Gramma Blake is not alive to see the drunken woman staggering up Gregory Street, her slot-machine earnings clinking in her fanny pack. Gramma Blake never did like this sort of thing. In the 1930s she would stomp down from her house on Blake Hill and into a Black Hawk bar…
US West likes to highlight the diversity of its huge fourteen-state territory with TV advertising that periodically features cowboys chatting on pay phones and pickup trucks rambling through the Sonoran desert. Now the phone company’s opponents have picked up on the Western theme: They’ve formed a regional posse to hunt…
It’s my party and I’ll lie if I want to: Now that the elections are over, you can once again answer the phone at dinnertime, secure in the knowledge that it’s probably some annoying in-law rather than a candidate’s computerized whine. You can safely turn on the television without fear…
Former Durango mayor Jeff Morrissey is accused of striking a low blow in the fight for a controversial southern Colorado water project that he supports. As a result, he faces two counts of disorderly conduct for allegedly making lewd comments to two women who oppose the Animas-La Plata water project…
It ain’t no bandwagon. Ralph and Jimmy Garcia remember the day the Broncos got rid of their vertical striped socks in a public burning at training camp. They recall Lionel Taylor’s 100 pass receptions in 1961 and the moment when Jeremiah Castille fell on The Fumble at the three-yard line…
Enough. By the time he was on the homestretch of his 1,200-mile tour of the Fourth Congressional District, independent candidate Wes McKinley had had enough of Marvin the mule. Especially since the Greeley Tribune had passed over both the name-party candidates–Democrat Guy Kelley and Republican victor Bob Schaefer–in order to…
The Die’s Typecast Steve Jackson’s Bobby Hornbuckle profile (“Last Call,” October 31) was probably the worst article ever written in the very galaxy. Why? Because Bobby’s always been a monster bluesman, the baddest for miles around, but you slimebags wait until he’s dying to give him some press! Why weren’t…
It’s been eighteen months since Bobby Hornbuckle sat in the same muted yellow light that now filters through the windows of Ziggie’s Saloon, talking about his battle with hepatitis and the lifestyle that had given him the disease. Heroin. Needles. Cocaine. Playing and living the blues. “If you want to…
In past years, the Regional Transportation District board elections have had all the political excitement and heart-pounding suspense of a Ross Perot infomercial. But this fall’s slate offers more drama than most congressional races; candidates have squared off over the future of Denver’s light-rail system, swapped insults over the accomplishments…
Tammara Keisler didn’t mind picking up after the members of the Colorado Arlberg Club. But the self-described “surfer girl” from Southern California thought it was totally bogus when the wealthy ski society fired her from an $11-an-hour housekeeper’s job to keep her from collecting a $500 bonus. So the 27-year-old…
Air today, gone tomorrow: Republicans aren’t the only ones who’ve been converging on San Diego recently. A bevy of nine Denver public servants had a grand old party of their own in the California sun last week, jetting southwest for a four-day regional conference of the Airports Council International trade…
Organizers are touting the upcoming Rocky Mountain Marian Conference, a three-day paean to visions of the Virgin Mary, as a chance for Catholics to strengthen their love for the Virgin and reaffirm their faith in God. But some Catholics are up in arms because one of the keynote speakers, Ivan…
In April 1994 rancher John Avery of southwestern Colorado noticed that one of his elk herd was ill. Now, more than two years later, Avery himself is feeling both sick and angry. His herd’s been quarantined, several elk have had their throats cut or have been shot to death, an…
Ex-altar boys built like beer trucks still go to Notre Dame. The future Nobel laureates are at Stanford, absorbing Plato. Those who crave ice cream and river rafting are bonding with Kid Rick up in Boulder–and calling home on the free telephones. Condominium-sized sprinters who live for the scent of…
Dis Honor Alan Prendergast’s October 24 article, “Motion to Dismiss,” made reference to the divorce action involving a local attorney whose estranged wife was dying of cancer. I performed a great deal of the research for the respondent in that case. Never in all the courtrooms where I have assisted…
The Count of Five Points is playing a tape of himself reading Edgar Allan Poe in a sonorous voice: “From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were–I have not seen As others saw–I could not bring My passions from a common spring– From the same source I have…
Attorney Tom Handley remembers the case: a hand-to-hand drug deal behind Argonaut Liquors on East Colfax. Another lawyer in his office had worked out a routine plea bargain with the prosecutor that would have given their client a low-level felony conviction and probation. But before the deal could be sealed,…
Harass is on the line: A lawsuit filed last week in federal district court won’t be the October surprise of this year’s Senate campaign, but it does target Democratic candidate Tom Strickland’s vulnerable flank: the powerful law firm of Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber & Strickland. If there’s an important issue in…
Perry Ayers, founder of the Denver Black Arts Festival, says he’s “the ultimate optimist,” and why not? In the past ten years he’s built the DBAF into one of the largest black-arts events in the nation–and sometimes he’s had to stage it on little more than a wing and a…
It’s been five years, one federal trial and at least $30,000 since the Denver Sheriff’s Department fired deputy Trina Burks-Richardson for allegedly going trigger-happy in a Texas town. But the tortuous legal proceedings–including a federal judge’s surprising backtracking–may end soon, if not necessarily happily, for the city and its taxpayers…
Think Ross Perot is a long shot to win the White House a week from Tuesday? How about the Green Party candidate for president? Or the Libertarian? How about Mrs. Grundy of the Civic Purity League? Well, to tell the truth, they’ve all got a lot better chance in their…
Witness for the Prosecution Andy Van De Voorde’s October 17 story about the Denver DA’s race, “Trial by Ire,” was excellent but may have missed a couple of the real issues. First, the financial necessities and politics of Denver and Colorado predicate a plea-bargain rate that is at a rock-bottom…
