Give Her a Hand

Spotted at Moontime: Bartender Gillian Gertridge’s new tattoo, done by Ben “Chase” at Th’ink Tank, in honor of her new home. (The area code of her hometown in Massachusetts is on the inside of her other wrist.) The sight inspired this haiku: Location at hand 508 left, mile high now…

Building Excitement

“I would call it serendipity,” says Colorado Chamber Players artistic director and violist Barbara Hamilton, explaining how this month’s program came about. “About a year ago, I met Dean Sobel at the Clyfford Still Museum, and we realized we could have a great collaboration.” Around the same time, she heard…

Peak Performers

Aspen is not all skiing and shopping and partying and beautiful people. Thanks to the Aspen Writers’ Foundation, the brain gets some exercise, too, with Winter Words — a series of talks billed as “Après Ski for the Mind.” When the AWF started the program ten years ago, it already…

Photo Finish

Three cheers for the efficiency of the Traffic Division of Denver County Court! This horror story started when my mom called me at the office the day before Thanksgiving. She was firmly bivouacked in her seasonal holiday trench of hysteria, overwhelmed by all there was to get ready, and she…

Meth America

“Our data indicates that the rate of methamphetamine use has doubled in the last five years,” Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said at the release of the first Methamphetamine Task Force Report yesterday. And for the gay community, that estimate could be low. While meth use is soaring everywhere, it’s…

The Commerce of Converse

There’s no business like shoe business for the 400. When the designer sneaker store opened at 1010 Bannock Street in September 2005, it was the first of its kind in the state, and some wondered whether there were enough mile-high sneakerheads to foot the bills. But since then, several similar…

Darrent Williams: Party Down

December turned Denver into a giant snow globe, sealed off and insulated from the rest of the world — but with a whole lotta shaking going on. Especially at the corner of 11th and Speer Boulevard, where Bronco Darrent Williams was shot dead early New Year’s Day. He was in…

Shelter from the Storm

There are some restaurants where the world does not intrude — rooms where time does not pass, weather does not change, current events go unnoted. Often inadvertently, these restaurants have successfully stopped time — a trick that mad scientists and evil super-geniuses have been attempting since forever with dark matter…

Shelter from the Storm

There are some restaurants where the world does not intrude — rooms where time does not pass, weather does not change, current events go unnoted. Often inadvertently, these restaurants have successfully stopped time — a trick that mad scientists and evil super-geniuses have been attempting since forever with dark matter…

Surviving Episode Seven

Ever since last week, we’ve known that Brooke was going to have a freak-out party in Episode 7. But that didn’t make it any less painful to watch last night. In most seasons of The Real World, the producers tend to include one person who is relatively normal and relatively…

Jenn: I Drink, Therefore I Am

After six episodes of The Real World: Denver, we still haven’t seen anyone do any work — which makes me wonder if having them employed by Outward Bound was more of a liability than it was worth. This could also explain why the cast members have that nasty habit of…

Ramsey Week

Media types are suckers for anniversary stories. Even if it’s the anniversary of a homicide, which just sounds so…wrong. What are we celebrating, exactly? On Tuesday it will be ten years since the death of JonBenet Ramsey. There have already been a couple of prime-time recaps of the crime, and…

Countdown

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…

All Aboard

The Ski Train’s 67th season gets rolling today, and although the ride to Winter Park is an old Denver tradition, there’s always something new. “This year we have a new car, the Retreat,” says president Jim Bain. “That doesn’t mean it goes backwards. It’s a presentation car with a podium,…

Melo Out!

In the white squall of media coverage surrounding the Denver Nuggets of late — and I do mean “white” — the criticism has been flying like a Southern pilot on the Concorde: fast and racist. Take the latest Carmelo Anthony smack-my-bitch-up incident against the Knicks this Saturday in New York,…

A Call to Arms

Excess—that’s what I love about the Palace Arms. And not just plain excess. Not cheap, tawdry, modern excess but classy, well-aged and dignified excess. The kind of excess that almost demands you don an ascot and monocle before partaking. And yet, there is no credit check at the door, no…

A Call to Arms

Excess—that’s what I love about the Palace Arms. And not just plain excess. Not cheap, tawdry, modern excess but classy, well-aged and dignified excess. The kind of excess that almost demands you don an ascot and monocle before partaking. And yet, there is no credit check at the door, no…

The Nutty Professor’s Twisted Sequel

We knew it was coming, but nothing could prepare us for the true awfulness of the deed itself. The fourth (and, if God is merciful, last) television documentary on the JonBenet Ramsey case concocted by University of Colorado journalism professor Michael Tracey and British producer David Mills aired in the…

Mother’s Day

Baby Girl has a baby girl. About a year has passed since the former Colfax streetwalker graduated from the Chrysalis Project, a program designed to rehabilitate women who’ve been selling their bodies for crack. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for Baby Girl. She did a little time this past…

State of Reddiness

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…

Mind Your Manors

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…

Prints Charming

Forget the champagne fountains: Tonight the ten-gallon fish tank will be swimming with mojitos for MATTER’s 8th Annual Printsale and Party. But the drinks aren’t the only reason the evening is “a guaranteed good time,” says MATTER’s Rick Griffith. DJ Idiom will entertain the crowd while Griffith shows off the…