Throw the bums out. The grumbling started even before Denver City Council convened its December 2 hearing on the election debacle. Snowflakes were falling; where were those snow plows? Thanks to the Parade of Lights, which had kicked off the night before, meters were bagged and streets blocked off all…
Dear Mexican: I’m a Spanish-language student struggling with tenses and the gender of nouns. The other day, some friends and I were discussing street slang, and the word verga (penis) came up (no pun intended). It occurred to me that the definitive symbol of masculinity ends in the feminine -a…
Republicans are courting Dick Wadhams to return to Colorado and run the state party. The political operative’s got the time. While in the past Wadhams has taken jobs with the candidates he’s helped propel into office (Governor Bill Owens, Senator Wayne Allard), no such opportunities will arise from his latest…
In a recent column mourning the deaths of some of Denver’s great dives — Duffy’s Shamrock, the Bamboo Hut (see second item here), I lamented the end of the Micky Manor, now turned into the 12th Man. It’s a Bronco bar, of course — of which Denver already had too…
Dear Mexican: It seems that whenever Chicano professors want to show off their mexicanidad, they wear a guayabera. In fact, I saw a picture of you in the Los Angeles Times donning the shirt, along with Dickies pants and Converse All Stars. How trite and bourgeois! You go to a…
Dear Mexican: I was flipping through television when I noticed the Spanish-language channel showing a man in a red suit with yellow pants, antennae on his head and a heart with the letters “CH” on his chest. It appeared to be a sitcom, and all the characters related to the…
“Who makes the laws in the United States?” Here’s a clue: If that’s one of the questions asked when you take the official United States Citizenship Test, don’t answer “lobbyists and special interests.” The Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services doesn’t give extra credit for creativity. Or honesty. But ICE…
Long before midnight, Duffy’s Shamrock had run out of Guinness, that most traditional of Irish brews. And of Jagermeister, that not-so-traditional drink. But while cocktail choices grew more and more limited as Duffy’s last last call approached, the memories flowed freely. So did the advice. “You should put plaques up…
Duffy’s Shamrock Bar served the first beer of its last day at 6:10 a.m today. Technically, that was fifty minutes before it was legal to do so — but what’s the state going to do, shut down this 56-year-old institution a few hours early? And technically, Duffy’s doesn’t — didn’t…
Dear Mexican: Man, did you make me laugh with “leprecanos.” I never had more fun on Cinco de Mayo than I did in 1974 in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mick bar called the Plough and Stars. After that night, I was hooked on redheads and Jameson. I barely had to buy…
Where Tom Tancredo goes, trouble follows. Restoration Weekend drew a cadre of famous conservatives to South Florida this past weekend — but the Colorado congressman was the one who grabbed the headlines, after he referred to Miami as a “third-world country.” And President Bush has only himself to blame, Tancredo…
The world doesn’t get more real than this: While last Wednesday’s premiere of The Real World: Denver featured, among other things, same-sex kissing in a LoDo hot tub, getting face time with Larry King a few channels away was Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, offering his first public take…
Dear Mexican: Can you tell me the meaning of the word aguacate? All I know about this delicious fruit is that it originated on this continent. Guacamole Man Dear Gabacho: Aguacate is the Spanish word for “avocado,” but its Nahuatl meaning is more rustic: balls. According to Ana María de…
Parking got John Hickenlooper a lot of play when he was first running for mayor of Denver, and it’s doing the job again. NPR and MSNBC have both reported on Hizzoner’s promise to pay for any parking tickets acquired when voters got stuck in endless lines at Denver’s election centers…
The news spread faster than a beer spilling down the 72 foot (or 70.1 foot, depending on who’s measuring) bar at Duffy’s Shamrock on Court Place. The joint was closing — soon. Everyone had accepted that someday the owners, the Lombardi brothers, would sell the building that occupied a prime…
“I’m real optimistic about everything going on,” Eddie Maestas said, gazing out the window of Johnnie’s Market at the changing landscape of Larimer Street. “I see nothing but good for this area. I just hope God gives me enough time to see it through.” By then, in the fall of…
Dear Mexican: My fiancé is trying to learn Spanish so he can speak to my grandmother when we get married next month. Lately he’s been listening to CNN en Español to get an ear for the language. After several weeks of watching the channel, he noticed that there are always…
Last Tuesday was not John Hickenlooper’s day. Had he caught all the woo pitched his way a year ago and made a run for governor, he probably would have been elected. Instead, his town was having trouble electing anyone, thanks to the disastrous performance of the Denver Election Commission…
I got fucked by a male escort. Was it good for you? At 5:05 a.m. last Wednesday, Peter Boyles was telling his KHOW audience about an e-mail he’d gotten from a man who would be on the air that morning, talking about a prominent religious figure who’d gone to him…
Dear Mexican: Not long ago, I attended a Los Tigres del Norte concert at a small hall. The people attending were supposed to sit down and enjoy the music. Five minutes into it, these jumping beans started dancing in the aisle. Within minutes, half of them were going up and…
Karl Rove’s Republican Party got wiped off the map yesterday. But the White House strategist has seen that before. Rove spent his early years in Kokomo, a town founded on the west side of Fremont Pass during the 1881 silver strike; the town boomed again during the glory years of…
Five minutes before the polls opened this morning, signs pushing Bill Ritter sprouted every few feet along Speer Boulevard. His name was everywhere — so omnipresent, in fact, that it was hard to remember that at this time last year, the Colorado Democratic Party was still on the Anyone But…
