Colorado Lottery scratches and sniffs

Smells like… less money to spend at Starbucks. There’s been griping recently about the coffee from the cashiers at a local quick-stop gas station that I sometimes go to. No, not about the convenience-store coffee they sell there. The complaints are about Coffee Crossword, the $3 scratch ‘n’ sniff game…

Tony’s Market signs up

Tony’s, Tony’s, Tony’s! The sign is up across the street: Tony’s Market opening early 2009. It’s a sight for sore eyes at Westword, where we’ve been staring at the boarded-up broken glass at 950 Broadway and the remains of the Planned Parenthood sign, which was haphazardly removed sometime in July…

Shmuck: Colorado Democratic Party

The Dems’ first lady. Dear Billy Compton, You are hereby directed to come in to the Shmuck headquarters and explain your comments and why you would like to censor and intimidate a national delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention in light of these comments. Sincerely, Shmuck of the Week…

Don Becker’s death was drug related

Don Becker. Don Becker, the late and legendary Denver comic, poet and playwright who cut off his arm beneath a passing train in 1986, died from “acute cocaine and Phenobarbital toxicity,” according to the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner. The autopsy report on Becker didn’t say whether the overdose…

Shmuck: Bob and Justin Schaffer Come Undone

Schmucky Schaffer the younger. “Slavery gets shit done,” according to the Facebook page for Justin Schaffer, son of U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, but shmuckiness gets it undone. Earlier this week, a story broke about the younger Schaffer, whose page on the Facebook website included content that some people deemed…

Miller, Coors, Bud are Aleing

My heart goes out to multi-billion-dollar brewing giants MillerCoors (which recently completed its merger) and Anheuser-Busch (which is about to be taken over by Belgium’s InBev). No, really, it’s hard to look small when you are that big. Not that it has kept the beer companies from trying. The Coors…

The Denver Mountain Parks System Gets a New Look

Denver is famous for its city parks, but many locals – not to mention out-of-towners – don’t realize that this city also has 25 mountain parks totaling 14,000 acres. Red Rocks is one of them. So is Winter Park, and the Mount Evans area, and Lookout Mountain Park (home to…

Hot Bird-on-Bird Action With Colorado Grouse

Well, hot damn, Colorado Division of Wildlife, look at you stepping up your high-tech game! Go on with your bad self! Currently up on CDOW’s website at www.wildlife.state.co.us/NewsMedia/Videos is a new video series entitled, “a.m. Colorado.” The videos, which were all filmed in high-definition and recorded in digital audio, look…

John Lynch and Denver Broncos Jersey Sales

The Broncos are expected to release Pro Bowl safety John Lynch this week (he’s expected to make an announcement later today, July 31), and that worries me, not because I think it’s a bad move (Lynch, though a leader, was overrated when he got here four years ago and is…

Into the Drink With Stranahan’s and Oskar Blues

I didn’t technically jump into a swimming pool full of whiskey Wednesday afternoon, although I drank from one – and my head hurts almost as much as if I had cannonballed off the diving board. No, what I did was attend a little party thrown by Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey (2405…

Tony’s Market Comes to the Golden Triangle

Oh, meaty joy! After a year and a half of searching for its first central Denver location, Tony’s Market has finally sealed the deal on the former Planned Parenthood office building, 950 Broadway, right across the street from Westword. The 53-year-old building (formerly a car dealership) was the frequent scene…

Tony’s Market Will Open a Broadway Bistro

Mick Rosacci’s favorite sandwich at Tony’s Market, where he is head chef, is the Italian Sub, which comes with mortadella, capicola, two kinds of salami, provolone, oil, vinegar, lettuce, tomato and peppers on artisan bread. “That one makes me crazy!” he says. But like a lot of people, Mick has…

Wanted: Clint Eastwood on Black Velvet

I’ve had Clint Eastwood on the brain recently. Not the new, really old, Oscar-winning, Hollywood-Teddy-bear Clint Eastwood, but the bad-ass, cigarillo-smoking, gun-toting, Orangutan-loving, two-kinds-of-people-in-this-world, make-my-day Clint Eastwood. The reason is because I keep seeing him around, first on an awesome The Good, The Bad and The Ugly lightswitch plate at…

I’m Not Don Cheadle or Judy Collins, But Still…

Like any Hall of Fame – Baseball, Football, Rock and Roll, Robot — it’s more fun to talk about the people (or robots) who are left out than it is to discuss those who made it in. And this week’s news that General Robert T. Herres (pictured), the first head…

Meet Us On Alameda — Windsor Gardens

From Red Rocks to the big white balls of Buckley Air Force Base, Alameda Avenue runs through Lakewood, Denver and Aurora, collecting a series of religious, cultural and ethnic hubs along the way. Westword drove Alameda from one end to another for the fifth in our ocassional profiles of metro…

Frasca at my Block Party

Dear Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, I’ve heard you are a great chef, and that your restaurant, Frasca (1738 Pearl Street, Boulder), is awesome. But it is unlikely I will get to Boulder anytime soon –and even if I did, my budget at the moment doesn’t allow for a lot of fancy stuff…

Dear DNC — Wish You Were Here

It’s possible I’m getting swept up in DNC fever. As a journalist, I’m paying extra attention to it for sure. But as a Denver native whose father is an historian, I appreciate the pomp and spectacle the event will bring, as well as the ground-breaking significance of a black candidate,…

Meet Us On Alameda — Steele Community Garden

From Red Rocks to the big white balls of Buckley Air Force Base, Alameda Avenue runs through Lakewood, Denver and Aurora, collecting a series of religious, cultural and ethnic hubs along the way. Westword drove Alameda from one end to another for the fifth in our ocassional profiles of metro…

Colfax Marathon Seeks New CEO

The Post-News Colorado Colfax Marathon has gone through a lot of changes in its three short years, from course alterations to leadership swaps, and it looks like the organization that runs it is changing again. Earlier this week, the Colfax Marathon Partnership, Inc. posted a want ad for a new…

Meet Us On Alameda — Dinosaur Ridge

From Red Rocks to the big white balls of Buckley Air Force Base, Alameda Avenue runs through Lakewood, Denver and Aurora, collecting a series of religious, cultural and ethnic hubs along the way. Westword drove Alameda from one end to another for the fifth in our ocassional profiles of metro…

Do You Take This Shmuck to Have and to Hold?

Ahhh, weddings, so romantic, so festive. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Blue, as in the police! What’s the deal recently with wedding couples ending up in jail? It seems like there’s a new one on TV or in the papers every other week. In the old days,…