Another Shooting Case Closed

Almost two years after the shooting that first paralyzed their son, Richard Velarde, and then eventually claimed his life, Richard’s parents, Jody and Butch, finally have a small sense of closure. On Thursday, November 1, Michael Rollie, the man who’d been accused of shooting Richard (pictured here and profiled in…

Lowdown on the LoDo Shooting

Like so many others, my friends and I wanted to take advantage of the extra hour of drinking Saturday night (and into Sunday morning) after the clocks turned back. A close friend was moving out of the country, and we headed to LoDo so that we could send him off…

Top to Rock Bottom 10

The night after the Colorado Rockies were swept out of the World Series, the late-night comics started hitting the team out of the park. First Stephen Colbert took aim at the Rockies’ attempts to copyright “Rocktober,” and then David Letterman offered up his Top Ten Colorado Rockies Excuses: 10: “Even…

Pie Hole in the Wall

Bill Ward, the club guy behind Slim 7 at 1443 Larimer Street and owner of Denver’s new, and until recently unnamed, pizza restaurant in the alley between 14th and 15th streets on Larimer Square, has finally settled on a moniker: the Pie Hole. Ward had been fighting for his right…

Pie Hole in the Wall

Bill Ward, the club guy behind Slim 7 at 1443 Larimer Street and owner of Denver’s new, and until recently unnamed, pizza restaurant in the alley between 14th and 15th streets on Larimer Square, has finally settled on a moniker: the Pie Hole. Ward had been fighting for his right…

Conspiracy Theories

In their Crocktober explanation of the World Series ticket nightmare, the new Colorado Rockies – or at least their managers – sounded a lot like the old Colorado Rockies, bumbling through the suggestion that the mess was created by “an external and malicious attack.” We haven’t heard such a crock…

Dinger Bell

“The Rockies mascot is named Dinger,” comedian Jay Mohr wrote in “It Sucks to Be Them,” a piece on SI.com. “He is a big, fat, purple dinosaur who sports a baby T-shirt that barely covers his nipples. According to the web site, Dinger travels the land promoting physical fitness and…

Beer Today, Gone Tomorrow

At Sunday’s game, I sat next to two fellows who said they were with the brewers. In town for the Great American Beer Festival? No, with the Milwaukee Brewers, they corrected me, and since their team beat the Padres, the Rockies really owed them some thanks. Or at least a…

A Glass Act

Suddenly, Denver’s looking good. The most sedate businessmen have taken to sporting hip glasses that echo those angular peepers sported by Daniel Libeskind, the architect who’s already done so much to change Denver’s skyline. Is he the reason that men here are suddenly making spectacles of themselves? Not so those…

Ballot Up!

Timing is everything. Imagine that you’re the mayor of a big city with some big, expensive ballot issues coming up — an alphabet soup of nine proposals that would fund assorted infrastructure repairs around town to the tune of well over $500 million. What day would you want those big,…

Energy Crisis: Day One

The U.S. Department of Energy’s third Solar Decathlon is now under way in Washington, D.C. Two years ago, twenty university teams from the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, Spain and Germany began designing the world’s most energy-efficient solar homes. Their off-the-grid creations – now on display in a Solar Village on…

Rock Bottom

Dinger must go. The most embarrassing mascot in the major leagues is a fossil on the field. Dinger should be as dead as a dodo. Last week, as the Colorado Rockies clinched their place in the playoffs by beating the Padres, a sister who’d been watching the game in New…

Fire and Ice

Westword was going to challenge our partner paper, Phoenix New Times, to a bet on the outcome of the Rockies/Diamondback series — but we couldn’t think of anything we wanted from Phoenix. A downtown that’s a ghost town at night, instead of the party that LoDo has become almost every…

On a Scroll

The Denver Public Library is on a scroll this week, with three free events inspired by Jack Kerouac. Today from 2 to 4 p.m. in the B2 Conference Center of the Denver Central Library, 10 West 14th Avenue Parkway, John Ventimiglia (The Sopranos) and David Amram, a composer who was…

Breaking a Few Eggs

In the October 4 Bite Me, I asked for suggestions for a new, true Denver omelet. The best recipe so far comes from my friend Stephen Crout, a champion gastronaut of the first order, who’s clearly given the matter some thought. He also reminded me that the prep and service…

Breaking a Few Eggs

In the October 4 Bite Me, I asked for suggestions for a new, true Denver omelet. The best recipe so far comes from my friend Stephen Crout, a champion gastronaut of the first order, who’s clearly given the matter some thought. He also reminded me that the prep and service…

His Name Was Mud

David McSwane was back in the pages of the Denver dailies today, with a page-five article in the Rocky Mountain News detailing how the editor-in-chief of the Rocky Mountain Collegian at Colorado State University will be allowed to keep his job after the whole “Fuck Bush” debacle. Appearing next to…

The Hush-Hush World of Attorney-Attorney Privilege

News that the state’s Attorney Regulation Counsel won’t be filing a formal complaint against Carol Chambers, the big-stick district attorney for the 18th Judicial District, dribbled out in the backhand fashion typical of the ARC’s highly confidential dealings with Colorado’s wayward lawyers…

Picture Perfect

For a real taste of where Denver is today, you can’t beat First Friday. To whet your artistic appetite for tonight’s festivities, get a taste of Denver’s past when Myron Vallier, author of Historic Photos of Denver, leads a photographic journey through the city’s history from 12:15 to 1 p.m…

Art Attack!

Look for art to break out all over the mall during Denver Arts Week, which runs October 5-12 (for details, go to the Night & Day section of the October 4 Westword). But in fact, you can expect art to break out even earlier, since a few underground-art types, concerned…

They Like Us, They Really Like Us

Denver has always been the Sally Field of cities, grateful for the slightest nod of recognition from the national media. Under normal circumstances, the filming of an Eddie Murphy movie in this town — Nowhereland, for example, which is currently shooting around Denver — would be front-page news. But these…

Hey Rockies: Ditch the Dinosaur

My sister, a baseball fan who’s married to another baseball fan, called me just after midnight in New York City. We’re watching the game, she said. Here’s a question. Is the Colorado Rockies mascot a pentaceratops that turns around behind the plate and wiggles his hands at the pitcher or…