From my many interactions with readers, it’s quite clear that I’m a working-class hero. “Let me buy you a drink, What’s So Funny,” they all say, often in unison or song. “You’re a hell of a swell guy, goddamnit, and you put into words what I’m feeling. It makes me…
Ryan Frazier is in fine spirits, all things considered. He’s at ease here, glad-handing and flashing warm smiles, at the clubhouse of the Heritage Eagle Bend 55-plus gated subdivision in southeast Aurora, where the grass is country-club green and the folks are Republican red. It’s as if he hadn’t read…
A sign of the times. It’s a new concept to help you find all of our fresh Westword.com content quickly and easily: blog bullets! Today in Cafe Society: • A Wynkoop Brewing Co. essay contest, timed to commemorate the joint’s twentieth anniversary. • Oskar Blues’ Obama-centric poster for Dale’s Pale…
In this week’s Off Limits we note our excitement at discovering that the Metro Area Graffiti Task Force has posted a comprehensive list of every known gang and graffiti crew in the region. Now graffiti laymen can discover just what the scrawled tags across the city actually mean. According to…
Amendment 47 has the eye of the tiger. While “Ryan Frazier Puts His Job on the Line With Amendment 47,” this week’s cover story, focuses on Ryan Frazier, the 31-year-old Aurora city councilman who’s backing the aforementioned amendment — an issue on the November ballot that would prohibit mandatory dues…
A logo from the Ethiopians for Obama website. This fall, Tsilat Petros will vote in her first American presidential election. She’s 29 and has lived in the United States since she was a young girl but only became a citizen three years ago. Now she’s one of dozens of Ethiopian…
Denver-born director David Fincher. I just stumbled on the perfect excuse to share the new Nike ad that’s been buzzing around the sports world since it ran during Sunday football last weekend. Turns out the Nike spot, called “Fate,” was directed by Denver-born filmmaker David Fincher, heretofore known for directing…
KUNC comes up with a listener-friendly fundraising method. There are few things more depressing for public-radio fans than tuning in a station and hearing a fundraising pitch, as I did today when dialing to KCFR, Colorado Public Radio’s news arm. After all, that probably means the rest of the week’s…
Carmelo gets name-checked by Lil’ Wayne. One of the many great things about YouTube is the ease with which fans can create their own music videos. A prime example is the clip below for “Swagga Like Us,” from the massive new T.I. album Paper Trail, which comes complete with a…
Josh Brolin, right, and other caricatures — er, characters — from Oliver Stone’s W. The folks who invited me to the screening of W., director Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush biopic, at the Cherry Creek Mall last night, sent out an e-mail ahead of time warning me not to review…
Sarah Vowell. Photo by Bennett Miller. Sarah Vowell, who visits the LoDo Tattered Cover on Monday, October 20 (click here for more details), has one of the more eclectic résumés around. National Public Radio essayist. Voice of Violet Parr, the emerging teen powerhouse in the 2004 Pixar animated favorite The…
A real player would have gone home with Ellen. digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/arts_culture/Nine_Year_Old_Boy_Writes_Book_on_How_to_Talk_to_Girls’; You may have read recently that HarpersCollins has signed a deal to publish Castle Rock fourth-grader Alec Greven’s manuscript, How to Talk to Girls, which began as a class project at Greven’s Soaring Hawk Elementary. And if you’re…
Not the comedian of the same name — and not very funny, either. Editor’s note: To get you in the mood for ballot-casting, The Latest Word is kicking off each weekday between now and the November 4 election with Buttoned Up, a look at political buttons from my family’s extensive…
Conan O’Brien and the Flobots’ Andy Guerrero share a fashionable moment. Blogs away! Backbeat Online entertains and informs about stuff like the Flobots’ appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Also on display: a preview of Roe’s new recording, news about free tracks by Hello Kavita and a look at…
“All this trouble about little ol’ me?” “BREAKING NEWS,” read the alert sent out earlier today by the Rocky Mountain News. “An elephant is on the loose at the Denver Zoo, police say, and a zookeeper is injured. Go to RockyMountainNews.com for more details.” Those who visit the site now…
CU’s entry in the U.S. Solar Decathalon. The mood was bittersweet when I left the U.S. Solar Decathlon in Washington D.C. a year ago. The University of Colorado team I’d been following didn’t get the three-peat – a third consecutive first place victory – they’d been hoping for in the…
An image from Sex Change Hospital. Sex Change Hospital, debuting tonight on the Women’s Entertainment network (click here for details), cuts mighty close to home for Colorado, and for Westword. The six-episode series follows Trinidad doctor Dr. Marci Bowers and assorted patients who’ve chosen to undergo sex-reassignment surgery in Trinidad,…
The cat’s pajamas. I’m always curious to know whether or not the items that fashion magazines list as a season’s essentials are actually considered to be must-haves by the buying public. I’ve discovered that fashion blogs are a great way to find out what items people are obsessed with purchasing…
Adam Brickley on The Colbert Report. Colorado blogger Adam Brickley has been given credit in many quarters — and on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report — for helping to boost Alaska governor Sarah Palin into the Republican vice presidential slot via his website, PalinForVP.blogspot.com. But following Palin’s widely derided series…
Chelsea Handler. In Hollywood terminology, Chelsea Handler, in town for an October 18 fundraiser at the Paramount Theatre (click here for more info), is having a moment thanks to the success of her E! talk show Chelsea Lately, not to mention her two big-selling essay collections, 2005’s My Horizontal Life…
The “Idiots” stamp proves more important than Jon Caldara thinks. “Where Democrats Dumb Enough to Write This ‘Idiot’ Memo,” the October 9 Message, deals with documents related to the left-leaning Colorado Democracy Alliance, including one whose authenticity has been disputed: It features a notation about a so-called “Educate the Idiots”…
