmart at Broadway and Alameda. Savvy shoppers did…
Justin Mitchell’s life in newspapering has taken more twists than Chubby Checker. His curriculum vitae includes a lengthy run as pop-music critic for the Rocky Mountain News and a briefer one spent impersonating fictional columnist Ed Anger, the bizarro conscience of the extraterrestrial-friendly Weekly World News. Yet his current gig…
That ominous rumble gaining volume in the mean saloons and unhappy living rooms of Denver is the sound of a citizen army being mustered. Taking up their cudgels as they pull on their predominantly orange flak jackets, these aroused militia-folk are clearly plotting an advance on Dove Valley, there to…
Bitch, Bitch, Bitch Petty is as petty does: Regarding Eric Dexheimer’s “Scratching the Bitch,” in the November 13 issue: What a bunch of cowards at the State Capitol! First I read in Westword about Joseph Paiva and how Colorado grossly underfunds social services and then incarcerates those who fall through…
The two tickets in the scalper’s hands are so hot he should be wearing oven mitts. They read: “Oakland Raiders v. Denver Broncos, Monday, September 22, Section 104, Row 8.” Way down low, on the forty-yard line. Face value: $78 each. The scalper is demanding $500 for the pair. And…
When Nick Morales began teaching Chicano studies at Metropolitan State College of Denver several years ago, he relied heavily on the standard textbooks in the field. Those texts had a great deal to say about the Chicano experience in California and Texas, but Colorado was scarcely mentioned. “My students were…
1. How many pancake breakfasts could Bronco Daryl Gardener have bought at the Aurora IHOP (where he hurt his hand in a fight last summer) with the salary he’s expected to lose from a one-game suspension? A. About 500, give or take. B. None. He’s known as a selfish guy,…
After three decades as the Sex-Change Capital of the World, Trinidad might have to find a new nickname. Dr. Stanley Biber, who has performed some 6,000 sex-reassignment operations in the southern Colorado town, has set aside his scalpel after failing to find insurance. “I didn’t retire — I was forced…
Listeners of the three local stations owned by Infinity Broadcasting got an unexpected earful this past Monday morning when the nasal tones of Governor Bill Owens suddenly rode the airwaves of Mix 100, Kool 105 and Jammin’ 92.5. Infinity’s offices are in the Denver Post building — just one hot-dog…
In late October, as the Overland fire was scorching hundreds of acres in Boulder County, several Channel 4 executives gathered in the office of news director Angie Kucharski to watch the five o’clock newscast. For the most part, they were impressed with the presentation — until, that is, the monitor…
If you want to see the difference between a boys’ and a girls’ ice hockey game, stop by the Edge Ice Arena early on a Sunday morning. The building, part of the Foothills Recreation Complex southwest of Denver, is one of several erected in the metro area in recent years…
Paint the Town Ted Better dead than Ted: I just wanted to thank Patricia Calhoun for not pulling any punches in “Ted Alert!,” her column in the November 20 issue. This whole thing has been driving me nuts, and I don’t even live in Denver. When I heard about all…
2400 hours. Location: Outside of the Titan Missile Site 3, Complex 2B. A small truck speeds through the darkness down a wide dirt road, hanging an abrupt right onto an overgrown jeep trail. Two hundred yards into the field, the midnight-blue pickup stops, its headlights are cut, and Commander Chainsaw…
As final exams wrap up the fall quarter this week at the University of Denver, neighbors are breathing a collective sigh of relief. The year-round residents are ready for a break from the town-versus-gown clash with rowdy college students, a common occurrence at campuses across the country. “I think that…
1. The Adams County sheriff has taken an interest in some open-space areas because: A. Teen drag racers have been using the back roads for competitions. B. Gay men have been cruising there, looking for companionship. C. Marijuana crops have been discovered on the land. D. It helps the sheriff…
It took more than two years of investigations and hearings, but two weeks ago, John Dicke finally lost his psychology license. The State Board of Psychologist Examiners first became acquainted with Dicke in April 2001, when a man complained that his five-year-old son, Dallas, had been “stripped naked, tortured, restrained,…
Denver’s fabled pretty house — Casa Bonita to the gringos, transplants and otherwise uninitiated — received the royal treatment on the idiot box this month courtesy of everyone’s favorite F-bomb-dropping Technicolor fatass, Eric Cartman. Incensed at being passed over for a party at the venerable south-of-the-border chow shack on West…
