Writer Neal Pollack is not to be trusted. In his first book, The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, the former Chicago Reader columnist takes on the persona of a man with the same name — one who has led a startlingly full life as a globe-trotting journalist and whose…
It’s February 26, and the Denver Nuggets are preparing to play what is arguably their most important game of the year. The 2000-2001 campaign had started out promisingly, with the Nuggets running their record to eight games over .500 by late January — heady territory for a team that the…
You want the love? Here is the love. On Monday and Wednesday nights, the forty or so players of the Gentlemen of Aspen Rugby Football Club show up at the Cory Point Riding Arena, a few miles down the Roaring Fork Valley. They wait while the horses are led away…
Weird Science What a doll! Kudos to Patricia Calhoun for her March 8 column, “Blinded by Science,” showing how low the high-and-mighty Boulder can sink. The black-and-white-Barbie saga was embarrassing enough for a supposedly sophisticated city. But unless the box those two Hispanic gentlemen were carrying to their car contained…
Harry and Linda Weber stand in their Loveland basement, gazing down at several dozen reluctant houseplants. “If they don’t start blooming more,” she says, “they won’t make it.” “No, they won’t.” Harry, a buzz-cut Vietnam vet, doesn’t look like someone who would fret over a crop of dainty flowers. Linda,…
Chris Klug stepped out of the elevator onto Floor 7West at University Hospital. This was the transplant floor, the walls near the waiting room adorned with plaques from organ recipients and their families thanking the doctors and nurses for “the gift of life.” The staff greeted him immediately. Everybody seemed…
The scrubby hills between East Sand Creek and East Drennan Road in Colorado Springs are a perfect spot for coyotes. There are rabbits and mice to chase, crevices to hide in and sunny spots to snooze in. The only drawback is that the coyotes must share the place with the…
The $500-an-hour man, lawyer Steve Farber, was roasted Tuesday at a luncheon benefiting the I Have a Dream Foundation. And how appropriate was that? Farber apparently believes so strongly in the concept of sponsoring kids’ education that every year, he adopts the entire freshmen class of the Colorado Legislature, then…
At first he pissed me off. Then he worried me. Then he fascinated me. So imagine how I felt when I found out he was only nineteen! “We’re just calling to okay the purchase of the motherboard,” said the man on the phone. “We’re gonna charge your account the $600…
The recent purchase of Fort Collins’s KUNC-FM — a 100,000-watt public-radio station affiliated with the University of Northern Colorado — by a community organization dubbed Friends of KUNC may have marked the end of a battle with Colorado Public Radio, which also wanted the property, but the war certainly isn’t…
The best thing that ever happened to the PGA Tour, the sages of the fairway say, is Tiger Woods’s completely dominant performance in 2000 — nine PGA wins (including three majors), more than $9 million in earnings, and the lowest scoring average (68.17 per round) in history. Even wheat farmers…
I Drink, Therefore I Am The glass is half-empty: After reading Patricia Calhoun’s “A Mile High,” in the March 1 issue, I have to wonder what she thinks the solution might be. Should our state welcome murderers like Donta Page with open arms just so a few drunks don’t have…
When it comes to songwriting, there probably aren’t that many points on which indie rockers and Elton John agree. Still, one of Sir Elton’s most famous phrases seems wholly in step with the current philosophy of underground music makers: A sad song says so much. Optimism fueled the power-to-the-people rock…
Chris Klug kissed his girlfriend, Missy, for luck and tromped to the starting gate of the Park City, Utah, World Cup snowboard parallel giant slalom. He snapped his red racing boots into the bindings of his long, yellow Burton board, adjusted the goggles beneath his helmet, and peered down the…
Monday: Samierah Moran, vice president of her junior class at Manual High School, is smart, talented — and bored. She gets good grades, but she doesn’t care much for her classes. She often goes in to see principal Nancy Sutton to complain about the fact that the school is a…
After months of delays, city officials announced on February 9 their decisions regarding the future of five of the six nonprofits that currently lease city-owned community centers. For Jan Belle, the director of the sixth nonprofit, the Southwest Improvement Council (SWIC), the wait has been “torturous,” and it’s not over…
At first glance, it appeared that the Empire had struck back at Fantastic Media, the Aurora company known nationwide as a one-stop worship center for aficionados of Star Wars and Star Trek. But in truth, a pair of business transactions that seemed to spell doom for the plucky firm actually…
Cliff May is bigtime. Over the past few months, the former Rocky Mountain News editor/columnist and sometimes Denver talk-show host has gone from his post as spokesman for the Republican National Committee to acting as new Interior Secretary Gale Norton’s temporary media advisor to a job with one of the…
In the radio biz, hosts are supposed to be provocative: Executives don’t pay the big bucks for nice and dull, do they? But there’s always a danger of going one joke over the line, particularly since said line is often a moving target, shifting this direction or that based on…
With baseball starting, March Madness on deck and the NBA and NHL playoffs in the hole, one can be forgiven for not having contemplated the dire state of competitive distance swimming in this country. Fortunately, the towel wringers at USA Swimming are there to do it for you. Recently, the…
Rave Reviews Mayhem madness: Laura Bond’s atypical rave article, “Home of the Rave” in the February 22 issue, was something I would like to thank you for. She provided an overview of the situation without resorting to phrases such as “drug-fueled mayhem” and the like. If only more papers could…
Bart Barnum answers the phone in a theatrical fashion, his voice slow and cartoonish. “Barnum House,” he says. You ask him if it might be possible for you to come by and take a look at the place. Of course it is, he responds enthusiastically. He would be delighted to…
