Food Coma New and unimproved: I could not agree more with Jason Sheehan’s “Cornered,” in the November 10 issue. I practically grew up in Johnson’s Corner. My stepmother was a baker there, baking those wonderful cinnamon rolls for fifteen years, all through the ’80s and into the early ’90s. My…
To Be or Not to Be? Worse comes to Worst: The absolute worst-case scenario is that Kenny Be’s weekly insight into local news will no longer be in Westword. I noticed his Hip Tips are still around, but where is the full-page cartoon? I look forward to Worst-Case Scenario each…
East Colfax Avenue might be enjoying a renaissance, but not everything in the Bluebird District is shiny and new. The Goosetown Tavern is finally adding a patio, and the railings separating it from the sidewalk are pieces of the much-loved 15th Street Viaduct that once ran through lower downtown. “It’s…
I have a goose. Well, my parents have a goose. But What’s So Funny thinks in terms of inheritance, and what’s theirs is mine; ergo, I have a goose. Ergo. Her name is Penelope, and she lives in the back yard. Neighborhood children often gather at the fence, poke their…
Geoff McFarlane and Mark Lynn are hung over. They were boozing last night at a charity event, and now they’re paying for it at lunch with a “hangover triangle” of water, OJ and coffee. But despite their ages — McFarlane is 22, Lynn is 21 — they’re not just a…
What passes for life inside the Colorado State Penitentiary didn’t suit Kevin Fears and Timothy Russell. So both inmates put an abrupt end to their long sentences — by killing themselves. At the state’s supermax prison, prisoners spend 23 hours a day in their cells and are shackled when escorted…
When Chronicle Books agreed to publish 2005’s Everything I Ate: A Year in the Life of My Mouth, its author, new Denver Post dining critic Tucker Shaw, had no problem with including a picture of himself in the package. As he concedes, “I didn’t expect to take this turn in…
An anonymous call led police to Robert David Cline’s body, tucked inside a concrete cave under the on-ramp for westbound Interstate 70 at York Street, where the traffic backs up and the air smells like dog food. Cline had been living under the ramp for some time. There was a…
Silvia Johnson just wanted to be a “cool mom.” From September 2003 to September 2004, she held innumerable parties at her Arvada home, where she provided alcohol, marijuana and methamphetamines to kids from Arvada West High School — the school her elder daughter attended. She also had sexual relations with…
Jenni Przekwas is a self-proclaimed angel living on Capitol Hill. Her home is decorated in deep reds, calmed by candles and soft music. Quotes such as “On a good day I am so filled with love, I feel like my heart might burst” surround her kitchen. The 34-year-old single mom…
Instead of the shame, guilt, humiliation and fear that Baby Girl normally felt when she sat on the wooden bench for prisoners in Denver County courtroom 12T, she beamed with pride as she waited for the judge to call her name. Baby Girl no longer walks Colfax. Gone are the…
A few years ago, when Off Limits referred to the Paper Tiger as the place where strippers go to die, we caught hell. “I think that you have been very rude to the ladies that currently work there,” wrote a bartender and occasional Tiger dancer. “I’ll bet you’ve never even…
Loyal readers will appreciate just how hard it was for What’s So Funny to fox-trot through the doors of Home Depot on South Colorado Boulevard a few days ago. In a way, it was like trying to sex up a former lover since graduated from The Swan, now far too…
In November 1959, when Denver-based photographer Rich Clarkson heard about four murders in rural Holcomb, Kansas, he didn’t foresee a blockbuster of national proportions. At least one of the Topeka newspapers where he was employed at the time ran an account of the crime on page one, but, he says,…
Boards in the Hood Powder burns: Congratulations on Jared Jacang Maher’s story on Marc Frank Montoya, “One Wild Ride,” in the November 10 issue. It is a beautifully written documentation about what it means to come from the hood and what it means to make it out of the hood…
“Do you guys have any weapons or drugs or anything I should know about?” For Marc Frank Montoya, denial comes instinctively when confronted by law enforcement. He shakes his head. “Nah,” he replies. “Nah, we don’t got nothin’ like that.” “I can smell marijuana,” says the officer. “Do you have…
Prepare to get snowed, Keystone, because Marc Frank Montoya is headed your way. On November 1, the Denver homeboy-turned-professional-snowboarder and his business partner (and brother-in-law) Liko S. Smith finalized an agreement to purchase the 58-room Arapahoe Inn from Chicago businessman Roman Kowalewitz for $4.2 million. They plan to spend another…
Sprinting through a light agenda in a matter of minutes, the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners seems eager to adjourn its weekly meeting. But first there’s the pesky matter of public comment — now restricted to the first Tuesday of every month, the better to keep a certain loudmouth…
Late November 1, shock and awe spread through the minds of city leaders as they learned that voters had actually passed Initiative 100, which changes city ordinances to legalize the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana — and state laws be damned. People expect such shenanigans from San…
Some people would argue that the rise of the Internet, and e-mail, in particular, have killed the art of letter-writing. And those people would not be far off. Whereas scholars and biographers can still pore over the famous Adams-Jefferson correspondence and Mark Twain’s eloquent dispatches home from the frontier, contemporary…
Kids say plenty of things about the press. And most of them are disapproving. “There’s a lot of bias in newspapers,” declares Ashley, a student at St. Pius X School in Aurora. “They only get part of the story.” “I like to read the sports,” adds Curtis, her schoolmate, “but…
Rocks and Roll She’s needled: After thinking all day about John La Briola’s otherwise interesting Tarantella article (“Twice Bitten,” November 3), I have to say I am a bit offended by his reference to the “so-called heroin-rock scene” in Denver. Heroin-rock? So-called by whom? I’ve heard the scene called “folk…
