Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling once described Lou Pai as “my ICBM.” But like a lot of other talented execs whose careers rocketed into hyperdrive at the Houston-based energy giant, Pai turned out to be a secret weapon aimed directly at shareholders. When the wild ride was over, Pai emerged…
When a public official takes on duties that appear to be at cross purposes, it’s said that the job requires him to wear “many hats.” If that’s the case, then Dave Thomas sports more headgear than a marching band. As three-term district attorney of Jefferson County, Thomas is the lead…
Armed with today’s digital technology, any special-effects wiz in Hollywood can squeeze a camel through the eye of a needle. But can the movies get a rich man into heaven? Philip Anschutz, Denver’s favorite billionaire, may be hoping they can. Last month, Anschutz signed an acquisition deal that will make…
If Tinseltown didn’t know Philip Anschutz before, it does now. In addition to his recent major investments in movie theaters and two production companies, Anschutz also owns the $94 million Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, where the Academy Awards were staged last month. On that night, the Denver billionaire’s spanking-new, 3,500-seat…
Denver Public Schools is on a quest to replace Qwest. Last year, the giant telecom announced it was giving up on its residential Internet-access business as part of a giant shift in strategy — which meant that half a million Qwest.net customers had until the first of this month to…
“Writing obituaries is usually a beginning reporter’s job,” notes obit specialist Jim Sheeler. “I think that’s usually why they’re done so poorly. But obituaries can be stories that teach you a little bit more about life through death. And I don’t really think it matters how old you are to…
A yellowing newspaper clipping from the Houston Chronicle hangs on the wall in Al Sanders’s home office in Fort Collins. The matted and framed article, dated January 27, 1964, is accompanied by a photograph of a five-year-old boy, identified as Austin Sanders III, sitting on his mother’s lap. He is…
The Bust of Denver Hair today, gone tomorrow: Way to go, Westword! Thanks for including Best Hair on a TV Personality in the Best of Denver 2002, but leaving out all references to Latin music, hip-hop acts, children’s theater, and comedy theater and acts! Why not just include “Cutest Couple”…
Lower downtown, where splashy multimillion-dollar lofts are common, isn’t an easy place to impress people architecturally. One LoDo couple spent a small fortune importing sandstone from India for the exterior of their home, while a bachelor who moved into a LoDo penthouse reportedly covered his bedroom walls with mink. Aware…
The football season may have ended in January, but the Denver Broncos began running a new play on March 5. That’s when team lawyer David A. Bailey signed and mailed form letters threatening legal action to 100 of the football team’s richest fans. The recipients had all missed the February…
Montview Heights is a sizable apartment complex in Aurora, with fifty units that are, at least from the outside, similar to one another: modest, two-story, single-family dwellings, each with a small front and back yard. Like the buildings they live in, Montview’s tenants — a racially mixed group — have…
The very essence of history is at stake. About ten years ago, after the City of Denver installed new signs around its parks, Roger Oram noticed two inaccuracies: Berkeley Park was missing the final “e,” and Sloan’s Lake Park was missing the “‘s.” Oram, who lives halfway between the two…
The Roman Catholic Church has been rocked in recent months by revelations of sexual misconduct by clergy and the failure of some bishops to react decisively, and the country’s faithful have responded in various ways. Some prayed. Some raised holy hell. Others raised cash and tried to elevate consciousness. Among…
Most staffers at major metropolitan dailies go their entire careers without writing a front-page article that turns out to be completely bogus. So kudos to the Denver Post’s Trent Seibert, who’s managed to pull off this rare achievement twice in the span of a month. Someone inform the Pulitzer committee…
This may be Cowtown, but that wasn’t Moooo! the Coors Field multitudes started yelling at the top of the third inning Monday afternoon. An eminently catchable fly ball had just dropped for a hit between outgoing shortstop Juan Uribe and incoming left-fielder Todd Hollandsworth, scoring Houston’s Craig Biggio, and 50,392…
Snap Judgments Film at ten: It was a tough chore to pick the most intestine-twisting bit in Patricia Calhoun’s March 28 “Secret Agents” piece on Columbine. Was it the fact that the 3-D cartoons that make up the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department now have a network of stellar reps leaking…
The wind is cold, sharp, and blowing steadily from the east at five knots. The clouds are thick but airy, blotting the sky in patches. The temperature hangs at a chill 37 degrees. Cole Kugel squints into the noonday sun and smiles. He is anxious, excited. He has waited a…
A state program that was intended to boost student achievement in low-performing schools by giving teachers extra money is instead creating confusion and dissension. And nowhere is that being felt more than in Denver, which is home to the highest number of struggling schools in Colorado. “It was a misguided…
Seeking refuge from the Friday-night crush inside Lime, the Larimer Square hot spot he opened last November with Denver restaurateur Curt Sims, co-owner William Logan was kicking it in his back office when Lime’s manager bustled in with exciting news: “‘N Sync is coming!” Evidently, the boy band’s tour manager…
Jefferson County just doesn’t get the message. When confronted with bad news, Jeffco inevitably decides to kill the messenger rather than contemplate the message. Which, almost as inevitably, is this: Someone screwed up. Again. The most recent screwup involves more leaked documents coming out of the Columbine investigation (the grand-champion…
Both Channel 9 and the Rocky Mountain News have produced plenty of reports of late about Ocean Journey, which will close its doors on April 2 unless a rare form of aquatic life — a well-heeled sucker — decides to donate many millions of dollars to a joint that’s gone…
Before last week, I regarded the game of cricket as a stodgy ancestor of our baseball — as a peculiar English obsession no less mystifying than the love sonnets of Sir John Suckling or those gray clots of mutton you sometimes find on your dinner plate in London. That has…
