Made in the Shade A new leaf: Inspired by Amy Haimerl’s “Civic Duty,” in the June 15 issue, here’s my version of “Trees” (with apologies to Joyce Kilmer): I thought that I would never see A park that didn’t have a tree, But Denver Parks turned down its thumbs: These…
Dinner at Mel’s on Monday night for Gael Greene (see “Sex and the City”) and about fifty of her dearest admirers. Was it a good time? Tough to say. For starters, the median age in the room (not counting press) was ancient, and most of the diners were rushing the…
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…
Dino Costa is an unlikely media star — except in his own mind. So if his profile continues rising on Fox Sports Net, it’ll be a case of mind over matter. Costa has been a contentious figure in local broadcasting since his arrival at Denver’s KLZ radio in 2002. He…
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…
For at least a decade, talk radio in Denver — and pretty much everywhere else — has been conservative through and through. That equation changed slightly a little less than two years ago, when Clear Channel, a broadcasting conglomerate whose founder, L. Lowry Mays, is a longtime friend of a…
10:30 p.m. Civic Center Park is breathtaking at night. The moonlight illuminates the white marble of the Beaux Arts buildings, bringing out every curve, every cornice. There is a stillness that makes the park seem like its own insular world, with the sounds and rhythms of city life muffled far…
Talk about mixed messages. In the same June 5 announcement that touted a $26.5 million economic-development package inked that day by Governor Bill Owens, state PR types trumpeted a deal between the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) and the Denver Newspaper Agency for “a year-long marketing…
We’ve counted the vote for this month’s Good Citizen award, and Lisa Jones is the clear winner. She only worked for the Denver Election Commission for a few weeks back in May 2003 — during the race in which John Hickenlooper pulled a surprise upset and moved on to the…
In sports, there’s a well-known phenomenon referred to as “the curse of Dr. Z.” Every year, Dr. Z, Sports Illustrated’s renowned football analyst, predicts which team is going to win the Super Bowl, and that team is then featured on the cover of the magazine. And every year, without fail,…
The writing is on the wall for Marc Ecko. The hip-hop fashion mogul’s original plans to hold a graffiti festival in Denver on June 18 in Skyline Park seem unlikely to come to fruition, as the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs reports that he has yet to apply for a…
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 past year, the legendary ski town has been divided over developer Peter Knobel’s vision for the $250 million Solaris project,…
Freedom’s Just Another Word Slave labor: Thanks for Patricia Calhoun’s column on Juneteenth (“Free for All,” June 8). If the truth will set us free, I am compelled to tell my truth. We (blacks) were not set free then or now. How do you define “free”? A piece of paper…
The planets in the art world must have been out of whack yesterday, because tragedy befell two of its biggest stars. Daniel Libeskind had to cancel his presentation on his vision for Civic Center Park that was scheduled for Thursday, June 15. The architect of the Denver Art Museum’s new…
Getting signatures on petitions isn’t rocket science, and that’s a good thing. If the people in charge of Marc Holtzman’s effort to petition his way onto the Republic primary ballot were running NASA, we’d still be chasing Sputnik. After Colorado Secretary of State Gigi Dennis threw out almost half of…
As of this moment, the Rocky Mountain News is the most entertaining daily newspaper in Denver, if only because it’s equally capable of excellent journalism and questionable judgement from one day to the next. At this writing, the Rocky is in the midst of a five-day series, “Immigration: The Border…
The June 8 blog item “Musical Chairs” featured a memo announcing upper-level staff shifts at the Denver Post, as well as speculation from yours truly about what the changes mean in the greater scheme of things. At one point, for instance, I suggested that moving former metro-news boss Jeff Taylor…
June 10’s KS-107.5 Summer Jam at Coors Amphitheatre was not for the linguistically sensitive. F-bombs went off more frequently than Iraq IEDs during the hip-hop festival, with headliner Snoop Dogg certainly holding up his end. The D-O-Double-G’s most frequent call-and-response chant was “Hell motherfuckin’ yeah!,” but he also led the…
The Oprah Winfrey for Queen campaign has just received another boost. In the May 25 edition of Westword’s Off Limits column, readers were introduced to Aurora’s Nathanial Trotter, whose goal in life involves putting the royal Ms. Winfrey on a throne, where she belongs. Trotter, who outlines his plan on…
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,…
Since editor Greg Moore arrived at the Denver Post in 2002, his staff has been shuffled more times than cards at a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament. For the most part, though, the folks switching seats have been in the reporting ranks. Now, Moore has given several supervisors similar treatment, as…
For several years, life was one long, lovely road trip for Sandy and Joann Bush, as the retired couple cruised from state to state in their RV. But while they were on the road in Iowa in the summer of 2004, Sandy’s leg suddenly swelled to twice its normal size…
