And the Winner Is…

Some of the best scenes at the Colorado Theatre Guild’s Henry Awards Monday night: Donna Debreceni and her band tearing into the evening’s songs and musical commentaries. The creators of Assassins — a show that was put together by Next Stage with gum, safety pins and a treasure trove of…

Split Decision

As expected, this morning Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink announced that he’d decided not to release the basement tapes — the audio and videotapes seized from the homes of killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shortly after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. Although many victims’ families had pressed…

Lifting the Vail

Residents of Vail will be able to voice their opinions officially on the controversial Crossroads redevelopment, because the proposal is going to a public vote on July 11. For the last year, the legendary ski town has been divided over developer Peter Knobel’s vision for the $250 million Solaris project,…

Free for All

On June 19, 1865, word finally reached slaves living in Galveston that they were free — almost two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation. They marked the date with a celebration they called Juneteenth. “As people started to leave the South with the…

Go With the Flow

The transport will be light — but the drinks will not — when Tom “Dr. Colorado” Noel leads this evening’s Light Rail Pub Crawl. Conversation and liquor start flowing at 5 p.m. at the Buckhorn Exchange (park by the restaurant at 1000 Osage Street), and then crawlers will climb onto…

Sideswiped

The wheels came off Marc Holtzman’s campaign for governor late yesterday afternoon, when Colorado Secretary of State Gigi Dennis threw out almost half the signatures Holtzman had submitted in an effort to petition his way onto the GOP primary ballot. But don’t rule him out yet. Holtzman, the former University…

Ah, There’s the Rub

Some historians have grave reservations about the stories that rapscallions wanted to steal the body of Buffalo Bill Cody. But then, there’s that mysterious photo of a tank guarding Buffalo Bill’s burial plot on Lookout Mountain back in the ’20s. And in the 1940s, when a major American Legion convention…

Market Watch

One of Denver’s most storied streets is starting a new chapter. In a few days, the cameras will roll on The Real World: Denver, the eighteenth installment of the show that made reality TV a reality, capturing the antics of seven pretty people who work together and live together in…

Down for the Count

This afternoon, Rico Vecchiarelli stepped out of the sunlight and into the Denver City & County Building, where he was sentenced after pleading guilty to a Class 3 felony securities fraud. Vecchiarelli is the founder of American Championship Fighting (“The Fight Is On!”), a Denver-based mixed martial arts league that…

The End of the Ward

Back in 1994, Vernon Bellecourt and the national American Indian Movement asked the University of Colorado to investigate whether Ward Churchill obtained tenure through deception, “billing himself as an American Indian writer, scholar and artist,” Bellecourt told Westword. He added that the university should get rid of “this man whose…

All Wet

Hurricane season is about to hit, but Washington, D.C., is still flooded with backwash from Hurricane Katrina. Last week, the Center for Public Integrity released 928 pages of e-mail messages to and from former FEMA head (and current Coloradan) Michael Brown. The e-mails, which the center received seven months after…

You Go, Joe

From zero to hero. Just a couple of weeks ago, Joe Nacchio’s lawyer was in federal court, arguing that his client’s upcoming trial must be moved, because the former Qwest CEO is one of “the most reviled figures in Denver history” and could never get a fair trial here. But…

Pen and Prendergast

Zacarias Moussaoui is heading for Supermax, the federal prison in Florence. At 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. today, Alan Prendergast will discuss Supermax with KCFR’s Ryan Warner on Colorado Matters. For a collection of Prendergast pieces on prison, see our “Crime and Punishment” archives…

Bear With Us

Last week, Lawrence Argent was out scrubbing down his sculpture called “I See What You Mean,” but better known as the Big Blue Bear. Since the piece debuted last July outside the Colorado Convention Center, it’s quickly become the city’s most popular public artwork — although the piece’s popularity wasn’t…

Coming Clean

On Thursday, the Arapahoe County District Attorney announced that she was sending the case of Aarone Thompson to a grand jury. The girl was first reported missing last November, but may have been killed up to eighteen months earlier, and her body hidden. Aarone was just a year old when…

The Smutty Professor

The University of Colorado wants you to know that it “remains committed to promoting and maintaining an environment free from sexual harassment.” CU is so committed, in fact, that in 2004 it fired Igor Gamow, a controversial professor and inventor who’d been a fixture on the Boulder campus for nearly…

Critical Mess

Sure, this city’s great at handling 75,000 protesters. But toss it a hundred kids on bikes, and things go to hell. Late in the afternoon on the last Friday of every month, bicyclists in 400 cities around the world gather for Critical Mass, a community bike ride that’s taken off…

Ka-Ching!

Tourism boosters kick off the summer season at a rally today at the State Capitol. And what a season it should be: Come July 1, the state’s annual tourism budget will increase from $5 million to $20 million (pending final legislative approval). But at the same time those boosters tout…

Chile Today, Hot Tomorrow

You don’t find green chile in Mexico — but here in Denver, it’s the signature dish at most Mexican restaurants, a sauce/soup/stew of green chiles (always) and tomatoes (sometimes) and onions (sometimes) and pork (sometimes). Order green chile in Puerto Vallarta, or Phoenix, or Cheyenne, and you get a side…

Down and Dirty

The price of a particular, peculiar piece of Colorado real estate is dropping through the floor. Back on September 23, 2004, in Home Security, we told you of an unusual home-ownership opportunity: a circa 1960, 50,000 square-foot missile-silo complex out on the former Lowry Bombing Range, as well as the…

The Writing’s on the Wall

Maybe the City of Denver isn’t as backward as Marc Ecko and his attorney, David Lane, thought it was. The pair threatened to sue the city for First Amendment infringements if officials didn’t overturn the anti-graffiti ordinances in time for a proposed graffiti festival. Maybe Lane got busy with all…

Terrorist Likes Us, He Really Likes Us

Denver’s about to get The Real World, but four years ago we had a shot at getting a much bigger piece of a world that was — and remains — all too painfully real. “In the name of Allah,” began the 29-page, handwritten pleading filed in U.S. District Court for…