I am surrounded by hundreds of plastic shoes. They are big and absurd and vaguely sinister, like boxing gloves designed by Crayola. They come in a riot of brutally cheerful colors usually reserved for daycare centers and Popsicles: lime, pink, purple, red, chocolate, fuchsia, coral, emerald, sage, pearl white, canary…
The stench of Vail’s wealth was getting to Anthony Prince. Luxury surrounded the twenty-year-old. He saw it on the slopes and in the parking lots, on the tourists wearing designer clothes and diamond rings, on the menus of the gourmet restaurants. Prince and his friend, nineteen-year-old Luke Carroll, worked at…
If people want to know what stubby-fingered former Coloradan Karl Rove whispered in the ear of James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and current Coloradan, about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, maybe they should talk to another famous export from this state: John Wells. On Sunday night, the…
As the clock ticked down on the twentieth century, people prepared for the absolute worst. A simple timekeeping error called Y2K was about to crash all computers and implode the entire planet, thrusting the world into eternal darkness and ending life as we had come to know it. There was…
Appearances aside, many national news programs seen in these parts are less live than Memorex. Network morning shows and evening newscasts originating in the East Coast air in the Mountain time zone on a two-hour tape-delay basis unless developing news forces a change — and a recent glitch involving Channel…
Patriot Games Borderline behavior: I appreciated the combination of Patricia Calhoun’s pieces in the October 6 issue. Compare what the Martinezes (“United They Stand”) have done for this country with what the Minutemen (“Blow Hards”) say they are doing down on the border. Who are the real patriots? I’ll vote…
He said his name was Columbus, And I just said, “Good luck.” — “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” Gun control. Iraq. Charles Darwin. Social Security. Affirmative action. Left. Right. FEMA. Gay marriage. Al-Qaeda. Racism. George W. Bush. Gas prices. There. That should do it. Anybody reading that list who doesn’t feel…
Perhaps you’ve noticed “Land of the Lost Scooters,” the newest art installation along Speer Boulevard. If not, just follow Erik Koskinen and the small taillights of his 1979 Vespa with the black and blue paint job. After many years in the working world, Koskinen is getting a degree in dentistry…
Don’t mess with the milkman — especially not if the Royal Crest Dairy driver is Shannon Whitehead. At about one in the morning on Tuesday, September 27, the 27-year-old was just starting his route when a fellow driver radioed in a request for a re-supply of apple juice. The call…
The only funny clown is a dead clown. Because it’s so ironic. If some guy were to ask me, “Hey, What’s So Funny, how would you define irony?” I wouldn’t say, “An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.” I’d just say, “Dead clown.”…
Randy Miller, the president, publisher and editor of Boulder’s Colorado Daily, has spoken to Westword on numerous occasions since purchasing the paper in 2001 — most recently in March, when the Daily introduced a free-delivery Sunday edition. But following the September 26 announcement that the 113-year-old Daily had been sold…
Wanted: Dead or Alive Uncle scam: Although I am very disappointed that Westword has not devoted coverage to the fiasco that is the war in Iraq, I enjoyed the one-two punch of Michael Roberts’s “Wanted” and J. David McSwane’s “An Army of Anyone,” in the September 29 issue. Now why…
Sergeant Rodney Shivers is a camouflaged blur as he bursts into the entryway of Pomona High School, an oversized attaché in his hand. After surveying the terrain on this early September day, he heads toward a glassed-in trophy display opposite the school’s cafeteria, which is rapidly filling with teens impatient…
For Private Kevin Shane Heitman, the completion of Army National Guard basic training last month was a day of sweet reward. After what he describes as “six months of hell,” Heitman was done with basic training and advanced infantry training, ready to be a soldier. Boot camp had been the…
Bill Stiffler sits on the front porch of his office, his sun-crisped face shaded by the wide brim of his white cowboy hat. He’s watching over the ten acres that are home to Friends of Horses Rescue and Adoption, the nonprofit he started in 2001. A decade earlier, he had…
Billy was having a great time at Dulcinea’s 100th Monkey on September 14. Local jam band Polytoxic was on stage, and the ebullient 22-year-old student was doing the flail on the dance floor. And not by himself this time, but with two girls! “I was feeling really great,” he recalls…
Last Friday, while media hacks clambered over one another as well as fleeing evacuees in a mad-dash effort to add invaluable hurricane footage to their highlight reels — if their hair’s blowing wildly, then they must be, how you say, entrenched — President George Bush decided his presence in his…
Bandanna on the Run Mall in the family: Regarding Jared Jacang Maher’s “Cruisin’ With Mom,” in the September 22 issue: The Aurora Mall’s management and merchants can kiss my 52-year-old, white, hairy ass! My family stopped shopping there a year ago, after my son was accosted by a tin badge…
A bullet ripped into Brad Braxton’s body but left him standing, waiting for the next bullet to end his life. He put a hand on his gut wound and tried to keep his balance so that he could die standing up. The second bullet never came. The shooter ran. Brad…
On the last Saturday in June, eighteen-year-old Timothy Kemp was headed home after a visit to Six Flags Elitch Gardens. It was Gay Pride weekend, and the bus he usually caught at 16th and Broadway had been rerouted to Colfax and Logan. That shady corner was hopping at 11 p.m.,…
“I said, “Are you gonna let me take a spin on your ride?'” a teenage youth shouts to a security guard riding by on a Segway. Sporting tattoos and a Carmelo Anthony jersey, the teen cocks his head and pauses, as if he actually expects the guard to let him…
By last year, the Regency Hotel had fallen a long way from the days when it served as Elvis’s crash pad. Under Art Cormier, the former owner of Smiley’s Laundromat, the once-elegant hotel had turned into a layover for day laborers and a major nightspot for Mexican immigrants — legal…
