“Please play,” urges the sign by the display of three playhouses at Denver International Airport, an exhibit officially titled “Form, Fun & Function,” and created by Colorado architects and builders. The kids waiting for their parents to grab bags at DIA last night would have loved to spend some time…
Dear Mexican: The perception of Mexico having a defective culture has come up in your column several times. It’s most important to point out the historical differences. The United States was invaded by settlers who came to live here permanently. Mexico was conquered by gold-seeking thugs who wanted to return…
The Green Awards came to Denver yesterday, touting the Green Giant-sponsored program that will give $25,000 to the best idea for greening the environment. And to advertise the contest, a giant, temporary eco-ad mural made of grass was created at 22nd and Blake streets, just past Coors Field. Here’s my…
Seven years ago, Westword introduced the MasterMind program, which every year awards cash prizes to five artists or arts institutions that are changing the cultural landscape of Denver. This week, we revealed the 2011 winners, who will be honored Saturday night at Artopia. The next creative class? Slam Nuba, Illiterate,…
Mayor Bill Vidal made some noise yesterday — without calling a press conference. It might have been hard to hear over the roaring of all those rescued lions (and the media hubbub), but his recording welcoming travelers to Denver is now live on the train at Denver International Airport. And…
Urban explorers are everywhere these days. They’re breaking into abandoned buildings like the Gates Rubber Company, where a teenage girl fell through the roof this past weekend and wound up badly injured. In steam and transportation tunnels under the city. At old missile silos. And definitely at what’s left of…
Denver is full of aesthetic entrepreneurs, artists and organizations that are changing the landscape of this city. Some of their efforts are so underground, though, that they’d have miles to go just to reach the grassroots…
Dear Mexican: I’m a white, rural, ninth-generation Texan who left the farm and is now a lawyer for a large corporation in one of the largest cities in the state. Maybe a quarter of the clients they assign me speak Spanish, so the company’s paying for me to learn Spanish…
The old Gates Rubber plant was supposed to be a new urbanism showplace — but development has been stalled by the economy. Still, the abandoned buildings have been doing a booming business in urban exploring, and last night, another band of adventurers made it into the old factory at 900…
After flying into DIA last night and hopping on the train, I was greeted by former mayor John Hickenlooper delivering a hearty “Welcome to Denver.” But soon, current mayor Bill Vidal will have his say. But after the wild will-he/won’t-he events of the past week, you can’t help wondering who…
The Colorado Republican Party didn’t just lose the governor’s race in November — it also lost over a hundred bonus members of the State Central Committee, which will vote for the new party chair next month. Incumbent chair Dick Wadhams was going for that slot again — until his Monday…
Yesterday morning, I was talking to Dick Wadhams, the chair of the Colorado Republican Party, about the upcoming State Central Committee meeting, where he would be going for a third term. Yesterday evening, I was talking with Wadhams about his sudden announcement that he would not run again…
Dear Readers: Although many of you have loved and/or loathed my columna for years, the Mexican still finds new readers every week in the unlikeliest of spots (hola, Chattanooga! See you in August, inshallah!). As a result, I sometimes receive questions about the methodology of the column, questions that everyone…
By eking out 11 percent of the vote, Dan Maes managed to save the Colorado Republican Party from the ultimate ignominy of losing its major-party status. But the state’s top GOPs lost plenty of other things in the debacle of the November gubernatorial election: the governor’s office, which had looked…
Well, at least when Roseanne sang “The National Anthem” and then grabbed her crotch, she got the words right — unlike Christina Aguilera at the Super Bowl yesterday. Still, Roseanne’s misguided homage to baseball-playing behavior back in 1990 earned her a spot on Time’s list of the Top Ten Worst…
Governor John Hickenlooper is revving up his eco-devo engine. Last month, he toured Colorado for four days, holding confabs in eight towns; Denver gets its turn today, at a Bottom-Up Economic Development Meeting at the Cable Center at the University of Denver. And have we got some ideas for him!…
A fourteenth hopeful has entered the Denver mayor’s race, and we’re disappointed we had to read about Gerald Styron’s candidacy somewhere else first. As Facethestate.comreports, when Styron was a write-in candidate for then-incumbent Rick Garcia’s District 1 City Council slot in 2007, he asked a Westword editor if he had…
The town’s biggest business trend last year — the fleet of gourmet food trucks rolling into Denver — also gave rise to some of the biggest rumors: The city was trying to keep trucks out of downtown and cut off our cupcake supply, some whispered, and even worse, the city…
Dear Mexican: My gabacho friends look at me askance for being a gabacho who enjoys mariachi music. They, and even some of my Mexican friends, run and hide when I go a step further and start listening to the mournful ballads of Vicente Fernandez, backed up by — you guessed…
In the fall of 2009, Denver City Council rep Charlie Brown realized that the city had to get a handle on the booming medical marijuana dispensary industry — and even as the Colorado Legislature was just starting to discuss MMJ, Denver was signing off on its ordinance. But now the…
We were a little disappointed not to see John Hickenlooper in his ’80s-era red ski outfit when he welcomed the Snowsports Industries America show to town with cowbells yesterday. “What do you think of my new duds?” he asked, showing off his jacket. Frankly, it seemed a little sedate for…
Gourmet food trucks were the surprise hit of 2010 — by December, over 150 mobile food vendors had been licensed in Denver, which almost put the movement on par with the medical-marijuana dispensary business. And like dispensaries, the food trucks have been causing some headaches for the city — and…
