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To anyone who has ever lived in a small town, the characters are as familiar as Main Street: The judge with the smudged reputation. The curmudgeon who criticizes everyone in a public position. The inveterate writer of letters to the editor whose conspiratorial diatribes seem to contain a grain of…

Pat Rossiter is contemplating taxi-driver etiquette. It would be permissible, he thinks, to yell, “Hey, pal, your iambic pentameter stinks,” over the radio. Something truly vulgar, however, would not be. And should a cabdriver ever attempt to interrupt a live, on-the-air poetry recitation–well, that would be a “capital offense.” These…

Lance Clem can talk for hours about what’s wrong with the way millions of dollars designed to help people infected with the AIDS virus are being spent in the Denver area. But talk like that, he says, cost him his job as the executive director of the Governor’s AIDS Council…

Brooke Wolff doesn’t stand out from all the other blue-eyed, sandy-haired, fair-faced seniors pictured in the 1993 Highlands Ranch High School yearbook. But while other graduates’ names are followed by lists of activities–band, color guard, honor roll, swimming–Wolff’s stands alone. “My high school is like Beverly Hills 90210–there’s cappuccino and…

Melting down: Rocky Flats’ contamination isn’t limited to the Jefferson County facility. Washington lawyer Jonathan Turley is plenty hot over the Denver Post’s “Perspective” section, particularly its editor, Al Knight. Last month Turley was invited to speak about environmental crimes and, not incidentally, his most controversial clients–the Rocky Flats grand…

His Gala Friday From reading Patricia Calhoun’s “The Party’s Over” in the March 9 issue, I can only assume that her upset with Denver International Airport was caused by everyone’s failure to invite her to the party. My real question: If she’s so upset with everything here, why did she…

Platteville veterinarian Tim Thompson has seen his share of beastly behavior, but the news that he’s working closely with the Antichrist himself comes as a bit of a shock. “Well no, I wasn’t aware of that,” he says. “Wow.” To understand exactly how his veterinary research ties into the imminent…

Rap star Hammer has confronted a sea of troubles over the last two years–sagging popularity, concerts marred by violence, allegations of rape lodged against members of his entourage. Now add to the list a recent judgment against a group of Hammer-owned companies in a lawsuit brought by Englewood’s Great-West Life…

The 500-channel future of television begins at Chatfield High. In a downstairs classroom of the Littleton school, home of the Chatfield Chargers, teacher Ron Gabbert and about twenty students in his advanced television- and radio-production class watch a just-completed program about the school wrestling team’s season. Mike Jones and Rich…

“I reckon being ill is one of the great pleasures of life,” Samuel Butler declared, “provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.” Yes, but Sam never had to contend with the modern hospital–or the hospital bill. Although car dealers talk about…

part 2 of 2 In February 1992 Casey went to live at another Utah-based program, Sorenson’s Ranch School in Koosharem. At Sorenson’s, Casey lived in a rustic cabin set in a high mountain valley. Like every youth there, he received a horse in order to learn responsibility. It would have…

part 1 of 2 Casey Collier’s quicksilver moods–kind and gentle one moment, unruly and obstinate the next–puzzled the people around him from the time he was a preschooler. He landed in therapy before he was ten, in a mental hospital at age twelve. The explanations for his actions seemed to…

Rush to judgment: Ouch. Not since the Broncos lost their last Super Bowl has Denver taken such a drubbing from the national press. In reporting the delayed opening of the “huge and controversial $3.2 billion” airport “28 miles from downtown,” the March 2 Wall Street Journal noted that the postponement…

A Chicago-based aviation consultant paid $250,000 by the City of Denver to help plan the future of Stapleton International Airport produced no tangible work other than a twenty-page report on the airport’s main terminal. The city says that the Unison Consulting Group Inc. performed a variety of “management consulting” services…

In a little more than six months, a small-time thief named Everett Francis Wann is scheduled to be released from federal prison, where he has spent the past eighteen months serving time for swiping aircraft parts sent to a Continental Airlines warehouse in Denver. Although Wann’s release may hold little…

The Churl Next Door Much as I enjoyed Robin Chotzinoff’s March 2 story, “If That Don’t Beat Al!”, I don’t think I’d enjoy having Al Avram (or whatever his name is) open a business next door. On the other hand, the Unsinkables don’t sound all that neighborly, either. Susie Saks…

Greg Wiatt paces the floor of his tiny Denver apartment like a revivalist preacher preparing to tear into a congregation of sinners. As he begins to speak, he punctuates his remarks by stabbing a finger toward the ceiling. In a fit of anger, he slams a 1938 book called Heredity…

Al Avram has an irresistible East Coast/macho/wiseguy/velvet growl, and the best thing he says with it is this: “You know, I got an explanation for that.” Which is handy, because Al has a lot to explain. His name, for one thing, which is Al Avram in some circles and Carroll…

Static cling: Denver’s “1994 Talk Radio Academy Awards” have just been revealed by an anonymous bunch of pranksters–“We of the Academy would reveal who we are,” they promise, “but we couldn’t do that. We have jobs to keep”–who swear they polled a hundred regular radio listeners by hacking into stations’…